 We are going through the workbook lessons of the Course in Miracles, taking them in, merging with them, integrating them, digesting them in our mind, taking them in and letting them become who we are. They already are who we are. We are who we are, but it's like really, really, really living it, living it, living it, living it, being it, being it, being it. So that's what our practice is about and it brings us great joy. And today we have a workbook lesson that is number 74. It's interesting out of 365 lessons that that Jesus is actually beginning to describe today's lesson with. The idea for today can be regarded as the central thought toward which all our exercises are directed. The central thought. Okay. Are you ready for this one? We're ready for the central thought toward which all our exercises, all 365 exercises in the workbook are directed at this one central thought. Okay. It feels important. It feels very important. The thought is, lesson 74, there is no will, but God's. The idea for today can be regarded as the central thought toward which all our exercises are directed. God's is the only will. When you have recognized this, you have recognized that your will is his. The belief that conflict is possible has gone. Peace has replaced the strange idea that you are torn by conflicting goals. As an expression of the will of God, you have no goal, but his. God's is the only will. So, and when you have recognized this, you have recognized that your will is his. This is beautiful, this first paragraph, because it's reminded me of the manual for teachers in A Course in Miracles where Jesus talks about free will and free will is established by God and it is in heaven. So, basically, Jesus is not using the word free will in terms of anything with linear time and space. I know in philosophy, you know, there's been a debate going on for actually many centuries about free will versus destiny, but it's coming at it from the human perspective. And free will is associated with choice. And then there's a lot of scientists now that are saying it's all predetermined and it's a matrix, it's a hologram. There is no choice inside the matrix. And that's exactly what Jesus is saying in this Course in Miracles, that the script is written, we but view the journey from the ending and looking back, imagining we make it once again. Basically, it's free will is God's will and the will of Christ. The Father's will and the Son's will are the same. So, we're going to have to look at the word will today to free our mind of all associations we have with the word will in time and space. I will do it. Do. No, there's no doing involved with will because will is in heaven. And the body is not part of heaven. The body is an illusion. And it's a strange belief that conflict is possible, the ego is, and then the belief that conflict is possible has gone. Jesus is telling us that free will is natural. Free will is God's gift. Free will is for perfect happiness. God's will for me is perfect happiness. And it has, peace has replaced the strange idea that you are torn by conflicting goals. Yeah, the ego is the one that invented conflicting goals. The ego is the one that invented all conflict, all controversy, all things that seem to be opposing, all should have what it could have, all finger pointing, all blaming, all things should be different than they are. And basically the teachings of the Course are basically saying all things work together for good. There are no exceptions except in the ego's judgment. So, this is a beautiful lesson today in opening to the central idea, the central thought toward which all our exercises are directed. Wow. And at the end he's saying as an expression of the will of God, you have no goal but His. In other words, the will of God is our will to create, create as God creates. So God creates in spirit, Christ creates in spirit, and the creations of Christ are spirit as well. It's a line of creation. And that's what will is. It's not I will do or I won't do. It's not, it's not anything in the world, but it is. At one point, I think Jesus in his text, he says, instead of, you know, he is accepting the kingdom of heaven, put the kingdom of heaven first. He actually says at one point, will you, will ye the kingdom of heaven? Will, use your will, use your God given will to remember the Christ, to remember God's love. And so it's replacing all other things. You know, it's just saying, will ye the kingdom of heaven? So that's, that's everything. There is great peace in today's idea. And the exercises for today are directed towards finding it. The idea itself is wholly true. Therefore, it cannot give rise to illusions. Without illusions, conflict is impossible. Let us try to recognize this today and experience the peace this recognition brings. Begin the longer practice periods by repeating these thoughts several times, slowly and with firm determination to understand what they mean, and to hold them in mind. There is no will, but God's. I cannot be in conflict. Then spend several minutes in adding some related thoughts such as, I am at peace. Nothing can disturb me. My will is God's. My will and God's are one. God wills peace for his son. During this introductory phase, be sure to deal quickly with any conflict