Introduction To Miracles

This is a course in miracles.

It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you may elect what you want to take at a given time. It is just because you are not ready to do what you should elect to do that time exists at all.

The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s Presence, Which is your natural inheritance.

The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite. This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:

Nothing real can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the Peace of God.

Clarification of Terms

Introduction

This is not a course in philosophical speculation, nor is it concerned with precise terminology. It is concerned only with Atonement, or the correction of perception. The means of the Atonement is forgiveness. The structure of “individual consciousness” is essentially irrelevant because it is a concept representing the “original error” or the “original sin.” To study the error itself does not lead to correction, if you are indeed to succeed in overlooking the error. And it is just this process of overlooking at which the course aims.

All terms are potentially controversial, and those who seek controversy will find it. Yet those who seek clarification will find it as well. They must, however, be willing to overlook controversy, recognizing that it is a defense against truth in the form of a delaying maneuver. Theological considerations as such are necessarily controversial, since they depend on belief and can therefore be accepted or rejected. A universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible but necessary. It is this experience toward which the course is directed. Here alone consistency becomes possible because here alone uncertainty ends.

This course remains within the ego framework, where it is needed. It is not concerned with what is beyond all error because it is planned only to set the direction towards it. Therefore it uses words, which are symbolic, and cannot express what lies beyond symbols. It is merely the ego that questions because it is only the ego that doubts. The course merely gives another answer, once a question has been raised. However, this answer does not attempt to resort to inventiveness or ingenuity. These are attributes of the ego. THE COURSE IS SIMPLE. It has one function and one goal. Only in that does it remain wholly consistent because only that can be consistent.

The ego will demand many answers that this course does not give. It does not recognize as questions the mere form of a question to which an answer is impossible. The ego may ask,

“How did the impossible occur?”

“To what did the impossible happen?”

and may ask this in many forms. Yet there is no answer; only an experience. Seek only this, and do not let theology delay you.

You will notice that the emphasis on structural issues in the course is brief and early. Afterwards and soon, it drops away to make way for the central teaching. Since you have asked for clarification, however, these are some of the terms that are used.

Clarification of Terms

Mind — Spirit

The term “mind” is used to represent the activating agent of Spirit, supplying its creative energy. When the term is capitalized it refers to God or Christ (i. e., the Mind of God or the Mind of Christ). Spirit is the Thought of God which One created like Oneself. The unified Spirit is God’s one Child, or Christ.

In this world, because the mind is split, the Children of God appear to be separate. Nor do their minds seem to be joined. In this illusory state, the concept of an “individual mind” seems to be meaningful. It is therefore described in the course AS IF it has two parts: spirit and ego.

Spirit is the part that is still in contact with God through the Holy Spirit, Who abides in this part but sees the other part as well. The term “soul” is not used except in direct biblical quotations because of its highly controversial nature. It would, however, be an equivalent of “spirit,” with the understanding that, being of God, it is eternal and was never born.

The other part of the mind is entirely illusory and makes only illusions. Spirit retains the potential for creating, but its Will, which is God’s, seems to be imprisoned while the mind is not unified. Creation continues unabated because that is the Will of God. This Will is always unified and therefore has no meaning in this world. It has no opposite and no degrees.

The mind can be right or wrong, depending on the voice to which it listens. RIGHT-MINDEDNESS listens to the Holy Spirit, forgives the world, and through Christ’s vision sees the real world in its place. This is the final vision, the last perception, the condition in which God takes the final step Oneself. Here time and illusions end together. WRONG-MINDEDNESS listens to the ego and makes illusions; perceiving sin and justifying anger, and seeing guilt, disease and death as real. Both this world and the real world are illusions because right-mindedness merely overlooks, or forgives, what never happened. Therefore it is not the ONE-MINDEDNESS of the Christ Mind, Whose Will is One with God’s.

In this world the only remaining freedom is the freedom of choice; always between two choices or two voices. Will is not involved in perception at any level, and has nothing to do with choice. CONSCIOUSNESS is the receptive mechanism, receiving messages from above or below; from the Holy Spirit or the ego. Consciousness has levels and awareness can shift quite dramatically, but it cannot transcend the perceptual realm. At its highest it becomes aware of the real world, and can be trained to do so increasingly. Yet the very fact that it has levels and can be trained demonstrates that it cannot reach knowledge.

Clarification of Terms

The Ego — The Miracle

Illusions will not last. Their death is sure and this alone is certain in their world. It is the ego’s world because of this. What is the ego? But a dream of what you really are. A thought you are apart from your Creator and a wish to be what One created not. It is a thing of madness, not reality at all. A name for namelessness is all it is. A symbol of impossibility; a choice for options that do not exist. We name it but to help us understand that it is nothing but an ancient thought that what is made has immortality. But what could come of this except a dream which, like all dreams, can only end in death?

What is the ego? Nothingness, but in a form that seems like something. In a world of form the ego cannot be denied for it alone seems real. Yet could God’s Child as One created one abide in form or in a world of form? Who asks you to define the ego and explain how it arose can be but one who thinks it real, and seeks by definition to ensure that its illusive nature is concealed behind the words that seem to make it so.

There is no definition for a lie that serves to make it true. Nor can there be a truth that lies conceal effectively. The ego’s unreality is not denied by words nor is its meaning clear because its nature seems to have a form. Who can define the undefinable? And yet there is an answer even here.

We cannot really make a definition for what the ego is, but we can say what it is not. And this is shown to us with perfect clarity. It is from this that we deduce all that the ego is. Look at its opposite and you can see the only answer that is meaningful.

The ego’s opposite in every way—in origin, effect and consequence—we call a miracle. And here we find all that is not the ego in this world. Here is the ego’s opposite and here alone we look on what the ego was, for here we see all that it seemed to do, and cause and its effects must still be one.

Where there was darkness now we see the light. What is the ego? What the darkness was. Where is the ego? Where the darkness was. What is it now and where can it be found? Nothing and nowhere. Now the light has come; its opposite has gone without a trace. Where evil was there now is holiness. What is the ego? What the evil was. Where is the ego? In an evil dream that but seemed real while you were dreaming it. Where there was crucifixion stands God’s Child. What is the ego? Who has need to ask? Where is the ego? Who has need to seek for an illusion now that dreams are gone?

What is a miracle? A dream as well. But look at all the aspects of this dream and you will never question any more. Look at the kindly world you see extend before you as you walk in gentleness. Look at the helpers all along the way you travel, happy in the certainty of Heaven and the surety of peace. And look an instant, too, on what you left behind at last and finally passed by.

This was the ego—all the cruel hate, the need for vengeance and the cries of pain, the fear of dying and the urge to kill, the relationless illusion and the self that seemed alone in all the universe. This terrible mistake about yourself the miracle corrects as gently as a loving mother sings her child to rest. Is not a song like this what you would hear? Would it not answer all you thought to ask, and even make the question meaningless?

Your questions have no answer, being made to still God’s Voice, which asks of everyone one question only:

“Are you ready yet to help Me save the world?”

Ask this instead of what the ego is, and you will see a sudden brightness cover up the world the ego made. No miracle is now withheld from anyone. The world is saved from what you thought it was. And what it is, is wholly uncondemned and wholly pure.

The miracle forgives; the ego damns. Neither need be defined except by this. Yet could a definition be more sure, or more in line with what salvation is? Problem and answer lie together here, and having met at last the choice is clear. Who chooses hell when it is recognized? And who would not go on a little while when it is given one to understand the way is short and Heaven is one’s goal?

Clarification of Terms

Forgiveness — The Face Of Christ

Forgiveness is for God and toward God but not of One. It is impossible to think of anything One created that could need forgiveness. Forgiveness, then, is an illusion, but because of its purpose, which is the Holy Spirit’s, it has one difference. Unlike all other illusions it leads away from error and not towards it.

Forgiveness might be called a kind of happy fiction; a way in which the unknowing can bridge the gap between their perception and the truth. They cannot go directly from perception to knowledge because they do not think it is their will to do so. This makes God appear to be an enemy instead of what One really is. And it is just this insane perception that makes them unwilling merely to rise up and to return to One in peace.

And so they need an illusion of help because they are helpless; a Thought of peace because they are in conflict. God knows what One’s Child needs before one asks. One is not at all concerned with form, but having given the content it is One’s Will that it be understood. And that suffices. The form adapts itself to need; the content is unchanging, as eternal as its Creator.

The Face of Christ has to be seen before the memory of God can return. The reason is obvious. Seeing the Face of Christ involves perception. No one can look on knowledge. But the Face of Christ is the great symbol of forgiveness. It is salvation. It is the symbol of the real world. Whoever looks on this no longer sees the world. One is as near to Heaven as is possible outside the gate. Yet from this gate it is no more than just a step inside. It is the final step. And this we leave to God.

Forgiveness is a symbol, too, but as the symbol of One’s Will alone it cannot be divided. And so the unity that it reflects becomes One’s Will. It is the only thing still in the world in part, and yet the bridge to Heaven.

God’s Will is all there is. We can but go from nothingness to everything; from hell to Heaven. Is this a journey? No, not in truth, for truth goes nowhere. But illusions shift from place to place; from time to time. The final step is also but a shift. As a perception it is part unreal. And yet this part will vanish. What remains is peace eternal and the Will of God.

There are no wishes now for wishes change. Even the wished-for can become unwelcome. That must be so because the ego cannot be at peace. But Will is constant, as the gift of God. And what One gives is always like Oneself. This is the purpose of the Face of Christ. It is the gift of God to save One’s Child. But look on this and you have been forgiven.

How lovely does the world become in just that single instant when you see the truth about yourself reflected there. Now you are sinless and behold your sinlessness. Now you are holy and perceive it so. And now the mind returns to its Creator; the joining of the Creator and the Child, the Unity of unities that stands behind all joining but beyond them all. God is not seen but only understood. One’s Child is not attacked but recognized.

Clarification of Terms

True Perception — Knowledge

The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what One creates must be eternal as Oneself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end.

The body’s eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. And so they do. For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt.

Knowledge is not the remedy for false perception since, being another level, they can never meet. The one correction possible for false perception must be true perception. It will not endure. But for the time it lasts it comes to heal. For true perception is a remedy with many names. Forgiveness, salvation, Atonement, true perception, all are one. They are the one beginning, with the end to lead to Oneness far beyond themselves. True perception is the means by which the world is saved from sin, for sin does not exist. And it is this that true perception sees.

The world stands like a block before Christ’s Face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now it cannot fail to disappear, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the Face of Christ appears, and in that instant is the world forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came.

A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals. The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not. And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty.

This is the shift that true perception brings: what was projected out is seen within, and there forgiveness lets it disappear. For there the altar to the Child is set, and there one’s Creator is remembered. Here are all illusions brought to truth and laid upon the altar. What is seen outside must lie beyond forgiveness, for it seems to be forever sinful. Where is hope while sin is seen as outside? What remedy can guilt expect? But seen within your mind, guilt and forgiveness for an instant lie together, side by side, upon one altar. There at last are sickness and its single remedy joined in one healing brightness. God has come to claim One’s Own. Forgiveness is complete.

And now God’s knowledge , changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its realm. Gone is perception, false and true alike. Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done. And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Child of God. God knows it is One’s Own, as it is one’s. And here They join, for here the Face of Christ has shone away time’s final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God’s memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever.

O my siblings, if you only knew the peace that will envelop you and hold you safe and pure and lovely in the Mind of God, you could but rush to meet One where One’s altar is. Hallowed your Name and One’s, for they are joined here in this holy place. Here One leans down to lift you up to One, out of illusions into holiness; out of the world and to eternity; out of all fear and given back to love.

Clarification of Terms

Jesus — Christ

There is no need for help to enter Heaven for you have never left. But there is need for help beyond yourself as you are circumscribed by false beliefs of your Identity, which God alone established in reality. Helpers are given you in many forms, although upon the altar They are one. Beyond each one there is a Thought of God, and this will never change. But they have names which differ for a time, for time needs symbols, being itself unreal. Their names are legion, but we will not go beyond the names the course itself employs. God does not help because One knows no need. But One creates all Helpers of One’s Child while one believes one’s fantasies are true. Thank God for them for they will lead you home.

The name of Jesus is the name of one who was a man but saw the Face of Christ in all one’s siblings and remembered God. So one became identified with Christ, a person no longer, but at one with God. The person was an illusion, for he seemed to be a separate being, walking by himself, within a body that appeared to hold his self from Self, as all illusions do. Yet who can save unless one sees illusions and then identifies them as what they are? Jesus remains a Savior because he saw the false without accepting it as true. And Christ needed his form that One might appear to people and save them from their own illusions.

In one’s complete identification with the Christ—the perfect Child of God, One’s one creation and One’s happiness, forever like Oneself and one with One—Jesus became what all of you must be. He led the way for you to follow him. He leads you back to God because he saw the road before him, and he followed it. He made a clear distinction, still obscure to you, between the false and true. He offered you a final demonstration that it is impossible to kill God’s Child; nor can his life in any way be changed by sin and evil, malice, fear or death.

And therefore all your sins have been forgiven because they carried no effects at all. And so they were but dreams. Arise with him who showed you this because you owe him this who shared your dreams that they might be dispelled. And shares them still, to be at one with you.

Is he the Christ? O yes, along with you. His little life on earth was not enough to teach the mighty lesson that he learned for all of you. He will remain with you to lead you from the hell you made to God. And when you join your will with his, your sight will be his vision, for the eyes of Christ are shared. Walking with him is just as natural as walking with a sibling whom you knew since you were born, for such indeed he is. Some bitter idols have been made of him who would be only brother to the world. Forgive him your illusions, and behold how dear a brother he would be to you. For he will set your mind at rest at last and carry it with you unto your God.

Is one God’s only Helper? No, indeed. For Christ takes many forms with different names until their oneness can be recognized. But Jesus is for you the bearer of Christ’s single message of the Love of God. You need no other. It is possible to read his words and benefit from them without accepting him into your life. Yet he would help you yet a little more if you will share your pains and joys with him, and leave them both to find the peace of God. Yet still it is his lesson most of all that he would have you learn, and it is this:

There is no death because the Child of God is like one’s Creator. Nothing you can do can change Eternal Love. Forget your dreams of sin and guilt, and come with me instead to share the resurrection of God’s Child. And bring with you all those whom One has sent to you to care for as I care for you.

Clarification of Terms

The Holy Spirit

Jesus is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, Whom he called down upon the earth after he ascended into Heaven, or became completely identified with the Christ, the Child of God as One created One. The Holy Spirit, being a creation of the one Creator, creating with One and in One’s likeness or spirit, is eternal and has never changed. One was “called down upon the earth” in the sense that it was now possible to accept One and to hear One’s Voice. One’s is the Voice for God, and has therefore taken form. This form is not One’s reality, which God alone knows along with Christ, One’s real Child, Who is part of One.

The Holy Spirit is described throughout the course as giving us the answer to the separation and bringing the plan of the Atonement to us, establishing our particular part in it and showing us exactly what it is. One has established Jesus as the leader in carrying out One’s plan since he was the first to complete his own part perfectly. All power in Heaven and earth is therefore given one and one will share it with you when you have completed yours. The Atonement principle was given to the Holy Spirit long before Jesus set it in motion.

The Holy Spirit is described as the remaining Communication Link between God and One’s separated Children. In order to fulfill this special function the Holy Spirit has assumed a dual function. One knows because One is part of God; One perceives because One was sent to save humanity. One is the great correction principle; the bringer of true perception, the inherent power of the vision of Christ. One is the light in which the forgiven world is perceived; in which the Face of Christ alone is seen. One never forgets the Creator or One’s Creation. One never forgets the Child of God. One never forgets you. And One brings the Love of your Creator to you in an eternal shining that will never be obliterated because God has put it there.

The Holy Spirit abides in the part of your mind that is part of the Christ Mind. One represents your Self and your Creator, Who are One. One speaks for God and also for you, being joined with both. And therefore it is One Who proves Them One. One seems to be a Voice, for in that form One speaks God’s Word to you. One seems to be a Guide through a far country, for you need that form of help. One seems to be whatever meets the needs you think you have. But One is not deceived when you perceive your self entrapped in needs you do not have. It is from these One would deliver you. It is from these that One would make you safe.

You are One’s manifestation in this world. Your sibling calls to you to be One’s Voice along with one. Alone one cannot be the Helper of God’s Child for one alone is functionless. But joined with you one is the shining Savior of the world, Whose part in its redemption you have made complete. One offers thanks to you as well as one for you arose with one when one began to save the world. And you will be with one when time is over and no trace remains of dreams of spite in which you dance to death’s thin melody. For in its place the hymn to God is heard a little while. And then the Voice is gone, no longer to take form but to return to the eternal formlessness of God.

Clarification of Terms

Epilogue

Forget not once this journey is begun the end is certain. Doubt along the way will come and go and go to come again. Yet is the ending sure. No one can fail to do what God appointed one to do. When you forget, remember that you walk with One and with One’s Word upon your heart. Who could despair when Hope like this is One’s? Illusions of despair may seem to come, but learn how not to be deceived by them. Behind each one there is reality and there is God. Why would you wait for this and trade it for illusions, when One’s Love is but an instant farther on the road where all illusions end? The end IS sure and guaranteed by God. Who stands before a lifeless image when a step away the Holy of the Holies opens up an ancient door that leads beyond the world?

You ARE a stranger here. But you belong to One Who loves you as One loves Oneself. Ask but my help to roll the stone away, and it is done according to One’s Will.

We HAVE begun the journey. Long ago the end was written in the stars and set into the Heavens with a shining Ray that held it safe within eternity and through all time as well. And holds it still; unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable.

Be not afraid. We only start again an ancient journey long ago begun that but seems new. We have begun again upon a road we travelled on before and lost our way a little while. And now we try again. Our new beginning has the certainty the journey lacked till now. Look up and see One’s Word among the stars, where One has set your name along with One’s. Look up and find your certain destiny the world would hide but God would have you see.

Let us wait here in silence, and kneel down an instant in our gratitude to One Who called to us and helped us hear One’s Call. And then let us arise and go in faith along the way to One. Now we are sure we do not walk alone. For God is here, and with One all our siblings. Now we know that we will never lose the way again. The song begins again which had been stopped only an instant, though it seems to be unsung forever. What is here begun will grow in life and strength and hope, until the world is still an instant and forgets all that the dream of sin had made of it.

Let us go out and meet the newborn world, knowing that Christ has been reborn in it, and that the holiness of this rebirth will last forever. We had lost our way but One has found it for us. Let us go and bid One welcome Who returns to us to celebrate salvation and the end of all we thought we made. The morning star of this new day looks on a different world where God is welcomed and One’s Child with One. We who complete One offer thanks to One, as One gives thanks to us. The Child is still, and in the quiet God has given one enters one’s home and is at peace at last.

Workbook Part 1 - All Encompassing Course in Miracles

Orientation to the Lessons of All Encompassing Course In Miracles

A theoretical foundation such as the text is necessary as a background to make these exercises meaningful. Yet it is the exercises which will make the goal possible. An untrained mind can accomplish nothing. It is the purpose of these exercises to train the mind to think along the lines which the course sets forth.

The exercises are very simple. They do not require more than a few minutes, and it does not matter where or when you do them. They need no preparation. They are numbered, running from 1 to 365. The training period is one year. Do not undertake more than one exercise a day.

The purpose of these exercises is to train the mind to a different perception of everything in the world. The workbook is divided into two sections, the first dealing with the undoing of what you see now, and the second with the restoration of sight. It is recommended that each exercise be repeated several times a day, preferably in a different place each time, and if possible in every situation in which you spend any long period of time. The purpose is to train the mind to generalize the lessons, so that you will understand that each of them is as applicable to one situation as it is to another.

Unless specified to the contrary, the exercise should be practiced with the eyes open, since the aim is to learn how to see. The only rule that should be followed throughout is to practice the exercises with great specificity. Each one applies to every situation in which you find yourself, and to everything you see in it. Each day’s exercises are planned around one central idea, the exercises themselves consisting of applying that idea to as many specifics as possible. Be sure that you do not decide that there are some things you see to which the idea for the day is inapplicable. The aim of the exercises will always be to increase the application of the idea to everything. This will not require effort. Only be sure that you make no exceptions in applying the idea.

Some of the ideas you will find hard to believe, and others will seem quite startling. It does not matter. You are merely asked to apply them to what you see. You are not asked to judge them, nor even to believe them. You are asked only to use them. It is their use which will give them meaning to you, and show you they are true. Remember only this: you need not believe them, you need not accept them and you need not welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this will matter, nor decrease their efficacy. But allow yourself to make no exceptions in applying the ideas the exercises contain. Whatever your reactions to the ideas may be, use them. Nothing more than this is required.

Lesson 1

“Nothing I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] means anything.”

Now look slowly around you, and practice applying this idea very specifically to whatever you see:

“This table does not mean anything.”

“This chair does not mean anything.”

“This hand does not mean anything.”

“This foot does not mean anything.”

“This pen does not mean anything.”

Then look farther away from your immediate area, and apply the idea to a wider range:

“That door does not mean anything.”

“That body does not mean anything.”

“That lamp does not mean anything.”

“That sign does not mean anything.”

“That shadow does not mean anything.”

Notice that these statements are not arranged in any order, and make no allowance for differences in the kinds of things to which they are applied. That is the purpose of the exercise. The statement is merely applied to anything you see. As you practice applying the idea for the day, use it totally indiscriminately. Do not attempt to apply it to everything you see, for these exercises should not become ritualistic. Only be sure that nothing you see is specifically excluded. One thing is like another as far as the application of the idea is concerned.

Each of the first three lessons should not be done more than twice a day, preferably morning and evening. Nor should they be attempted for more than a minute or so, unless that entails a sense of hurry. A comfortable sense of leisure is essential.

Lesson 2

“I have given everything I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] all the meaning that it has for me.”

The exercises with this idea are the same as those for the first one. Begin with the things that are near you, and apply the idea to whatever your glance rests on. Then increase the range outward. Turn your head so that you include whatever is to either side. If possible, turn around and apply the idea to what was behind you. Remain as indiscriminate as possible in selecting subjects for its application, do not concentrate on anything in particular, and do not attempt to include everything in an area or you will introduce strain. Merely glance easily and fairly quickly around you, trying to avoid selection by size, brightness, color, material, or relative importance to you.

Take the subjects simply as you see them. Try to apply the exercise with equal ease to a body or a button, a fly or a floor, an arm or an apple. The sole criterion for applying the idea to anything is merely that your eyes have lighted on it. Make no attempt to include anything particular, but be sure that nothing is specifically excluded.

Lesson 3

“I do not understand anything I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place].”

Apply this idea in the same way as the previous ones, without making distinctions of any kind. Whatever you see becomes a proper subject for applying the idea. Be sure that you do not question the suitability of anything for the application of the idea. These are not exercises in judgement. Anything is suitable if you see it. Some of the things you see may have emotionally charged meaning for you. Try to lay such feelings aside, and merely use these things exactly as you would anything else.

The point of the exercises is to help you clear your mind of all past associations, to see things exactly as they appear to you now, and to realize how little you really understand about them. It is therefore essential that you keep a perfectly open mind, unhampered by judgement, in selecting the things to which the idea for the day is to be applied. For this purpose one thing is like another; equally suitable and therefore equally useful.

Lesson 4

“These thoughts do not mean anything. They are like the things I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place].”

Unlike the preceding ones, these exercises do not begin with the idea for the day. In these practice periods, begin with noting the thoughts that are crossing your mind for about a minute. Then apply the idea to them. If you are already aware of unhappy thoughts use them as subjects for the idea. Do not, however, select only the thoughts you think are “bad.” You will find, if you train yourself to look at your thoughts, that they represent such a mixture that, in a sense, none of them can be called “good” or “bad.” This is why they do not mean anything.

In selecting the subjects for the application of today’s idea, the usual specificity is required. Do not be afraid to use “good” thoughts as well as “bad.” None of them represents your real thoughts, which are being covered up by them. The “good” ones of which you are aware are but shadows of what lies beyond, and shadows make sight difficult. The “bad” ones are blocks to sight, and make seeing impossible. You do not want either.

This is a major exercise, and will be repeated from time to time in somewhat different form. The aim here is to train you in the first steps toward the goal of separating the meaningless from the meaningful. It is a first attempt in the long-range purpose of learning to see the meaningless as outside you, and the meaningful within. It is also the beginning of training your mind to recognize what is the same and what is different.

In using your thoughts for application of the idea for today, identify each thought by the central figure or event it contains; for example:

“This thought about _____ does not mean anything. It is like the things I see in this room [or wherever you are].”

You can also use the idea for a particular thought which you recognize as harmful. This practice is useful, but is not a substitute for the more random procedures to be followed for the exercises. Do not, however, examine your mind for more than a minute or so. You are too inexperienced as yet to avoid a tendency to become pointlessly preoccupied. Further, since these exercises are the first of their kind, you may find the suspension of judgement in connection with thoughts particularly difficult. Do not repeat these exercises more than three or four times during the day. We will return to them later.

Lesson 5

“I am never upset for the reason I think.”

This idea, like the preceding one, can be used with any person, situation or event you think is causing you pain. Apply it specifically to whatever you believe is the cause of your upset, using the description of the feeling in whatever term seems accurate to you. The upset may seem to be fear, worry, depression, anxiety, anger, hatred, jealousy, or any number of forms, all of which will be perceived as different. This is not true. However, until you learn that form does not matter, each form becomes a proper subject for the exercises for the day. Applying the same idea to each of them separately is the first step in ultimately recognizing they are all the same.

When using the idea for today for a specific perceived cause of an upset in any form, use both the name of the form in which you see the upset, and the cause which you ascribe to it. For example:

“I am not angry at ____ for the reason I think.”

“I am not afraid of ____ for the reason I think.”

But again, this should not be substituted for practice periods in which you first search your mind for “sources” of upset in which you believe, and forms of upset which you think result. In these exercises, more than in the preceding ones, you may find it hard to be indiscriminate, and to avoid giving greater weight to some subjects than to others. It might help to precede the exercises with the statement:

“There are no small upsets. They are all equally disturbing to my peace of mind.”

Then examine your mind for whatever is distressing you, regardless of how much or how little you think it is doing so.

You may also find yourself less willing to apply today’s idea to some perceived sources of upset than to others. If this occurs, think first of this:

“I cannot keep this form of upset and let the others go. For the purposes of these exercises, then, I will regard them all as the same.”

Then search your mind for no more than a minute or so, and try to identify a number of different forms of upset that are disturbing you, regardless of the relative importance you may give them. Apply the idea for today to each of them, using the name of both the source of the upset as you perceive it, and of the feelings as you experience it. Further examples are:

“I am not worried about ____ for the reason I think.”

“I am not depressed about ____ for the reason I think.”

Three or four times during the day is enough.

Lesson 6

“I am upset because I see something that is not there.”

The exercises with this idea are very similar to the preceding ones. Again, it is necessary to name both the form of upset (anger, fear, worry, depression, and so on) and the perceived source very specifically for any application of the idea. For example:

“I am angry at ____ because I see something that is not there.”

“I am worried about ____ because I see something that is not there.”

Today’s idea is useful for application to anything that seems to upset you, and can profitably be used throughout the day for that purpose. However, the three or four practice periods which are required should be preceded by a minute or so of mind searching, as before, and the application of the idea to each upsetting thought uncovered in the search.

Again, if you resist applying the idea to some upsetting thoughts more than to others, remind yourself of the two cautions stated in the previous lesson:

“There are no small upsets. They are all equally disturbing to my peace of mind.”

And:

“I cannot keep this form of upset and let the others go. For the purposes of these exercises, then, I will regard them all as the same.”

Lesson 7

“I see only the past.”

This idea is particularly difficult to believe at first. Yet it is the rationale for all of the preceding ones:

It is the reason why nothing that you see means anything. Lesson 1

It is the reason why you have given everything you see all the meaning that it has for you. Lesson 2

It is the reason why you do not understand anything you see. Lesson 3

It is the reason why your thoughts do not mean anything, and why they are like the things you see. Lesson 4

It is the reason why you are never upset for the reason you think. Lesson 5

It is the reason why you are upset because you see something that is not there. Lesson 6

Old ideas about time are very difficult to change, because everything you believe is rooted in time, and depends on your not learning these new ideas about it. Yet that is precisely why you need new ideas about time. This first time idea is not really so strange as it may sound at first. Look at a cup, for example.

Do you see a cup, or are you merely reviewing your past experiences of picking up a cup, being thirsty, drinking from a cup, feeling the rim of a cup against your lips, having breakfast and so on? Are not your aesthetic reactions to the cup, too, based on past experiences? How else would you know whether or not this kind of cup will break if you drop it? What do you know about this cup except what you learned in the past? You would have no idea what this cup is except for your past learning. Do you, then, really see it?

Look about you. This is equally true of whatever you look at. Acknowledge this by applying the idea for today indiscriminately to whatever catches your eye. For example:

“I see only the past in this pencil.”

“I see only the past in this shoe.”

“I see only the past in this hand.”

“I see only the past in that body.”

“I see only the past in that face.”

Do not linger over any one thing in particular, but remember to omit nothing specifically. Glance briefly at each subject, and then move on to the next.

Lesson 8

“My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.”

This idea is, of course, the reason why you see only the past. No one really sees anything. One sees only one’s thoughts projected outward. The mind’s preoccupation with the past is the cause of the total misconception about time from which your seeing suffers. Your mind cannot grasp the present, which is the only time there is. It therefore cannot understand time, and cannot, in fact, understand anything.

The only wholly true thought one can hold about the past is that it is not here. To think about it at all is therefore to think about delusions. Very few minds have realized what is actually entailed in picturing the past or in anticipating the future. The mind is actually blank when it does this, because it is not really thinking about anything.

The purpose of the exercises for today is to begin to train your mind to recognize when it is not really thinking at all. While thoughtless “ideas” preoccupy your mind, the truth is blocked. Recognizing that your mind has been merely blank, rather than believing that it is filled with real ideas, is the first step to opening the way to vision.

The exercises for today should be done with eyes closed. This is because you actually cannot see anything, and it is easier to recognize that no matter how vividly you may picture a thought, you are not seeing anything. With as little investment as possible, search your mind for the usual minute or so, merely noting the thoughts you find there. Name each one by the central figure or theme it contains, and pass on to the next. Introduce the practice period by saying:

“I seem to be thinking about _____.”

Then name each of your thoughts specifically, for example:

“I seem to be thinking about [name of person], about [name of object], about [name of emotion],”

and so on, concluding at the end of the mind searching period with:

“But my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.”

This can be done four or five times during the day, unless you find it irritates you. If you find it trying, three or four times is sufficient. You might find it helpful, however, to include your irritation, or any emotion which the idea may induce, in the mind searching itself.

Lesson 9

“I see nothing as it is now.”

This idea obviously follows from the two preceding ones. But while you may be able to accept it intellectually, it is unlikely that it will mean anything to you as yet. However, understanding is not necessary at this point. In fact, the recognition that you do not understand is a prerequisite for undoing your false ideas. These exercises are concerned with practice, not with understanding. You do not need to practice what you really understand. It would indeed be circular to aim at understanding, and assume that you have it already.

It is difficult for the untrained mind to believe that what seems to be pictured before it is not there. This idea can be quite disturbing, and may meet with active resistance in any number of forms. Yet that does not preclude applying it. No more than that is required for these or any other exercises. Each little step will clear a little of the darkness away, and understanding will finally come to lighten every corner of the mind which has been cleared of the debris that darkens it.

These exercises, for which three or four practice periods are sufficient, involve looking about you and applying the idea for the day to whatever you see, remembering the need for its indiscriminate application, and the essential rule of excluding nothing. It is emphasized again that while complete inclusion should not be attempted, specific exclusion must be avoided. Be sure you are honest in making this distinction. You may be tempted to obscure it. For example:

“I do not see this typewriter as it is now.”

“I do not see this key as it is now.”

“I do not see this telephone as it is now.”

Begin with things that are nearest you, and then extend the range:

“I do not see that coat rack as it is now.”

“I do not see that face as it is now.”

“I do not see that door as it is now.”

Lesson 10

“My thoughts do not mean anything.”

This idea applies to all the thoughts of which you are aware, or become aware in the practice periods. The reason the idea is applicable to all of them is that they are not your real thoughts. We have made this distinction before, and will again. You have no basis for comparison as yet. When you do, you will have no doubt that what you once believed were your thoughts did not mean anything.

This is the second time we have used this kind of idea. The form is only slightly different. This time the idea is introduced with “My thoughts” instead of “These thoughts,” and no link is made overtly with the things around you. The emphasis is now on the lack of reality of what you think you think.

This aspect of the correction process began with the idea that the thoughts of which you are aware are meaningless, outside rather than within; and then stressed their past rather than their present status. Now we are emphasizing that the presence of these “thoughts” means that you are not thinking. This is merely another way of repeating our earlier statement that your mind is really a blank. To recognize this is to recognize nothingness when you think you see it. As such, it is the prerequisite for vision.

Close your eyes for these exercises, and introduce them by repeating the idea for today quite slowly to yourself. Then add:

“This idea will help to release me from all that I now believe.”

The exercises consist, as before, in searching your mind for all the thoughts which are available to you, without selection or judgement.

Try to avoid classification of any kind. In fact, if you find it helpful to do so, you might imagine that you are watching an oddly assorted procession going by, which has little if any personal meaning to you. As each one crosses your mind, say:

“This thought about _____does not mean anything.”

“That thought about _____does not mean anything.”

Today’s idea can obviously serve for any thought that distresses you at any time. In addition, five practice periods are recommended, each involving no more than a minute or so of mind searching. It is not recommended that this time period be extended, and it should be reduced to half a minute or even less if you experience discomfort. Remember, however, to repeat the idea slowly before applying it specifically, and also to add:

“This idea will help to release me from all that I now believe.”

Lesson 11

“My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world.”

This is the first idea we have had which is related to a major phase of the correction process: the reversal of the thinking of the world. It seems as if the world determines what you perceive. Today’s idea introduces the concept that your thoughts determine the world you see. Be glad indeed to practice it in this initial form, for in this idea is your release made sure. The key to forgiveness lies in it.

The practice periods for today’s idea are to be undertaken somewhat differently from the previous ones. Begin with eyes closed, and repeat the idea slowly to yourself. Then open your eyes and look about, near or far, up or down—anywhere. During the minute or so to be spent in using the idea merely repeat it to yourself, being sure to do so without haste and with no sense of urgency or effort.

To do these exercises for maximum benefit, the eyes should move from one thing to another fairly rapidly, since they should not linger on anything in particular. The words, however, should be used in an unhurried, even leisurely fashion. The introduction to this idea should be practiced as casually as possible. It contains the foundation for the peace, relaxation and freedom from worry that we are trying to achieve. On concluding the exercises, close your eyes and repeat the idea once more, slowly to yourself.

Three practice periods today will probably be sufficient. However, if there is little or no uneasiness and an inclination to do more, as many as five may be undertaken. More than this is not recommended.

Lesson 12

“I am upset because I see a meaningless world.”

The importance of this idea lies in the fact that it contains a correction for a major perceptual distortion. You think that what upsets you is a frightening world, or a sad world, or a violent world, or an insane world. All these attributes are given it by you. The world is meaningless in itself.

These exercises are done with eyes open. Look around you, this time quite slowly. Try to pace yourself so that the slow shifting of your glance from one thing to another involves a fairly constant time interval. Do not allow the time of the shift to become markedly longer or shorter, but try, instead, to keep a measured, even tempo throughout. What you see does not matter. You teach yourself this as you give whatever your glance rests on equal attention and equal time. This is a beginning step in learning to give them all equal value. As you look about you, say to yourself:

“I think I see a fearful world, a dangerous world, a hostile world, a sad world, a wicked world, a crazy world,”

and so on, using whatever descriptive terms happen to occur to you. If terms which seem positive rather than negative occur to you, include them. For example, you might think of “a good world,” or “a satisfying world.” If such terms occur to you, use them along with the rest. You may not yet understand why these “nice” adjectives belong in these exercises, but remember that a “good world” implies a “bad” one, and a “satisfying world” implies an “unsatisfying” one. All terms which cross your mind are suitable subjects for today’s exercises. Their seeming quality does not matter.

Be sure that you do not alter the time intervals between applying today’s idea to what you think is pleasant and what you think is unpleasant. For the purposes of these exercises, there is no difference between them. At the end of the practice period, add:

“But I am upset because I see a meaningless world.”

What is meaningless is neither good nor bad. Why, then, should a meaningless world upset you? If you could accept the world as meaningless and let the truth be written upon it for you, it would make you indescribably happy. But because it is meaningless, you are impelled to write upon it what you would have it be. It is this you see in it. It is this that is meaningless in truth. Beneath your words is written the Word of God. The truth upsets you now, but when your words have been erased, you will see One’s. That is the ultimate purpose of these exercises.

Three or four times is enough for practicing the idea for today. Nor should the practice periods exceed a minute. You may find even this too long. Terminate the exercises whenever you experience a sense of strain.

Lesson 13

“A meaningless world engenders fear.”

Today’s idea is really another form of the preceding one, except that it is more specific as to the emotion aroused. Actually, a meaningless world is impossible. Nothing without meaning exists. However, it does not follow that you will not perceive something that has no meaning. On the contrary, you will be particularly likely to think you do perceive it.

Recognition of meaninglessness arouses intense anxiety in all the separated ones. It represents a situation in which God and the ego “challenge” each other as to whose meaning is to be written in the empty space which meaninglessness provides. The ego rushes in frantically to establish its own “ideas” there, fearful that the void may otherwise be used to demonstrate its own unreality. And on this alone it is correct.

It is essential, therefore, that you learn to recognize the meaningless, and accept it without fear. If you are fearful, it is certain that you will endow the world with attributes which it does not possess, and crowd it with images that do not exist. To the ego illusions are safety devices, as they must also be to you who equate yourself with the ego.

The exercises for today, which should be done about three or four times for not more than a minute or so at most each time, are to be practiced in a somewhat different way from the preceding ones. With eyes closed, repeat today’s idea to yourself. Then open your eyes and look about you slowly:

“I am looking at a meaningless world.”

Repeat this statement to yourself as you look about. Then close your eyes and conclude with:

“A meaningless world engenders fear because I think I am in competition with God.”

You may find it difficult to avoid resistance, in one form or another, to this concluding statement. Whatever form such resistance may take, remind yourself that you are really afraid of such a thought because of the “vengeance” of the “enemy.” You are not expected to believe the statement at this point, and will probably try to dismiss it as preposterous. Note carefully, however, any signs of overt or covert fear which it may arouse. This is our first attempt at stating an explicit cause and effect relationship of a kind which you are very inexperienced in recognizing. Do not dwell on the concluding statement, and try not even to think of it except during the exercise periods. That will suffice at present.

Lesson 14

“God did not create a meaningless world.”

The idea for today is, of course, the reason why a meaningless world is impossible. What God did not create does not exist. And everything that does exist exists as One created it. The world you see has nothing to do with reality. It is of your own making, and it does not exist.

The exercises for today are to be practiced with eyes closed throughout. The mind searching period should be short, a minute at most. Do not have more than three practice periods with today’s idea unless you find them comfortable. If you do, it will be because you really understand what they are for.

The idea for today is another step in learning to let go the thoughts which you have written on the world, and see the Word of God in their place. The early steps in this exchange, which can truly be called salvation, can be quite difficult and even quite painful. Some of them will lead you directly into fear. You will not be left there. You will go far beyond it. Our direction is toward perfect safety and perfect peace.

With eyes closed, think of all the horrors in the world that cross your mind. Name each one as it occurs to you, and then deny its reality. God did not create it, and so it is not real. Say, for example:

“God did not create that war, and so it is not real.”

“God did not create that airplane crash, and so it is not real.”

“God did not create that disaster [specify], and so it is not real.”

Suitable subjects for the application of today’s idea also include anything you are afraid might happen to you, or to anyone about whom you are concerned. In each case, name the “disaster” quite specifically. Do not use general terms. For example, do not say, “God did not create illness,” but, “God did not create cancer,” or heart attacks, or whatever may arouse fear in you.

This is your personal repertory of horrors at which you are looking. These things are part of the world you see. Some of them are shared illusions, and others are part of your personal hell. It does not matter. What God did not create can only be in your own mind apart from One’s. Therefore, it has no meaning. In recognition of this fact, conclude the practice periods by repeating today’s idea:

“God did not create a meaningless world.”

The idea for today can, of course, be applied to anything that disturbs you during the day, aside from the practice periods. Be very specific in applying it. Say:

“God did not create a meaningless world. One did not create [specify the situation which is disturbing you], and so it is not real.”

Lesson 15

“My thoughts are images which I have made.”

It is because the thoughts you think you think appear as images that you do not recognize them as nothing. You think you think them, and so you think you see them. This is how your “seeing” was made. This is the function you have given your body’s eyes. It is not seeing. It is image-making. It takes the place of seeing, replacing vision with illusions.

This introductory idea to the process of image-making which you call seeing will not have much meaning for you. You will begin to understand it when you have seen little edges of light around the same familiar objects which you see now. That is the beginning of real vision. You can be certain that real vision will come quickly when this has occurred.

As we go along, you may have many “light episodes.” They may take many different forms, some of them quite unexpected. Do not be afraid of them. They are signs that you are opening your eyes at last. They will not persist, because they merely symbolize true perception, and they are not related to knowledge. These exercises will not reveal knowledge to you. But they will prepare the way to it. In practicing the idea for today, repeat it first to yourself, and then apply it to whatever you see around you, using its name and letting your eyes rest on it as you say:

“This _____is an image which I have made.”

“That _____is an image which I have made.”

It is not necessary to include a large number of specific subjects for the application of today’s idea. It is necessary, however, to continue to look at each subject while you repeat the idea to yourself. The idea should be repeated quite slowly each time.

Although you will obviously not be able to apply the idea to very many things during the minute or so of practice that is recommended, try to make the selection as random as possible. Less than a minute will do for the practice periods, if you begin to feel uneasy. Do not have more than three application periods for today’s idea unless you feel completely comfortable with it, and do not exceed four.

Lesson 16

“I have no neutral thoughts.”

The idea for today is a beginning step in dispelling the belief that your thoughts have no effect. Everything you see is the result of your thoughts. There is no exception to this fact. Thoughts are not big or little; powerful or weak. They are merely true or false. Those which are true create their own likeness. Those which are false make theirs.

There is no more self-contradictory concept than that of “idle thoughts.” What gives rise to the perception of a whole world can hardly be called idle. Every thought you have contributes to truth or to illusion; either it extends the truth or it multiplies illusions. You can indeed multiply nothing, but you will not extend it by doing so.

In addition to never being idle, salvation requires that you recognize that every thought you have brings either peace or war; either love or fear. A neutral result is impossible because a neutral thought is impossible. There is such a temptation to dismiss fear thoughts as unimportant, trivial, and not worth bothering about that it is essential you recognize them all as equally destructive but equally unreal. We will practice this idea in many forms before you really understand it.

In applying the idea for today, search your mind for a minute or so, with eyes closed, and actively seek not to overlook any “little” thought which tends to elude the search. This is quite difficult until you get used to it. You will find that it is still hard for you not to make artificial distinctions. Every thought that occurs to you, regardless of the quality which you assign to it, is a suitable subject for applying today’s idea.

In the practice periods, first repeat the idea, and then as each one crosses your mind, hold it in awareness while you tell yourself:

“This thought about _____ is not a neutral thought.”

“That thought about _____is not a neutral thought.”

As usual, use today’s idea whenever you are aware of a particular thought which arouses uneasiness. The following form is suggested for this purpose:

“This thought about _____is not a neutral thought, because I have no neutral thoughts.”

Four or five practice periods are recommended, if you find them relatively effortless. If strain is experienced, three will be enough. The length of the exercise period should also be reduced if there is discomfort.

Lesson 17

“I see no neutral things.”

This idea is another step in the direction of identifying cause and effect as it really operates. You see no neutral things because you have no neutral thoughts. It is always the thought that comes first, despite the temptation to believe that it is really the other way around. This is not the way the world thinks, but you must learn that it is the way you think. If it were not so, perception would have no cause, and would itself be the cause of reality. In view of its highly variable nature, this is hardly likely.

In applying today’s idea, say to yourself, with eyes open:

“I see no neutral things because I have no neutral thoughts.”

Then look about you, resting your glance on each thing that catches your eye long enough to say:

“I do not see a neutral _____, because my thoughts about _____ are not neutral.”

For example, you might say:

“I do not see a neutral wall, because my thoughts about walls are not neutral.”

“I do not see a neutral body, because my thoughts about bodies are not neutral.”

As usual, it is essential to make no distinction between what you believe to be animate or inanimate; pleasant or unpleasant. Regardless of what you may believe, you do not see anything which is really alive and really joyous. That is because you are unaware as yet of any thoughts which are true, and therefore really happy.

Three or four specific practice periods are recommended, and no less than three are required for maximum benefit, even if you experience resistance. However, if you do, the length of the practice period may be reduced to less than the minute or so which is otherwise recommended.

Lesson 18

“I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing.”

The idea for today is another step in learning that the thoughts which give rise to what you see are never neutral or unimportant. It also emphasizes the idea that minds are joined, which will be given increasing stress later.

Today’s idea does not refer to what you see as much as to how you see it. Therefore, the exercises for today will emphasize this aspect of your perception. The three or four practice periods which are recommended should be done as follows:

Selecting subjects for the application of the idea randomly, look at each one long enough to say:

“I am not alone in experiencing the effects of how I see _____.”

Conclude the practice period by repeating the more general statement:

“I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing.”

A minute or so or even less will be sufficient.

Lesson 19

“I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts.”

The idea for today is obviously the reason why your seeing does not affect you alone. You will notice that at times the ideas related to thinking precede those related to perceiving, while at other times the order is reversed. The reason is that the order does not actually matter. Thinking and its results are really simultaneous, for cause and effect are never separate.

Today we are again emphasizing the fact that minds are joined. This is rarely a wholly welcome idea at first, since it seems to carry with it an enormous sense of responsibility, and may even be regarded as an “invasion of privacy.” Yet it is a fact that there are no private thoughts. Despite your initial resistance to this idea, you will yet understand that it must be true if salvation is possible at all. And salvation must be possible because it is the Will of God.

The minute or so of mind searching which today’s exercises require are to be undertaken with eyes closed. The idea is to be repeated first, and then the mind should be carefully searched for the thoughts it contains at that time. As you consider each one, name it in terms of the central person or theme it contains, and holding it in your mind as you do so, say:

“I am not alone in experiencing the effects of this thought about ___.”

The requirement of as much indiscriminateness as possible in selecting subjects for the practice period should be quite familiar to you by now, and will no longer be repeated each day, although it will occasionally be included as a reminder. Do not forget, however, that random selection of subjects for all practice periods remains essential throughout. Lack of order in this connection will ultimately make the recognition of lack of order in miracles meaningful to you. Apart from the “as needed” application of today’s idea, at least three practice periods are required, shortening the length of time involved, if necessary. Do not attempt more than four.

Lesson 20

“I am determined to see.”

We have been quite casual about our practice periods thus far. There has been virtually no attempt to direct the time for undertaking them, minimal effort has been required, and not even active cooperation and interest have been asked. This casual approach has been intentional, and very carefully planned. We have not lost sight of the crucial importance of the reversal of your thinking. The salvation of the world depends on it. Yet you will not see if you regard yourself as being coerced, and if you give in to resentment and opposition.

This is our first attempt to introduce structure. Do not misconstrue it as an effort to exert force or pressure. You want salvation. You want to be happy. You want peace. You do not have them now because your minds are totally undisciplined, and you cannot distinguish between joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, love and fear. You are now learning how to tell them apart. And great indeed will be your reward.

Your decision to see is all that vision requires. What you want is yours. Do not mistake the little effort that is asked of you for a sign that our goal is of little worth. Can the salvation of the world be a trivial purpose? And can the world be saved if you are not? God has one Child, and one is the resurrection and the life. One’s will is done because all power is given one in Heaven and on earth. In your determination to see is vision given you.

The exercises for today consist in reminding yourselves throughout the day that you want to see. Today’s idea also tacitly implies the recognition that you do not see now. Therefore, as you repeat the idea, you are stating that you are determined to change your present state for a better one, and one you really want.

Repeat today’s idea slowly and positively at least twice an hour today, attempting to do so every half hour. Do not be distressed if you forget to do so, but make a real effort to remember. The extra repetitions should be applied to any situation, person or event which upsets you. You can see them differently, and you will. What you desire you will see. Such is the real law of cause and effect as it operates in the world.

Lesson 21

“I am determined to see things differently.”

The idea for today is obviously a continuation and extension of the preceding one. This time, however, specific mind searching periods are necessary in addition to applying the idea to particular situations as they arise. Five practice periods are urged, allowing a full minute for each.

In the practice periods, begin by repeating the idea to yourself. Then close your eyes and search your mind carefully for situations past, present or anticipated, which arouse anger in you. The anger may take the form of any reaction ranging from mild irritation to rage. The degree of the emotion you experience does not matter. You will become increasingly aware that a slight twinge of annoyance is nothing but a veil drawn over intense fury.

Try, therefore, not to let the “little” thoughts of anger escape you in the practice periods. Remember that you do not really recognize what arouses anger in you, and nothing that you believe in this connection means anything. You will probably be tempted to dwell more on some situations than on others, on the fallacious grounds that they are more “obvious.” This is not so. It is merely an example of the belief that some forms of attack are more justified than others. As you search your mind for all the forms in which attack thoughts present themselves, hold each one in mind and tell yourself:

“I am determined to see _____ [name of person] differently.”

“I am determined to see _____ [specify the situation] differently.”

Try to be as specific as possible. You may, for example, focus your anger on a particular attribute of a particular person, believing that the anger is limited to this aspect. If your perception of the person is suffering from this form of distortion, say:

“I am determined to see _____ [specify the attribute] in _____ [name of person] differently.”

Lesson 22

“What I see is a form of vengeance.”

Today’s idea accurately describes the way anyone who holds attack thoughts in one’s mind must see the world. Having projected one’s anger onto the world, one sees vengeance about to strike at one. One’s own attack is thus perceived as self defense. This becomes an increasingly vicious circle until one is willing to change how one sees. Otherwise, thoughts of attack and counter attack will preoccupy one, and people one’s entire world. What peace of mind is possible to one then?

It is from this savage fantasy that you want to escape. Is it not joyous news to hear that it is not real? Is it not a happy discovery to find that you can escape? You made what you would destroy: everything that you hate and would attack and kill. All that you fear does not exist.

Look at the world about you at least five times today, for at least a minute each time. As your eyes move slowly from one object to another, from one body to another, say to yourself:

“I see only the perishable.”

“I see nothing that will last.”

“What I see is not real.”

“What I see is a form of vengeance.”

At the end of each practice period, ask yourself:

“Is this the world I really want to see?”

The answer is surely obvious.

Lesson 23

“I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts.”

The idea for today contains the only way out of fear that will succeed. Nothing else will work; everything else is meaningless. But this way cannot fail. Every thought you have makes up some segment of the world you see. It is with your thoughts, then, that we must work, if your perception of the world is to be changed.

If the cause of the world you see is attack thoughts, you must learn that it is these thoughts which you do not want. There is no point in lamenting the world. There is no point in trying to change the world. It is incapable of change because it is merely an effect. But there is indeed a point in changing your thoughts about the world. Here you are changing the cause. The effects will change automatically.

The world you see is a vengeful world, and everything in it is a symbol of vengeance. Each of your perceptions of “external reality” is a pictorial representation of your own attack thoughts. One can well ask if this can be called seeing. Is not fantasy a better word for such a process, and hallucination a more appropriate term for the result?

You see the world which you have made, but you do not see yourself as the image-maker. You cannot be saved from the world, but you can escape from its cause. This is what salvation means, for where is the world you see when its cause is gone? Vision already holds a replacement for everything you think you see now. Loveliness can light your images, and so transform them that you will love them even though they were made of hate. For you will not be making them alone.

The idea for today introduces the thought that you are not trapped in the world you see, because its cause can be changed. This change requires, first, that the cause be identified and then let go, so that it can be replaced. The first two steps in this process require your cooperation. The final one does not. Your images have already been replaced. By taking the first two steps, you will see that this is so. Besides using it throughout the day as the need arises, five practice periods are required in applying today’s idea. As you look about you, repeat the idea slowly to yourself and then close your eyes and devote about a minute to searching your mind for as many attack thoughts as occur to you. As each one crosses your mind say:

“I can escape from the world by giving up attack thoughts about _____.”

Hold each attack thought in mind as you say this, and then dismiss that thought and go on to the next.

In the practice periods, be sure to include both your thoughts of attacking and of being attacked. Their effects are exactly the same because they are exactly the same. You do not yet recognize this and you are asked at this time only to treat them as the same in today’s practice periods. We are still at the stage of identifying the cause of the world you see. When you finally realize that thoughts of attack and of being attacked are not different, you will be ready to let the cause go.

Lesson 24

“I do not perceive my own best interests.”

In no situation which arises do you realize the outcome that would make you happy. Therefore you have no guide to appropriate action, and no way of judging the results. What you do is determined by your perception of the situation, and that perception is wrong. It is inevitable, then, that you will not serve your own best interests. Yet they are your only goal in any situation which is correctly perceived. Otherwise, you will not recognize what they are.

If you realized that you do not perceive your own best interests, you could be taught what they are. But in the presence of your conviction that you do know what they are, you cannot learn. The idea for today is a step toward opening your mind so that learning can begin.

The exercises for today require much more honesty than you are accustomed to using. A few subjects, honestly and carefully considered in each of the five practice periods which should be undertaken today, will be more helpful than a more cursory examination of a large number. Two minutes are suggested for each of the mind searching periods which the exercises involve.

Practice periods begin with repeating today’s idea, followed by searching the mind, with closed eyes, for unresolved situations about which you are currently concerned. The emphasis should be on uncovering the outcome you want. You will quickly realize that you have a number of goals in mind as part of the desired outcome; and also that these goals are on different levels, and often conflict.

Name each situation that occurs to you, and enumerate carefully as many goals as possible that you would like to be met in its resolution. The form of each application should be roughly as follows:

“In the situation involving _____, I would like _____ to happen, and _____ to happen,”

and so on. Try to cover as many different kinds of outcome as may honestly occur to you, even if some of them do not appear to you to be directly related to the situation, or even to be inherent in it at all. If these exercises are done properly, you will quickly recognize that you are making a large number of demands of the situation which have nothing to do with it. You will also recognize that many of your goals are contradictory, that you have no unified outcome in mind, and that you must experience disappointment in connection with some of your goals however the situation turns out.

After covering the list of as many hoped-for goals as possible for each unresolved situation that crosses your mind, say to yourself:

“I do not perceive my own best interests in this situation,”

and go on to the next.

Lesson 25

“I do not know what anything is for.”

Purpose is meaning. Today’s idea explains why nothing you see means anything. You do not know what it is for. Therefore it is meaningless to you. Everything is for your own best interests. That is what it is for; that is its purpose; that is what it means. It is in recognizing this that your goals become unified. It is in recognizing this that what you see is given meaning.

You perceive the world and everything in it as meaningful in terms of ego goals. These goals have nothing to do with your own best interests, because the ego is not you. This false identification makes you incapable of understanding what anything is for. As a result, you are bound to misuse it. When you believe this, you will try to withdraw the goals you have assigned to the world, instead of attempting to reinforce them.

Another way of describing the goals you now perceive as valuable is to say that they are all concerned with “personal” interests. Since you have no personal interests, your goals are really concerned with nothing. In cherishing them, therefore, you have no goals at all. And thus you do not know what anything is for.

Before you can make any sense out of the exercises for today, one more thought is necessary. At the most superficial levels, you do recognize purpose. Yet purpose cannot be understood at these levels. For example, you do understand that a telephone is for the purpose of talking to someone who is not physically in your immediate vicinity. What you do not understand is what you want to reach one for. And it is this that makes your contact with one meaningful or not.

It is crucial to your learning to be willing to give up the goals you have established for everything. The recognition that they are meaningless, rather than “good” or “bad,” is the only way to accomplish this. The idea for today is a step in this direction.

Six practice periods, each of two minutes duration, are required. Each practice period should begin with a slow repetition of the idea for today, followed by looking about you and letting your glance rest on whatever happens to catch your eye, near or far, “important” or “unimportant,” “human” or “unhuman.” With your eyes resting on each subject you so select, say, for example:

“I do not know what this chair is for.”

“I do not know what this pencil is for.”

“I do not know what this hand is for.”

Say this quite slowly, without shifting your eyes until you have completed the statement. Then move on to the next subject, and apply today’s idea as before.

Lesson 26

“My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability.”

It is surely obvious that if you can be attacked you are not invulnerable. You see attack as a real threat. That is because you believe that you can really attack. And what would have effects through you must also have effects on you. It is this law that will ultimately save you. But you are misusing it now. You must therefore learn how it can be used for your own best interests, rather than against them.

Because your attack thoughts will be projected, you will fear attack. And if you fear attack, you must believe that you are not invulnerable. Attack thoughts therefore make you vulnerable in your own mind, which is where the attack thoughts are. Attack thoughts and invulnerability cannot be accepted together. They contradict each other.

The idea for today introduces the thought that you always attack yourself. If attack thoughts must entail the belief that you are vulnerable, their effect is to weaken you in your own eyes. Thus they have attacked your perception of yourself. And because you believe in them, you can no longer believe in yourself. A false image of yourself has come to take the place of what you are.

Practice with today’s idea will help you to understand that vulnerability or invulnerability is the result of your own thoughts. Nothing except your thoughts can attack you. Nothing except your thoughts can make you think you are vulnerable. And nothing except your thoughts can prove to you this is not so.

Six practice periods are required in applying today’s idea. A full two minutes should be attempted for each of them, although the time may be reduced to a minute if the discomfort is too great. Do not reduce it further.

The practice period should begin with repeating the idea for today, then closing your eyes and reviewing the unresolved situations whose outcomes are causing you concern. The concern may take the form of depression, worry, anger, a sense of imposition, fear, foreboding or preoccupation. Any problem as yet unsettled which tends to recur in your thoughts during the day is a suitable subject. You will not be able to use very many for any one practice period, because a longer time than usual should be spent with each one. Today’s idea should be applied as follows:

First, name the situation:

“I am concerned about ______.”

Then go over every possible outcome which has occurred to you in that connection and which has caused you concern, referring to each one quite specifically, saying:

“I am afraid ______ will happen.”

If you are doing the exercises properly, you should have some five or six distressing possibilities available for each situation you use, and quite possibly more. It is much more helpful to cover a few situations thoroughly than to touch on a larger number.

As the list of anticipated outcomes for each situation continues, you will probably find some of them, especially those which occur to you toward the end, less acceptable to you. Try, however, to treat them all alike to whatever extent you can. After you have named each outcome of which you are afraid, tell yourself:

“That thought is an attack upon myself.”

Conclude each practice period by repeating today’s idea once more.

Lesson 27

“Above all else I want to see.”

Today’s idea expresses something stronger than mere determination. It gives vision priority among your desires. You may feel hesitant about using the idea on the ground that you are not sure you really mean it. This does not matter. The purpose of today’s exercises is to bring the time when the idea will be wholly true a little nearer.

There may be a great temptation to believe that some sort of sacrifice is being asked of you when you say you want to see above all else. If you become uneasy about the lack of reservation involved, add:

“Vision has no cost to anyone.”

If fear of loss still persists, add further:

“It can only bless.”

The idea for today needs many repetitions for maximum benefit. It should be used at least every half hour, and more often if possible. You might try for every fifteen or twenty minutes. It is recommended that you set a definite time interval for using the idea when you wake or shortly afterwards, and attempt to adhere to it throughout the day.

It will not be difficult to do this, even if you are engaged in conversation or otherwise occupied at the time. You can still repeat one short sentence to yourself without disturbing anything that is going on.

The real question is how often will you remember? How much do you want today’s idea to be true? Answer one of these questions, and you have answered the other. You will probably miss several applications, and perhaps quite a number. Do not be disturbed by this, but do try to keep on your schedule from then on. If only once during the day you feel that you were perfectly sincere while you were repeating today’s idea, you can be sure that you have saved yourself many years of effort.

Lesson 28

“Above all else I want to see things differently.”

Today we are really giving specific application to the idea for yesterday. In these practice periods, you will be making a series of definite commitments. The question of whether you will keep them in the future is not our concern here. If you are willing at least to make them now, you have started on the way to keeping them. And we are still at the beginning.

You may wonder why it is important to say, for example,

“Above all else I want to see this table differently.”

In itself it is not important at all. Yet what is by itself? And what does “in itself” mean? You see a lot of separate things about you, which really means you are not seeing at all. You either see or not. When you have seen one thing differently, you will see all things differently. The light you will see in any one of them is the same light you will see in them all.

When you say,

“Above all else I want to see this table differently,”

you are making a commitment to withdraw your preconceived ideas about the table, and open your minds to what it is, and what it is for. You are not defining it in past terms. You are asking what it is, rather than telling it what it is. You are not binding its meaning to your tiny experience of tables, nor are you limiting its purpose to your little personal thoughts.

You will not question what you have already defined. And the purpose of these exercises is to ask questions and receive the answers. In saying,

“Above all else I want to see this table differently,”

you are committing yourself to seeing. It is not an exclusive commitment. It is a commitment which applies to the table just as much as to anything else, neither more nor less.

You could, in fact, gain vision from just that table, if you could withdraw all your own ideas from it, and look upon it with a completely open mind. It has something to show you; something beautiful and clean and of infinite value, full of happiness and hope. Hidden under all your ideas about it is its real purpose, the purpose it shares with all the universe.

In using the table as a subject for applying the idea for today you are therefore really asking to see the purpose of the universe. You will be making this same request of each subject which you use in the practice periods. And you are making a commitment to each of them to let their purpose be revealed to you, instead of placing your own judgement upon them.

We will have six two minute practice periods today, in which the idea for the day is stated first, and then applied to whatever you see in looking about you. Not only should the subjects be chosen randomly, but each one should be accorded equal sincerity as today’s idea is applied to it, in an attempt to acknowledge the equal value of them all in their contribution to your seeing.

As usual, the applications should include the name of the subject which your eyes happen to light on, and you should rest your eyes on it while saying:

“Above all else I want to see this ______ differently.”

Each application should be made quite slowly and as thoughtfully as possible. There is no hurry.

Lesson 29

“God is in everything I see.”

The idea for today explains why you can see all purpose in anything. It explains why nothing is separate, by itself or in itself. And it explains why nothing you see means anything. In fact, it explains every idea we have used thus far, and all subsequent ones as well.

Today’s idea is the whole basis for vision.

You will probably find this idea very difficult to grasp at this point. You may find it silly, irreverent, senseless, funny and even objectionable. Certainly God is not in a table, for example, as you see it. Yet we emphasized yesterday that a table shares the purpose of the universe. And what shares the purpose of the universe shares the purpose of its Creator.

