Well, we’ve been talking about Meaning—the divine Meaning of everything which is revealed in the practice of the holy instant.  It is the blessing of the holy instant.

Now suddenly we’re talking about:

THE OBSTACLES TO PEACE¹

Why?  Well, let’s read a little bit.  The first subsection is:

1. The Desire to Get Rid of It

. . . meaning, peace.

The first obstacle that peace must flow across is your desire to get RID of it. For it cannot extend unless you KEEP it.

Now, you have the experience of the influx of inspiration and of the true Meaning of your relationships whether it’s with your Brother or the flocked wallpaper or furniture or plants, whatever.  You have the experience and then for some reason it begins to fade, or circumstances call into play your habitual responses which arise out of your ignorance of the revelation you’ve just had.  And you respond out of your habit, which is that you lose your peace.  And you attempt to resolve the problem on your own without the benefit of the continued benefit of the continued revelation—the continued inspiration that is the result of your not abandoning the two-step or the holy instant in the face of external demands.

Now:

It cannot extend . . .

. . . peace cannot extend . . .

. . . unless you KEEP it.

Meaning, unless you don’t abandon it.

Now listen to this:

You are the center from which it radiates outward, to call the others in.

I think we’re beginning to have disclosed your meaning which is illuminated in the experience of the holy instant—the blessing of the holy instant.

You are the center from which it radiates outward, . .

. . . to what?

. . . to call the others in.  You are its home; its tranquil dwelling-place, from which it gently reaches out, but never leaving YOU.

Why?  Because you never abandoned the holy instant.  You see?  And so you KEEP it and by keeping it, it extends outward.  But this is not the way you have defined yourself . . . hasn’t been.  So, a new understanding of your meaning is illuminated in the fulfillment of the holy instant.

Continuing . . .

If you would make it homeless, . .

. . . by abandoning it . . .

. . . how can it abide within the Son of God?

Meaning, you?

If it would spread across the whole creation, it must begin with you, and FROM you reach to everyone who calls, and bring him rest by joining you.

Now, sounds like you have a job, sounds like you have an activity—a purpose.

If it would spread across the whole creation, it must begin with you, and FROM you reach to everyone who calls, and bring him rest by joining you.

Well, doesn’t sound like you’re going to have much privacy, doesn’t sound like you’re going to have much rest.  Sounds like your attention is going to be full of Meaning—full of peace extending from you, not as a nice wonderful blessing extended to everyone, but as an actual involvement, an actual healing involvement.  You see?

Now that in itself might seem like a reason to get rid of peace.  After all, do you really want that much involvement?  Even if it’s the fulfillment of your purpose of being?  You see?  So you might object to letting there be too much peace or peace too consistently.  It might be nice to have peace and its blessing intermittently . . . on weekends or late at night when there isn’t much going on—nothing good on TV. [chuckles]

Now:

Why would you want peace homeless?

. . . in other words, not to be found in you?

What do you think that it must dispossess, to dwell with you?

In other words, what’s it going to take away from you?

What seems to be the cost you are so unwilling to pay?

Well as I’ve just described, it could just be time.  It just could be the effort involved in involvement in connected meaningful relationship.  It takes away your privacy.  It takes away your freedom to do whatever you want.

The little barrier of sand still stands between you. Would you reinforce it NOW?

Meaning, after you’ve experienced the blessing of the holy instant and grasp the Meaning of everything—the divine Meaning of everything as living Love expressed and expressing and inseparable from the Love you find yourself feeling and extending toward everything else?

You are not asked to let it go for yourselves alone.

. . . the little barrier. . .

 Christ asks it of you for Himself.

Why?  Because it fulfills my purpose to help fulfill your purpose, so that God’s Purpose can be uninhibitedly fulfilled.

He . . .

. . . the Christ . . .

. . . would bring peace to everyone, and how can He do this EXCEPT through you?

You see?  It’s a mutual endeavor.  Not of private puny little egos doing some grand thing, but inseparable infinite Mind expressing and acknowledging and embracing the Will of the Father as his own.  Simple . . . profound . . .  Awakening—the generator of Atonement.

Would you let a little bank of sand, a wall of dust, a tiny seeming barrier, stand between your brothers and salvation?

