This Is the Spark that Shines Within the Dream

Commentary on “God’s Witnesses” (T-29.III)

This is an absolutely beautiful section, one of my all-time favorites. It provides another slant on the heart of salvation as the Course sees it, yet this slant is one that is probably surprising, and perhaps even a bit jarring, to most Course students.

The section opens by talking about our brother as our savior. It soon becomes clear, however, that he is not our savior in the way most commonly assumed by Course students. He does not save us by pushing our buttons and flushing our ego to the surface. Rather, he saves us by seeing “someone else as not a body, one with him, without the wall the world has built to keep apart all living things” (T-29.IV.2:7). He saves us by giving salvation to us (1:4). He saves us through extending holy perception to us, which allows us to see ourselves as holy. He must do this before he himself can be saved. He will never believe he has salvation within him until he proves it by giving it to another. Thus, his happiness, his salvation, depends on saving us.

The Course usually talks about this pattern in the reverse—it asks us to save our brother. It asks us to extend salvation to others. Now, however, the pattern has been turned around: our brother saves us. In fact, it takes this idea one step further. It says quite plainly, “You cannot wake yourself” (T-29.IV.3:2). This does not mean, in this context, that you need help from the Holy Spirit. It means you need another person to wake you up. You need your brother to perform his role as savior, if you are to be saved. This seems very un-Course-like, and yet this section makes the point quite plainly. I would maintain that this principle is found in countless places all over the Course, and that we have just collectively filtered it out.

The immediate drawback to this idea is that it seems to take away our responsibility. Now we have no responsibility; someone else is supposed to save us. Now we seem to be dependent on the whims of this someone else, someone outside of us. And we seem to have just cause to blame him when he doesn’t do his job of saving us.

The section, however, adds a crucial twist. Your job is to forgive your brother, and this is what sets his function in motion—his function to save you. By saving him, you set him free to save you. The section then seems to sketch an entire process that goes on, which I will describe in six parts.

1. You forgive your brother. You overlook his dreams. He thinks he is a body; he thinks he is a separate ego. You overlook these mistaken beliefs, looking past them to what is true in him.

2. This allows you to see your brother shining with God’s glory, with divine radiance. Even though he believes he is a body, in your mind’s eye you no longer see his body. When you look at him, all you can see is the light of God:

And as you see him shining in the space of light where God abides within the darkness, you will see that God Himself is where his body is. Before this light the body disappears, as heavy shadows must give way to light…In glory will you see your brother then. (T-29.IV.3:6,7,10)

3. Filled with the light you have given him, he now has the power to give light to you. He is imbued with the power to save you. “Whom you forgive is given power to forgive you your illusions” (T-29.IV.4:2). This is a remarkable line. You, by yourself, cannot forgive your own illusions. You need someone else who has been forgiven by you. Only from this person will you accept full absolution for your so-called sins.

4. Once you have forgiven your savior, you can trust that he will not neglect or leave you.

“When light has come to him through your forgiveness, he will not forget his savior, leaving him unsaved. For it was in your face he saw the light that he would keep beside him as he walks through darkness to the everlasting light.” (T-29.IV.4:6,7)

This passage addresses our main fear when we hear all this: “Sure, I can forgive my brother, but will he return the gift to me?” We do not trust our brothers. Yet this mistrust is a self-fulfilling prophecy, for mistrust is unforgiveness. So while we are mistrusting them, we are not forgiving them. And how can they return the gift of forgiveness to us when we haven’t given it to them? We interpret their not returning it as evidence that they can’t be trusted, when in truth it is merely evidence that we never gave it to them in the first place.

Getting back to the passage above, it says quite plainly that once you have saved your brother through your forgiveness, “he will not forget his savior”—he will not forget you. And the reason it gives is truly beautiful. He is journeying through darkness to the everlasting Light. And the light he saw in your face (when you forgave him) reminds him of the Light he is journeying toward. It is a little part, a little reflection, of the Light that is his goal. And therefore, he wants to keep you beside him along the way to it. This is analogous to keeping with you a little photo of your destination while you travel toward it.

5. He returns to you the light you gave to him: “See how eagerly he comes, and steps aside from heavy shadows [the body] that have hidden him, and shines on you in gratitude and love” (T-29.IV.5:2). By seeing him in light, you gave him light. Now he steps out of the shadows, radiant with this light. He steps out eagerly—he is eager to return to you the gift you gave. He “shines on you in gratitude and love” because this is the natural reaction of anyone when they have received a true and selfless gift. They shine on the giver in gratitude and love. As the Course says elsewhere,

The sick, who ask for love, are grateful for it, and in their joy they shine with holy thanks. (T-13.VI.10:5)

Life is given you to give the dying world, and suffering eyes no longer will accuse, but shine in thanks to you who blessing gave. (T-27.VI.5:6)

We may trust that the receiver will not do this, but let’s face it—it is hard not to do this when you have received a genuine gift. The love and gratitude just well up in you and shine onto the giver. That is how we react in the face of a true gift. Your brother’s act of saving you, therefore, is not some whim, but a spontaneous and natural reaction.