Try then, today, to begin to learn how to look on all things with love, appreciation and open-mindedness. You do not see them now. Would you know what is in them? Nothing is as it appears to you. Its holy purpose stands beyond your little range. When vision has shown you the holiness that lights up the world, you will understand today’s idea perfectly. And you will not understand how you could ever have found it difficult.

Our six two minute practice periods for today should follow a now familiar pattern: Begin with repeating the idea to yourself, and then apply it to randomly chosen subjects about you, naming each one specifically. Try to avoid the tendency toward self-directed selection, which may be particularly tempting in connection with today���s idea because of its wholly alien nature. Remember that any order you impose is equally alien to reality.

Your list of subjects should therefore be as free of self-selection as possible. For example, a suitable list might include:

“God is in this coat hanger.”

“God is in this magazine.”

“God is in this finger.”

“God is in this lamp.”

“God is in that body.”

“God is in that door.”

“God is in that wastebasket.”

In addition to the assigned practice periods, repeat the idea for today at least once an hour, looking slowly about you as you say the words unhurriedly to yourself. At least once or twice you should experience a sense of restfulness as you do this.

Lesson 30

“God is in everything I see because God is in my mind.”

The idea for today is the springboard for vision. From this idea will the world open up before you, and you will look upon it and see in it what you have never seen before. Nor will what you saw before be even faintly visible to you.

Today we are trying to use the new kind of projection. We are not attempting to get rid of what we do not like by seeing it outside. Instead, we are trying to see in the world what is in our minds, and what we want to recognize is there. Thus we are trying to join with what we see, rather than keeping it apart from us. That is the fundamental difference between vision and the way you see.

Today’s idea should be applied as often as possible throughout the day. Whenever you have a moment or so, repeat it to yourself slowly, looking about you, and trying to realize that the idea applies to everything you do see now, or could see now if it were within the range of your sight.

Real vision is not limited to concepts such as “near” and “far.” To help you begin to get used to this idea, try to think of things beyond your present range as well as those you can actually see, as you apply today’s idea. Real vision is not only unlimited by space and distance, but it does not depend on the body’s eyes at all. The mind is its only source.

To aid in helping you to become more accustomed to this idea as well, devote several practice periods to applying today’s idea with your eyes closed, using whatever subjects come to mind, and looking within rather than without. Today’s idea applies equally to both.

Lesson 31

“I am not the victim of the world I see.”

Today’s idea is the introduction to your declaration of release. Again, the idea should be applied to both the world you see without and the world you see within. In applying the idea, we will use a form of practice which will be used more and more, with changes as indicated. Generally speaking, the form includes two aspects, one in which you apply the idea on a more sustained basis, and the other consisting of frequent applications of the idea throughout the day.

Two longer periods of practice with the idea for today are needed, one in the morning and one at night. Three to five minutes for each of them is recommended. During that time, look about you slowly while repeating the idea two or three times. Then close your eyes, and apply the same idea to your inner world. You will escape from both together, for the inner is the cause of the outer.

As you survey your inner world, merely let whatever thoughts cross your mind come into your awareness, each to be considered for a moment and then replaced by the next. Try not to establish any thought of hierarchy among them. Watch them come and go as dispassionately as possible. Do not dwell on any one in particular, but try to let the stream move on evenly and calmly, without any special investment on your part. As you sit and quietly watch your thoughts, repeat today’s idea to yourself as often as you care to, but with no sense of hurry.

In addition, repeat the idea for today as often as possible during the day. Remind yourself that you are making a declaration of independence in the name of your own freedom. And in your freedom lies the freedom of the world.

The idea for today is also a particularly useful one to use as a response to any form of temptation. It is a declaration that you will not yield to it and put yourself in bondage.

Lesson 32

“I have invented the world I see.”

Today we are continuing to develop the theme of cause and effect. You are not the victim of the world you see because you invented it. You can give it up as easily as you made it up. You will see it or not see it, as you wish. While you want it you will see it; when you no longer want it, it will not be there for you to see.

The idea for today, like the preceding ones, applies to your inner and outer worlds, which are actually the same. However, since you see them as different, the practice periods for today will again include two phases, one involving the world you see outside you, and the other the world you see in your mind. In today’s exercises, try to introduce the thought that both are in your own imagination.

Again we will begin the practice periods for the morning and evening by repeating the idea for today two or three times while looking around at the world you see as outside yourself. Then close your eyes and look around your inner world. Try to treat them both as equally as possible. Repeat the idea for today unhurriedly as often as you wish, as you watch the images your imagination presents to your awareness.

For the two longer practice periods, three to five minutes are recommended, with not less than three required. More than five can be utilized, if you find the exercises restful. To facilitate this, select a time when few distractions are anticipated, and when you yourself feel reasonably ready.

These exercises are also to be continued during the day, as often as possible. The shorter applications consist of repeating the idea slowly, as you survey either your inner or outer world. It does not matter which you choose.

The idea for today should also be applied immediately to any situation which may distress you. Apply the idea by telling yourself:

“I have invented this situation as I see it.”

Lesson 33

“There is another way of looking at the world.”

Today’s idea is an attempt to recognize that you can shift your perception of the world in both its outer and inner aspects. A full five minutes should be devoted to the morning and evening application. In these practice periods, the idea should be repeated as often as you find profitable, though unhurried applications are essential.

Alternate between surveying your outer and inner perceptions, but without an abrupt sense of shifting. Merely glance casually around the world you perceive as outside yourself, then close your eyes and survey your inner thoughts with equal casualness. Try to remain equally uninvolved in both, and to maintain this detachment as you repeat the idea throughout the day.

The shorter exercise periods should be as frequent as possible. Specific applications of today’s idea should also be made immediately when any situation arises which tempts you to become disturbed. For these applications, say:

“There is another way of looking at this.”

Remember to apply today’s idea the instant you are aware of distress. It may be necessary to take a minute or so to sit quietly and repeat the idea to yourself several times. Closing your eyes will probably help in this form of application.

Lesson 34

“I could see peace instead of this.”

The idea for today begins to describe the conditions that prevail in the other way of seeing. Peace of mind is clearly an internal matter. It must begin with your own thoughts, and then extend outward. It is from your peace of mind that a peaceful perception of the world arises.

Three longer practice periods are required for today’s exercises. One in the morning and one in the evening is advised, with an additional one to be undertaken at any time inbetween which seems most conducive to readiness. All applications should be done with your eyes closed. It is your inner world to which the applications of today’s idea should be made.

Some five minutes of mind searching are required for each of the longer practice periods. Search your mind for fear thoughts, anxiety provoking situations, “offending” personalities or events, or anything else about which you are harboring unloving thoughts. Note them all casually, repeating the idea for today slowly as you watch them arise in your mind, and let each one go, to be replaced bythe next.

If you begin to experience difficulty in thinking of specific subjects, continue to repeat the idea to yourself in an unhurried manner, without applying it to anything in particular. Be sure, however, not to make any specific exclusions.

The shorter applications are to be frequent, and made whenever you feel your peace of mind is threatened in any way. The purpose is to protect yourself from temptation throughout the day. If a specific form of temptation arises in your awareness, the exercise should take this form:

“I could see peace in this situation instead of what I now see in it.”

If the inroads on your peace of mind take the form of more generalized adverse emotions, such as depression, anxiety or worry, use the idea in its original form. If you find you need more than one application of today’s idea to help you change your mind in any specific context, try to take several minutes and devote them to repeating the idea until you feel some sense of relief. It will help you if you tell yourself specifically:

“I can replace my feelings of depression, anxiety or worry [or my thoughts about this situation, personality or event] with peace.”

Lesson 35

“My mind is part of God’s. I am very holy.”

Today’s idea does not describe the way you see yourself now. It does, however, describe what vision will show you. It is difficult for anyone who thinks one is in this world to believe this of oneself. Yet the reason one thinks one is in this world is because one does not believe it.

You will believe that you are part of where you think you are. That is because you surround yourself with the environment you want. And you want it to protect the image of yourself that you have made. The image is part of it. What you see while you believe you are in it is seen through the eyes of the image. It is not vision. Images cannot see.

The idea for today presents a very different view of yourself. By establishing your Source it establishes your Identity, and it describes you as you must really be in truth. We will use a somewhat different kind of application for today’s idea, because the emphasis for today is on the perceiver, rather than on what one perceives.

For each of the three five-minute practice periods today, begin by repeating today’s idea to yourself, and then close your eyes and search your mind for the various kinds of descriptive terms in which you see yourself. Include all of the ego-based attributes which you ascribe to yourself, positive or negative, desirable or undesirable, grandiose or debased. All of them are equally unreal because you do not look upon yourself through the eyes of holiness.

In the earlier part of the mind searching period, you will probably emphasize what you consider to be the more negative aspects of your perception of yourself. Toward the latter part of the exercise period, however, more self-inflating descriptive terms may well cross your mind. Try to recognize that the direction of your fantasies about yourself does not matter. Illusions have no direction in reality. They are merely not true.

A suitable unselected list for applying the idea for today might be as follows:

“I see myself as imposed on.”

“I see myself as depressed.”

“I see myself as failing.”

“I see myself as endangered.”

“I see myself as helpless.”

“I see myself as victorious.”

“I see myself as losing out.”

“I see myself as charitable.”

“I see myself as virtuous.”

You should not think of these terms in an abstract way. They will occur to you as various situations, personalities and events in which you figure cross your mind. Pick up any specific situation that occurs to you, identify the descriptive term or terms which you feel are applicable to your reactions to that situation, and use them in applying today’s idea. After you have named each one, add:

“But my mind is part of God’s. I am very holy.”

During the longer exercise periods, there will probably be intervals in which nothing specific occurs to you. Do not strain to think up specific things to fill the interval, but merely relax and repeat today’s idea slowly until something occurs to you. Although nothing that does occur should be omitted from the exercises, nothing should be “dug out” with effort. Neither force nor discrimination should be used.

As often as possible during the day, pick up a specific attribute or attributes you are ascribing to yourself at the time, and apply the idea for today to them, adding the idea to each of them in the form stated above. If nothing particular occurs to you, merely repeat the idea to yourself, with closed eyes.

Lesson 36

“My holiness envelops everything I see.”

Today’s idea extends the idea for yesterday from the perceiver to the perceived. You are holy because your mind is part of God’s. And because you are holy, your sight must be holy as well. “Sinless” means without sin. You cannot be without sin a little. You are sinless or not.

If your mind is part of God’s you must be sinless, or a part of One’s Mind would be sinful. Your sight is related to One’s holiness, not to your ego and therefore not to your body.

Four three to five minute practice periods are required for today. Try to distribute them fairly evenly, and make the shorter applications frequently, to protect your protection throughout the day. The longer practice periods should take this form:

First, close your eyes and repeat the idea for today several times slowly. Then open your eyes and look quite slowly about you, applying the idea specifically to whatever you note in your casual survey. Say, for example:

“My holiness envelops that rug.”

“My holiness envelops that wall.”

“My holiness envelops these fingers.”

“My holiness envelops that chair.”

“My holiness envelops that body.”

“My holiness envelops this pen.”

Several times during these practice periods, close your eyes and repeat the idea to yourself. Then open your eyes, and continue as before.

For the shorter exercise periods, close your eyes and repeat the idea; look about you as you repeat it again; and conclude with one more repetition with your eyes closed. All applications should, of course, be made quite slowly, as effortlessly and unhurriedly as possible.

Lesson 37

“My holiness blesses the world.”

This idea contains the first glimmerings of your true function in the world, or why you are here. Your purpose is to see the world through your own holiness. Thus are you and the world blessed together.

No one loses; nothing is taken away from anyone; everyone gains through your holy vision. It signifies the end of sacrifice, because it offers everyone one’s full due. And one is entitled to everything, because it is one’s birthright as a Child of God.

There is no other way in which the idea of sacrifice can be removed from the world’s thinking. Any other way of seeing will inevitably demand payment of someone or something. As a result, the perceiver will lose. Nor will one have any idea why one is losing. Yet is one’s wholeness restored to one’s awareness through your vision. Your holiness blesses one by asking nothing of one. Those who see themselves as whole make no demands.

Your holiness is the salvation of the world. It lets you teach the world that it is one with you, not by preaching to it, not by telling it anything, but merely by your quiet recognition that in your holiness are all things blessed, along with you.

Today’s four longer exercise periods, each to involve three to five minutes of practice, begin with the repetition of the idea for today, followed by a minute or so of looking about you as you apply the idea to whatever you see:

“My holiness blesses this chair.”

“My holiness blesses that window.”

“My holiness blesses this body.”

Then close your eyes and apply the idea to any person who occurs to you, using one’s name and saying:

“My holiness blesses you, [name].”

You may continue the practice period with your eyes closed; you may open your eyes again and apply the idea for today to your outer world if you so desire; you may alternate between applying it to what you see around you and to those who are in your thoughts; or you may use any combination of these two phases of application which you prefer. The practice period should conclude with a repetition of the idea made with your eyes closed, and another following immediately, with your eyes open.

The shorter exercises consist of repeating the idea as often as you can. It is particularly helpful to apply it silently to anyone you meet, using one’s name as you do so. It is essential to use the idea if anyone seems to cause an adverse reaction in you. Offer one the blessing of your holiness immediately, that you may learn to keep it in your own awareness.

Lesson 38

“There is nothing my holiness cannot do.”

Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance and limits of any kind. Your holiness is totally unlimited in its power because it establishes you as a Child of God, at one with the Mind of one’s Creator. Through your holiness the power of God is made manifest. Through your holiness the power of God is made available. And there is nothing the power of God cannot do.

Your holiness, then, can remove all pain, can end all sorrow, and can solve all problems. It can do so in connection with yourself and with anyone else. It is equal in its power to help anyone, because it is equal in its power to save anyone. If you are holy, so is everything God created. You are holy because all things One created are holy. And all things One created are holy because you are.

In today’s exercises, we will apply the power of your holiness to all problems, difficulties or suffering in any form that you happen to think of in yourself or someone else. We will make no distinctions because there are no distinctions.

In the four longer practice periods, each preferably to last a full five minutes, repeat the idea for today, close your eyes, and then search your mind for any sense of loss or unhappiness of any kind as you see it. Try to make as little distinction as possible between a situation that is difficult for you and one that is difficult for someone else. Identify the situation specifically, and also the name of the person concerned. Use this form in applying the idea for today:

“In the situation involving ______ in which I see myself, there is nothing that my holiness cannot do.”

“In the situation involving ______ in which _____ sees oneself, there is nothing my holiness cannot do.”

From time to time you may want to vary this procedure, and add some relevant thoughts of your own. You might like, for example, to include thoughts such as:

“There is nothing my holiness cannot do because the power of God lies in it.”

Introduce whatever variations appeal to you, but keep the exercises focused on the theme,

“There is nothing my holiness cannot do.”

The purpose of today’s exercises is to begin to instill in you a sense that you have dominion over all things because of what you are.

In the frequent shorter applications, apply the idea in its original form unless a specific problem concerning you or someone else arises, or comes to mind. In that event, use the more specific form of application.

Lesson 39

“My holiness is my salvation.”

If guilt is hell, what is its opposite? Like the text for which this workbook was written, the ideas which are used for the exercises are very simple, very clear and totally unambiguous. We are not concerned with intellectual feats nor logical toys. We are dealing only in the very obvious, which has been overlooked in the clouds of complexity in which you think you think.

If guilt is hell, what is its opposite? This is not difficult, surely. The hesitation you may feel in answering is not due to the ambiguity of the question. But do you believe that guilt is hell? If you did, you would see at once how direct and simple the text is, and you would not need a workbook at all. No one needs practice to gain what is already one’s.

We have already said that your holiness is the salvation of the world. What about your own salvation? You cannot give what you do not have. A savior must be saved. How else can one teach salvation? Today’s exercises will apply to you alone, recognizing that your salvation is crucial to the salvation of the world. As you apply the exercises to your own world, the whole world stands to benefit.

Your holiness is the answer to every question that was ever asked, is being asked now, or will be asked in the future. Your holiness means the end of guilt, and therefore the end of hell. Your holiness is the salvation of the world, and your own. How could you to whom your holiness belongs be excluded from it? God does not know unholiness. Can it be One does not know One’s Child?

A full five minutes are urged for the four longer practice periods for today. Longer and more frequent practice sessions are encouraged. If you want to exceed the minimum requirements, more rather than longer sessions are recommended, although both are encouraged.

Begin the practice periods as usual, by repeating today’s idea to yourself. Then, with closed eyes, search out your unloving thoughts in whatever form they appear: uneasiness, depression, anger, fear, worry, attack, insecurity and so on. Whatever form they take, they are unloving and therefore fearful. And so it is from them that you need to be saved.

Specific situations, events or personalities you associate with unloving thoughts of any kind are suitable subjects for today’s exercises. It is imperative for your own salvation that you see them differently. And it is your blessing on them that will save you and give you vision.

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. Apply the idea for today to each one of them in this way:

“My unloving thoughts about _____ are keeping me in hell. My holiness is my salvation.”

You may find these sessions easier if you intersperse the applications with several short periods during which you merely repeat today’s idea to yourself slowly a few times. 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. Sustained concentration is very difficult at first. It will become much easier as your mind becomes more disciplined and less distractible.

Meanwhile, you should feel free to introduce variety into your application periods, in whatever form appeals to you. Do not, however, change the idea itself in varying the method of applying it. However you elect to use it, the idea should be stated so that its meaning remains that your holiness is your salvation. End each practice period by repeating the idea in its original form once more, and adding:

“If guilt is hell, what is its opposite?”

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, or preferably both. If temptations arise, a particularly helpful form of the idea is:

“My holiness is my salvation from this.”

Lesson 40

“I am blessed as a Child of God.”

Today we will begin to assert some of the happy things to which you are entitled, being what you are. No long practice periods are required today, but very frequent short ones are necessary. Once every ten minutes would be highly desirable, and you are urged to attempt this and to adhere to this schedule whenever possible. If you forget, try again. If there are long interruptions, try again. Whenever you remember, try again.

You need not close your eyes for the exercise periods, although you will probably find it more helpful if you do. However, you may be in a number of situations during the day when closing your eyes would not be appropriate. Do not miss a practice period because of this. You can practice quite well under almost any circumstance, if you really want to.

Today’s exercises take little time and no effort. Repeat today’s idea, and then add several of the attributes which you associate with being a Child of God, applying them to yourself. One practice period might, for example, consist of the following:

“I am blessed as a Child of God.

I am happy, peaceful, loving and contented.”

Another might be something as follows:

“I am blessed as a Child of God.

I am calm, quiet, assured and confident.”

If only a brief period is available, merely telling yourself that you are blessed as a Child of God will do.

Lesson 41

“God goes with me wherever I go.”

Today’s idea will eventually overcome completely the sense of loneliness and abandonment which all the separated ones experience. Depression is an inevitable consequence of separation. So are anxiety, worry, a deep sense of helplessness, misery, suffering and intense fear of loss.

The separated ones have invented many “cures” for what they believe to be “the ills of the world.” But the one thing they do not do is to question the reality of the problem. Yet its effects cannot be cured because it is not real. The idea for today has the power to end all this foolishness forever. And foolishness it is, despite the serious and tragic forms it may take.

Deep within you is everything that is perfect, ready to radiate through you and out into the whole world. It will cure all sorrow and pain and fear and loss because it will heal the mind that thought these things were real, and suffered out of its allegiance to these beliefs.

You can never be deprived of your perfect holiness because its Source goes with you wherever you go. You can never suffer because the Source of all joy goes with you wherever you go. You can never be alone because the Source of all life goes with you wherever you go. Nothing can destroy your peace of mind because God goes with you wherever you go.

We understand that you do not believe all this. How could you, when the truth is hidden deep within, under a heavy cloud of insane thoughts, dense and obscuring, yet representing all you see?

Today we will make our first real attempt to get past this dark and heavy cloud, and to go through it to the light beyond. There will be only one long practice period today. In the morning, as soon as you get up if possible, sit quietly for some three to five minutes with your eyes closed. At the beginning of the practice period, repeat today’s idea very slowly. Then make no effort to think of anything. Try, instead, to get a sense of turning inward, past all the idle thoughts of the world. Try to enter very deeply into your own mind, keeping it clear of any thoughts that might divert your attention.

From time to time, you may repeat today’s idea, if you find it helpful. But most of all, try to sink down and inward, away from the world and all the foolish thoughts of the world. You are trying to reach past all these things. You are trying to leave appearances and approach reality.

It is quite possible to reach God. In fact it is very easy, because it is the most natural thing in the world. You might even say it is the only natural thing in the world. The way will open if you believe that it is possible. This exercise can bring very startling results even the first time it is attempted. And sooner or later it is always successful. We will go into more detail in connection with this kind of practice as we go along. But it will never fail completely, and instant success is possible.

Throughout the day use today’s idea often, repeating it very slowly, and preferably with eyes closed. Think of what you are saying; what the words mean. Concentrate on the holiness which they imply about you; on the unfailing companionship which is yours; on the complete protection that surrounds you.

You can indeed afford to laugh at fear thoughts, remembering that God goes with you wherever you go.

Lesson 42

“God is my strength. Vision is One’s gift.”

The idea for today combines two very powerful thoughts, both of major importance. It also sets forth a cause and effect relationship which explains why you cannot fail in your efforts to achieve the goal of the course. You will see because it is the Will of God. It is One’s strength, not your own, that gives you power. And it is One’s gift to you, rather than your own, which offers vision to you.

God is indeed your strength. And what One gives is truly given. This means that you can receive it any time and anywhere, wherever you are and in whatever circumstances you find yourself. Your passage through time and space is not random. You cannot but be in the right place at the right time. Such is the strength of God. Such are One’s gifts.

We will have two three-to-five-minute longer exercise periods today, one as soon as possible after you wake, and another as close as possible to the time you go to sleep. It is better, however, to wait until you can sit quietly by yourself at a time when you feel ready than it is to be concerned with the time as such.

Begin the practice period by repeating the idea for today slowly, with eyes open, looking about you. Then close your eyes and repeat the idea again, quite slowly. After this, try to think of nothing except thoughts which occur to you in relation to today’s idea. You might think, for example:

“Vision must be possible. God gives truly,”

Or,

“God’s gifts to me must be mine, because One gave them to me.”

Whatever thought that is clearly related to the idea itself is suitable. You may, in fact, be astonished at the amount of course-related understanding some of your own thoughts contain. Let them come without censoring unless you realize your mind is merely wandering, and you have let obviously irrelevant thoughts intrude.

You may also reach a point where no thoughts at all seem to come to mind. If such interferences occur, open your eyes and repeat the thought once more while looking slowly about; close your eyes, repeat the idea once more, and then continue to look for related thoughts in your mind.

Remember, though that active searching is not appropriate for today’s exercises. Try merely to step back and let the thoughts come. If you find this difficult, it is better to spend the practice period alternating between slow repetitions of the idea with eyes open, then closed, then open, and so on, than it is to strain in order to find suitable thoughts.

There is no limit on the number of short practice periods which would be most beneficial. The idea for the day is a beginning step in bringing thoughts together and teaching you that what you are studying is a unified thought system in which nothing is lacking that is needed, and nothing is included that is contradictory or irrelevant.

The more often you repeat the idea during the day, the more often you will be reminding yourself that the goal of the course is important to you, and that you have not forgotten it.

Lesson 43

“God is my Source. I cannot see apart from One.”

Perception is not an attribute of God. One’s is the realm of knowledge. Yet One has created the Holy Spirit as the Mediator between perception and knowledge. Without this link with God, perception would have replaced knowledge forever in your minds. With this link with God, perception will become so changed and purified that it will lead to knowledge. That is its function as the Holy Spirit sees it. Therefore, that is its function in truth.

In God you cannot see. Perception has no function in God, and does not exist. Yet in salvation, which is the undoing of what never was, perception has a mighty purpose. Made by the Child of God for an unholy purpose, it must become the means for the restoration of one’s holiness to one’s awareness. Perception has no meaning. Yet does the Holy Spirit give it a meaning very close to God’s. Healed perception becomes the means by which the Child of God forgives one’s sibling and thus forgives oneself.

You cannot see apart from God because you cannot be apart from God. Whatever you do you do in One because whatever you think you think with One’s Mind. If vision is real, and it is real to the extent to which it shares the Holy Spirit’s purpose, then you cannot see apart from God.

Three five-minute practice periods are required today, one as early as possible and another as late as possible. The third may be undertaken at the most convenient and suitable time which circumstances and readiness permit.

At the beginning of these practice periods, repeat the idea to yourself with eyes open. Then glance around you for a short time, applying the idea specifically to what you see. Four or five subjects for this phase of the exercises are sufficient. You might say, for example:

“God is my Source. I cannot see this desk apart from One.”

“God is my Source. I cannot see that picture apart from One.”

Although this part of the exercise period should be relatively short, be sure that you select the subjects for this phase indiscriminately, without self-directed inclusion or exclusion.

For the second and longer phase of the exercise period, close your eyes, repeat today’s idea again, and then let whatever relevant thoughts occur to you add to the idea in your own personal way.

Thoughts such as:

“I see through the eyes of forgiveness,”

“I see the world as blessed,”

“The world can show me myself,”

“I see my own thoughts, which are like God’s,”

or any thought related more or less directly to today’s idea is suitable.

The thoughts need not bear an obvious relationship to the idea, but they should not be in opposition to it.

If you should find your mind wandering; if you begin to be aware of thoughts which are clearly out of accord with today’s idea, or if you seem to be unable to think of anything, open your eyes, repeat the first phase, and then try the second phase again. Do not allow any protracted period to occur in which you become preoccupied with irrelevant thoughts. Return to the first phase of the exercises as often as necessary to prevent this.

In applying today’s idea in the shorter practice periods, the form may vary according to the circumstances and situations in which you find yourself during the day. When you are with someone else, for example, try to remember to tell one silently,

“God is my Source. I cannot see you apart from One.”

This form is equally applicable to strangers and to those you know well. Try, in fact, not to make distinctions of this kind at all.

The idea should also be applied throughout the day to various situations and events which may occur, particularly to those which distress you in any way. For this kind of application use this form:

“God is my Source. I cannot see this apart from One.”

If no particular subject presents itself to your awareness merely repeat the idea in its original form.

Try today not to allow long periods of time to slip by without remembering today’s idea, and thus remembering your function.

Lesson 44

“God is the Light in which I see.”

Today we are continuing with the idea for yesterday, adding another dimension to it. You cannot see in darkness, and you cannot make light. You can make darkness and then think you see in it, but light reflects life, and is therefore an aspect of creation. Creation and darkness cannot coexist, but light and life must go together, being but different aspects of creation.

In order to see, one must recognize that light is within, not without. You do not see outside yourself. Nor is the equipment for seeing outside you. An essential part of this equipment is the light that makes seeing possible. It is with you always, making vision possible in every circumstance.

Today we are going to attempt to reach that light. For that purpose, we will use a form of practice which has been suggested once before, and which we will utilize increasingly. It is a particularly difficult form for the undisciplined mind because it represents a major goal of mind training. It embodies precisely what the untrained mind lacks. Yet the training must be accomplished if you are to see.

Have at least three practice periods today, each lasting three to five minutes. A longer time is highly recommended, but only if you find the time merely slipping by with little or no sense of strain. The form of exercise we will use today is the most natural and easy one in the world for the trained mind, just as it seems to be the most unnatural and difficult for the untrained mind.

Your mind is no longer wholly untrained. You are quite ready to learn the form of exercise we will use today, but you may find that you will encounter strong resistance. The reason is very simple. While you practice in this form, you leave behind everything that you now believe, and all the thoughts which you have made up. Properly speaking, this is the release from hell. Perceived through the ego’s eyes, it is loss of identity and a descent into hell.

If you can stand aside from the ego ever so little, you will have no difficulty in recognizing that its opposition and fears are meaningless. You might find it helpful to remind yourself from time to time that to reach light is to escape from darkness, whatever you may believe to the contrary. God is the Light in which you see. You are attempting to reach One.

Begin the practice period by repeating today’s idea with your eyes open, and close them slowly, repeating the idea several times more. Then try to sink into your mind, letting go every kind of interference and intrusion by quietly sinking past them. Your mind cannot be stopped in this unless you choose to stop it. It is merely taking its natural course. Try to observe your passing thoughts without involvement, and slip quietly by them.

While no particular form of approach is advocated, what is needful is a sense of the importance of what you are doing; its inestimable value to you; and an awareness that you are attempting something very holy. Salvation is your happiest accomplishment. It is also the only one that has any meaning, because it is the only one that has any use to you at all.

If resistance rises in any form, pause long enough to repeat today’s idea, keeping your eyes closed unless you are aware of fear. In that case, you will probably find it more reassuring to open your eyes briefly. Try, however, to return to the exercises as soon as possible.

If you are doing the exercises correctly, you should experience some sense of relaxation, and even a feeling that you are approaching, if not actually entering into light. Try to think of light, formless and without limit, as you pass by the thoughts of this world. And do not forget that they cannot hold you to the world unless you give them the power to do so.

Throughout the day, repeat the idea often, with eyes open or closed as seems better to you at the time. Do not forget. Above all, be determined not to forget today.

Lesson 45

“God is the Mind with which I think.”

Today’s idea holds the key to what your real thoughts are. They are nothing that you think you think, just as nothing that you think you see is related to vision in any way. There is no relationship between what is real and what you think is real. Nothing that you think are your real thoughts resemble your real thoughts in any respect. Nothing that you think you see bears any resemblance to what vision will show you.

You think with the Mind of God. Therefore you share your thoughts with One, as One shares One’s with you. They are the same thoughts because they are thought by the same Mind. To share is to make alike, or to make one. Nor do the thoughts you think with the Mind of God leave your mind, because thoughts do not leave their source. Therefore your thoughts are in the Mind of God, as you are. They are in your mind as well, where One is. As you are part of One’s Mind, so are your thoughts part of One’s Thoughts.

Where, then, are your real thoughts? Today we will attempt to reach them. We will have to look for them in your mind, because that is where they are. They must still be there because they cannot have left. What is thought by the Mind of God is eternal, being part of creation.

Our three five-minute practice periods for today will take the same general form that we used in applying yesterday’s idea. We will attempt to leave the unreal and seek for the real. We will deny the world in favor of truth. We will not let the thoughts of the world hold us back, and we will not let the beliefs of the world tell us that what God would have us do is impossible.

Instead, we will try to recognize that only what God would have us do is possible. We will also try to understand that only what God would have us do is what we want to do. And we will also try to remember that we cannot fail in doing what One would have us do. There is every reason to feel confident that you will succeed today. It is the Will of God.

Begin the exercises for today by repeating the idea to yourself, closing your eyes as you do so. Spend a fairly short period in thinking a few relevant thoughts of your own, keeping the idea in mind as you do so. After you have added some four or five thoughts of your own repeat the idea again, and tell yourself gently:

“My real thoughts are in my mind. I would like to find them.”

Then try to go past all the unreal thoughts that cover the truth in your mind, and reach to the eternal.

Under all the senseless thoughts and mad ideas with which you have cluttered up your mind are the thoughts which you thought with God in the beginning. They are there in your mind now, completely unchanged. They will always be in your mind, exactly as they always were.

Everything that you have thought since then will change, but the foundation on which they rest is wholly changeless. It is this foundation toward which the exercises for today are directed. Here is your mind joined with the Mind of God. Here are your thoughts one with One’s.

For this kind of practice only one thing is necessary; approach it as you would an altar dedicated in Heaven itself to God the Creator and God the Child. For such is the place you are trying to reach. You will probably be unable as yet to realize how high you are trying to go. Yet even with the little understanding you have already gained, you should be able to remind yourself that this is no idle game, but an exercise in holiness and an attempt to reach the Realm of Heaven.

In using the shorter form for applying today’s idea, try to remember how important it is to you to understand the holiness of the mind that thinks with God. Take a minute or two, as you repeat the idea throughout the day, to appreciate your mind’s holiness. Stand aside, however briefly, from all thoughts that are unworthy of One Whose host you are. And thank One for the thoughts One is thinking with you.

Lesson 46

“God is the Love in which I forgive.”

God does not forgive because One has never condemned. And there must be condemnation before forgiveness is necessary. Forgiveness is the great need of this world, but that is because it is a world of illusions. Those who forgive are thus releasing themselves from illusions, while those who withhold forgiveness are binding themselves to them. As you condemn only yourself, so do you forgive only yourself.

Although God does not forgive, One’s Love is nevertheless the basis of forgiveness. Fear condemns and love forgives. Forgiveness thus undoes what fear has produced, returning the mind to the awareness of God. For this reason, forgiveness can truly be called salvation. It is the means by which illusions disappear.

Today’s exercises require at least three full five-minute practice periods, and as many shorter applications as possible. Begin the practice periods by repeating today’s idea to yourself, as usual. Close your eyes as you do so, and spend a minute or two in searching your mind for those whom you have not forgiven. It does not matter “how much” you have not forgiven. You have forgiven them entirely or not at all.

If you are doing the exercises well, you should have no difficulty in finding a number of people you have not forgiven. It is a safe rule that anyone you do not like is a suitable subject. Mention each one by name, and say:

“God is the Love in which I forgive you, [name].”

The purpose of the first phase of today’s practice is to put you in the best position to forgive yourself. After you have applied the idea for today to all those who have come to mind, tell yourself,

“God is the Love in which I forgive myself.”

Then devote the remainder of the practice period to offering related ideas such as:

“God is the Love with which I love myself.”

“God is the Love in which I am blessed.”

The form of the applications may vary considerably, but the central idea should not be lost sight of. You might say, for example:

“I cannot be guilty because I am a Child of God.”

“I have already been forgiven.”

“No fear is possible in a mind beloved of God.”

“There is no need to attack because love has forgiven me.”

The practice period should end, however, with a repetition of today’s idea as originally stated.

The shorter applications may consist either of a repetition of the idea for today in the original or in a related form, or in more specific applications if needed. They will be needed at any time during the day when you become aware of any kind of negative reaction to anyone, present or not. In this event, tell one silently,

“God is the Love in which I forgive you.”

Lesson 47

“God is the Strength in which I trust.”

If you are trusting your own strength, you have every reason to be apprehensive, anxious, and fearful. What can you predict or control? What is there in you that can be counted on? What would give you the ability to be aware of all the facets of any problem, and to resolve them in such a way that only good can come of it? What is there in you that gives you the recognition of the right solution, and the guarantee that it will be accomplished?

Of yourself you can do none of these things. To believe that you can is to put your trust where trust is unwarranted, and to justify fear, anxiety, depression, anger, and sorrow. Who can put one’s faith in weakness and feel safe? Yet who can put one’s faith in strength and feel weak?

God is your safety in every circumstance. One’s Voice speaks for One in all situations and in every aspect of all situations, telling you exactly what to do to call upon One’s strength and One’s protection. There are no exceptions because God has no exceptions. And the Voice Which speaks for One thinks as One does.

Today we will try to reach past your own weakness to the Source of real strength. Four five-minute practice periods are necessary today, and longer and more frequent ones are urged. Close your eyes and begin as usual by repeating today’s idea. Then spend a minute or two in searching for situations in your life which you have invested with fear, dismissing each one by telling yourself,

“God is the Strength in which I trust.”

Now try to slip past all concerns related to your own sense of inadequacy. It is obvious that any situation that causes you concern is associated with feelings of inadequacy, since otherwise you would believe that you could deal with the situation successfully. It is not by trusting yourself that you will gain confidence. But the strength of God in you is successful in all things.

The recognition of your own frailty is a necessary step in the correction of your errors. But it is hardly a sufficient one in giving you the confidence which you need and to which you are entitled. You must also gain an awareness that your confidence in your real strength is fully justified in every respect and in all circumstances.

In the latter phase of the practice period, try to reach down into your mind to a place of real safety. You will recognize that you have reached it if you feel a deep peace, however briefly. Let go all the trivial things that churn and bubble on the surface of your mind, and reach down and below them to the Realm of Heaven. There is a place in you where there is perfect peace. There is a place in you where nothing is impossible. There is a place in you where the strength of God abides.

Repeat the idea for today often. Use it as your answer to any disturbance. Remember that peace is your right because you are giving your trust to the strength of God.

Lesson 48

“There is nothing to fear.”

The idea for today simply states a fact. It is not a fact to those who believe in illusions, but illusions are not facts. In truth there is nothing to fear. It is very easy to recognize this. But it is very difficult to recognize for those who want illusions to be true.

Today’s practice periods will be very short, very simple, and very frequent. Merely repeat the idea as often as possible. You can use it with your eyes open at any time and in any situation. It is strongly recommended, however, that you take a minute or so whenever possible to close your eyes and repeat the idea slowly to yourself several times. It is particularly important that you use the idea immediately should anything disturb your peace of mind.

The presence of fear is a sure sign that you are trusting in your own strength. The awareness that there is nothing to fear shows that somewhere in your mind, not necessarily in a place which you recognize as yet, you have remembered God and let One’s Strength take the place of yours. The instant you are willing to do this there is indeed nothing to fear.

Lesson 49

“God’s Voice speaks to me all through the day.”

It is quite possible to listen to God’s Voice all day without interrupting your regular activities in any way. The part of your mind in which truth abides is in constant communication with God, whether you are aware of it or not. It is the other part of your mind that functions in the world and obeys the world’s laws. It is this part which is constantly distracted, disorganized, and highly uncertain.

The part that is listening to the Voice of God is calm, always at rest and wholly certain. It is really the only part there is. The other part is a wild illusion, frantic and distraught, but without reality of any kind. Try today not to listen to it. Try to identify with the part of your mind where stillness and peace reign forever. Try to hear God’s Voice call to you lovingly, reminding you that your Creator has not forgotten One’s Child.

We will need at least four five-minute practice periods today, and more if possible. We will try actually to hear the Voice reminding you of God and of your Self. We will approach this happiest and holiest of thoughts with confidence, knowing that in doing so we are joining our will with the Will of God. One wants you to hear One’s Voice. One gave It to you to be heard.

Listen in deep silence. Be very still and open your mind. Go past all the raucous shrieks and sick imaginings that cover your real thoughts and obscure your eternal link with God. Sink deep into the peace that waits for you beyond the frantic, riotous thoughts and sounds and sights of this insane world. You do not live there. We are trying to reach your real home. We are trying to reach the place where you are truly welcome. We are trying to reach God.

Do not forget to repeat today’s idea very frequently. Do so with your eyes open when necessary, but closed when possible. And be sure that you sit quietly and repeat the idea for today slowly whenever you can, closing your eyes on the world, and realizing that you are inviting God’s Voice to speak to you.

Lesson 50

“I am sustained by the Love of God.”

Here is the answer to every problem that confronts you today and tomorrow and throughout time. In this world, you believe you are sustained by everything but God. Your faith is placed in the most trivial and insane symbols: pills, money, “protective” clothing, “influence,” “prestige,” being liked, knowing the “right” people, and an endless list of forms of nothingness which you endow with magical powers. All these things are your replacements for the Love of God. All these things are cherished to ensure a body identification. They are songs of praise to the ego.

Do not put your faith in the worthless. It will not sustain you. Only the Love of God will protect you in all circumstances. It will lift you out of every trial, and raise you high above all the perceived dangers of this world into a climate of perfect peace and safety. It will transport you into a state of mind which nothing can threaten, nothing can disturb, and nothing can intrude upon: the eternal calm of the Child of God.

Put not your faith in illusions. They will fail you. Put all your faith in the Love of God within you, eternal, changeless and forever unfailing. This is the answer to whatever confronts you today. Through the Love of God in you, you can resolve all seeming difficulties without effort and in sure confidence. Tell yourself this often today. It is a declaration of release from the belief in idols. It is your acknowledgment of the truth about yourself.

Twice today, morning and evening, let the idea for today sink deep into your consciousness. Repeat it, think about it, let related thoughts come to help you recognize its truth, and allow peace to flow over you like a blanket of protection and surety. Let no idle and foolish thoughts enter to disturb the holy mind of the Child of God. Such is the Realm of Heaven. Such is the resting-place where your Creator has placed you forever.

Review 1

Beginning with today, we will have a series of review periods. Each of them will cover five of the ideas already presented, starting with the first and ending with the fiftieth. There will be short comments after each of the ideas, which you should consider in your review. In the practice period, the exercises should be done as follows:

Begin the day by reading the five ideas, with the comments included. Thereafter, it is not necessary to follow any particular order in considering them, though each one should be practiced at least once. Devote two minutes or more to each practice period, thinking about the idea and the related comments. Do this as often as possible during the day. If any one of the five ideas appeals to you more than the others, concentrate on that one. At the end of the day, however, be sure to review all of them once more.

It is not necessary to cover the comments literally or thoroughly in the practice periods. Try, rather, merely to emphasize the central point, and think about it as part of your review of the idea to which it relates.

The review exercises should be done with your eyes closed, and when you are alone in a quiet place, if possible. This is emphasized particularly for reviews at your stage of learning. It will be necessary, however, that you learn to require no special settings in which to apply what you have learned. You will need it most in situations which appear to be upsetting, rather than in those which already seem to be calm and quiet.

The purpose of your learning is to enable you to bring the quiet with you, and to heal distress and turmoil. This is not done by avoiding them and seeking a haven of isolation for yourself. You will yet learn that peace is part of you, and requires only that you be there to embrace any situation in which you are. And finally you will learn that there is no limit to where you are, so that your peace is everywhere, as you are.

You will note that for review purposes the ideas are not always given in quite their original form of statement. Use them as they are given here. It is not necessary to return to the original statements, nor to apply the ideas as was suggested then. We are now emphasizing the relationships among the first fifty of the ideas we have covered, and the cohesiveness of the thought system to which they are leading you.

Lesson 51

Conflicting Wishes

The review for today covers the following ideas:

“Nothing I see means anything.”  Lesson 1

The reason this is so is that I see nothing, and nothing has no meaning. It is necessary that I recognize this, that I may learn to see. What I think I see now is taking the place of vision. I must let it go by realizing it has no meaning, so that vision may take its place.

Miracle Principle 1  There is no order of difficulty among miracles. One is not “harder” or “bigger” than another. They are all the same. All expressions of love are maximal.

“I have given what I see all the meaning it has for me.”  Lesson 2

I have judged everything I look upon, and it is this and only this I see. This is not vision. It is merely an illusion of reality, because my judgments have been made quite apart from reality. I am willing to recognize the lack of validity in my judgments, because I want to see. My judgments have hurt me, and I do not want to see according to them.

Miracle Principle 2  Miracles as such do not matter. The only thing that matters is their Source, Which is far beyond human evaluation.

“I do not understand anything I see.”  Lesson 3

How could I understand what I see when I have judged it amiss? What I see is the projection of my own errors of thought. I do not understand what I see because it is not understandable. There is no sense in trying to understand it. But there is every reason to let it go, and make room for what can be seen and understood and loved. I can exchange what I see now for this merely by being willing to do so. Is not this a better choice than the one I made before?

Miracle Principle 3  Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense, everything that comes from love is a miracle.

“These thoughts do not mean anything.”  Lesson 4

The thoughts of which I am aware do not mean anything because I am trying to think without God. What I call “my” thoughts are not my real thoughts. My real thoughts are the thoughts I think with God. I am not aware of them because I have made my thoughts to take their place. I am willing to recognize that my thoughts do not mean anything, and to let them go. I choose to have them be replaced by what they were intended to replace. My thoughts are meaningless, but all creation lies in the thoughts I think with God.

Miracle Principle 4  All miracles mean life, and God is the Giver of life. One’s Voice will direct you very specifically.

“I am never upset for the reason I think.”  Lesson 5

I am never upset for the reason I think because I am constantly trying to justify my thoughts. I am constantly trying to make them true. I make all things my enemies, so that my anger is justified and my attacks are warranted. I have not realized how much I have misused everything I see by assigning this role to it. I have done this to defend a thought system that has hurt me, and that I no longer want. I am willing to let it go.

Miracle Principle 5  Miracles are habits and should be involuntary. Consciously selected miracles can be misguided.

Lesson 52

This Instant

Today’s review covers these ideas:

“I am upset because I see what is not there.”  Lesson 6

Reality is never frightening. It is impossible that it could upset me. Reality brings only perfect peace. When I am upset, it is always because I have replaced reality with illusions I made up. The illusions are upsetting because I have given them reality, and thus regard reality as an illusion. Nothing in God’s creation is affected in any way by this confusion of mine. I am always upset by nothing.

Miracle Principle 6  Miracles are natural. When they do NOT occur something has gone wrong.

“I see only the past.”  Lesson 7

As I look about, I condemn the world I look upon. I call this seeing. I hold the past against everyone and everything, making them my enemies. When I have forgiven myself and remembered Who I am, I will bless everyone and everything I see. There will be no past, and therefore no enemies. And I will look with love on all that I failed to see before.

Miracle Principle 7  Miracles are everyone’s right, but purification is necessary first.

“My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.”  Lesson 8

I see only my own thoughts, and my mind is preoccupied with the past. What, then, can I see as it is? Let me remember that I look on the past to prevent the present from dawning on my mind. Let me understand that I am trying to use time against God. Let me learn to give the past away, realizing that in so doing I am giving up nothing.

Miracle Principle 8  Miracles are healing because they supply a lack in that they are performed by those who temporarily have more for those who temporarily have less.

“I see nothing as it is now.”  Lesson 9

If I see nothing as it is now, it can truly be said that I see nothing. I can see only what is now. The choice is not whether to see the past or the present; the choice is merely whether to see or not. What I have chosen to see has cost me vision. Now I would choose again, that I may see.

Miracle Principle 9  Miracles are a kind of exchange. Like all expressions of love, which are ALWAYS miraculous in the true sense, the exchange reverses the physical laws: they bring MORE love both to the giver AND the receiver.

“My thoughts do not mean anything.”  Lesson 10

I have no private thoughts. Yet it is only private thoughts of which I am aware. What can these thoughts mean? They do not exist, and so they mean nothing. Yet my mind is part of creation and part of its Creator. Would I not rather join the thinking of the universe than to obscure all that is really mine with my pitiful and meaningless “private” thoughts?

Miracle Principle 10  The use of miracles as spectacles to INDUCE belief is a misunderstanding of their purpose. They are really used FOR and BY believers.

Lesson 53

I Will Not Fear

Today we will review the following:

“My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world.”  Lesson 11

Since the thoughts of which I am aware do not mean anything, the world that pictures them can have no meaning. What is producing this world is insane, and so is what it produces. Reality is not insane, and I have real thoughts as well as insane ones. I can therefore see a real world, if I look to my real thoughts as my guide for seeing.

Miracle Principle 11  Prayer is the medium of miracles. Prayer is the natural communication of the created with the Creator. Through prayer love is received, and through miracles love is expressed.

“I am upset because I see a meaningless world.”  Lesson 12

Insane thoughts are upsetting. They produce a world in which there is no order anywhere. Only chaos rules a world that represents chaotic thinking, and chaos has no laws. I cannot live in peace in such a world. I am grateful that this world is not real, and that I need not see it at all unless I choose to value it. And I do not choose to value what is totally insane and has no meaning.

Miracle Principle 12  Miracles are thoughts. Thoughts can represent lower-order or higher-order reality. This is the basic distinction between intellectualizing and thinking. One makes the physical and the other creates the spiritual, and we believe in what we make or create.

“A meaningless world engenders fear.”  Lesson 13

The totally insane engenders fear because it is completely undependable, and offers no grounds for trust. Nothing in madness is dependable. It holds out no safety and no hope. But such a world is not real. I have given it the illusion of reality, and have suffered from my belief in it. Now I choose to withdraw this belief, and place my trust in reality. In choosing this, I will escape all the effects of the world of fear, because I am acknowledging that it does not exist.

Miracle Principle 13  Miracles are both beginnings and endings, thus they alter the temporal order. They are always affirmations of rebirth, which seem to go back, but really go forward. They undo the past in the present, and thus release the future.

“God did not create a meaningless world.”  Lesson 14

How can a meaningless world exist if God did not create it? One is the Source of all meaning, and everything that is real is in One’s Mind. It is in my mind too, because One created it with me. Why should I continue to suffer from the effects of my own insane thoughts, when the perfection of creation is my home? Let me remember the power of my decision, and recognize where I really abide.

Miracle Principle 14  Miracles bear witness to truth. They are convincing because they arise from conviction. Without conviction they deteriorate into magic, which is mindless, and therefore destructive—or rather, the uncreative use of mind.

“My thoughts are images that I have made.”  Lesson 15

Whatever I see reflects my thoughts. It is my thoughts that tell me where I am and what I am. The fact that I see a world in which there is suffering and loss and death shows me that I am seeing only the representation of my insane thoughts, and am not allowing my real thoughts to cast their beneficent light on what I see. Yet God’s way is sure. The images I have made cannot prevail against One because it is not my will that they do so. My will is One’s, and I will place no other gods before One.

Miracle Principle 15  Each day should be devoted to miracles. The purpose of time is to enable one to learn to use it constructively. Time is thus a teaching device, and a means to an end. It will cease when it is no longer useful in facilitating learning.

Lesson 54

In Fearlessness and Love

These are the review ideas for today:

“I have no neutral thoughts.”  Lesson 16

Neutral thoughts are impossible because all thoughts have power. They will either make a false world or lead me to the real one. But thoughts cannot be without effects. As the world I see arises from my thinking errors, so will the real world rise before my eyes as I let my errors be corrected. My thoughts cannot be neither true nor false. They must be one or the other. What I see shows me which they are.

Miracle Principle 16  Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating that it is more blessed to give than to receive. They simultaneously increase the strength of the giver and supply strength to the receiver.

“I see no neutral things.”  Lesson 17

What I see witnesses to what I think. If I did not think I would not exist, because life is thought. Let me look on the world I see as the representation of my own state of mind. I know that my state of mind can change. And so I also know the world I see can change as well.

Miracle Principle 17  Miracles are the transcendence of the body. They are sudden shifts into invisibility, away from a sense of lower-order reality. That is why they heal.

“I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing.”  Lesson 18

If I have no private thoughts, I cannot see a private world. Even the mad idea of separation had to be shared before it could form the basis of the world I see. Yet that sharing was a sharing of nothing. I can also call upon my real thoughts, which share everything with everyone. As my thoughts of separation call to the separation thoughts of others, so my real thoughts awaken the real thoughts in them. And the world my real thoughts show me will dawn on their sight as well as mine.

Miracle Principle 18  A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service one individual can render another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. The doer recognizes one’s own and one’s neighbor’s inestimable worth simultaneously.

“I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts.”  Lesson 19

I am alone in nothing. Everything I think or say or do teaches all the universe. A Child of God cannot think or speak or act in vain. One cannot be alone in anything. It is therefore in my power to change every mind along with mine, for mine is the power of God.

Miracle Principle 19  Miracles make minds one in God. They depend on cooperation, because the Christhood is the sum of all the Spirits God created. Miracles therefore rest on the laws of eternity, not of time.

“I am determined to see.”  Lesson 20

Recognizing the shared nature of my thoughts, I am determined to see. I would look upon the witnesses that show me the thinking of the world has been changed. I would behold the proof that what has been done through me has enabled love to replace fear, laughter to replace tears, and abundance to replace loss. I would look upon the real world, and let it teach me that my will and the Will of God are one.

Miracle Principle 20  Miracles reawaken the awareness that the Spirit, not the body, is the altar of truth. This is the recognition that leads to the healing power of the miracle.

Lesson 55

God’s Judgement

Today’s review includes the following:

“I am determined to see things differently.”  Lesson 21

What I see now are but signs of disease, disaster and death. This cannot be what God created for One’s beloved Child. The very fact that I see such things is proof that I do not understand God. Therefore I also do not understand One’s Child. What I see tells me that I do not know who I am. I am determined to see the witnesses to the truth in me, rather than those which show me an illusion of myself.

Miracle Principle 21  Miracles are natural expressions of total forgiveness. Through miracles, one accepts God’s forgiveness by extending it to others.

“What I see is a form of vengeance.”  Lesson 22

The world I see is hardly the representation of loving thoughts. It is a picture of attack on everything by everything. It is anything but a reflection of the Love of God and the Love of One’s Child. It is my own attack thoughts that give rise to this picture. My loving thoughts will save me from this perception of the world, and give me the peace God intended me to have.

Miracle Principle 22  Miracles are associated with fear only because of the fallacious belief that darkness can HIDE. One believes that what one cannot see does not exist, and one’s physical eyes cannot see in the dark. This is a very primitive solution, and has led to a denial of the Spiritual eye.

“I can escape from this world by giving up attack thoughts.”  Lesson 23

Herein lies salvation, and nowhere else. Without attack thoughts I could not see a world of attack. As forgiveness allows love to return to my awareness, I will see a world of peace and safety and joy. And it is this I choose to see, in place of what I look on now.

Miracle Principle 23  Miracles rearrange perception, and place the levels of perception in true perspective. This heals at ALL levels, because sickness comes from confusing the levels.

“I do not perceive my own best interests.”  Lesson 24

How could I recognize my own best interests when I do not know who I am? What I think are my best interests would merely bind me closer to the world of illusions. I am willing to follow the Guide God has given me to find out what my own best interests are, recognizing that I cannot perceive them by myself.

Miracle Principle 24  Miracles enable one to heal the sick and raise the dead because one made sickness and death oneself, and can abolish both. YOU are a miracle, capable of creating in the likeness of your Creator. Everything else is only your own nightmare, and does not exist. Only the Creations of Light are real.

“I do not know what anything is for.”  Lesson 25

To me, the purpose of everything is to prove that my illusions about myself are real. It is for this purpose that I attempt to use everyone and everything. It is for this that I believe the world is for. Therefore I do not recognize its real purpose. The purpose I have given the world has led to a frightening picture of it. Let me open my mind to the world’s real purpose by withdrawing the one I have given it, and learning the truth about it.

Miracle Principle 25  Miracles are part of an interlocking chain of forgiveness which, when completed, is the Atonement. This process works all the time, and in all the dimensions of time.

Lesson 56

God’s Will

Our review for today covers the following:

“My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability.”  Lesson 26

How can I know who I am when I see myself as under constant attack? Pain, illness, loss, age and death seem to threaten me. All my hopes and wishes and plans appear to be at the mercy of a world I cannot control. Yet perfect security and complete fulfillment are my inheritance. I have tried to give my inheritance away in exchange for the world I see. But God has kept my inheritance safe for me. My own real thoughts will teach me what it is.

Miracle Principle 26  Miracles represent FREEDOM from fear. “Atoning” really means “undoing.” The undoing of fear is an essential part of the Atonement value of miracles.

“Above all else I want to see.”  Lesson 27

Recognizing that what I see reflects what I think I am, I realize that vision is my greatest need. The world I see attests to the fearful nature of the self-image I have made. If I would remember who I am, it is essential that I let this image of myself go. As it is replaced by truth, vision will surely be given me. And with this vision I will look upon the world and upon myself with charity and love.

Miracle Principle 27  A miracle is a universal blessing from God through me to ALL my siblings. It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive.

“Above all else I want to see differently.”  Lesson 28

The world I see holds my fearful self-image in place, and guarantees its continuance. While I see the world as I see it now, truth cannot enter my awareness. I would let the door behind this world be opened for me, that I may look past it to the world that reflects the Love of God.

Miracle Principle 28  Miracles are a means of organizing different levels of consciousness. Miracles come from the below or subconscious level. Revelations come from the above or superconscious level. The conscious level is in between, and reacts to either sub- or superconscious impulses in varying ratios. Consciousness is the level which engages in the world, and is capable of responding to both. Having no impulses from itself, and being primarily a mechanism for inducing response, it can be very wrong.

“God is in everything I see.”  Lesson 29

Behind every image I have made, the truth remains unchanged. Behind every veil I have drawn across the Face of Love, its light remains undimmed. Beyond all my insane wishes is my will united with the Will of my Creator. God is still everywhere and in everything forever. And we who are part of One will yet look past all appearances, and recognize the truth beyond them all.

Miracle Principle 29  Miracles are a way of EARNING release from fear. Revelation induces a state in which fear has ALREADY been abolished. Miracles are thus a means, and revelation is an end. Miracles do not depend on revelation—they INDUCE it.

“God is in everything I see because God is in my mind.”  Lesson 30

In my own mind, behind all my insane thoughts of separation and attack, is the knowledge that all is one forever. I have not lost the knowledge of Who I am because I have forgotten it. It has been kept for me in the Mind of God, Who has not left One’s Thoughts. And I, who am among them, am one with them and with One.

Miracle Principle 30  Miracles praise God through you. They praise God by honoring One’s Creations, affirming their perfection. They heal because they deny body-identification and affirm Spirit-identification. By perceiving the Spirit, they adjust the levels and see them in proper alignment. This places the Spirit at the center, where minds can communicate directly.

Lesson 57

New Perception

Today let us review these ideas:

“I am not the victim of the world I see.”  Lesson 31

How can I be the victim of a world that can be completely undone if I so choose? My chains are loosened. I can drop them off merely by desiring to do so. The prison door is open. I can leave it simply by walking out. Nothing holds me in this world. Only my wish to stay keeps me a prisoner. I would give up insane wishes, and walk into the sunlight at last.

Miracle Principle 31  Miracles should inspire gratitude, not awe. One should thank God for what one really is. The Children of God are very holy, and the miracle honors their holiness.

“I have invented the world I see.”  Lesson 32

I made up the prison in which I see myself. All I need do is recognize this, and I am free. I have deluded myself into believing it is possible to imprison the Child of God. I was bitterly mistaken in this belief, which I no longer want. The Child of God must be forever free. One is as God created one, and not what I would make of one. One is where God would have one be, and not where I thought to hold one prisoner.

Miracle Principle 32  Christ inspires all miracles, which are really intercessions. They intercede for one’s holiness, and make one’s perceptions holy.

“There is another way of looking at the world.”  Lesson 33

Since the purpose of the world is not the one I ascribed to it, there must be another way of looking at it. I see everything upside down, and my thoughts are the opposite of truth. I see the world as a prison for God’s Child. It must be, then, that the world is really a place where one can be set free. I would look upon the world as it is, and see it as a place where the Child of God finds one’s freedom.

Miracle Principle 33  Miracles honor one BECAUSE one is lovable. They dispel one’s illusions about oneself, and perceive the Light in one. They thus atone for one’s errors by freeing one from one’s own nightmares WHICH ARE ABOUT ONESELF.

“I could see peace instead of this.”  Lesson 34

When I see the world as a place of freedom, I will realize that it reflects the laws of God instead of the rules which I made up for it to obey. I will understand that peace, not war, abides in it. And I will perceive that peace also abides in the hearts of all who share this place with me.

Miracle Principle 34  Miracles restore the mind to its fullness. By atoning for lack, they establish perfect protection.The strength of the Spirit leaves no room for intrusions. The forgiven are filled with the Spirit, and they forgive in return. The forgiven ARE the means of Atonement. Those released by Christ must join in releasing their siblings, for this is the Plan of the Atonement.

“My mind is part of God’s. I am very holy.”  Lesson 35

As I share the peace of the world with my siblings, I begin to understand that this peace comes from deep within myself. The world I look upon has taken on the light of my forgiveness, and shines forgiveness back at me. In this light, I begin to see what my illusions about myself had kept hidden. I begin to understand the holiness of all living things including myself, and their oneness with me.

Miracle Principle 35  Miracles are the way in which minds that serve the spirit unite with Christ for the salvation or release of all God’s Creations.

Lesson 58

In Your Hands

These ideas are for review today:

“My holiness envelops everything I see.”  Lesson 36

From my holiness does the perception of the real world come. Having forgiven, I no longer see myself as guilty. I can accept the innocence that is the truth about me. Seen through understanding eyes the holiness of the world is all I see, for I can picture only the thoughts I hold about myself.

Miracle Principle 36  Miracles are examples of right thinking. Reality contact at all levels becomes strong and accurate, thus permitting correct delineation of intra– and interpersonal boundaries. As a result, the doer’s perceptions are aligned with truth as God created it.

“My holiness blesses the world.”  Lesson 37

The perception of my holiness does not bless me alone. Everyone and everything I see in its light shares in the joy it brings to me. There is nothing that is apart from this joy, because there is nothing that does not share my holiness. As I recognize my holiness, so does the holiness of the world shine forth for everyone to see.

Miracle Principle 37  A miracle is a correction factor introduced into false thinking by me. It acts as a catalyst, shaking up erroneous perception, and reorganizing it properly. This places one under the Atonement principle, where one’s perception is healed. Until this has occurred, revelation of the Divine order is impossible.

“There is nothing my holiness cannot do.”  Lesson 38

My holiness is unlimited in its power to heal, because it is unlimited in its power to save. What is there to be saved from except illusions? And what are all illusions except false ideas about myself? My holiness undoes them all by asserting the truth about me. In the presence of my holiness, which I share with God Oneself, all idols vanish.

Miracle Principle 38  The Spiritual eye is the mechanism of miracles because what the Holy Spirit perceives IS true. One perceives both the Creations of God and the creations of one. Among the creations of one, One can also separate the true from the false by One’s ability to perceive totally, rather than selectively. One thus becomes the proper instrument for reality testing, which always involves the necessary distinction between the false and the true.

“My holiness is my salvation.”  Lesson 39

Since my holiness saves me from all guilt, recognizing my holiness is recognizing my salvation. It is also recognizing the salvation of the world. Once I have accepted my holiness, nothing can make me afraid. And because I am unafraid, everyone must share in my understanding, which is the gift of God to me and to the world.

Miracle Principle 39  The miracle dissolves error because the Spiritual eye identifies error as false, or unreal. This is the same as saying that by perceiving light, darkness automatically disappears.

“I am blessed as a Child of God.”  Lesson 40

Herein lies my claim to all good and only good. I am blessed as a Child of God. All good things are mine because God intended them for me. I cannot suffer any loss or deprivation or pain because of who I am. My Creator supports me, protects me, and directs me in all things. One’s care for me is infinite, and is with me forever. I am eternally blessed as One’s Child.

Miracle Principle 40  The miracle acknowledges all as your siblings and mine. It is a way of perceiving the universal mark of God in them.

Lesson 59

God’s Gifts

The following ideas are for review today:

“God goes with me wherever I go.”  Lesson 41

How can I be alone when God always goes with me? How can I be doubtful and unsure of myself when perfect certainty abides in One? How can I be disturbed by anything when One rests in me in absolute peace? How can I suffer when love and joy surround me through One? Let me not cherish illusions about myself. I am perfect because God goes with me wherever I go.

Miracle Principle 41  Wholeness is the perceptual content of miracles. It thus corrects, or atones for, the faulty perception of lack anywhere.

“God is my strength. Vision is One’s gift.”  Lesson 42

Let me not look to my own eyes to see today. Let me be willing to exchange my pitiful illusion of seeing for the vision that is given by God. Christ’s vision is One’s gift, and One has given it to me. Let me call upon this gift today, so that this day may help me to understand eternity.

