We have observed before how many senseless things have seemed to you to
be salvation. Each has imprisoned you with laws as senseless as itself.
You are not bound by them. Yet to understand that this is so, you must
first realize salvation lies not there. While you would seek for it in
things that have no meaning, you bind yourself to laws that make no
sense. Thus do you seek to prove salvation is where it is not.
Today we will be glad you cannot prove it. For if you could, you would
forever seek where it is not and never find it. The idea for today tells
you once again how simple is salvation. Look for it where it waits for
you, and there it will be found. Look nowhere else, for it is nowhere
else.
Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all
the strange and twisted laws which you have set up to save you. You
really think that you would starve unless you have stacks of green paper
strips and piles of metal discs. You really think a small round pellet
or some fluid pushed into your veins through a sharpened needle will
ward off death. You really think you are alone unless another body is
with you.
It is insanity that thinks these things. You call them laws, and put them
under different names in a long catalogue of rituals that have no use
and serve no purpose. You think you must obey the “laws” of medicine, of
economics and of health. Protect the body and you will be saved.
These are not laws, but madness. The body is endangered by the mind that
hurts itself. The body suffers that the mind will fail to see it is the
victim of itself. The body’s suffering is a mask the mind holds up to
hide what really suffers. It would not understand it is its own enemy;
that it attacks itself and wants to die. It is from this your “laws”
would save the body. It is for this you think you are a body.
There are no laws except the laws of God. This needs repeating, —
over and over, until you realize that it applies to everything that you
have made in opposition to His Will. Your magic has no meaning. What it
is meant to save does not exist. Only what it is meant to hide will save
you.
The laws of God can never be replaced. We will devote today to rejoicing
that this is so. It is no longer a truth which we would hide. We realize
instead it is a truth which keeps us free forever. Magic imprisons, but
the laws of God set free. The light has come because there are no laws
but His.
We will begin the longer practice period today with a short review of
the different kinds of “laws” we have believed we must obey. These would
include, for example, the laws of nutrition, of immunization, of
medication, and of the body’s protection in innumerable ways. Think
further; you believe in the laws of friendship, of “good” relationships
and reciprocity.
Perhaps you even think that there are laws which set forth what is God’s
and what is yours. Many “religions” have been based on this. They would
not save, but damn in Heaven’s name. Yet they are no more strange than
other laws you hold must be obeyed to make you safe.
There are no laws but God’s. Dismiss all foolish magical beliefs today,
and hold your mind in silent readiness to hear the Voice that speaks the
truth to you. You will be listening to One who says there is no loss
under the laws of God. Payment is neither given nor received. Exchange
cannot be made, there are no substitutes, and nothing is replaced by
something else. God’s laws forever give and never take.
Hear Him Who tells you this, and realize how foolish are the laws you
thought upheld the world you thought you saw. Then listen further. He
will tell you more. About the Love your Father has for you. About the
endless joy He offers you. About His yearning for His only Son, created
as His channel for creation; denied to Him by his belief in hell.
Let us today open God’s channels to Him, and let His Will extend through
us to Him. Thus is creation endlessly increased. His Voice will speak of
this to us, as well as of the joys of Heaven which His laws keep
limitless forever. We will repeat today’s idea until we have listened
and understood there are no laws but God’s. Then we will tell ourselves,
as a dedication with which the practice period concludes:
“I am under no laws but God’s.”
We will repeat this dedication as often as possible today; at least four
or five times an hour, as well as in response to any temptation to
experience ourselves as subject to other laws throughout the day. It is
our statement of freedom from all danger and all tyranny. It is our
acknowledgment that God is our Father, and that His Son is saved.