One thing this says to me is that when someone is expressing gratitude to me, it is crucial that I not brush it aside in false humility. I need to treat it as this person’s act of saving me. I need to regard it as this person doing for me what I cannot do for myself (remember, “You cannot wake yourself”). This person is giving me a gift every bit the equal of what I gave to him. I saved him, now he is saving me. In fact, I need to realize that the appearance I see in front of me hides the real nature of what is going on. What I see with my eyes is simply a body expressing thanks—not a particularly remarkable scene. Yet the invisible reality is what this section is talking about: this is the Son of God shining with God’s glory, coming to save me from my “dreams of desolation and disaster” (T-29.IV.5:1). That is what is really going on here.

6. “And now the light in you must be as bright as shines in him” (T-29.IV.5:5). The light you gave your brother he has given you, and now you are both shining with the glory of God. You have saved your savior, who has in turn saved you.

What I find so moving about this section is that it says quite plainly, twice, that this exchange of salvation is the one spark of light in this dark world. It is a world full of separate bodies pursuing their separate interests, a world full of lonely, warring egos. There seems to be no light, no hope. Yet in this seemingly endless blanket of darkness, there is “yet one theme of truth—no

more, perhaps, than just a tiny spark, a space of light created in the dark,

where God still shines.” (T-29.IV.3:1). Rather than going about my business, pursuing my separate interests, caught up in my ego, I can reach out beyond my ego. I can overlook your ego, for no selfish reasons whatsoever. And if I do, you will spontaneously reach beyond your ego to bless me. You will shine on me in gratitude and love, again, for no selfish reasons whatsoever. Both of us will have lifted our heads out of the daily grind of getting our separate needs met. Both of us will have given the other a gift he cannot give himself. Both of us will have seen “someone else as not a body, one with him, without the wall the world has built to keep apart all living things” (T-29.IV.2:7). Two people will have reached beyond their egos in order to benefit another, and in the process will have realized that they are one. And this, says the Course, is the only true thing that can happen in this untrue world:

This is the spark that shines within the dream: that you can help him waken, and be sure his waking eyes will rest upon you first—and in his glad salvation you are saved. (T-29.IV.5:6)

Exercise

The basic concept is that the world is a dark dream except for one tiny spark: whenever one person gives salvation to another through forgiveness, and the other returns that gift. This happens all the time, often in very subtle ways. But it’s the only spark of light in this world’s dark dream.

Please write down particular relationships in your life that have been examples of “the spark that shines within the dream”—relationships in which salvation has been given and received.

Please write down particular incidents in your life that stand out in your mind which seem like examples of this principle-where one person helps another awaken and the other returns the gift.

Please write down particular relationships in which you don’t think of the person in this way but would like to, in which you have forgotten that the relationship is meant to be an instance of “the spark that shines within the dream.”

Visualization

Please choose one of the people from the above question and make him or her the focus of the following visualization. In it, remember to visualize the various images. And whenever it mentions your brother, your savior, or “him,” specifically think of and visualize the person you’ve chosen.

Begin by picturing the world as a dark dream of warring, hurting, struggling, dying bodies, just meaningless bodies, each pursuing its own meaningless needs. In this picture, there is only darkness.

Within the dream of bodies and of death is yet one theme of truth;
no more, perhaps, than just a tiny spark, a space of light created in the dark,
where God still shines.
You cannot wake yourself.
Yet you can let yourself be wakened.
You can overlook your brother’s dreams (think of this specific brother).
So perfectly can you forgive him his illusions he becomes your savior from your dreams.

See him now shining in the space of light where God abides within the darkness,
and as you do, you will see that God Himself is where his body is.
Before this light his body disappears, as heavy shadows must give way to light.
The darkness cannot choose that it remain.
The coming of the light means it is gone.
In glory do you see your brother now, shining with divine radiance.
This radiance is what really fills the gap so long perceived as keeping you apart.
There, in its place, God’s witness has set forth the gentle way of kindness to God’s Son.
This person you have forgiven is given power to forgive you your illusions.
By your gift of freedom is it given unto you.

Now that light has come to your brother through your forgiveness,
he will not forget you, his savior, leaving you unsaved.
For it was in your face he saw the light that he would keep beside him,
as he walks through darkness to the everlasting Light.

See how eagerly he comes, and steps aside from heavy shadows that have hidden him,
and shines on you in gratitude and love.
He is himself, but not himself alone.
He is God’s witness, shining on you with God’s glory.
The light in him is brighter still because you gave your light to him,
to save him from the dark.
And now the light in you must be as bright as shines in him.

This is the spark that shines within the dream;
that you can help him waken,
and be sure his waking eyes will rest on you (visualize this).
And in his glad salvation you are saved.

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