Miracle Principle 42  A MAJOR contribution of miracles is their strength in releasing one from one’s misplaced sense of isolation, deprivation and lack. Miracles are affirmations of Christhood, which is a state of completion and abundance. Whatever is true and real is eternal, and CANNOT change or BE changed. The Spirit is therefore unalterable because it is ALREADY perfect, but the mind can elect the level it chooses to serve. The ONLY limit which is put on its choice is that it CANNOT serve two masters.

“God is my Source. I cannot see apart from One.”  Lesson 43

I can see what God wants me to see. I cannot see anything else. Beyond One’s Will lie only illusions. It is these I choose when I think I can see apart from One. It is these I choose when I try to see through the body’s eyes. Yet the vision of Christ has been given me to replace them. It is through this vision that I choose to see.

Miracle Principle 43  Miracles arise from a miraculous state of mind. By being one, this state of mind goes out to ANYONE, even without the awareness of the miracle worker oneself. The impersonal nature of miracles is because the Atonement itself is one, uniting all creations with their Creator.

“God is the Light in which I see.”  Lesson 44

I cannot see in darkness. God is the only Light. Therefore if I am to see, it must be through One. I have tried to define what seeing is, and I have been wrong. Now it is given me to understand that God is the Light in which I see. Let me welcome vision and the happy world it will show me.

Miracle Principle 44  The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ, and the acceptance of One’s Atonement. The mind is then in a state of grace, and naturally becomes gracious, both to the Host within and the stranger without. By bringing in the stranger, one becomes your sibling.

“God is the Mind with which I think. ”  Lesson 45

I have no thoughts I do not share with God. I have no thoughts apart from One because I have no mind apart from One’s. As part of One’s Mind, my thoughts are One’s and One’s Thoughts are mine.

Miracle Principle 45  A miracle is never lost. It touches many people you do not even know, and sometimes produces undreamed of changes in forces of which you are not even aware. That is not your concern. The miracle will always bless YOU. The miracles you are NOT asked to perform have not lost their value. They are still expressions of your own state of grace, but the ACTION aspect of the miracle should be Christ-controlled because of One’s complete awareness of the Whole Plan. The impersonal nature of miracle-mindedness ensures YOUR grace, but only Christ is in a position to know where grace can be BESTOWED.

Lesson 60

God’s Forgiveness

These ideas are for today’s review:

“God is the Love in which I forgive.”  Lesson 46

God does not forgive because One has never condemned. The blameless cannot blame, and those who have accepted their innocence see nothing to forgive. Yet forgiveness is the means by which I will recognize my innocence. It is the reflection of God’s Love on earth. It will bring me near enough to Heaven that the Love of God can reach down to me and raise me to my home.

Miracle Principle 46  Miracle-mindedness means miracle-readiness. Readiness means that you should always keep your perceptions straight, so that you will ALWAYS be ready, willing and able. These are the essentials for “listen, learn and do.” You must be READY to listen, WILLING to learn, and ABLE to do. Only the last is involuntary, because it is the APPLICATION of miracles which must be Christ-controlled. The other two, which are the VOLUNTARY aspects of miracle-mindedness, ARE up to you.

“God is the Strength in which I trust.”  Lesson 47

It is not my own strength through which I forgive. It is through the strength of God in me, which I am remembering as I forgive. As I begin to see, I recognize One’s reflection on earth. I forgive all things because I feel the stirring of One’s strength in me. And I begin to remember the Love I chose to forget, but Which has not forgotten me.

Miracle Principle 47  The miracle is a sign of love among equals. Equals cannot be in awe of one another because awe implies inequality.

“There is nothing to fear.”  Lesson 48

How safe the world will look to me when I can see it! It will not look anything like what I imagine I see now. Everyone and everything I see will lean toward me to bless me. I will recognize in everyone my dearest Friend. What could there be to fear in a world which I have forgiven, and which has forgiven me?

Miracle Principle 48  The Holy Spirit is the Highest Communication Medium. Miracles do not involve this type of communication because they are TEMPORARY communication devices. When one returns to one’s original form of communication with God, the need for miracles is over. The Holy Spirit mediates higher to lower communication, keeping the direct channel from God to one open for revelation. Revelation is not reciprocal. It is always FROM God TO one. The miracle IS reciprocal because it involves equality.

“God’s Voice speaks to me all through the day.”  Lesson 49

There is not a moment in which God’s Voice ceases to call on my forgiveness to save me. There is not a moment in which One’s Voice fails to direct my thoughts, guide my actions, and lead my feet. I am walking steadily on toward truth. There is nowhere else I can go, because God’s Voice is the only voice and the only guide that has been given to One’s Child.

Miracle Principle 49  The miracle is a learning device which lessens the need for time. The miracle is the only device which one has at one’s immediate disposal for controlling time. Only revelation TRANSCENDS time, having nothing to do with time at all.

“I am sustained by the Love of God.”  Lesson 50

As I listen to God’s Voice, I am sustained by One’s Love. As I open my eyes, One’s Love lights up the world for me to see. As I forgive, One’s Love reminds me that One’s Child is sinless. And as I look upon the world with the vision One has given me, I remember that I am One’s Child.

Miracle Principle 50  The miracle makes NO distinction among degrees of misperception. It is a device for perception-correction, effective quite apart from either the degree or the direction of the error. This is its TRUE indiscriminateness.

Lesson 61

“I am the light of the world.”

Who is the light of the world except God’s Child? This, then, is merely a statement of the truth about yourself. It is the opposite of a statement of pride, of arrogance, or of self-deception. It does not describe the self-concept you have made. It does not refer to any of the characteristics with which you have endowed your idols. It refers to you as you were created by God. It simply states the truth.

To the ego, today’s idea is the epitome of self-glorification. But the ego does not understand humility, mistaking it for self-debasement. Humility consists of accepting your role in salvation, and in taking no other. It is not humility to insist that you cannot be the light of the world, if that is the function God assigned to you. It is only arrogance that would assert this function cannot be for you, and arrogance is always of the ego.

True humility requires that you accept today’s idea because it is God’s Voice which tells you it is true. This is a beginning step in accepting your real function on earth. It is a giant stride toward taking your rightful place in salvation. It is a positive assertion of your right to be saved, and an acknowledgment of the power that is given you to save others.

You will want to think about this idea as often as possible today. It is the perfect answer to all illusions, and therefore to all temptation. It brings all the images you have made about yourself to the truth, and helps you depart in peace, unburdened and certain of your purpose.

As many practice periods as possible should be undertaken today, although each one need not exceed a minute or two. They should begin with telling yourself:

“I am the light of the world.

That is my only function.

That is why I am here.”

Then think about these statements for a short while, preferably with your eyes closed if the situation permits. Let a few related thoughts come to you, and repeat the idea to yourself if your mind wanders away from the central thought.

Be sure both to begin and end the day with a practice period. Thus you will awaken with an acknowledgment of the truth about yourself, reinforce it throughout the day, and turn to sleep as you re-affirm your function and your only purpose here. These two practice periods may be longer than the rest, if you find them helpful and want to extend them.

Today’s idea goes far beyond the ego’s petty views of what you are and what your purpose is. As a bringer of salvation, this is obviously necessary. This is the first of a number of giant steps we will take in the next few weeks. Try today to begin to build a firm foundation for these advances. You are the light of the world. God has built One’s plan for the salvation of One’s Child on you.

Lesson 62

“Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world.”

It is your forgiveness that will bring the world of darkness to the light. It is your forgiveness that lets you recognize the light in which you see. Forgiveness is the demonstration that you are the light of the world. Through your forgiveness does the truth about yourself return to your memory. Therefore in your forgiveness lies your salvation.

Illusions about yourself and the world are one. That is why all forgiveness is a gift to yourself. Your goal is to find out who you are, having denied your identity by attacking creation and its Creator. Now you are learning how to remember the truth. For this, attack must be replaced by forgiveness, so that thoughts of life may replace thoughts of death.

Remember that in every attack you call upon your own weakness, while every time you forgive you call upon the strength of Christ in you. Do you not then begin to understand what forgiveness will do for you? It will remove all sense of weakness, strain and fatigue from your mind. It will take away all fear and guilt and pain. It will restore the invulnerability and power God gave One’s Child to your awareness.

Let us be glad to begin and end this day by practicing today’s idea, and to use it as frequently as possible throughout the day. It will help to make the day as happy for you as God wants you to be. And it will help those around you, as well as those who seem to be far away in space and time, to share this happiness with you.

As often as you can, closing your eyes if possible, say to yourself:

“Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world.

I would fulfill my function that I may be happy.”

Then devote a minute or two to considering your function, and the happiness and release it will bring you.

Let related thoughts come freely, for your heart will recognize these words, and in your mind is the awareness that they are true. Should your attention wander, repeat the idea and add:

“I would remember this because I want to be happy.”

Lesson 63

“The light of the world brings peace to every mind through my forgiveness.”

How holy are you who have the power to bring peace to every mind! How blessed are you who can learn to recognize the means for letting this be done through you! What purpose could you have that would bring you greater happiness?

You are indeed the light of the world with such a function. The Child of God looks to you for one’s redemption. It is yours to give one, for it belongs to you. Accept no trivial purpose or meaningless desire in its place, or you will forget your function and leave the Child of God in hell. This is no idle request that is being asked of you. You are asked to accept salvation that it may be yours to give.

Recognizing the importance of this function, we will be happy to remember it very often today. We will begin the day by acknowledging it, and close the day with the thought of it in our awareness. And throughout the day, we will repeat this as often as we can:

“The light of the world brings peace to every mind through my forgiveness.

I am the means God has appointed for the salvation of the world.”

You will probably find it easier to let the related thoughts come to you in the minute or two which you should devote to considering this if you can close your eyes. Do not, however, wait for such an opportunity. No chance should be lost for reinforcing today’s idea. Remember that God’s Child looks to you for one’s salvation. And who but your Self must be One’s Child?

Lesson 64

“Let me not forget my function.”

Today’s idea is merely another way of saying,

“Let me not wander into temptation.”

The purpose of the world you see is to obscure your function of forgiveness, and provide you with a justification for forgetting it. It is the temptation to abandon God and One’s Child, taking on a physical appearance. It is this which the body’s eyes look upon.

Nothing the body’s eyes seem to see can be anything but a form of temptation, since this was the purpose of the body itself. Yet we have learned that the Holy Spirit has another use for all the illusions you have made, and therefore One sees another purpose in them. To the Holy Spirit, the world is a place where you learn to forgive yourself what you think of as your sins. In this perception, the physical appearance of temptation becomes the spiritual recognition of salvation.

To review our last few lessons, your function here is to be the light of the world, a function given you by God. It is only the arrogance of the ego that leads you to question this, and only the fear of the ego that induces you to regard yourself as unworthy of the task assigned to you by God Oneself. The world’s salvation awaits your forgiveness, because through it does the Child of God escape from all illusions and thus from all temptation. The Child of God is you.

Only by fulfilling the function given you by God will you be happy. That is because your function is to be happy by using the means by which happiness becomes inevitable. There is no other way. Therefore every time you choose whether or not to fulfill your function, you are really choosing whether to be happy or not.

Let us remember this today. Let us remind ourselves of it in the morning and again at night, and all through the day as well. Prepare yourself in advance for all the decisions you will make today by remembering that they are all really very simple. Each one will lead to happiness or unhappiness. Can such a simple decision really be difficult to make?

Let not the form of the decision deceive you. Complexity of form does not imply complexity of content. It is impossible that any decision on earth can have a content different from just this one simple choice. That is the only choice the Holy Spirit sees. Therefore it is the only choice there is.

Today, then, let us practice with these thoughts:

“Let me not forget my function.

Let me not try to substitute mine for God’s.

Let me forgive and be happy.”

At least once devote ten or fifteen minutes to reflecting on this with closed eyes. Related thoughts will come to help you, if you remember the crucial importance of your function to you and to the world.

In the frequent applications of today’s idea to be made throughout the day, devote several minutes to reviewing the thoughts, and then to thinking about them and about nothing else. This will be difficult at first particularly, since you are not proficient in the mind discipline which it requires. You may need to repeat, “Let me not forget my function,” quite often, to help you concentrate.

Two forms of shorter practice periods are required. At times, do the exercises with your eyes closed, trying to concentrate on the thoughts you are applying. At other times keep your eyes open after reviewing the thoughts and look slowly and unselectively about you, telling yourself:

“This is the world it is my function to save.”

Lesson 65

“My only function is the one God gave me.”

The idea for today reaffirms your commitment to salvation. It also reminds you that you have no function other than that. Both these thoughts are obviously necessary for a total commitment. Salvation cannot be the only purpose you hold while you still cherish others. The full acceptance of salvation as your only function necessarily entails two phases:

1. the recognition of salvation as your function,

2. the relinquishment of all the other goals you have invented for yourself.

This is the only way in which you can take your rightful place among the saviors of the world. This is the only way in which you can say and mean:

“My only function is the one God gave me.”

This is the only way in which you can find peace of mind.

Today, and for a number of days to follow, set aside ten to fifteen minutes for a more sustained practice period, in which you try to understand and accept what the idea for the day really means. Today’s idea offers you escape from all your perceived difficulties. It places the key to the door of peace, which you have closed upon yourself, in your own hands. It gives you the answer to all the searching you have done since time began.

Try, if possible, to undertake the daily extended practice periods at approximately the same time each day. Try, also, to determine this time in advance, and then adhere to it as closely as possible. The purpose of this is to arrange your day so that you have set apart the time for God, as well as for all the trivial purposes and goals you will pursue. This is part of the long-range disciplinary training your mind needs, so that the Holy Spirit can use it consistently for the purpose One shares with you.

For the longer practice period, begin by reviewing the idea for the day. Then close your eyes, repeat the idea to yourself once again, and watch your mind carefully to catch whatever thoughts cross it. At first, make no attempt to concentrate only on thoughts related to the idea for the day. Rather, try to uncover each thought that arises to interfere with it. Note each one as it comes to you, with as little involvement or concern as possible, dismissing each one by telling yourself:

“This thought reflects a goal that is preventing me from accepting my only function.”

After a while, interfering thoughts will become harder to find. Try, however, to continue a minute or so longer, attempting to catch a few of the idle thoughts that escaped your attention before, but do not strain or make undue effort in doing this. Then tell yourself:

“On this clean slate let my true function be written for me.”

You need not use these exact words, but try to get the sense of being willing to have your illusions of purpose be replaced by truth.

Finally, repeat the idea for today once more, and devote the rest of the practice period to trying to focus on its importance to you, the relief its acceptance will bring you by resolving your conflicts once and for all, and the extent to which you really want salvation in spite of your own foolish ideas to the contrary.

In the shorter practice periods, which should be undertaken at least once an hour, use this form in applying today’s idea:

“My only function is the one God gave me.

I want no other and I have no other.”

Sometimes close your eyes as you practice this, and sometimes keep them open and look about you. It is what you see now that will be totally changed when you accept today’s idea completely.

Lesson 66

“My happiness and my function are one.”

You have surely noticed an emphasis throughout our recent lessons on the connection between fulfilling your function and achieving happiness. This is because you do not really see the connection. Yet there is more than just a connection between them; they are the same. Their forms are different, but their content is completely one.

The ego does constant battle with the Holy Spirit on the fundamental question of what your function is. So does it do constant battle with the Holy Spirit about what your happiness is. It is not a two-way battle. The ego attacks and the Holy Spirit does not respond. One knows what your function is. One knows that it is your happiness.

Today we will try to go past this wholly meaningless battle, and arrive at the truth about your function. We will not engage in ceaseless arguments about what it is. We will not become hopelessly involved in defining happiness and determining the means for achieving it. We will not indulge the ego by listening to its attacks on truth. We will merely be glad that we can find out what truth is.

Our longer practice period today has as its purpose your acceptance of the fact that not only is there a very real connection between the function God gave you and your happiness, but that they are actually identical. God gives you only happiness. Therefore the function One gave you must be happiness, even if it appears to be different. Today’s exercises are an attempt to go beyond these differences in appearance, and recognize a common content where it exists in truth.

Begin the ten-to-fifteen-minute practice period by reviewing these thoughts:

“God gives me only happiness.

One has given my function to me.

Therefore my function must be happiness.”

Try to see the logic in this sequence, even if you do not accept the conclusion. It is only if the first two thoughts are wrong that the conclusion could be false. Let us, then, think about the premises for a while, as we are practicing.

The first premise is that God gives you only happiness. This could be false, of course, but in order to be false it is necessary to define God as something One is not. Love cannot give evil, and what is not happiness is evil. God cannot give what One does not have, and One cannot have what One is not. Unless God gives you only happiness, One must be evil. And it is this definition of One which you are believing if you do not accept the first premise.

The second premise is that God has given you your function. We have seen that there are only two parts of your mind. One is ruled by the ego, and is made up of illusions. The other is the home of the Holy Spirit, where truth abides. There are no other guides but these to choose between, and no other outcomes possible as a result of your choice but the fear which the ego always engenders and the love which the Holy Spirit always offers to replace it.

Thus it must be that your function is established by God through One’s Voice or is made by the ego which you have made to replace One. Which is true? Unless God gave your function to you, it must be the gift of the ego. Does the ego really have gifts to give, being itself an illusion and offering only the illusion of gifts?

Think about this during the longer practice period today. Think also about the many forms which the illusion of your function has taken in your mind, and the many ways in which you try to find salvation under the ego’s guidance. Did you find it? Were you happy? Did they bring you peace? We need great honesty today. Remember the outcomes fairly, and consider also whether it was ever reasonable to expect happiness from anything the ego has ever proposed. Yet the ego is the only alternative to the Holy Spirit’s Voice.

You will listen to madness or hear the truth. Try to make this choice as you think about the premises on which our conclusion rests. We can share in this conclusion, but in no other. For God Oneself shares it with us.

Today’s idea is another giant stride in the perception of the same as the same, and the different as different. On one side stand all illusions. All truth stands on the other. Let us try today to realize that only the truth is true.

In the shorter practice periods, which would be most helpful today if undertaken twice an hour, this form of the application is suggested:

“My happiness and function are one,

because God has given me both.”

It will not take more than a minute, and probably less, to repeat these words slowly, and think about them a little as you say them.

Lesson 67

“Love created me like Itself.”

Today’s idea is a complete and accurate statement of what you are. This is why you are the light of the world. This is why God appointed you as the world’s savior. This is why the Child of God looks to you for one’s salvation. One is saved by what you are. We will make every effort today to reach this truth about you, and to realize fully, if only for a moment, that it is the truth.

In the longer practice period, we will think about your reality and its wholly unchanged and unchangeable nature. We will begin by repeating this truth about you, and then spend a few minutes adding some relevant thoughts, such as:

“Holiness created me whole.”

“Kindness created me kind.”

“Helpfulness created me helpful.”

“Perfection created me perfect.”

Any attribute which is in accord with God as One defines Oneself is appropriate for use. We are trying today to undo your definition of God, and replace it with One’s Own. We are also trying to emphasize that you are part of One’s definition of Oneself.

After you have gone over several such related thoughts, try to let all thoughts drop away for a brief preparatory interval, and then try to reach past all your images and preconceptions about yourself to the truth in you. If Love created you like Itself this Self must be in you. And somewhere in your mind It is there for you to find.

You may find it necessary to repeat the idea for today from time to time to replace distracting thoughts. You may also find that this is not sufficient, and that you need to continue adding other thoughts related to the truth about yourself. Yet perhaps you will succeed in going past that, and through the interval of thoughtlessness to the awareness of a blazing light in which you recognize yourself as Love created you. Be confident that you will do much today to bring that awareness nearer, whether you feel you have succeeded or not.

It will be particularly helpful today to practice the idea for today as often as you can. You need to hear the truth about yourself as frequently as possible, because your mind is so preoccupied with false self-images. Four or five times an hour, and perhaps even more, it would be most beneficial to remind yourself that Love created you like Itself. Hear the truth about yourself in this.

Try to realize in the shorter practice periods, that this is not your tiny solitary voice that tells you this. This is the Voice for God, reminding you of your Creator and of your Self. This is the Voice of truth, replacing everything that the ego tells you about yourself with the simple truth about the Child of God. You were created by Love like Itself.

Lesson 68

“Love holds no grievances.”

You who were created by Love like Itself can hold no grievances and know your Self. To hold a grievance is to forget who you are. To hold a grievance is to see yourself as a body. It is the decision to let the ego rule your mind and to condemn the body to death. Perhaps you do not yet fully realize just what holding grievances does to your awareness. It seems to split you off from your Source, and make you unlike One. It makes you believe that One is like what you think you have become, for no one can conceive of one’s Creator as unlike oneself.

Shut off from your Self, Who remains aware of One’s likeness to One’s Creator, your Self seems to sleep, while the part of your mind that weaves illusions in its sleep appears to be awake. Can all this arise from holding grievances? Oh, yes! For one who holds grievances denies one was created by Love, and one’s Creator has become fearful to one in one’s dreams of hate. Who can dream of hatred and not fear God?

It is as sure that those who hold grievances will redefine God in their own image as it is certain that God created them like Oneself and defined them as part of One. It is as sure that those who hold grievances will suffer guilt as it is certain that those who forgive will find peace. It is as sure that those who hold grievances will forget who they are as it is certain that those who forgive will remember.

Would you not be willing to relinquish your grievances if you believed all this were so? Perhaps you do not think you can let all your grievances go. That, however, is simply a question of motivation. Today we will try to find out how you would feel without them. If you succeed even by ever so little, there will never be a problem in motivation ever again.

Begin today’s extended practice period by searching your mind for those against whom you hold what you regard as major grievances. Some of these will be quite easy to find. Then think of the seemingly minor grievances you hold against those you like, and even think you love. It will quickly become apparent that there is no one against whom you do not cherish grievances of some sort. This has left you alone in all the universe in your perception of yourself.

Determine now to see all these people as friends. Say to them all collectively, thinking of each one in turn as you do so:

“I would see you as my friend,

That I may remember you are part of me,

And come to know myself.”

Spend the remainder of the practice period trying to think of yourself as completely at peace with everyone and everything, safe in a world which protects you and loves you, and which you love in return.

Try to feel safety surrounding you, hovering over you, and holding you up. Try to believe, however briefly, that nothing can harm you in any way. At the end of the practice period tell yourself:

“Love holds no grievances.

When I let all my grievances go

I will know I am perfectly safe.”

The short practice periods should include a quick application of today’s idea in this form, whenever any thought of grievance arises against anyone, physically present or not:

“Love holds no grievances.

Let me not betray my Self.”

In addition, repeat the idea several times an hour in this form:

“Love holds no grievances.

I would wake to my Self

By laying all my grievances aside

And wakening in One.”

Lesson 69

“My grievances hide the light of the world in me.”

No one can look upon what your grievances conceal. Because your grievances are hiding the light of the world in you, everyone stands in darkness, and you beside them. But as the veil of your grievances is lifted, you are released with them. Share your salvation now with one who stood beside you when you were in hell. One is your sibling in the light of the world which saves you both.

Today let us make another real attempt to reach the light in you. Before we undertake this in our more extended practice period, let us devote several minutes in thinking about what we are trying to do. We are literally attempting to get in touch with the salvation of the world. We are trying to see past the veil of darkness that keeps it concealed. We are trying to let the veil be lifted, and see the tears of God’s Child disappear in the sunlight.

Let us begin our longer practice period today with the full realization of all this, and real determination to reach what is dearer to us than all else. Salvation is our only need. There is no other purpose here, and no other function to fulfill. Learning salvation is our only goal. Let us end the ancient search today, by finding the light in us and holding it up for everyone who searches with us to look upon and rejoice.

Very quietly now, with your eyes closed, try to let all the content which generally occupies your consciousness go. Think of your mind as a vast round area, surrounded by a layer of heavy dark clouds. You can see only the clouds because you seem to be standing outside the whole area, and quite apart from it. From where you stand, you can see no reason to believe there is a brilliant light hidden by the clouds. The clouds seem to be the only reality. They seem to be all there is to see. Therefore you do not attempt to go through them and past them, which is the only way in which you would be really convinced of their lack of substance. We will make this attempt today.

After you have thought about the importance of what you are trying to do for yourself and the world, try to settle in perfect stillness, remembering only how much you want to reach the light in you today—now. Determine to go past the clouds. Reach out and touch them in your mind; brush them aside with your hand; feel them resting on your cheeks and forehead and eyelids as you go through them. Go on; clouds cannot stop you.

If you are doing the exercises properly, you will begin to feel a sense of being lifted up and carried ahead. Your little effort and small determination call on the power of the universe to help you, and God Oneself will raise you from darkness into light. You are in accord with One’s Will. You cannot fail because your will is One’s.

Have confidence in your Creator today. And be certain that One has heard you and has answered you. You may not recognize One’s answer yet, but you can indeed be sure that it is given you, and you will yet receive it. Try, as you attempt to go through the clouds to the light, to hold this confidence in your mind. Try to remember that you are at last joining your will to God’s. Try to keep the thought clearly in mind that what you undertake with God must succeed. Then let the power of God work in you and through you, that One’s Will and yours may be done.

In the shorter practice periods, which you will want to do as often as possible in view of the importance of today’s idea to you and your happiness, remind yourself that your grievances are hiding the light of the world from your awareness. Remind yourself also that you are not searching for it alone, and that you do know where to look for it. Say, then:

“My grievances hide the light of the world in me.

I cannot see what I have hidden.

Yet I want to let it be revealed to me,

for my salvation and the salvation of the world.”

Also, be sure to tell yourself:

“If I hold this grievance,

the light of the world will be hidden from me,”

if you are tempted to hold anything against anyone today.

Lesson 70

“My salvation comes from me.”

All temptation is nothing more than some form of the basic temptation not to believe the idea for today. Salvation seems to come from anywhere except from you. So, too, does the source of guilt. You see neither guilt nor salvation as in your own mind, and nowhere else. When you realize that all guilt is solely an invention of your mind, you must also realize that guilt and salvation must be in the same place. Understanding this you are saved.

The seeming “cost” of accepting today’s idea is this: It means that nothing outside yourself can save you; nothing outside yourself can give you peace. But it also means that nothing outside yourself can hurt you, or disturb your peace, or upset you in any way. Today’s idea places you in charge of the universe, where you belong because of who you are.

This is not a role which can be partially accepted. And you must surely begin to see that accepting it is salvation. It may not, however, be clear to you why the recognition that guilt is in your own mind entails the realization that salvation is there as well. God would not have put the remedy for sickness where it cannot help. That is the way your mind has worked, but hardly God’s. One wants you to be healed, and so One has kept the Source of healing where the need for healing lies.

You have tried to do just the opposite, making every attempt, however distorted and fantastic it might be, to separate healing from the sickness for which it was intended, and thus keep the sickness. Your purpose was to ensure that healing did not occur; God’s purpose was to ensure that it did. Today we practice realizing that God’s Will and ours are really the same in this. God wants us to be healed, and we do not really want to be sick because it makes us unhappy. Therefore, in accepting the idea for today, we are in agreement with God. One does not want us to be sick. Neither do we. One wants us to be healed. So do we.

We are ready for two longer practice periods today, each of which should last some ten to fifteen minutes. We will, however, still let you decide when to undertake them. We will follow this practice for a number of lessons, and it would again be well to decide in advance when would be a good time to lay aside for each of them, and adhere to your own decision as closely as possible.

Begin these practice periods by repeating the idea for today, adding a statement signifying your recognition that salvation comes from nothing outside of you. You might put it this way:

“My salvation comes from me.

It cannot come from anywhere else.”

Then devote a few minutes with your eyes closed, to reviewing some of the external places where you have looked for salvation in the past—in other people, in possessions, in various situations and events, and in self-concepts which you sought to make real. Recognize that it was not there. Tell yourself:

“My salvation cannot come from any of these things.

My salvation comes from me, and only from me.”

Now we will try again to reach the light in you, which is where your salvation is. You cannot find it in the clouds that surround the light, and it is in them you have been looking for it. It is not there. It is past the clouds, and in the light beyond. Remember that you will have to go through the clouds before you can reach the light. But remember also that you have never found anything in the cloud patterns you imagined that endured, or that you wanted.

Since all illusions of salvation have failed you, surely you do not want to remain in the clouds looking vainly for idols there, when you could so easily walk on into the light of real salvation. Try to pass the clouds by whatever means appeals to you. If it helps you, think of me holding your hand and leading you. And I assure you this will be no idle fantasy.

For the short and frequent practice periods today, remind yourself that your salvation comes from you, and nothing but your own thoughts can hamper your progress. You are free from all external interference. You are in charge of your salvation. You are in charge of the salvation of the world. Say, then:

“My salvation comes from me.

Nothing outside of me can hold me back.

Within me is the world’s salvation and my own.”

Lesson 71

“Only God’s plan for salvation will work.”

You may not realize that the ego has set up a plan for salvation in opposition to God’s. It is this plan in which you believe. Since it is the opposite of God’s, you also believe that to accept God’s plan in place of the ego’s is to be damned. This sounds preposterous, of course. Yet after we have considered just what the ego’s plan is, perhaps you will realize that, however preposterous it may be, you do believe it.

The ego’s plan for salvation centers around holding grievances. It maintains that if someone else spoke or acted differently; if some external circumstance or event were changed, you would be saved. Thus the source of salvation is constantly perceived as outside yourself. Each grievance you hold is a declaration, and an assertion in which you believe, that says, “If this were different, I would be saved.” The change of mind that is necessary for salvation is thus demanded of everyone and everything except yourself.

The role assigned to your own mind in this plan, then, is simply to determine what other than itself must change if you are to be saved. According to this insane plan, any perceived source of salvation is acceptable, provided that it will not work. This ensures that the fruitless search will continue, for the illusion that, although this hope has failed, there are still grounds for hope in other places and in other things persists. Another person will yet serve better; another situation will yet offer success.

Such is the ego’s plan for your salvation. Surely you can see how it is in strict accord with the ego’s basic doctrine, “Seek but do not find?” For what could more surely guarantee that you will not find salvation than to channelize all your efforts in searching for it where it is not?

God’s plan for salvation works simply because, by following One’s direction, you seek for salvation where it is. But if you are to succeed, as God promises you will, you must be willing to seek there only. Otherwise your purpose is divided, and you will attempt to follow two plans for salvation which are diametrically opposed in all ways. The result can only bring confusion, misery and a deep sense of failure and despair.

How can you escape all this? Very simply. The idea for today is the answer. Only God’s plan for salvation will work. There can be no real conflict about this, because there is no possible alternative to God’s plan that will save you. One’s is the only plan that is certain in its outcome. One’s is the only plan that must succeed. Let us practice recognizing this certainty today. And let us rejoice that there is an answer to what seems to be a conflict with no resolution possible. All things are possible to God. Salvation must be yours because of One’s plan, which cannot fail.

Begin the two longer practice periods for today by thinking about today’s idea, and realizing that it contains two parts, each making equal contribution to the whole. God’s plan for your salvation will work, and other plans will not. Do not allow yourself to become depressed or angry at the second part; it is inherent in the first. And in the first is your full release from all your own insane attempts and mad proposals to free yourself. They have led to depression and anger. But God’s plan will succeed. It will lead to release and joy.

Remembering this, let us devote the remainder of the extended practice periods to asking God to reveal One’s plan to us. Ask One very specifically:

“What would You have me do?

Where would You have me go?

What would You have me say, and to whom?”

Give One full charge of the rest of the practice period, and let One tell you what needs to be done by you in One’s plan for your salvation. One will answer in proportion to your willingness to hear One’s Voice. Refuse not to hear. The very fact that you are doing the exercises proves that you have some willingness to listen. This is enough to establish your claim to God’s answer.

In the shorter practice periods tell yourself often that God’s plan for salvation, and only One’s, will work. Be alert to all temptation to hold grievances today, and respond to them with this form of today’s idea:

“Holding grievances is the opposite of God’s plan for salvation.

And only One’s plan will work.”

Try to remember the idea for today some six or seven times an hour. There could be no better way to spend a half-minute or less than to remember the Source of your salvation, and to see it where it is.

Lesson 72

“Holding grievances is an attack on God’s plan for salvation.”

While we have recognized that the ego’s plan for salvation is the opposite of God’s, we have not yet emphasized that it is an active attack on One’s plan, and a deliberate attempt to destroy it. In the attack, God is assigned the attributes which are actually associated with the ego, while the ego appears to take on the attributes of God.

The ego’s fundamental wish is to replace God. In fact, the ego is the physical embodiment of this wish. For it is this wish which seems to surround the mind with a body, keeping it separate and alone; and unable to reach other minds except through the body which was made to imprison it. The limit on communication cannot be the best means to expand communication. Yet the ego would have you believe that it is.

Although the attempt to keep the limitations which a body would impose is obvious here, it is perhaps not so apparent why holding grievances is an attack on God’s plan for salvation. But let us consider the kinds of things which you are apt to hold grievances for. Are they not always associated with something a body does? A person says something we do not like; one does something that displeases us, one “betrays” one’s hostile thoughts in one’s behavior.

We are not dealing here with what the person is. On the contrary, we are exclusively concerned with what one does in a body. We are doing more than failing to help in freeing one from it’s limitations. We are actively trying to hold one to it by confusing it with one, and judging them as one. Herein is God attacked, for if One’s Child is only a body, so must One be as well. A creator wholly unlike one’s creation is inconceivable.

If God is a body, what must One’s plan for salvation be? What could it be but death? In trying to present Oneself as the Author of life and not of death, One is a liar and a deceiver, full of false promises and offering illusions in place of truth. The body’s apparent reality makes this view of God quite convincing. In fact, if the body were real, it would be difficult indeed to escape this conclusion. And every grievance that you hold insists that the body is real. It overlooks entirely what your sibling is. It reinforces your belief that one is a body, and condemns one for it. And it asserts that one’s salvation must be death, projecting this attack onto God, and holding One responsible for it.

To this carefully prepared arena, where angry animals seek for prey and mercy cannot enter, the ego comes to save you. God made you a body. Very well. Let us accept this and be glad. As a body, do not let yourself be deprived of what the body offers. Take the little you can get. God gave you nothing. The body is your only savior. It is the death of God and your salvation. This is the universal belief of the world you see.

Some hate the body, and try to hurt and humiliate it. Others love the body, and try to glorify and exalt it. But while it stands at the center of your concept of yourself, you are attacking God’s plan for salvation, and holding your grievances against One and One’s creations, that you may not hear the Voice of Truth and welcome it as Friend. Your chosen savior takes One’s place instead. It is your friend; One is your enemy. We will try today to stop these senseless attacks on salvation. We will try to welcome it instead.

Our upside-down perception has been ruinous to our peace of mind. We have seen ourselves in a body and the truth outside us, locked away from your awareness by the body’s limitations. Now we are going to try to see this differently. The light of truth is in us, where it was placed by God. It is the body that is outside us, and is not our concern. To be without a body is to be in our natural state. To recognize the light of truth in us is to recognize ourselves as we are. To see our Self as separate from the body is to end the attack on God’s plan for salvation, and to accept it instead. And wherever it is accepted, it is accomplished already.

Our goal in the longer practice periods today is to become aware that God’s plan for salvation has already been accomplished in us. To achieve this goal, we must replace attack with acceptance. As long as we attack it, we cannot understand what God’s plan for us is. We are therefore attacking what we do not recognize. Now we are going to try to lay judgement aside, and ask what God’s plan for us is:

“What is salvation, Creator?

I do not know.

Tell me, that I may understand.”

Then we will wait in quiet for One’s answer.

We have attacked God’s plan for salvation without waiting to hear what it is. We have shouted our grievances so loudly that we have not listened to One’s Voice. We have used our grievances to close our eyes and stop our ears. Now we would see and hear and learn.

“What is salvation, Creator?”

Ask and you will be answered. Seek and you will find.

We are no longer asking the ego what salvation is and where to find it. We are asking it of truth. Be certain, then, that the answer will be true because of Whom you ask. Whenever you feel your confidence wane and your hope of success flicker and go out, repeat your question and your request, remembering that you are asking them of the infinite Creator of infinity, Who created you like Oneself:

“What is salvation, Creator?

I do not know.

Tell me, that I may understand.”

One will answer. Be determined to hear.

One or perhaps two shorter practice periods an hour will be enough for today, since they will be somewhat longer than usual. These exercises are as follows:

“Holding grievances is an attack on God’s plan for salvation.

Let me accept it instead.

What is salvation, Creator?”

Then wait a minute or so in silence, preferably with your eyes closed, and listen for One’s answer.

Lesson 73

“I will there be light.”

Today we are considering the will you share with God. This is not the same as the ego’s idle wishes, out of which darkness and nothingness arise. The will you share with God has all the power of creation in it. The ego’s idle wishes are unshared, and therefore have no power at all. Its wishes are not idle in the sense that they can make a world of illusions in which your belief can be very strong. But they are idle indeed in terms of creation. They make nothing that is real.

Idle wishes and grievances are partners or co-makers in picturing the world you see. The wishes of the ego gave rise to it, and the ego’s need for grievances, which are necessary to maintain it, peoples it with figures that seem to attack you and call for “righteous” judgement. They become the middlemen the ego employs to traffic in grievances and stand between your awareness and your siblings’ reality. Beholding them, you do not know your siblings nor your Self.

Your will is lost to you in this strange bartering, in which guilt is traded back and forth, and grievances increase with each exchange. Can such a world have been created by the will the Child of God shares with one’s Creator? Did God create disaster for One’s Child? Creation is the Will of Both together. Would God create a world that kills Oneself?

Today we will try once more to reach the world that is in accordance with your will. The light is in it because it does not oppose the Will of God. It is not Heaven, but the light of Heaven shines on it. Darkness has vanished; the ego’s idle wishes have been withdrawn.

Yet the light which shines upon this world reflects your will, and so it must be in you that we will look for it. Your picture of the world can only mirror what is within. The source of neither light nor darkness can be found without. Grievances darken your mind, and you look out on a darkened world. Forgiveness lifts the darkness, reasserts your will, and lets you look upon a world of light.

We have repeatedly emphasized that the barrier of grievances is easily passed, and cannot stand between you and your salvation. The reason is very simple. Do you really want to be in hell? Do you really want to weep and suffer and die? Forget the ego’s arguments which seek to prove all this is really Heaven. You know it is not so. You cannot want this for yourself. There is a point beyond which illusions cannot go.

Suffering is not happiness, and it is happiness you really want. Such is your will in truth. And so salvation is your will as well. You want to succeed in what we are trying to do today. We undertake it with your blessing and your glad accord.

We will succeed today if you remember that you will salvation for yourself. You will to accept God’s plan because you share in it. You have no will that can really oppose it, and you do not want to do so. Salvation is for you. Above all else you want the freedom to remember who you really are.

Today it is the ego which stands powerless before your will. Your will is free, and nothing can prevail against it. Therefore we undertake the exercises for today in happy confidence, certain that we will find what it is your will to find, and remember what it is your will to remember. No idle wishes can detain us, nor deceive us with an illusion of strength. Today let your will be done. And end forever the insane belief that it is hell in place of Heaven that you choose.

We will begin our longer practice periods with the recognition that God’s plan for salvation, and only One’s, is wholly in accord with your will. It is not the purpose of an alien power, thrust upon you unwillingly. It is the one purpose here on which you and your Creator are in perfect accord.

You will succeed today, the time appointed for the release of the Child of God from hell and from all idle wishes. One’s will is now restored to one’s awareness. One is willing this very day to look upon the light in one and be saved.

After reminding yourself of this and determining to keep your will clearly in mind, tell yourself with gentle firmness and quiet certainty:

“I will there be light. Let me behold the light that reflects God’s Will and mine.”

Then let your will assert itself, joined with the power of God and united with your Self. Put the rest of the practice period under Their guidance. Join with Them as They lead the way.

In the shorter practice periods, again make a declaration of what you really want. Say:

“I will there be light. Darkness is not my will.”

This should be repeated several times an hour. It is most important, however, to apply today’s idea in this form immediately you are tempted to hold a grievance of any kind. This will help you let your grievances go, instead of cherishing them and hiding them in the darkness.

Lesson 74

“There is no will but God’s.”

The idea for today can be regarded as the central thought toward which all our exercises are directed. God’s is the only will. When you have recognized this, you have recognized that your will is One’s. The belief that conflict is possible has gone. Peace has replaced the strange idea that you are torn by conflicting goals. As an expression of the Will of God, you have no goal but One’s.

There is great peace in today’s idea. And the exercises for today are directed towards finding it. The idea itself is wholly true. Therefore it can not give rise to illusions. Without illusions conflict is impossible. Let us try to recognize this today, and experience the peace this recognition brings.

Begin the longer practice periods by repeating these thoughts several times, slowly and with firm determination to understand what they mean and to hold them in mind:

“There is no will but God’s.

I cannot be in conflict.”

Then spend several minutes in adding some related thoughts, such as:

“I am at peace.”

“Nothing can disturb me. My will is God’s.”

“My will and God’s are one.”

“God wills peace for One’s Child.”

During this introductory phase, be sure to deal quickly with any conflict thoughts that may cross your mind. Tell yourself immediately:

“There is no will but God’s.

These conflict thoughts are meaningless.”

If there is one conflict area which seems particularly difficult to resolve, single it out for special consideration. Think about it briefly but very specifically, identify the particular person or persons and the situation or situations involved, and tell yourself:

“There is no will but God’s.

I share it with One.

My conflicts about _____ cannot be real.”

After you have cleared your mind in this way, close your eyes and try to experience the peace to which your reality entitles you. Sink into it, and feel it closing around you. There may be some temptation to mistake these attempts for withdrawal, but the difference is easily detected. If you are succeeding, you will feel a deep sense of joy and an increased alertness, rather than a feeling of drowsiness and enervation. Joy characterizes peace. By this experience will you recognize that you have reached it.

If you feel yourself slipping off into withdrawal, quickly repeat the idea for today and try again. Do this as often as necessary. There is definite gain in refusing to allow retreat into withdrawal, even if you do not experience the peace you seek.

In the shorter periods, which should be undertaken at regular and predetermined intervals today, say to yourself:

“There is no will but God’s.

I seek One’s peace today.”

Then try to find what you are seeking. A minute or two every half-hour, with eyes closed if possible, would be well spent on this today.

Lesson 75

“The light has come.”

The light has come. You are healed and you can heal. The light has come. You are saved and you can save. You are at peace and you bring peace with you wherever you go. Darkness and turmoil and death have disappeared. The light has come. Today we celebrate the happy ending to your long dream of disaster. There are no dark dreams now. The light has come.

Today the time of light begins for you and everyone. It is a new era, in which a new world is born. The old one has left no trace upon it in its passing. Today we see a different world because the light has come. Our exercises for today will be happy ones, in which we offer thanks for the passing of the old and the beginning of the new. No shadows from the past remain to darken our sight and hide the world forgiveness offers us.

Today we will accept the new world as what we want to see. We will be given what we desire. We will to see the light; the light has come.

Our longer practice periods will be devoted to looking at the world which our forgiveness shows us. This is what we want to see, and only this. Our single purpose makes our goal inevitable. Today the real world rises before us in gladness, to be seen at last. Sight is given us, now that the light has come. We do not see the ego’s shadow on the world today. We see the light, and in it we see Heaven’s reflection lie across the world.

Begin the practice period by telling yourself the glad tidings of your release:

“The light has come.

I have forgiven the world.”

Dwell not upon the past today. Keep a completely open mind, washed of all past ideas and clean of every concept you have made. You have forgiven the world today. You can look upon it now as if you never saw it before. You do not know yet what it looks like. You merely wait to have it shown to you. While you wait, repeat several times slowly and in complete patience:

“The light has come.

I have forgiven the world.”

Realize that your forgiveness entitles you to vision. Understand that the Holy Spirit never fails to give the gift of sight to the forgiving. Believe One will not fail you now. You have forgiven the world. One will be with you as you watch and wait. One will show what true vision sees. It is One’s Will, and you have joined with One.

Wait patiently for One. One will be there. The light has come. You have forgiven the world. Tell One you know you cannot fail because you trust in One. Tell yourself you wait in certainty to look upon the world One promised you. From this time forth you will see differently. Today the light has come. And you will see the world that has been promised you since time began, and in which is the end of time ensured.

The shorter practice periods, too, will be joyful reminders of your release. Remind yourself every quarter of an hour or so that today is a time for special celebration. Give thanks for mercy and the Love of God. Rejoice in the power of forgiveness to heal your sight completely. Be confident that on this day there is a new beginning. Without the darkness of the past upon your eyes, you cannot fail to see today. And what you see will be so welcome that you will gladly extend today forever. Say, then:

“The light has come.

I have forgiven the world.”

Should you be tempted, say to anyone who seems to pull you back to darkness:

“The light has come.

I have forgiven you.”

We dedicate this day to the serenity in which God would have you be. Keep it in your awareness of yourself and see it everywhere today, as we celebrate the beginning of your vision, and the sight of the real world which has come to replace the unforgiven world you thought was real.

Lesson 76

“I am under no laws but God’s.”

We have observed before how many senseless things have seemed to you to be salvation. Each has imprisoned you with laws as senseless as itself. You are not bound by them. Yet to understand that this is so, you must first realize salvation lies not there. While you would seek for it in things that have no meaning, you bind yourself to laws that make no sense.

Thus do you seek to prove salvation is where it is not. Today we will be glad you cannot prove it. For if you could, you would forever seek where it is not and never find it. The idea for today tells you once again how simple is salvation. Look for it where it waits for you, and there it will be found. Look nowhere else, for it is nowhere else.

Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws which you have set up to save you. You really think that you would starve unless you have stacks of green paper strips and piles of metal discs. You really think a small round pellet or some fluid pushed into your veins through a sharpened needle will ward off death. You really think you are alone unless another body is with you.

It is insanity that thinks these things. You call them laws, and put them under different names in a long catalogue of rituals that have no use and serve no purpose. You think you must obey the “laws” of medicine, of economics and of health. Protect the body and you will be saved. These are not laws, but madness.

The body is endangered by the mind that hurts itself. The body suffers that the mind will fail to see it is the victim of itself. The body’s suffering is a mask the mind holds up to hide what really suffers. It would not understand it is its own enemy; that it attacks itself and wants to die. It is from this your “laws” would save the body. It is for this you think you are a body.

There are no laws except the laws of God. This needs repeating—over and over—until you realize that it applies to everything that you have made in opposition to One’s Will. Your magic has no meaning. What it is meant to save does not exist. Only what it is meant to hide will save you.

The laws of God can never be replaced. We will devote today to rejoicing that this is so. It is no longer a truth which we would hide. We realize instead it is a truth which keeps us free forever. Magic imprisons, but the laws of God set free. The light has come because there are no laws but One’s.

We will begin the longer practice period today with a short review of the different kinds of “laws” we have believed we must obey. These would include, for example, the laws of nutrition, of immunization, of medication, and of the body’s protection in innumerable ways. Think further; you believe in the laws of friendship, of “good” relationships and reciprocity.

Perhaps you even think that there are laws which set forth what is God’s and what is yours. Many “religions” have been based on this. They would not save, but damn in Heaven’s name. Yet they are no more strange than other laws you hold must be obeyed to make you safe.

There are no laws but God’s. Dismiss all foolish magical beliefs today, and hold your mind in silent readiness to hear the Voice that speaks the truth to you. You will be listening to One who says there is no loss under the laws of God. Payment is neither given nor received. Exchange cannot be made, there are no substitutes, and nothing is replaced by something else. God’s laws forever give and never take.

Hear One Who tells you this, and realize how foolish are the laws you thought upheld the world you thought you saw. Then listen further. One will tell you more. About the Love your Creator has for you. About the endless joy One offers you. About One’s yearning for One’s only Child, created as One’s channel for creation; denied to One by one’s belief in hell.

Let us today open God’s channels to One, and let One’s Will extend through us to One. Thus is creation endlessly increased. One’s Voice will speak of this to us, as well as of the joys of Heaven which One’s laws keep limitless forever. We will not repeat today’s idea until we have listened and understood there are no laws but God’s. Then we will tell ourselves, as a dedication with which the practice period concludes:

“I am under no laws but God’s.”

We will repeat this dedication as often as possible today; at least four or five times an hour, as well as in response to any temptation to experience ourselves as subject to other laws throughout the day. It is our statement of freedom from all danger and all tyranny. It is our acknowledgment that God is our Creator, and that One’s Child is saved.

Lesson 77

“I am entitled to miracles.”

You are entitled to miracles because of what you are. You will receive miracles because of what God is. And you will offer miracles because you are one with God. Again, how simple is salvation! It is merely a statement of your true identity. It is this that we will celebrate today.

Your claim to miracles does not lie in your illusions about yourself. It does not depend on any magical powers you have ascribed to yourself, nor on any of the rituals you have devised. It is inherent in the truth of what you are. It is implicit in what God your Creator is. It was ensured in your creation, and guaranteed by the laws of God.

Today we will claim the miracles which are your right, since they belong to you. You have been promised full release from the world you made. You have been assured that the Realm of God is within you, and can never be lost. We ask no more than what belongs to us in truth. Today, however, we will also make sure that we will not content ourselves with less.

Begin the longer practice period by telling yourself quite confidently that you are entitled to miracles. Closing your eyes, remind yourself that you are asking only for what is rightfully yours. Remind yourself also that miracles are never taken from one and given to another, and that in asking for your rights you are upholding the rights of everyone. Miracles do not obey the laws of this world. They merely follow from the laws of God.

After this brief introductory phase, wait quietly for the assurance that your request is granted. You have asked for the salvation of the world and for your own. You have requested that you be given the means by which this is accomplished. You cannot fail to be assured in this. You are but asking that the Will of God be done.

In doing this, you do not really ask for anything. You state a fact that cannot be denied. The Holy Spirit cannot but assure you that your request is granted. The fact that you accepted must be so. There is no room for doubt and uncertainty today. We are asking a real question at last. The answer is a simple statement of a simple fact. You will receive the assurance that you seek.

Our shorter practice periods will be frequent, and will also be devoted to a reminder of a simple fact. Tell yourself often today:

“I am entitled to miracles.”

Ask for them whenever a situation arises in which they are called for. You will recognize these situations. And since you are not relying on yourself to find them, you are therefore fully entitled to receive it whenever you ask. Remember, too, not to be satisfied with less than the perfect answer. Be quick to tell yourself, should you be tempted:

“I will not trade miracles for grievances.

I want only what belongs to me.

God has established miracles as my right.”

Lesson 78

“Let miracles replace all grievances.”

Perhaps it is not yet quite clear to you that each decision that you make is one between a grievance and a miracle. Each grievance stands like a dark shield of hate before the miracle it would conceal. And as you raise it up before your eyes, you will not see the miracle beyond. Yet all the while it waits for you in light, but you behold your grievances instead.

Today we go beyond the grievances, to look upon the miracle instead. We will reverse the way you see by not allowing sight to stop before it sees. We will not wait before the shield of hate, but lay it down and gently lift our eyes in silence, to behold the Child of God.

One waits for you behind your grievances, and as you lay them down one will appear in shining light where each one stood before. For every grievance is a block to sight, and as it lifts, you see the Child of God where one has always been. One stands in light, but you were in the dark. Each grievance made the darkness deeper, and you could not see. Today we will attempt to see God’s Child. We will not let ourselves be blind to one; we will not look upon our grievances. So is the seeing of the world reversed, as we look out toward truth, away from fear.

We will select one person you have used as target for your grievances, and lay the grievances aside, and look at one. Someone, perhaps, you fear and even hate; someone you think you love who angers you; someone you call a friend, but whom you see as difficult at times, or hard to please; demanding, irritating or untrue to the ideal one should accept as one’s according to the role you set for one.

You know the one to choose; one’s name has crossed your mind already. One will be the one of whom we ask God’s Child be shown to us. Through seeing one behind the grievances that we have held against one, you will learn that what lay hidden while you saw one not is there in everyone, and can be seen. One who was enemy is more than friend when one is freed to take the holy role the Holy Spirit has assigned to one. Let one be savior unto you today. Such is one’s role in God your Creator’s plan.

Our longer practice periods today will see one in this role. We will attempt to hold one in our mind, first as you now consider one. We will review one’s faults, the difficulties you have had with one, the pain one caused you, one’s neglect, and all the little and the larger hurts one gave. We will regard one’s body with its flaws and better points as well, and we will think of one’s mistakes and even of one’s “sins.”

Then let us ask of One Who knows this Child of God in one’s reality and truth, that we may look on one a different way, and see our Savior shining in the light of true forgiveness, given unto us. We ask One in the Holy Name of God and of One’s Child, as holy as Oneself:

“Let me behold my Savior in this one

You have appointed as the One for me

To ask to lead me to the holy light

In which one stands, that I may join with one.”

The body’s eyes are closed, and as you think of one who grieved you, let your mind be shown the light in one beyond your grievances.

What you have asked for cannot be denied. Your Savior has been waiting long for this. One would be free, and make one’s freedom yours. The Holy Spirit leans from one to you, seeing no separation in God’s Child. And what you see through One will free you both. Be very quiet now, and look upon your shining Savior. No dark grievances obscure the sight of one. You have allowed the Holy Spirit to express through one the role God gave One, that you might be saved.

God thanks you for these quiet times today, in which you laid your images aside, and looked upon the miracle of love the Holy Spirit showed you in their place. The world and Heaven join in thanking you, for not one Thought of God but must rejoice as you are saved, and all the world with you.

We will remember this throughout the day, and take the role assigned to us as part of God’s salvation plan, and not our own. Temptation falls away when we allow each one we meet to save us, and refuse to hide one’s light behind our grievances. To everyone you meet, and to the ones you think of, or remember from the past, allow the role of Savior to be given, that you may share it with them. For you both, and all the sightless ones as well, we pray:

“Let miracles replace all grievances.”

Lesson 79

“Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved.”

A problem cannot be solved if you do not know what it is. Even if it is really solved already, you will still have the problem because you will not recognize that it has been solved. This is the situation of the world. The problem of separation, which is really the only problem, has already been solved. But the solution is not recognized because the problem is not recognized.

Everyone in this world seems to have one’s own special problems. Yet they are all the same, and must be recognized as one if the one solution which solves them all is to be accepted. Who can see that a problem has been solved if one thinks the problem is something else? Even if one is given the answer, one cannot see its relevance.

That is the position in which you find yourselves now. You have the answer, but you are still uncertain about what the problem is. A long series of different problems seems to confront you, and as one is settled the next one and the next arise. There seems to be no end to them. There is no time in which you feel completely free of problems, and at peace.

The temptation to regard problems as many is the temptation to keep the problem of separation unsolved. The world seems to present you with a vast number of problems, each requiring a different answer. This perception places you in a position in which your problem solving must be inadequate, and failure is inevitable.

No one could solve all the problems the world appears to hold. They seem to be on so many levels, in such varying forms and with such varied content, that they confront you with an impossible situation. Dismay and depression are inevitable as you regard them. Some spring up unexpectedly, just as you think you have resolved the previous ones. Others remain unsolved under a cloud of denial, and rise to haunt you from time to time, only to be hidden again but still unsolved.

All this complexity is but a desperate attempt not to recognize the problem, and therefore not to let it be resolved. If you could recognize that your only problem is separation, no matter what form it takes, you could accept the answer because you would see its relevance. Perceiving the underlying constancy in all the problems which confront you, you would understand that you have the means to solve them all. And you would use the means because you recognize the problem.

In our longer practice periods today, we will ask what the problem is, and what is the answer to it. We will not assume that we already know. We will try to free our minds of all the many different kinds of problems that we think we have. We will try to realize that we have only one problem, which we have failed to recognize. We will ask what it is, and wait for the answer. We will be told. Then we will ask for the solution to it. And we will be told.

The exercises for today will be successful to the extent to which you do not insist on defining the problem. Perhaps you will not succeed in letting all your preconceived notions go, but that is not necessary. All that is necessary is to entertain some doubt about the reality of your version of what your problems are. You are trying to recognize that you have been given the answer by recognizing the problem, so that the problem and the answer can be brought together, and you can be at peace.

The shorter practice periods for today will not be set by time, but by need. You will see many problems today, each one calling for an answer. Your efforts will be directed toward recognizing that there is only one problem and one answer. In this recognition are all problems resolved. In this recognition there is peace.

Be not deceived by the form of problems today. Whenever any difficulty seems to rise, tell yourself quickly:

“Let me recognize this problem so it can be solved.”

Then try to suspend all judgement about what the problem is. If possible, close your eyes for a moment, and ask what it is. You will be heard and you will be answered.

Lesson 80

“Let me recognize my problems have been solved.”

If you are willing to recognize your problems, you will recognize that you have no problems. Your one central problem has been answered, and you have no other. Therefore you must be at peace. Salvation does depend on recognizing this one problem, and understanding that it has been solved. One problem—one solution. Salvation is accomplished. Freedom from conflict has been given you. Accept that fact, and you are ready to take your rightful place in God’s plan for salvation.

Your only problem has been solved! Repeat this over and over to yourself today, with gratitude and conviction. You have recognized your only problem, opening the way for the Holy Spirit to give you God’s answer. You have laid deception aside, and seen the light of truth. You have accepted salvation for yourself by bringing the problem to the answer. And you can recognize the answer because the problem has been identified.

You are entitled to peace today. A problem that has been resolved cannot trouble you. Only be certain you do not forget that all problems are the same. Their many forms will not deceive you while you remember this.

One problem—one solution. Accept the peace this simple statement brings.

In our longer practice periods today, we will claim the peace that must be ours when the problem and the answer have been brought together. The problem must be gone because God’s answer cannot fail. Having recognized one, you have recognized the other. The solution is inherent in the problem. You are answered and have accepted the answer. You are saved.

Now let the peace that your acceptance brings be given you. Close your eyes and receive your reward. Recognize that your problems have been solved. Recognize that you are out of conflict, free and at peace. Above all, remember that you have one problem and that the problem has one solution. It is in this that the simplicity of salvation lies. It is because of this that it is guaranteed to work.

Assure yourselves often today that your problems have been solved. Repeat the idea with deep conviction as frequently as possible. And be particularly sure to remember to apply the idea for today to any specific problem that may arise. Say quickly:

“Let me recognize this problem has been solved.”

Let us be determined not to collect grievances today. Let us be determined to be free of problems that do not exist. The means is simple honesty. Do not deceive yourself about what the problem is, and you must recognize it has been solved.

Review 2

We are now ready for another review. We will begin where our last review left off, and cover two ideas each day. The earlier part of each day will be devoted to one of these ideas, and the latter part of the day to the other. We will have one longer exercise period and frequent shorter ones in which we practice each of them.

The longer practice periods will follow this general form: Take about fifteen minutes for each of them, and begin by thinking about the idea and the comments which are included in the assignments. Devote about three or four minutes to reading them over slowly, several times if you wish, and then close your eyes and listen. Repeat the first phase if you find your mind wandering, but try to spend the major part of the practice period listening quietly but attentively.

There is a message waiting for you. Be confident that you will receive it. Remember that it belongs to you, and that you want it. Do not allow your intent to waver in the face of distracting thoughts. Realize that, whatever form they take, they have no meaning and no power. Replace them with your determination to succeed. Do not forget that your will has power over all fantasies and dreams. Trust it to see you through, and carry you beyond them all.

Regard these practice periods as dedications to the way, the truth and the life. Refuse to be side-tracked into detours, illusions and thoughts of death. You are dedicated to salvation. Be determined each day not to leave your function unfulfilled.

Reaffirm your determination in the shorter practice periods as well, using the original form of the idea for general application, and a more specific form when needed. Some specific forms will be included in the comments. These, however, are merely suggestions. It is not the particular words you use that matter.

Lesson 81

Our ideas for review today are:

“I am the light of the world.”  Lesson 61

How holy am I, who have been given the function of lighting up the world! Let me be still before my holiness. In its calm light let all my conflicts disappear. In its peace let me remember who I am.

Some specific forms for applying the idea when specific difficulties seem to arise might be:

“Let me not obscure the light of the world in me.”

“Let the light of the world shine through this appearance.”

“This shadow will vanish before the light.”

“Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world.”  Lesson 62

It is through accepting my function that I will see the light in me. And in this light will my function stand clear and perfectly unambiguous before my sight. My acceptance does not depend on my recognizing what my function is, for I do not yet understand forgiveness. Yet I will trust that in the light I will see it as it is.

Specific forms for using the idea might include:

“Let this help me learn what forgiveness means.”

“Let me not separate my function from my will.”

“I would not use this for an alien purpose.”

Lesson 82

We will review these ideas today:

“The light of the world brings peace to every mind through my forgiveness.”  Lesson 63

My forgiveness is the means by which the light of the world finds expression through me. My forgiveness is the means by which I become aware of the light of the world in me. My forgiveness is the means by which the world is healed, together with myself. Let me, then, forgive the world, that it may be healed along with me.

Suggestions for specific forms for applying this idea are:

“Let peace extend from my mind to yours, [name].”

“I share the light of the world with you, [name].”

“Through my forgiveness I can see this as it is.”

“Let me not forget my function.”  Lesson 64

I would not forget my function, because I would remember my Self. I cannot fulfill my function by forgetting. And unless I fulfill my function, I will not experience the joy that God intends for me.

Suitable specific forms of this idea include:

“Let me not use this to hide my function from me.”

“I would use this as an opportunity to fulfill my function.”

“This may threaten my ego, but cannot change my function in any way.”

Lesson 83

Today let us review these ideas:

“My only function is the one God gave me.”  Lesson 65

I have no function but the one God gave me. This recognition releases me from all conflict, because it means I cannot have conflicting goals. With one purpose only, I am always certain what to do, what to say, and what to think. All doubt must disappear and I acknowledge that my only function is the one God gave me.

More specific applications of this idea might take these forms:

“My perception of this does not change my function.”

“This does not give me a function other than the one God gave me.”

“Let me not use this to justify a function God did not give to me.”

“My happiness and my function are one.”  Lesson 66

All things that come from God are one. They come from Oneness, and must be received as one. Fulfilling my function is my happiness because both come from the same Source. And I must learn to recognize what makes me happy if I would find happiness.

Some useful forms for specific applications of this idea are:

“This cannot separate my happiness from my function.”

“The oneness of my happiness and my function remain wholly unaffected by this.”

“Nothing, including this, can justify the illusion of happiness apart from my function.”

Lesson 84

These are the ideas for today’s review:

“Love created me like Itself.”  Lesson 67

I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today. I will worship no idols, nor raise my own self-concepts to replace my Self. I am in the likeness of my Creator. Love created me like Itself.

You might find these specific forms helpful in applying the idea:

“Let me not see an illusion of myself in this.”

“As I look on this, let me remember my Creator.”

“My Creator did not create this as I see it.”

“Love holds no grievances.”  Lesson 68

Grievances are completely alien to love. Grievances attack love, and keep its light obscure. If I hold grievances I am attacking love, and therefore attacking my Self. My Self thus becomes alien to me. I am determined not to attack my Self today, so that I can remember who I am.

These specific forms for applying this idea would be helpful:

“This is no justification for denying my Self.”

“I will not use this to attack love.”

