Littleness vs Magnitude.

This is another chance to choose again—
it is the mind of man that is the Mouth of God.
God and ego are mutually exclusive as are Heaven and hell.

(excerpts from A Course In Miracles, Chapter 15, Sections III. & IV.)

What you do not realize, each time you choose, is that your choice is your evaluation of yourself.

Choose littleness and you will not have peace, for you will have judged yourself unworthy of it.  And whatever you offer as a substitute is much too poor a gift to satisfy you.

You are of course free to try as many forms of littleness as you wish, but all you will be doing is to delay your homecoming.  For you will be content only in magnitude, which is your home.

THERE IS A DEEP RESPONSIBILITY YOU OWE YOURSELF, and one you must learn to remember all the time.  The lesson may seem hard at first, but you will learn to love it when you realize that it is true and is but a tribute to your power.

You who have sought and found littleness, remember this:

Every decision you make stems from what you think you are, and represents the value that you put upon yourself.  Believe the little can content you, and by limiting yourself you will not be satisfied.  For your function is not little, and it is only by finding your function and fulfilling it that you can escape from littleness.

Ask yourself, “Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God?”  Let this question be asked you by the Holy Spirit every time you make a decision.  For every decision you make does answer this, and invites sorrow or joy accordingly.  When God gave Himself to you in your creation, He established you as host to Him forever.

The Holy Spirit can hold your magnitude, clean of all littleness, clearly and in perfect safety in your mind, untouched by every little gift the world of littleness would offer you.  But for this, you cannot side against Him in what He wills for you.  Decide FOR GOD through Him.

It is littleness that deceives you, but your magnitude is of Him Who dwells in you, and in Whom you dwell.  Touch no one, then, with littleness in the Name of Christ, eternal Host unto His Father.

It is our task together to restore the awareness of magnitude to the host whom God appointed for Himself.  IT IS BEYOND ALL YOUR LITTLENESS TO GIVE THE GIFT OF GOD, BUT NOT BEYOND YOU.  He reaches from you to everyone and beyond everyone to His Son’s creations, but without leaving you.

Far beyond your little world, but still in you, He extends forever. 

Is it a sacrifice to leave littleness behind, and wander not in vain?  It is not sacrifice to wake to glory.  But it is sacrifice to accept anything less than glory.  Learn that you must be worthy of the Prince of Peace, born in you in honor of Him Whose host you are.

You know not what love means because you have sought to purchase it with little gifts, thus valuing it too little to understand its magnitude.  Love is not little and love dwells in you, for you are host to Him.

Remember that you learn not for yourself alone, no more than I did.  It is because I learned for you that you can learn of me.  I would but teach you what is yours, so that together we can replace the shabby littleness that binds the host of God to guilt and weakness with the glad awareness of the glory that is in him.  My birth in you is your awakening to grandeur.  Welcome me not into a manger, but into the alter to holiness, where holiness abides in perfect peace.  My Kingdom is not of this world because it is in you.  And you are of your Father.  Let us join in honoring you, who must remain forever beyond littleness.

Decide with me, who has decided to abide with you.  I will as my Father wills, knowing His Will is constant and at peace forever with itself.  You will be content with nothing but His Will.  Accept no less, remembering that everything I learned is yours.  What my Father loves I love as He does, and I can no more accept it as what it is not, than He can.  And no more can you.  When you have learned to accept what you are, you will make no more gifts to offer to yourself, for you will know you are complete, in need of nothing, and unable to accept anything for yourself.  But you will gladly give, having received.  The host of God need not seek to find anything.

If you are wholly willing to leave salvation to the plan of God and unwilling to attempt to grasp for peace yourself, salvation will be given you.  Yet think not you can substitute your plan for His.  Rather, join with me in His, that we may release all those who would be bound, proclaiming together that the Son of god is host to Him.

Thus will we let no one forget what you would remember.  And thus will you remember it.

Call forth in everyone only the remembrance of God, and of the Heaven that is in him.  FOR WHERE YOU WOULD HAVE YOUR BROTHER BE, THERE WILL YOU THINK YOU ARE.  Hear not his appeal to hell and littleness, but only his call for Heaven and greatness.  Forget not that his call is yours, and answer him with me.  God’s power is forever on the side of His host, for it protects only the peace in which He dwells.  Lay not littleness before His holy alter, which rises above the stars and reaches even to Heaven, because of what is given it.

WELCOME   YOURSELF   TO  THE HOLY INSTANT.