Well yeah, you would.  Because it still, you believe, takes away too much from you.  But you know what?  In the face of the experience of the fulfillment of the holy instant that you’ve had, your insistence upon holding to your orphanhood is severely weakened.  In fact, it has been dealt a death blow even though it still seems to struggle to assert itself, meaning you as an orphan are still trying to assert yourself instead of persisting in practicing the holy instant.

You see, what you want is persistence of Vision having had the inspiration that has caused you to experience everything as Love expressed and expressing as absolutely divine, holy, and exquisitely meaningful.  You have the option which it behooves you to take advantage of to stay with the Vision and that is what you are called upon to learn by the initial experience and each successive one.  It is something for you to learn.  That means, it is meant to change you so that you recognize yourself anew.

Again, if it would spread across the whole creation it must begin with you and from you reach to everyone who calls and bring him rest by joining you.  

That’s the new meaning of you.  That’s the context in which you need to be looking at yourself. 

As we’ve said before:  You are neither behind the point of perfection nor advancing toward it.  You are at that point and must understand yourself therefrom.

That’s what you learn in the fulfillment of the holy instant.  So when the tendency is to abandon your peace, to respond as an orphan, you must say, “Absolutely not! I reject the invitation.  I’m a holy Son of God neither behind the point of perfection nor advancing toward it.  I’m at that point and I must understand and be from the persistence of Vision.

Would you let a little bank of sand, a wall of dust, a tiny seeming barrier, stand between your brothers and salvation? And yet, it IS this little remnant of attack you cherish still against each other that is the first obstacle the peace in you encounters in its going forth.

You see?  “Oh, my Brother’s not worth the effort!  My definition of him keeps me from being willing to extend to him the act of the holy instant.  I’m unwilling to abandon my conviction that he’s not holy and that he deserves my judgment and he deserves my refusal to acknowledge what’s true about him by engaging in the holy instant where the truth about him and how I need to behave is illuminated in a manner that is healing.”

This little wall of hatred would still oppose the Will of God, . .

. . . that has been made clear in the illumination of the fulfillment of the holy instant.

[It] would still oppose the Will of God, and keep It limited.

Keep the Will of God limited?  Well, that is the experience one has if one does not continue to give it entrance into his mind.  Now:

The Holy Spirit's purpose rests in peace within you. Yet you are still unwilling to let it join you wholly. You still oppose the Will of God, just by a little. And that little is a limit you would place upon the whole.

Now you don’t realize that in the attempt to be independent, you are engaged in an act that is extended to the whole—to everything else but you.  But that is what you’re doing.

You still oppose the Will of God, just by a little. And that little is a limit you would place upon the whole.  God's Will is One, not many.

That’s important.  God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent.  God is One.  His infinite Being which is called Creation which includes you is One in its infiniteness. 

When you claim independence, you are opposing the whole.  You’re not just opposing whatever specific thing you might be angry or short-tempered or bitter about, the minute you misuse your mind and separate yourself from the infinite view that the holy instant has provided, you have denied, objected to the whole.  You have objected to God. 

Another way of putting it is, you have blinded yourself to everything except what you want to see.  You have blocked out the real Meaning of everything except what you want to see the way you want to see it.

God's Will is One, not many. It has no opposition, for there is none beside It. What you would still contain behind your little barrier and keep separate from each other seems mightier than the universe,

Your will is mightier than God’s Will because when you are exerting your will, you are refusing to be in receipt of the experience of the Father’s Will.  Thus, you have become mightier when in fact you have become so tiny, so minimalistic that you’re in a state of rejection that makes you meaningless and there’s no way to get away from that experience of being inconsequential and having to try to overcome it. 

The only thing that can help you escape from that is the practice of the holy instant, the re-uniting, by means of desire to know the truth from something other than your imagination.  That’s the practice of the two-step and the holy instant.  And when you do that, the arrogant little you that has seemed mightier than the universe stops expressing its arrogance.  And in the absence of that arrogance, what’s left for you to be aware of is what is true, is what is Real, is what the Holy Spirit reveals to you.  And what the Holy Spirit reveals to you is your Birthright and the omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience of God.

