OrEd-T-19.5-Obstacles to Peace.b.1
b. The Second Obstacle.1
The Belief the Body is Valuable for What it Offers
59. Peace must first surmount the obstacle of our desire to get rid of peace. Peace is not wanted where the attraction of guilt holds sway. The second obstacle, and closely related to the first, is the belief that the body is valuable for what it offers. For here the attraction of guilt is made manifest in the body and seen in the body.
60. We think peace would rob us of this value, and believe that peace would dispossess and leave us homeless. Because of this, we would deny a home to peace. We feel this 'sacrifice' is too great, and too much to ask of us.
61. Is it a sacrifice or a release? What has the body really given me that justifies my strange belief that salvation lies in it? Do I not see that this is the belief in death? Here is the focus of the perception of Atonement as murder. Here is the source of the idea that love is fear. The Holy Spirit's messengers are sent far beyond the body, calling the mind to join in holy communion, and be at peace. Jesus gave them the Holy Spirit's message for us.
62. It is only the messengers of fear that see the body, for they look for what can suffer. Is it a sacrifice to be removed from what can suffer? The Holy Spirit does not demand I sacrifice the hope of the body's pleasure. The body has no hope of pleasure. But neither can the body bring me fear of pain. Pain is the only 'sacrifice' the Holy Spirit asks, and this He would remove.
63. Peace is extended from me only to the eternal, and peace reaches out from the eternal in me. It flows across all else. The second obstacle is no more solid than the first. For my will is neither to get rid of peace nor to limit it. These obstacles which I would interpose between peace and its going forth are only barriers I place between my will and its accomplishment. I want communion, not the feast of fear. I want salvation, not the pain of guilt. And I want my Father to be my home, not a little mound of clay. Our Father's Son is in our holy relationship. The Son has not lost communion with his Father nor with himself. When we agreed to join each other, we acknowledged this is so. This has no cost, but it is release from cost.
64. We have paid dearly for our illusions, and nothing we have paid has brought us peace. I am glad that Heaven cannot be sacrificed, and sacrifice cannot be asked of me. There is no obstacle which I can place before our union, for in our holy relationship, Jesus is already there. We will surmount all obstacles together, for we stand within the gates and not outside. How easily the gates are opened from within to let peace pass through to bless the tired world! It cannot be difficult for us to walk past barriers together when we have joined the limitless. The end of guilt is in our hands to give. Would we stop now to look for guilt in each other?
65. We will let Jesus be to us the symbol of the end of guilt, and look upon each other as we would look on Jesus. We would forgive Jesus all the sins we think the Son of God committed. And in the light of our forgiveness, the Son of God will remember who he is and forget what never was. Jesus asks for our forgiveness, for if we are guilty, so he must be. But if Jesus surmounted guilt and overcame the world, we were with him. We would see in Jesus the symbol of the end of guilt. We would remember that what Jesus represents to us, we see within ourselves.
66. From our holy relationship truth proclaims the truth, and love looks on itself. Salvation flows from deep within the home we offered to our Father and to Jesus. And we are there together in the quiet communion in which the Father and the Son are joined. Oh come ye faithful to the holy union of the Father and Son in us! We will not keep apart from what is offered us in gratitude for giving peace its home in Heaven. We send forth to all the world the joyous message of the end of guilt, and all the world will answer. We think of our happiness as everyone offers us witness of the end of sin, and shows us that its power is gone forever. Where can guilt be when the belief in sin is gone? And where is death, when its great advocate is heard no more?
67. We forgive Jesus our illusions, and release him from punishment for what he has not done. We will learn the freedom that Jesus taught by teaching freedom to each other, and so releasing him. Jesus is within our holy relationship, yet we would imprison him behind the obstacles we raise to freedom. Yet it is not possible to keep away One Who is already there. And in the Holy Spirit, where we are joined, it is possible that our communion will be the focus of the new perception. And the new perception will bring the light contained in us to all the world.
