T. 17. IV. 12 – 16. Jesus: “Two gifts are offered you! Each is complete, and cannot be but partially accepted. Each is a picture of all that you can have, yet each is seen very differently. Look straight at the pictures – both of them! One is a tiny picture, hard to see at all beneath the heavy shadows of its enormous, disproportionate frame. The other is lightly framed and hung in light, lovely to look upon, just for what it is!
These two pictures are each framed perfectly for the purpose each represents. One is framed to distract your focus so that the actual picture is barely seen. The other is thinly framed for perfect clarity. The ego’s picture of darkness and of death grows less convincing as you search it out amid its glamorous wrappings. While in darkness each senseless gem seems to shine from the frame, in the light you recognize it as dull and lifeless, and it ceases to distract you from the picture. And finally you look upon the picture itself, seeing at last, that unprotected by the frame, it has no meaning!
The other picture is lightly framed, for time cannot contain eternity. There is no distraction here! The picture of Heaven and eternity grows more convincing as you continue to look at it. And now, by real comparison, a transformation of both pictures can at last occur. And each is given its rightful place when both are seen correctly in relation to each other. The dark picture, brought to light, is no longer perceived as fearful, but the fact that it is just a picture is brought home to you at last. And what you see there you will recognize as what it is; a picture of what you thought was real, and nothing more. For beyond this picture you will see nothing!
The picture of light, in clear-cut and unmistakable contrast, is transformed into what lies beyond the picture. As you look on this, you realize that it is not a picture at all, but an open window to reality! It is no mere form-filled representation of a thought system, but the very Thought itself. What at first it seems to ‘represent’ is really there! The frame fades gently and God rises to your remembrance, offering you the whole of creation in exchange for your little picture, wholly without value and entirely deprived of meaning. As God ascends into His rightful place and you to yours, you will experience once again the actual meaning of relationship and know it to be true.
Let us ascend in peace together to the Father, by giving Him ascendance in our minds. We will gain everything by giving Him the power and the glory, and keeping no illusions of where they are. They are in us, as we realize through His ascendance! What He has given is His. It shines in every part of Him, as in the whole!
The whole reality of your relationship with Him lies in our relationship to one another. The holy instant shines alike on all relationships, for in it they are one. For here is only healing, already complete and perfect. For here is God, and where He is, only the perfect and complete can be.”