“Let this not tempt me to attack myself.”

Lesson 85

Today’s review will cover these ideas:

“My grievances hide the light of the world in me.”  Lesson 69

My grievances show me what is not there, and hide from me what I would see. Recognizing this, what do I want my grievances for? They keep me in darkness and hide the light. Grievances and light cannot go together, but light and vision must be joined for me to see. To see, I must lay grievances aside. I want to see, and this will be the means by which I will succeed.

Specific applications of this idea might be made in these forms:

“Let me not use this as a block to sight.”

“The light of the world will shine all this away.”

“I have no need for this. I want to see.”

“My salvation comes from me.”  Lesson 70

Today I will recognize where my salvation is. It is in me because its Source is there. It has not left its Source and so it cannot have left my mind. I will not look for it outside myself. It is not found outside and then brought in. But from within me it will reach beyond, and everything I see will but reflect the light that shines in me and in itself.

These forms of the idea are suitable for more specific application:

“Let this not tempt me to look away from me for my salvation.”

“I will not let this interfere with my awareness of the Source of my salvation.”

“This has no power to remove salvation from me.”

Lesson 86

These ideas are for review today:

“Only God’s plan for salvation will work.”  Lesson 71

It is senseless for me to search wildly about for salvation. I have seen it in many people and in many things, but when I reached for it, it was not there. I was mistaken about where it is. I was mistaken about what it is. I will undertake no more idle seeking. Only God’s plan for salvation will work. And I will rejoice because One’s plan can never fail.

These are some suggested forms for applying this idea specifically:

“God’s plan for salvation will save me from my perception of this.”

“This is no exception in God’s plan for my salvation.”

“Let me perceive this only in the light of God’s plan for salvation.”

“Holding grievances is an attack on God’s plan for salvation.”  Lesson 72

Holding grievances is an attempt to prove that God’s plan for salvation will not work. Yet only One’s plan will work. By holding grievances, I am therefore excluding my only hope of salvation from my awareness. I would no longer defeat my own best interests in this insane way. I would accept God’s plan for salvation, and be happy.

Specific applications for this idea might be in these forms:

“I am choosing between misperception and salvation as I look on this.”

“If I see grounds for grievances in this, I will not see the grounds for my salvation.”

“This calls for salvation, not attack.”

Lesson 87

Our review today will cover these ideas:

“I will there be light.”  Lesson 73

I will use the power of my will today. It is not my will to grope about in darkness, fearful of shadows and afraid of things unseen and unreal. Light shall be my guide today. I will follow it where it leads me, and I will look only on what it shows me. This day I will experience the peace of true perception.

These forms of this idea would be helpful for specific application:

“This cannot hide the light I will to see.”

“You stand with me in light, [name].”

“In the light this will look different.”

“There is no will but God’s.”  Lesson 74

I am safe today because there is no will but God’s. I can become afraid only when I believe that there is another will. I try to attack only when I am afraid, and only when I try to attack can I believe that my eternal safety is threatened. Today I will recognize that all this has not occurred. I am safe because there is no will but God’s.

These are some useful forms of this idea for specific applications:

“Let me perceive this in accordance with the Will of God.”

“It is God’s Will you are One’s Child, [name], and mine as well.”

“This is part of God’s Will for me, however I may see it.”

Lesson 88

Today we will review these ideas:

“The light has come.”  Lesson 75

In choosing salvation rather than attack, I merely choose to recognize what is already there. Salvation is a decision made already. Attack and grievances are not there to choose. That is why I always choose between truth and illusion; between what is there and what is not. The light has come. I can but choose the light, for it has no alternative. It has replaced the darkness, and the darkness has gone.

These would prove useful forms for specific applications of this idea:

“This cannot show me darkness, for the light has come.”

“The light in you is all that I would see, [name].”

“I would see in this only what is there.”

“I am under no laws but God’s.”  Lesson 76

Here is the perfect statement of my freedom. I am under no laws but God’s. I am constantly tempted to make up other laws and give them power over me. I suffer only because of my belief in them. They have no real effect on me at all. I am perfectly free of the effects of all laws save God’s. And One’s are the laws of freedom.

For specific forms in applying this idea, these would be useful:

“My perception of this shows me I believe in laws that do not exist.”

“I see only the laws of God at work in this.”

“Let me allow God’s laws to work in this, and not my own.”

Lesson 89

These are our review ideas for today:

“I am entitled to miracles.”  Lesson 77

I am entitled to miracles because I am under no laws but God’s. One’s laws release me from all grievances, and replace them with miracles. And I would accept the miracles in place of the grievances, which are but illusions that hide the miracles beyond. Now I would accept only what the laws of God entitle me to have, that I may use it on behalf of the function One has given me.

You might use these suggestions for specific applications of this idea:

“Behind this is a miracle to which I am entitled.”

“Let me not hold a grievance against you [name], but offer you the miracle that belongs to you instead.”

“Seen truly, this offers me a miracle.”

“Let miracles replace all grievances.”  Lesson 78

By this idea do I unite my will with the Holy Spirit’s, and perceive them as one. By this idea do I accept my release from hell. By this idea do I express my willingness to have all my illusions be replaced with truth, according to God’s plan for my salvation. I would make no exceptions and no substitutes. I want all of Heaven and only Heaven, as God wills me to have.

Useful specific forms for applying this idea would be:

“I would not hold this grievance apart from my salvation.”

“Let our grievances be replaced by miracles, [name].”

“Beyond this is the miracle by which all my grievances are replaced.”

Lesson 90

For this review we will use these ideas:

“Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved.”  Lesson 79

Let me realize today that the problem is always some form of grievance which I would cherish. Let me also understand that the solution is always a miracle with which I let the grievance be replaced. Today I would remember the simplicity of salvation by reinforcing the lesson that there is one problem and one solution.

The problem is a grievance; the solution is a miracle. And I invite the solution to come to me through my forgiveness of the grievance, and my welcome of the miracle which takes its place.

Specific applications of this idea might be in these forms:

“This presents a problem to me which I would have resolved.”

“The miracle behind this grievance will resolve it for me.”

“The answer to this problem is the miracle which it conceals.”

“Let me recognize my problems have been solved.”  Lesson 80

I seem to have problems only because I am misusing time. I believe that the problem comes first, and time must elapse before it can be worked out. I do not see the problem and the answer as simultaneous in their occurrence. That is because I do not yet realize that God has placed the answer together with the problem, so that they cannot be separated by time. The Holy Spirit will teach me this, if I will let One. And I will understand it is impossible that I could have a problem which has not been solved already.

These forms of the idea will be useful for specific applications:

“I need not wait for this to be resolved.”

“The answer to this problem is already given me, if I will accept it.”

“Time cannot separate this problem from its solution.”

Lesson 91

“Miracles are seen in light.”

It is important to remember that miracles and vision necessarily go together. This needs repeating and frequent repeating. It is a central idea in your new thought system and the perception which it produces. The miracle is always there. Its presence is not caused by your vision; its absence is not the result of your failure to see. It is only your awareness of miracles that is affected. You will see it in the light; you will not see it in the dark.

To you, then, light is crucial. While you remain in darkness, the miracle remains unseen. Thus you are convinced it is not there. This follows from the premises from which the darkness comes. Denial of light leads to failure to perceive it. Failure to perceive light is to perceive darkness. The light is useless to you then, even though it is there. You cannot use it because its presence is unknown to you. And the seeming reality of the darkness makes the idea of light meaningless.

To be told that what you do not see is there sounds like insanity. It is very difficult to become convinced that it is insanity not to see what is there, and to see what is not there instead. You do not doubt that the body’s eyes can see. You do not doubt the images they show you are reality. Your faith lies in the darkness, not the light.

How can this be reversed? For you it is impossible, but you are not alone in this. Your efforts, however little they may be, have strong support. Did you but realize how great this strength, your doubts would vanish. Today we will devote ourselves to the attempt to let you feel this strength. When you have felt the strength in you, which makes all miracles within your easy reach, you will not doubt. The miracles your sense of weakness hides will leap into awareness as you feel the strength in you.

Three times today, set aside about ten minutes for a quiet time in which you try to leave your weakness behind. This is accomplished very simply, as you instruct yourself that you are not a body. Faith goes to what you want, and you instruct your mind accordingly. Your will remains your teacher, and your will has all the strength to do what it desires. You can escape the body if you choose. You can experience the strength in you. Begin the longer practice periods with this statement of true cause and effect relationships:

“Miracles are seen in light.

The body’s eyes do not perceive the light.

But I am not a body.

What am I?”

The question with which this statement ends is needed for our exercises today. What you think you are is a belief to be undone. But what you really are must be revealed to you. The belief you are a body calls for correction, being a mistake. The truth of what you are calls on the strength in you to bring to your awareness what the mistake concealed.

If you are not a body, what are you? You need to be aware of what the Holy Spirit uses to replace the image of a body in your mind. You need to feel something to put your faith in, as you lift it from the body. You need a real experience of something else, something more solid and more sure; more worthy of your faith, and really there.

If you are not a body, what are you? Ask this in honesty, and then devote several minutes to allowing your mistaken thoughts about your attributes to be corrected, and their opposites to take their place. Say, for example:

“I am not weak, but strong.”

“I am not helpless, but all powerful.”

“I am not limited, but unlimited.”

“I am not doubtful, but certain.”

“I am not an illusion, but a reality.”

“I cannot see in darkness, but in light.”

In the second phase of the exercise period, try to experience these truths about yourself. Concentrate particularly on the experience of strength. Remember that all sense of weakness is associated with the belief you are a body, a belief that is mistaken and deserves no faith. Try to remove your faith from it, if only for a moment. You will be accustomed to keeping faith with the more worthy in you as we go along.

Relax for the rest of the practice period, confident that your efforts, however meager, are fully supported by the strength of God and all One’s Thoughts. It is from Them your strength will come. It is through Their strong support that you will feel the strength in you. They are united with you in this practice period, in which you share a purpose like Their own. Theirs is the light in which you will see miracles, because Their strength is yours. Their strength becomes your eyes, that you may see.

Five or six times an hour, at reasonably regular intervals, remind yourself that miracles are seen in light. Also, be sure to meet temptation with today’s idea. This form would be helpful for this special purpose:

“Miracles are seen in light.

Let me not close my eyes because of this.”

Lesson 92

“Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.”

The idea for today is an extension of the previous one. You do not think of light in terms of strength and darkness in terms of weakness. That is because your idea of what seeing means is tied up with the body, and its eyes and brain. This is why you believe that you can change what you see by keeping little bits of glass or other clear material before your eyes held in a frame or placed against the eye. These are among the many magical beliefs that come from the conviction you are a body, and the body’s eyes can see.

You also believe the body’s brain can think. If you but understood the nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insane idea. It is as if you thought you held the match that lights the sun and gives it all its warmth; or that you had the universe imprisoned in your hand, securely bound until you let it go. Yet this is no more foolish than to believe the body’s eyes can see; the brain can think.

It is God’s strength in you that is the light in which you see, as it is One’s Mind with which you think. One’s strength denies your weakness. It is your weakness that sees through the body’s eyes, peering about in darkness to behold the likeness of itself; the small, the weak, the sickly and the dying, those in need, the helpless and afraid, the sad, the poor, the starving and the joyless. These are seen through eyes which cannot see and cannot bless.

Strength overlooks these things by seeing past appearances. It keeps its steady gaze upon the light that lies beyond them. It unites with light, of which it is a part. It sees itself. It brings the light in which your Self appears. In darkness you perceive a self that is not there. Strength is the truth about you; weakness is an idol falsely worshipped, and adored that strength may be dispelled, and darkness rule where God appointed that there should be light.

Strength comes from truth, and shines with light its Source has given it; weakness reflects the darkness of its maker. It is sick and looks on sickness, which is like itself. Truth is a savior and can only will for happiness and peace for everyone. It gives its strength to everyone who asks, in limitless supply. It sees that lack in anyone would be a lack in all, and so it gives its light that all may see, and benefit as one. Its strength is shared, that it may bring to all the miracle in which they will unite in purpose and forgiveness and in love.

Weakness, which looks in darkness, cannot see a purpose in forgiveness and in love. It sees all others different from itself, and nothing in the world that it would share. It judges and condemns, but does not love. In darkness it remains to hide itself, and dreams that it is strong and conquering, a victor over limitations that but grow in darkness to enormous size. It fears and it attacks and hates itself, and darkness covers everything it sees, leaving its dreams as fearful as itself. No miracles are here, but only hate. It separates itself from what it sees, while light and strength perceive themselves as one.

The light of strength is not the light you see. It does not change and flicker and go out. It does not shift from night to day, and back to darkness ‘till the morning comes again. The light of strength is constant, sure as love, forever glad to give Itself away, because it cannot give but to Itself. No one can ask in vain to share its sight, and none who enters its abode can leave without a miracle before one’s eyes, and strength and light abiding in one’s heart.

The strength in you will offer you the light and guide your seeing, so you do not dwell on idle shadows that the body’s eyes provide for self-deception. Strength and light unite in you, and where they meet your Self stands ready to embrace you as Its own. Such is the meeting place we try today to find and rest in, for the peace of God is where your Self, One’s Child, is waiting now to meet Itself again, and be as One.

Let us give twenty minutes twice today to join this meeting. Let yourself be brought unto your Self. Its strength will be the light in which the gift of sight is given you. Leave, then, the dark a little while today, and we will practice seeing in the light, closing the body’s eyes and asking truth to show us how to find the meeting place of self and Self, where light and strength are one.

After the morning meeting, we will use the day in preparation for the time at night when we will meet again in hope and trust. Let us repeat as often as we can the idea for today, and recognize that we are being introduced to sight, and led away from darkness to the light where only miracles can be perceived.

Lesson 93

“Light and joy and peace abide in me.”

You think you are the home of evil, darkness and sin. You think if anyone could see the truth about you one would be repelled, recoiling from you as if from a poisonous snake. You think if what is true about you were revealed to you, you would be struck with horror so intense that you would rush to death by your own hand, living on after seeing this being impossible.

These are beliefs so firmly fixed that it is difficult to help you see that they are based on nothing. That you have made mistakes is obvious. That you have sought salvation in strange ways; have been deceived, deceiving and afraid of foolish fantasies and savage dreams; and have bowed down to idols made of dust; all this is true by what you now believe.

Today we question this, not from the point of view of what you think, but from a very different reference point, from which such idle thoughts are meaningless. These thoughts are not according to God’s Will. These weird beliefs One does not share with you. This is enough to prove that they are wrong, but you do not perceive that this is so.

Why would you not be overjoyed to be assured that all the evil that you think you did was never done; that all your “sins” are nothing; that you are as pure and holy as you were created, and that light and joy and peace abide in you? Your image of yourself cannot withstand the Will of God. You think that this is death, but it is life. You think you are destroyed, but you are saved.

The self you made is not the Child of God. Therefore, this self does not exist at all. And anything it seems to do and think means nothing. It is neither bad nor good. It is unreal, and nothing more than that. It does not battle with the Child of God. It does not hurt one, nor attack one’s peace. It has not changed creation, nor reduced eternal sinlessness to sin and love to hate. What power can this self you made possess, when it would contradict the Will of God?

Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Over and over this must be repeated, until it is accepted. It is true. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Nothing can touch it, nor can change what God created as eternal. The self you made, evil and full of sin, is meaningless. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God, and light and joy and peace abide in you.

Salvation requires the acceptance of but one thought; you are as God created you, not what you made of yourself. Whatever evil you may think you did, you are as God created you. Whatever mistakes you made, the truth about you is unchanged. Creation is eternal and unalterable. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. You are and will forever be exactly as you were created. Light and joy and peace abide in you because God put them there.

In our longer exercise periods today, which would be most profitable if done for the first five minutes of every waking hour, we will begin by stating the truth about our creation:

“Light and joy and peace abide in me.

My sinlessness is guaranteed by God.”

Then put away your foolish self-images, and spend the rest of the practice period in trying to experience what God has given you, in place of what you have decreed for yourself.

You are what God created, or what you made. One Self is true; the other is not there. Try to experience the unity of your One Self. Try to appreciate Its holiness and the Love from Which It was created. Try not to interfere with the Self Which God created as you by hiding Its majesty behind the tiny idols of evil and sinfulness you have made to replace It. Let It come into Its own. Here you are; This is you. And light and joy and peace abide in you because this is so.

You may not be willing or even able to use the first five minutes of each hour for these exercises. Try, however, to do so when you can. At least remember to repeat these thoughts each hour:

“Light and joy and peace abide in me.

My sinlessness is guaranteed by God.”

Then try to devote at least a minute or so to closing your eyes and realizing that this is a statement of the truth about you.

If a situation arises that seems to be disturbing, quickly dispel the illusion of fear by repeating these thoughts again. Should you be tempted to become angry with someone, tell one silently:

“Light and joy and peace abide in you.

Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God.”

You can do much for the world’s salvation today. You can do much today to bring you closer to the part in salvation which God has assigned to you. And you can do much today to bring the conviction to your mind that the idea for the day is true indeed.

Lesson 94

“I am as God created me.”

Today we continue with the one idea which brings complete salvation; the one statement which makes all forms of temptation powerless; the one thought which renders the ego silent and entirely undone. You are as God created you. The sounds of this world are still, the sights of this world disappear, and all the thoughts that this world ever held are wiped away forever by this one idea. Here is salvation accomplished. Here is sanity restored.

True light is strength, and strength is sinlessness. If you remain as God created you, you must be strong, and light must be in you. One Who ensured your sinlessness must be the guarantee of strength and light as well. You are as God created you. Darkness cannot obscure the glory of the Child of God. You stand in light, strong in the sinlessness in which you were created, and in which you will remain throughout eternity.

Today we will again devote the first five minutes of each waking hour to the attempt to feel the truth in you. Begin these times of searching with these words:

“I am as God created me.

I am One’s Child eternally.”

Now try to reach the Child of God in you. This is the Self That never sinned, nor made an image to replace reality. This is the Self Which never left Its home in God, to walk the world uncertainly. This is the Self Which knows no fear, nor could conceive of loss or suffering or death.

Nothing is required of you to reach this goal except to lay all idols and self-images aside; go past the long list of attributes, both “good” and “bad”, you have ascribed to yourself; and wait in silent expectancy for the truth. God has Oneself promised that it will be revealed to all who ask for it. You are asking now. You cannot fail because One cannot fail.

If you do not meet the requirement of practicing for the first five minutes of every hour, at least remind yourself hourly:

“I am as God created me.

I am One’s Child eternally.”

Tell yourself frequently today that you are as God created you. And be sure to respond to anyone who seems to irritate you with these words:

“You are as God created you.

You are One’s Child eternally.”

Make every effort to do the hourly exercises today. Each one you do will be a giant stride toward your release, and a milestone in learning the thought system which this course sets forth.

Lesson 95

“I am One Self, united with my Creator.”

Today’s idea accurately describes you as God created you. You are one within yourself, and One with One. Yours is the unity of all creation. Your perfect unity makes change in you impossible. You do not accept this, and you fail to realize it must be so, only because you believe that you have changed yourself already.

You see yourself as a ridiculous parody on God’s creation, weak, vicious, ugly and sinful, miserable and beset with pain. Such is your version of yourself; a self divided into many warring parts, separate from God, and tenuously held together by its erratic and capricious maker, to which you pray. It does not hear your prayers, for it is deaf. It does not see the Oneness in you, for it is blind. It does not understand you are the Child of God, for it is senseless and understands nothing.

We will attempt today to be aware only of what can hear and see, and what makes perfect sense. We will again direct our exercises towards reaching your One Self, Which is united with Its Creator. In patience and in hope we try again today. The use of the first five minutes of every waking hour for practicing the idea for the day has special advantages at the stage of learning in which you are at present.

It is difficult at this point not to allow your mind to wander if it undertakes extended attempts. You have surely realized this by now. You have seen the extent of your lack of mental discipline, and of your need for mind training. It is necessary that you be aware of this, for it is indeed a hindrance to your advance.

Frequent but shorter practice periods have other advantages for you at this time. In addition to recognizing your difficulties with sustained attention, you must also have noticed that, unless you are reminded of your purpose frequently, you tend to forget about it for long periods of time. You often fail to remember the short applications of it for the day, and you have not yet formed the habit of using it as an automatic response to temptation.

Structure, then, is necessary for you at this time, planned to include frequent reminders of your goal, and regular attempts to reach it. Regularity in terms of time is not the ideal requirement for the most beneficial form of practice in salvation. It is advantageous, however, for those whose motivation is inconsistent, and who remain heavily defended against learning.

We will therefore keep to the five minutes an hour practice periods for a while, and urge you to omit as few as possible. Using the first five minutes of the hour will be particularly helpful, since it imposes firmer structure. Do not, however, use your lapses from this schedule as an excuse not to return to it again as soon as you can.

There may well be a temptation to regard the day as lost because you have already failed to do what is required. This should, however, merely be recognized as what it is: a refusal to let your mistakes be corrected, and an unwillingness to try again. The Holy Spirit is not delayed in One’s teaching by your mistakes. One can be held back only by your unwillingness to let them go.

Let us therefore be determined, particularly for the next week or so, to be willing to forgive ourselves for our lapses in diligence, and our failures to follow the instructions for practicing the day’s idea. This tolerance for weakness will enable us to overlook it, rather than give it power to delay our learning. If we give it power to do this, we are regarding it as strength, and are confusing strength with weakness.

When you fail to comply with the requirements of this course, you have merely made a mistake. This calls for correction, and for nothing else. To allow a mistake to continue is to make additional mistakes based on the first, and reinforcing it. It is this process that must be laid aside, for it is but another way in which you would defend illusions against the truth.

Let all these errors go by recognizing them for what they are. They are attempts to keep you unaware you are One Self, united with your Creator, at one with every aspect of creation, and limitless in power and in peace. This is the truth, and nothing else is true. Today we will affirm this truth again, and try to reach the place in you in which there is no doubt that only this is true. Begin the practice periods today with this assurance, given to your mind with all the certainty that you can give:

“I am One Self, united with my Creator,

At one with every aspect of creation,

And limitless in power and in peace.”

Then close your eyes and tell yourself again, slowly and thoughtfully, attempting to allow the meaning of the words to sink into your mind, replacing false ideas:

“I am One Self.”

Repeat this several times, and then attempt to feel the meaning which the words convey. You are One Self, united and secure in light and joy and peace. You are God’s Child, One Self with One Creator and one goal: to bring awareness of this Oneness to all minds, that true creation may extend the Allness and the Unity of God.

You are One Self, complete and healed and whole, with power to lift the veil of darkness from the world, and let the light in you come through to teach the world the truth about itself. You are One Self, in perfect harmony with all there is and all that there will be. You are One Self, the holy Child of God, united with your siblings in this Self; united with your Creator in One’s Will.

Feel this One Self in you, and let It shine away all your illusions and your doubts. This is your Self, the Child of God Oneself, sinless as Its Creator, with One’s strength within you and One’s Love forever yours. You are One Self, and it is given you to feel this Self within you, and to cast all your illusions out of the One Mind Which is this Self, the holy truth in you.

Do not forget today. We need your help, your little part in bringing happiness to all the world. And Heaven looks to you in confidence that you will try today. Share, then, its surety, for it is yours. Be vigilant. Do not forget today.

Throughout the day do not forget your goal. Repeat today’s idea as frequently as possible, and understand each time you do so, someone hears the voice of hope, the stirring of the truth within one’s mind, the gentle rustling of the winds of peace. Your own acknowledgment you are One Self, united with your Creator, is a call to all the world, to be at one with you. To everyone you meet today be sure to give the promise of today’s idea and tell one this:

“You are One Self with me,

United with our Creator in this Self.

I honor you because of what I am,

And what One is, Who loves us both as one.”

Lesson 96

“Salvation comes from my One Self.”

Although you are One Self, you experience yourself as two; as both good and evil, loving and hating, mind and body. This sense of being split into opposites induces feelings of acute and constant conflict, and leads to frantic attempts to reconcile the contradictory aspects of this self-perception. You have sought many such solutions, and none of them has worked. The opposites you see in you will never be compatible. But one exists.

The fact that truth and illusion cannot be reconciled no matter how you try, what means you use and where you see the problem, must be accepted if you would be saved. Until you have accepted this, you will attempt endless lists of goals you cannot reach; a senseless series of expenditures of time and effort, hopefulness and doubt, each one as futile as the one before, and failing as the next one surely will.

Problems that have no meaning cannot be resolved within the framework they are set. Two selves in conflict could not be resolved, and good and evil have no meeting place. The self you made can never be your Self, nor can your Self be split in two, and still be what it is, and must forever be.

A mind and body cannot both exist. Make no attempt to reconcile the two, for one denies the other can be real. If you are physical your mind is gone from your self-concept, for it has no place in which it could be really part of you. If you are Spirit, then the body must be meaningless to your reality.

Spirit makes use of mind as means to find Its Self-expression. And the mind which serves the Spirit is at peace and filled with joy. Its power comes from Spirit, and it is fulfilling happily its function here. Yet mind can also see itself divorced from Spirit, and perceive itself within a body it confuses with itself. Without its function then, it has no peace, and happiness is alien to its thoughts.

Yet mind apart from Spirit cannot think. It has denied its Source of strength, and sees itself as helpless, limited and weak. Dissociated from its function now, it thinks it is alone and separate, attacked by armies massed against itself and hiding in the body’s frail support. Now must it reconcile unlike with like, for this is what it thinks that it is for. Waste no more time on this. Who can resolve the senseless conflicts which a dream presents? What could the resolution mean in truth? What purpose could it serve? What is it for?

Salvation cannot make illusions real, and solve a problem that does not exist. Perhaps you hope it can. Yet would you have God’s plan for the release of One’s dear Child bring pain to one, and fail to set one free? Your Self retains Its thoughts, and they remain within your mind and in the Mind of God. The Holy Spirit holds salvation in your mind, and offers it the way to peace.

Salvation is a thought you share with God, because One’s Voice accepted it for you and answered in your name that it was done. Thus is salvation kept among the Thoughts your Self holds dear and cherishes for you. We will attempt today to find this Thought, Whose presence in your mind is guaranteed by One Who speaks to you from your One Self. Our hourly five minute practicing will be a search for One within your mind. Salvation comes from this One Self through One Who is the bridge between your mind and It.

Wait patiently, and let One speak to you about your Self, and what your mind can do, restored to It and free to serve Its Will. Begin by saying this:

“Salvation comes from my one Self.

Its thoughts are mine to use.”

Then seek Its thoughts, and claim them as your own. These are your own real thoughts you have denied, and let your mind go wandering in a world of dreams, to find illusions in their place. Here are your Thoughts, the only ones you have. Salvation is among Them; find it there.

If you succeed, the Thoughts that come to you will tell you you are saved, and that your mind has found the function that it sought to lose. Your Self will welcome it, and give it peace. Restored in strength, it will again flow out from Spirit to the Spirit in all things created by the Spirit as Itself. Your mind will bless all things. Confusion done, you are restored, for you have found your Self.

Your Self knows that you cannot fail today. Perhaps your mind remains uncertain yet a little while. Be not dismayed by this. The joy your Self experiences It will save for you, and it will yet be yours in full awareness. Every time you spend five minutes of the hour seeking One Who joins your mind and Self, you offer One another treasure to be kept for you.

Each time today you tell your frantic mind salvation comes from your One Self, you lay another treasure in your growing store. And all of it is given everyone who asks for it, and will accept the gift. Think, then, how much is given unto you to give this day, that it be given you!

Lesson 97

“I am Spirit.”

Today’s idea identifies you with your One Self. It accepts no split identity, nor tries to weave opposing factors into unity. It simply states the truth. Practice this truth today as often as you can, for it will bring your mind from conflict to the quiet fields of peace. No chill of fear can enter, for your mind has been absolved from madness, letting go illusions of a split identity.

We state again the truth about your Self, the holy Child of God Who rests in you; Whose mind has been restored to sanity. You are the Spirit lovingly endowed with all your Creator’s love and peace and joy. You are the Spirit Which completes Oneself, and shares One’s Function as Creator. One is with you always, as you are with One.

Today we try to bring reality still closer to your mind. Each time you practice, awareness is brought a little nearer at least; sometimes a thousand years or more are saved. The minutes which you give are multiplied over and over, for the miracle makes use of time but is not ruled by it. Salvation is a miracle, the first and last; the first that is the last, for it is one.

You are the Spirit in Whose Mind abides the miracle in which all time stands still; the miracle in which a minute spent in using these ideas becomes a time which has no length and which has no end. Give, then, these minutes willingly, and count on One Who promised to lay timelessness beside them. One will offer all One’s strength to every little effort which you make.

Give One the minutes which One needs today to help you understand with One you are the Spirit that abides in One, and Which calls through One’s Voice to every living thing; offers One’s sight to everyone who asks; replaces error with the simple truth.

The Holy Spirit will be glad to take five minutes of each hour from your hands, and carry them around this aching world where pain and misery appear to rule. One will not overlook one open mind that will accept the healing gift they bring, and One will lay them everywhere One knows they will be welcome. And they will increase in healing power each time someone accepts them as one’s thoughts, and uses them to heal.

Thus will your gift to One be multiplied a thousand-fold and tens of thousands more. And when it is returned to you, it will surpass in might the little gift you gave as much as does the radiance of the sun outshine the tiny gleam a firefly makes an uncertain moment, and goes out. The steady brilliance of this light remains, and leads you out of darkness, nor will you be able to forget the way again.

Begin these happy exercises with the words the Holy Spirit speaks to you, and let them echo round the world through One:

“Spirit am I, a holy Child of God,

Free of all limits, safe and healed and whole,

Free to forgive, and free to save the world.”

Expressed through you, the Holy Spirit will accept this gift which you received of One, increase its power and give it back to you.

Offer each practice period today gladly to One. And One will speak to you, reminding you that you are Spirit, One with One and God, your siblings and your Self. Listen for One’s assurance every time you speak the words One offers you today, and let One tell your mind that they are true. Use them against temptation, and escape its sorry consequences if you yield to the belief that you are something else. The Holy Spirit gives you peace today. Receive One’s words, and offer them to One.

Lesson 98

“I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation.”

Today is a day of special dedication. We take a stand on but one side today. We side with truth and let illusions go. We will not vacillate between the two, but take a firm position with the One. We dedicate ourselves to truth today, and to salvation as God planned it be. We will not argue it is something else, we will not seek for it where it is not. In gladness we accept it as it is, and take the part assigned to us by God.

How happy to be certain! All our doubts we lay aside today, and take our stand with certainty of purpose, and with thanks that doubt is gone and surety has come. We have a mighty purpose to fulfill, and have been given everything we need with which to reach the goal. Not one mistake stands in our way. For we have been absolved from errors. All our sins are washed away by realizing that they were but mistakes.

The guiltless have no fear, for they are safe and recognize their safety. They do not appeal to magic, nor invent escapes from fancied threats without reality. They rest in quiet certainty that they will do what it is given them to do. They do not doubt their own ability, because they know their function will be filled completely, in the perfect time and place. They took the stand which we will take today, that we may share their certainty, and thus increase it by accepting it ourselves.

They will be with us; all who took the stand we take today will gladly offer us all that they learned and every gain they made. Those still uncertain, too, will join with us, and, borrowing our certainty, will make it stronger still. While those as yet unborn will hear the call we heard, and answer it, when they have come to make their choice again. We do not choose but for ourselves today.

Is it not worth five minutes of your time each hour to be able to accept the happiness that God has given you? Is it not worth five minutes hourly to recognize your special function here? Is not five minutes of the hour but a small request to make in terms of a reward so great it has no measure? You have made a thousand losing bargains at the least.

Here is an offer guaranteeing you your full release from pain of every kind, and joy the world does not contain. You can exchange a little of your time for peace of mind and certainty of purpose, with the promise of complete success. And since time has no meaning, you are being asked for nothing in return for everything. Here is a bargain that you cannot lose. And what you gain is limitless indeed!

Each hour today give One your tiny gift of but five minutes. One will give the words you use in practicing today’s idea the deep conviction and the certainty you lack. One’s words will join with yours, and make each repetition of today’s idea a total dedication, made in faith as perfect and as sure as One’s in you. One’s confidence in you will bring the light to all the words you say, and you will go beyond their sound to what they really mean.

Today you practice with One, as you say:

“I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation.”

In each five minutes that you spend with One, One will accept your words and give them back to you all bright with faith and confidence so strong and steady they will light the world with hope and gladness. Do not lose one chance to be the glad receiver of One’s gifts, that you may give them to the world today.

Give One the words, and One will do the rest. One will enable you to understand your special function. One will open up the way to happiness, and peace and trust will be One’s gifts, One’s answer to your words. One will respond with all One’s faith and joy and certainty that what you say is true. And you will have conviction then of One Who knows the function that you have on earth as well as Heaven. One will be with you each practice period you share with One, exchanging every instant of the time you offer One for timelessness and peace.

Throughout the hour, let your time be spent in happy preparation for the next five minutes you will spend again with One. Repeat today’s idea while you wait for the glad time to come to you again. Repeat it often, and do not forget each time you do so, you have let your mind be readied for the happy time to come.

And when the hour is gone, and One is there once more to spend a little time with you be thankful, and lay down all earthly tasks, all little thoughts and limited ideas, and spend a happy time again with One. Tell One once more that you accept the part which One would have you take, and help you fill, and One will make you sure you want this choice, which One has made with you and you with One.

Lesson 99

“Salvation is my only function here.”

Salvation and forgiveness are the same. They both imply that something has gone wrong; something you need to be saved from or forgiven for; something amiss that needs corrective change; something apart or different from the Will of God. Thus do both terms imply something impossible but yet which has occurred, resulting in a state of conflict between what is and what could never be.

Truth and illusions both are equal now, for both have happened. The impossible becomes the thing you need forgiveness for; salvation from. Salvation is the borderland between the truth and illusion. It reflects the truth because it is the means by which you can escape illusions. Yet it is not truth because it undoes what was never done.

How could there be a meeting place at all where earth and Heaven can be reconciled within a mind where both of them exist? The mind which sees illusions thinks them real. They have existence in that they are thoughts. And yet they are not real because the mind that thinks these thoughts is separate from God.

What joins the separated mind and thoughts with Mind and Thought which are forever One? What plan could hold the truth inviolate, yet recognize the need illusions bring, and offer means by which they are undone without attack, and with no touch of pain? What but a Thought of God could be this plan by which the never done is overlooked, and sins forgotten which were never real?

The Holy Spirit holds this plan of God exactly as it was received of One within the Mind of God, and in your own. It is apart from time in that its Source is timeless. Yet it operates in time because of your belief that time is real. Unshaken does the Holy Spirit look on what you see; on sin and pain and death, on grief and separation and on loss. Yet does One know one thing must still be true;

God still is Love, and this is not One’s Will.

This is the Thought Which brings illusions to the truth, and sees them as appearances behind which is the changeless and the sure. This is the Thought which saves and which forgives, because It lays no faith in what is not created by the only Source It knows. This is the Thought Whose function is to save by giving you Its function as your own.

Salvation is your function with the One to Whom the plan was given. Now are you entrusted with this plan, along with One. One has one answer to appearances regardless of their form, their size, their depth, or any attribute they seem to have:

“Salvation is my only function here.

God still is Love, and this is not One’s Will.”

You who will yet work miracles, be sure you practice well the idea for today. Try to perceive the strength in what you say, for these are words in which your freedom lies. Your Creator loves you. All the world of pain is not One’s Will. Forgive yourself the thought One wanted this for you. Then let the Thought with which One has replaced all your mistakes enter the darkened places of your mind which thought the thoughts that never were One’s Will. This part belongs to God, as does the rest. It does not think its solitary thoughts and make them real by hiding them from One.

Let in the light, and you will look upon no obstacle to what One wills for you. Open your secrets to One’s kindly Light, and see how bright this Light still shines in you. Practice One’s Thought today, and let One’s Light seek out and lighten up all darkened spots, and shine through them to join them to the rest.

It is God’s Will your mind be One with One’s. It is God’s Will that One has but one Child. It is God’s Will that One’s one Child is you. Think of these things in practicing today, and start your longer practice periods with this instruction in the way of truth:

“Salvation is my only function here.

Salvation and forgiveness are the same.”

Then turn to One who shares your function with you, and let One teach you what you need to learn to lay all fear aside, and know your Self as Love Which has no opposite in you.

Forgive all thoughts which would oppose the truth of your completeness, unity and peace. You cannot lose the gifts your Creator gave. You do not want to be another self. You have no function that is not of God. Forgive yourself the one you think you made. Forgiveness and salvation are the same. Forgive what you have made, and you are saved.

You have a special message for today which has the power to remove all forms of doubt and fear forever from your mind. If you are tempted to believe them true, remember that appearances can not withstand the truth these mighty words contain:

“Salvation is my only function here.

God still is Love, and this is not One’s Will.”

Your only function tells you you are One. Remind yourself of this between the times you give five minutes to be shared with One Who shares God’s plan with you. Remind yourself:

“Salvation is my only function here.”

Thus do you lay forgiveness on your mind, and let all fear be gently laid aside that Love may find Its rightful place in you, and show you that you are the Child of God.

Lesson 100

“My part is essential to God’s plan for salvation.”

Just as God’s Child completes one’s Creator, so your part in it completes your Creator’s plan. Salvation must reverse the mad belief in separate thoughts and separate bodies which lead separate lives and go their separate ways. One function shared by separate minds unites them in one purpose, for each one is equally essential to them all.

God’s Will for you is perfect happiness. Why should you choose to go against One’s Will? The part that One has saved for you to take in working out One’s plan is given you that you might be restored to what One wills. This part is as essential to One’s plan as to your happiness. Your joy must be complete to let One’s plan be understood by those to whom One sends you. They will see their function in your shining face, and hear God calling to them in your happy laugh.

You are indeed essential to God’s plan. Without your joy One’s joy is incomplete. Without your smile the world cannot be saved. While you are sad the light which God Oneself appointed as the means to save the world is dim and lusterless. And no one laughs because all laughter can but echo yours. You are indeed essential to God’s plan. Just as your light increases every light that shines in Heaven, so your joy on earth calls to all minds to let their sorrows go, and take their place beside you in God’s plan.

God’s messengers are joyous, and their joy heals sorrow and despair. They are the proof that God wills perfect happiness for all who will accept their Creator’s gifts as theirs. We will not let ourselves be sad today. For if we do, we fail to take the part that is essential to God’s plan, as well as to our vision. Sadness is the sign that you would play another part, instead of what has been assigned to you by God. Thus do you fail to show the world how great the happiness One wills for you. And so you do not recognize that it is yours.

Today we will attempt to understand joy is our function here. If you are sad your part is unfulfilled, and all the world is thus deprived of joy, along with you. God asks that you be happy, so the world can see how much One loves One’s Child, and wills no sorrow rises to abate one’s joy; no fear besets one to disturb one’s peace. You are God’s messenger today. You bring One’s happiness to all you look upon; One’s peace to everyone who looks on you, and sees One’s message in your happy face.

We will prepare ourselves for this today, in our five minute practice periods by feeling happiness arise in us according to our Creator’s Will and ours. Begin the exercises with the thought today’s idea contains. Then realize your part is to be happy. Only this is asked of you or anyone who wants to take one’s place among God’s messengers.

Think what this means. You have indeed been wrong in your belief that sacrifice is asked. You but receive according to God’s plan, and never lose or sacrifice or die. Now let us try to find that joy which proves to us and all the world God’s Will for us. It is your function that you find it here, and that you find it now. For this you came. Let this one be the day that you succeed!

Look deep within you, undismayed by all the little thoughts and foolish goals you pass as you ascend to meet the Christ in you. One will be there. And you can reach One now. What could you rather look upon in place of One Who waits that you may look on One? What little thought has power to hold you back? What foolish goal can keep you from success when One Who calls to you is God Oneself?

One will be there. You are essential to One’s plan. You are One’s messenger today. And you must find what One would have you give. Do not forget the idea for today between your longer practice periods. It is your Self Who calls to you today. And it is One you answer every time you tell yourself you are essential to God’s plan for the salvation of the world.

Lesson 101

“God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.”

Today we will continue with the theme of happiness. This is a key idea in understanding what salvation means. You still believe it asks for suffering as penance for your “sins.” This is not so. Yet you must think it so while you believe that sin is real, and that God’s Child can sin. If sin is real then punishment is just, and cannot be escaped. Salvation thus cannot be purchased but through suffering.

If sin is real then happiness must be illusion, for they cannot both be true. The sinful warrant only death and pain, and it is this they ask for, for they know it waits for them and it will seek them out and find them somewhere, sometime, in some form which evens the account they owe to God. They would escape One in their fear. And yet One will pursue, and they can not escape.

If sin is real salvation must be pain. Pain is the cost of sin, and suffering can never be escaped if sin is real. Salvation must be feared, for it will kill, but slowly, taking everything away before it grants the welcome boon of death to victims who are little more than bones before salvation is appeased. Its wrath is boundless, merciless, but wholly just.

Who would seek out such savage punishment? Who would not flee salvation, and attempt in every way one can to drown the Voice Which offers it to one? Why would one try to listen, and accept Its offering? If sin is real its offering is death, and meted out in cruel form to match the vicious wishes in which sin is born. If sin is real salvation has become your bitter enemy, the curse of God upon you who have crucified One’s Child.

You need the practice periods today. The exercises teach sin is not real, and all that you believe must come from sin will never happen, for it has no cause. Accept atonement with an open mind, which cherishes no lingering belief that you have made a devil of God’s Child.

There is no sin. We practice with this thought as often as we can today, because it is the basis for today’s idea. God’s Will for you is perfect happiness because there is no sin, and suffering is causeless.

Joy is just, and pain is but the sign you have misunderstood yourself. Fear not the Will of God. But turn to It in confidence that It will set you free from all the consequences sin has wrought in feverish imagination. Say:

“God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.

There is no sin; it has no consequence.”

So should you start your practice periods, and then attempt again to find the joy these thoughts will introduce into your mind. Give these five minutes gladly, to remove the heavy load you laid upon yourself with the insane belief that sin is real.

Today escape from madness. You are set on freedom’s road, and now today’s idea brings wings to speed you on, and hope to go still faster to the waiting goal of peace. There is no sin. Remember this today, and tell yourself as often as you can:

“God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.

This is the truth because there is no sin.”

Lesson 102

“I share God’s Will for happiness for me.”

You do not want to suffer. You may think it buys you something, and may still believe a little that it buys you what you want. Yet this belief is surely shaken now, at least enough to let you question it, and to suspect it really makes no sense. It has not gone as yet, but lacks the roots that once secured it tightly to the dark and hidden secret places of your mind.

Today we try to loose its weakened hold still further. And to realize that pain is purposeless, without a cause, and with no power to accomplish anything. It cannot purchase anything at all. It offers nothing, and does not exist. And everything you think it offers you is lacking in existence like itself. You have been slave to nothing. Be you free today to join the happy Will of God.

For several days we will continue to devote our longer practice periods to exercises planned to help you reach the happiness God’s Will has placed in you. Here is your home, and here your safety is. Here is your peace, and here there is no fear. Here is salvation. Here is rest at last.

Begin the longer practice periods with this acceptance of God’s Will for you:

“I share God’s Will for happiness for me,

And I accept it as my function now.”

Then seek this function deep within your mind, for it is there, awaiting but your choice. You cannot fail to find it when you learn it is your choice, and that you share God’s Will.

Be happy, for your only function here is happiness. You have no need to be less loving to God’s Child than One Whose Love created one as loving as Oneself. Besides these hourly five minute rests, pause frequently today to tell yourself that you have now accepted happiness as your one function. And be sure that you are joining with God’s Will in doing this.

Lesson 103

“God, being Love, is also happiness.”

Happiness is an attribute of love. It cannot be apart from it, nor can it be experienced where love is not. Love has no limits, being everywhere. And therefore joy is everywhere as well. Yet can the mind deny that this is so, believing there are gaps in love where sin can enter, bringing pain instead of joy. This strange belief would limit happiness by redefining love as limited, and introducing opposition in what has no limit and no opposite.

Fear is associated then with love, and its results become the heritage of minds that think what they have made is real. These images, with no reality in truth, bear witness to the fear of God, forgetting being Love, One must be joy. This basic error we will try again to bring to truth today, and teach ourselves:

“God, being Love, is also happiness.

To fear One is to be afraid of joy.”

Begin your longer exercises for today with this association, which corrects the false belief that God is fear. It also emphasizes happiness belongs to you because of what One is.

Allow this one correction to be placed within your minds each waking hour today. Then welcome all the happiness it brings, as truth replaces fear, and joy becomes what you expect to take the place of pain. God being Love, it will be given you. Bolster this expectation frequently throughout the day, and quiet all your fears with this assurance, kind and wholly true:

“God, being Love, is also happiness.

And it is happiness I seek today.

I cannot fail, because I seek the truth.”

Lesson 104

“I seek but what belongs to me in truth.”

Today’s idea continues with the thought that joy and peace are not but idle dreams. They are your right, because of what you are. They come to you from God, Who cannot fail to give you what One wills. Yet must there be a place made ready to receive One’s gifts. They are not welcomed gladly by a mind which has instead received the gifts it made where One’s belong, as substitutes for them.

Today we would remove all meaningless and self-made gifts which we have placed upon the holy altar where God’s gifts belong. These are the gifts which are our own in truth. One’s are the gifts which we inherited before time was, and which will still be ours when time has passed into eternity. These are the gifts which are within us now, for they are timeless. And we need not wait to have them. They belong to us today. Therefore we will to have them now, and know in choosing them in place of what we made we but unite our will with what God wills, and recognize the same as being One.

Our longer practice periods today, the hourly five minutes given truth for your salvation, should begin with this:

“I seek but what belongs to me in truth,

And joy and peace are my inheritance.”

Then lay aside the conflicts of the world that offer other gifts and other goals made of illusions, witnessed to by them, and sought for only in a world of dreams.

All this we lay aside, and seek instead that which is truly ours, as we ask to recognize what God has given us. We clear a holy place within our minds before One’s altar, where One’s gifts of peace and joy are welcome, and to which we come to find what has been given us by One. We come in confidence today, aware that what belongs to us in truth is what One gives. And we would wish for nothing else, for nothing else belongs to us in truth.

So do we clear the way for One today by simply recognizing that One’s Will is done already, and that joy and peace belong to us as One’s eternal gifts. We will not let ourselves lose sight of them between the times we come to seek for them where One has laid them. This reminder will we bring to mind as often as we can:

“I seek but what belongs to me in truth.

God’s gifts of joy and peace are all I want.”

Lesson 105

“God’s peace and joy are mine.”

God’s peace and joy are yours. Today we will accept them, knowing they belong to us. And we will try to understand these gifts increase as we receive them. They are not like to the gifts the world can give, in which the giver loses as one gives the gift; the taker is the richer by one’s loss. These are not gifts, but bargains made with guilt. The truly given gift entails no loss. It is impossible that one can gain because another loses. This implies a limit and an insufficiency.

No gift is given thus. Such “gifts” are but a bid for a more valuable return; a loan with interest to be paid in full; a temporary lending, meant to be a pledge of debt to be repaid with more than was received by one who took the gift. This strange distortion of what giving means pervades all levels of the world you see. It strips all meaning from the gifts you give, and leaves you nothing in the ones you take.

A major learning goal this course has set is to reverse your view of giving, so you can receive. For giving has become a source of fear, and so you would avoid the only means by which you can receive. Accept God’s peace and joy, and you will learn a different way of looking at a gift. God’s gifts will never lessen when they are given away. They but increase thereby. As Heaven’s peace and joy intensify when you accept them as God’s gift to you, so does the joy of your Creator grow when you accept One’s joy and peace as yours.

True giving is creation. It extends the limitless to the unlimited, eternity to timelessness, and love unto itself. It adds to all that is complete already, not in simple terms of adding more, for that implies that it was less before. It adds by letting what cannot contain itself fulfill its aim of giving everything it has away, securing it forever for itself.

Today accept God’s peace and joy as yours. Let One complete Oneself as One defines completion. You will understand that what completes One must complete One’s Child as well. One cannot give through loss. No more can you. Receive One’s gift of joy and peace today, and One will thank you for your gift to One.

Today our practice periods will start a little differently. Begin today by thinking of those siblings who have been denied by you the peace and joy that are their right under the equal laws of God. Here you denied them to yourself. And here you must return to claim them as your own. Think of your “enemies” a little while, and tell each one as one occurs to you:

“My sibling, peace and joy I offer you,

That I may have God’s peace and joy as mine.”

Thus you prepare yourself to recognize God’s gifts to you, and let your mind be free of all that would prevent success today. Now are you ready to accept the gift of peace and joy which God has given you. Now are you ready to experience the joy and peace you have denied yourself. Now you can say, “God’s peace and joy are mine,” for you have given what you would receive.

You must succeed today if you prepare your mind as we suggest, for you have let all bars to peace and joy be lifted up, and what is yours can come to you at last. So tell yourself

“God’s peace and joy are mine,”

and close your eyes a while, and let One’s Voice assure you that the words you speak are true.

Spend your five minutes thus with One each time you can today, but do not think that less is worthless when you cannot give One more. At least remember hourly to say the words which call on One to give you what One wills to give, and wills you to receive. Determine not to interfere today with what One wills. And if a sibling seems to tempt you to deny God’s gift to one, see it as but another chance to let yourself receive the gifts of God as yours. Then bless your sibling thankfully, and say:

“My sibling, peace and joy I offer you,

That I may have God’s peace and joy as mine.”

Lesson 106

“Let me be still and listen to the truth.”

If you will lay aside the ego’s voice however loudly it may seem to call; if you will not accept its petty gifts which give you nothing that you really want; if you will listen with an open mind, which has not told you what salvation is; then you will hear the mighty Voice of truth, quiet in power, strong in stillness, and completely certain in Its messages. Listen, and hear your Creator speak to you through One’s appointed Voice, Which silences the thunder of the meaningless, and shows the way to peace to those who cannot see.

Be still today and listen to the truth. Be not deceived by voices of the dead which tell you they have found the source of life, and offer it to you for your belief. Attend them not, but listen to the truth. Be not afraid today to circumvent the voices of the world, walk lightly past their meaningless persuasion. Hear them not.

Be still today and listen to the truth. Go past all things which do not speak of One Who holds your happiness within One’s hand, held out to you in welcome and in love. Hear only One today, and do not wait to reach One longer. Hear one Voice today.

Today the promise of God’s Word is kept. Hear and be silent. One would speak to you. One comes with miracles a thousand times as happy and as wonderful as those you ever dreamt or wished for in your dreams. One’s miracles are true. They will not fade when dreaming ends. They end the dream instead; and last forever for they come from God to One’s dear Child, whose other name is you. Prepare yourself for miracles today. Today allow your Creator’s ancient pledge to you and all your siblings to be kept.

Hear One today, and listen to the Word which lifts the veil which lies upon the earth, and wakes all those who sleep and cannot see. God calls to them through you. One needs your voice to speak to them, for who could reach God’s Child except one’s Creator calling through your Self?

Hear One today, and offer One your voice to speak to all the multitudes who wait to hear the Word that One will speak today. Be ready for salvation. It is here, and will today be given unto you. And you will learn your function from the One Who chose it in your Creator’s Name for you.

Listen today and you will hear a Voice Which will resound throughout the world through you. The Bringer of all miracles has need that you receive them first, and thus become the joyous giver of what you received. Thus does salvation start and thus it ends; when everything is yours, and everything is given away, it will remain with you forever. And the lesson has been learned.

Today we practice giving, not the way you understand it now, but as it is. The longer exercises should begin with this request for your enlightenment:

“I will be still and listen to the truth.

What does it mean to give and to receive?”

Ask and expect an answer. Your request is one whose answer has been waiting long to be received by you. It will begin the ministry for which you came, and which will free the world from thinking giving is a way to lose. And so the world becomes ready to understand and to receive.

Be still and listen to the truth today. For each five minutes spent in listening a thousand minds are opened to the truth. And they will hear the holy Word you hear. And when the hour is past, you will again release a thousand more who pause to ask that truth be given them along with you.

Today the holy Word of God is kept through your receiving it to give away, so you can teach the world what giving means by listening and learning it of One. Do not forget today to reinforce your choice to hear and to receive the Word by your reminder, given to yourself as often as is possible today:

“Let me be still and listen to the truth.

I am the messenger of God today,

My voice is One’s, to give what I receive.”

Lesson 107

“Truth will correct all errors in my mind.”

What can correct illusions but the truth? And what are errors but illusions that remain unrecognized for what they are? Where truth has entered errors disappear. They merely vanish, leaving not a trace by which to be remembered. They are gone because without belief they have no life, and so they disappear to nothingness, returning whence they came. From dust to dust they come and go, for only truth remains.

Can you imagine what a state of mind without illusions is? How it would feel? Try to remember when there was a time—perhaps a minute, maybe even less—when nothing came to interrupt your peace; when you were certain you were loved and safe. Then try to picture what it would be like to have that moment be extended to the end of time and to eternity. Then let the sense of quiet that you felt be multiplied a hundred times, and then be multiplied another hundred more.

And now you have a hint, not more than just the faintest intimation of the state your mind will rest in when the truth has come. Without illusions there could be no fear, no doubt and no attack. When truth has come all pain is over, for there is no room for transitory thoughts and dead ideas to linger in your mind. Truth occupies your mind completely, liberating you from all beliefs in the ephemeral. They have no place because the truth has come, and they are nowhere. They cannot be found, for truth is everywhere forever now.

When truth has come it does not stay a while to disappear, or change to something else. It does not shift and alter in its form, nor come and go and go and come again. It stays exactly as it always was, to be depended on in every need, and trusted with a perfect trust in all the seeming difficulties and the doubts that the appearances the world presents engender. They will merely blow away, when truth corrects the errors in your mind.

When truth has come it harbors in its wings the gift of perfect constancy, and love which does not falter in the face of pain but looks beyond it, steadily and sure. Here is the gift of healing, for the truth needs no defense, and therefore no attack is possible. Illusions can be brought to truth to be corrected. But the truth stands far beyond illusions, and can not be brought to them to turn them into truth.

Truth does not come and go nor shift nor change, in this appearance now and then in that, evading capture and escaping grasp. It does not hide. It stands in open light, in obvious accessibility. It is impossible that anyone could seek it truly and would not succeed. Today belongs to truth. Give truth its due, and it will give you yours. You were not meant to suffer and to die. Your Creator wills these dreams be gone. Let truth correct them all.

We do not ask for what we do not have. We merely ask for what belongs to us, that we recognize it as our own. Today we practice on the happy note of certainty that has been born of truth. The shaky and unsteady footsteps of illusion is not our approach today. We are as certain of success as we are sure we live and hope and breathe and think. We do not doubt we walk with truth today, and count on it to enter into all the exercises that we do this day.

Begin by asking One Who goes with you upon this undertaking that One be in your awareness as you go with One. You are not made of flesh and blood and bone, but were created by the self-same Thought Which gave the gift of light to One as well. One is your Sibling, and so like to you your Creator knows that you are both the same. It is your Self you ask to go with you, and how could One be absent where you are?

Truth will correct all errors in your mind which tell you you could be apart from One. You speak to One today, and make your pledge to let One’s function be fulfilled through you. To share One’s function is to share One’s joy. One’s confidence is with you, as you say:

“Truth will correct all errors in my mind,

And I will rest in One Who is my Self.”

Then let One lead you gently to the truth which will envelop you and give you peace so deep and tranquil that you will return to the familiar world reluctantly.

And yet you will be glad to look again upon this world. For you will bring with you the promise of the changes which the truth that goes with you will carry to the world. They will increase with every gift you give of five small minutes, and the errors that surround the world will be corrected as you let them be corrected in your mind.

Do not forget your function for today. Each time you tell yourself with confidence,

“Truth will correct all errors in my mind,”

you speak for all the world, and One Who would release the world as One would set you free.

Lesson 108

“To give and to receive are one in truth.”

Vision depends upon today’s idea. The light is in it, for it reconciles all seeming opposites. And what is light except the resolution, born of peace, of all your conflicts and mistaken thoughts into one concept which is wholly true? Even that one will disappear because the Thought behind it will appear instead, to take its place. And now we are at peace forever, for the dream is over now.

True light which makes true vision possible is not the light the body’s eyes behold. It is a state of mind which has become so unified that darkness cannot be perceived at all. And thus what is the same is seen as one, while what is not the same remains unnoticed, for it is not there.

This is the light which shows no opposites, and vision, being healed, has power to heal. This is the light that brings your peace of mind to other minds, to share it and be glad that they are one with you and with themselves. This is the light which heals because it brings single perception, based upon one frame of reference from which one meaning comes.

Here are both giving and receiving seen as different aspects of one Thought Whose truth does not depend on which is seen as first, nor which appears to be in second place. Here it is understood that both occur together, that the Thought remains complete. And in this understanding is the base on which all opposites are reconciled, because they are perceived from the same frame of reference which unifies this Thought.

One thought, completely unified, will serve to unify all thought. This is the same as saying one correction will suffice for all correction, or that to forgive one sibling wholly is enough to bring salvation to all minds. For these are but some special cases of one law which holds for every kind of learning, if it be directed by the One Who knows the truth.

To learn that giving and receiving are the same has special usefulness, because it can be tried so easily and seen as true. And when this special case has proved it always works in every circumstance where it is tried, the thought behind it can be generalized to other areas of doubt and double vision. And from there it will extend, and finally arrive at the one Thought Which underlies them all.

Today we practice with the special case of giving and receiving. We will use this simple lesson in the obvious because it has results we cannot miss. To give is to receive. Today we will attempt to offer peace to everyone, and see how quickly peace returns to us. Light is tranquility, and in that peace is vision given us, and we can see.

So we begin the practice periods with the instruction for today, and say:

“To give and to receive are one in truth.

I will receive what I am giving now.”

Then close your eyes, and for five minutes think of what you would hold out to everyone to have it yours. You might, for instance, say:

“To everyone I offer quietness.”

“To everyone I offer peace of mind.”

“To everyone I offer gentleness.”

Say each one slowly, and then pause a while, expecting to receive the gift you gave, and it will come to you in the amount in which you gave it. You will find you have exact return, for this is what you asked. It might be helpful, too, to think of one to whom to give your gifts. One represents the others, and through one you give to all.

Our very simple lesson for today will teach you much. Effect and cause will be far better understood from this time on, and we will make much faster progress now. Think of the exercises for today as quick advances in your learning, made still faster and more sure each time you say:

“To give and to receive are one in truth.”

Lesson 109

“I rest in God.”

We ask for rest today, and quietness unshaken by the world’s appearances. We ask for peace and stillness in the midst of all the turmoil born of clashing dreams. We ask for safety and for happiness, although we seem to look on danger and on sorrow. And we have the thought that will answer our asking with what we request.

“I rest in God.”

This thought will bring to you the rest and quiet, peace and stillness, and the safety and the happiness you seek.

“I rest in God.”

This thought has power to wake the sleeping truth in you, whose vision sees beyond appearances to that same truth in everyone and everything there is. Here is the end of suffering for all the world, and everyone who ever came and yet will come to linger for a while. Here is the thought in which the Child of God is born again, to recognize oneself.

“I rest in God.”

Completely undismayed this thought will carry you through storms and strife, past misery and pain, past loss and death, and onward to the certainty of God. There is no suffering it cannot heal. There is no problem which it cannot solve. And no appearance but will turn to truth before the eyes of you who rest in God.

This is the day of peace. You rest in God, and while the world is torn by winds of hate, your rest remains completely undisturbed. Yours is the rest of truth. Appearances cannot intrude on you. You call to all to join you in your rest, and they will hear and come to you because you rest in God. They will not hear another voice but yours, because you gave your voice to God and now you rest in One, and let One speak through you.

In One you have no cares and no concerns, no burdens, no anxiety, no pain, no fear of future and no past regrets. In timelessness you rest, while time goes by without its touch upon you, for your rest can never change in any way at all. You rest today. And as you close your eyes, sink into stillness. Let these periods of rest and respite reassure your mind that all its frantic fantasies were but the dreams of fever that has passed away. Let it be still and thankfully accept its healing. No more fearful dreams will come now that you rest in God. Take time today to slip away from dreams and into peace.

Each hour that you take your rest today a tired mind is suddenly made glad, a bird with broken wings begins to sing, a stream long dry begins to flow again. The world is born again each time you rest, and hourly remember that you came to bring the peace of God into the world, that it might take its rest along with you.

With each five minutes that you rest today the world is nearer waking. And the time when rest will be the only thing there is comes closer to all worn and tired minds, too weary now to go their way alone. And they will hear the bird begin to sing, and see the stream begin to flow again, with hope reborn and energy restored to walk with lightened steps along the road that suddenly seems easy as they go.

You rest within the peace of God today, and call upon your siblings from your rest, to draw them to their rest along with you. You will be faithful to your trust today, forgetting no one, bringing everyone into the boundless circle of your peace, the holy sanctuary where you rest. Open the temple doors and let them come from far across the world, and near as well; your distant siblings and your closest friends; bid them all enter here and rest with you.

You rest within the peace of God today, quiet and unafraid. Each sibling comes to take one’s rest, and offer it to you. We rest together here, for thus our rest is made complete, and what we give today we have received already. Time is not the guardian of what we give today. We give to those unborn and those passed by, to every Thought of God, and to the Mind in Which these Thoughts were born and where they rest. And we remind them of their resting place each time we tell ourselves:

“I rest in God.”

Lesson 110

“I am as God created me.”

We will repeat today’s idea from time to time. For this one thought would be enough to save you and the world, if you believed that it is true. Its truth would mean that you have made no changes in yourself which have reality, nor changed the universe so that what God created was replaced by fear and evil, misery and death. If you remain as God created you fear has no meaning, evil is not real, and misery and death do not exist.

Today’s idea is therefore all you need to let complete correction heal your mind and give you perfect vision which will heal all the mistakes that any mind has made at any time or place. It is enough to heal the past and make the future free. It is enough to let the present be accepted as it is. It is enough to let time be the means for all the world to learn escape from time, and every change that time appears to bring in passing by.

If you remain as God created you appearances cannot replace the truth, health cannot turn to sickness, nor can death be substitute for life, or fear for love. All this has not occurred, if you remain as God created you. You need no thought but just this one, to let redemption come to light the world and free it from the past.

In this one thought is all the past undone; the present saved to quietly extend into a timeless future. If you are as God created you, then there has been no separation of your mind from One’s, no split between your mind and other minds, and only unity within your own.

The healing power of today’s idea is limitless. It is the birthplace of all miracles, the great restorer of the truth to the awareness of the world. Practice today’s idea with gratitude. This is the truth that comes to set you free. This is the truth that God has promised you. This is the Word in which all sorrow ends.

For your five minute practice periods, begin with this quotation from the text:

“I am as God created me.

One’s Child can suffer nothing.

And I am One’s Child.”

