PART I
LESSON 39. My holiness is my salvation.
W-39.1. If guilt is hell, what is its opposite? 2 Like the text for which this workbook was written, the ideas used for the exercises are very simple, very clear and totally unambiguous. 3 We are not concerned with intellectual feats nor logical toys. 4 We are dealing only in the very obvious, which has been overlooked in the clouds of complexity in which you think you think.
W-39.2. If guilt is hell, what is its opposite? 2 This is not difficult, surely. 3 The hesitation you may feel in answering is not due to the ambiguity of the question. 4 But do you believe that guilt is hell? 5 If you did, you would see at once how direct and simple the text is, and you would not need a workbook at all. 6 No one needs practice to gain what is already his.
W-39.3. We have already said that your holiness is the salvation of the world. 2 What about your own salvation? 3 You cannot give what you do not have. 4 A savior must be saved. 5 How else can he teach salvation? 6 Today's exercises will apply to you, recognizing that your salvation is crucial to the salvation of the world. 7 As you apply the exercises to your world, the whole world stands to benefit.
W-39.4. Your holiness is the answer to every question that was ever asked, is being asked now, or will be asked in the future. 2 Your holiness means the end of guilt, and therefore the end of hell. 3 Your holiness is the salvation of the world, and your own. 4 How could you to whom your holiness belongs be excluded from it? 5 God does not know unholiness. 6 Can it be He does not know His Son?
W-39.5. A full five minutes are urged for the four longer practice periods for today, and longer and more frequent practice sessions are encouraged. 2 If you want to exceed the minimum requirements, more rather than longer sessions are recommended, although both are suggested.
W-39.6. Begin the practice periods as usual, by repeating today's idea to yourself. 2 Then, with closed eyes, search out your unloving thoughts in whatever form they appear; uneasiness, depression, anger, fear, worry, attack, insecurity and so on. 3 Whatever form they take, they are unloving and therefore fearful. 4 And so it is from them that you need to be saved.
W-39.7. Specific situations, events or personalities you associate with unloving thoughts of any kind are suitable subjects for today's exercises. 2 It is imperative for your salvation that you see them differently. 3 And it is your blessing on them that will save you and give you vision.
W-39.8. Slowly, without conscious selection and without undue emphasis on any one in particular, search your mind for every thought that stands between you and your salvation. 2 Apply the idea for today to each of them in this way:
3 My unloving thoughts about ___ are keeping me in hell
4 My holiness is my salvation.
W-39.9. You may find these practice periods easier if you intersperse them with several short periods during which you merely repeat today's idea to yourself slowly a few times. 2 You may also find it helpful to include a few short intervals in which you just relax and do not seem to be thinking of anything. 3 Sustained concentration is very difficult at first. 4 It will become much easier as your mind becomes more disciplined and less distractible.
W-39.10. Meanwhile, you should feel free to introduce variety into the exercise periods in whatever form appeals to you. 2 Do not, however, change the idea itself as you vary the method of applying it. 3 However you elect to use it, the idea should be stated so that its meaning is the fact that your holiness is your salvation. 4 End each practice period by repeating the idea in its original form once more, and adding:
5 If guilt is hell, what is its opposite?
W-39.11. In the shorter applications, which should be made some three or four times an hour and more if possible, you may ask yourself this question, repeat today's idea, and preferably both. 2 If temptations arise, a particularly helpful form of the idea is:
3 My holiness is my salvation from this.