thoughts that may cross your mind. Tell yourself immediately, there is no will but God's. These conflict thoughts are meaningless. If there is one conflict area that seems particularly difficult to resolve, single it out for special consideration. Think about it briefly, but very specifically, identify the particular person or persons and the situation or situations involved. And tell yourself, there is no will but God's. I share it with him. My conflicts about anything you can think of in the world, any conflict you can think of, cannot be real. After you have cleared your mind in this way, close your eyes and try to experience the peace to which your reality entitles you. Sink into it and feel it closing around you. There may be some temptation to mistake these attempts for withdrawal, but the difference is easily detected. If you are succeeding, you will feel a deep sense of joy and an increased alertness rather than a feeling of drowsiness and innervation. Joy characterizes peace. By this experience, will you recognize that you have reached it? If you feel yourself slipping off into withdrawal, quickly repeat the idea for today and try again. Do this as often as necessary. There is definite gain in refusing to allow retreat into withdrawal, even if you do not experience the peace you seek. In the shorter periods which should be undertaken at regular and predetermined intervals today, say to yourself, there is no will but God's. I seek his peace today. Then try to find what you are seeking. A minute or two every half an hour with eyes closed if possible would be well spent on this today. We are taking that beautiful phrase from the Bible, seek ye first the kingdom of heaven. We are actually coming to what Jesus says, will ye first the kingdom of heaven? Will the kingdom of heaven? There is no will but God's. We are taking our attention deep, deep, deep inside beyond choices, beyond beliefs, beyond multiple prayers and multiple desires to basically the only goal that there is. You have no goal but his. The will of God is to basically seek the goal that God has in the sense that there is nothing else to pursue. There is no will but God's. It's beautiful because we're used to using that word will in many, many different ways in terms of time and space. We hear about strong willed children or strong willed people or a dictator that has an iron will or in political elections we hear about the will of the people but Jesus is actually saying will is of God and will is of Christ and God and Christ share the same will for perfect love and happiness. That is the kingdom of heaven. That is the acceptance of the kingdom of heaven. There is no will but God's. So today I thought for backup we would just go into the text and listen to some beautiful ideas from Jesus about free will and about God's will in the various different forms that he talks about. In fact, even in the text of A Course in Miracles in the introduction he basically says free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only you can decide what you want to take at a given time. So he goes on later on in the manual for teachers to say basically that even the form of the curriculum is not your choice. He's taking us into a recognition that the script is written and everything is already happened and basically we're watching what's already gone by but we have to basically take our mind away from the images and away from the things of time, this crazy past, present, future construct that the ego made up in order to know God's will and also in knowing God's will I know the will of the Christ as well. The father and son are one and the father and son or the creator and the creations share the same will and it has nothing to do with time and space. Free will has nothing to do with choice. If God is pure love and oneness, eternal oneness, pure infinity, there is no choice in heaven. Love simply is. God's will is and that's what we're opening to today in today's lesson. Chapter 2, section 1. This requires God's endowment of the Son with free will because all loving creation is freely given in one continuous line in which all aspects are of the same order. Endowment of the Son with free will. And he's talking about the Atonement. This is your only choice because your free will was given you for your joy in creating the perfect. So the Atonement is forgiveness, is complete forgiveness and that opens the door for remembrance that free will was given you for your joy in creating the perfect. That's in spirit. It's not in form. God knows not form. That's a beautiful sentence from the Beyond Oh Idol section. Chapter 2, section 2. The service of the right mind. The denial of error frees the mind and reestablishes the freedom of the will. That's very important. The service of the right mind, the denial of error. In other words, Jesus, at one point, he italicizes, do not see error. He's teaching us do not make it real. If you believe in the error, then you believe in the ego. The curriculum, of course, in miracles is not finding mistakes and harboring mistakes and pointing fingers at people and then saying, all is God, all is one, you have to forgive. No, forgiveness sees that what you thought your brother did, he did not do. What you thought your sister did, he did