T-4.III Love Without Conflict
1. It is hard to understand what “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you” really means. ²This is because it is not understandable to the ego, which interprets it as if something outside is inside, and this does not mean anything. ³The word “within” is unnecessary. ⁴The Kingdom of Heaven is you. ⁵What else but you did the Creator create, and what else but you is His Kingdom? ⁶This is the whole message of the Atonement; a message which in its totality transcends the sum of its parts. ⁷You, too, have a Kingdom that your spirit created. ⁸It has not ceased to create because of the ego’s illusions. ⁹Your creations are no more fatherless than you are. ¹⁰Your ego and your spirit will never be cocreators, but your spirit and your Creator will always be. ¹¹Be confident that your creations are as safe as you are.
¹²The Kingdom is perfectly united and perfectly protected, and the ego will not prevail against it. ¹³Amen.
2. This is written in the form of a prayer because it is useful in moments of temptation. ²It is a declaration of independence. ³You will find it very helpful if you understand it fully. ⁴The reason you need my help is because you have denied your own Guide and therefore need guidance. ⁵My role is to separate the true from the false, so truth can break through the barriers the ego has set up and can shine into your mind. ⁶Against our united strength the ego cannot prevail.
3. It is surely apparent by now why the ego regards spirit as its “enemy”. ²The ego arose from the separation, and its continued existence depends on your continuing belief in the separation. ³The ego must offer you some sort of reward for maintaining this belief. ⁴All it can offer is a sense of temporary existence, which begins with its own beginning and ends with its own ending. ⁵It tells you this life is your existence because it is its own. ⁶Against this sense of temporary existence spirit offers you the knowledge of permanence and unshakable being. ⁷No one who has experienced the revelation of this can ever fully believe in the ego again. ⁸How can its meagre offering to you prevail against the glorious gift of God?
4. You who identify with your ego cannot believe God loves you. ²You do not love what you made, and what you made does not love you. ³Being made out of the denial of the Father, the ego has no allegiance to its maker. ⁴You cannot conceive of the real relationship that exists between God and His creations because of your hatred for the self you made. ⁵You project onto the ego the decision to separate, and this conflicts with the love you feel for the ego because you made it. ⁶No love in this world is without this ambivalence, and since no ego has experienced love without ambivalence the concept is beyond its understanding. ⁷Love will enter immediately into any mind that truly wants it, but it must want it truly. ⁸This means that it wants it without ambivalence, and this kind of wanting is wholly without the ego’s “drive to get”.
5. There is a kind of experience so different from anything the ego can offer that you will never want to cover or hide it again. ²It is necessary to repeat that your belief in darkness and hiding is why the light cannot enter. ³The Bible gives many references to the immeasurable gifts which are for you, but for which you must ask. ⁴This is not a condition as the ego sets conditions. ⁵It is the glorious condition of what you are.
6. No force except your own will is strong enough or worthy enough to guide you. ²In this you are as free as God, and must remain so forever. ³Let us ask the Father in my name to keep you mindful of His Love for you and yours for Him. ⁴He has never failed to answer this request, because it asks only for what He has already willed. ⁵Those who call truly are always answered. ⁶You shall have no other gods before Him because there are none.
7. It has never really entered your mind to give up every idea you ever had that opposes knowledge. ²You retain thousands of little scraps of fear that prevent the Holy One from entering. ³Light cannot penetrate through the walls you make to block it, and it is forever unwilling to destroy what you have made. ⁴No one can see through a wall, but I can step around it. ⁵Watch your mind for the scraps of fear, or you will be unable to ask me to do so. ⁶I can help you only as our Father created us. ⁷I will love you and honor you and maintain complete respect for what you have made, but I will not uphold it unless it is true. ⁸I will never forsake you any more than God will, but I must wait as long as you choose to forsake yourself. ⁹Because I wait in love and not in impatience, you will surely ask me truly. ¹⁰I will come in response to a single unequivocal call.
8. Watch carefully and see what it is you are really asking for. ²Be very honest with yourself in this, for we must hide nothing from each other. ³If you will really try to do this, you have taken the first step toward preparing your mind for the Holy One to enter. ⁴We will prepare for this together, for once He has come, you will be ready to help me make other minds ready for Him. ⁵How long will you deny Him His Kingdom?
9. In your own mind, though denied by the ego, is the declaration of your release. ²God has given you everything. ³This one fact means the ego does not exist, and this makes it profoundly afraid. ⁴In the ego’s language, “to have” and “to be” are different, but they are identical to the Holy Spirit. ⁵The Holy Spirit knows that you both have everything and are everything. ⁶Any distinction in this respect is meaningful only when the idea of “getting”, which implies a lack, has already been accepted. ⁷That is why we make no distinction between having the Kingdom of God and being the Kingdom of God.
10. The calm being of God’s Kingdom, which in your sane mind is perfectly conscious, is ruthlessly banished from the part of the mind the ego rules. ²The ego is desperate because it opposes literally invincible odds, whether you are asleep or awake. ³Consider how much vigilance you have been willing to exert to protect your ego, and how little to protect your right mind. ⁴Who but the insane would undertake to believe what is not true, and then protect this belief at the cost of truth?