Here is the end of choice. For here we come to a decision to accept
ourselves as God created us. And what is choice except uncertainty of
what we are? There is no doubt that is not rooted here. There is no
question but reflects this one. There is no conflict that does not entail
the single simple question, “what am I?”
Yet who could ask this question except one who has refused to recognize
himself? Only refusal to accept yourself could make the question seem to
be sincere. The only thing that can be surely known by any living thing
is what it is. From this one point of certainty it looks on other things
as certain as itself. Uncertainty about what you must be is
self-deception on a scale so vast its magnitude can hardly be conceived.
To be alive and not to know yourself is to believe that you are really
dead. For what is life except to be yourself, and what but you can be
alive instead? Who is the doubter? What is it he doubts? Whom does he
question? Who can answer him? He merely states that he is not himself
and therefore, being something else, becomes a questioner of what that
something is.
Yet he could never be alive at all unless he knew the answer. If he asks
as if he did not know, it merely shows he does not want to be the thing
he is. He has accepted it because he lives; has judged against it and
denied its worth; and has decided that he does not know the only
certainty by which he lives. Thus he becomes uncertain of his life, for
what it is has been denied by him.
It is for this denial that you need Atonement. Your denial made no change
in what you are. But you have split your mind into what knows and does
not know the truth. You are yourself. There is no doubt of this, and yet
you doubt it. But you do not ask what part of you can really doubt
yourself. It cannot really be a part of you that asks this question, for
it asks of one who knows the answer. Were it part of you, certainty
would be impossible.
Atonement remedies the strange idea that it is possible to doubt
yourself and be unsure of what you really are. This is the depth of
madness. Yet it is the universal question of the world. What does this
prove except the world is mad? Why share its madness in the sad belief
that what is universal here is true? Nothing the world believes is true.
It is a place whose purpose is to be a home where those who claim they
do not know themselves can come to question what it is they are.
And they will come again until the time Atonement is accepted, and they
learn it is impossible to doubt yourself and not to be aware of what you
are. Only acceptance can be asked of you, for what you are is certain.
It is set forever in the holy Mind of God and in your own. It is so far
beyond all doubt and question that to ask what it must be is all the
proof you need to show that you believe the contradiction that you know
not what you cannot fail to know.
Is this a question or a statement which denies itself in statement? Let
us not allow our holy minds to occupy themselves with senseless musings
such as this. We have a mission here. We did not come to reinforce the
madness which we once believed in. Let us not forget the goal that we
accepted. It is more than just our happiness alone we came to gain. What
we accept as what we are proclaims what everyone must be along with us.
Fail not your brothers, or you fail yourself. Look lovingly on them that
they may know that they are part of you and you of them. This does
Atonement teach, and demonstrates the oneness of God’s Son is unassailed
by his belief he knows not what he is. Today accept Atonement, not to
change reality, but merely to accept the truth about yourself, and go
your way rejoicing in the endless Love of God. It is but this that we
are asked to do. It is but this that we will do today.
Five minutes in the morning and at night we will devote to dedicate our
minds to our assignment for today. We start with this review of what our
mission is:
“I will accept Atonement for myself,
For I remain as God created me.”
We have not lost the knowledge that God gave to us when He created us
like Him. We can remember it for everyone, for in creation are all minds
as one, and in our memory is the recall how dear our brothers are to us
in truth, how much a part of us is every mind, how
faithful they have really been to us, and how our Father’s Love contains
them all.
In thanks for all creation, in the Name of its Creator and His Oneness
with all aspects of creation, we repeat our dedication to our cause
today each hour, as we lay aside all thoughts that would distract us
from our holy aim. For several minutes let your mind be cleared of all
the foolish cobwebs which the world would weave around the holy Son of
God. And learn the fragile nature of the chains that seem to keep the
knowledge of yourself apart from your awareness, as you say:
“I will accept Atonement for myself,
For I remain as God created me.”