16

Willingness to live by the truth is the only offering you are asked to make to God. You need make no other offerings. No sacrifices need be made and sacrifices are, in truth, unacceptable to God. You are asked to give up nothing but unwillingness.

16.2 Saying that willingness is the only offering that is required of you is the same as saying that you do not need to, and in truth cannot, give anything else or anything less. You do not need to give your effort to this calling. You do not need to struggle to create the new world you are called to create. You do not need to have a plan, and you do not need to know precisely what this new world will look like. You simply need to be willing to live by the truth.

16.3 You must forget the idea that you can create the new from the old. If this were possible, you would indeed be called to effort and to struggle, to planning and to a state of knowing that for which it is you plan. These have been the ways of creation in the thought system of the ego, ways that have brought much advancement to the forms you occupy without changing their nature in the slightest measure. All the effort of the ego has not brought an end to suffering or strife, nor made of this illusion a happy dream.

16.4 Although you may still feel confused and lacking in ability to do what I am asking of you, I feel confident in also saying that you are more content and happy, more peaceful,
and more free of fear than you have ever been. While your life may not have changed in ways that you would like, and while its limitations may seem even more frustrating than before, I am also confident in saying that a hope has been instilled within you, a hope for the very changes that you feel you need in order to reflect, within your daily life, the new Self you have become.

16.5 We spoke once before within A Course of Love of your impatience and of this course acting as a trigger that would release all such impatience for what will be. Impatience for what will be can only be satisfied by what is.

16.6 What is, is, despite the lag in time that would seem to make all that we speak of here a blueprint for some future reality. All that would keep this lag in time a constant, and make it seem as if what is now is still awaiting replacement by what will be, is a change that must occur within. This change has to do with the time-bound temptations of the human experience. All of these temptations relate to the beliefs set forth in the Treatise on Unity.

16.7 You are already accomplished.

16.8 By saying that you are not only accomplished but The Accomplished, it is being said that you are already what you have sought to be. Thus in order to live by the truth, you must live in the world as The Accomplished and cease struggling to be other than who you are in truth. This struggling to be other than who you are in truth is a temptation of the human experience. This temptation will come in many forms, all of which will be related to an old pattern of dissatisfaction with yourself. It will be related to the intrigue of the challenge and actually be couched in patterns that have you attempting to “accomplish” set goals in life. The key to resisting this temptation is not resistance at all but the idea that you are already accomplished. Keeping this idea in the forefront of your mind and heart will aid the translation of this aspect of the ego thought system to the thought system of the truth.

16.9 Giving and Receiving are One in Truth.

16.10 By saying that giving and receiving are one in truth it is being said that you are lacking only in what you do not give. The belief in lack is a temptation of the human experience. This temptation will relate to all situations in which you feel you have something to gain from some “other.” Again, this will be related to old patterns of dissatisfaction with the self. It has to do with any ideas you may still hold concerning others having more than you have or to desires that you may feel have gone unfulfilled. While you may think that this means you are being asked to do without, this is not the case. You are simply being asked to give that you might receive and to receive that you might give.

16.11 There is no Loss but only Gain within the Laws of Love.

16.12 By saying that there is no loss but only gain within the laws of love, you are being told to have no fear. Fear of loss is a great temptation of the human experience. If it were not for this fear of loss, you would not find it difficult to live by the thought system of the truth. This temptation relates very strongly to your ideas of change and as such is the greatest detriment to your new beginning. This temptation relates to everything you fear to do because of the consequences your actions might bring. These fears rob you of your certainty and result in a lack of trust. The key to resisting this temptation is not resistance at all but the idea that there is no loss but only gain within the laws of love.

16.13 Special Relationships have been replaced by Holy Relationship.


16.14 By saying that special relationships have been replaced by holy relationship, it is being said that your only relationship is with the truth and that you no longer have a relationship with illusion. Your fears in regard to special relationships are a temptation of the human experience. This temptation will relate to any issues you consider to be issues of relationship. All of your desires, fears, hopes and expectations of others are temptations that arise from your old idea of special relationships. All of your plans to do good and be good, to help others, and to struggle to make the world a better place, fall into this category. Your notions of wanting to protect or control are also notions based upon the necessity you have felt for the continuation of special relationships.

16.15 Now you must forget the idea of needing to maintain specialness. A key aid in helping you to put this temptation behind you is the idea of the holy relationship in which all exist in unity and within the protection of love’s embrace. If you but live by the idea that representing who you are in truth will create a new heaven on earth, you can lay aside any fears that others will suffer due to the changes your new Self will create. As you live with awareness of the love of God within you, you will see that you have no need for special love relationships. You will realize that the love and the Self you now have available to share in relationship are all that you would share in truth. You will recognize that no others have a need for you to make them special, for you will see the truth of who they are rather than the illusion of who you would have them be.
16.16 All of these temptations worked together in the thought system of the ego and created patterns that caused them to but seem to be intertwined and all encompassing. Nothing but the truth is all encompassing. Illusion is made of parts that do not form real connections but that only seem to have the ability to build upon each other. Let one part go and soon all the remaining parts will crumble into the dust from which they