Welcome to Active Meditation,
A course in miracles.
Lesson 163.
There is no death.
The Son of God is free.
Death is a thought that takes on many forms,
Often unrecognized.
Death may appear as sadness,
Fear,
Anxiety,
Or doubt.
It may appear as anger,
Faithlessness,
And lack of trust.
Death may appear as concern for bodies,
Envy.
Death may appear as all the forms in which the wish to be as you are not may come to tempt you.
All such thoughts are but reflections of the worshipping of death as saviour and as giver of release.
All such thoughts are but the embodiment of fear,
The host of sin.
All such thoughts are the God of the guilty and the Lord of all illusions and deceptions.
The thought of death does seem mighty,
For it seems to hold all living things within its withered hand.
The thought of death holds all hopes and wishes in its blighting grasp.
All goals perceived in its sightless eyes.
The frail,
The helpless,
And the sick bow down before death's image,
Thinking death alone is real,
Inevitable,
Worthy of their trust.
For death alone will surely come.
All things but death are seen to be unsure,
Too quickly lost,
Hard to gain,
Uncertain in their outcome,
Hept to fail the hopes they once engendered.
All things but death are seen to leave the taste of dust and ashes in their wake,
In the place of aspirations and of dreams.
But death is counted on,
For it will come with certain footsteps.
When the time has come for its arrival,
Death will never fail to take all life as hostage to itself.
Would you bow down to idols such as this?
Here is the strength and might of God himself,
Perceived within an idol made of dust.
Here is the opposite of God,
Proclaimed as Lord of all creation.
Here is the opposite of God,
Proclaimed stronger than God's will for life.
Here is the opposite of God,
Proclaimed stronger than the endlessness of love.
Here is the opposite of God,
Proclaimed stronger than heaven's perfect,
Changeless constancy.
Here is the will of the father and the child,
Defeated,
Finally,
And laid to rest.
Beneath the headstone,
Death has placed upon the body of the holy child of God.
Unholy in defeat,
The children have become what death would have them be,
And the epitaph which death itself has written gives no name to the children,
For they have passed to dust.
The epitaph says but this,
Here lies a witness,
God is dead.
And this is written again and still again,
While all the while its worshippers agree,
And kneeling down with foreheads to the ground,
They whisper fearfully that it is so,
God is dead.
It is impossible to worship death in any form,
And still select a few you would not cherish,
And would yet avoid,
While still believing in all the rest.
For death is total.
Either all things die,
Or else all things live and cannot die.
No compromise is possible.
Here again we see an obvious position,
Which we must accept if we be sane.
What contradicts one thought entirely cannot be true,
Unless its opposite is proven false.
Say to yourself,
Repeat after me,
There is no death.
I am free.
There is no death.
I am free.
Ponder on this.
There is no death.
I am free.
The idea of the death of God is so preposterous that even the insane have difficulty in believing it.
It implies that God was once alive and somehow perished,
Killed apparently by those who did not want him to survive.
Their stronger will could triumph over God's will,
And so eternal life gave way to death,
And with the father died the child as well.
Death's worshippers may be afraid,
And yet can thoughts like these be fearful?
If they saw that it is only this which they believe,
They would be instantly released.
You will show them this today.
There is no death,
And we renounce death now,
In every form,
For their salvation and our own salvation as well.
God did not make death.
Whatever form death takes must therefore be illusion.
This is the stand we take today.
It has given us to look past death and see the life beyond.
Say in your mind,
Say to God,
Father,
Bless our eyes today.
We are your messengers.
We would look upon the glorious reflection of your love,
Which shines in everything.
We live and move in you alone.
We are not separate from your eternal life.
There is no death,
For death is not your will.
Father,
We abide where you have placed us,
In the life we share with you and with all living things,
To be like you and part of you forever.
Father,
We accept your thoughts as ours,
And our will is one with yours eternally.
Amen.
There is no death.
I am free.
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
