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Best Viewed in Landscape
A Course in Miracles says that the ego’s thought system is “fool-proof, but it is not God-proof” (T-5.VI.10:6). Without God’s help, the ego’s massive defense against Him—sin, guilt, fear, and special relationships—would indeed be insurmountable. However, God did not leave us without Himself, and His extension into the dream is called the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is God’s loving Presence in our separated and sleeping mind, reflecting the ongoing message of the Light group that there is another way of perceiving what seem to be the overwhelming problems of the world. Choosing to forgive—this “other way of perceiving”—is the means the Holy Spirit uses to awaken us from our dreams of judgment and pain. Forgiveness too is a dream, but it is what A Course in Miracles refers to as the “happy dream” that gently bridges the gap between the ego’s nightmares and the awakening to Reality. As the Course states:
So fearful is the dream, so seeming real, he [God’s Son] could not waken to reality without the sweat of terror and a scream of mortal fear, unless a gentler dream preceded his awaking, and allowed his calmer mind to welcome, not to fear, the Voice that calls with love to waken him; a gentler dream, in which his suffering was healed and where his brother was his friend. God willed he waken gently and with joy, and gave him means to waken without fear (T‑27.VII.13:4‑5).
The goal the Holy Spirit’s teaching sets is just this end of dreams. For sights and sounds must be translated from the witnesses of fear to those of love. …
From knowledge, where He has been placed by God, the Holy Spirit calls to you, to let forgiveness rest upon your dreams, and be restored to sanity and peace of mind. Without forgiveness will your dreams remain to terrify you. And the memory of all your Father’s Love will not return to signify the end of dreams has come (W‑pII.7.2:1-2; 4).
Referring to the chart in the Appendix, we note that the right mind, being the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, is the correction for the nightmare dreams of the wrong-minded ego. Since God placed the Holy Spirit in our minds to help undo our illusions and correct our misperceptions, He is the Comforter, Guide, Teacher, and the Answer to all the seeming problems the ego has invented. As the Voice of the Light group, the Holy Spirit is the principle of the Atonement, which is God’s correction for our belief that the separation from Him was real. Through the Holy Spirit within our minds the Atonement waits our acceptance, brought about by forgiveness:
The full awareness of the Atonement, then, is the recognition that the separation never occurred (T-6.II.10:7).
The acceptance of the Atonement by everyone is only a matter of time. This may appear to contradict free will because of the inevitability of the final decision, but this is not so. You can temporize and you are capable of enormous procrastination, but you cannot depart entirely from your Creator, Who set the limits on your ability to miscreate (T-2.III.3:1-3).
The Holy Spirit is this “limit,” for His presence in our minds ensures that we can, as the Course states elsewhere, never be totally insane. God’s loving Presence ensures that at some point everyone will hear His Call and awaken unto Him. The outcome, as A Course in Miracles reassures us, “is as certain as God” (T-4.II.5:8).
Excerpted from Awaken from the Dream