Then, with this statement firmly in your mind, try to discover in your mind this Self Who is the holy Child of God Oneself. Seek One within you Who is Christ in you, the Child of God and Sibling to the world; the Savior Who has been forever saved, with power to save whoever touches One however lightly, asking for the Word that tells one one is sibling unto One.

You are as God created you. Today honor your Self. Let graven images you made to be the Child of God instead of what one is be worshipped not today. Deep in your mind the holy Christ in you is waiting your acknowledgment as you. And you are lost and do not know yourself while One is unacknowledged and unknown.

Seek One today, and find One. One will be your Savior from all idols you have made. For when you find One you will understand how worthless are your idols, and how false the images which you believed were you. Today we make a great advance to truth by letting idols go, and opening our hands and hearts and minds to God today.

We will remember One throughout the day with thankful hearts, and loving thoughts for all who meet with us today, for it is thus that we remember One. And we will say, that we may be reminded of One’s Child, our holy Self, the Christ in each of us:

“I am as God created me.”

Let us declare this truth as often as we can. This is the Word of God that sets you free. This is the key that opens up the gate of Heaven, and which lets you enter in the peace of God and One’s eternity.

Review 3

Our third review begins today. We will review two of the last twenty ideas each day until we have reviewed them all. We will observe the special format for these practice periods, which you are urged to follow as closely as you can. We understand, of course, that it may be impossible for you to undertake what is suggested here as optimal each day and every hour of the day.

Learning will not be hampered when you miss a practice period because it is impossible at the appointed time. Nor is it necessary that you make excessive efforts to be sure that you catch up in terms of numbers. Rituals are not our aim, and would defeat our learning goal. But learning will be hampered when you skip a practice period because you are unwilling to devote the time to it which you are asked to give. Do not deceive yourself in this. Unwillingness can be most carefully concealed behind a cloak of situations you can not control.

Learn to distinguish situations which are poorly suited to your practicing from those which you establish to uphold a camouflage for your unwillingness. Those practice periods which you have lost because you did not want to do them for whatever reason should be done as soon as you have changed your mind about your goal.

You are unwilling to cooperate in practicing salvation only if it interferes with gods you hold more dear. When you withdraw the value given them, allow your practice periods to be replacements for your litanies to them. They gave you nothing. But your practice periods offer you everything. Accept their offering and be at peace.

The format you should use for these reviews is this: Devote five minutes twice a day, or longer if you would prefer, to contemplating the ideas assigned. Read over the ideas and comments which are written first in each day’s exercises. Then begin to think about them quietly, letting your mind relate them to your needs, your seeming problems and all your concerns.

Place the ideas within your mind, and let it use them as it chooses. Give it faith that it will use them wisely, being helped in its decisions by the One Who gave the thoughts to you. What can you trust but what is in your mind? Have faith, in these reviews, the means the Holy Spirit uses will not fail. The wisdom of your mind will come to your assistance. Give it direction at the start, then lean back in quiet faith, and let it use the ideas you have given it as they were given you.

You have been given them in perfect trust; in perfect confidence that you would use them well; in perfect faith that you would understand their messages, and use them for yourself. Offer them to your mind in that same trust and confidence and faith. It will not fail. It is the Holy Spirit’s chosen means for your salvation. And with One’s trust it merits yours as well.

We emphasize the benefits to you if you devote the first five minutes of the day to your review and also give the last five minutes of your waking day to it. If this cannot be done, at least try to divide them so you undertake one in the morning, and the other in the hour just before you go to sleep.

The exercises to be done throughout the day are equally important, and perhaps of even greater value. You have been inclined to do the exercises and then go on to other things, without applying what you learned to them. As a result, your learning has had little reinforcement, and you have not given it the opportunity to prove its worth to you.

Here is another chance to use it well. In these reviews we stress the need to let your learning not lie idly by between your longer practice periods. Attempt to give your daily two ideas a brief but serious review each hour. Use one on the hour, and the other one a half an hour later. You need not give more than just a moment to each one. Repeat it, and allow your mind to rest a little time in silence and in peace.

Then turn to other things, but try to keep the thought with you, and let it serve to help you keep your peace throughout the day. If you are shaken, think of it again. These practice periods are planned to help you form the habit of applying what you learn each day to everything you do. Do not repeat it and then lay it down. Its usefulness is limitless to you. And it is meant to serve you in all ways, all times and places, and whenever you need help of any kind. Try, then, to take it with you in the business of the day, and make it holy, worthy of God’s Child, acceptable to God and to your Self.

Each day’s review assignment will conclude with a restatement of the thought to use each hour, and the one to be applied on each half hour as well. Forget them not. This second chance with each of these ideas will bring such large advances that we come from these reviews with learning gains so great that we begin again on solid ground. Do not forget how little you have learned. Do not forget how much you can learn now. Do not forget your Creator’s need of you, as you review these thoughts One gave to you.

Lesson 111

For morning and evening review:

“Miracles are seen in light.”  Lesson 91

I cannot see in darkness. Let the light

Of holiness and truth light up my mind,

And let me see the innocence within.

“Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.”  Lesson 92

I see through strength, the gift of God to me.

My weakness is the dark One’s gift dispels

By giving me One’s strength to take its place.

On the hour:

“Miracles are seen in light.”

On the half hour:

“Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.”

Lesson 112

For morning and evening review:

“Light and joy and peace abide in me.”  Lesson 93

I am the home of light and joy and peace.

I welcome them into the home I share

With God, because I am a part of One.

“I am as God created me.”  Lesson 94

I will remain forever as I was,

Created by the Changeless like Oneself.

And I am one with One, and One with me.

On the hour:

“Light and joy and peace abide in me.”

On the half hour:

“I am as God created me.”

Lesson 113

For morning and evening review:

“I am one Self, united with my Creator.”  Lesson 95

Serenity and perfect peace are mine

Because I am one Self, completely whole,

At one with all creation and with God.

“Salvation comes from my One Self.”  Lesson 96

From my One Self, Whose knowledge still remains

Within my mind, I see God’s perfect plan

For my salvation perfectly fulfilled.

On the hour:

“I am one Self, united with my Creator.”

On the half hour:

“Salvation comes from my One Self.”

Lesson 114

For morning and evening review:

“I am spirit.”  Lesson 97

I am the Child of God. No body can

Contain my Spirit, nor impose on me

A limitation God created not.

“I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation.”  Lesson 98

What can my function be but to accept

The Word of God, Who has created me,

For what I am and will forever be?

On the hour:

“I am spirit.”

On the half hour:

“I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation.”

Lesson 115

For morning and evening review:

“Salvation is my only function here.”  Lesson 99

My function here is to forgive the world

For all the errors I have made. For thus

Am I released from them with all the world.

“My part is essential to God’s plan for salvation.”  Lesson 100

I am essential to the plan of God

For the salvation of the world. For One

Gave me One’s plan that I might save the world.

On the hour:

“Salvation is my only function here.”

On the half hour:

“My part is essential to God’s plan for salvation.”

Lesson 116

For morning and evening review:

“God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.”  Lesson 101

God’s Will is perfect happiness for me.

And I can suffer but from the belief

There is another will apart from One’s.

“I share God’s Will for happiness for me.”  Lesson 102

I share my Creator’s Will for me, One’s Child.

What One has given me is all I want.

What One has given me is all there is.

On the hour:

“God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.”

On the half hour:

“I share God’s Will for happiness for me.”

Lesson 117

For morning and evening review:

“God, being Love, is also happiness.”  Lesson 103

Let me remember love is happiness

And nothing else brings joy. And so I choose

To entertain no substitutes for love.

“I seek but what belongs to me in truth.”  Lesson 104

Love is my heritage, and with it joy.

These are the gifts my Creator gave to me.

I would accept all that is mine in truth.

On the hour:

“God, being Love, is also happiness.”

On the half hour:

“I seek but what belongs to me in truth.”

Lesson 118

For morning and evening review:

“God’s peace and joy are mine.”  Lesson 105

Today I will accept God’s peace and joy

In glad exchange for all the substitutes

Which I have made for happiness and peace.

“Let me be still and listen to the truth.”  Lesson 106

Let mine own feeble voice be still, and let

Me hear the mighty Voice of truth itself

Assure me that I am God’s perfect Child.

On the hour:

“God’s peace and joy are mine.”

On the half hour:

“Let me be still and listen to the truth.”

Lesson 119

For morning and evening review:

“Truth will correct all errors in my mind.”  Lesson 107

I am mistaken when I think I can

Be hurt in any way. I am God’s Child,

Whose Self rests safely in the Mind of God.

“To give and to receive are one in truth.”  Lesson 108

I will forgive all things today, that I

May learn how to accept the truth in me,

And come to recognize my sinlessness.

On the hour:

“Truth will correct all errors in my mind.”

On the half hour:

“To give and to receive are one in truth.”

Lesson 120

For morning and evening review:

“I rest in God.”  Lesson 109

I rest in God today, and let One work

In me and through me, while I rest in One

In quiet and in perfect certainty.

“I am as God created me.”  Lesson 110

I am God’s Child. Today I lay aside

All sick illusions of myself, and let

My Creator tell me Who I really am.

On the hour:

“I rest in God.”

On the half hour:

“I am as God created me.”

Lesson 121

“Forgiveness is the key to happiness.”

Here is the answer to your search for peace. Here is the key to meaning in a world which seems to make no sense. Here is the way to safety in apparent dangers which appear to threaten you at every turn, and bring uncertainty to all your hopes of ever finding quietness and peace. Here are all questions answered; here the end of all uncertainty ensured at last.

The unforgiving mind is full of fear, and offers love no room to be itself; no place where it can spread its wings in peace, and soar above the turmoil of the world. The unforgiving mind is sad, without the hope of respite and release from pain. It suffers and abides in misery, peering about in darkness, seeing not, yet certain of the danger lurking there.

The unforgiving mind is torn with doubt, confused about itself and all it sees, afraid and angry, weak and blustering, afraid to go ahead, afraid to stay, afraid to waken or to go to sleep, afraid of every sound, yet more afraid of stillness; terrified of darkness, yet more terrified at the approach of light. What can the unforgiving mind perceive but its damnation? What can it behold except the proof that all its sins are real?

The unforgiving mind sees no mistakes, but only sins. It looks upon the world with sightless eyes, and shrieks as it beholds its own projections rising to attack its miserable parody of life. It wants to live, yet wishes it were dead. It wants forgiveness, yet it sees no hope. It wants escape, yet can conceive of none because it sees the sinful everywhere.

The unforgiving mind is in despair, without the prospect of a future which can offer anything but more despair. Yet it regards its judgement of the world as irreversible, and does not see it has condemned itself to this despair. It thinks it cannot change, for what it sees bears witness that its judgement is correct. It does not ask, because it thinks it knows. It does not question, certain it is right.

Forgiveness is acquired. It is not inherent in the mind, which cannot sin. As sin was an idea you taught yourself, forgiveness must be learned by you as well, but from a Teacher other than yourself, who represents the other Self in you. Through One you learn how to forgive the self you think you made, and let it disappear. Thus you return your mind as one to One who is your Self, and Who can never sin.

Each unforgiving mind presents you with an opportunity to teach your own how to forgive itself. Each one awaits release from hell through you, and turns to you imploringly for Heaven here and now. It has no hope, but you become its hope. And as its hope, do you become your own. The unforgiving mind must learn through your forgiveness that it has been saved from hell. And as you teach salvation, you will learn. Yet all your teaching and your learning will be not of you, but of the Teacher Who was given you to show the way to you.

Today we practice learning to forgive. If you are willing, you can learn today to take the key to happiness, and use it on your own behalf. We will devote ten minutes in the morning, and at night another ten, to learning how to give forgiveness and receive forgiveness too.

The unforgiving mind does not believe that giving and receiving are the same. Yet we will try to learn today that they are one through practicing forgiving toward one whom you think of as an enemy and one whom you consider as a friend. And as you learn to see them both as one, we will extend the lesson to ourselves, and see that their escape included ours.

Begin the longer practice periods by thinking of someone you do not like, who seems to irritate you, or to cause regret in you if you should meet one; one you actively despise, or merely try to overlook. It does not matter what the form your anger takes. You probably have chosen one already. One will do.

Now close your eyes and see one in your mind, and look at one a while. Try to perceive some light in one somewhere; a little gleam which you had never noticed. Try to find some little spark of brightness shining through the ugly picture which you hold of one. Look at this picture until you see a light somewhere within it, and then try to let this light extend until it covers one, and makes the picture beautiful and good.

Look at this changed perception for a while, and turn your mind to one you call a friend. Try to transfer the light you learned to see around your former “enemy” to one. Perceive one now as more than friend to you, for in that light one’s holiness shows you your Savior, saved and saving, healed and whole.

Then let one offer you the light you see in one, and let your “enemy” and Friend unite in blessing you with what you gave. Now are you one with them, and they with you. Now have you been forgiven by yourself. Do not forget, throughout the day, the role forgiveness plays in bringing happiness to every unforgiving mind, with yours among them. Every hour tell yourself:

“Forgiveness is the key to happiness.

I will awaken from the dream that I

Am mortal, fallible, and full of sin,

And know I am the perfect Child of God.”

Lesson 122

“Forgiveness offers everything I want.”

What could you want forgiveness cannot give? Do you want peace? Forgiveness offers it. Do you want happiness, a quiet mind, a certainty of purpose, and a sense of worth and beauty that transcends the world? Do you want care and safety, and the warmth of sure protection always? Do you want a quietness that cannot be disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep, abiding comfort, and a rest so perfect it can never be upset?

All this forgiveness offers you, and more. It sparkles in your eyes as you awake, and gives you joy with which to meet the day. It soothes your forehead while you sleep, and rests upon your eyelids so you see no dreams of fear and evil, malice and attack. And when you wake again, it offers you another day of happiness and peace. All this forgiveness offers you, and more.

Forgiveness lets the veil be lifted up which hides the Face of Christ from those who look with unforgiving eyes upon the world. It lets you recognize the Child of God, and clears your memory of all dead thoughts so that remembrance of your Creator can arise across the threshold of your mind. What would you want forgiveness cannot give? What gifts but these are worthy to be sought? What fancied value, trivial effect, or transient promise never to be kept, can hold more hope than what forgiveness brings?

Why would you seek an answer other than the answer that will answer everything? Here is the perfect answer, given to imperfect questions, meaningless requests, half-hearted willingness to hear, and less than halfway diligence and partial trust. Here is the answer! Seek for it no more. You will not find another one instead.

God’s plan for your salvation cannot change, nor can it fail. Be thankful it remains exactly as One planned it. Changelessly it stands before you, like an open door with warmth and welcome calling from beyond the doorway, bidding you to enter in and make yourself at home where you belong.

Here is the answer! Would you stand outside while all of Heaven waits for you within? Forgive and be forgiven. As you give you will receive. There is no plan but this for the salvation of the Child of God. Let us today rejoice that this is so, for here we have an answer, clear and plain, beyond deceit in its simplicity.

All the complexities the world has spun of fragile cobwebs disappear before the power and the majesty of this extremely simple statement of the truth. Here is the answer! Do not turn away in aimless wandering again. Accept salvation now. It is the gift of God and not the world. The world can give no gifts of any value to a mind which has received what God has given as its own.

God wills salvation be received today, and that the intricacies of your dreams no longer hide their nothingness from you. Open your eyes today, and look upon a happy world of safety and of peace. Forgiveness is the means by which it comes to take the place of hell. In quietness it rises up to greet your open eyes, and fill your heart with deep tranquility as ancient truths, forever newly born, arise in your awareness. What you will remember then can never be described. Yet your forgiveness offers it to you.

Remembering the gifts forgiveness gives, we undertake our practicing today with hope and faith that this will be the day salvation will be ours. Earnestly and gladly will we seek for it today, aware we hold the key within our hands, accepting Heaven’s answer to the hell we made, but where we would remain no more.

Morning and evening do we gladly give a quarter of an hour to the search in which the end of hell is guaranteed. Begin in hopefulness, for we have reached the turning point at which the road becomes far easier. And now the way is short that yet we travel. We are close indeed to the appointed ending of the dream.

Sink into happiness as you begin these practice periods, for they hold out the sure rewards of questions answered, and what your acceptance of the answer brings. Today it will be given you to feel the peace forgiveness offers, and the joy the lifting of the veil holds out to you.

Before the light you will receive today the world will fade until it disappears, and you will see another world arise you have no words to picture. Now we walk directly into light, and we receive the gifts which have been held in store for us since time began, kept waiting for today.

Forgiveness offers everything you want. Today all things you want are given you. Let not your gifts recede throughout the day, as you return again to meet a world of shifting change and bleak appearances. Retain your gifts in clear awareness as you see the changeless in the heart of change; the light of truth behind appearances.

Be tempted not to let your gifts slip by, and drift into forgetfulness but hold them firmly in your mind by your attempts to think of them at least a minute as each quarter of an hour passes by. Remind yourself how precious are these gifts with this reminder, which has power to hold your gifts in your awareness through the day:

“Forgiveness offers everything I want.

Today I have accepted this as true.

Today I have received the gifts of God.”

Lesson 123

“I thank my Creator for One’s gifts to me.”

Today let us be thankful. We have come to gentler pathways and to smoother roads. There is no thought of turning back, and no implacable resistance to the truth. A bit of wavering remains, some small objections and a little hesitance, but we can well be grateful for our gains, which are far greater than we realize. A day devoted now to gratitude will add the benefit of some insight into the real extent of all the gains which you have made; the gifts you have received.

Be glad today in loving thankfulness your Creator has not left you to yourself, nor let you wander in the dark alone. Be grateful One has saved you from the self you thought you made to take the place of One and One’s creation. Give One thanks today. Give thanks that One has not abandoned you, and that One’s Love forever will remain shining on you, forever without change.

Give thanks as well that you are changeless, for the Child One loves is changeless as Oneself. Be grateful you are saved. Be glad you have a function in salvation to fulfill. Be thankful that your value far transcends your meager gifts and petty judgements of the one whom God established as One’s Child.

Today in gratitude we lift our hearts above despair, and raise our thankful eyes, no longer looking downward to the dust. We sing the song of thankfulness today in honor of the Self Which God has willed to be our true identity in One. Today we smile on everyone we see, and walk with lightened footsteps as we go to do what is appointed us to do.

We do not go alone. And we give thanks that in our solitude a Friend has come to speak the saving Word of God to us. And thanks to you for listening to One. One’s Word is soundless if it be not heard. In thanking One the thanks are yours as well. An unheard message will not save the world, however mighty be the Voice that speaks, however loving may the message be.

Thanks be to you who heard, for you become the messenger who brings One’s Voice with you, and let It echo round and round the world. Receive the thanks of God today, as you give thanks to One. For One would offer you the thanks you give, since One receives your gifts in loving gratitude, and gives them back a thousand and a hundred thousand more than they were given. One will bless your gifts by sharing them with you. And so they grow in power and in strength, until they fill the world with gladness and with gratitude.

Receive One’s thanks and offer yours to One for fifteen minutes twice today. And you will realize to Whom you offer thanks, and Whom One thanks as you are thanking One. This holy half an hour given One will be returned to you in terms of years for every second; power to save the world eons more quickly for your thanks to One.

Receive One’s thanks, and you will understand how lovingly One holds you in One’s Mind, how deep and limitless One’s care for you, how perfect is One’s gratitude to you. Remember hourly to think of One, and give One thanks for everything you gave One’s Child, that one might rise above the world remembering one’s Creator and one’s Self.

Lesson 124

“Let me remember I am one with God.”

Today we will again give thanks for our identity in God. Our home is safe, protection guaranteed in all we do, power and strength available to us in all our undertakings. We can fail in nothing. Everything we touch takes on a shining light which blesses and which heals. At one with God and with the universe, we go our way rejoicing, with the thought that God Oneself goes everywhere with us.

How holy are our minds! And everything we see reflects the holiness within the mind at one with God and with itself. How easily do errors disappear, and death give place to everlasting life. Our shining footprints point the way to truth, for God is our Companion as we walk the world a little while. And those who come to follow us will recognize the way because the light we carry stays behind, yet still remains with us as we walk on.

What we receive is our eternal gift to those who follow after, and to those who went before or stayed with us a while. And God, Who loves us with the equal love in which we were created, smiles on us and offers us the happiness we gave.

Today we will not doubt One’s Love for us, nor question One’s protection and One’s care. No meaningless anxieties can come between our faith and our awareness of One’s Presence. We are one with One today in recognition and remembrance. We feel One in our hearts. Our minds contain One’s Thoughts, our eyes behold One’s loveliness in all we look upon. Today we see only the loving and the lovable.

We see it in appearances of pain, and pain gives way to peace. We see it in the frantic, in the sad and the distressed, the lonely and afraid, who are restored to the tranquility and peace of mind in which they were created. And we see it in the dying and the dead as well, restoring them to life. All this we see because we saw it first within ourselves.

No miracle can ever be denied to those who know that they are one with God. No thought of theirs but has the power to heal all forms of suffering in anyone in times gone by and times as yet to come as easily as in the ones who walk beside them now. Their thoughts are timeless, and apart from distance as apart from time.

We join in this awareness as we say that we are one with God. For in these words we say as well that we are saved and healed; that we can save and heal accordingly. We have accepted and we now would give, for we would keep the gifts our Creator gave. Today we would experience ourselves at one with One, so that the world may share our recognition of reality. In our experience the world is freed; as we deny our separation from our Creator, it is healed along with us.

Peace be to you today. Secure your peace by practicing awareness you are one with your Creator, as One is with you. Sometime today, whenever it seems best, devote a half an hour to the thought that you are one with God. This is our first attempt at an extended period for which we give no rules nor special words to guide your meditations. We will trust God’s Voice to speak as One sees fit today, certain One will not fail. Abide with One this half an hour. One will do the rest.

Your benefit will not be less if you believe that nothing happens. You may not be ready to accept the gain today. Yet sometime, somewhere, it will come to you, nor will you fail to recognize it when it dawns with certainty upon your mind. This half an hour will be framed in gold, with every minute like a diamond set around the mirror that this exercise will offer you. And you will see Christ’s Face upon it, in reflection of your own.

Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, you will see your own transfiguration in the glass this holy half an hour will hold out to you, to look upon yourself. When you are ready; you will find it there, within your mind and waiting to be found. You will remember then the Thought to which you gave this half an hour, thankfully aware no time was ever better spent. Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, you will look into this glass, and understand the sinless light you see belongs to you; the loveliness you look on is your own.

Count this half hour as your gift to God, in certainty that One’s return will be a sense of love you cannot understand, a joy too deep for you to comprehend, a sight too holy for the body’s eyes to see and yet you can be sure someday, perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, you will understand and comprehend and see. Add further jewels to the golden frame that holds the mirror offered you today by hourly repeating to yourself:

“Let me remember I am one with God,

At one with all my siblings and my Self,

In everlasting holiness and peace.”

Lesson 125

“In quiet I receive God’s Word today.”

Let this day be a day of stillness and of quiet listening. Your Creator wills you hear One’s Word today. One calls to you from deep within your mind where One abides. Hear One today. No peace is possible until One’s Word is heard around the world; until your mind, in quiet listening, accepts the message which the world must hear to usher in the quiet time of peace.

This world will change through you. No other means can save it, for God’s plan is simply this:

“The Child of God is free to save oneself,

Given the Word of God to be one’s Guide,

Forever in one’s mind and at one’s side

To lead one surely to one’s Creator’s house

By one’s own will, forever free as God’s.

One is not led by force, but only love.

One is not judged, but only sanctified.”

In stillness we will hear One’s Voice today, without intrusion of our petty thoughts, without our personal desires, and without all judgement of One’s holy Word. We will not judge ourselves today, for what we are can not be judged. We stand apart from all the judgements which the world has laid upon the Child of God. It knows one not. Today we will not listen to the world, but wait in silence for the Word of God.

Hear, holy Child of God, your Creator speak. One’s Voice would give to you One’s holy Word to spread across the world the tidings of salvation and the holy time of peace. We gather at the throne of God today, the quiet place within your mind where One abides forever in the holiness which One created and will never leave.

One has not waited until you return your mind to One to give One’s Word to you. One has not hid Oneself from you while you have wandered off a little while from One. One does not cherish the illusions which you hold about yourself. One knows One’s Child, and wills that one remain as part of One regardless of one’s dreams; regardless of one’s madness that one’s will is not one’s own.

Today One speaks to you. One’s Voice awaits your silence, for One’s Word cannot be heard until your mind is quiet for a while, and meaningless desires have been stilled. Await One’s Word in quiet. There is peace within you to be called upon today to help make ready your most holy mind to hear the Voice of its Creator speak.

Three times today, at times most suitable for silence, give ten minutes set apart from listening to the world, and choose instead a gentle listening to the Word of God. One speaks from nearer than your heart to you. One’s Voice is closer than your hand. One’s Love is everything you are and that One is; the same as you, and you the same as One.

It is your voice to which you listen as One speaks to you. It is your Word One speaks. It is the Word of freedom and of peace, of unity of will and purpose, with no separation nor division in the single Mind of Creator and of Child. In quiet listen to your Self today, and let One tell you God has never left One’s Child, and you have never left your Self.

Only be quiet. You will need no rule but this to let your practicing today lift you above the thinking of the world, and free your vision from the body’s eyes. Only be still and listen. You will hear the Word in which the Will of God the Child joins in One’s Creator’s Will, at one with It, with no illusions interposed between the wholly indivisible and true. As every hour passes by today be still a moment, and remind yourself you have a special purpose for this day: in quiet to receive the Word of God.

Lesson 126

“All that I give is given to myself.”

Today’s idea, completely alien to the ego and the thinking of the world, is crucial to the thought reversal which this course will bring about. If you believed this statement there would be no problem in complete forgiveness, certainty of goal, and sure direction. You would understand the means by which salvation comes to you, and would not hesitate to use it now.

Let us consider what you do believe in place of this idea. It seems to you that other people are apart from you, and able to behave in ways which have no bearing on your thoughts, nor theirs on yours. Therefore your attitudes have no effect on them, and their appeals for help are not in any way related to your own. You further think that they can sin without affecting your perception of yourself, while you can judge their sin and yet remain apart from condemnation and at peace.

When you “forgive” a sin there is no gain to you directly. You give charity to one unworthy merely to point out that you are better, on a higher plane than one whom you forgive. One has not earned your charitable tolerance, which you bestow on one unworthy of the gift because one’s sins have lowered one beneath a true equality with you. One has no claim on your forgiveness. It holds out a gift to one but hardly to yourself.

Thus is forgiveness basically unsound; a charitable whim, benevolent yet undeserved; a gift bestowed at times, at other times withheld. Unmerited, withholding it is just, nor is it fair that you should suffer when it is withheld. The sin which you forgive is not your own. Someone apart from you committed it. And if you then are gracious unto one by giving one what one does not deserve, your gift is no more yours than was one’s sin.

If this be true, forgiveness has no grounds on which to rest dependably and sure. It is an eccentricity in which you sometimes choose to give indulgently an undeserved reprieve. Yet it remains your right to let the sinner not escape the justified repayment for one’s sin. Think you the Lord of Heaven would allow the world’s salvation to depend on this? Would not One’s care for you be small indeed if your salvation rested on a whim?

You do not understand forgiveness. As you see it, it is but a check upon overt attack, without requiring correction in your mind. It cannot give you peace as you perceive it. It is not a means for your release from what you see in someone other than yourself. It has no power to restore your unity with one to your awareness. It is not what God intended it to be for you.

Not having given One the gift One asks of you, you cannot recognize One’s gifts, and think One has not given them to you. Yet would One ask you for a gift unless it was for you? Could One be satisfied with empty gestures, and evaluate such petty gifts as worthy of One’s Child? Salvation is a better gift than this, and true forgiveness, as the means by which it is attained, must heal the mind that gives, for giving is receiving. What remains as unreceived has not been given, but what has been given must have been received.

Today we try to understand the truth that giver and receiver are the same. You will need help to make this meaningful because it is so alien to the thoughts to which you are accustomed. But the Help you need is there. Give One your faith today and ask One that One share your practicing in truth today. And if you only catch a tiny glimpse of the release which lies in the idea we practice for today, this is a day of glory for the world.

Give fifteen minutes twice today to the attempt to understand today’s idea. It is the thought by which forgiveness takes its proper place in your priorities. It is the thought that will release your mind from every bar to what forgiveness means, and let you realize its worth to you.

In silence close your eyes upon the world which does not understand forgiveness, and seek sanctuary in the quiet place where thoughts are changed and false beliefs laid by. Repeat today’s idea, and ask for help in understanding what it really means. Be willing to be taught. Be glad to hear the Voice of truth and healing speak to you, and you will understand the words One speaks, and recognize One speaks your words to you.

As often as you can, remind yourself you have a goal today; an aim which makes this day of special value to yourself and all your siblings. Do not let your mind forget this goal for long, but tell yourself:

“All that I give is given to myself.

The Help I need to learn that this is true

Is with me now. And I will trust in One.”

Then spend a quiet moment, opening your mind to One’s correction and One’s Love. And what you hear of One you will believe, for what One gives will be received by you.

Lesson 127

“There is no love but God’s.”

Perhaps you think that different kinds of love are possible. Perhaps you think there is a kind of love for this, a kind for that; a way of loving one, another way of loving still another. Love is one. It has no separate parts and no degrees; no kinds nor levels, no divergencies and no distinctions. It is like itself, unchanged throughout. It never alters with a person or a circumstance. It is the heart of God, and also of One’s Child.

Love’s meaning is obscure to anyone who thinks that love can change. One does not see that changing love must be impossible. And thus one thinks that one can love at times and hate at other times. One also thinks that love can be bestowed on one and yet remain itself although it is withheld from others. To believe these things of love is not to understand it. If it could make such distinctions it would have to judge between the righteous and the sinner, and perceive the Child of God in separate parts.

Love cannot judge. As it is one itself, it looks on all as one. Its meaning lies in oneness. And it must elude the mind that thinks of it as partial or in part. There is no love but God’s, and all of love is One’s. There is no principle which rules where love is not. Love is a law without an opposite. Its wholeness is the power holding everything as one, the link between the Creator and the Child which holds them both forever as the same.

No course whose purpose is to teach you what you really are could fail to emphasize there is no difference in what you are and what love is. Love’s meaning is your own, and shared by God Oneself. For what you are is what One is. There is no love but One’s, and what One is is everything there is. There is no limit placed upon Oneself, and so are you unlimited as well.

No laws the world obeys can help you grasp love’s meaning. What the world believes was made to hide love’s meaning and to keep it dark and secret. There is not one principle the world upholds but violates the truth of what love is, and what you are as well. Seek not within the world to find your Self. Love is not found in darkness and in death. Yet it is perfectly apparent to the eyes that see and ears that hear its Voice.

Today we practice making free our mind of all the laws you think you must obey; of all the limits under which you live, and all the changes which you think are part of human destiny. Today we take the largest single step this course requests in your advance toward its established goal. If you achieve the faintest glimmering of what love means today, you have advanced in distance without measure and in time beyond the count of years to your release.

Let us together, then, be glad to give some time to God today, and understand there is no better use for time than this. For fifteen minutes twice today escape from every law in which you now believe. Open your mind and rest. The world that seems to hold you prisoner can be escaped by anyone who does not hold it dear. Withdraw all value you have placed upon its meager offerings and senseless gifts, and let the Gift of God replace them all.

Call to your Creator, certain that One’s Voice will answer. One has promised this. And One will place a spark of truth within your mind wherever you give up a false belief, a dark illusion of your own reality and what love means. One will shine through your idle thoughts today, and help you understand the truth of love. In loving gentleness One will abide with you as you allow One’s Voice to teach love’s meaning to your clean and open mind. And One will bless the lesson with One’s Love.

Today the legion of the future years of waiting for salvation disappears before the timelessness of what you learn. Let us give thanks today that we are spared a future like the past. Today we leave the past behind us, never more to be remembered. And we raise our eyes upon a different present, where a future shines unlike the past in every attribute.

The world in infancy is newly born. And we will watch it grow in strength and health to shed its blessing upon all who come to learn to cast aside the world they thought was made in hate to be love’s enemy. Now are they all made free along with us. Now are they all our siblings in God’s Love.

We will remember them throughout the day because we cannot leave a part of us outside our love if we would know our Self. At least three times an hour think of one who makes the journey with you, and who came to learn what you must learn. And as one comes to mind, give one this message from your Self:

“I bless you, sibling, with the Love of God

Which I would share with you. For I would learn

The joyous lesson that there is no love

But God’s and yours and mine and everyone’s.”

Lesson 128

“The world I see has nothing that I want.”

The world you see has nothing that you need to offer you; nothing that you can use in any way, nor anything at all that serves to give you joy. Believe this thought, and you are saved from years of misery, from countless disappointments, and from hopes that turn to bitter ashes of despair. No one but must accept this thought as true, if one would leave this world behind and soar beyond its petty scope and little ways.

Each thing you value here is but a chain that binds you to the world, and it will serve no other end but this. For everything must serve the purpose you have given it until you see a different purpose there. The only purpose worthy of your mind this world contains is that you pass it by, without delaying to perceive some hope where there is none. Be you deceived no more. The world you see has nothing that you want.

Escape today the chains you place upon your mind when you perceive salvation here. For what you value you make part of you, as you perceive yourself. All things you seek to make your value greater in your sight limit you further, hide your worth from you, and add another bar across the door that leads to true awareness of your Self.

Let nothing which relates to body thoughts delay your progress to salvation, nor permit temptation to believe the world has anything you want to hold you back. Nothing is here to cherish. Nothing here is worth one instant of delay and pain; one moment of uncertainty and doubt. The worthless offer nothing. Certainty of worth cannot be found in worthlessness.

Today we practice letting go all thought of values we have given to the world. We leave it free of purposes we gave its aspects and its phases and its dreams. We hold it purposeless within our minds, and loosen it from all we wish it were. Thus do we lift the chains which bar the door to freedom from the world, and go beyond all little values and diminished goals.

Peace and be still a little while, and see how far you rise above the world when you release your mind from chains, and let it seek the level where it finds itself at home. It will be grateful to be free a while. It knows where it belongs. But free its wings, and it will fly in sureness and in joy to join its holy purpose. Let it rest in its Creator, there to be restored to sanity, to freedom and to love.

Give it ten minutes rest three times today. And when your eyes are opened afterwards, you will not value anything you see as much as when you looked at it before. Your whole perspective on the world will shift by just a little every time you let your mind escape its chains. The world is not where it belongs. And you belong where it would be, and where your mind goes to rest when you release it from the world. Your Guide is sure. Open your mind to One. Be still and rest.

Protect your mind throughout the day as well. And when you think you see some value in an aspect or an image of the world, refuse to lay this chain upon your mind, and tell yourself with quiet certainty:

“This will not tempt me to delay myself.

The world I see has nothing that I want.”

Lesson 129

“Beyond this world there is a world I want.”

This is the thought which follows from the one we practiced yesterday. You cannot stop with the idea the world is worthless, for unless you see that there is something else to hope for you will only be depressed. Our emphasis is not on giving up the world, but on exchanging it for what is far more satisfying, filled with joy, and capable of offering you peace. Think you this world can offer that to you?

It might be worth a little time to think once more about the value of this world. Perhaps you will concede there is no loss in letting go all thought of value here. The world you see is merciless indeed, unstable, cruel, unconcerned with you, quick to avenge and pitiless with hate. It gives but to rescind, and takes away all things that you have cherished for a while. No lasting love is found, for none is here. This is the world of time, where all things end.

Is it a loss to find a world instead where losing is impossible, where love endures forever, hate cannot exist, and vengeance has no meaning? Is it loss to find all things you really want and know they have no ending, and they will remain exactly as you want them throughout time? Yet even they will be exchanged at last for what we cannot speak of, for you go from there to where words fail entirely, into a silence where the language is unspoken and yet surely understood.

Communication, unambiguous and plain as day, remains unlimited for all eternity. And God Oneself speaks to One’s Child as One’s Child speaks to One. Their language has no words, for what they say cannot be symbolized. Their knowledge is direct and wholly shared and wholly one.

How far away from this are you who stay bound to this world. And yet how near are you when you exchange it for the world you want. Now is the last step certain; now you stand an instant’s space away from timelessness. Here can you but look forward, never back to see again the world you do not want. Here is the world that comes to take its place as you unbind your mind from little things the world sets forth to keep you prisoner there. Value them not, and they will disappear. Esteem them, and they will seem real to you.

Such is the choice. What loss can be for you in choosing not to value nothingness? This world holds nothing that you really want, but what you choose instead you want indeed! Let it be given you today. It waits but for your choosing it to take the place of all the things you seek but do not want.

Practice your willingness to make this change ten minutes in the morning and at night, and once more in between. Begin with this:

“Beyond this world there is a world I want.

I choose to see that world instead of this,

For here is nothing that I really want.”

Then close your eyes upon the world you see, and in the silent darkness watch the lights that are not of this world light one by one until where one begins, another ends, loses all meaning as they blend in one.

Today the lights of Heaven bend to you, to shine upon your eyelids as you rest beyond the world of darkness. Here is light your eyes cannot behold. And yet your mind can see it plainly, and can understand. A day of grace is given you today, and we give thanks.

This day we realize that what you feared to lose was only loss. Now do we understand there is no loss, for we have seen its opposite at last, and we are grateful that the choice is made. Remember your decision hourly, and take a moment to confirm your choice by laying by whatever thoughts you have, and dwelling briefly only upon this:

“The world I see has nothing that I want.

Beyond this world there is a world I want.”

Lesson 130

“It is impossible to see two worlds.”

Perception is consistent. What you see reflects your thinking. And your thinking but reflects your choice of what you want to see. Your values are determiners of this, for what you value you must want to see, believing what you see is really there. No one can see a world one’s mind has not accorded value. And no one can fail to look upon what one believes one wants.

Yet who can really hate and love at once? Who can desire what one does not want to have reality? And who can choose to see a world of which one is afraid? Fear must make blind, for this its weapon is; that which you fear to see you cannot see. Love and perception thus go hand in hand, but fear obscures in darkness what is there.

What, then, can fear project upon the world? What can be seen in darkness that is real? Truth is eclipsed by fear, and what remains is but imagined. Yet what can be real in blind imaginings of panic borne? What would you want that this is shown to you? What would you wish to keep in such a dream?

Fear has made everything you think you see. All separation, all distinctions, and the multitude of differences you believe make up the world. They are not there. Love’s enemy has made them up. Yet love can have no enemy, and so they have no cause, no being and no consequence. They can be valued, but remain unreal. They can be sought, but they can not be found. Today we will not seek for them, nor waste this day in seeking not what can be found.

It is impossible to see two worlds which have no overlap of any kind. Seek for the one; the other disappears. But one remains. They are the range of choice beyond which your decision cannot go. The real and the unreal are all there is to choose between, and nothing more than these.

Today we will attempt no compromise where none is possible. The world you see is proof you have already made a choice as all-embracing as its opposite. What we would learn today is more than just the lesson that you cannot see two worlds. It also teaches that the one you see is quite consistent from the point of view from which you see it. It is all a piece because it stems from one emotion, and reflects its source in everything you see.

Six times today, in thanks and gratitude, we gladly give five minutes to the thought which ends all compromise and doubt, and go beyond them all as one. We will not make a thousand meaningless distinctions, nor attempt to bring with us a little part of unreality as we devote our minds to finding only what is real.

Begin your searching for the other world by asking for a strength beyond your own, and recognize what it is you seek. You do not want illusions. And you come to these five minutes emptying your hands of all the petty treasures of this world. You wait for God to help you, as you say:

“It is impossible to see two worlds.

Let me accept the strength God offers me

And see no value in this world, that I

May find my freedom and deliverance.”

God will be there. For you have called upon the great unfailing Power Who will take this giant step with you in gratitude. Nor will you fail to see One’s thanks expressed in tangible perception and in truth. You will not doubt what you will look upon. For though it is perception, it is not the kind of seeing that your eyes alone have ever seen before. And you will know God’s strength upheld as you made this choice.

Dismiss temptation easily today whenever it arises, merely by remembering the limits on your choice. The unreal or the real, the false or true is what you see, and only what you see. Perception is consistent with your choice, and hell or Heaven come to you as one.

Accept a little part of hell as real, and you have damned your eyes and cursed your sight, and what you will behold is hell indeed. Yet the release of Heaven still remains within your range of choice, to take the place of everything that hell would show to you. All you need say to any part of hell, whatever form it takes, is simply this:

“It is impossible to see two worlds.

I seek my freedom and deliverance,

And this is not a part of what I want.”

Lesson 131

“No one can fail who asks to reach the truth.”

Failure is all about you while you seek for goals that cannot be achieved. You look for permanence in the impermanent; for love where there is none; for safety in the midst of danger; immortality within the darkness of the dream of death. Who could succeed where contradiction is the setting of one’s searching, and the place to which one comes to find stability?

Goals which are meaningless are not attained. There is no way to reach them, for the means by which you strive for them are meaningless as they are. Who can use such senseless means and hope through them to gain in anything? Where can they lead? And what could they achieve that offers any hope of being real? Pursuit of the imagined leads to death because it is the search for nothingness, and while you seek for life you ask for death. You look for safety and security while in your heart you pray for danger and protection for the little dream you made.

Yet searching is inevitable here. For this you came, and you will surely do the thing you came for. But the world can not dictate the goal for which you search unless you give it power to do so. Otherwise, you still are free to choose a goal that lies beyond the world and every worldly thought, and one which comes to you from an idea relinquished yet remembered, old yet new; an echo of a heritage forgot, yet holding everything you really want.

Be glad that search you must. Be glad as well to learn you search for Heaven, and must find the goal you really want. No one can fail to want this goal, and reach it in the end. God’s Child cannot seek vainly, though one try to force delay, deceive oneself, and think that it is hell one seeks. When one is wrong one finds correction, when one wanders off one is led back to one’s appointed task.

No one remains in hell, for no one can abandon one’s Creator, nor affect One’s perfect, timeless and unchanging Love. You will find Heaven. Everything you seek but this will fall away, yet not because it has been taken from you. It will go because you do not want it. You will reach the goal you really want as certainly as God created you in sinlessness.

Why wait for Heaven? It is here today. Time is the great illusion it is past or in the future. Yet this cannot be if it is where God wills One’s Child to be. How could the Will of God be in the past or yet to happen? What One wills is now, without a past and wholly futureless. It is as far removed from time as is a tiny candle from a distant star, or what you chose from what you really want.

Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of One. One did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other’s sorry outcome which is Heaven’s opposite in every way.

God does not suffer conflict. Nor is One’s creation split in two. How could it be One’s Child could be in hell when God Oneself established one in Heaven? Could one lose what the Eternal Will has given one to be one’s home forever? Let us not try longer to impose an alien will upon One’s single purpose. One is here because One wills to be, and what One wills is present now beyond the reach of time.

Today we will not choose a paradox in place of truth. How could the Child of God make time to take away the Will of God? One thus denies oneself, and contradicts what has no opposite. One thinks one made a hell opposing Heaven, and believes that one abides in what does not exist, while Heaven is the place one cannot find. Leave foolish thoughts like these behind today, and turn your mind to true ideas instead. No one can fail who asks to reach the truth, and it is truth we ask to reach today.

We will devote ten minutes to this goal three times today, and we will ask to see the rising of the real world to replace the foolish images that we held dear, with true ideas arising in the place of thoughts which have no meaning, no effect, and neither source nor substance in the truth. This we acknowledge as we start upon our practice periods. Begin with this:

“I ask to see a different world, and think

A different kind of thought from those I made.

The world I seek I did not make alone,

The thoughts I want to think are not my own.”

For several minutes watch your mind and see, although your eyes are closed, the senseless world you think is real. Review the thoughts as well which are compatible with such a world, and which you think are true. Then let them go, and sink below them to the holy place where they can enter not. There is a door beneath them in your mind which you could not completely lock to hide what lies beyond.

Seek for that door and find it. But before you try to open it, remind yourself no one can fail who asks to reach the truth, and it is this request you make today. Nothing but this has any meaning now; no other goal is valued now nor sought; nothing before this door you really want, and only what lies past it do you seek.

Put out your hand and see how easily the door swings open with your one intent to go beyond it. Angels light the way, so that all darkness vanishes and you are standing in a light so bright and clear that you can understand all things you see. A tiny moment of surprise, perhaps, will make you pause before you realize the world you see before you in the light reflects the truth you knew, and did not quite forget in wandering away in dreams.

You cannot fail today. There walks with you the Spirit Heaven sent you that you might approach this door some day, and through One’s aid slip effortlessly past it to the light. Today that day has come. Today God keeps One’s ancient promise to One’s holy Child, as does One’s Child remember one’s to One. This is a day of gladness, for we come to the appointed time and place where you will find the goal of all your searching here and all the seeking of the world, which ends together as you pass beyond the door.

Remember often that today should be a time of special gladness, and refrain from dismal thoughts and meaningless laments. Salvation’s time has come. Today is set by Heaven Itself to be a time of grace for you and for the world. If you forget this happy fact, remind yourself with this:

“Today I seek and find all that I want.

My single purpose offers it to me.

No one can fail who asks to reach the truth.”

Lesson 132

“I loose the world from all I thought it was.”

What keeps the world in chains but your beliefs? And what can save the world except your Self? Belief is powerful indeed. The thoughts you hold are mighty, and illusions are as strong in their effects as is the truth. A lunatic thinks the world one sees is real and does not doubt it. Nor can one be swayed by questioning one’s thoughts’ effects. It is but when their source is raised to question that the hope of freedom comes to one at last.

Yet is salvation easily achieved, for anyone is free to change one’s mind, and all one’s thoughts change with it. Now the source of thought has shifted, for to change your mind means you have changed the source of all ideas you think or ever thought or yet will think. You free the past from what you thought before. You free the future from all ancient thoughts of seeking what you do not want to find. The present now remains the only time.

Here in the present is the world set free. For as you let the past be lifted and release the future from your ancient fears, you find escape and give it to the world. You have enslaved the world with all your fears, with doubts and miseries, your pain and tears, and all your sorrows press upon it and keep it a prisoner to your beliefs. Death strikes it everywhere because you hold the bitter thought of death within your mind.

The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real. Perhaps you think you did not make the world, but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning. Yet in truth you found exactly what you looked for when you came. There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly.

Ideas leave not their source. This central theme is often stated in the text, and must be borne in mind if you would understand the lesson for today. It is not pride which tells you that you made the world you see, and that it changes as you change your mind. But it is pride that argues you have come into a world quite separate from yourself, impervious to what you think, and quite apart from what you chance to think it is.

There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as one can let oneself be led along the road to truth. One will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again. But healing is the gift of those who are prepared to learn there is no world, and can accept the lesson now. Their readiness will bring the lesson to them in some form which they can understand and recognize.

Some see it suddenly on point of death, and rise to teach it. Others find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world does not exist because what they behold must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world. And some will find it in this course, and in the exercises that we do today.

Today’s idea is true because the world does not exist. And if it is indeed your own imagining, then you can loose it from all things you ever thought it was by merely changing all the thoughts that gave it these appearances. The sick are healed as you let go all thoughts of sickness, and the dead arise when you let thoughts of life replace all thoughts you ever held of death.

A lesson earlier repeated once must now be stressed again, for it contains the firm foundation for today’s idea: you are as God created you. Lesson 110 There is no place where you can suffer, and no time that can bring change to your eternal state. How can a world of time and place exist if you remain as God created you?

What is the lesson for today except another way of saying that to know your Self is the salvation of the world? To free the world from every kind of pain is but to change your mind about yourself. There is no world apart from your ideas because ideas leave not their source, and you maintain the world within your mind in thought.

Yet if you are as God created you, you cannot think apart from One, nor make what does not share One’s timelessness and love. Are these inherent in the world you see? Does it create like One? Unless it does, it is not real and cannot be at all. If you are real the world you see is false, for God’s creation is unlike the world in every way. And as it was One’s Thought by which you were created, so it is your thoughts which made it and must set it free, that you may know the Thoughts you share with God.

Release the world! Your real creations wait for this release to give you creatorship, not of illusions, but as God in truth. God shares One’s Creatorship with you who are One’s Child, for One makes no distinctions in what is Oneself and what is still Oneself. What One creates is not apart from One, and nowhere does the Creator end, the Child begin as something separate from One.

There is no world because it is a thought apart from God, and made to separate the Creator and the Child, and break away a part of God Oneself and thus destroy One’s wholeness. Can a world which comes from this idea be real? Can it be anywhere? Deny illusions, but accept the truth. Deny you are a shadow briefly laid upon a dying world. Release your mind, and you will look upon a world released.

Today our purpose is to free the world from all the idle thoughts we ever held about it, and about all living things we see upon it. They can not be there; no more than we. For we are in the home our Creator set for us along with them. And we who are as One created us would loose the world this day from every one of our illusions, that we may be free.

Begin the fifteen minute periods in which we practice twice today with this:

“I who remain as God created me

Would loose the world from all I thought it was.

For I am real because the world is not,

And I would know my own reality.”

Then merely rest, alert but with no strain, and let your mind in quietness be changed so that the world is freed along with you.

You need not realize that healing comes to many siblings far across the world as well as to the ones you see near by, as you send out these thoughts to bless the world. But you will sense your own release, although you may not fully understand as yet that you could never be released alone.

Throughout the day, increase the freedom sent through your ideas to all the world, and say whenever you are tempted to deny the power of your simple change of mind:

“I loose the world from all I thought it was,

And choose my own reality instead.”

Lesson 133

“I will not value what is valueless.”

Sometimes in teaching there is benefit, particularly after you have gone through what seems theoretical and quite remote from what the student has already learned, to bring one back to practical concerns. This we will do today. We will not speak of lofty, world-encompassing ideas, but dwell instead on benefits to you.

You do not ask too much of life, but far too little. When you let your mind be drawn to bodily concerns, to things you buy, to eminence as valued by the world, you ask for sorrow, not for happiness. This course does not attempt to take from you the little that you have. It does not try to substitute utopian ideas for satisfactions which the world contains. There are no satisfactions in the world.

Today we list the real criteria by which to test all things you think you want. Unless they meet these sound requirements, they are not worth desiring at all, for they can but replace what offers more. The laws which govern choice you cannot make, no more than you can make alternatives from which to choose. The choosing you can do; indeed you must. But it is wise to learn the laws you set in motion when you choose, and what alternatives you choose between.

We have already stressed there are but two, however many there appear to be. The range is set, and this we cannot change. It would be most ungenerous to you to let alternatives be limitless, and thus delay your final choice until you had considered all of them in time, and not been brought so clearly to the place where there is but one choice that must be made.

Another kindly and related law is that there is no compromise in what your choice must bring. It cannot give you just a little, for there is no inbetween. Each choice you make brings everything to you or nothing. Therefore, if you learn the tests by which you can distinguish everything from nothing, you will make the better choice.

First, if you choose a thing that will not last forever, what you chose is valueless. A temporary value is without all value. Time can never take away a value that is real. What fades and dies was never there, and makes no offering to one who chooses it. One is deceived by nothing in a form one thinks one likes.

Next, if you choose to take a thing away from someone else, you will have nothing left. This is because when you deny one’s right to everything, you have denied your own. You therefore will not recognize the things you really have, denying they are there. Who seeks to take away has been deceived by the illusion loss can offer gain. Yet loss must offer loss and nothing more.

Your next consideration is the one on which the others rest. Why is the choice you make of value to you? What attracts your mind to it? What purpose does it serve? Here it is easiest of all to be deceived, for what the ego wants it fails to recognize. It does not even tell the truth as it perceives it, for it needs to keep the halo which it uses to protect its goals from tarnish and from rust, that you may see how “innocent” it is.

Yet is its camouflage a thin veneer which could deceive but those who are content to be deceived. Its goals are obvious to anyone who cares to look for them. Here is deception doubled, for the one who is deceived will not perceive that one has merely failed to gain. One will believe that one has served the ego’s hidden goals.

And though one tries to keep its halo clear within one’s vision, yet must one perceive its tarnished edges and its rusted core. One’s ineffectual mistakes appear as sins to one because one looks upon the tarnish as one’s own; the rust a sign of deep unworthiness within oneself. One who would still preserve the ego’s goals and serve them as one’s own makes no mistakes according to the dictates of one’s guide. This guidance teaches it is error to believe that sins are but mistakes, for who would suffer for one’s sins if this were so?

And so we come to the criterion for choice which is the hardest to believe, because its obviousness is overlaid with many levels of obscurity. If you feel any guilt about your choice, you have allowed the ego’s goals to come between the real alternatives, and thus you do not realize there are but two. And the alternative you think you chose seems fearful and too dangerous to be the nothingness it actually is.

All things are valuable or valueless, worthy or not of being sought at all, entirely desirable or not worth the slightest effort to obtain. Choosing is easy just because of this. Complexity is nothing but a screen of smoke which hides the very simple fact that no decision can be difficult. What is the gain to you in learning this? It is far more than merely letting you make choices easily and without pain.

Heaven Itself is reached by empty hands and open minds, which come with nothing to find everything and claim it as their own. We will attempt to reach this state today, with self-deception laid aside, and with an honest willingness to value but the truly valuable and the real.

Our two extended practice periods of fifteen minutes will begin with this:

“I will not value what is valueless,

And only what has value do I seek,

For only that do I desire to find.”

And then receive what waits for everyone who reaches, unencumbered, to the gate of Heaven, which swings open as one comes. Should you begin to let yourself collect some needless burdens, or believe you see some difficult decisions facing you, be quick to answer with this simple thought:

“I will not value what is valueless,

For what is valuable belongs to me.”

Lesson 134

“Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.”

Let us review the meaning of “forgive,” for it is apt to be distorted and to be perceived as something which entails an unfair sacrifice of righteous wrath, a gift unjustified and undeserved, and a complete denial of the truth. In such a view, forgiveness must be seen as mere eccentric folly, and this course appear to rest salvation on a whim.

This twisted view of what forgiveness means is easily corrected when you can accept the fact that pardon is not asked for what is true. It must be limited to what is false. It is irrelevant to everything except illusions. Truth is God’s creation, and to pardon this is meaningless. All truth belongs to One, reflects One’s laws and radiates One’s Love. Does this need pardon? How can you forgive the sinless and eternally benign?

The major difficulty that you find in genuine forgiveness on your part is that you still believe you must forgive the truth and not illusions. You conceive of pardon as a vain attempt to look past what is there; to overlook the truth in an unfounded effort to deceive yourself by making an illusion true. This twisted viewpoint but reflects the hold that the idea of sin retains as yet upon your mind as you regard yourself.

Because you think your sins are real, you look on pardon as deception. For it is impossible to think of sin as true and not believe forgiveness is a lie. Thus is forgiveness really but a sin, like all the rest. It says the truth is false, and smiles on the corrupt as if they were as blameless as the grass; as white as snow. It is delusional in what it thinks it can accomplish. It would see as right the plainly wrong; the loathsome as the good.

Pardon is no escape in such a view. It merely is a further sign that sin is unforgivable, at best to be concealed, denied, or called another name, for pardon is a treachery to truth. Guilt can not be forgiven. If you sin, your guilt is everlasting. Those who are forgiven from the view their sins are real are pitifully mocked and twice condemned; first by themselves for what they think they did, and once again by those who pardon them.

It is sin’s unreality that makes forgiveness natural and wholly sane, a deep relief to those who offer it; a quiet blessing where it is received. It does not countenance illusions, but collects them lightly, with a little laugh, and gently lays them at the feet of truth. And there they disappear entirely.

Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the world. It sees their nothingness, and looks right through the thousand forms in which they may appear. It looks on lies but it is not deceived. It does not heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt. It looks on them with quiet eyes, and merely says to them,

“My sibling, what you think is not the truth.”

The strength of pardon is its honesty, which is so uncorrupted that it sees illusions as illusions, not as truth. It is because of this that it becomes the undeceiver in the face of lies, the great restorer of the simple truth. By its ability to overlook what is not there, it opens up the way to truth, which had been blocked by dreams of guilt. Now are you free to follow in the way your true forgiveness opens up to you. For if one sibling has received this gift of you, the door is open to yourself.

There is a very simple way to find the door to true forgiveness, and perceive it open wide in welcome. When you feel that you are tempted to accuse someone of sin in any form, do not allow your mind to dwell on what you think one did, for this is self-deception. Ask instead,

“Should I accuse myself of doing this?”

Thus will you see alternatives for choice in terms which render choosing meaningful, and keep your mind as free of guilt and pain as God Oneself intended it to be, and as it is in truth. It is but lies which would condemn. In truth is innocence the only thing there is. Forgiveness stands between illusions and the truth, between the world you see and that which lies beyond, between the hell of guilt and Heaven’s gate.

Across this bridge, as powerful as Love Which laid Its blessing on it, are all dreams of evil and of hatred and attack brought silently to truth. They are not kept to swell and bluster, and to terrify the foolish dreamer who believes in them. One has been gently wakened from one’s dream by understanding what one thought one saw was never there. And now one cannot feel that all escape has been denied to one.

One does not have to fight to save oneself. One does not have to kill the dragons which one thought pursued one. Nor need one erect the heavy walls of stone and iron doors one thought would make one safe. One can remove the ponderous and useless armor made to chain one’s mind to fear and misery. One’s step is light, and as one lifts one foot to stride ahead, a star is left behind to point the way to those who follow one.

Forgiveness must be practiced for the world cannot perceive its meaning, nor provide a guide to teach you its beneficence. There is no thought in all the world which leads to any understanding of the laws it follows, nor the Thought which it reflects. It is as alien to the world as is your own reality. And yet it joins your mind with the reality in you.

Today we practice true forgiveness that the time of joining be no more delayed. For we would meet with our Reality in freedom and in peace. Our practicing becomes the footsteps lightening up the way for all our siblings, who will follow us to the Reality we share with them.

That this may be accomplished, let us give a quarter of an hour twice today, and spend it with the Guide Who understands the meaning of forgiveness, and was sent to us to teach it. Let us ask of One:

“Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.”

Then choose one sibling as One will direct, and catalogue one’s “sins,” as one by one they cross your mind. Be certain not to dwell on any one of them, but realize that you are using one’s “offenses” but to save the world from all ideas of sin. Briefly consider all the evil things you thought of one, and each time ask yourself,

“Would I condemn myself for doing this?”

Let one be freed from all the thoughts you had of sin in one. And now you are prepared for freedom. If you have been practicing thus far in willingness and honesty, you will begin to sense a lifting up, a lightening of weight across your chest, a deep and certain feeling of relief. The time remaining should be given to experiencing the escape from all the heavy chains you sought to lay upon your sibling, which were laid upon yourself.

Forgiveness should be practiced through the day, for there will be so many times when you forget its meaning, and attack yourself. When this occurs, allow your mind to see through this illusion as you tell yourself:

“Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.

Should I accuse myself of doing this?

I will not lay this chain upon myself.”

In everything you do remember this:

“No one is crucified alone, and yet

No one can enter Heaven by oneself.”

Lesson 135

“If I defend myself I am attacked.”

Who would defend oneself unless one thought one was attacked, that the attack is real, and that one’s own defense can save oneself? And herein lies the folly of defense; it gives illusions full reality, and then attempts to handle them as real. It adds illusions to illusions, thus making correction doubly difficult. And it is this you do when you attempt to plan the future, activate the past, or organize the present as you wish.

You operate from the belief you must protect yourself from what is happening, because it must contain what threatens you. A sense of threat is an acknowledgment of an inherent weakness; a belief that there is danger which has power to call on you to make appropriate defense.

The world is based on this insane belief. And all its structures, all its thoughts and doubts, its penalties and heavy armaments, its legal definitions and its codes, its ethics and its leaders and its gods, all serve but to preserve its sense of threat. For no one walks the world in armature but must have terror striking at one’s heart.

Defense is frightening. It stems from fear, increasing fear as each defense is made. You think it offers safety. Yet it speaks of fear made real and terror justified. Is it not strange you do not pause to ask, as you elaborate your plans and make your armor thicker and your locks more tight, what you defend, and how, and against what?

Let us consider first what you defend. It must be something that is very weak and easily assaulted. It must be something made easy prey, unable to protect itself, and needing your defense. What but the body has such frailty that constant care and watchful, deep concern is needful to protect its little life? What but the body falters and must fail to serve the Child of God as worthy host?

Yet it is not the body that can fear, nor be a thing to fear. It has no needs but those which you assign to it. It needs no complicated structures of defense, no health-inducing medicine, no care and no concern at all. Defend its life, or give it gifts to make it beautiful or walls to make it safe, and you but say your home is open to the thief of time, corruptible and crumbling, so unsafe it must be guarded with your very life.

Is not this picture fearful? Can you be at peace with such a concept of your home? Yet what endowed the body with the right to serve you thus except your own belief? It is your mind which gave the body all the functions that you see in it, and set its value far beyond a little pile of dust and water. Who would make defense of something that one recognized as this?

The body is in need of no defense. This cannot be too often emphasized. It will be strong and healthy if the mind does not abuse it by assigning it to roles it cannot fill, to purposes beyond its scope, and to exalted aims which it cannot accomplish. Such attempts, ridiculous yet deeply cherished, are the sources for the many mad attacks you make upon it. For it seems to fail your hopes, your needs, your values and your dreams.

The “self” that needs protection is not real. The body, valueless and hardly worth the least defense, need merely be perceived as quite apart from you, and it becomes a healthy, serviceable instrument through which the mind can operate until its usefulness is over. Who would want to keep it when its usefulness is done?

Defend the body and you have attacked your mind. For you have seen in it the faults, the weaknesses, the limits and the lacks from which you think the body must be saved. You will not see the mind as separate from bodily conditions. And you will impose upon the body all the pain that comes from the conception of the mind as limited and fragile, and apart from other minds and separate from its Source.

These are the thoughts in need of healing, and the body will respond with health when they have been corrected and replaced with truth. This is the body’s only real defense. Yet is this where you look for its defense? You offer it protection of a kind from which it gains no benefit at all, but merely adds to your distress of mind. You do not heal, but merely take away the hope of healing, for you fail to see where hope must lie if it be meaningful.

A healed mind does not plan. It carries out the plans which it receives through listening to Wisdom that is not its own. It waits until it has been taught what should be done, and then proceeds to do it. It does not depend upon itself for anything except its adequacy to fulfill the plans assigned to it. It is secure in certainty that obstacles can not impede its progress to accomplishment of any goal which serves the greater plan established for the good of everyone.

A healed mind is relieved from the belief that it must plan, although it cannot know the outcome which is best, the means by which it is achieved, nor how to recognize the problem that the plan is made to solve. It must misuse the body in its plans until it recognizes this is so. But when it has accepted this as true, then is it healed, and lets the body go.

Enslavement of the body to the plans the unhealed mind sets up to save itself must make the body sick. It is not free to be a means of helping in a plan which far exceeds its own protection, and which needs its service for a little while. In this capacity is health assured. For everything the mind employs for this will function flawlessly, and with the strength that has been given it and cannot fail.