What you would still contain behind your little barrier and keep separate from each other seems mightier than the universe, for it would hold back the universe and its Creator. This little wall would hide the purpose of Heaven, and keep it FROM Heaven.

It would make you look at wallpaper and just see wallpaper.  It would have you look at the movement and presence of living Love, loving you and disclosing to you the nature of everything in the universe.  It would hide that from you and keep you from seeing it.  What kind of blessing is that?  It would keep the experience of Heaven from Heaven by blinding you to it.

Would you thrust salvation away from the GIVER of salvation?

Uh-oh, here we come again for one of those reasons you might not want to keep your peace.

For such have you become.

. . . the GIVER of salvation.  You see, one of the things you’re going to find out is that you’re going to need to become more conscious because there’s so much of Creation that you’ve been missing.  And in your laziness, you’ve kept yourself blind. 

“Oh, it’s too much work!  Oh God, do I really have to do that?  Isn’t there an easier way?  Can’t I get the fullness and just be a little bit sleepy, not have to pay full attention?”

No you can’t!  It’s not your purpose to be sleepy—drowsy—uh, vague . . . fuzzy, uninvolved, not noticing everything.  That’s not your function or purpose.  No.

Would you thrust salvation away from the GIVER of salvation? For such have you become.

You see?  Now that’s good news.  It’s just not what you’re used to.  But the good news is also that you have the capacity to be what you were created to be.  You have the capacity to be what God is creating you to be now . . . now . . . now.

Peace could no more depart from you than from God. Fear not this little obstacle. It cannot contain the Will of God. Peace WILL flow across it, and join you without hindrance.

You see?  It will join you without hindrance if you will relax and not provide hindrance yourself by choosing not to have to fulfill your purpose because it wasn’t what you wanted, it wasn’t what you expected, it’s going to demand too much from you and most of all, it’s going to take away your originality, your ability to be creative in your own right, you think.  You think it’s going to take away originality.  But you may not be God but God is all there is of you.  And when you let God be all there is of you, you are inseparable from the Movement of Creation—infinite originality.  The only thing that you lose is the ability to claim that you are the originator of originality intead of the Movement, the unhindered Movement of originality.

Salvation cannot BE withheld from you. It is your PURPOSE.

You see?  It’s not just something you need.  “Oh, I need salvation.  I need to Wake up.  Awakening needs to occur.  I need to come back into my right Mind.”  Well, salvation isn’t something for you to become.  It’s something you Are that you need to no longer block the expression of.

You are neither behind the point of perfection, nor advancing toward it.  You are at that point and must understand or be there from.

There is a certain amount of satisfaction that one gets as an orphan, from not being at the point of perfection and not understanding one’s self from there.  It’s the stimulating experience of not knowing while continuously being faced with a demand to know and therefore, putting you in the position of having to figure out the answers, to figure out what the truth is and do it yourself as an orphan because in that way you’ll get credit for it.  And you have the pleasure of enduring the mystery until the last moment when the clarity comes.  Mystery is stimulating.  Mystery is interesting.

But if you’re already whole, if you must understand yourself and be from the point of perfection which you can do when you let yourself be infilled by what the truth is and its Meaning, you will never have to figure out a thing again.  And you will never exist in a mystery . . . pretty dull . . . pretty boring . . . pretty uninteresting.  Why?  Because you can’t get a hit from it—no longer using your drug of choice—there’s no high that you recognize.  And yet [chuckles] the experience of real fulfillment far exceeds the high from the drug of choice.  And you must make a choice for it by choosing for your peace and remaining with persistence of Vision . . . so that what?  Salvation can be successfully lived by you because it’s your purpose.

You CANNOT will apart from this. You have no purpose apart from . . .

. . . what? . .

. . . each other, . .

Now this sentence is the answer to the world’s problems today across your globe.  Again:

You have no purpose apart from each other, . .

. . . the Family.  And the conscious practice of the two-step, of the holy instant, out of appreciation for each other.  And an unwillingness to be distracted from your relationships with each other, insisting upon relating to each other by going to the Father first by turning to the Holy Spirit first.  And practicing the holy instant so that it might be fulfilled and so that you might continue with persistence of Vision because you haven’t subsequently found a reason to give your peace away and engage in judgment toward those you are in relationship with.