not do. What you thought your brother did or shouldn't have done or your sister did or shouldn't have done, that has not occurred. And this over denying of the error, overlooking the error, frees the mind and reestablishes the freedom of the will, which is heaven. Remember, that's the kingdom of heaven, nirvana, if you want to call it, bliss, pure bliss, reality, call it reality, it's pure spirit, depends on the denial of error. It's like, don't give error any harbor in your mind, don't try to hide an error, don't try to protect it, don't try to analyze it, don't believe in it, you have to deny it, because if God's will is reality and there is no will but God's, then you can see everything else has to be given up, released, because it was never real to begin with. Chapter two, section two, when the will is really free, it cannot miscreate, because it recognizes only truth. So this lesson today, there is no will but God's, is basically saying that in the ultimate sense, which is what we're talking about, this idea for today can be regarded as the central idea, central thought toward which all our exercises are directed, there is no will but God's, is really coming to the fact of the truth that it's impossible to miscreate, you cannot make something apart from God's will, there is no will but God's, and that's important, because if there is no will but God's and God's will and Christ's will are the same, that means that Christ cannot miscreate and all seeming guilt and all seeming illusions and shame and pain and all the conflict and controversies and everything comes from believing that you can have a will apart from God's. The will of God is pure love, so there is no will but God's, that's just saying love is all there is, and then if you believe anything to the contrary, then that's an impossible idea, that's what separation is, it's an impossible idea. And he's talking about the final distinction of the Holy Spirit, not a person but a Holy Spirit just seeing the false is false, until this distinction is made, however, the vacillations between free and imprisoned will cannot but continue. So the sleeping mind is imprisoned will and free will is the will of God and the will of Christ, and so the mind is just vacillating, a split mind just vacillates between right mind, which is the gateway to remembering free will in heaven or in prison will, which is the wrong mind of the ego. And the vacillation just continues back and forth until it becomes apparent atonement, the correction is the escape from the vacillation. In genius thinking, this is from chapter 3, section 5, in genius thinking is not the truth that shall set you free, but you are free of the need to engage in it when you are willing to let it go. So you're using your little willingness to let go, coming with the miracle every day, little willingness, little willingness, choose again, choose again. I could see this differently, choose again, choose again. I could see peace instead of this, choose again, choose again. You are willing to let it go. There's that little willingness that Jesus talks about throughout the text. And then, of course, it takes great willingness to see that all events and counters and circumstances are gently planned by one who knows you're good. That's another version of all things work together for good. There are no exceptions except in the ego's judgment. That's the Holy Spirit. Free will must lead to freedom. That's text chapter 3, section 6. Chapter 5, section 2, in the holy state the will is free so that its creative power is unlimited and choice is meaningless. From Jesus in chapter 5, my role is only to unchain your will and set it free. Thank you, Jesus. Oh, chapter 6, section 3. This is how you will learn the truth that will set you free and will keep you free as others learned of you. Chapter 8, section 2, the ego cannot teach you anything as long as your will is free because you will not listen to it. Chapter 8, section 2, it is not your will to be imprisoned because your will is free. Chapter 8, section 2, the ego is the denial of free will. This unnatural lesson, which is the ego, cannot be learned and the attempt to learn it is a violation of your own freedom making you afraid of your will because it is free. Chapter 8, section 4, your will is as free as mine and God himself would not go against it. Same section, by offering freedom, you will be free. And how do we offer freedom? We just simply judge not. That was the whole teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. You can judge not less to be judged, but if you just took those two words, judge not, and those were the only two words you held close to your heart. Not that you shouldn't judge, but that you cannot judge. Just not. You're not capable. You weren't created by God to be a judge. You're not capable of judging anything, anyone, any person, place, situation in all of history because history itself wouldn't exist if you didn't choose the ego in the present moment and cover over the present with the past and project an unreal future. This is coming down to how willing am I to not judge. Jesus does tell us in his course he says, judgment is evaluative and so the Holy Spirit can use what the ego made and that's what guidance is. Whenever you