It is, perhaps, not easy to perceive that self-initiated plans are but defenses, with the purpose all of them were made to realize. They are the means by which a frightened mind would undertake its own protection at the cost of truth. This is not difficult to realize in some forms which these self-deceptions take, for the denial of reality is very obvious. Yet planning is not often recognized as a defense.

The mind engaged in planning for itself is occupied in setting up control of future happenings. It does not think that it will be provided for unless it makes its own provisions. Time becomes a future emphasis, to be controlled by learning and experience obtained from past events and previous beliefs. It overlooks the present, for it rests on the idea the past has taught enough to let the mind direct its future course.

The mind that plans is thus refusing to allow for change. What it has learned before becomes the basis for its future goals. Its past experience directs its choice of what will happen. And it does not see that here and now is everything it needs to guarantee a future quite unlike the past, without a continuity of any old ideas and sick beliefs. Anticipation plays no part at all, for present confidence directs the way.

Defenses are the plans you undertake to make against the truth. Their aim is to select what you approve, and disregard what you consider incompatible with your beliefs of your reality. Yet what remains is meaningless indeed. For it is your reality which is the “threat” that your defenses would attack, obscure, and take apart and crucify.

What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything which happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you have misunderstood One’s plan, for One would never offer pain to you. But your defenses did not let you see One’s loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, One led you gently to eternal life.

Your present trust in One is the defense which promises a future undisturbed, without a trace of sorrow, and with joy which constantly increases as this life becomes a holy instant, set in time, but heeding only immortality. Let no defenses but your present trust direct the future, and this life becomes a meaningful encounter with the truth that only your defenses would conceal.

Without defenses, you become a light which Heaven gratefully acknowledges to be its own. And it will lead you on in ways appointed for your happiness according to the ancient plan, begun when time was born. Your followers will join their light with yours, and it will be increased until the world is lighted up with joy. And gladly will our siblings lay aside their cumbersome defenses which availed them nothing, and could only terrify.

We will anticipate that time today with present confidence, for this is part of what was planned for us. We will be sure that everything we need is given us for our accomplishment of this today. We make no plans for how it will be done, but realize that our defenselessness is all that is required for the truth to dawn upon our minds with certainty.

For fifteen minutes twice today we rest from senseless planning, and from every thought which blocks the truth from entering our minds. Today we will receive instead of plan, that we may give instead of organize. And we are given truly, as we say:

“If I defend myself I am attacked.

But in defenselessness I will be strong,

And I will learn what my defenses hide.”

Nothing but that. If there are plans to make, you will be told of them. They may not be the plans you thought were needed, nor indeed the answers to the problems which you thought confronted you. But they are answers to another kind of question, which remains unanswered yet in need of answering until the Answer comes to you at last.

All your defenses have been aimed at not receiving what you will receive today. And in the light and joy of simple truth, you will but wonder why you ever thought that you must be defended from release. Heaven asks nothing. It is hell that makes extravagant demands for sacrifice. You give up nothing in these times today when undefended you present yourself to your Creator as you really are.

One has remembered you. Today we will remember One. For this is Easter time in your salvation. And you rise again from what was seeming death and hopelessness. Now is the light of hope reborn in you, for now you come without defense to learn the part for you within the plan of God. What little plans or magical beliefs can still have value, when you have received your function from the Voice of God Oneself?

Try not to shape this day as you believe would benefit you most. For you can not conceive of all the happiness that comes to you without your planning. Learn today. And all the world will take this giant stride, and celebrate your Easter time with you. Throughout the day, as foolish little things appear to raise defensiveness in you and tempt you to engage in weaving plans, remind yourself this is a special day for learning, and acknowledge it with this:

“This is my Easter time.

And I would keep It holy.

I will not defend myself,

Because the Child of God needs no defense

Against the truth of one’s Reality.”

Lesson 136

“Sickness is a defense against the truth.”

No one can heal unless one understands what purpose sickness seems to serve. For then one understands as well its purpose has no meaning. Being causeless and without a meaningful intent of any kind, it cannot be at all. When this is seen, healing is automatic. It dispels this meaningless illusion by the same approach that carries all of them to truth, and merely leaves them there to disappear.

Sickness is not an accident. Like all defenses, it is an insane device for self-deception. And like all the rest, its purpose is to hide reality, attack it, change it, render it inept, distort it, twist it, or reduce it to a little pile of unassembled parts. The aim of all defenses is to keep the truth from being whole. The parts are seen as if each one were whole within itself.

Defenses are not unintentional, nor are they made without awareness. They are secret magic wands you wave when truth appears to threaten what you would believe. They seem to be unconscious but because of the rapidity with which you choose to use them. In that second, even less, in which the choice is made, you recognize exactly what you would attempt to do, and then proceed to think that it is done.

Who but yourself evaluates a threat, decides escape is necessary, and sets up a series of defenses to reduce the threat that has been judged as real? All this cannot be done unconsciously. But afterwards your plan requires that you must forget you made it, so it seems to be external to your own intent; a happening beyond your state of mind, an outcome with a real effect on you, instead of one effected by your self.

It is this quick forgetting of the part you play in making your “reality” which makes defenses seem to be beyond your own control. But what you have forgot can be remembered, given willingness to reconsider the decision which is doubly shielded by oblivion. Your not remembering is but the sign that this decision still remains in force as far as your desires are concerned. Mistake this not for fact. Defenses must make facts unrecognizable. They aim at doing this, and this they seem to do.

Every defense takes fragments of the whole, assembles them without regard to all their true relationships, and thus constructs illusions of a whole which is not there. It is this process which imposes threat, and not whatever outcome may result. When parts are wrested from the whole and seen as separate and wholes within themselves, they become symbols standing for attack upon the whole, successful in effect, and never to be seen as whole again. And yet you have forgotten that they stand but for your own decision of what should be real, to take the place of what is real.

Sickness is a decision. It is not a thing that happens to you quite unsought, which makes you weak and brings you suffering. It is a choice you make, a plan you lay when for an instant truth arises in your own deluded mind, and all your world appears to totter and prepare to fall. Now are you sick that truth may go away, and threaten your establishments no more. How do you think that sickness can succeed in shielding you from truth? Because it proves the body is not separate from you, and so you must be separate from the truth.

You suffer pain because the body does, and in this pain are you made one with it. Thus is your “true” identity preserved, and the strange, haunting thought that you might be something beyond this little pile of dust silenced and stilled. For see, this dust can make you suffer, twist your limbs and stop your heart, commanding you to die and cease to be.

Thus is the body stronger than the truth, which asks you live but cannot overcome your choice to die. And so the body is more powerful than Everlasting Life, Heaven more frail than hell, and God’s design for the salvation of One’s Child opposed by a decision stronger than One’s Will. One’s Child is dust, the Creator incomplete, and chaos sits in triumph on One’s throne.

Such is your planning for your own defense. And you believe that Heaven quails before such mad attacks as these, with God made blind by your illusions, truth turned into lies, and all the universe made slave to laws which your defenses would impose on it. Yet who believes illusions but the one who made them up? Who else can see them and react to them as if they were the truth?

God knows not of your plans to change One’s Will. The universe remains unheeding of the laws by which you thought to govern it. And Heaven has not bowed to hell, nor life to death. You can but choose to think you die, or suffer sickness or distort the truth in any way. What is created is apart from all of this. Defenses are plans to defeat what cannot be attacked. What is unalterable cannot change. And what is wholly sinless cannot sin.

Such is the simple truth. It does not make appeal to might nor triumph. It does not command obedience, nor seek to prove how pitiful and futile your attempts to plan defenses which would alter it. It merely wants to give you happiness, for such its purpose is. Perhaps it sighs a little when you throw away its gifts, and yet it knows with perfect certainty that what God wills for you must be received.

It is this fact which demonstrates that time is an illusion. For it lets you think what God has given you is not the truth right now, as it must be. The Thoughts of God are quite apart from time. For time is but another meaningless defense you made against the truth. Yet what God wills is here, and you remain as One created you.

Truth has a power far beyond defense, for no illusions can remain where it has been allowed to enter. And it comes to any mind that would lay down its arms and cease to play with folly. It is found at any time; today, if you will choose to practice giving welcome to the truth.

This is our aim today. And we will give a quarter of an hour twice to ask the truth to come to us and set us free. And truth will come, for it has never been apart from us. It merely waits for just this invitation which we give today. We introduce it with a healing prayer to help us rise above defensiveness, and let the truth be as it has always been:

“Sickness is a defense against the truth.

I will accept the truth of what I am,

And let my mind be wholly healed today.”

Healing will flash across your open mind as peace and truth arise to take the place of war and vain imaginings. There will be no dark corners sickness can conceal and keep defended from the light of truth. There will be no dim figures from your dreams, nor their obscure and meaningless pursuits with double purposes insanely sought, remaining in your mind. It will be healed of all the sickly wishes that it tried to authorize the body to obey.

Now is the body healed because the source of sickness has been opened to relief. And you will recognize you practiced well by this; the body should not feel at all. If you have been successful, there will be no sense of feeling ill or feeling well, of pain or pleasure. No response at all is in the mind to what the body does. Its usefulness remains and nothing more.

Perhaps you do not realize that this removes the limits you had placed upon the body by the purposes you gave to it. As these are laid aside, the strength the body has will always be enough to serve all truly useful purposes. The body’s health is fully guaranteed because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or any laws you made it serve before. You need do nothing now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible.

Yet this protection needs to be preserved by careful watching. If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield to judgement or make plans against uncertainties to come, you have again misplaced yourself, and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mind is sick. Give instant remedy, should this occur, by not allowing your defensiveness to hurt you longer. Do not be confused about what must be healed, but tell yourself:

“I have forgotten what I really am,

For I mistook my body for myself.

Sickness is a defense against the truth,

But I am not a body. And my mind

Cannot attack. So I can not be sick.”

Lesson 137

“When I am healed I am not healed alone.”

Today’s idea remains the central thought on which salvation rests. For healing is the opposite of all the world’s ideas which dwell on sickness and on separate states. Sickness is a retreat from others, and a shutting off of joining. It becomes a door that closes on a separate self, and keeps it isolated and alone.

Sickness is isolation. For it seems to keep one self apart from all the rest, to suffer what the others do not feel. It gives the body final power to make the separation real and keep the mind in solitary prison, split apart and held in pieces by a solid wall of sickened flesh which it can not surmount. The world obeys the laws that sickness serves, but healing operates apart from them.

It is impossible that anyone be healed alone. In sickness must one be apart and separate. But healing is one’s own decision to be one again, and to accept one’s Self with all Its parts intact and unassailed. In sickness does one’s Self appear to be dismembered and without the unity that gives It life. But healing is accomplished as one sees the body has no power to attack the universal Oneness of God’s Child. Sickness would prove that lies must be the truth. But healing demonstrates that truth is true.

The separation sickness would impose has never really happened. To be healed is merely to accept what always was the simple truth, and always will remain exactly as it has forever been. Yet eyes accustomed to illusions must be shown that what they look upon is false. So healing, never needed by the truth, must demonstrate that sickness is not real.

Healing might thus be called a counter-dream which cancels out the dream of sickness in the name of truth, but not in truth itself. Just as forgiveness overlooks all sins that never were accomplished, healing but removes illusions that have not occurred. Just as the real world will arise to take the place of what has never been at all, healing offers restitution for imagined states and false ideas which dreams embroider into pictures of the truth.

Yet think not healing is unworthy of your function here. For anti-Christ becomes more powerful than Christ to those who dream the world is real. The body seems to be more solid and more stable than the mind. And love becomes a dream, while fear remains the one reality that can be seen and justified and fully understood.

Just as forgiveness shines away all sin, and the real world will occupy the place of what you made, so healing must replace the fantasies of sickness which you hold before the simple truth. When sickness has been seen to disappear in spite of all the laws that hold it cannot but be real, then questions have been answered. And the laws can be no longer cherished nor obeyed.

Healing is freedom. For it demonstrates that dreams will not prevail against the truth. Healing is shared. And by this attribute it proves that laws unlike the ones which hold that sickness is inevitable are more potent than their sickly opposites. Healing is strength. For by its gentle hand is weakness overcome. And minds which were walled off within a body free to join with other minds, to be forever strong.

Healing, forgiveness, and the glad exchange of all the world of sorrow for a world where sadness cannot enter, are the means by which the Holy Spirit urges you to follow One. One’s gentle lessons teach how easily salvation can be yours; how little practice you need undertake to let One’s laws replace the ones you made to hold yourself a prisoner to death. One’s life becomes your own as you extend the little help One asks in freeing you from everything that ever caused you pain.

And as you let yourself be healed, you see all those around you or who cross your mind or whom you touch, or those who seem to have no contact with you, healed along with you. Perhaps you will not recognize them all, nor realize how great your offering to all the world when you let healing come to you. But you are never healed alone. And legions upon legions will receive the gift which you receive when you are healed.

Those who are healed become the instruments of healing. Nor does time elapse between the instant they are healed and all the grace of healing it is given them to give. What is opposed to God does not exist. And who accepts it not within one’s mind becomes a haven where the weary can remain to rest. For here is truth bestowed, and here are all illusions brought to truth.

Would you not offer shelter to God’s Will? You but invite your Self to be at home, and can this invitation be refused? Ask the inevitable to occur and you will never fail. The other choice is but to ask what cannot be to be, and this cannot succeed. Today we ask that only truth will occupy our minds; that thoughts of healing will this day go forth from what is healed to what must yet be healed, aware that they will both occur as one.

We will remember, as the hour strikes, our function is to let our minds be healed that we may carry healing to the world, exchanging curse for blessing, pain for joy, and separation for the peace of God. Is not a minute of the hour worth the giving to receive a gift like this? Is not a little time a small expense to offer for the gift of everything?

Yet must we be prepared for such a gift. And so we will begin the day with this, and give ten minutes to these thoughts with which we will conclude today at night as well:

“When I am healed I am not healed alone.

And I would share my healing with the world,

That sickness may be banished from the mind

Of God’s One Child, Who is my only Self.”

Let healing be through you this very day. And as you rest in quiet, be prepared to give as you receive, to hold but what you give, and to receive the Word of God to take the place of all the foolish thoughts that ever were imagined. Now we come together to make well all that was sick, and offer blessing where there was attack. Nor will we let this function be forgot as every hour of the day slips by, remembering our function with this thought:

“When I am healed I am not healed alone.

And I would bless my siblings, for I would

Be healed with them as they are healed with me.”

Lesson 138

“Heaven is the decision I must make.”

In this world Heaven is a choice, because here we believe there are alternatives to choose between. We think that all things have an opposite, and what we want we choose. If Heaven exists there must be hell as well, for contradiction is the way we make what we perceive and what we think is real.

Creation knows no opposite. But here is opposition part of being “real.” It is this strange perception of the truth which makes the choice of Heaven seem to be the same as the relinquishment of hell. It is not really thus. Yet what is true in God’s creation cannot enter here until it is reflected in some form the world can understand. Truth cannot come where it could only be perceived with fear, for this would be the error truth can be brought to illusions. Opposition makes the truth unwelcome, and it cannot come.

Choice is the obvious escape from what appears as opposites. Decision lets one of conflicting goals become the aim of effort and expenditure of time. Without decision time is but a waste and effort dissipated. It is spent for nothing in return. And time goes by without results. There is no sense of gain, for nothing is accomplished; nothing learned.

You need to be reminded that you think a thousand choices are confronting you, when there is really only one to make. And even this but seems to be a choice. Do not confuse yourself with all the doubts that myriad decisions would induce. You make but one. And when that one is made you will perceive it was no choice at all, for truth is true and nothing else is real. There is no opposite to choose instead. There is no contradiction to the truth.

Choosing depends on learning. But the truth cannot be learned but only recognized. In recognition its acceptance lies, and as it is accepted it is known. But knowledge is beyond the goals we seek to teach within the framework of this course. Ours are teaching goals to be attained through learning how to reach them, what they are, and what they offer you. Decisions are the outcome of your learning, for they rest on what you have accepted as the truth of what you are and what your needs must be.

In this insanely complicated world Heaven appears to take the form of choice, rather than merely being what it is. Of all the choices you have tried to make this is the simplest, most definitive, the prototype of all the rest, the one which settles all decisions. If you could decide the rest, this one remains unsolved. But when you solve this one the others are resolved with it, for all decisions but conceal this one by taking different forms. Here is the final and the only choice in which is truth accepted or denied.

So we begin today considering the choice that time was made to help us make. Such is its holy purpose, now transformed from the intent you gave it; that it be a means for demonstrating hell is real, hope changes to despair, and life itself must in the end be overcome by death. In death alone are opposites resolved, for ending opposition is to die. And thus salvation must be seen as death, for life is seen as conflict. To resolve the conflict is to end your life as well.

These mad beliefs can gain unconscious hold of great intensity, and grip the mind with terror and anxiety so strong that it will not relinquish its ideas about its own protection. It must be saved from salvation, threatened to be safe, and magically armored against truth. And these decisions are made unaware to keep them safely undisturbed; apart from question and from reason and from doubt.

Heaven is chosen consciously. The choice cannot be made until alternatives are accurately seen and understood. All that is veiled in shadows must be raised to understanding to be judged again, this time with Heaven’s help, and all mistakes in judgement which the mind had made before are open to correction as the truth dismisses them as causeless. Now are they without effects. They cannot be concealed because their nothingness is recognized.

The conscious choice of Heaven is as sure as is the ending of the fear of hell when it is raised from its protective shield of unawareness, and is brought to light. Who can decide between the clearly seen and the unrecognized? Yet who can fail to make a choice between alternatives when only one is seen as valuable; the other as a wholly worthless thing, a but imagined source of guilt and pain?

Who hesitates to make a choice like this? And shall we hesitate to choose today? We make the choice for Heaven as we wake, and spend five minutes making sure that we have made the one decision that is sane. We recognize we make a conscious choice between what has existence and what has nothing but an appearance of the truth. Its pseudo-being brought to what is real, is flimsy and transparent in the light. It holds no terror now, for what was made enormous, vengeful, pitiless with hate, demands obscurity for fear to be invested there. Now it is recognized as but a foolish, trivial mistake.

Before we close our eyes in sleep tonight we reaffirm the choice that we have made each hour inbetween. And now we give the last five minutes of our waking day to the decision with which we awoke. As every hour passed, we have declared our choice again in a brief quiet time devoted to maintaining sanity. And finally we close the day with this, acknowledging we chose but what we want:

“Heaven is the decision I must make.

I make it now and will not change my mind,

Because it is the only thing I want.”

Lesson 139

“I will accept Atonement for myself.”

Here is the end of choice. For here we come to a decision to accept ourselves as God created us. And what is choice except uncertainty of what we are? There is no doubt that is not rooted here. There is no question but reflects this one. There is no conflict that does not entail the single simple question,

“What am I?”

Yet who could ask this question except one who has refused to recognize oneself? Only refusal to accept yourself could make the question seem to be sincere. The only thing that can be surely known by any living thing is what it is. From this one point of certainty it looks on other things as certain as itself.

Uncertainty about what you must be is self-deception on a scale so vast its magnitude can hardly be conceived. To be alive and not to know yourself is to believe that you are really dead. For what is life except to be yourself, and what but you can be alive instead? Who is the doubter? What is it one doubts? Whom does one question? Who can answer one?

One merely states that one is not oneself and therefore, being something else, becomes a questioner of what that something is. Yet one could never be alive at all unless one knew the answer. If one asks as if one did not know, it merely shows one does not want to be the thing one is. One has accepted it because one lives; has judged against it and denied its worth; and has decided that one does not know the only certainty by which one lives.

Thus one becomes uncertain of one’s life, for what it is has been denied by one. It is for this denial that you need Atonement. Your denial made no change in what you are. But you have split your mind into what knows and does not know the truth. You are yourself. There is no doubt of this, and yet you doubt it. But you do not ask what part of you can really doubt yourself. It cannot really be a part of you that asks this question, for it asks of one who knows the answer. Were it part of you, certainty would be impossible.

Atonement remedies the strange idea that it is possible to doubt yourself and be unsure of what you really are. This is the depth of madness. Yet it is the universal question of the world. What does this prove except the world is mad? Why share its madness in the sad belief that what is universal here is true? Nothing the world believes is true. It is a place whose purpose is to be a home where those who claim they do not know themselves can come to question what it is they are.

And they will come again until the time Atonement is accepted, and they learn it is impossible to doubt yourself and not to be aware of what you are. Only acceptance can be asked of you, for what you are is certain. It is set forever in the holy Mind of God and in your own. It is so far beyond all doubt and question that to ask what it must be is all the proof you need to show that you believe the contradiction that you know not what you cannot fail to know.

Is this a question or a statement which denies itself in statement? Let us not allow our holy minds to occupy themselves with senseless musings such as this. We have a mission here. We did not come to reinforce the madness which we once believed in. Let us not forget the goal that we accepted. It is more than just our happiness alone we came to gain.

What we accept as what we are proclaims what everyone must be along with us. Fail not your siblings, or you fail yourself. Look lovingly on them that they may know that they are part of you and you of them. This does Atonement teach, and demonstrates the oneness of God’s Child is unassailed by one’s belief one knows not what one is.

Today accept Atonement, not to change reality, but merely to accept the truth about yourself, and go your way rejoicing in the endless Love of God. It is but this that we are asked to do. It is but this that we will do today. Five minutes in the morning and at night we will devote to dedicate our minds to our assignment for today. We start with this review of what our mission is:

“I will accept Atonement for myself,

For I remain as God created me.”

We have not lost the knowledge that God gave to us when One created us like One. We can remember it for everyone, for in creation are all minds as one, and in our memory is the recall how dear our siblings are to us in truth, how much a part of us is every mind, how faithful they have really been to us, and how our Creator’s Love contains them all.

In thanks for all creation, in the Name of its Creator and One’s Oneness with all aspects of creation, we repeat our dedication to our cause today each hour, as we lay aside all thoughts that would distract us from our holy aim. For several minutes let your mind be cleared of all the foolish cobwebs which the world would weave around the holy Child of God. And learn the fragile nature of the chains that seem to keep the knowledge of yourself apart from your awareness, as you say:

“I will accept Atonement for myself,

For I remain as God created me.”

Lesson 140

“Only salvation can be said to cure.”

Cure is a word that cannot be applied to any remedy the world accepts as beneficial. What the world perceives as therapeutic is but what will make the body “better.” When it tries to heal the mind, it sees no separation from the body, where it thinks the mind exists. Its forms of healing thus must substitute illusion for illusion. One belief in sickness takes another form, and so the patient now perceives oneself as well.

One is not healed. One merely had a dream that one was sick, and in the dream one found a magic formula to make one well. Yet one has not awakened from the dream, and so one’s mind remains exactly as it was before. One has not seen the light that would awaken one and end the dream. What difference does the content of a dream make in reality? One either sleeps or wakens. There is nothing in between.

The happy dreams the Holy Spirit brings are different from the dreams of the world, where one can merely dream one is awake. The dreams forgiveness lets the mind perceive do not induce another form of sleep, so that the dreamer dreams another dream. One’s happy dreams are heralds of the dawn of truth upon the mind. They lead from sleep to gentle waking, so that dreams are gone. And thus they cure for all eternity.

Atonement heals with certainty, and cures all sickness. For the mind which understands that sickness can be nothing but a dream is not deceived by forms the dream may take. Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt. Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed. For sickness now is gone, with nothing left to which it can return.

Peace be to you who have been cured in God, and not in idle dreams. For cure must come from holiness, and holiness can not be found where sin is cherished. God abides in holy temples. One is barred where sin has entered. Yet there is no place where One is not. And therefore sin can have no home in which to hide from One’s beneficence.

There is no place where holiness is not, and nowhere sin and sickness can abide. This is the thought that cures. It does not make distinctions among unrealities. Nor does it seek to heal what is not sick, unmindful where the need for healing is. This is no magic. It is merely an appeal to truth, which cannot fail to heal and heal forever. It is not a thought which judges an illusion by its size, its seeming gravity, or anything that is related to the form it takes. It merely focuses on what it is, and knows that no illusion can be real.

Let us not try today to seek to cure what cannot suffer sickness. Healing must be sought but where it is, and then applied to what is sick so that it can be cured. There is no remedy the world provides that can effect a change in anything. The mind that brings illusions to the truth is really changed. There is no change but this. For how can one illusion differ from another but in attributes that have no substance, no reality, no core, and nothing that is truly different?

Today we seek to change our minds about the source of sickness, for we seek a cure for all illusions, not another shift among them. We will try today to find the source of healing, which is in our minds because our Creator placed it there for us. It is not further from us than ourselves. It is as near to us as our own thoughts, so close it is impossible to lose. We need but seek it and it must be found.

We will not be misled today by what appears to us as sick. We go beyond appearances today, and reach the source of healing from which nothing is exempt. We will succeed to the extent to which we realize that there can never be a meaningful distinction made between what is untrue and equally untrue. Here there are no degrees, and no beliefs that what does not exist is truer in some forms than others. All of them are false, and can be cured because they are not true.

So do we lay aside our amulets, our charms and medicines, our chants and bits of magic in whatever form they took. We will be still and listen for the Voice of healing which will cure all ills as one, restoring saneness to the Child of God. No voice but This can cure. Today we hear a single Voice Which speaks to us of truth where all illusions end, and peace returns to the eternal quiet home of God.

We waken hearing One, and let One speak to us five minutes as the day begins, and end the day by listening again five minutes more before we go to sleep. Our only preparation is to let our interfering thoughts be laid aside, not separately, but all of them as one. They are the same. We have no need to make them different, and thus delay the time when we can hear our Creator speak to us. We hear One now. We come to One today.

With nothing in our hands to which we cling, with lifted hearts and listening minds we pray:

“Only salvation can be said to cure.

Speak to us, Creator, that we may be healed.”

And we will feel salvation cover us with soft protection, and with peace so deep that no illusion can disturb our minds, nor offer proof to us that it is real. This will we learn today. And we will say our prayer for healing hourly, and take a minute as the hour strikes to hear the answer to our prayer be given us as we attend in silence and in joy. This is the day when healing comes to us. This is the day when separation ends, and we remember Who we really are.

Review 4

Now a review again, this time aware we are preparing for the second part of learning how the truth can be applied. Today we will begin to concentrate on readiness for what will follow next. Such is our aim for this review and for the lessons following. Thus we review the recent lessons and their central thoughts in such a way as will facilitate the readiness which we would now achieve.

There is a central theme that unifies each step in the review we undertake, which can be simply stated in these words:

“My mind holds only what I think with God.”

This is a fact, and represents the truth of What you are and What your Creator is. It is this Thought by which the Creator gave creation to the Child, establishing the Child as co-creator with Oneself. It is this Thought which fully guarantees salvation to the Child. For in one’s mind no thoughts can dwell but those one’s Creator shares. Lack of forgiveness blocks this Thought from one’s awareness. Yet It is forever true.

Let us begin our preparation with some understanding of the many forms in which the lack of true forgiveness may be carefully concealed. Because they are illusions, they are not perceived to be but what they are: defenses which protect your unforgiving thoughts from being seen and recognized. Their purpose is to show you something else, and hold correction off through self-deceptions made to take its place.

And yet your mind holds only what you think with God. Your self-deceptions cannot take the place of truth. No more than can a child who throws a stick into the ocean change the coming and the going of the tides, the warming of the water by the sun, the silver of the moon on it by night. So do we start each practice period in this review with readying our minds to understand the lessons that we read, and see the meaning which they offer us.

Begin each day with time devoted to the preparation of your mind to learn what each idea you will review that day can offer you in freedom and in peace. Open your mind and clear it of all thoughts that would deceive, and let this Thought alone engage it fully and remove the rest:

“My mind holds only what I think with God.”

Five minutes with this Thought will be enough to set the day along the lines which God appointed, and to place One’s Mind in charge of all the thoughts you will receive that day. They will not come from you alone, for they will all be shared with One. And so each one will bring the message of One’s Love to you, returning messages of yours to One. So will communion with the Lord of Hosts be yours, as Oneself has willed it be. And as One’s Own completion joins with One so will One join with you who are complete as you unite with One and One with you.

After your preparation, merely read each of the two ideas assigned to you to be reviewed that day. Then close your eyes and say them slowly to yourself. There is no hurry now, for you are using time for its intended purpose. Let each word shine with the meaning God has given it as it was given to you through One’s Voice. Let each idea that you review that day give you the gift which One has laid in it for you to have of One. And we will use no format for our practicing but this:

Each hour of the day bring to your mind the Thought with which the day began, and spend a quiet moment with It. Then repeat the two ideas you practice for the day unhurriedly, with time enough to see the gifts which they contain for you, and let them be received where they were meant to be. We add no other thoughts, but let them be the messages they are. We need no more than that to give us happiness and rest and endless quiet, perfect certainty, and all our Creator wills that we receive as the inheritance we have of One.

Each day of practicing, as we review, we close as we began, repeating first the Thought that made the day a special time of blessing and of happiness for us; and through our faithfulness restored the world from darkness to the light, from grief to joy, from pain to peace, from sin to holiness. God offers thanks to you who practice thus the keeping of One’s Word. And as you give your mind to the ideas for the day again before you sleep, One’s gratitude surrounds you in the peace wherein One wills you be forever, and are learning now to claim again as your inheritance.

Lesson 141

“My mind holds only what I think with God.”

“Forgiveness is the key to happiness.”  Lesson 121

“Forgiveness offers everything I want.”  Lesson 122

Lesson 142

“My mind holds only what I think with God.”

“I thank my Creator for One’s gifts to me.”  Lesson 123

“Let me remember I am one with God.”  Lesson 124

Lesson 143

“My mind holds only what I think with God.”

“In quiet I receive God’s Word today.”  Lesson 125

“All that I give is given to myself.”  Lesson 126

Lesson 144

“My mind holds only what I think with God.”

“There is no love but God’s.”  Lesson 127

“The world I see has nothing that I want.”  Lesson 128

Lesson 145

“My mind holds only what I think with God.”

“Beyond this world there is a world I want.”  Lesson 129

“It is impossible to see two worlds.”  Lesson 130

Lesson 146

“My mind holds only what I think with God.”

“No one can fail who asks to reach the truth.”  Lesson 131

“I loose the world from all I thought it was.”  Lesson 132

Lesson 147

“My mind holds only what I think with God.”

“I will not value what is valueless.”  Lesson 133

“Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.”  Lesson 134

Lesson 148

“My mind holds only what I think with God.”

“If I defend myself I am attacked.”  Lesson 135

“Sickness is a defense against the truth.”  Lesson 136

Lesson 149

“My mind holds only what I think with God.”

“When I am healed I am not healed alone.”  Lesson 137

“Heaven is the decision I must make.”  Lesson 138

Lesson 150

“My mind holds only what I think with God.”

“I will accept Atonement for myself.”  Lesson 139

“Only salvation can be said to cure.”  Lesson 140

Lesson 151

“All things are echoes of the Voice for God.”

No one can judge on partial evidence. That is not judgement. It is merely an opinion based on ignorance and doubt. Its seeming certainty is but a cloak for the uncertainty it would conceal. It needs irrational defense because it is irrational. And its defense seems strong, convincing, and without a doubt, because of all the doubting underneath.

You do not seem to doubt the world you see. You do not really question what is shown you through the body’s eyes. Nor do you ask why you believe it, even though you learned a long while since your senses do deceive. That you believe them to the last detail which they report is even stranger when you pause to recollect how frequently they have been faulty witnesses indeed! Why would you trust them so implicitly? Why but because of underlying doubt which you would hide with show of certainty?

How can you judge? Your judgement rests upon the witness that your senses offer you. Yet witness never falser was than this. But how else do you judge the world you see? You place pathetic faith in what your eyes and ears report. You think your fingers touch reality and close upon the truth. This is awareness which you understand, and think more real than what is witnessed to by the eternal Voice for God Oneself.

Can this be judgement? You have often been urged to refrain from judging, not because it is a right to be withheld from you. You cannot judge. You merely can believe the ego’s judgements, all of which are false. It guides your senses carefully, to prove how weak you are; how helpless and afraid, how apprehensive of just punishment, how black with sin, how wretched in your guilt.

This thing it speaks of and would yet defend it tells you is yourself. And you believe that this is so with stubborn certainty. Yet underneath remains the hidden doubt that what it shows you as reality with such conviction it does not believe. It is itself alone that it condemns. It is within itself it sees the guilt. It is its own despair it sees in you.

Hear not its voice. The witnesses it sends to prove to you its evil is your own are false, and speak with certainty of what they do not know. Your faith in them is blind because you would not share the doubts their lord can not completely vanquish. You believe to doubt its vassals is to doubt yourself.

Yet you must learn to doubt their evidence will clear the way to recognize yourself, and let the Voice for God alone be Judge of what is worthy of your own belief. One will not tell you that your sibling should be judged by what your eyes behold in one, nor what one’s body’s mouth says to your ears, nor what your fingers’ touch reports of one. One passes by such idle witnesses, which merely bear false witness to God’s Child.

One recognizes only what God loves, and in the holy light of what One sees do all the ego’s dreams of what you are vanish before the splendor One beholds. Let One be Judge of what you are, for One has certainty in which there is no doubt, because it rests on Certainty so great that doubt is meaningless before Its Face. Christ cannot doubt Oneself. The Voice for God can only honor One, rejoicing in One’s perfect, everlasting sinlessness.

Whom One has judged can only laugh at guilt, unwilling now to play with toys of sin; unheeding of the body’s witnesses before the rapture of One’s holy Face. And thus One judges you. Accept One’s word of what you are, for One bears witness to your beautiful creation, and the Mind Whose Thought created your reality.

What can the body mean to One Who knows the glory of the Creator and the Child? What whispers of the ego can One hear? What could convince One that your sins are real? Let One be Judge as well of everything that seems to happen to you in this world. One’s lessons will enable you to bridge the gap between illusions and the truth.

One will remove all faith that you have placed in pain, disaster, suffering and loss. One gives you vision which can look beyond these grim appearances, and can behold the gentle Face of Christ in all of them. You will no longer doubt that only good can come to you who are beloved of God, for One will judge all happenings and teach the single lesson which they all contain.

One will select the elements in them which represent the truth, and disregard those aspects which reflect but idle dreams. And One will reinterpret all you see, and all occurrences, each circumstance, and every happening which seems to touch on you in any way from One’s one frame of reference, wholly unified and sure. And you will see the love beyond the hate, the constancy in change, the pure in sin, and only Heaven’s blessing on the world.

Such is your resurrection, for your life is not a part of anything you see. It stands beyond the body and the world, past every witness for unholiness, within the Holy, holy as Itself. In everyone and everything One’s Voice would speak to you of nothing but your Self and your Creator, Who is One with One. So will you see the holy Face of Christ in everything, and hear in everything no sound except the echo of God’s Voice.

We practice wordlessly today except at the beginning of the time you spend with God. We introduce these times with but a single, slow repeating of the thought with which the day begins. And then we watch our thoughts, appealing silently to One Who sees the elements of truth in them. Let One evaluate each thought that comes to mind, remove the elements of dreams, and give them back to you as clean ideas that do not contradict the Will of God.

Give One your thoughts, and One will give them back as miracles which joyously proclaim the wholeness and the happiness God wills One’s Child as proof of One’s eternal Love. And as each thought is thus transformed, it takes on healing power from the Mind Which saw the truth in it, and failed to be deceived by what was falsely added. All the threads of fantasy are gone, and what remains is unified into a perfect Thought that offers Its perfection everywhere.

Spend fifteen minutes thus when you awake, and gladly give another fifteen more before you go to sleep. Your ministry begins as all your thoughts are purified. So are you taught to teach the Child of God the holy lesson of one’s sanctity. No one can fail to listen, when you hear the Voice for God give honor to God’s Child. And everyone will share the thoughts with you which One has retranslated in your mind.

Such is your Eastertide. And so you lay the gift of snow-white lilies on the world, replacing witnesses to sin and death. Through your transfiguration is the world redeemed and joyfully released from guilt. Now do we lift our resurrected minds in gladness and in gratitude to One Who has restored our sanity to us.

And we will hourly remember One Who is salvation and deliverance. As we give thanks the world unites with us and happily accepts our holy thoughts which Heaven has corrected and made pure. Now has our ministry begun at last, to carry round the world the joyous news that truth has no illusions, and the peace of God, through us, belongs to everyone.

Lesson 152

“The power of decision is my own.”

No one can suffer loss unless it be one’s own decision. No one suffers pain except one’s choice elects this state for one. No one can grieve nor fear nor think one sick unless these are the outcomes that one wants. And no one dies without one’s own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is.

You may believe that this position is extreme, and too inclusive to be true. Yet can truth have exceptions? If you have the gift of everything can loss be real? Can pain be part of peace, or grief of joy? Can fear and sickness enter in a mind where love and perfect holiness abide?

Truth must be all-inclusive if it be the truth at all. Accept no opposite and no exceptions, for to do so is to contradict the truth entirely. Salvation is the recognition that the truth is true and nothing else is true. This you have heard before, but may not yet accept both parts of it. Without the first the second has no meaning, but without the second is the first no longer true. Truth cannot have an opposite. This can not be too often said and thought about. For if what is not true is true as well as what is true, then part of truth is false, and truth has lost its meaning. Nothing but the truth is true, and what is false is false.

This is the simplest of distinctions, yet the most obscure. But not because it is a difficult distinction to perceive. It is concealed behind a vast array of choices which do not appear to be entirely your own. And thus the truth appears to have some aspects that belie consistency, but do not seem to be but contradictions introduced by you.

As God created you, you must remain unchangeable with transitory states by definition false. And that includes all shifts in feeling, alterations in conditions of the body and the mind, in all awareness and in all response. This is the all-inclusiveness which sets the truth apart from falsehood, and the false kept separate from the truth as what it is.

Is it not strange that you believe to think you made the world you see is arrogance? God made it not. Of this you can be sure. What can One know of the ephemeral, the sinful and the guilty, the afraid, the suffering and lonely, and the mind that lives within a body that must die? You but accuse One of insanity, to think One made a world where such things seem to have reality. One is not mad. Yet only madness makes a world like this.

To think that God made chaos, contradicts One’s Will, invented opposites to truth, and suffers death to triumph over life, all this is arrogance. Humility would see at once these things are not of One. And can you see what God created not? To think you can is merely to believe you can perceive what God willed not to be. And what could be more arrogant than this?

Let us today be truly humble, and accept what we have made as what it is. The power of decision is our own. Decide but to accept your rightful place as co-creator of the universe, and all you think you made will disappear. What rises to awareness then will be all that there ever was, eternally as it is now. And it will take the place of self-deceptions made but to usurp the altar to the Creator and the Child.

Today we practice true humility, abandoning the false pretense by which the ego seeks to prove it arrogant. Only the ego can be arrogant. But truth is humble in acknowledging its mightiness, its changelessness and its eternal wholeness, all-encompassing, God’s perfect gift to One’s beloved Child. We lay aside the arrogance which says that we are sinners, guilty and afraid, ashamed of what we are. And lift our hearts in true humility instead to One Who has created us immaculate, like to Oneself in power and in love.

The power of decision is our own. And we accept of One that which we are, and humbly recognize the Child of God. To recognize God’s Child implies as well that all self-concepts have been laid aside and recognized as false. Their arrogance has been perceived. And in humility the radiance of God’s Child, one’s gentleness, one’s perfect sinlessness, one’s Creator’s Love, one’s right to Heaven and release from hell are joyously accepted as our own.

Now do we join in glad acknowledgment that lies are false and only truth is true. We think of truth alone as we arise, and spend five minutes practicing its ways, encouraging our frightened minds with this:

“The power of decision is my own.

This day I will accept myself as what

My Creator’s Will created me to be.”

Then will we wait in silence, giving up all self-deceptions as we humbly ask our Self that One reveal Oneself to us. And One Who never left will come again to our awareness, grateful to restore One’s home to God as it was meant to be.

In patience wait for One throughout the day, and hourly invite One with the words with which the day began, concluding it with this same invitation to your Self. God’s Voice will answer, for One speaks for you and for your Creator. One will substitute the peace of God for all your frantic thoughts, the truth of God for self-deceptions, and God’s Child for your illusions of yourself.

Lesson 153

“In my defenselessness my safety lies.”

You who feel threatened by this changing world, its twists of fortune and its bitter jests, its brief relationships and all the “gifts” it merely lends to take away again, attend this lesson well. The world provides no safety. It is rooted in attack, and all its “gifts” of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks and then attacks again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus.

The world gives rise but to defensiveness. For threat brings anger, anger makes attack seem reasonable, honestly provoked, and righteous in the name of self-defense. Yet is defensiveness a double threat. For it attests to weakness, and sets up a system of defense that cannot work. Now are the weak still further undermined, for there is treachery without and still a greater treachery within. The mind is now confused, and knows not where to turn to find escape from its imaginings.

It is as if a circle held it fast, wherein another circle bound it, and another in that one, until escape no longer can be hoped for nor obtained. Attack, defense; defense, attack, become the circles of the hours and the days that bind the mind in heavy bands of steel with iron overlaid, returning but to start again. There seems to be no break nor ending in the ever-tightening grip of imprisonment upon the mind.

Defenses are the costliest of all the prices which the ego would exact. In them lies madness in a form so grim that hope of sanity seems but to be an idle dream, beyond the possible. The sense of threat the world encourages is so much deeper and so far beyond the frenzy and intensity of which you can conceive that you have no idea of all the devastation it has wrought. You are its slave. You know not what you do in fear of it. You do not understand how much you have been made to sacrifice who feel its iron grip upon your heart.

You do not realize what you have done to sabotage the holy peace of God by your defensiveness. For you behold the Child of God as but a victim to attack by fantasies, by dreams, and by illusions one has made; yet helpless in their presence, needful only of defense by still more fantasies and dreams by which illusions of one’s safety comfort one.

Defenselessness is strength. It testifies to recognition of the Christ in you. Perhaps you will recall the course maintains that choice is always made between One’s strength and your own weakness seen apart from One. Defenselessness can never be attacked because it recognizes strength so great attack is folly, or a silly game a tired child might play when one becomes too sleepy to remember what one wants.

Defensiveness is weakness. It proclaims you have denied the Christ and come to fear One’s Creator’s anger. What can save you now from your delusion of an angry god whose fearful image you believe you see at work in all the evils of the world? What but illusions could defend you now, when it is but illusions which you fight?

We will not play such childish games today. For our true purpose is to save the world, and we would not exchange for foolishness the endless joy our function offers us. We would not let our happiness slip by because a senseless fragment of a dream happened to cross our minds, and we mistook the figures in it for the Child of God; its tiny instant for eternity.

We look past dreams today, and recognize that we need no defense because we are created unassailable, without all thought or wish or dream in which attack has any meaning. Now we cannot fear, for we have left all fearful thoughts behind. And in defenselessness we stand secure, serenely certain of our safety now, sure of salvation; sure we will fulfill our chosen purpose as our ministry extends its holy blessing through the world.

Be still a moment, and in silence think how holy is your purpose, how secure you rest, untouchable within its light. God’s ministers have chosen that the truth be with them. Who is holier than they? Who could be surer that one’s happiness is fully guaranteed? And who could be more mightily protected? What defense could possibly be needed by the ones who are among the chosen ones of God by One’s election and their own as well?

It is the function of God’s ministers to help their siblings choose as they have done. God has elected all, but few have come to realize One’s Will is but their own. And while you fail to teach what you have learned salvation waits, and darkness holds the world in grim imprisonment. Nor will you learn that light has come to you, and your escape has been accomplished. For you will not see the light until you offer it to all your siblings. As they take it from your hands, so will you recognize it as your own.

Salvation can be thought of as a game that happy children play. It was designed by One Who loves One’s children, and Who would replace their fearful toys with joyous games which teach them that the game of fear is gone. One’s game instructs in happiness because there is no loser. Everyone who plays must win, and in one’s winning is the gain to everyone ensured. The game of fear is gladly laid aside when children come to see the benefits salvation brings.

You who have played that you are lost to hope, abandoned by your Creator, left alone in terror in a fearful world made mad by sin and guilt, be happy now. That game is over. Now a quiet time has come in which we put away the toys of guilt, and lock our quaint and childish thoughts of sin forever from the pure and holy minds of Heaven’s children and the Child of God.

We pause but for a moment more, to play our final happy game upon this earth. And then we go to take our rightful place where truth abides and games are meaningless. So is the story ended. Let this day bring the last chapter closer to the world, that everyone may learn the tales one reads of terrifying destiny, defeat of all one’s hopes, one’s pitiful defense against a vengeance one can not escape, was but one’s own deluded fantasy. God’s ministers have come to waken one from the dark dreams this story has evoked in one’s confused, bewildered memory of this distorted tale. God’s Child can smile at last, on learning that it is not true.

Today we practice in a form we will maintain for quite a while. We will begin each day by giving our attention to the daily thought as long as possible. Five minutes now becomes the least we give to preparation for a day in which salvation is the only goal we have. Ten would be better; fifteen better still. And as distraction ceases to arise to turn us from our purpose, we will find that half an hour is too short a time to spend with God. Nor will we willingly give less at night in gratitude and joy.

Each hour adds to our increasing peace, as we remember to be faithful to the Will we share with God. At times, perhaps, a minute, even less, will be the most that we can offer as the hour strikes. Sometimes we will forget. At other times the business of the world will close on us, and we will be unable to withdraw a little while and turn our thoughts to God.

Yet when we can, we will observe our trust as ministers of God in hourly remembrance of our mission and One’s Love. And we will quietly sit by and wait on One and listen to One’s Voice, and learn what One would have us do the hour that is yet to come; while thanking One for all the gifts One gave us in the one gone by.

In time, with practice, you will never cease to think of One, and hear One’s loving Voice guiding your footsteps into quiet ways where you will walk in true defenselessness. For you will know that Heaven goes with you. Nor would you keep your mind away from One a moment, even though your time is spent in offering salvation to the world. Think you One will not make this possible for you who chose to carry out One’s plan for the salvation of the world and yours?

Today our theme is our defenselessness. We clothe ourselves in it as we prepare to meet the day. We rise up strong in Christ, and let our weakness disappear as we remember that One’s strength abides in us. We will remind ourselves that One remains beside us through the day, and never leaves our weakness unsupported by One’s strength. We call upon One’s strength each time we feel the threat of our defenses undermine our certainty of purpose. We will pause a moment, as One tells us, “I am here.”

Our practicing will now begin to take the earnestness of love to help you keep your mind from wandering from its intent. Be not afraid or timid. There can be no doubt that you will reach your final goal. The ministers of God can never fail, because the love and strength and peace that shine from them to all their siblings come from One. These are One’s gifts to you. Defenselessness is all you need to give One in return. You lay aside but what was never real, to look on Christ and see One’s sinlessness.

Lesson 154

“I am among the ministers of God.”

Let us today be neither arrogant nor falsely humble. We have gone beyond such foolishness. We cannot judge ourselves, nor need we do so. These are but attempts to hold decision off, and to delay commitment to our function. It is not our part to judge our worth, nor can we know what role is best for us; what we can do within a larger plan we cannot see in its entirety. Our part is cast in Heaven, not in hell. And what we think is weakness can be strength; what we believe to be our strength is often arrogance.

Whatever your appointed role may be it was selected by the Voice for God, Whose function is to speak for you as well. Seeing your strengths exactly as they are, and equally aware of where they can be best applied, for what, to whom and when, One chooses and accepts your part for you. One does not work without your own consent. But One is not deceived in what you are, and listens only to One’s Voice in you.

It is through One’s ability to hear One Voice Which is One’s Own that you become aware at last there is One Voice in you. And that One Voice appoints your function, and relays it to you, giving you the strength to understand it, do what it entails, and to succeed in everything you do that is related to it. God has joined One’s Child in this, and thus One’s Child becomes One’s messenger of unity with One.

It is this joining, through the Voice for God, of Creator and of Child, that sets apart salvation from the world. It is this Voice Which speaks of laws the world does not obey; Which promises salvation from all sin, with guilt abolished in the mind that God created sinless. Now this mind becomes aware again of Who created one, and of One’s lasting union with oneself. So is one’s Self the one Reality in Which one’s will and That of God are joined.

A messenger does not elect to make the message one delivers. Nor does one question the right of one who does, nor ask why one has chosen those who will receive the message that one brings. It is enough that one accept it, bring it to the ones for which it was appointed, and fulfill one’s role in its delivery. If one insists on judging what the messages should be, or what their purpose is, or where they should be carried, one is failing to perform one’s proper part as bringer of the Word.

There is one major difference in the role of Heaven’s messengers which sets them off from those the world appoints. The messages which they deliver are intended first for them. And it is only as they can accept them for themselves that they become able to bring them further, and to give them everywhere that they were meant to be. Like earthly messengers, they did not write the messages they bear, but they become their first receivers in the truest sense, receiving to prepare themselves to give.

An earthly messenger fulfills one’s role by giving all the messages away. The messengers of God perform their part by their acceptance of One’s messages as for themselves, and show they understand the messages by giving them away. They choose no roles that are not given them by One’s authority. And so they gain by every message which they give away.

Would you receive the messages of God? For thus do you become One’s messengers. You are appointed now. And yet you wait to give the messages you have received, and so you do not know that they are yours, and do not recognize them. No one can receive and understand one has received until one gives. For in the giving is one’s own acceptance of what one received.

You who are now the messengers of God receive One’s messages, for that is part of your appointed role. One has not failed to offer what you need, nor has it been left unaccepted. Yet another part of your appointed task is yet to be accomplished. One Who has received for you the messages of God would have them received by you as well. For thus do you identify with One and claim your own.

It is this joining that we undertake to recognize today. But we will not seek to keep our minds apart from One Who speaks for us, for it is but our voice we hear as we attend One. One alone can speak to us and for us, joining in One Voice the getting and the giving of God’s Word; the giving and receiving of One’s Will.

We practice giving One what One would have that we may recognize One’s gifts to us. One needs our voice that One may speak through us. One needs our hands to hold One’s messages, and carry them to those One appoints. One needs our feet to bring us where One wills, that those who wait in misery may be at last delivered. And One needs our will united with One’s Own, that we may be the true receivers of the gifts One gives.

Let us but learn this lesson for today: we will not recognize what we receive until we give it. You have heard this said a hundred ways, and yet belief is lacking still. But this is sure; until belief is given it, you will receive a thousand miracles and then receive a thousand more, but will not know that God Oneself has left no gift beyond what you already have; nor has denied the tiniest of blessings to One’s Child. What can this mean to you until you have identified with One and with One’s own?

Our lesson for today is stated thus:

“I am among the ministers of God,

And I am grateful that I have the means

By which to recognize that I am free.”

The world recedes as we light up our minds, and realize these holy words are true. They are the message sent to us today from our Creator. Now we demonstrate how they have changed our minds about ourselves and what our function is. For as we prove that we accept no will we do not share, our many gifts from our Creator will spring to our sight and leap into our hands, and we will recognize what we received.

Lesson 155

“I will step back and let One lead the way.”

There is a way of living in the world that is not here, although it seems to be. You do not change appearance, though you smile more frequently. Your forehead is serene; your eyes are quiet. And the ones who walk the world as you do recognize their own. Yet those who have not yet perceived the way will recognize you also, and believe that you are like them as you were before.

The world is an illusion. Those who choose to come to it are seeking for a place where they can be illusions, and avoid their own Reality. Yet when they find their own Reality is even here, then they step back and let It lead the way. What other choice is really theirs to make? To let illusion walk ahead of truth is madness, but to let illusion sink behind the truth, and let the truth stand forth as what it is, is simple sanity.

This is the simple choice we make today. The mad illusion will remain awhile in evidence, for those to look upon who chose to come, and have not yet rejoiced to find they were mistaken in the choice. They cannot learn directly from the truth, because they have denied that it is so. And so they need a teacher who perceives their madness, but who still can look beyond illusion to the simple truth in them.

If truth demanded they give up the world, it would appear to them as if it asked the sacrifice of something that is real. Many have chosen to renounce the world while still believing its reality, and they have suffered from a sense of loss and have not been released accordingly. Others have chosen nothing but the world, and they have suffered from a sense of loss still deeper, which they did not understand.

Between these paths there is another road that leads away from loss of every kind, for sacrifice and deprivation both are quickly left behind. This is the way appointed for you now. You walk this path as others walk, nor do you seem to be distinct from them although you are indeed. Thus can you serve them while you serve yourself, and set their footsteps on the way which God has opened up to you, and them through you.

Illusion still appears to cling to you that you may reach them. Yet it has stepped back, and it is not illusion that they hear you speak of, nor illusion which you bring their eyes to look on and their minds to grasp. Now can the truth, which walks ahead of you, speak to them through illusion, for the road leads past illusion now, while on the way you call to them, that they may follow you.

All roads will lead to this one in the end. For sacrifice and deprivation are paths which lead nowhere, choices for defeat, and aims which will remain impossible. All this steps back as truth comes forth in you to lead your siblings from the ways of death, and set them on the way to happiness. Their suffering is but illusion. Yet they need a guide to lead them out of it, for they mistake illusion for the truth.

Such is salvation’s call, and nothing more. It asks that you accept the truth, and let It go before you, lighting up the path of ransom from illusion. It is not a ransom with a price. There is no cost, but only gain. Illusion can but seem to hold in chains the holy Child of God. It is but from illusions one is saved. As they step back one finds oneself again.

Walk safely now yet carefully, because this path is new to you. And you may find that you are tempted still to walk ahead of truth, and let illusions be your guide. Your holy siblings have been given you to follow in your footsteps as you walk with certainty of purpose to the truth. It goes before you now, that they may see something with which they can identify; something they understand to lead the way.

Yet at the journey’s ending there will be no gap, no distance between truth and you. And all illusions walking in the way you travelled will be gone from you as well, with nothing left to keep the truth apart from God’s completion, holy as Oneself. Step back in faith, and let truth lead the way. You know not where you go, but One Who knows goes with you. Let One lead you with the rest.

When dreams are over, time has closed the door on all the things that pass and miracles are purposeless, the holy Child of God will make no journeys. There will be no wish to be illusion rather than the truth. And we step forth toward this, as we progress along the way that truth points out to us. This is our final journey, which we make for everyone. We must not lose our way. For as truth goes before us so it goes before our siblings, who will follow us.

We walk to God. Pause and reflect on this. Could any way be holier, or more deserving of your effort, of your love, and of your full intent? What way could give you more than everything, or offer less and still content the holy Child of God? We walk to God. The truth that walks before us now is One with One, and leads us to where One has always been. What way but this could be a path that you would choose instead?

Your feet are safely set upon the road which leads the world to God. Look not to ways that seem to lead you elsewhere. Dreams are not a worthy guide for you who are God’s Child. Forget not One has placed One’s Hand in yours, and given you your siblings in One’s Trust that you are worthy of One’s Trust in you. One cannot be deceived. One’s Trust has made your pathway certain and your goal secure. You will not fail your siblings nor your Self.

And now One asks but that you think of One a while each day, that One may speak to you and tell you of One’s Love, reminding you how great One’s Trust; how limitless One’s Love. In your name and One’s own, which are the same, we practice gladly with this thought today:

“I will step back and let One lead the way,

For I would walk along the road to One.”

Lesson 156

“I walk with God in perfect holiness.”

Today’s idea but states the simple truth that makes the thought of sin impossible. It promises there is no cause for guilt, and being causeless it does not exist. It follows surely from the basic thought so often mentioned in the text; ideas leave not their source. If this be true, how can you be apart from God? How could you walk the world alone and separate from your Source?

We are not inconsistent in the thoughts that we present in our curriculum. Truth must be true throughout if it be true. It cannot contradict itself, nor be in parts uncertain and in others sure. You cannot walk the world apart from God because you could not be without One. One is what your life is. Where you are One is. There is one Life. That Life you share with One. Nothing can be apart from One and live.

Yet where One is there must be holiness as well as life. No attribute of One’s remains unshared by everything that lives. What lives is holy as Oneself because what shares One’s life is part of Holiness, and could no more be sinful than the sun could choose to be of ice; the sea elect to be apart from water, or the grass to grow with roots suspended in the air.

There is a Light in you Which cannot die; Whose Presence is so holy that the world is sanctified because of you. All things that live bring gifts to you, and offer them in gratitude and gladness at your feet. The scent of flowers is their gift to you. The waves bow down before you, and the trees extend their arms to shield you from the heat and lay their leaves before you on the ground that you may walk in softness, while the wind sinks to a whisper around your holy head.

The Light in you is what the universe longs to behold. All living things are still before you, for they recognize Who walks with you. The Light you carry is their own, and thus they see in you their holiness, saluting you as Savior and as God. Accept their reverence, for it is due to Holiness itself Which walks with you, transforming in Its gentle Light all things into Its likeness and Its purity.

This is the way salvation works. As you step back, the Light in you steps forward and encompasses the world. It heralds not the end of sin in punishment and death. In lightness and in laughter is it gone, because its quaint absurdity is seen. It is a foolish thought, a silly dream, not frightening, ridiculous perhaps, but who would waste an instant in approach to God Oneself for such a senseless whim?

Yet you have wasted many, many years on just this foolish thought. The past is gone with all its fantasies. They keep you bound no longer. The approach to God is near. And in the little interval of doubt which still remains, you may perhaps lose sight of your Companion, and mistake One for the senseless, ancient dream that now is past.

“Who walks with me?”

This question should be asked a thousand times a day, till certainty has ended doubting and established peace. Today let doubting cease. God speaks for you in answering your question with these words:

“I walk with God in perfect holiness.

I light the world, I light my mind and all

The minds which God created one with me.”

Lesson 157

“Into One’s Presence would I enter now.”

This is a day of silence and of trust. It is a special time of promise in your calendar of days. It is a time Heaven has set apart to shine upon, and cast a timeless light upon this day when echoes of eternity are heard. This day is holy, for it ushers in a new experience, a different kind of feeling and awareness. You have spent long days and nights in celebrating death. Today you learn to feel the joy of life.

This is another crucial turning point in the curriculum. We add a new dimension now; a fresh experience that sheds a light on all that we have learned already, and prepares us for what we have yet to learn. It brings us to the door where learning ceases, and we catch a glimpse of what lies past the highest reaches it can possibly attain. It leaves us there an instant and we go beyond it, sure of our direction and our only goal.

Today it will be given you to feel a touch of Heaven, though you will return to paths of learning, yet you have come far enough along the way to alter time sufficiently to rise above its laws, and walk into eternity a while. This you will learn to do increasingly, as every lesson, faithfully rehearsed, brings you more swiftly to this holy place and leaves you, for a moment, to your Self.

One will direct your practicing today, for what you ask for now is what One wills. And having joined your will with One’s this day, what you are asking must be given you. Nothing is needed but today’s idea to light your mind, and let it rest in still anticipation and in quiet joy wherein you quickly leave the world behind.

From this day forth your ministry takes on a genuine devotion, and a glow that travels from your fingertips to those you touch, and blesses those you look upon. A vision reaches everyone you meet, and everyone you think of, or who thinks of you. For your experience today will so transform your mind that it becomes the touchstone for the holy Thoughts of God.

Your body will be sanctified today, its only purpose being now to bring the vision of what you experience this day to light the world. We cannot give experience like this directly. Yet it leaves a vision in our eyes which we can offer everyone, that one may come the sooner to the same experience in which the world is quietly forgot, and Heaven is remembered for a while.

As this experience increases and all goals but this become of little worth, the world to which you will return becomes a little closer to the end of time; a little more like Heaven in its ways; a little nearer its deliverance. And you who bring it light will come to see the light more sure; the vision more distinct. The time will come when you will not return in the same form in which you now appear, for you will have no need of it. Yet now it has a purpose, and will serve it well.

Today we will embark upon a course you have not dreamed of. But the Holy One, the Giver of the happy dreams of life, Translator of perception into truth, the holy Guide to Heaven given you, has dreamed for you this journey which you make and start today, with the experience this day holds out to you to be your own.

Into Christ’s Presence will we enter now serenely unaware of everything except One’s shining Face and perfect Love. The vision of One’s Face will stay with you, but there will be an instant which transcends all vision, even this, the holiest. This you will never teach, for you attained it not through learning. Yet the vision speaks of your remembrance of what you knew that instant, and will surely know again.

Lesson 158

“Today I learn to give as I receive.”

What has been given you? The knowledge that you are a mind, in Mind and purely mind, sinless forever, wholly unafraid because you were created out of Love. Nor have you left your Source, remaining as you were created. This was given you as knowledge which you cannot lose. It was given as well to every living thing, for by that knowledge only does one live.

You have received all this. No one who walks the world but has received it. It is not this knowledge which you give, for that is what creation gave. All this cannot be learned. What, then, are you to learn to give today? Our lesson yesterday evoked a theme found early in the text. Experience cannot be shared directly in the way that vision can. The revelation that the Creator and the Child are One will come in time to every mind. Yet is that time determined by the mind itself, not taught.

The time is set already. It appears to be quite arbitrary. Yet there is no step along the road that anyone but takes by chance. It has already been taken by one, although one has not yet embarked on it. For time but seems to go in one direction. We but undertake a journey that is over. Yet it seems to have a future still unknown to us.

Time is a trick; a sleight of hand, a vast illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic. Yet there is a plan behind appearances which does not change. The script is written. When experience will come to end your doubting has been set. For we but see the journey from the point at which it ended, looking back on it, imagining we make it once again; reviewing mentally what has gone by.

The teacher does not give experience, because one did not learn it. It revealed itself to one at its appointed time. But vision is one’s gift. This one can give directly, for Christ’s knowledge is not lost because One has a vision One can give to anyone who asks. The Creator’s Will and One’s are joined in knowledge. Yet there is a vision which the Holy Spirit sees because the mind of Christ beholds it too.

Here is the joining of the world of doubt and shadows made with the intangible. Here is a quiet place within the world made holy by forgiveness and by love. Here are all contradictions reconciled, for here the journey ends. Experience, unlearned, untaught, unseen, is merely there. This is beyond our goal, for it transcends what needs to be accomplished. Our concern is with Christ’s vision. This we can attain.

Christ’s vision has one law. It does not look upon a body and mistake it for the Child whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees.

This can be taught, and must be taught by all who would achieve it. It requires but the recognition that the world can not give anything that faintly can compare with this in value; nor set up a goal which does not merely disappear when this has been perceived. And this you give today; see no one as a body. Greet one as the Child of God one is, acknowledging that one is one with you in holiness.

Thus are one’s sins forgiven one, for Christ has vision which has power to overlook them all. In One’s forgiveness they are gone. Unseen by One, they merely disappear because a vision of the holiness which lies beyond them comes to take their place. It matters not what form they took, nor how enormous they appeared to be, nor who seemed to be hurt by them. They are no more, and all effects they seemed to have are gone with them, undone and never to be done.

Thus do you learn to give as you receive. And thus Christ’s vision looks on you as well. This lesson is not difficult to learn if you remember in your sibling you but see yourself. If one be lost in sin so must you be; if you see light in one your sins have been forgiven by yourself. Each sibling whom you meet today provides another chance to let Christ’s vision shine on you, and offer you the peace of God.