Again, the answer to the problems on your globe everywhere is:

You have no purpose apart from each other, nor apart from the one you asked the Holy Spirit to share with you.  The little wall . . .

. . . your insistence upon your independent orphan actions.

The little wall will fall away so quietly beneath the wings of peace!

Exclamation point!

For peace will send its messengers from you to all the world.

Ah-h, isn’t that a more hopeful and a more fulfilling destiny, than to be caught up in petty little distinctions, and petty little backbiting and petty little judgments against each other and finding everyone’s faults and uncovering them as though that’s the purpose of the holy instant?  Except that for the most part you’ll satisfy those requirements without asking the Holy Spirit anything.  Your fulfillment [chuckles] has far more, Meaning than that.

[For] peace will send its messengers from you to all the world. And barriers will fall away before their coming as easily as those which you would interpose will be surmounted.

This is the promise.  It’s the promise because it’s the way things work, it’s the way things always have worked.  And all that you’re doing here is not growing into a greater capacity than you ever had before or going through some karmic development of mankind.  You’re just neglecting to engage what has blocked the truth from you before.  And in the neglect, the truth begins to light up and you begin to see it.  Inspiration occurs, holiness occurs and the smile of Heaven is experienced.  This is the way it works.  Don’t make it more complicated than it is.

To overcome the world is no more difficult than to surmount your little wall.

[repeats] . . . your little wall.

You look out there and you say there’s a world out there and it’s full of corruption and it’s full of dishonesty and it’s full of greed and it’s full of mortals who can’t possibly be expected to do the amount of growing it will take in order to Wake up.  Well, what a curse that perspective is.  You might say, it’s a curse on the world.  But you know what?  It’s a curse on you,  because  it causes you to not practice the holy instant and it causes you to curse yourself with the same meanings that you are cursing the world with.  And yet that mental practice on your part is the only thing that makes overcoming the world seem incredibly difficult, if not impossible, because all that needs to change is your perspective . . . are the decisions  you have made, the conclusions you have come to and the honoring of the greatness of your skill in coming to those conclusions. 

Again, that’s what  Atonement costs you.  That’s what the practice of peace and  persistence  of  Vision costs you.

To overcome the world is no more difficult than to surmount your little wall.

Because your little wall is the only thing that has to be surmounted.

For in the miracle of your relationship, without this barrier, is EVERY miracle contained. There is no order of difficulty in miracles, for they are all the SAME.

Listen:

Each is a gentle winning over from the appeal of guilt to the appeal of love.

So guilt is one of those stimulating, mind-occupying, attention getting things that you all enjoy, because it prods you into coming to better conclusions and manipulating the world and your Brothers and Sisters so as to make things better and reduce the guilt.  You love guilt as much as you love the mystery until you practice the holy instant, experience its fulfillment and insist upon persisting in the Vision because that’s what allows you to fulfill your purpose of salvation and bless the universe.

How can this FAIL to be accomplished, wherever it is undertaken? Guilt can raise no real barriers against it.

It doesn’t.  It, at the most, just causes you to delay abandoning it, to delay yielding to the Father’s Will, to delay experiencing your whole Mind.  It just delays it.  It doesn’t raise any real barrier.

And all that seems to stand between you must fall away because of the appeal you answered.

What fulfills purpose is always a decision.  You must decide what fulfills purpose:  Listening to your little orphan self or joining with the Father or the Holy Spirit.  And you know what?  You won’t know for sure what fulfills purpose until you do the one thing you haven’t done yet and that is practice the holy instant.  So do it, so that you have the experience.  And persist in doing it until you have the experience.  Because you know from what I’m saying that I’m telling you the truth and that the Course is educating you properly with wisdom.

[And] all that seems to stand between you must fall away because of the appeal you answered.

Or I will say, because of the appeal you answer now…now…now…now.

For from you who answered, He Who answered you would call.

I called to you, the Holy Spirit calls to you, the Father calls to you.

His home is in your holy relationship.

. . . in your involvement with your brothers and sisters, in your involvement with everything in your world, which is Creation misperceived but waiting your true perception of It. 