are guided to do something to not do something, to say something or not say something to allow the Holy Spirit Jesus to speak through the body and laugh through the body and hug and shine, that's all just tuning into guidance. Just tuning in. You just tune in to what the Spirit would instruct you to do, what the Holy Spirit would have you say or do, where to go, what to say. To whom are you to meet today? That's all guidance and that's evaluative but remember that's the Holy Spirit's use of what the ego made. The ego made judgment which is in reality not possible but the Holy Spirit has to use what the ego made his instructions and guidance to unwind the mind back to God to free the mind, to come back to free will. Learn this of me the Holy Will of all those who are as blessed as you are. Chapter 11, section 8 Nothing of God will enslave his Son whom he created free and whose freedom is protected by his being. Chapter 13, section 2 You have been told again and again that it will set you free yet you sometimes react as if it is trying to imprison you. Yeah. We know the Holy Spirit is the Comforter we know the Holy Spirit is the Answer we know the Holy Spirit has all the guidance and instruction that we need in any seeming given circumstance and we have been told again and again that it will set you free and yet sometimes you react as if it is trying to imprison you. Yeah. It's a fear of the light. It's a fear of the Holy Spirit. The past is gone. Chapter 14, section 6 Jesus says judgment and condemnation are behind you and unless you bring them with you you will see that you are free of them. Oh. Awakening unto Christ is following the laws of love of your free will and out of quiet recognition of the truth in them. When you have seen your brothers you will be released to knowledge having learned to free yourself through him who knows of freedom. Chapter 13, section 10 a minute even less will be enough to free you from the past and give your mind in peace over to the atonement in terms of trying things in the world trying out the ego's plan of salvation that we learned about a few years ago Jesus says in chapter 15, section 3 you are free to try as many as you wish but all you will be doing is to delay your homecoming and the body ceases to attract you and when you place no value on it as a means of getting anything then there will be no interference in communication and your thoughts will be as free as God's. Chapter 16, when God willed that his son be free his son was free. What God wills is true. There is no will but God's and what God's will is true. That's basically saying the truth is true and only the truth is true. As you begin to recognize and accept the gifts that you have so freely given to your brother you will also accept the effects of the holy instant and use them to correct all your mistakes and free you from their results. Chapter 20, there's a question for us in section 8 would you not willingly be free of misery and learn again of joy? That's a version of today's lesson. There is no will but God's and Jesus is saying would you not willingly be free of misery and learn again of joy? Be willing for an instant to leave your alters free of what you place upon them and what is really there you cannot fail to see. Chapter 24 section 3 the slaves of specialness will yet be free. It is God's will but God's. Say that one again, the slaves of specialness will yet be free. And how great will be your joy when he is free to offer you the gift of sight God gave to him for you. But in the love he shows himself is God made free to let his will be done. This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering whatever form it takes. When you forgive the world your guilt you will be free of it. Unless you do your will you are not free. It's a metaphor of I will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Talking about God chapter 30 he joins with you in willing you be free. This world awaits the freedom you will give when you have recognized that you are free. Nor can you be free apart from him, God whose holy will you share. You are asked to let yourself be free of all the dreams of what you never were and seek no more to substitute the strength of idol wishes for the will of God. And then in terms of the choices of this world seeming choices of the matrix chapter 31 section 2 what you would choose between is not a choice and gives but the illusion it is free for it will have one outcome either way. There's no order of difficulty in miracles, there's no hierarchy of illusions and whatever you seem to choose between in this world it will have one outcome either way and that is sleep. We're here to choose the atonement in the mind and set our mind free because again there is no will but God's. The idea for today can be regarded as the central thought toward which all our exercises are directed. Important. So I also did a search for God's will and some very interesting things that came out. Jesus says I have said that only what God creates or what you create with the same will has any real existence. You are afraid of God's will because you have used your own mind which he created in the likeness of his own to miscreate. We talked about that earlier. I cannot unite your will with God's will but I