It matters not when revelation comes, for that is not of time. Yet time has still one gift to give in which true knowledge is reflected in a way so accurate its image shares its unseen holiness; its likeness shines with its immortal Love. We practice seeing with the eyes of Christ today. And by the holy gifts we give, Christ’s vision looks upon ourselves as well.

Lesson 159

“I give the miracles I have received.”

No one can give what one has not received. To give a thing requires first you have it in your own possession. Here the laws of Heaven and the world agree. But here they also separate. The world believes that to possess a thing it must be kept. Salvation teaches otherwise. To give is how to recognize you have received. It is the proof that what you have is yours.

You understand that you are healed when you give healing. You accept forgiveness as accomplished in yourself when you forgive. You recognize your sibling as yourself and thus do you perceive that you are whole. There is no miracle you cannot give, for all are given you. Receive them now by opening the storehouse of your mind where they are laid and giving them away.

Christ’s vision is a miracle. It comes from far beyond itself, for it reflects Eternal Love and the rebirth of love which never died, but has been kept obscure. Christ’s vision pictures Heaven, for it sees a world so like to Heaven that what God created perfect can be mirrored there. The darkened glass the world presents can show but twisted images in broken parts. The real world pictures Heaven’s innocence.

Christ’s vision is the miracle in which all miracles are born. It is their source, remaining with each miracle you give, and yet remaining yours. It is the bond by which the giver and receiver are united in extension here on earth as they are one in Heaven. Christ beholds no sin in anyone, and in One’s sight the sinless are as one. Their holiness was given by One’s Creator and Oneself.

Christ’s vision is the bridge between the worlds. And in its power can you safely trust to carry you from this world into one made holy by forgiveness. Things which seem quite solid here are merely shadows there, transparent, faintly seen, at times forgot, and never able to obscure the light that shines beyond them. Holiness has been restored to vision, and the blind can see.

This is the Holy Spirit’s single gift; the treasure house to which you can appeal with perfect certainty for everything that can contribute to your happiness. All are laid here already. All can be received but for the asking. Here the door is never locked, and no one is denied one’s least request or one’s most urgent need. There is no sickness not already healed. No lack unsatisfied, no need unmet, within this golden treasury of Christ.

Here does the world remember what was lost when it was made. For here it is repaired, made new again but in a different light. What was to be the home of sin becomes the center of redemption and the hearth of mercy, where the suffering are healed and welcome. No one will be turned away from this new home where one’s salvation waits. No one is stranger to one. No one asks for anything of one except the gift of one’s acceptance of one’s welcoming.

Christ’s vision is the holy ground in which the lilies of forgiveness set their roots. This is their home. They can be brought from here back to the world, but they can never grow in its unnourishing and shallow soil. They need the light and warmth and kindly care Christ’s charity provides. They need the love with which One looks on them. And they become One’s messengers who give as they received.

Take from One’s storehouse that its treasures may increase. One’s lilies do not leave their home when they are carried back into the world. Their roots remain. They do not leave their source, but carry its beneficence with them, and turn the world into a garden like the one they came from and to which they go again with added fragrance. Now are they twice blessed. The messages they brought from Christ have been delivered and returned to them. And they return them gladly unto One.

Behold the store of miracles set out for you to give. Are you not worth the gift when God appointed it be given you? Judge not God’s Child, but follow in the way One has established. Christ has dreamed the dream of a forgiven world. It is One’s gift whereby a sweet transition can be made from death to life, from hopelessness to hope. Let us an instant dream with One. One’s dream awakens us to truth. One’s vision gives the means for a return to our unlost and everlasting sanctity in God.

Lesson 160

“I am at home. Fear is the stranger here.”

Fear is a stranger to the ways of love. Identify with fear, and you will be a stranger to yourself. And thus you are unknown to you. What is your Self remains an alien to the part of you which thinks that it is real but different from yourself. Who could be sane in such a circumstance? Who but a lunatic could believe one is what one is not, and judge against oneself?

There is a stranger in our midst, who comes from an idea so foreign to the truth it speaks a different language, looks upon a world truth does not know, and understands what truth regards as senseless. Stranger yet, it does not recognize to whom it comes, and yet maintains one’s home belongs to it, while one is alien now who is at home. And yet how easy it would be to say, “This is my home. Here I belong, and will not leave because a lunatic says I must.”

What reason is there for not saying this? What could the reason be except that you had asked this stranger in to take your place, and let you be a stranger to yourself? No one would let oneself be dispossessed so needlessly unless one thought there was another home more suited to one’s tastes.

Who is the stranger? Is it fear or you that is unsuited to the home which God provided for One’s Child? Is fear One’s own, created in One’s likeness? Is it fear that love completes and is completed by? There is no home can shelter love and fear. They cannot coexist. If you are real, then fear must be illusion. And if fear is real, then you do not exist at all.

How simply, then, the question is resolved. Who fears has but denied oneself and said, “I am the stranger here. And so I leave my home to one more like me than myself, and give one all I thought belonged to me.” Now is one exiled of necessity, not knowing who one is, uncertain of all things but this; that one is not oneself, and that one’s home has been denied to one.

What does one search for now? What can one find? A stranger to oneself can find no home wherever one may look, for one has made return impossible. One’s way is lost except a miracle will search one out, and show one that one is no stranger now. The miracle will come. For in one’s home one’s Self remains. One asked no stranger in, and took no alien thought to be Oneself. And One will call One's Own unto Oneself, in recognition of what is One's Own.

Who is the stranger? Is it not the one your Self calls not? You are unable now to recognize this stranger in your midst, for you have given it your rightful place. Yet is your Self as certain of One's Own as God is of One’s Child. One cannot be confused about creation. One is sure of what belongs to One. No stranger can be interposed between One’s knowledge and One’s Child’s reality. One does not know of strangers. One is certain of One’s Child.

One’s certainty suffices. Who One knows to be One’s Child belongs where One has set One’s Child forever. One has answered you who ask,

“Who is the stranger?”

Hear One’s Voice assure you, quietly and sure, that you are not a stranger to your Creator, nor is your Creator stranger made to you. Whom God has joined remains forever one, at home in One, no stranger to Oneself.

Today we offer thanks that Christ has come to search the world for what belongs to One. One’s vision sees no strangers, but beholds One’s Own, and joyously unites with them. They see One as a stranger, for they do not recognize themselves. Yet as they give One welcome they remember. And One leads them gently home again where they belong.

Not one does One forget. Not one One fails to give you to remember, that your home may be complete and perfect as it was established. One has not forgotten you. But you will not remember One until you look on all as One does. Who denies one’s sibling is denying One, and thus refusing to accept the gift of sight by which one’s Self is clearly recognized, one’s home remembered, and salvation come.

Lesson 161

“Give me your blessing, holy Child of God.”

Today we practice differently, and take a stand against our anger that our fears may disappear and offer room to love. Here is salvation in the simple words in which we practice with today’s idea. Here is the answer to temptation which can never fail to welcome in the Christ where fear and anger had prevailed before. Here is Atonement made complete, the world passed safely by and Heaven now restored. Here is the answer of the Voice for God.

Complete abstraction is the natural condition of the mind. But part of it is now unnatural. It does not look on everything as one. It sees instead but fragments of the whole, for only thus could it invent the partial world you see. The purpose of all seeing is to show you what you wish to see. All hearing but brings to your mind the sounds it wants to hear.

Thus were specifics made. And now it is specifics we must use in practicing. We give them to the Holy Spirit that One may employ them for a purpose which is different from the one we gave to them. Yet One can use but what we made to teach us from a different point of view, so we can see a different use in everything.

One sibling is all siblings. Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth. Yet do these thoughts make clear the meaning of creation? Do these words bring perfect clarity with them to you? What can they seem to be but empty sounds, pretty, perhaps; correct in sentiment, yet fundamentally not understood nor understandable. The mind that taught itself to think specifically can no longer grasp abstraction in the sense that it is all-encompassing. We need to see a little that we learn a lot.

It seems to be the body that we feel limits our freedom, makes us suffer and at last puts out our life. Yet bodies are but symbols of a concrete form of fear. Fear without symbols calls for no response, for symbols can stand for the meaningless. Love needs no symbols, being true. But fear attaches to specifics, being false.

Bodies attack but minds do not. This thought is surely reminiscent of our text, where it is often emphasized. This is the reason bodies easily become fear’s symbols. You have many times been urged to look beyond the body, for its sight presents the symbol of love’s “enemy” Christ’s vision does not see. The body is the target for attack, for no one thinks one hates a mind. Yet what but mind directs the body to attack? What else could be the seat of fear except what thinks of fear?

Hate is specific. There must be a thing to be attacked. An enemy must be perceived in such a form that can be touched and seen and heard, and ultimately killed. When hatred rests upon a thing, it calls for death as surely as God’s Voice proclaims there is no death. Fear is insatiable, consuming everything its eyes behold; seeing itself in everything; compelled to turn upon itself and to destroy.

Who sees a sibling as a body sees one as fear’s symbol. And one will attack because what one beholds is one’s own fear external to oneself, poised to attack, and howling to unite with one again. Mistake not the intensity of rage projected fear must spawn. It shrieks in wrath, and claws the air in frantic hope it can reach to its maker and devour one.

This do the body’s eyes behold in one whom Heaven cherishes, the angels love and God created perfect. This is one’s reality. And in Christ’s vision is one’s loveliness reflected in a form so holy and so beautiful that you could scarce refrain from kneeling at one’s feet. Yet you will take one’s hand instead, for you are like one in the sight that sees one thus. Attack on one is enemy to you, for you will not perceive that in one’s hands is your salvation. Ask one but for this, and one will give it to you. Ask one not to symbolize your fear. Would you request that love destroy itself? Or would you have it be revealed to you and set you free?

Today we practice in a form we have attempted earlier. Your readiness is closer now, and you will come today nearer Christ’s vision. If you are intent on reaching it, you will succeed today. And once you have succeeded, you will not be willing to accept the witnesses your body’s eyes call forth. What you will see will sing to you of ancient melodies you will remember. You are not forgot in Heaven. Would you not remember it?

Select one sibling, symbol of the rest, and ask salvation of one. See one first as clearly as you can in that same form to which you are accustomed. See one’s face, one’s hands and feet, one’s clothing. Watch one smile, and see familiar gestures which one makes so frequently. Then think of this; what you are seeing now conceals from you the sight of one who can forgive you all your sins; whose sacred hands can take the nails which pierce your own away, and lift the crown of thorns which you have placed upon your bleeding head. Ask this of one that one may set you free:

“Give me your blessing, holy Child of God.

I would behold you with the eyes of Christ,

And see my perfect sinlessness in you.”

And One will answer Whom you called upon, for One will hear the Voice for God in you, and answer in your own. Behold one now whom you had seen as merely flesh and bone, and recognize that Christ has come to you. Today’s idea is your safe escape from anger and from fear. Be sure you use it instantly, should you be tempted to attack a sibling and perceive in one the symbol of your fear. And you will see one suddenly transformed from enemy to Savior; from the devil into Christ.

Lesson 162

“I am as God created me.”

This single thought, held firmly in the mind, would save the world. From time to time we will repeat it, as we reach another stage in learning. It will mean far more to you as you advance. These words are sacred, for they are the words God gave in answer to the world you made. By them it disappears, and all things seen within its misty clouds and vaporous illusions vanish as these words are spoken. For they come from God.

Here is the Word by which the Child became One’s Creator’s happiness, One’s Love, and One’s completion. Here creation is proclaimed, and honored as it is. There is no dream these words will not dispel; no thought of sin and no illusion that the dream contains that will not fade away before their might. They are the trumpet of awakening that sounds around the world. The dead awake in answer to its call. And those who live and hear this sound will never look on death.

Holy indeed is one who makes these words one’s own; arising with them in one’s mind, recalling them throughout the day, at night bringing them with one as one goes to sleep. One’s dreams are happy and one’s rest secure; one’s safety certain and one’s body healed, because one sleeps and wakens with the truth before one always. One will save the world because one gives the world what one receives each time one practices the words of truth.

Today we practice simply. For the words we use are mighty, and they need no thoughts beyond themselves to change the mind of one who uses them. So wholly is it changed that it is now the treasury in which God places all One’s gifts and all One’s Love to be distributed to all the world, increased in giving; kept complete because its sharing is unlimited. And thus you learn to think with God. Christ’s vision has restored your sight by salvaging your mind.

We honor you today. Yours is the right to perfect holiness you now accept. With this acceptance is salvation brought to everyone, for who could cherish sin when holiness like this has blessed the world? Who could despair when perfect joy is yours, available to all as remedy for grief and misery, all sense of loss, and for complete escape from sin and guilt?

And who would not be sibling to you now; you, one’s redeemer and one’s Savior. Who could fail to welcome you into one’s heart with loving invitation, eager to unite with one like one in holiness? You are as God created you. These words dispel the night, and darkness is no more. The light is come today to bless the world, for you have recognized the Child of God, and in that recognition is the world’s.

Lesson 163

“There is no death. The Child of God is free.”

Death is a thought which takes on many forms, often unrecognized. It may appear as sadness, fear, anxiety or doubt; as anger, faithlessness and lack of trust; concern for bodies, envy, and all 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 savior and as giver of release.

Embodiment of fear, the host of sin, god of the guilty and the lord of all illusions and deceptions, does the thought of death seem mighty. For it seems to hold all living things within its withered hand; all hopes and wishes in its blighting grasp. All goals perceived but in its sightless eyes. The frail, the helpless and the sick bow down before its image, thinking it alone is real, inevitable, worthy of their trust. For it alone will surely come.

All things but death are seen to be unsure, too quickly lost however hard to gain, uncertain in their outcome, apt to fail the hopes they once engendered, and to leave the taste of dust and ashes in their wake in 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. It 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 Oneself perceived within an idol made of dust. Here is the opposite of God proclaimed as lord of all creation, stronger than God’s Will for life, the endlessness of love and Heaven’s perfect, changeless constancy. Here is the Will of Creator and of 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, one has become what death would have one be. One’s epitaph, which death itself has written, gives no name to one, for one has passed to dust. It says but this: “Here lies a witness God is dead.” And this it writes 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.

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 the rest. For death is total. Either all things die, or else they live and cannot die. No compromise is possible. For here again we see an obvious position which we must accept if we be sane; what contradicts one thought entirely can not be true unless its opposite is proven false.

The idea of the death of God is so preposterous that even the insane have difficulty in believing it. For it implies that God was once alive and somehow perished, killed, apparently, by those who did not want One to survive. Their stronger will could triumph over One’s, and so eternal life gave way to death. And with the Creator died One’s 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 believed, they would be instantly released. And you will show them this today. There is no death, and we renounce it now in every form, for their salvation and our own as well. God made not death. Whatever form it takes must therefore be illusion. This the stand we take today. And it is given us to look past death and see the light beyond.

“Our Creator, bless our eyes today. We are Your messengers, and we would look upon the glorious reflection of Your Love Which shines in everything. We live and breathe in You alone. We are not separate from Your eternal life. There is no death, for death is not Your Will. And 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. We accept Your Thoughts as ours, and our will is One with Yours eternally. Amen.”

Lesson 164

“Now are we one with One Who is our Source.”

What time but now can truth be recognized? The present is the only time there is. And so today, this instant, now, we come to look upon what is forever there; not in our sight, but in the eyes of Christ. One looks past time and sees eternity as represented there. One hears the sounds the senseless busy world engenders, yet One hears them faintly, for beyond them all One hears the song of Heaven and the Voice for God more clear, more meaningful, more near.

The world fades easily away before One’s sight. Its sounds grow dim. A melody from far beyond the world increasingly is more and more distinct; an ancient Call to Which One gives an ancient answer. You will recognize them both. For they are but your answer to your Creator’s Call to you. Christ answers for you, echoing your Self, using your voice to give One’s glad consent; accepting your deliverance for you.

How holy is your practicing today, as One gives you One’s sight and hears for you, and answers in your name the Call One hears. How quiet is the time you give to spend with One beyond the world. How easily are all your seeming sins forgot and all your sorrows unremembered. On this day is grief laid by, for sights and sounds which come from nearer than the world made clear to you who will today accept the gifts One gives.

There is a silence into which the world can not intrude. There is an ancient peace you carry in your heart and have not lost. There is a sense of holiness in you the thought of sin has never touched. All this today you will remember. Faithfulness in practicing today will bring rewards so great and so completely different from all things you sought before, that you will know that here your treasure is, and here your rest.

This is the day when vain imaginings part like a curtain, to reveal what lies beyond them. Here is what is really here made visible, while all the shadows which appeared to hide it sink to obscurity. Now is the balance righted, and the scales of judgement left to One Who judges true. And in One’s judgement will a world unfold in perfect innocence before your eyes. Now will you see it with the eyes of Christ. Now is its transformation clear to you.

Siblings, this day is sacred to the world. Your vision, given you from far beyond all things within the world looks back on them in a new light. And what you see becomes the healing and salvation of the world. The valuable and valueless are both perceived and recognized for what they are. And what is worthy of your love receives your love, while nothing to be feared remains.

We will not judge today. We will receive but what is given us from Judgement made beyond the world. Our practicing today becomes our gifts of thankfulness for our release from blindness and from misery. All that we see will but increase our joy, because its holiness reflects our own. We stand forgiven in the sight of Christ, with all the world forgiven in our own. We bless the world as we behold it in the light in which our Savior looks on us, and offer it the freedom given us through One’s forgiving vision, not our own.

Open the curtain in your practicing by merely letting go all things you think you want. Your trifling treasures put away, and leave a clean and open space within your mind where Christ can come, and offer you the treasure of salvation. One has need of your most holy mind to save the world. Is not this purpose worthy to be yours? Is not Christ’s vision to be sought above the world’s unsatisfying goals?

Let not today slip by without the gifts it holds for you receiving your consent and your acceptance. We can change the world if you acknowledge them. You may not see the value your acceptance gives the world. But this you surely want; you can exchange all suffering for joy this very day. Practice in earnest and the gift is yours. Would God deceive you? Can One’s promise fail? Can you withhold so little when One’s Hand holds out complete salvation to One’s Child?

Lesson 165

“Let not my mind deny the Thought of God.”

What makes this world seem real except your own denial of the truth which lies beyond? What but your thoughts of misery and death obscure the perfect happiness and the Eternal Life your Creator wills for you? And what could hide what cannot be concealed except illusion? What could keep from you what you already have except your choice to see it not, denying it is there?

The Thought of God created you. It left you not, nor have you ever been apart from It an instant. It belongs to you. By It you live. It is your Source of life, holding you One with It, and everything is one with you because It left you not. The Thought of God protects you, cares for you, makes soft your resting place and smooth your way, lighting your mind with happiness and love. Eternity and Everlasting Life shine in your mind because the Thought of God has left you not, and still abides with you.

Who would deny one’s safety and one’s peace, one’s joy, one’s healing and one’s peace of mind, one’s quiet rest, one’s calm awakening, if one but recognized where they abide? Would one not instantly prepare to go where they are found, abandoning all else as worthless in comparison with them? And having found them, would one not make sure they stay with one and one remain with them?

Deny not Heaven. It is yours today but for the asking. Nor need you perceive how great the gift, how changed your mind will be before it comes to you. Ask to receive and it is given you. Conviction lies within it. Till you welcome it as yours, uncertainty remains. Yet God is fair. Sureness is not required to receive what only your acceptance can bestow.

Ask with desire. You need not be sure that you request the only thing you want. But when you have received you will be sure you have the treasure you have always sought. What would you then exchange it for? What would induce you now to let it fade away from your ecstatic vision? For this sight proves that you have exchanged your blindness for the seeing eyes of Christ; your mind has come to lay aside denial and accept the Thought of God as its inheritance.

Now is all doubting past, the journey’s end made certain and salvation given you. Now is Christ’s power in your mind to heal as you were healed. For now you are among the Saviors of the world. Your destiny lies there and nowhere else. Would God consent to let One’s Child remain forever starved by one’s denial of the nourishment one needs to live? Abundance dwells in one, and deprivation cannot cut one off from God’s sustaining Love and from one’s home.

Practice today in hope. For hope indeed is justified. Your doubts are meaningless, for God is certain. And the Thought of One is never absent. Sureness must abide within you who are host to One. This course removes all doubts which you have interposed between One and your certainty of One. We count on God, and not upon ourselves, to give us certainty. And in One’s Name we practice as One’s Word directs we do. One’s sureness lies beyond our every doubt. One’s Love remains beyond our every fear. The Thought of One is still beyond all dreams, and in our minds according to One’s Will.

Lesson 166

“I am entrusted with the gifts of God.”

All things are given you. God’s trust in you is limitless. One knows One’s Child. One gives without exception, holding nothing back that can contribute to your happiness. And yet, unless your will is one with One’s, One’s gifts are not received. But what would make you think there is another will than One’s?

Here is the paradox that underlies the making of the world. This world is not the Will of God, and so it is not real. Yet those who think it real must still believe there is another will, and one that leads to opposite effects from those One wills. Impossible indeed; but every mind that looks upon the world and judges it as certain, solid, trustworthy and true, believes in two creators; or in one, oneself alone. But never in One God.

The gifts of God are not acceptable to anyone who holds such strange beliefs. One must believe that to accept God’s gifts, however evident they may become, however urgently one may be called to claim them as one’s own, is being pressed to treachery against oneself. One must deny their presence, contradict the truth, and suffer to preserve the world one made.

Here is the only home one thinks one knows. Here is the only safety one believes that one can find. Without the world one made is one an outcast, homeless and afraid. One does not realize that it is here one is afraid indeed, and homeless too; an outcast wandering so far from home, so long away, one does not realize one has forgotten where one came from, where one goes, and even who one really is.

Yet in one’s lonely, senseless wanderings God’s gifts go with one, all unknown to one. One cannot lose them, but one will not look at what is given one. One wanders on, aware of the futility one sees about one everywhere, perceiving how one’s little lot but dwindles as one goes ahead to nowhere. Still one wanders on in misery and poverty, alone though God is with one, and a treasure one’s so great that everything the world contains is valueless before its magnitude.

One seems a sorry figure, weary, worn, in threadbare clothing, and with feet that bleed a little from the rocky road one walks. No one but has identified with one, for everyone who comes here has pursued the path one follows, and has felt defeat and hopelessness as one is feeling them. Yet is one really tragic when you see that one is following the way one chose, and need but realize Who walks with one and open up one’s treasures to be free?

This is your chosen self, the one you made as a replacement for reality. This is the self you savagely defend against all reason, every evidence, and all the witnesses with proof to show this is not you. You heed them not. You go on your appointed way, with eyes cast down lest you might catch a glimpse of truth, and be released from self-deception and set free.

You cower fearfully lest you should feel Christ’s touch upon your shoulder, and perceive One’s gentle hand directing you to look upon your gifts. How could you then proclaim your poverty in exile? One would make you laugh at this perception of yourself. Where is self-pity then? And what becomes of all the tragedy you sought to make for one whom God intended only joy?

Your ancient fear has come upon you now, and justice has caught up with you at last. Christ’s hand has touched your shoulder, and you feel that you are not alone. You even think the miserable self you thought was you may not be your identity. Perhaps God’s Word is truer than your own. Perhaps One’s gifts to you are real. Perhaps One has not wholly been outwitted by your plan to keep One’s Child in deep oblivion, and go the way you chose without your Self.

God’s Will does not oppose. It merely is. It is not God you have imprisoned in your plan to lose your Self. One does not know about a plan so alien to One’s Will. There was a need One did not understand, to which One gave an Answer. That is all. And you who have this Answer given you, have need no more of anything but this.

Now do we live, for now we cannot die. The wish for death is answered, and the sight that looked upon it now has been replaced by vision which perceives that you are not what you pretend to be. One walks with you Who gently answers all your fears with this one merciful reply,

“It is not so.”

One points to all the gifts you have each time the thought of poverty oppresses you, and speaks of One’s Companionship when you perceive yourself as lonely and afraid.

Yet One reminds you still of one thing more you had forgotten. For One’s touch on you has made you like Oneself. The gifts you have are not for you alone. What One has come to offer you, you now must learn to give. This is the lesson that One’s giving holds, for One has saved you from the solitude you sought to make, in which to hide from God. One has reminded you of all the gifts that God has given you. One speaks as well of what becomes your will when you accept these gifts, and recognize they are your own.

The gifts are yours, entrusted to your care, to give to all who chose the lonely road you have escaped. They do not understand they but pursue their wishes. It is you who teach them now. For you have learned of Christ there is another way for them to walk. Teach them by showing them the happiness that comes to those who feel the touch of Christ and recognize God’s gifts. Let sorrow not tempt you to be unfaithful to your trust.

Your sighs will now betray the hopes of those who look to you for their release. Your tears are theirs. If you are sick you but withhold their healing. What you fear but teaches them their fears are justified. Your hand becomes the giver of Christ’s touch; your change of mind becomes the proof that who accepts God’s gifts can never suffer anything. You are entrusted with the world’s release from pain.

Betray it not. Become the living proof of what Christ’s touch can offer everyone. God has entrusted all One’s gifts to you. Be witness in your happiness to how transformed the mind becomes which chooses to accept One’s gifts and feel the touch of Christ. Such is your mission now. For God entrusts the giving of One’s gifts to all who have received them. One has shared One’s joy with you. And now you go to share it with the world.

Lesson 167

“There is one life, and that I share with God.”

There are not different kinds of life, for life is like the truth. It does not have degrees. It is the one condition in which all that God created share. Like all One’s Thoughts, it has no opposite. There is no death because what God created shares One’s Life. There is no death because an opposite to God does not exist. There is no death because the Creator and the Child are One.

In this world there appears to be a state that is life’s opposite. You call it death. Yet we have learned that the idea of death takes many forms. It is the one idea which underlies all feelings that are not supremely happy. It is the alarm to which you give response of any kind that is not perfect joy. All sorrow, loss, anxiety and suffering and pain, even a little sigh of weariness, a slight discomfort or the merest frown, acknowledge death—and thus deny you live.

You think that death is of the body. Yet it is but an idea, irrelevant to what is seen as physical. A thought is in the mind. It can be then applied as mind directs it. But its origin is where it must be changed if change occurs. Ideas leave not their source. The emphasis this course has placed on that idea is due to its centrality in our attempts to change your mind about yourself. It is the reason you can heal. It is the cause of healing. It is why you cannot die. Its truth established you as one with God.

Death is the thought that you are separate from your Creator. It is the belief conditions change, emotions alternate because of causes you cannot control, you did not make, and you can never change. It is the fixed belief ideas can leave their source, and take on qualities the source does not contain, becoming different from their own origin, apart from it in kind as well as distance, time and form.

Death cannot come from life. Ideas remain united to their source. They can extend all that their source contains. In that they can go far beyond themselves. But they can not give birth to what was never given them. As they are made, so will their making be. As they were born, so will they then give birth. And where they come from, there will they return.

The mind can think it sleeps, but that is all. It cannot change what is its waking state. It cannot make a body, nor abide within a body. What is alien to the mind does not exist because it has no source. For mind creates all things that are, and cannot give them attributes it lacks, nor change its own eternal, mindful state. It cannot make the physical. What seems to die is but the sign of mind asleep.

The opposite of life can only be another form of life. As such, it can be reconciled with what created it, because it is not opposite in truth. Its form may change; it may appear to be what it is not. Yet mind is mind awake or sleeping. It is not its opposite in anything created, nor in what it seems to make when it believes it sleeps.

God creates only mind awake. One does not sleep, and One’s creations cannot share what One gives not, nor make conditions which One does not share with them. The thought of death is not the opposite to thoughts of life. Forever unopposed by opposites of any kind, the Thoughts of God remain forever changeless, with the power to extend forever changelessly but yet within Themselves, for They are everywhere.

What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was.

Let us today be children of the truth, and not deny our holy heritage. Our life is not as we imagine it. Who changes life because one shuts one’s eyes, or makes oneself what one is not because one sleeps and sees in dreams an opposite to what one is? We will not ask for death in any form today. Nor will we let imagined opposites to life abide even an instant where the Thought of Life Eternal has been set by God Oneself.

One’s holy home we strive to keep today as One established it, and wills it be forever and forever. One is Lord of what we think today. And in One’s Thoughts, Which have no opposite, we understand there is one life, and that we share with One, with all creation, with their thoughts as well, whom One created in a Unity of life that cannot separate in death and leave the Source of Life from where it came.

We share life because we have one Source, a Source from Which perfection comes to us, remaining always in the holy minds which One created perfect. As we were, so are we now and will forever be. A sleeping mind must waken as it sees its own perfection mirroring the Lord of Life so perfectly it fades into what is reflected there. And now it is no more a mere reflection. It becomes the thing reflected, and the light which makes reflection possible. No vision now is needed. For the wakened mind is one that knows its Source, its Self, its Holiness.

Lesson 168

“Your grace is given me. I claim it now.”

God speaks to us. Shall we not speak to One? One is not distant. One makes no attempt to hide from us. We try to hide from One, and suffer from deception. One remains entirely accessible. One loves One’s Child. There is no certainty but this, yet this suffices. One will love One’s Child forever. When one’s mind remains asleep, One loves one still. And when one’s mind awakes, One loves one with a never-changing Love.

If you but knew the meaning of One’s Love hope and despair would be impossible, for hope would be forever satisfied; despair of any kind unthinkable. One’s grace One’s answer is to all despair, for in it lies remembrance of One’s Love. Would One not gladly give the means by which One’s Will is recognized? One’s grace is yours by your acknowledgment. And memory of One awakens in the mind which asks the means of One whereby its sleep is done.

Today we ask of God the gift One has most carefully preserved within our hearts, waiting to be acknowledged. This the gift by which God leans to us and lifts us up, taking salvation’s final step Oneself. All steps but this we learn, instructed by One’s Voice. But finally One comes Oneself and takes us in One’s Arms, and sweeps away the cobwebs of our sleep. One’s gift of grace is more than just an answer. It restores all memories the sleeping mind forgot; all certainty of what love’s meaning is.

God loves One’s Child. Request One now to give the means by which this world will disappear, and vision first will come, with knowledge but an instant later. For in grace you see a light that covers all the world in love, and watch fear disappear from every face as hearts rise up and claim the light as theirs. What now remains that Heaven be delayed an instant longer? What remains undone when your forgiveness rests on everything?

It is a new and holy day today, for we receive what has been given us. Our faith lies in the Giver, not our own acceptance. We acknowledge our mistakes, but One to Whom all error is unknown is yet the One Who answers our mistakes by giving us the means to lay them down, and rise to One in gratitude and love.

And One descends to meet us as we come to One, for what One has prepared for us One gives and we receive. Such is One’s Will because One loves One’s Child. To One we pray today, returning but the words One gave to us through One’s Own Voice, One’s Word, One’s Love:

“Your grace is given me. I claim it now. Creator, I come to You. And You will come to me who asks. I am the Child You love.”

Lesson 169

“By grace I live. By grace I am released.”

Grace is an aspect of the Love of God which is most like the state prevailing in the Unity of truth. It is the world’s most lofty aspiration, for it leads beyond the world entirely. It is past learning yet the goal of learning, for grace cannot come until the mind prepares itself for true acceptance. Grace becomes inevitable instantly in those who have prepared a table where it can be gently laid and willingly received; an altar clean and holy for the gift.

Grace is acceptance of the Love of God within a world of seeming hate and fear. By grace alone the hate and fear are gone, for grace presents a state so opposite to everything the world contains that those whose minds are lighted by the gift of grace can not believe the world of fear is real.

Grace is not learned. The final step must go beyond all learning. Grace is not the goal this course aspires to attain. Yet we prepare for grace in that an open mind can hear the call to waken. It is not shut tight against God’s Voice. It has become aware that there are things it does not know, and thus is ready to accept a state completely different from experience with which it is familiarly at home.

We have perhaps appeared to contradict our statement that the revelation of the Creator and the Child as One has been already set. But we have also said the mind determines when that time will be, and has determined it. And yet we urge you to bear witness to the Word of God to hasten the experience of truth, and speed its advent into every mind which recognizes its effects on you.

Oneness is simply the idea God is. And in One’s Being One encompasses all things. No mind holds anything but One. We say “God is,” and then we cease to speak, for in that knowledge words are meaningless. There are no lips to speak them, and no part of mind sufficiently distinct to feel that it is now aware of something not itself.

It has united with its Source, and like its Source Itself, it merely is. We cannot speak nor write nor even think of this at all. It comes to every mind when total recognition that its will is God’s has been completely given and received completely. It returns the mind into the endless present, where the past and future cannot be conceived. It lies beyond salvation; past all thought of time, forgiveness, and the holy Face of Christ. The Child of God has merely disappeared into One’s Creator, as one’s Creator has in one. The world has never been at all. Eternity remains a constant state.

This is beyond experience we try to hasten. Yet forgiveness, taught and learned, brings with it the experiences which bear witness that the time the mind itself determined to abandon all but this is now at hand. We do not hasten it in that what you will offer was concealed from One Who teaches what forgiveness means. All learning was already in One’s Mind, accomplished and complete. One recognized all that time holds and gave it to all minds that each one might determine, from a point where time has ended, when it is released to revelation and eternity.

We have repeated several times before that you but make a journey that is done. For oneness must be here. Whatever time the mind has set for revelation is entirely irrelevant to what must be a constant state, forever as it always was; forever to remain as it is now. We merely take the part assigned long since, and fully recognize as perfectly fulfilled by One Who wrote salvation’s script in One’s Creator’s Name, and in the Name of One’s Creator’s Child.

There is no need to further clarify what no one in the world can understand. When revelation of your Oneness comes, it will be known and fully understood. Now we have work to do, for those in time can speak of things beyond, and listen to words which explain what is to come is past already. Yet what meaning can the words convey to those who count the hours still, and rise and work and go to sleep by them?

Suffice it, then, that you have work to do to play your part. The ending must remain obscure to you until your part is done. It does not matter. For your part is still what all the rest depends on. As you take the role assigned to you, salvation comes a little nearer each uncertain heart that does not beat as yet in tune with God.

Forgiveness is the central theme which runs throughout salvation, holding all its parts in meaningful relationships, the course it runs directed, and its outcome sure. And now we ask for grace, the final gift salvation can bestow.

Experience that grace provides will end in time, for grace foreshadows Heaven yet does not replace the thought of time but for a little while. The interval suffices. It is here that miracles are laid; to be returned by you from holy instants you receive, through grace, in your experience, to all who see the light that lingers on your face.

What is the Face of Christ but one who went a moment into timelessness, and brought a clear reflection of the unity one felt an instant back to bless the world? How could you finally attain to it forever, while a part of you remains outside, unknowing, unawakened, and in need of you as witness to the truth?

Be grateful to return, as you were glad to go an instant and accept the gifts that grace provided you. You carry them back to yourself. And revelation stands not far behind. Its coming is ensured. We ask for grace and for experience that comes from grace. We welcome the release it offers everyone. We do not ask for the unaskable. We do not look beyond what grace can give. For this we can give in the grace that has been given us.

Our learning goal today does not exceed this prayer, yet in the world what could be more than what we ask this day of One Who gives the grace we ask, as it was given One?

“By grace I live.

By grace I am released.

By grace I give.

By grace I will release.”

Lesson 170

“There is no cruelty in God and none in me.”

No one attacks without intent to hurt. This can have no exception. When you think that you attack in self defense, you mean that to be cruel is protection; you are safe because of cruelty. You mean that you believe to hurt another brings you freedom. And you mean that to attack is to exchange the state in which you are for something better, safer, more secure from dangerous invasion and from fear.

How thoroughly insane is the idea that to defend from fear is to attack! For here is fear begot and fed with blood, to make it grow and swell and rage. And thus is fear protected, not escaped. Today we learn a lesson which can save you more delay and needless misery than you can possibly imagine. It is this:

You make what you defend against, and by your own defense against it is it real AND inescapable. Lay down your arms, and only then do you perceive it false.

It seems to be the enemy without that you attack. Yet your defense sets up an enemy within; an alien thought at war with you, depriving you of peace, splitting your mind into two camps which seem wholly irreconcilable. For love now has an enemy, an opposite; and fear, the alien, now needs your defense against the threat of what you really are.

If you consider carefully the means by which your fancied self-defense proceeds on its imagined way, you will perceive the premises on which the idea stands. First, it is obvious ideas must leave their source. For it is you who make attack, and must have first conceived of it. Yet you attack outside yourself, and separate your mind from one who is to be attacked, with perfect faith the split you made is real.

Next are the attributes of love bestowed upon its “enemy.” For fear becomes your safety and protector of your peace, to which you turn for solace and escape from doubts about your strength and hope of rest in dreamless quiet. And as love is shorn of what belongs to it and it alone, love is endowed with attributes of fear. For love would ask you lay down all defense as merely foolish. And your arms indeed would crumble into dust. For such they are.

With love as enemy must cruelty become a god, and gods demand that those who worship them obey their dictates, and refuse to question them. Harsh punishment is meted out relentlessly to those who ask if the demands are sensible or even sane. It is their enemies who are unreasonable and insane, while they are always merciful and just.

Today we look upon this cruel god dispassionately. And we note that though it’s lips are smeared with blood and fire seems to flame from it, it is but made of stone. It can do nothing. We need not defy it’s power. It has none. And those who see in it their safety have no guardian, no strength to call upon in danger, and no mighty warrior to fight for them.

This moment can be terrible. But it can also be the time of your release from abject slavery. You make a choice, standing before this idol, seeing it exactly as it is. Will you restore to love what you have sought to wrest from it, and lay before this mindless piece of stone? Or will you make another idol to replace it? For the god of cruelty takes many forms. Another can be found.

Yet do not think that fear is the escape from fear. Let us remember what the course has stressed about the obstacles to peace. The final one, the hardest to believe is nothing, and a seeming obstacle with the appearance of a solid block, impenetrable, fearful and beyond surmounting, is the fear of God Oneself. Here is the basic premise which enthrones the thought of fear as god. For fear is loved by those who worship it, and love appears to be invested now with cruelty.

Where does the totally insane belief in gods of vengeance come from? Love has not confused its attributes with those of fear. Yet must the worshippers of fear perceive their own confusion in fear’s enemy; its cruelty as now a part of love. And what becomes more fearful than the heart of Love Itself? The blood appears to be upon One’s Lips; the fire comes from One. And One is terrible above all else, cruel beyond conception, striking down all who acknowledge One to be their God.

The choice you make today is certain. For you look for the last time upon this bit of carven stone you made, and call it god no longer. You have reached this place before, but you have chosen that this cruel god remain with you in still another form. And so the fear of God returned with you. This time you leave it here. And you return to a new world unburdened by its weight; beheld not in its sightless eyes, but in the vision that your choice restored to you.

Now do your eyes belong to Christ, and One looks through them. Now your voice belongs to God, and echoes One’s. And now your heart remains at peace forever. You have chosen One in place of idols, and your attributes, given by your Creator, are restored to you at last. The Call of God is heard and answered. Now has fear made way for love, as God Oneself replaces cruelty.

Creator, we are like You. No cruelty abides in us for there is none in You. Your peace is ours. And we bless the world with what we have received from You alone. We choose again and make our choice for all our siblings, knowing they are one with us. We bring them Your salvation as we have received it now. And we give thanks for them who render us complete. In them we see Your glory, and in them we find our peace. Holy are we because Your holiness has set us free. And we give thanks. Amen.

Review 5

We now review again. This time we are ready to give more effort and more time to what we undertake. We recognize we are preparing for another phase of understanding. We would take this step completely, that we may go on again more certain, more sincere, with faith upheld more surely. Our footsteps have not been unwavering, and doubts have made us walk uncertainly and slowly on the road this course sets forth. But now we hasten on, for we approach a greater certainty, a firmer purpose and a surer goal.

Steady our feet, our Creator; let our doubts be quiet and our holy minds be still, and speak to us. We have no words to give to You. We would but listen to Your Word and make it ours. Lead our practicing as does a parent lead a little child along a way one does not understand. Yet does one follow, sure that one is safe because one’s parent leads the way for one.

So do we bring our practicing to You. And if we stumble, You will raise us up. If we forget the way, we count upon Your sure remembering. We wander off, but You will not forget to call us back. Quicken our footsteps now, that we may walk more certainly and quickly unto You. And we accept the Word You offer us to unify our practicing, as we review the thoughts that You have given us.

This is the thought which should precede the thoughts that we review. Each one but clarifies some aspect of this thought, or helps it be more meaningful, more personal and true, and more descriptive of the holy Self we share and now prepare to know again:

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

This Self alone knows love. This Self alone is perfectly consistent in Its thoughts; knows Its Creator; understands Itself; is perfect in Its knowledge and Its love; and never changes from Its constant state of union with Its Creator and Itself.

And it is This that waits to meet us at the journey’s ending. Every step we take brings us a little nearer. This review will shorten time immeasurably if we keep in mind that This remains our goal, and as we practice it is This to which we are approaching. Let us raise our hearts from dust to life as we remember This is promised us, and that this course was sent to open up the path of light to us, and teach us, step by step, how to return to the Eternal Self we thought we lost.

I take the journey with you. For I share your doubts and fears a little while, that you may come to me who recognize the road by which all fears and doubts are overcome. We walk together. I must understand uncertainty and pain, although I know they have no meaning. Yet a Savior must remain with those one teaches, seeing what they see, but still retaining in one’s mind the way that led one out, and now will lead you out with one. God’s Child is crucified until you walk along the road with me.

My resurrection comes again each time I lead a sibling safely to the place at which the journey ends and is forgot. I am renewed each time a sibling learns there is a way from misery and pain. I am reborn each time a sibling’s mind turns to the light in one and looks for me. I have forgotten no one. Help me now to lead you back to where the journey was begun, to make another choice with me.

Release me as you practice once again the thoughts I brought to you from One Who sees your bitter need, and knows the answer God has given One. Together we review these thoughts. Together we devote our time and effort to them. And together we will teach them to our siblings. God would not have Heaven incomplete. It waits for you as I do. I am incomplete without your part in me. And as I am made whole, we go together to our ancient home, prepared for us before time was and kept unchanged by time, immaculate and safe, as it will be at last, when time is done.

Let this review be then your gift to me. For this alone I need: that you will hear the words I speak and give them to the world. You are my voice, my eyes, my feet, my hands, through which I save the world. The Self from Which I call to you is but your Own. To One we go together. Take your sibling’s hand, for this is not a way we walk alone.

In one I walk with you and you with me. Our Creator wills One’s Child be One with One. What lives but must not then be one with you? Let this review become a time in which we share a new experience for you, yet one as old as time, and older still. Hallowed your name. Your glory undefiled forever. And your wholeness now complete, as God established it. You are One’s Child, completing One’s extension in your own. We practice but an ancient truth we knew before illusion seemed to claim the world. And we remind the world that it is free of all illusions every time we say,

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

With this we start each day of our review. With this we start and end each period of practice time. And with this thought we sleep, to waken once again with these same words upon our lips to greet another day. No thought that we review but we surround with it, and use the thoughts to hold it up before our minds, and keep it clear in our remembrance throughout the day. And thus when we have finished this review, we will have recognized the words we speak are true.

Yet are the words but aids and to be used, except at the beginning and the end of practice periods, but to recall the mind, as needed, to its purpose. We place faith in the experience that comes from practice, not the means we use. We wait for the experience, and recognize that it is only here conviction lies. We use the words, and try and try again to go beyond them to their meaning, which is far beyond their sound. The sound grows dim and disappears as we approach the Source of meaning. It is Here that we find rest.

Lesson 171

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

“All things are echoes of the Voice for God.”  Lesson 151

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

“The power of decision is my own.”  Lesson 152

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Lesson 172

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

“In my defenselessness my safety lies.”  Lesson 153

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

“I am among the ministers of God.”  Lesson 154

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Lesson 173

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

“I will step back and let One lead the way.”  Lesson 155

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

“I walk with God in perfect holiness.”  Lesson 156

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Lesson 174

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

“Into One’s Presence would I enter now.”  Lesson 157

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

“Today I learn to give as I receive.”  Lesson 158

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Lesson 175

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

“I give the miracles I have received.”  Lesson 159

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

“I am at home. Fear is the stranger here.”  Lesson 160

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Lesson 176

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

“Give me your blessing, holy Child of God.”  Lesson 161

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

“I am as God created me.”  Lesson 162

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Lesson 177

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

“There is no death. The Child of God is free.”  Lesson 163

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

“Now are we One with One Who is our Source.”  Lesson 164

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Lesson 178

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

“Let not my mind deny the Thought of God.”  Lesson 165

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

“I am entrusted with the gifts of God.”  Lesson 166

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Lesson 179

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

“There is one life, and that I share with God.”  Lesson 167

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

“Your grace is given me. I claim it now.”  Lesson 168

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Lesson 180

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

“By grace I live. By grace I am released.”  Lesson 169

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

“There is no cruelty in God and none in me.”  Lesson 170

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Lesson 181-200 Introduction

Our next few lessons make a special point of firming up your willingness to make your weak commitment strong; your scattered goals blend into one intent. You are not asked for total dedication all the time, as yet. But you are asked to practice now in order to attain the sense of peace such unified commitment will bestow, if only intermittently. It is experiencing this which makes it sure that you will give your total willingness to following the way the course sets forth.

Our lessons now are geared specifically to widening horizons, and direct approaches to the special blocks which keep your vision narrow, and too limited to let you see the value of our goal. We are attempting now to lift these blocks, however briefly. Words alone can not convey the sense of liberation which their lifting brings. But the experience of freedom and of peace that comes as you give up your tight control of what you see speaks for itself. Your motivation will be so intensified that words become of little consequence. You will be sure of what you want and what is valueless.

And so we start our journey beyond words by concentrating first on what impedes our progress still. Experience of what exists beyond defensiveness remains beyond achievement while it is denied. It may be there, but you cannot accept its presence. So we now attempt to go past all defenses for a little while each day. No more than this is asked because no more than this is needed. It will be enough to guarantee the rest will come.

Lesson 181

“I trust my siblings, who are one with me.”

Trusting your siblings is essential to establishing and holding up your faith in your ability to transcend doubt and lack of sure conviction in yourself. When you attack a sibling, you proclaim that one is limited by what you have perceived in one. You do not look beyond one’s errors. Rather, they are magnified, becoming blocks to your awareness of the Self that lies beyond your own mistakes, and past one’s seeming sins as well as yours.

Perception has a focus. It is this which gives consistency to what you see. Change but this focus, and what you behold will change accordingly. Your vision now will shift to give support to the intent which has replaced the one you held before. Remove your focus on your sibling’s sins, and you experience the peace that comes from faith in sinlessness. This faith receives its only sure support from what you see in others past their sins. For their mistakes, if focused on, are witnesses to sins in you. And you will not transcend their sight and see the sinlessness that lies beyond.

Therefore, in practicing today, we first let all such little focuses give way to our great need to let our sinlessness become apparent. We instruct our minds that it is this we seek and only this, for just a little while. We do not care about our future goals, and what we saw an instant previous has no concern for us within this interval of time wherein we practice changing our intent. We seek for innocence and nothing else. We seek for it with no concern but now.

A major hazard to success has been involvement with your past and future goals. You have been quite preoccupied with how extremely different the goals this course is advocating are from those you held before. And you have also been dismayed by the depressing and restricting thought that, even if you should succeed, you will inevitably lose your way again.

How could this matter? For the past is gone; the future but imagined. These concerns are but defenses against present change of focus in perception. Nothing more. We lay these pointless limitations by a little while. We do not look to past beliefs, and what we will believe will not intrude upon us now. We enter in the time of practicing with one intent; to look upon the sinlessness within.

We recognize that we have lost this goal if anger blocks our way in any form. And if a sibling’s sins occur to us, our narrowed focus will restrict our sight and turn our eyes upon our own mistakes, which we will magnify and call our “sins.” So, for a little while, without regard to past or future, should such blocks arise, we will transcend them with instructions to our minds to change their focus, as we say:

“It is not this that I would look upon.

I trust my siblings, who are one with me.”

And we will also use these thoughts to keep us safe throughout the day. We do not seek for long range goals. As each obstruction seems to block the vision of our sinlessness, we seek but for surcease an instant from the misery the focus upon sin will bring, and uncorrected will remain.

Nor do we ask for fantasies. For what we seek to look upon is really there. And as our focus goes beyond mistakes, we will behold a wholly sinless world. When seeing this is all we want to see, when this is all we seek for in the name of true perception, are the eyes of Christ inevitably ours. And the love One feels for us becomes our own as well. This will become the only thing we see reflected in the world and in ourselves.

The world which once proclaimed our sins becomes the proof that we are sinless. And our love for everyone we look upon attests to our remembrance of the holy Self Which knows no sin, and never could conceive of anything without Its sinlessness.

We seek for this remembrance as we turn our minds to practicing today. We look neither ahead nor backwards. We look straight into the present. And we give our trust to the experience we ask for now. Our sinlessness is but the Will of God. This instant is our willing one with One’s.

Lesson 182

“I will be still an instant and go home.”

This world you seem to live in is not home to you. And somewhere in your mind you know that this is true. A memory of home keeps haunting you, as if there were a place that called you to return although you do not recognize the Voice, nor what it is the Voice reminds you of. Yet still you feel an alien here, from somewhere all unknown. Nothing so definite that you could say with certainty you are an exile here. Just a persistent feeling, sometimes not more than a tiny throb, at other times hardly remembered, actively dismissed, but surely to return to mind again.

No one but knows whereof we speak. Yet some try to put by their suffering in games they play to occupy their time, and keep their sadness from them. Others will deny that they are sad, and do not recognize their tears at all. Still others will maintain that what we speak of is illusion, not to be considered more than but a dream. Yet who in simple honesty, without defensiveness and self-deception, would deny one understands the words we speak?

We speak today for everyone who walks this world, for one is not at home. One goes uncertainly about in endless search, seeking in darkness what one cannot find; not recognizing what it is one seeks. A thousand homes one makes, yet none contents one’s restless mind. One does not understand one builds in vain. The home one seeks cannot be made by one. There is no substitute for Heaven. All one ever made was hell.

Perhaps you think it is your childhood home that you would find again. The childhood of your body and its place of shelter are a memory now so distorted that you merely hold a picture of a past that never happened. Yet there is a Child in you Who seeks One’s Creator’s house, and knows that One is alien here. This Childhood is eternal, with an innocence that will endure forever. Where this Child shall go is holy ground. It is One’s holiness that lights up Heaven, and that brings to earth the pure reflection of the light above, wherein are earth and Heaven joined as one.

It is this Child in you your Creator knows as One’s Own Creation. It is this Child Who knows One’s Creator. One desires to go home so deeply, so unceasingly, One’s voice cries unto you to let One rest a while. One does not ask for more than just a few instants of respite; just an interval in which One can return to breathe again the holy air that fills One’s Creator’s house. You are One’s home as well. One will return. But give One just a little time to be Oneself, within the peace that is One’s home, resting in silence and in peace and love.

This Child needs your protection. One is far from home. One is so little that One seems so easily shut out, One’s tiny Voice so readily obscured, One’s calls for help almost unheard amid the grating sounds and harsh and rasping noises of the world. Yet does One know that in you still abides One’s sure protection. You will fail One not. One will go home, and you along with One.

This Child is your defenselessness, your strength. One trusts in you. One came because One knew you would not fail. One whispers of One’s home unceasingly to you. For One would bring you back with One, that Oneself might stay, and not return again where One does not belong and where One lives an outcast in a world of alien thoughts. One’s patience has no limits. One will wait until you hear One’s gentle Voice within you, calling you to let One go in peace, along with you, to where One is at home, and you with One.

When you are still an instant, when the world recedes from you, when valueless ideas cease to have value in your restless mind, then will you hear One’s Voice. So poignantly One calls to you that you will not resist One longer. In that instant, One will take you to One’s home, and you will stay with One in perfect stillness, silent and at peace, beyond all words, untouched by fear and doubt, sublimely certain that you are at home.

Rest with One frequently today. For One was willing to become a little child that you might learn of One how strong is one who comes without defenses, offering only love’s messages to those who think one is their enemy. One holds the might of Heaven in One’s hand and calls them friend, and gives One’s strength to them that they may see One would be Friend to them. One asks but they protect One, for One’s home is far away, and One will not return to it alone.

Christ is reborn as but a little Child each time a wanderer would leave one’s home. For one must learn that what one would protect is but this Child, Who comes defenseless and Who is protected by defenselessness. Go home with One from time to time today. You are as much an alien here as One.

Take time today to lay aside your shield which profits nothing, and lay down the spear and sword you raised against an enemy without existence. Christ has called you friend and sibling. One has even come to you to ask your help in letting One go home completed and completely. One has come as does a little child who must beseech one’s parent for protection and for love. One rules the universe, and yet One asks unceasingly that you return with One, and take illusions as your gods no more.

You have not lost your innocence. It is for this you yearn. This is your heart’s desire. This is the voice you hear, and this the Call which cannot be denied. The holy Child remains with you. One’s home is yours. Today One gives you One’s defenselessness, and you accept it in exchange for all the toys of battle you have made. And now the way is open, and the journey has an end in sight at last. Be still a moment and go home with One and be at peace a while.

Lesson 183

“I call upon God’s Name and on my own.”

God’s Name is holy, but no holier than yours. To call upon One’s Name is but to call upon your own. A parent gives one’s child one’s name, and thus identifies the child with one. One’s siblings share one’s name, and thus are they united in a bond to which they turn for their identity. Your Creator’s Name reminds you who you are, even within a world that does not know; even though you have not remembered it.

God’s Name can not be heard without response, nor said without an echo in the mind which calls you to remember. Say One’s Name, and you invite the angels to surround the ground on which you stand, and sing to you as they spread out their wings to keep you safe, and shelter you from every worldly thought that would intrude upon your holiness.

Repeat God’s Name and all the world responds by laying down illusions. Every dream the world holds dear has suddenly gone by, and where it seemed to stand you find a star; a miracle of grace. The sick arise, healed of their sickly thoughts. The blind can see; the deaf can hear; the sorrowful cast off their mourning; and the tears of pain are dried as happy laughter comes to bless the world.

Repeat the Name of God and little names have lost their meaning. No temptation but becomes a nameless and unwanted thing before God’s Name. Repeat One’s Name and see how easily you will forget the names of all the gods you value. They have lost the name of god you gave them. They become anonymous and valueless to you, although before you let the Name of God replace their little names; you stood before them worshipfully, naming them as gods.

Repeat the Name of God and call upon your Self, Whose Name is One’s. Repeat One’s Name and all the tiny, nameless things on earth slip into right perspective. Those who call upon the Name of God can not mistake the nameless for the Name, nor sin for grace, nor bodies for the holy Child of God. And should you join a sibling as you sit with one in silence, and repeat God’s Name along with one within your quiet minds, you have established there an altar which reaches to God Oneself and to One’s Child.

Practice but this today: repeat God’s Name slowly again and still again. Become oblivious to every name but One’s. Hear nothing else. Let all your thoughts become anchored on This. No other words we use except at the beginning, when we say today’s idea but once. And then God’s Name becomes our only thought, our only word, the only thing that occupies our minds, the only wish we have, the only sound with any meaning, and the only name of everything that we desire to see; of everything that we would call our own.

Thus do we give an invitation which can never be refused. And God will come and answer it Oneself. Think not One hears the little prayers of those who call on One with names of idols cherished by the world. They cannot reach One thus. One cannot hear requests that One be not Oneself, or that One’s Child receive another name than One’s. Repeat One’s Name and you acknowledge One as sole Creator of Reality. And you acknowledge also that One’s Child is part of One, creating in One’s Name.

Sit silently and let One’s Name become the all-encompassing idea which holds your mind completely. Let all thoughts be still except this One. And to all other thoughts respond with This, and see God’s Name replace the thousand little names you gave your thoughts, not realizing that there is One Name for all there is, and all that there will be.

Today you can achieve a state in which you will experience the gifts of grace. You can escape all bondage of the world, and give the world the same release you found. You can remember what the world forgot, and offer it your own remembering. You can accept today the part you play in its salvation and your own as well, and both can be accomplished perfectly.

Turn to the Name of God for your release, and it is given you. No prayer but this is necessary, for it holds them all within it. Words are insignificant and all requests unneeded when God’s Child calls on one’s Creator’s Name. One’s Creator’s Thoughts become one’s own. One makes one’s claim to all one’s Creator gave, is giving still, and will forever give. One calls on One to let all things one thought one made be nameless now, and in their place the holy Name of God becomes one’s judgement of their worthlessness.

All little things are silent. Little sounds are soundless now. The little things of earth have disappeared. The universe consists of nothing but the Child of God who calls upon one’s Creator. And one’s Creator’s Voice gives answer in one’s Creator’s holy Name. In this eternal, still relationship, in which communication far transcends all words and yet exceeds in depth and height whatever words could possibly convey, is peace eternal. In our Creator’s Name, we would experience this peace today. And in One’s Name it shall be given us.

Lesson 184

“The Name of God is my inheritance.”

You live by symbols. You have made up names for everything you see. Each one becomes a separate entity, identified by its own name. By this you carve it out of unity. By this you designate its special attributes, and set it off from other things by emphasizing space surrounding it. This space you lay between all things to which you give a different name; all happenings in terms of place and time; all bodies which are greeted by a name.

This space you see as setting off all things from one another is the means by which the world’s perception is achieved. You see something where nothing is, and see as well nothing where there is unity; a space between all things, between all things and you. Thus do you think that you have given life in separation. By this split you think you are established as a unity which functions with an independent will.

What are these names by which the world becomes a series of discrete events, of things ununified, of bodies kept apart and holding bits of mind as separate awarenesses? You gave these names to them, establishing perception as you wished to have perception be. The nameless things were given names, and thus reality was given them as well. For what is named is given meaning, and will then be seen as meaningful, a cause of true effects, with consequence inherent in itself.

This is the way reality is made by partial vision, purposefully set against the given truth. Its enemy is wholeness. It conceives of little things, and looks upon them. And a lack of space, a sense of unity or vision which sees differently become the threats which it must overcome, conflict with and deny.

Yet does this other vision still remain a natural direction for the mind to channel its perception. It is hard to teach the mind a thousand alien names and thousands more. Yet you believe this is what learning means; its one essential goal by which communication is achieved and concepts can be meaningfully shared.

This is the sum of the inheritance the world bestows. And everyone who learns to think that it is so accepts the signs and symbols which assert the world is real. It is for this they stand. They leave no doubt that what is named is there. It can be seen, as is anticipated. What denies that it is true is but illusion, for it is the ultimate reality. To question it is madness; to accept its presence is the proof of sanity.

Such is the teaching of the world. It is a phase of learning everyone who comes must go through. But the sooner one perceives on what it rests, how questionable are its premises, how doubtful its results, the sooner does one question its effects. Learning which stops with what the world would teach stops short of meaning. In its proper place, it serves but as a starting point from which another kind of learning can begin, a new perception can be gained, and all the arbitrary names the world bestows can be withdrawn as they are raised to doubt.

Think not you made the world. Illusions, yes! But what is true in earth and Heaven is beyond your naming. When you call upon a sibling, it is to one’s body that you make appeal. One’s true identity is hidden from you by what you believe one really is. One’s body makes response to what you call one, for one’s mind consents to take the name you give one as one’s own. And thus one’s unity is twice denied, for you perceive one separate from you, and one accepts this separate name as one’s.

It would indeed be strange if you were asked to go beyond all symbols of the world, forgetting them forever; yet were asked to take a teaching function. You have need to use the symbols of the world a while. But be you not deceived by them as well. They do not stand for anything at all, and in your practicing it is this thought that will release you from them. They become but means by which you can communicate in ways the world can understand, but which you recognize is not the unity where true communication can be found.

Thus what you need are intervals each day in which the learning of the world becomes a transitory phase; a prison house from which you go into the sunlight and forget the darkness. Here you understand the Word, the Name Which God has given you; the One Identity Which all things share; the one acknowledgment of what is true. And then step back to darkness, not because you think it real, but only to proclaim its unreality in terms which still have meaning in the world which darkness rules.

Use all the little names and symbols which delineate the world of darkness. Yet accept them not as your reality. The Holy Spirit uses all of them, but One does not forget creation has One Name, One Meaning, and a single Source Which unifies all things within Itself. Use all the names the world bestows on them but for convenience, yet do not forget they share the Name of God along with you.

God has no name. And yet One’s Name becomes the final lesson that all things are one, and at this lesson does all learning end. All names are unified; all space is filled with truth’s reflection. Every gap is closed, and separation healed. The Name of God is the inheritance One gave to those who chose the teaching of the world to take the place of Heaven. In our practicing, our purpose is to let our minds accept what One has given as the answer to the pitiful inheritance you made as fitting tribute to the Child One loves.

No one can fail who seeks the meaning of the Name of God. Experience must come to supplement the Word. But first you must accept One Name for all reality, and realize the many names you gave its aspects have distorted what you see but have not interfered with truth at all. One Name we bring into our practicing. One Name we use to unify our sight.

And though we use a different name for each awareness of an aspect of God’s Child, we understand that they have but One Name, Which One has given them. It is this Name we use in practicing. And through Its use, all foolish separations disappear which kept us blind. And we are given strength to see beyond them. Now our sight is blessed with blessings we can give as we receive.

Creator, our Name is Yours. In It we are united with all living things and You Who are their One Creator. What we made and call by many different names is but a shadow we have tried to cast across Your Own Reality. And we are glad and thankful we were wrong. All our mistakes we give to You, that we may be absolved of all effects our errors seemed to have. And we accept the truth You give in place of every one of them. Your Name is our salvation and escape from what we made. Your Name unites us in the Oneness which is our inheritance and peace. Amen.

Lesson 185

“I want the peace of God.”

To say these words is nothing. But to mean these words is everything. If you could but mean them for just an instant, there would be no further sorrow possible for you in any form; in any place or time. Heaven would be completely given back to full awareness, memory of God entirely restored, the resurrection of all creation fully recognized.

No one can mean these words and not be healed. One cannot play with dreams, nor think one is oneself a dream. One cannot make a hell and think it real. One wants the peace of God and it is given one. For that is all one wants, and that is all one will receive. Many have said these words. But few indeed have meant them. You have but to look upon the world you see around you to be sure how very few they are. The world would be completely changed should any two agree these words express the only thing they want.

Two minds with one intent become so strong that what they will becomes the Will of God. For minds can only join in truth. In dreams, no two can share the same intent. To each, the hero of the dream is different; the outcome wanted not the same for both. Loser and gainer merely shift about in changing patterns, as the ratio of gain to loss and loss to gain takes on a different aspect of another form.

Yet compromise alone a dream can bring. Sometimes it takes the form of union, but only the form. The meaning must escape the dream, for compromising is the goal of dreaming. Minds cannot unite in dreams. They merely bargain. And what bargain can give them the peace of God? Illusions come to take One’s place. And what One means is lost to sleeping minds intent on compromise, each to one’s gain and to another’s loss.