This learning is not beyond what can be immediately grasped, unless you believe that what God wills takes time.  And this means only that you would rather delay the recognition that His Will is so.  The holy instant is this instant and every instant.  The one you would not have it be is lost to you.  You must decide when it is.  Delay it not.  For beyond the past and future, where you will not find it, it stands in shimmering readiness for your acceptance.  Yet you cannot bring it into glad awareness while you do not want it, for it holds the whole release from littleness.

Your practice must therefore rest upon your willingness to let all littleness go.  The instant in which magnitude dawns upon you is but as far away as your desire for it.  As long as you desire it not and cherish littleness instead, by so much is it far from you.  By so much as you want it will you bring it nearer.  Think not that you can find salvation in your own way and have it.  Give over every plan you have made for your salvation in exchange for God’s.  His will content you, and nothing else can bring you peace.  For peace is of God, and no one beside Him.

Value no plan of the ego before the plan of God.  Ever allegiance to a plan of salvation apart from Him diminishes the value of His Will for you in your own mind.  And yet it is your mind that is the host to Him.

WOULD YOU LEARN HOW PERFECT AND IMMACULATE IS THE HOLY ALTER ON WHICH YOUR FATHER HAS PLACED HIMSELF?

IT IS YOUR MIND THAT IS THIS HOLY PLACE.  LOOK NOT ANY PLACE ELSE.

THIS YOU WILL RECOGNIZE IN THE HOLY INSTANT, IN WHICH YOU WILLINGLY AND GLADLY GIVE OVER EVERY PLAN BUT HIS.

Make your mind home to His peace, and it will become perfectly clear when you are wholly willing to meet its conditions.  You can claim the holy instant any time and anywhere you want it.  In your practice, try to give every plan you have accepted for finding magnitude in littleness.  It is not there.  Use the holy instant only to recognize that you alone cannot know where it is, and can only deceive yourself.

I stand within the holy instant, as clear as you would have me.  And the extent to which you learn to accept me is the measure of the time in which the holy instant will be yours.  I call to you to make the holy instant yours at once, for the release from littleness in the mind of the host of God depends on willingness, and not on time.

The reason this learning is simple is that truth is simple.  Complexity is of the ego, and is nothing more than the ego’s attempt to obscure the obvious.  You could live forever in the holy instant, beginning now and reaching to eternity, but for a very simple reason.  Do not obscure the simplicity of this reason, for if you do, it will be only because you prefer not to recognize it and not to let it go.  The simple reason, simply stated, is this:

The holy instant is a time in which you receive and give perfect communication.

This means, however, that it is a time in which your mind is open, both to receive and give.  It is the recognition that all minds are in communication.  It therefore seeks to change nothing, but merely to accept everything.

How can you do this when you would prefer to have private thoughts and keep them?  The only way you could do that would be to deny the perfect communication that makes the holy instant what it is.  You believe you can harbor thoughts you would not share, and that salvation lies in keeping thoughts to yourself alone.  For in private thoughts, known only to yourself, you think you find a way to keep what you would have alone, and share what you would share.  And then you wonder why it is that you are not in full communication with those around you, and with God Who surrounds all of you together.

Every thought you would keep hidden shuts communication off, because you would have it so.  It is impossible to recognize perfect communication while breaking communication holds value to you.  Ask yourself honestly, “Would I want to have perfect communication, and am I wholly willing to let everything that interferes with it go forever?”  If the answer is no, then the Holy Spirit’s readiness to give it to you is not enough to make it yours, for you are not ready to share it with Him.  And it cannot come into a mind that has decided to oppose it.  For the holy instant is given and received with equal willingness, being the acceptance of the single Will that governs all thought.

The necessary condition for the holy instant does not require that you have no thoughts that are not pure.  But it does require that you have none that you would keep.  Innocence is not of your making.  It is given you the instant you would have it.  Atonement would not be if there were no need for it.  You will not be able to accept perfect communication as long as you would hide it from yourself.  For what you would hide is hidden from you.  In your practice, then, try only to be vigilant against deception, and seek not to protect the thoughts you would keep to yourself.  Let the Holy Spirit’s purity shine them away, and bring all your awareness to the readiness for purity He offers you.  Thus will He make you ready to acknowledge that you are host to God, and hostage to no one and to nothing.

In  deeper   awareness  of   His  truth,   miracles   will  begin  to  follow  us  home. 

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—God bless.