can erase all misperceptions from your mind if you will bring it under my guidance. If you are willing to renounce the role of guardian of your thought system and open it to me I will correct it very gently and lead you back to God. When teaching is no longer necessary you will merely know God. I will never forsake you any more than God will but I must wait as long as you choose to forsake yourself forget yourself forget your Christ self I will read that one again I will never forsake you any more than God will but I must wait as long as you choose to forsake yourself. God will come to you only as you will give him to your brothers learn first of them and you will be ready to hear God. This communication is the will of God. God created every mind by communicating his mind to it thus establishing it forever as a channel for the reception of his mind and will. Their healthfulness is their praise of God and he will return their praise of him because they are like him and they can rejoice together. The Holy Spirit will remain with the sons of God to bless their creations and keep them in the light of joy. The Holy Spirit promotes healing by looking beyond it the world, the ego to what the children of God were before healing was needed and will be when they have been healed. Your will is still in you because God placed it in your mind and although you can keep it asleep you cannot obliterate it. God himself keeps your will alive by transmitting it from his mind to yours as long as there is time. The Holy Spirit is the way in which God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven. This mind is the Holy Spirit whose will is for God always. The joint will of the sonship is the only creator that can create like the Father because only the complete can think completely and the thinking of God lacks nothing. Using the word sonship as the one son only the joint will of the sonship is the only creator that can create like the Father and create in spirit I should say because again God knows not form will of God has nothing to do with choice or form the will of God is real and there is no will but God's. God himself gave you the perfect correction for everything you made that is not in accord with his Holy will. There's the Holy Spirit, the Atonement. Chapter 5 that was section 7 Help me to teach it to our brothers in the name of the Kingdom of God but first believe that it is true for you and will teach a miss. The message is always for the first receiver then it can be extended. I kept hearing that in the early years it was like it's your lesson it's your lesson but it's your lesson it's your lesson I will with God that none of his sons should suffer. To will with God is to create like him. So love, joy, happiness. This is God's will and yours as the Christ and to think that you can oppose the will of God is a real delusion because our lesson of the day the idea for today can be regarded as the central thought toward which all our exercises are directed. There is no will but God's. It's like there's magnitude with that there is no will but God's it's like God has spoken to us in our mind to our Christ mind and anything of this world that is we're trying to use the images, the bodies, the things the circumstances, the goals of the past or the ambitions of the future against there is no will but God's womb womb the central thought toward which all our exercises are directed. There is no will but God's period. Okay. Wow. As they say smoke that in your pipe today. Take it in. Take it in to your heart. There is no will but God's. Sing a happy song. Sing like the birds. The birds are chirping in the morning and they chirp basically all day long because they've got a happy tune and if we could hear the lyrics of those little chirping birds there is no will but God's. Chirp chirp chirp. Okay. God bless you. Stay in the remembrance. There is no will but God's and if any kind of judgment or anything tempts you to judge anything today just remind yourself there is no will but God's. That is the antidote. That is the answer. Because it is the truth it's the actual truth. Jesus told us this idea today is holy too. There is no perception in this idea for today. There is no will but God's is a fact. It's just a divine fact. God is the creator. Christ is the effect of creation. Father, son, creator, creation, cause, effect and that means that the past is not a cause. It doesn't have a cause. It doesn't cause because God is the only cause. The past cannot be and the past or the future past. The future can't be either. If God is now and God is Christ it's the effect of God right now. God is the cause. Christ is the effect now and now. You see how vertical that is lined up then the past and the future no cause. No cause and effect with past and future. It contradicts the whole human perception that the past causes the present and the present causes the future. It's a false linear construct that the ego has made and Jesus is saying there is no will but God's. God is the cause. Christ is the effect except the one God's. God the creator. Except that now I know that your will is one with the creator. That's it. It's divine logic. It's divine metaphysics. It's truth. Today we've got a strong dose of truth. Central idea. Okay. Enjoy.