Heaven is the decision I must make.
In this world,
Heaven is a choice,
Because here we believe there are alternatives to choose between.
We think that all things have an opposite,
And what we want,
We choose.
If heaven exists,
There must be hell as well.
For contradiction is the way we make what we perceive.
Contradiction is the way we make what we think is real.
Creation knows no opposite,
But here is opposition a part of being real.
It is this strange perception of the truth that makes the choice of heaven seem to be the same as the relinquishment of hell.
It is really not this way.
Yet,
What is true in God's creation cannot enter here until it is reflected in some form the world can understand.
Truth cannot come where it could only be perceived with fear,
For this would be the error that truth can be brought to illusions.
Opposition makes the truth unwelcome,
And truth cannot come.
Choice is the obvious escape from what appears as opposites.
Decision lets one of the conflicting goals become the aim of effort and expenditure of time.
Without decision,
Time is but a waste,
And effort dissipated.
Time is spent for nothing in return.
Time goes by without results.
There is no sense of gain,
For nothing is accomplished,
Nothing is learned.
Again,
You need to be reminded that you think a thousand choices are confronting you,
When there really is only one choice to make,
And even this seems to be a choice.
Say to yourself,
In your mind,
Heaven is the decision I must make.
Repeat again,
Heaven is the decision I must make.
Do not confuse yourself with all the doubts that myriad decisions would induce.
You make but one,
And when that one is made,
You will perceive it was no choice at all,
For truth is true,
And nothing else is true.
There is no opposite to choose instead.
There is no contradiction to the truth.
Choosing depends on learning,
And the truth cannot be learned,
But only recognized.
In recognition,
Its acceptance lies.
As truth is accepted,
It is known.
Knowledge is beyond the goals we seek to teach within the framework of this course.
Our goals are teaching goals to be attained through learning how to reach them,
What the goals are,
And what they offer you.
Decisions are the outcome of your learning,
For decisions rest on what you have accepted as the truth of what you are,
And what your needs must be.
In this insanely complicated world,
Heaven appears to take the form of choice,
Rather than merely being what it is.
Of all the choices you have tried to make,
This is the simplest,
The most definitive and prototype choice of all the rest,
The choice which settles all decisions.
If you could decide the rest,
This choice remains unsolved,
But when you solve this one,
The other choices are resolved with it.
For all decisions conceal this one by taking different forms.
Here is the final and the only choice in which truth is accepted or denied.
We begin today considering the choice that time was made to help us make.
Such is the holy purpose of time,
Now transformed from the intent you gave it.
Let time be a means for demonstrating Hell is real.
Hope changes to despair,
And life itself must,
In the end,
Be overcome by death.
Again,
Say to yourself,
Heaven is the decision I must make.
And repeat,
Heaven is the decision I must make.
In death alone are opposites resolved,
For ending opposition is to die.
Thus,
Salvation must be seen as death,
For life is seen as conflict.
To resolve the conflict is to end your life as well.
These mad beliefs can gain unconscious hold of great intensity.
They can grip the mind with terror and anxiety so strong that the mind will not relinquish its ideas about its own protection.
The mind must be saved from salvation.
The mind must be threatened to be safe.
The mind must be magically armored against the truth.
All these decisions are made unaware,
To keep them safely undisturbed and apart from question,
Apart from reason,
And apart from doubt.
Heaven is chosen consciously.
The choice for Heaven cannot be made until alternatives are accurately seen and understood.
All that is veiled in shadows must be raised to understanding,
To be judged again,
This time with Heaven's help.
And all the mistakes in judgment that our mind had made before become open to correction as the truth dismisses them as causeless.
Now,
Knowing the truth,
And with Heaven's help,
Are these mistakes without effects.
They cannot be concealed,
Because the nothingness of our mistakes is recognized.
Say to yourself,
Heaven is the decision I must make.
And repeat,
Heaven is the decision I must make.
The conscious choice of Heaven is as sure as is the ending of the fear of Hell.
When Heaven is raised from its protective shield of unawareness,
When Heaven is brought to light,
Who can decide between the clearly seen and the unrecognized?
Yet who can fail to make a choice between alternatives when only one alternative is seen as valuable?
The other alternative is a wholly worthless thing,
An imagined source of guilt and pain.
Who hesitates to make a choice like this,
And shall we hesitate to choose today?
We make the choice for Heaven as we wake,
And spend five minutes making sure that we have made the one decision that is sane.
We recognize we make a conscious choice between what has existence and what has nothing to but an appearance of the truth.
This appearance of the truth,
This pseudo being brought to what is real,
Is flimsy and transparent in the light.
It holds no terror now,
For what was made enormous,
Vengeful,
And pitiless with hate demands obscurity for fear to be invested there.
Now it is recognized as a foolish,
Trivial mistake.
Before we close our eyes and sleep tonight,
We reaffirm the choice that we have made,
Each hour in between.
And now we give the last five minutes of our waking day to the decision with which we awoke As every hour passed,
We have declared our choice again,
In a brief,
Quiet time devoted to maintaining sanity.
And finally,
We close the day with this,
Acknowledging that we chose what we want.
Repeat after me,
Heaven is the decision I must make.
I make it now,
And will not change my mind.
Heaven is the only thing I want.
Now,
Ponder on this.
Heaven is the decision I must make,
Because Heaven is the only thing I want.
Heaven is the decision I must make.
I make it now,
And will not change my mind.
Heaven is the decision I must make.
