Edited transcript of audio excerpt from unpublished Workshop

The title of the Workshop is “To give this gift is how to make it yours,” which comes from a passage right near the end of the text on page 668. It’s part of a larger passage that I also refer to quite often. It’s page 668 in the text and it’s from paragraph 8. And I’ll actually read the whole paragraph.

(T-31.VIII.8:1-3) My brothers in salvation, [and this is Jesus speaking to us in the first person.] My brothers in salvation, do not fail to hear my voice and listen to my words. I ask for nothing but your own release. There is no place for hell within a world whose loveliness can yet be so intense and so inclusive it is but a step from there to Heaven.

Now this is a reference to the real world, which is the Course’s term for the state of mind that is totally ego free. It’s when we have accepted the Atonement for ourselves, when there are no longer any wrong-minded or ego thoughts that come into the mind. And the Course says that we remain in that state for but an instant. We barely have time to thank God for it and then we’re home. So it’s really a term that denotes the very end of the journey. It’s a recognition that everything here is a dream and that our reality is outside of the dream. And even though–by the way, this should not be equated with death. You could still be physically here but you know you are not here, and you know unequivocally, not only intellectually, but from your experience, that you are not your body. And that those people who see you will see you as a body. They may even see you as a person. They may even see you as a person with an ego, but you know that you are not here. So someone like Jesus or the Buddha or anyone who we think of as enlightened would be in that state. So that’s what the real world means. It’s the state of truly knowing this world is a dream and that your Self is outside of that dream. So again:

(T-31.VIII.8:3-7) There is no place for hell within a world whose loveliness can yet be so intense and so inclusive it is but a step from there to Heaven. To your tired eyes I bring a vision of a different world so new and clean and fresh you will forget the pain and sorrow that you saw before. Yet this a vision is which you must share with everyone you see, for otherwise you will behold it not. To give this gift is how to make it yours. And God ordained, in loving kindness, that it be for you.

If you want to have this gift, which is the gift of this vision, which for our purposes is a vision that sees everyone here as the same, it’s a vision, it’s a way of looking, it’s a way of thinking that knows nothing here is what it seems, it’s a recognition that 2 and 2 is not 4 but 5; namely, that no law in this world makes any sense at all. Nothing we think, we see, we feel, we believe is true. That’s the vision. And in order to have this vision, we must share it with everyone, which means we must recognize that everyone is the same as everyone else.

Again, that is not a perception that is possible or sensible in a world, in a world of time and space. Because clearly, in a world of time and space we are different. Situations are different. But from this perspective, from the healed mind’s perspective, everyone is seen as the same because everyone who thinks he or she is here is equally illusory, is equally insane. And there are no distinctions; there’s no hierarchy of illusions. You’re either totally sane or insane and there’s no in between, at least not from this perspective.

So in order to have this awareness that we are outside the dream, we must recognize everyone is outside the dream. Another way of stating this is that we give nothing in this world power to affect us. Absolutely nothing. Nothing in this world can make us sad, can make us happy, can give us pleasure, can give us pain. Absolutely nothing, because there’s no world and there’s no one out there. Which means I must perceive everyone in the exact same way, which again, for our purposes, would be equal to the understanding that everyone is the same because everyone has the same split mind. Everyone has the same ego thought system. Everyone has the same right-minded thought system and everyone has the same power to choose between them. Everyone, without exception.

That’s why when I read the line which I read or I refer to fairly frequently in classes, “Yet this a vision is which you must share with everyone you see,” there can be no exceptions. So if you want to know that you are loved, then you must love. If you want to know you are forgiven, you must forgive. If you want to know that you are not being judged, you must not judge. “To give this gift is how to make it yours.”