Do no attempt to stand between Him and His holy purpose, . .

. . . do not attempt to stand between me and my holy purpose . . .

. . . for it is yours.

And I will say, as well.  Dare to embrace it.  Dare to put on the garment of your holiness.

But let Him quietly extend the miracle of your relationship to everyone contained in it as it was given.

It’s like the movie, “Pay it Forward.”  Give what you have received before it is asked for.

There is a hush in Heaven, a happy expectancy, a little pause of gladness in acknowledgment of the journey's end. For Heaven knows you well, as you know Heaven.

This is in the fulfillment of the holy instant.

No illusions stand between you now. Look not upon the little wall of shadows.

. . . the remnants of your habit.

The sun has risen OVER it. How can a shadow keep you from the sun? No more can you be kept by shadows from the light in which illusions end.

Nothing will take it away from you except your willingness to be distracted.  And as I said, your willingness to be distracted is terribly weakened, which means that persistence of Vision will not be as hard to maintain.  But you’ve got to make the choice for what fulfills purpose by making a decision and then behaving as though it’s true.

Every miracle is but the end of an illusion. Such was the journey; such its ending. And in the goal of truth which you accepted must ALL illusions end.

The little, insane wish to get rid of Him Who you invited in and push Him out MUST produce conflict.

Simple.  And you should be able to recognize the conflict and the difference between it and the experience of Meaning that you had during the holy instant.  You must recognize the difference so that you may easily make the choice for what fulfills purpose again.

As you look upon the world, this little wish, . .

. . . for autonomy, for orphanhood, for becoming something in your own right which can’t be done . . .

. . . this little wish uprooted . . .

. . . which it is now . . .

. . . and floating aimlessly, can land and settle briefly upon anything, for it HAS no purpose now. Before the Holy Spirit entered to abide with you, it seemed to have a MIGHTY purpose; the fixed and unchangeable dedication to sin and its results. Now it is aimless, . .

. . . because you’re not convicted in your belief any longer.  You know better even though your knowing hasn’t stabilized with you yet.  That comes with persistence of Vision.

Now it is aimless, wandering pointlessly, causing no more than tiny interruptions in love's appeal.

This feather of a wish, . .

. . . you know, your sense of yourself as an orphan overcoming orphanhood . . .

[he didn’t read this] this tiny illusion, this microscopic remnant of the belief in sin, . .

. . . is all that remains of what once seemed to be the world.

The way things are.

It is no longer an unrelenting barrier to peace.

And you know what?  Even if you have not yet experienced the holy instant fully, you already have a feeling for it because of what I’m sharing with you and everything we have gone through together since we started reading the Course. 

Some of the work is already done, because that which is divine in you is recognizing the truth of what I’m teaching, of what I’m sharing, of what I’m encouraging you with.

Its pointless wandering makes its results appear to be more erratic and unpredictable than before.

Yet what COULD be more unstable than a tightly-organized delusional system? Its seeming stability is its pervasive WEAKNESS, which extends to everything. The variability which the little remnant induces merely indicates its limited results.

How mighty can a little feather be before the great wings of truth? Can it oppose an eagle's flight, or hinder the advance of summer? Can it interfere with the effects of summer's sun upon a garden covered by the snow? See but how easily this little whisp is lifted up and carried away, never to return, and part with it in gladness, not regret.

Hang in with the practice of the holy instant so that the Vision of truth, the experience of Meaning of everything you’re experiencing can replace the ignorant illustrations, like cartoon figures of the Kingdom of Heaven.  Let them be replaced with the direct experience of its real meaning of Reality.

So . . .

. . . part with it in gladness, not regret. For it is nothing in itself, and stood for nothing when you had greater faith in its protection. Would you not rather greet the summer sun than fix your gaze upon a disappearing snowflake, and shiver in remembrance of the winter's cold?

Yes.  So watch it.  And when you discover—because you’re more alert—that you’re willing to abandon your peace for your own personally satisfying reactions . . . catch yourself and stop it!  And like returning to a mantra in a meditation, abandon your reaction and return to your leaning into the holy instant by shutting up and asking, “Holy Spirit . . . Father, what is the truth here?”

I love you very much and I look forward to returning next time and being with you together.