IX. The Holy Instant and the Attraction of God, P 6
6 You have no conception of the limits you have placed on your perception, and no idea of all the loveliness that you could see. But this you must remember; the attraction of guilt opposes the attraction of God. His attraction for you remains unlimited, but because your power, being His, is as great as His, you can turn away from love. What you invest in guilt you withdraw from God. And your sight grows weak and dim and limited, for you have attempted to separate the Father from the Son, and limit their communication. Seek not Atonement in further separation. And limit not your vision of God’s Son to what interferes with his release, and what the Holy Spirit must undo to set him free. For his belief in limits has imprisoned him.
Journal
I want to really look at this paragraph.
“You have no conception of the limits you have placed on your perception, and no idea of all the loveliness that you could see.”
This says to me that even though perception is not truth, it can be brought much closer to truth and the truth will dazzle us. I imagine that this is what it must be like to be awakened. I would guess that from an awakened state, perception has become so purified that the world you see is lovely.
Sometimes when there appears to my ego eyes and ego mind that the world is moving faster than ever towards destruction or at least more deeply into sleep, it is hard for me to believe that my perception of this could change. Other times, I feel certain that what I see is just a hallucination and I am more certain that what is really there is God.
Jesus says this: “But this you must remember; the attraction of guilt opposes the attraction of God.”
And so he makes it clear that the reason we don’t see God is that we are still attracted to guilt. We want guilt and so we see guilt and guilt is in opposition to God. God is only Love and so there cannot be God and guilt together. Can we really ever believe that we can look to God and find guilt? I understand what Jesus is saying here and, of course, I believe him. So why do I still have guilt in my mind?
I have paid close attention to guilt this year. I have noticed that there are a lot of little judgment thoughts in my mind. I call them little because they don’t seem important to me, that is they don’t seem to affect me. For instance, I was at the store the other day and the clerk was talking to her colleague the whole time she checked me out. She hardly glanced at me. I judged her behavior as unprofessional and thought that if she worked for me I would fire her.
It was a quick thought and if I had not been paying attention to my thoughts, I would probably have not given it any notice. I didn’t think of it again until just now. So what difference did it make? Here is what Jesus is helping me to see about this. There are no little judgments, just judgments. They are equally harmful because guilt is guilt. It doesn’t come in degrees. I either believe in guilt or I don’t. Not questioning that judgment left guilt in place in my mind and so left me in opposition to God. Questioning it and asking the Holy Spirit to remove that belief in guilt opens my mind to the state of Heaven, which is always available to me.
Then Jesus says: “His attraction for you remains unlimited, but because your power, being His, is as great as His, you can turn away from love.”
Wow! Did he just say that? Have you ever wondered how it is that you can oppose God? How could it be possible that we could choose something other than what God would have us choose? My thought in the past was that God gave me free will and so that is what allowed me to choose separation. But now, Jesus is telling us that God created us as powerful as He is because our power is His power, that is, our power is an effect of being an extension of God. What love! What faith and trust He must have in us! We have used that power to turn away from love and yet, His love for us remains unlimited.
Next, Jesus says this. “What you invest in guilt you withdraw from God. And your sight grows weak and dim and limited, for you have attempted to separate the Father from the Son, and limit their communication.”
We were created one with God and we exist in God as a Thought in His Mind. As such, we are in constant communication with Him. It seems to me that Jesus is telling us in this passage that when we withdraw from God, as we do when we believe in guilt instead of in Him, we limit that communication. I wonder if that means we limit our self because we can only be our true Self as part of God, in full communication with God.
I am reminded that in The Song of Prayer Jesus says this about prayer.
“It was then what it is to become: the single voice Creator and creation share; the song the Son sings to the Father, Who returns the thanks it offers Him unto the Son. Endless the harmony, and endless, too, the joyous concord of the Love They give forever to Each Other. And in this, creation is extended.”
It certainly sounds like we must be as One and in endless joyous communication if we are to extend creation. We are not truly ourselves if we are not creating. When we choose guilt over God we interfere with creation and so we lose our awareness of joy and of Self.
“Seek not Atonement in further separation. And limit not your vision of God’s Son to what interferes with his release, and what the Holy Spirit must undo to set him free.”
Well, this one is simple. We are not going to find Atonement in the world of separation. Trying to do so will only delay our release because it limits our vision. If we think of Atonement as salvation, then we can easily become aware of when we seek it in the world. All we have to do is ask ourselves what we need to see changed in order to be happy.
Do you think more money would do it? Maybe a better relationship or a thinner body? I have noticed myself doing this sometimes. I might put on an outfit that used to look good on me and now it doesn’t fit right. My feeling is one of distress. This is the same thing as saying, a thinner body would be my salvation. But I have played that game too long to really believe it.
I gain weight and am so convinced that I need a thinner body to be happy that I do what is necessary to lose weight. And guess what! I’m still not happy. Something else needs to change. This is the story of looking for Atonement in the world. It is one failure after another because it is looking in the wrong place.
There is one solution. God created the Holy Spirit and placed It in our mind so that His Solution would always be right where we need it; next to the problem. We activate that solution when we ask for healing. I notice that my mind has wandered into the world looking for a solution to my problem and having noticed this, I can now choose to let the Holy Spirit remove the erroneous belief that is the real cause of my distress. For my belief in limits has imprisoned me. And a belief that is chosen by me can be released to the Holy Spirit by me and thus truly released.
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