To mean you want the peace of God is to renounce all dreams. For no one means these words who wants illusions, and who therefore seeks the means which bring illusions. One has looked on them, and found them wanting. Now one seeks to go beyond them, recognizing that another dream would offer nothing more than all the others. Dreams are one to one. And one has learned their only difference is one of form, for one will bring the same despair and misery as do the rest.

The mind which means that all it wants is peace must join with other minds, for that is how peace is obtained. And when the wish for peace is genuine, the means for finding it is given in a form each mind which seeks for it in honesty can understand. Whatever form the lesson takes is planned for one in such a way that one can not mistake it if one’s asking is sincere. And if one asks without sincerity, there is no form in which the lesson will meet with acceptance and be truly learned.

Let us today devote our practicing to recognizing that we really mean the words we say. We want the peace of God. This is no idle wish. These words do not request another dream be given us. They do not ask for compromise, nor try to make another bargain in the hope that there may yet be one which can succeed where all the rest have failed. To mean these words acknowledges illusions are in vain, requesting the eternal in the place of shifting dreams which seem to change in what they offer, but are one in nothingness.

Today devote your practice periods to careful searching of your mind, to find the dreams you cherish still. What do you ask for in your heart? Forget the words you use in making your requests. Consider but what you believe will comfort you and bring you happiness. But be you not dismayed by lingering illusions, for their form is not what matters now. Let not some dreams be more acceptable, reserving shame and secrecy for others. They are one.

And being one, one question should be asked of all of them: “Is this what I would have, in place of Heaven and the peace of God?” This is the choice you make. Be not deceived that it is otherwise. No compromise is possible in this. You choose God’s peace or you have asked for dreams. And dreams will come as you requested them. Yet will God’s peace come just as certainly, and to remain with you forever. It will not be gone with every twist and turning of the road, to reappear unrecognized in forms which shift and change with every step you take.

You want the peace of God. And so do all who seem to seek for dreams. For them as well as for yourself you ask but this when you make this request with deep sincerity. For thus you reach to what they really want, and join your own intent with what they seek above all things, perhaps unknown to them, but sure to you. You have been weak at times, uncertain in your purpose, and unsure of what you wanted, where to look for it, and where to turn for help in the attempt. Help has been given you. And would you not avail yourself of it by sharing it?

No one who truly seeks the peace of God can fail to find it. For one merely asks that one deceive oneself no longer by denying to oneself what is God’s Will. Who can remain unsatisfied who asks for what one has already? Who could be unanswered who requests an answer which is one’s to give? The peace of God is yours.

For you it was created, given you by its Creator, and established as One’s Own eternal gift. How can you fail when you but ask for what One wills for you? And how could your request be limited to you alone? No gift of God can be unshared. It is this attribute that sets the gifts of God apart from every dream that ever seemed to take the place of truth.

No one can lose and everyone must gain whenever any gift of God has been requested and received by anyone. God gives but to unite. To take away is meaningless to One. And when it is as meaningless to you, you can be sure you share One Will with One, and One with you. And you will also know you share One Will with all your siblings, whose intent is yours.

It is this one intent we seek today, uniting our desires with the need of every heart, the call of every mind, the hope that lies beyond despair, the love attack would hide, the Christhood that hate has sought to sever, but which still remains as God created it. With help like this beside us, can we fail today as we request the peace of God be given us?

Lesson 186

“Salvation of the world depends on me.”

Here is the statement that will one day take all arrogance away from every mind. Here is the thought of true humility which holds no function as your own but that which has been given you. It offers your acceptance of a part assigned to you, without insisting on another role. It does not judge your proper role. It but acknowledges the Will of God is done on earth as well as Heaven. It unites all wills on earth in Heaven’s plan to save the world, restoring it to Heaven’s peace.

Let us not fight our function. We did not establish it. It is not our idea. The means are given us by which it will be perfectly accomplished. All that we are asked to do is to accept our part in genuine humility, and not deny with self-deceiving arrogance that we are worthy. What is given us to do we have the strength to do. Our minds are suited perfectly to take the part assigned to us by One Who knows us well.

Today’s idea may seem quite sobering until you see its meaning. All it says is that your Creator still remembers you, and offers you the perfect trust One holds in you who are One’s Child. It does not ask that you be different in any way from what you are. What could humility request but this? And what could arrogance deny but this? Today we will not shrink from our assignment on the specious grounds that modesty is outraged. It is pride that would deny the Call of God Oneself.

All false humility we lay aside today, that we may listen to God’s Voice reveal to us what One would have us do. We do not doubt our adequacy for the function One will offer us. We will be certain only that One knows our strengths, our wisdom and our holiness. And if One deems us worthy, so we are. It is but arrogance that judges otherwise.

There is one way, and only one, to be released from the imprisonment your plan to prove the false is true has brought to you. Accept the plan you did not make instead. Judge not your value to it. If God’s Voice assures you that salvation needs your part, and that the whole depends on you, be sure that it is so. The arrogant must cling to words, afraid to go beyond them to experience which might affront their stance. Yet are the humble free to hear the Voice Which tells them what they are and what to do.

Arrogance makes an image of yourself that is not real. It is this image which quails and retreats in terror as the Voice for God assures you that you have the strength, the wisdom and the holiness to go beyond all images. You are not weak, as is the image of yourself. You are not ignorant and helpless. Sin can not tarnish the truth in you, and misery can come not near the holy home of God.

All this the Voice for God relates to you. And as One speaks, the image trembles and seeks to attack the threat it does not know; sensing its basis crumble. Let it go. Salvation of the world depends on you, and not upon this little pile of dust. What can it tell the holy Child of God? Why need one be concerned with it at all?

And so we find our peace. We will accept the function God has given us, for all illusions rest upon the weird belief that we can make another for ourselves. Our self-made roles are shifting, and they seem to change from mourner to ecstatic bliss of loved and loving. We can laugh or weep, and greet the day with welcome or with tears. Our very being seems to change as we experience a thousand shifts in mood, and our emotions raise us high indeed or dash us to the ground in hopelessness.

Is this the Child of God? Could One create such instability and call it Child? One Who is changeless shares One’s attributes with One’s creation. All the images One’s Child appears to make have no effect on what one is. They blow across one’s mind like wind swept leaves that form a patterning an instant, break apart to group again, and scamper off. Or like mirages seen above a desert, rising from the dust.

These unsubstantial images will go, and leave your mind unclouded and serene when you accept the function given you. The images you make give rise to but conflicting goals, impermanent and vague, uncertain and ambiguous. Who could be constant in one’s efforts, or direct one’s energies and concentrated drive toward goals like these? The functions which the world esteems are so uncertain that they change ten times an hour at their most secure. What hope of gain can rest on goals like this?

In lovely contrast, certain as the sun’s return each morning to dispel the night, your truly given function stands out clear and wholly unambiguous. There is no doubt of its validity. It comes from One Who knows no error. And One’s Voice is certain of Its messages. They will not change nor be in conflict. All of them point to one goal, and one you can attain. Your plan may be impossible, but God’s can never fail because One is its Source.

Do as One’s Voice directs. And if It asks a thing of you that seems impossible, remember Who it is that asks and who would make denial. Then consider this: which is more likely to be right? The Voice that speaks for the Creator of all things Who knows all things exactly as they are, or a distorted image of yourself, confused, bewildered, inconsistent and unsure of everything? Let not its voice direct you. Hear instead a certain Voice Which tells you of a function given you by your Creator, Who remembers you and urges that you now remember One.

One’s gentle Voice is calling from the known to the unknowing. One would comfort you, although One knows no sorrow. One would make a restitution though One is complete; a gift to you, although One knows that you have everything already. One has Thoughts which answer every need One’s Child perceives, although One sees them not. For Love must give, and what is given in One’s Name takes on the form most useful in a world of form.

These are the forms which never can deceive, although they come from Formlessness Itself. Forgiveness is an earthly form of love which as it is in Heaven has no form. Yet what is needed here is given here as it is needed. In this form you can fulfill your function even here, although what love will mean to you when formlessness has been restored to you is greater still. Salvation of the world depends on you who can forgive. Such is your function here.

Lesson 187

“I bless the world because I bless myself.”

No one can give unless one has. In fact, giving is proof of having. We have made this point before. What seems to make it hard to credit is not this. No one can doubt that you must first possess what you would give. It is the second phase on which the world and true perception differ. Having had and given, then the world asserts that you have lost what you possessed. The truth maintains that giving will increase what you possess.

How is this possible? For it is sure that if you give a finite thing away, your body’s eyes will not perceive it yours. Yet we have learned that things but represent the thoughts that make them. And you do not lack for proof that when you give ideas away, you strengthen them in your own mind. Perhaps the form in which the thought seems to appear is changed in giving. Yet it must return to one who gives. Nor can the form it takes be less acceptable. It must be more.

Ideas must first belong to you, before you give them. If you are to save the world, you first accept salvation for yourself. But you will not believe that this is done until you see the miracles it brings to everyone you look upon. Herein is the idea of giving clarified and given meaning. Now you can perceive that by your giving is your store increased.

Protect all things you value by the act of giving them away, and you are sure that you will never lose them. What you thought you did not have is thereby proven yours. Yet value not its form. For this will change, and grow unrecognizable in time, however much you try to keep it safe. No form endures. It is the thought behind the form of things that lives unchangeable.

Give gladly. You can only gain thereby. The thought remains and grows in strength as it is reinforced by giving. Thoughts extend as they are shared, for they can not be lost. There is no giver and receiver in the sense the world conceives of them. There is a giver who retains; another who will give as well. And both must gain in this exchange, for each will have the thought in form most helpful to one. What one seems to lose is always something one will value less than what will surely be returned to one.

Never forget you give but to yourself. Who understands what giving means must laugh at the idea of sacrifice. Nor can one fail to recognize the many forms which sacrifice may take. One laughs as well at pain and loss, at sickness and at grief, at poverty, starvation and at death. One recognizes sacrifice remains the one idea that stands behind them all, and in one’s gentle laughter are they healed.

Illusions recognized must disappear. Accept not suffering, and you remove the thought of suffering. Your blessing lies on everyone who suffers when you choose to see all suffering as what it is. The thought of sacrifice gives rise to all the forms that suffering appears to take. And sacrifice is an idea so mad that sanity dismisses it at once.

Never believe that you can sacrifice. There is no place for sacrifice in what has any value. If the thought occurs, its very presence proves that error has arisen, and correction must be made. Your blessing will correct it. Given first to you, it now is yours to give as well. No form of sacrifice and suffering can long endure before the face of one who has forgiven and has blessed oneself.

The lilies that your sibling offers you are laid upon your altar, with the ones you offer one beside them. Who could fear to look upon such lovely holiness? The great illusion of the fear of God diminishes to nothingness before the purity that you will look on here. Be not afraid to look. The blessedness you will behold will take away all thought of form, and leave instead the perfect gift forever there, forever to increase, forever yours, forever given away.

Now are we one in thought, for fear has gone. And here, before the altar to One God, One Creator, and One Thought, we stand together as one Child of God. Not separate from One Who is our Source; not distant from one sibling who is part of our One Self Whose innocence has joined us all as one, we stand in blessedness and give as we receive. The Name of God is on our lips. And as we look within, we see the purity of Heaven shine in our reflection of our Creator’s Love.

Now are we blessed, and now we bless the world. What we have looked upon we would extend, for we would see it everywhere. We would behold it shining with the grace of God in everyone. We would not have it be withheld from anything we look upon. And to ensure this holy sight is ours, we offer it to everything we see. For where we see it, it will be returned to us in form of lilies we can lay upon our altar, making it a home for Innocence Itself, Who dwells in us and offers us One’s Holiness as ours.

Lesson 188

“The peace of God is shining in me now.”

Why wait for Heaven? Those who seek the light are merely covering their eyes. The light is in them now. Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all. Light is not of the world, yet you who bear the light in you are alien here as well. The light came with you from your native home, and stayed with you because it is your own. It is the only thing you bring with you from One Who is your Source. It shines in you because it lights your home, and leads you back to where it came from and you are at home.

This light can not be lost. Why wait to find it in the future, or believe it has been lost already or was never there? It can so easily be looked upon that arguments which prove it is not there become ridiculous. Who can deny the presence of what one beholds in one? It is not difficult to look within, for there all vision starts. There is no sight, be it of dreams or from a truer source, that is not but the shadow of the seen through inward vision. There perception starts and there it ends. It has no source but this.

The peace of God is shining in you now, and from your heart extends around the world. It pauses to caress each living thing, and leave a blessing with it which remains forever and forever. What it gives must be eternal. It removes all thoughts of the ephemeral and valueless. It brings renewal to all tired hearts, and lights all vision as it passes by. All of its gifts are given everyone, and everyone unites in giving thanks to you who give and you who have received.

The shining in your mind reminds the world of what it has forgotten, and the world restores the memory to you as well. From you salvation radiates with gifts beyond all measure, given and returned. To you, the giver of the gift, does God Oneself give thanks. And in One’s blessing does the light in you shine brighter, adding to the gifts you have to offer to the world.

The peace of God can never be contained. Who recognizes it within oneself must give it. And the means for giving it are in one’s understanding. One forgives because one recognized the truth in one. The peace of God is shining in you now, and in all living things. In quietness is it acknowledged universally. For what your inward vision looks upon is your perception of the universe.

Sit quietly and close your eyes. The light within you is sufficient. It alone has power to give the gift of sight to you. Exclude the outer world, and let your thoughts fly to the peace within. They know the way. For honest thoughts, untainted by the dream of worldly things outside yourself, become the holy messengers of God Oneself. These thoughts you think with One. They recognize their home. And they point surely to their Source, where God the Creator and the Child are One.

God’s peace is shining on them, but they must remain with you as well, for they were born within your mind as yours was born in God’s. They lead you back to peace, from where they came but to remind you how you must return. They heed your Creator’s Voice when you refuse to listen. And they urge you gently to accept One’s Word for what you are, instead of fantasies and shadows. They remind you that you are the co-creator of all things that live. For as the peace of God is shining in you, it must shine on them.

We practice coming nearer to the light in us today. We take our wandering thoughts, and gently bring them back to where they fall in line with all the thoughts we share with God. We will not let them stray. We let the light within our minds direct them to come home. We have betrayed them, ordering that they depart from us. But now we call them back, and wash them clean of strange desires and disordered wishes. We restore to them the holiness of their inheritance.

Thus are our minds restored with them, and we acknowledge that the peace of God still shines in us, and from us to all living things that share our life. We will forgive them all, absolving all the world of what we thought it did to us. For it is we who make the world as we would have it. Now we choose that it be innocent, devoid of sin, and open to salvation. And we lay our saving blessing on it as we say:

“The peace of God is shining in me now. Let all things shine upon me in that peace, and let me bless them with the light in me.”

Lesson 189

“I feel the Love of God within me now.”

There is a light in you the world can not perceive. And with its eyes you will not see this light, for you are blinded by the world. Yet you have eyes to see it. It is there for you to look upon. It was not placed in you to be kept hidden from your sight. This light is a reflection of the thought we practice now. To feel the Love of God within you is to see the world anew, shining in innocence, alive with hope, and blessed with perfect charity and love.

Who could feel fear in such a world as this? It welcomes you, rejoices that you came, and sings your praises as it keeps you safe from every form of danger and of pain. It offers you a warm and gentle home in which to stay a while. It blesses you throughout the day, and watches through the night as silent guardian of your holy sleep. It sees salvation in you, and protects the light in you in which it sees its own. It offers you its flowers and its snow in thankfulness for your benevolence.

This is the world the Love of God reveals. It is so different from the world you see through darkened eyes of malice and of fear that one belies the other. Only one can be perceived at all. The other one is wholly meaningless. A world in which forgiveness shines on everything and peace offers its gentle light to everyone is inconceivable to those who see a world of hatred, rising from attack, poised to avenge, to murder and destroy.

Yet is the world of hatred equally unseen and inconceivable to those who feel God’s Love in them. Their world reflects the quietness and peace that shines in them; the gentleness and innocence they see surrounding them; the joy with which they look out from the endless wells of joy within. What they have felt in them they look upon, and see Its sure reflection everywhere.

What would you see? The choice is given you. But learn and do not let your mind forget this law of seeing: you will look upon that which you feel within. If hatred finds a place within your heart, you will perceive a fearful world, held cruelly in death’s sharp-pointed, bony fingers. If you feel the Love of God within you, you look out upon a world of mercy and of love.

Today we pass illusions as we seek to reach to what is true in us, and feel Its all-embracing tenderness, Its Love Which knows us perfect as Itself, Its sight which is the gift Its Love bestows on us. We learn the way today. It is as sure as Love Itself, to Which it carries us. For its simplicity avoids the snares the foolish convolutions of the world’s apparent reasoning but serve to hide.

Simply do this: Be still and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false or good or bad; of every thought it judges worthy and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing.

Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God. Is it not One Who knows the way to you? You need not know the way to One. Your part is simply to allow all obstacles that you have interposed between the Child and God the Creator to be quietly removed forever. God will do One’s part in joyful and immediate response. Ask and receive. But do not make demands, nor point the road to God by which One should appear to you. The way to reach One is merely to let One be. For in that way is your reality acclaimed as well.

And so today we do not choose the way in which we go to One. But we do choose to let One come. And with this choice we rest. And in our quiet hearts and open minds One’s Love will blaze Its pathway of Itself. What has not been denied is surely there, if it be true, and can be surely reached. God knows One’s Child, and knows the way to one. One does not need One’s Child to show One how to find One’s way. Through every opened door One’s Love shines outward from Its home within, and lightens up the world in innocence.

Creator, we do not know the way to You. But we have called, and You have answered us. We will not interfere. Salvation’s ways are not our own for they belong to You. And it is unto You we look for them. Our hands are open to receive Your gifts. We have no thoughts we think apart from You, and cherish no beliefs of what we are or who created us. Yours is the way that we would find and follow. And we ask but that Your Will, Which is our own as well, be done in us and in the world, that it become a part of Heaven now. Amen.

Lesson 190

“I choose the joy of God instead of pain.”

Pain is a wrong perspective. When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception. It is not a fact at all. There is no form it takes which will not disappear if seen aright. For pain proclaims God cruel. How could it be real in any form? It witnesses to God the Creator’s hatred of One’s Child; the sinfulness One sees in one, and One’s insane desire for revenge and death. Can such projections be attested to? Can they be anything but wholly false?

Pain is but witness to the Child’s mistakes in what one thinks one is. It is a dream of fierce retaliation for a crime that could not be committed; for attack on what is wholly unassailable. It is a nightmare of abandonment by an Eternal Love Which could not leave the Child whom It created out of love.

Pain is a sign illusions reign in place of truth. It demonstrates God is denied, confused with fear, perceived as mad and seen as traitor to Oneself. If God is real there is no pain. If pain is real there is no God. For vengeance is not part of love. And fear, denying love and using pain to prove that God is dead, has shown that death is victor over life. The body is the Child of God, corruptible in death, as mortal as the Creator one has slain.

Peace to such foolishness! The time has come to laugh at such insane ideas. There is no need to think of them as savage crimes or secret sins with weighty consequence. Who but a lunatic could conceive of them as cause of anything? Their witness, pain, is mad as they, and no more to be feared than the insane illusions which it shields and tries to demonstrate must still be true.

It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness.

My holy siblings, think of this awhile: the world you see does nothing. It has no effects at all. It merely represents your thoughts. And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind, and choose the joy of God as what you really want. Your Self is radiant in this holy joy, unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable forever and forever. And would you deny a little corner of your mind its own inheritance, and keep it as a hospital for pain, a sickly place where living things must come at last to die?

The world may seem to cause you pain. And yet the world, as causeless, has no power to cause. As an effect it cannot make effects. As an illusion it is what you will. Your idle wishes represent its pains. Your strange desires bring it evil dreams. Your thoughts of death envelop it in fear, while in your kind forgiveness does it live.

Pain is the thought of evil taking form, and working havoc in your holy mind. Pain is the ransom you have gladly paid not to be free. In pain is God denied the Child One loves. In pain does fear appear to triumph over love, and time replace eternity and Heaven. And the world becomes a cruel and a bitter place, where sorrow rules and little joys give way before the onslaught of the savage pain that waits to end all joy in misery.

Lay down your arms and come without defense into the quiet place where Heaven’s peace holds all things still at last. Lay down all thoughts of danger and of fear. Let no attack enter with you. Lay down the cruel sword of judgement that you hold against your throat, and put aside the withering assaults with which you seek to hide your holiness. Here will you understand there is no pain. Here does the joy of God belong to you.

This is the day when it is given you to realize the lesson which contains all of salvation’s power. It is this: Pain is illusion; joy reality. Pain is but sleep; joy is awakening. Pain is deception; joy alone is truth.

And so again we make the only choice that ever can be made; we choose between illusions and the truth, or pain and joy, or hell and Heaven. Let our gratitude unto our Teacher fill our hearts as we are free to choose our joy instead of pain, our holiness in place of sin, the peace of God instead of conflict, and the light of Heaven for the darkness of the world.

Lesson 191

“I am the holy Child of God Oneself.”

Here is your declaration of release from bondage of the world. And here as well is all the world released. You do not see what you have done by giving to the world the role of jailer to the Child of God. What could it be but vicious and afraid, fearful of shadows, punitive and wild, lacking all reason, blind, insane and sad?

What have you done that this should be your world? What have you done that this is what you see? Deny your own identity and this is what remains. You look on chaos and proclaim it as yourself. There is no sight that fails to witness this to you. There is no sound that does not speak of frailty within you and without; no breath you draw that does not seem to bring you nearer death; no hope you hold but will dissolve in tears.

Deny your own identity and you will not escape the madness which induced this weird, unnatural and ghostly thought which mocks creation and which laughs at God. Deny your own identity and you assail the universe alone, without a friend, a tiny particle of dust against the legions of your enemies. Deny your own identity and look on evil, sin and death. And watch despair snatch from your fingers every scrap of hope, leaving you nothing but the wish to die.

Yet what is it except a game you play in which identity can be denied? You are as God created you. All else but this one thing is folly to believe. In this one thought is everything set free. In this one truth are all illusions gone. In this one fact is sinlessness proclaimed to be forever part of everything; the central core of its existence and its guarantee of immortality.

But let today’s idea find a place among your thoughts, and you have risen far above the world and all the worldly thoughts that hold it prisoner. And from this place of safety and escape you will return and set it free. For one who can accept one’s true identity is truly saved. And one’s salvation is the gift one gives to everyone in gratitude to One Who pointed out the way to happiness that changed one’s whole perception of the world.

One holy thought like this and you are free: you are the holy Child of God Oneself. And with this holy thought you learn as well that you have freed the world. You have no need to use it cruelly and then perceive this savage need in it. You set it free of your imprisonment. You will not see a devastating image of yourself walking the world in terror, with the world twisting in agony because your fears have laid the mark of death upon its heart.

Be glad today how very easily is hell undone. You need but tell yourself:

“I am the holy Child of God Oneself.

I cannot suffer; cannot be in pain;

I cannot lose, nor can I fail to do

All that salvation asks.”

And in that thought is everything you look on wholly changed. A miracle has lighted up all dark and ancient caverns where the rites of death echoed since time began. For time has lost its hold upon the world. The Child of God has come in glory to redeem the lost, to save the helpless and to give the world the gift of one’s forgiveness. Who could see the world as dark and sinful when God’s Child has come again at last to set it free?

You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you. Yet when you accord it mercy will its mercy shine on you.

Then let the Child of God awaken from one’s sleep, and opening one’s holy eyes return again to bless the world one made. In error it began. But it will end in the reflection of one’s holiness. And one will sleep no more and dream of death. Then join with me today. Your glory is the light that saves the world. Do not withhold salvation longer. Look about the world and see the suffering there. Is not your heart willing to bring your weary siblings rest?

They must await your own release. They stay in chains till you are free. They cannot see the mercy of the world until you find it for yourself. They suffer pain until you have denied its hold on you. They die till you accept your own Eternal Life. You are the holy Child of God Oneself. Remember this and all the world is free. Remember this and earth and Heaven are one.

Lesson 192

“I have a function God would have me fill.”

It is your Creator’s holy Will that you complete Oneself and that your Self shall be One’s sacred Child, forever pure as One, of love created and in love preserved, extending love, creating in its name, forever one with God and with your Self. Yet what can such a function mean within a world of envy, hatred and attack? Therefore you have a function in the world in its own terms. For who can understand a language far beyond one’s simple grasp?

Forgiveness represents your function here. It is not God’s creation, for it is the means by which untruth can be undone. And who would pardon Heaven? Yet on earth you need the means to let illusion go. Creation merely waits for your return to be acknowledged, not to be complete.

Creation cannot even be conceived of in the world. It has no meaning here. Forgiveness is the closest it can come to earth. For being Heaven-borne, it has no form at all. Yet God created One Who has the power to translate into form the wholly formless. What One makes are dreams, but of a kind so close to waking that the light of day already shines in them. And eyes already opening behold the joyful sights their offerings contain.

Forgiveness gently looks upon all things unknown in Heaven, sees them disappear, and leaves the world a clean and unmarked slate on which the Word of God can now replace the senseless symbols written there before. Forgiveness is the means by which the fear of death is overcome because it holds no fierce attraction now, and guilt is gone.

Forgiveness lets the body be perceived as what it is: a simple teaching aid to be laid by when learning is complete, but hardly changing one who learns at all. The mind without the body cannot make mistakes. It cannot think that it will die, nor be the prey of merciless attack. Anger becomes impossible, and where is terror then? What fears could still assail those who have lost the source of all attack; the core of anguish and the seat of fear?

Only forgiveness can relieve the mind of thinking that the body is its home. Only forgiveness can restore the peace that God intended for One’s holy Child. Only forgiveness can persuade the Child to look again upon one’s holiness. With anger gone, you will indeed perceive that for Christ’s vision and the gift of sight no sacrifice was asked, and only pain was lifted from a sick and tortured mind.

Is this unwelcome? Is it to be feared? Or is it to be hoped for, met with thanks and joyously accepted? We are one, and therefore give up nothing. But we have indeed been given everything by God.

Yet do we need forgiveness to perceive that this is so. Without its kindly light we grope in darkness, using reason but to justify our rage and our attack. Our understanding is so limited that what we think we understand is but confusion born of error. We are lost in mists of shifting dreams and fearful thoughts, our eyes shut tight against the light; our minds engaged in worshipping what is not there.

Who can be born again in Christ but one who has forgiven everyone one sees or thinks of or imagines? Who could be set free while one imprisons anyone? A jailer is not free, for one is bound together with one’s prisoner. One must be sure that one does not escape, and so one spends one’s time in keeping watch on one. The bars which limit one become the world in which the jailer lives, along with one. And it is on one’s freedom that the way to liberty depends for both of them.

Therefore hold no one prisoner. Release instead of bind, for thus are you made free. The way is simple. Every time you feel a stab of anger, realize you hold a sword above your head. And it will fall or be averted as you choose to be condemned or free. Thus does each one who seems to tempt you to be angry represent your Savior from the prison-house of death. And so you owe one thanks instead of pain.

Be merciful today. The Child of God deserves your mercy. It is one who asks that you accept the way to freedom now. Deny one not. One’s Creator’s Love for one belongs to you. Your function here on earth is only to forgive one, that you may accept one back as your identity. One is as God created one. And you are what one is. Forgive one now one’s sins, and you will see that you are one with one.

Lesson 193

“All things are lessons God would have me learn.”

God does not know of learning. Yet One’s Will extends to what One does not understand, in that One wills the happiness One’s Child inherited of One be undisturbed; eternal and forever gaining scope, eternally expanding in the joy of full creation, and eternally open and wholly limitless in One. This is One’s Will. And thus One’s Will provides the means to guarantee that it is done.

God sees no contradictions. Yet One’s Child believes one sees them. Thus one has a need for One Who can correct one’s erring sight, and give one vision that will lead one back to where perception ceases. God does not perceive at all. Yet it is One Who gives the means by which perception is made true and beautiful enough to let the light of Heaven shine upon it. It is One Who answers what One’s Child would contradict, and keeps one’s sinlessness forever safe.

These are the lessons God would have you learn. One’s Will reflects them all, and they reflect One’s loving kindness to the Child One loves. Each lesson has a central thought, the same in all of them. The form alone is changed, with different circumstances and events; with different characters and different themes apparent but not real. They are the same in fundamental content. It is this:

“Forgive and you will see this differently.”

Certain it is that all distress does not appear to be but unforgiveness. Yet that is the content underneath the form. It is this sameness which makes learning sure, because the lesson is so simple that it cannot be rejected in the end. No one can hide forever from a truth so very obvious that it appears in countless forms, and yet is recognized as easily in all of them, if one but wants to see the simple lesson there.

“Forgive and you will see this differently.”

These are the words the Holy Spirit speaks in all your tribulations, all your pain, all suffering regardless of its forms. These are the words with which temptation ends and guilt, abandoned, is revered no more.

These are the words which end the dream of sin, and rid the mind of fear. These are the words by which salvation comes to all the world. Shall we not learn to say these words when we are tempted to believe that pain is real, and death becomes our choice instead of life?

Shall we not learn to say these words when we have understood their power to release all minds from bondage? These are words which give you power over all events which seem to have been given power over you. You see them rightly when you hold these words in full awareness, and do not forget these words apply to everything you see or any sibling looks upon amiss.

How can you tell when you are seeing wrong, or someone else is failing to perceive the lesson one should learn? Does pain seem real in the perception? If it does, be sure the lesson is not learned. And there remains an unforgiveness hiding in the mind which sees the pain through eyes the mind directs.

God would not have you suffer thus. One would help you forgive yourself. One’s Child does not remember who one is. And God would have one not forget One’s Love, and all the gifts One’s Love brings with It. Would you now renounce your own salvation? Would you fail to learn the simple lessons Heaven’s Teacher sets before you that all pain may disappear, and God may be remembered by One’s Child?

All things are lessons God would have you learn. One would not leave an unforgiving thought without correction, nor one thorn or nail to hurt One’s sacred Child in any way. One would ensure one’s holy rest remain untroubled and serene, without a care in an eternal home which cares for one. And One would have all tears be wiped away, with none remaining yet unshed, and none but waiting their appointed time to fall. For God has willed that laughter should replace each one, and that One’s Child be free again.

We will attempt today to overcome a thousand seeming obstacles to peace in just one day. Let mercy come to you more quickly. Do not try to hold it off another day, another minute or another instant. Time was made for this. Use it today for what its purpose is. Morning and night devote what time you can to serve its proper aim, and do not let the time be less than meets your deepest need.

Give all you can and give a little more, for now we would arise in haste and go unto our Creator’s house. We have been gone too long, and we would linger here no more. And as we practice, let us think about all things we saved to settle by ourselves, and kept apart from healing. Let us give them all to One Who knows the way to look upon them so that they will disappear. Truth is One’s message; truth One’s teaching is. One’s are the lessons God would have us learn.

Each hour spend a little time today, and in the days to come, in practicing the lesson in forgiveness in the form established for the day. And try to give it application to the happenings the hour brought, so that the next one is free of the one before. The chains of time are easily unloosened in this way.

Let no one hour cast its shadow on the one that follows, and when that one goes let everything that happens in its course go with it. Thus will you remain unbound, in peace eternal in the world of time. This is the lesson God would have you learn: There is a way to look on everything that lets it be to you another step to One and to salvation of the world.

To all that speaks of terror, answer thus:

“I will forgive and this will disappear.”

To every apprehension, every care, every form of suffering repeat these selfsame words. And then you hold the key that opens Heaven’s gate, and brings the Love of God the Creator down to earth at last, to raise it up to Heaven. God will take this final step Oneself. Do not deny the little steps One asks you take to One.

Lesson 194

“I place the future in the Hands of God.”

Today’s idea takes another step toward quick salvation, and a giant stride it is indeed! So great the distance is that it encompasses, it sets you down just short of Heaven, with the goal in sight and obstacles behind. Your foot has reached the lawns that welcome you to Heaven’s gate; the quiet place of peace where you await with certainty the final step of God. How far are we progressing now from earth! How close are we approaching to our goal! How short the journey still to be pursued!

Accept today’s idea, and you have passed all anxiety, all pits of hell, all blackness of depression, thoughts of sin, and devastation brought about by guilt. Accept today’s idea, and you have released the world from all imprisonment by loosening the heavy chains that locked the door to freedom on it. You are saved, and your salvation thus becomes the gift you give the world because you have received.

In no one instant is depression felt, or pain experienced, or loss perceived. In no one instant can sorrow be set upon a throne and worshipped faithfully. In no one instant can one even die. And so each instant given unto God in passing, with the next one given One already, is a time of your release from sadness, pain and even death itself.

God holds your future as One holds your past and present. They are one to One, and so they should be one to you. Yet in this world the temporal progression still seems real. And so you are not asked to understand the lack of sequence really found in time. You are but asked to let the future go, and place it in God’s Hands. And you will see by your experience that you have laid the past and present in One’s hands as well, because the past will punish you no more, and future dread will now be meaningless.

Release the future. For the past is gone, and what is present, freed from its bequest of grief and misery, of pain and loss, becomes the instant in which time escapes the bondage of illusions where it runs its pitiless, inevitable course. Then is each instant, which was slave to time, transformed into a holy instant when the light that was kept hidden in God’s Child is freed to bless the world. Now is one free, and all one’s glory shines upon a world made free with one, to share one’s holiness.

If you can see the lesson for today as the deliverance it really is, you will not hesitate to give as much consistent effort as you can to make it be a part of you. As it becomes a thought which rules your mind, a habit in your problem-solving repertoire, a way of quick reaction to temptation, you extend your learning to the world. And as you learn to see salvation in all things, so will the world perceive that it is saved.

What worry can beset the one who gives one’s future to the loving hands of God? What can one suffer? What can cause one pain, or bring experience of loss to one? What can one fear? And what can one regard except with love? For one who has escaped all fear of future pain has found one’s way to present peace, and certainty of care the world can never threaten. One is sure that one’s perception may be faulty, but will never lack correction. One is free to choose again when one has been deceived; to change one’s mind when one has made mistakes.

Place, then, your future in the hands of God. For thus you call the memory of One to come again, replacing all your thoughts of sin and evil with the truth of love. Think you the world could fail to gain thereby, and every living creature not respond with healed perception? Who entrusts oneself to God has also placed the world within the hands to which one has oneself appealed for comfort and security. One lays aside the sick illusions of the world along with one’s, and offers peace to both.

Now are we saved indeed. For in God’s hands we rest untroubled, sure that only good can come to us. If we forget, we will be gently reassured. If we accept an unforgiving thought, it will be soon replaced by love’s reflection. And if we are tempted to attack, we will appeal to One Who guards our rest to make the choice for us that leaves temptation far behind. No longer is the world our enemy, for we have chosen that we be its friends.

Lesson 195

“Love is the way I walk in gratitude.”

Gratitude is a lesson hard to learn for those who look upon the world amiss. The most they can do is see themselves as better off than others. And they try to be content because another seems to suffer more than them. How pitiful and deprecating are such thoughts! For who has cause for thanks while others have less cause, and who could suffer less because one sees another suffer more? Your gratitude is due to One alone Who made all cause of sorrow disappear throughout the world.

It is insane to offer thanks because of suffering. But it is equally insane to fail in gratitude to One Who offers you the certain means whereby all pain is healed, and suffering replaced with laughter and with happiness. Nor could the even partly sane refuse to take the steps which One directs, and follow in the way One sets before them to escape a prison that they thought contained no door to the deliverance they now perceive.

Your sibling is your “enemy” because you see in one the rival for your peace; a plunderer who takes one’s joy from you, and leaves you nothing but a black despair so bitter and relentless that there is no hope remaining. Now is vengeance all there is to wish for. Now can you but try to bring one down to lie in death with you, as useless as yourself; as little left within one’s grasping fingers as in yours.

You do not offer God your gratitude because your sibling is more slave than you, nor could you sanely be enraged if one seems freer. Love makes no comparisons. And gratitude can only be sincere if it is joined to love. We offer thanks to God our Creator that in us all things will find their freedom. It will never be that some are loosed while others still are bound, for who can bargain in the name of love?

Therefore give thanks, but in sincerity. And let your gratitude make room for all who will escape with you; the sick, the weak, the needy and afraid, and those who mourn a seeming loss or feel apparent pain, who suffer cold or hunger, or who walk the way of hatred and the path of death. All these go with you. Let us not compare ourselves with them, for thus we split them off in our awareness from the Unity we share with them, as they must share with us.

We thank our Creator for one thing alone: that we are separate from no living thing, and therefore one with One. And we rejoice that no exceptions ever can be made which would reduce our wholeness, nor impair or change our function to complete the One Who is Oneself completion. We give thanks for every living thing, for otherwise we offer thanks for nothing, and we fail to recognize the gifts of God to us.

Then let our siblings lean their tired heads against our shoulders as they rest a while. We offer thanks for them. For if we can direct them to the peace that we would find, the way is opening at last to us. An ancient door is swinging free again; a long forgotten Word re-echoes in our memory, and gathers clarity as we are willing once again to hear.

Walk then in gratitude the way of love. For hatred is forgotten when we lay comparisons aside. What more remains as obstacles to peace? The fear of God is now undone at last, and we forgive without comparing. Thus we cannot choose to overlook some things, and yet retain some other things still locked away as sins. When your forgiveness is complete you will have total gratitude, for you will see that everything has earned the right to love by being loving, even as your Self.

Today we learn to think of gratitude in place of anger, malice and revenge. We have been given everything. If we refuse to recognize it, we are not entitled therefore to our bitterness, and to a self-perception which regards us in a place of merciless pursuit, where we are badgered ceaselessly and pushed about without a thought or care for us or for our future. Gratitude becomes the single thought we substitute for these insane perceptions. God has cared for us, and calls us Child. Can there be more than this?

Our gratitude will pave the way to One, and shorten our learning time by more than you could ever dream of. Gratitude goes hand in hand with love, and where one is the other must be found. For gratitude is but an aspect of the love which is the Source of all creation. God gives thanks to you, One’s Child, for being what you are: One’s Own completion and the Source of love, along with One. Your gratitude to One is one with One’s to you. For love can walk no road except the way of gratitude, and thus we go who walk the way to God.

Lesson 196

“It can be but myself I crucify.”

When this is firmly understood and kept in full awareness, you will not attempt to harm yourself, nor make your body slave to vengeance. You will not attack yourself, and you will realize that to attack another is but to attack yourself. You will be free of the insane belief that to attack a sibling saves yourself. And you will understand one’s safety is your own, and in one’s healing you are healed.

Perhaps at first you will not understand how mercy, limitless and with all things held in its sure protection, can be found in the idea we practice for today. It may, in fact, appear to be a sign that punishment can never be escaped because the ego, under what it sees as threat, is quick to cite the truth to save its lies. Yet must it fail to understand the truth it uses thus. But you can learn to see these foolish applications, and deny the meaning they appear to have.

Thus do you also teach your mind that you are not an ego. For the ways in which the ego would distort the truth will not deceive you longer. You will not believe you are a body to be crucified. And you will see within today’s idea the light of resurrection, looking past all thoughts of crucifixion and of death to thoughts of liberation and of life.

Today’s idea is one step we take in leading us from bondage to the state of perfect freedom. Let us take this step today that we may quickly go the way salvation shows us, taking every step in its appointed sequence as the mind relinquishes its burdens one by one. It is not time we need for this. It is but willingness. And what would seem to need a thousand years can easily be done in just one instant by the grace of God.

The dreary, hopeless thought that you can make attacks on others and escape yourself has nailed you to the cross. Perhaps it seemed to be salvation. Yet it merely stood for the belief the fear of God is real. And what is that but hell? Who could believe one’s Creator is one’s deadly enemy, separate from one, and waiting to destroy one’s life and blot one from the universe, without the fear of hell upon one’s heart?

Such is the form of madness you believe, if you accept the fearful thought you can attack another and be free yourself. Until this form is changed, there is no hope. Until you see that this, at least, must be entirely impossible, how could there be escape? The fear of God is real to anyone who thinks this thought is true. And one will not perceive its foolishness, or even see that it is there so that it would be possible to question it.

To question it at all, its form must first be changed at least as much as will permit fear of retaliation to abate, and the responsibility returned to some extent to you. From there you can at least consider if you want to go along this painful path. Until this shift has been accomplished, you can not perceive that it is but your thoughts that bring you fear, and your deliverance depends on you.

Our next steps will be easy, if you take this one today. From there we go ahead quite rapidly. For once you understand it is impossible that you be hurt except by your own thoughts, the fear of God must disappear. You do not now believe that fear is caused without. And God, Whom you had thought to banish, can be welcomed back within the holy mind One never left.

Salvation’s song can certainly be heard in the idea we practice for today. If it can but be you you crucify, you did not hurt the world and need not fear its vengeance and pursuit. Nor need you hide in terror from the deadly fear of God projection hides behind. The thing you dread the most is your salvation. You are strong and it is strength you want. And you are free, and glad of freedom. You have sought to be both weak and bound, because you feared your strength and freedom. Yet salvation lies in them.

There is an instant in which terror seems to grip your mind so wholly that escape appears quite hopeless. When you realize, once and for all, that it is you you fear, the mind perceives itself as split. And this had been concealed while you believed attack could be directed outward, and returned from outside to within. It seemed to be an enemy outside you had to fear. And thus a god outside yourself became your mortal enemy; the source of fear.

Now, for an instant, is a murderer perceived within you, eager for your death, intent on plotting punishment for you until the time when it can kill at last. Yet in this instant is the time as well in which salvation comes. For fear of God has disappeared. And you can call on One to save you from illusions in One’s Love, calling One Creator and yourself One’s Child. Pray that the instant may be soon—today. Step back from fear and make advance to love.

There is no Thought of God that does not go with you to help you reach that instant, and to go beyond it quickly, surely and forever. When the fear of God is gone, there are no obstacles that still remain between you and the holy peace of God. How kind and merciful is the idea we practice! Give it welcome, as you should, for it is your release. It is indeed but you your mind can try to crucify. Yet your redemption, too, will come from you.

Lesson 197

“It can be but my gratitude I earn.”

Here is the second step we take to free your mind from the belief in outside force pitted against your own. You make attempts at kindness and forgiveness. Yet you turn them to attack again, unless you find external gratitude and lavish thanks. Your gifts must be received with honor, lest they be withdrawn. And so you think God’s gifts are loans at best; at worst, deceptions which would cheat you of defenses to ensure that when One strikes One will not fail to kill.

How easily are God and guilt confused by those who know not what their thoughts can do. Deny your strength, and weakness must become salvation to you. See yourself as bound, and bars become your home. Nor will you leave the prison house or claim your strength until guilt and salvation are not seen as one; and freedom and salvation are perceived as joined, with strength beside them, to be sought and claimed and found and fully recognized.

The world must thank you when you offer it release from your illusions. Yet your thanks belong to you as well, for its release can only mirror yours. Your gratitude is all your gifts require, that they be a lasting offering of a thankful heart released from hell forever. Is it this you would undo by taking back your gifts because they were not honored? It is you who honor them and give them fitting thanks, for it is you who have received the gifts.

It does not matter if another thinks your gifts unworthy. In one’s mind there is a part that joins with yours in thanking you. It does not matter if your gifts seem lost and ineffectual. They are received where they are given. In your gratitude are they accepted universally, and thankfully acknowledged by the Heart of God Oneself. And would you take them back, when One has gratefully accepted them?

God blesses every gift you give to One and every gift is given One because it can be given only to yourself, and what belongs to God must be One’s Own. Yet you will never realize One’s gifts are sure, eternal, changeless, limitless, forever giving out, extending love and adding to your never-ending joy, while you forgive but to attack again.

Withdraw the gifts you give, and you will think that what is given you has been withdrawn. But learn to let forgiveness take away the sins you think you see outside yourself, and you can never think the gifts of God are lent but for a little while, before One snatches them away again in death. For death will have no meaning for you then. And with the end of this belief is fear forever over. Thank your Self for this, for One is grateful only unto God, and One gives thanks for you unto Oneself.

To everyone who lives will Christ yet come, for everyone must live and breathe in One. One’s Being in One’s Creator is secure because Their Will is one. Their gratitude to all They have created has no end, for gratitude remains a part of love. Thanks be to you, the holy Child of God, for as you were created you contain all things within your Self. And you are still as God created you. Nor can you dim the light of your perfection. In your heart the Heart of God is laid. One holds you dear because you are Oneself. All gratitude belongs to you because of what you are.

Give thanks as you receive it. Be you free of all ingratitude to anyone who makes your Self complete. And from this Self is no one left outside. Give thanks for all the countless channels which extend this Self. All that you do is given unto One. All that you think can only be One’s Thoughts, sharing with One the holy Thoughts of God. Earn now the gratitude you have denied yourself when you forgot the function God has given you. But never think that One has ever ceased to offer thanks to you.

Lesson 198

“Only my condemnation injures me.”

Injury is impossible. And yet illusion makes illusion. If you can condemn you can be injured. For you have believed that you can injure, and the right you have established for yourself can be now used against you, till you lay it down as valueless, unwanted and unreal. Then does illusion cease to have effects, and those it seemed to have will be undone. Then are you free, for freedom is your gift, and you can now receive the gift you gave.

Condemn and you are made a prisoner. Forgive and you are freed. Such is the law that rules perception. It is not a law that knowledge understands, for freedom is a part of knowledge. To condemn is thus impossible in truth. What seems to be its influence and its effects have not occurred at all. Yet must we deal with them a while as if they had. Illusion makes illusion. Except one. Forgiveness is illusion that is answer to the rest.

Forgiveness sweeps all other dreams away, and though it is itself a dream, it breeds no others. All illusions save this one must multiply a thousand fold. But this is where illusions end. Forgiveness is the end of dreams because it is a dream of waking. It is not itself the truth. Yet does it point to where the truth must be, and gives direction with the certainty of God Oneself. It is a dream in which the Child of God awakens to one’s Self and to one’s Creator knowing They are One.

Forgiveness is the only road that leads out of disaster, past all suffering, and finally away from death. How could there be another way, when this one is the plan of God Oneself? And why would you oppose it, quarrel with it, seek to find a thousand ways in which it must be wrong; a thousand other possibilities?

Is it not wiser to be glad you hold the answer to your problems in your hand? Is it not more intelligent to thank the One Who gives salvation, and accept One’s gift with gratitude? And is it not a kindness to yourself to hear One’s Voice and learn the simple lessons One would teach, instead of trying to dismiss One’s Words, and substitute your own in place of One’s?

One’s Words will work. One’s Words will save. One’s Words contain all hope, all blessing and all joy that ever can be found upon this earth. One’s Words are born in God, and come to you with Heaven’s love upon them. Those who hear One’s Words have heard the song of Heaven, for these are the words in which all will merge as one at last. And as this one will fade away, the Word of God will come to take its place, for It will be remembered then and loved.

This world has many seeming separate haunts where mercy has no meaning, and attack appears as justified. Yet all are one; a place where death is offered to God’s Child and to one’s Creator. You may think They have accepted, but if you will look again upon the place where you beheld Their blood, you will perceive a miracle instead. How foolish to believe that They could die! How foolish to believe you can attack! How mad to think that you could be condemned, and that the holy Child of God can die!

The stillness of your Self remains unmoved, untouched by thoughts like these, and unaware of any condemnation which could need forgiveness. Dreams of any kind are strange and alien to the truth. Yet what but Truth could have a Thought Which builds a bridge to truth which brings illusions to the other side?

Today we practice letting freedom come to make its home with you. The truth bestows these words upon your mind, that you may find the key to light and let the darkness end:

“Only my condemnation injures me.

Only my own forgiveness sets me free.”

Do not forget today that there can be no form of suffering that fails to hide an unforgiving thought. Nor can there be a form of pain forgiveness cannot heal.

Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God’s Child, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream. This is the gift the Holy Spirit holds for you from God your Creator. Let today be celebrated both on earth and in your holy home as well. Be kind to both, as you forgive the trespasses you thought them guilty of, and see your innocence shining upon you from the Face of Christ.

Now is there silence all around the world. Now is there stillness where before there was a frantic rush of thoughts that made no sense. Now is there tranquil light across the face of earth, made quiet in a dreamless sleep. And now the Word of God alone remains upon it. Only That can be perceived an instant longer. Then are symbols done, and everything you ever thought you made completely vanished from the mind which God forever knows to be One’s only Child.

There is no condemnation in one. One is perfect in one’s holiness. One needs no thoughts of mercy. Who could give one gifts when everything is one’s? And who could dream of offering forgiveness to the Child of Sinlessness Itself, so like to One Whose Child one is, that to behold the Child is to perceive no more, and only know the Creator? In this vision of the Child, so brief that not an instant stands between this single sight and timelessness itself, you see the vision of yourself and then you disappear forever into God.

Today we come still nearer to the end of everything that yet would stand between this vision and our sight. And we are glad that we have come this far, and recognize that One Who brought us here will not forsake us now. For One would give to us the gift that God has given us through One today. Now is the time of your deliverance. The time has come. The time has come today.

Lesson 199

“I am not a body. I am free.”

Freedom must be impossible as long as you perceive a body as yourself. The body is a limit. Who would seek for freedom in a body looks for it where it can not be found. The mind can be made free when it no longer sees itself as in a body, firmly tied to it and sheltered by its presence. If this were the truth, the mind were vulnerable indeed!

The mind that serves the Holy Spirit is unlimited forever, in all ways, beyond the laws of time and space, unbound by any preconceptions, and with strength and power to do whatever it is asked. Attack thoughts cannot enter such a mind, because it has been given to the Source of Love. And fear can never enter in a mind that has attached itself to Love. It rests in God, and who can be afraid who lives in Innocence, and only loves?

It is essential for your progress in this course that you accept today’s idea, and hold it very dear. Be not concerned that to the ego it is quite insane. The ego holds the body dear because it dwells in it, and lives united with the home that it has made. It is a part of the illusion that has sheltered it from being found illusory itself.

Here does it hide, and here it can be seen as what it is. Declare your innocence, and you are free. The body disappears because you have no need of it except the need the Holy Spirit sees. For this, the body will appear as useful form for what the mind must do. It thus becomes a vehicle which helps forgiveness be extended to the all-inclusive goal that it must reach, according to God’s plan.

Cherish today’s idea, and practice it today and every day. Make it a part of every practice period you take. There is no thought that will not gain thereby in power to help the world, and none which will not gain in added gifts to you as well. We sound the call of freedom round the world with this idea. And would you be exempt from the acceptance of the gifts you give?

The Holy Spirit is the home of minds that seek for freedom. In One they find what they have sought. The body’s purpose now is unambiguous. And it becomes perfect in the ability to serve an undivided goal. In conflict-free and unequivocal response to mind with but the thought of freedom as its goal, the body serves, and serves its purpose well. Without the power to enslave, it is a worthy servant of the freedom which the mind within the Holy Spirit seeks.

Be free today, and carry freedom as your gift to those who still believe they are enslaved within a body. Be you free, so that the Holy Spirit can make use of your escape from bondage to set free the many who perceive themselves as bound and helpless and afraid. Let love replace their fears through you. Accept salvation now, and give your mind to One Who calls to you to make this gift to One. For One would give you perfect freedom, perfect joy, and hope that finds its full accomplishment in God.

You are God’s Child. In immortality you live forever. Would you not return your mind to this? Then practice well the thought the Holy Spirit gives you for today. Your siblings stand released with you in it; the world is blessed along with you, God’s Child will weep no more, and Heaven offers thanks at the increase of joy your practice brings even to it. And God Oneself extends One’s Love and happiness each time you say:

“I am not a body.

I am free.

I hear the Voice that God has given me,

and it is only this my mind obeys.”

Lesson 200

“There is no peace except the peace of God.”

Seek you no further. You will not find peace except the peace of God. Accept this fact, and save yourself the agony of yet more bitter disappointments, bleak despair, and sense of icy hopelessness and doubt. Seek you no further. There is nothing else for you to find except the peace of God, unless you seek for misery and pain.

This is the final point to which each one must come at last, to lay aside all hope of finding happiness where there is none; of being saved by what can only hurt; of making peace of chaos, joy of pain and Heaven out of hell. Attempt no more to win through losing, nor to die to live. You cannot but be asking for defeat.

Yet you can ask as easily for love, for happiness, and for eternal life in peace that has no ending. Ask for this, and you can only win. To ask for what you have already must succeed. To ask that what is false be true can only fail. Forgive yourself for vain imaginings, and seek no longer what you cannot find. For what could be more foolish than to seek and seek and seek again for hell, when you have but to look with open eyes to find that Heaven lies before you, through a door that opens easily to welcome you?

Come home. You have not found your happiness in foreign places, and in alien forms which have no meaning to you, though you sought to make them meaningful. This world is not where you belong. You are a stranger here. But it is given you to find the means whereby the world no longer seems to be a prison house for you or anyone.

Freedom is given you where you beheld but chains and iron doors. For you must change your mind about the purpose of the world, if you would find escape. You will be bound till all the world is seen by you as blessed, and everyone made free of your mistakes and honored as one is. You made one not; no more yourself. And as you free the one, the other is accepted as one is.

What does forgiveness do? In truth it has no function and does nothing, for it is unknown in Heaven. It is only hell where it is needed, and where it must serve a mighty function. Is not the escape of God’s beloved Child from evil dreams that one imagines, yet believes are true, a worthy purpose? Who could hope for more while there appears to be a choice to make between success and failure; love and fear?

There is no peace except the peace of God because One has one Child, who cannot make a world in opposition to God’s Will and to one’s own, which is the same as One’s. What could one hope to find in such a world? It cannot have reality because it never was created. Is it here that one would seek for peace? Or must one see that, as one looks on it, the world can but deceive? Yet can one learn to look on it another way, and find the peace of God.

Peace is the bridge that everyone will cross to leave this world behind. But it begins within the world perceived as different, and leading from this fresh perception to the gate of Heaven and the way beyond. Peace is the answer to conflicting goals, to senseless journeys, frantic, vain pursuits and meaningless endeavors. Now the way is easy, sloping gently toward the bridge where freedom lies within the peace of God.

Let us not lose our way again today. We go to Heaven, and the path is straight. Only if we attempt to wander can there be delay, and needless wasted time on thorny byways. God alone is sure, and One will guide our footsteps. One will not desert One’s Child in need, nor let one stray forever from one’s home. The Creator calls; the Child will hear. And that is all there is to what appears to be a world apart from God, where bodies have reality.

Now is there silence. Seek no further. You have come to where the road is carpeted with leaves of false desires, fallen from the trees of hopelessness you sought before. Now are they underfoot. And you look up and on toward Heaven, with the body’s eyes but serving for an instant longer now. Peace is already recognized at last, and you can feel its soft embrace surround your heart and mind with comfort and with love.

Today we seek no idols. Peace can not be found in them. The peace of God is ours, and only this will we accept and want. Peace be to us today. For we have found a simple, happy way to leave the world of ambiguity, and to replace our shifting goals and solitary dreams with single purpose and companionship. For peace is union if it be of God. We seek no further. We are close to home, and draw still nearer every time we say:

“There is no peace except the peace of God,

And I am glad and thankful it is so.”

Lesson 181-200 Introduction

Our next few lessons make a special point of firming up your willingness to make your weak commitment strong; your scattered goals blend into one intent. You are not asked for total dedication all the time, as yet. But you are asked to practice now in order to attain the sense of peace such unified commitment will bestow, if only intermittently. It is experiencing this which makes it sure that you will give your total willingness to following the way the course sets forth.

Our lessons now are geared specifically to widening horizons, and direct approaches to the special blocks which keep your vision narrow, and too limited to let you see the value of our goal. We are attempting now to lift these blocks, however briefly. Words alone can not convey the sense of liberation which their lifting brings. But the experience of freedom and of peace that comes as you give up your tight control of what you see speaks for itself. Your motivation will be so intensified that words become of little consequence. You will be sure of what you want and what is valueless.

And so we start our journey beyond words by concentrating first on what impedes our progress still. Experience of what exists beyond defensiveness remains beyond achievement while it is denied. It may be there, but you cannot accept its presence. So we now attempt to go past all defenses for a little while each day. No more than this is asked because no more than this is needed. It will be enough to guarantee the rest will come.

Review 6

For this review, we take but one idea each day, and practice it as often as is possible. Besides the time you give morning and evening, which should not be less than fifteen minutes, and the hourly remembrances you make throughout the day, use the idea as often as you can between them. Each of these ideas alone would be sufficient for salvation, if it were learned truly. Each would be enough to give release to you and to the world from every form of bondage, and invite the memory of God to come again.

With this in mind, we start our practicing in which we carefully review the thoughts the Holy Spirit has bestowed on us in our last twenty lessons. Each contains the whole curriculum if understood, practiced, accepted, and applied to all the seeming happenings throughout the day. One is enough. But for that one, there must be no exceptions made. And so we need to use them all, and let them blend as one as each contributes to the whole we learn.

These practice sessions, like our last review, are centered round a central theme with which we start and end each lesson. It is this:

“I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.”

The day begins and ends with this. And we repeat it every time the hour strikes, or we remember, in between, we have a function that transcends the world we see. Beyond this, and a repetition of the special thought we practice for the day, no form of exercise is urged, except a deep relinquishment of everything that clutters up the mind, and makes it deaf to reason, sanity and simple truth.

We will attempt to get beyond all words and special forms of practicing for this review. For we attempt this time to reach a quickened pace along a shorter path to the serenity and peace of God. We merely close our eyes, and then forget all that we thought we knew and understood. For thus is freedom given us from all we did not know and failed to understand.

There is but one exception to this lack of structuring. Permit no idle thought to go unchallenged. If you notice it, deny its hold and hasten to assure your mind that this is not what it would have. Then gently let the thought which you denied be given up in sure and quick exchange for the idea you practice for the day.

When you are tempted, hasten to proclaim your freedom from temptation, as you say:

“This thought I do not want. I choose instead…”

And then repeat the idea for the day, and let it take the place of what you thought. Beyond such special applications of each day’s idea, we will add but a few formal expressions or specific thoughts to aid your practicing. Instead we give these times of quiet to the Teacher Who instructs in quiet, speaks of peace, and gives our thoughts whatever meaning they may have.

To One I offer this review for you. I place you in One’s charge, and let One teach you what to do and say and think each time you turn to One. One will not fail to be available to you each time you call to One to help you. Let us offer One the whole review we now begin, and let us also not forget to Whom it has been given, as we practice day by day, advancing toward the goal One set for us; allowing One to teach us how to go, and trusting One completely for the way each practice period can best become a loving gift of freedom to the world.

Lesson 201

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

“I trust my siblings, who are one with me.”   Lesson 181

No one but is my sibling. I am blessed with oneness with the universe and God, my Creator, One Creator of the whole that is my Self, forever One with me.

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 202

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

“I will be still an instant and go home.”   Lesson 182

Why would I choose to stay an instant more where I do not belong, when God Oneself has given me One’s Voice to call me home?

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 203

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

“I call upon God’s Name and on my own.”   Lesson 183

The Name of God is my deliverance from every thought of evil and of sin, because it is my own as well as One’s.

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 204

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

“The Name of God is my inheritance.”   Lesson 184

God’s Name reminds me that I am One’s Child, not slave to time, unbound by laws which rule the world of sick illusions, free in God, forever and forever one with One.

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 205

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

“I want the peace of God.”   Lesson 185

The peace of God is everything I want. The peace of God is my one goal; the aim of all my living here, the end I seek, my purpose and my function and my life while I abide where I am not at home.

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 206

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

“Salvation of the world depends on me.”   Lesson 186

I am entrusted with the gifts of God, because I am One’s Child. And I would give One’s gifts where One intended them to be.

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 207

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

“I bless the world because I bless myself.”   Lesson 187

God’s blessing shines upon me from within my heart, where One abides. I need but turn to One, and every sorrow melts away as I accept One’s boundless Love for me.

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 208

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

“The peace of God is shining in me now.”   Lesson 188

I will be still, and let the earth be still along with me. And in that stillness, we will find the peace of God. It is within my heart, which witnesses to God Oneself.

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 209

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

“I feel the Love of God within me now.”   Lesson 189

The Love of God is what created me. The Love of God is everything I am. The Love of God proclaimed me as One’s Child. The Love of God within me sets me free.

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 210

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

“I choose the joy of God instead of pain.”   Lesson 190

Pain is my own idea. It is not a thought of God, but one I thought apart from One and from One’s Will. One’s Will is joy and only joy for One’s beloved Child. And that I choose instead of what I made.

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 211

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

“I am the holy Child of God Oneself.”   Lesson 191

In silence and in true humility I seek God’s glory, to behold it in the Child whom One created as my Self.

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 212

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

“I have a function God would have me fill.”   Lesson 192

I seek the function that would set me free from all the vain illusions of the world. Only the function God has given me can offer freedom. Only this I seek, and only this will I accept as mine

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 213

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

“All things are lessons God would have me learn.”   Lesson 193

A lesson is a miracle which God offers to me, in place of thoughts I made that hurt me. What I learn of One becomes the way I am set free. And so I choose to learn One’s lessons, and forget my own.

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 214

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

“I place the future in the hands of God.”   Lesson 194

The past is gone; the future is not yet. Now am I freed from both. For what God gives can only be for good. And I accept but what One gives as what belongs to me.

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 215

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

“Love is the way I walk in gratitude.”   Lesson 195

The Holy Spirit is my only Guide. One walks with me in love. And I give thanks to One for showing me the way to go.

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 216

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

“It can be but myself I crucify.”   Lesson 196

All that I do I do unto myself. If I attack, I suffer. But if I forgive, salvation will be given me.

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 217

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

“It can be but my gratitude I earn.”   Lesson 197

Who should give thanks for my salvation but myself? And how but through salvation can I find the Self to Whom my thanks are due?

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 218

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

“Only my condemnation injures me.”   Lesson 198

My condemnation keeps my vision dark, and through my sightless eyes I cannot see the vision of my glory. Yet today I can behold this glory, and be glad.

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 219

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

“I am not a body. I am free.”   Lesson 199

I am God’s Child. Be still, my mind, and think a moment upon this. And then return to earth without confusion as to what my Creator loves forever as One’s Child.

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 220

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

“There is no peace except the peace of God.”   Lesson 200

Let me not wander from the way of peace, for I am lost on other roads than this. But let me follow One Who leads me home, and peace is certain as the Love of God.

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

1st Principle of Miracles

There is no order of difficulty among miracles. One is not “harder” or “bigger” than another. They are all the same. All expressions of love are maximal.

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

Christ to Helen: This is a course in miracles, please take notes.

You will see miracles through your hands through me. You should begin each day with the prayer:

“Help me to perform whatever miracles you want of me today.”

2nd Principle of Miracles

Miracles as such do not matter. The only thing that matters is their Source, Which is far beyond human evaluation.

3rd Principle of Miracles

Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense, everything that comes from love is a miracle.

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

Christ: This braking communication by thinking it’s cute, is not wrong, it diverts your attention.

Helen: That’s true.

Christ: Of course, it’s true, and I’m really glad you get the idea. I am NOT ANGRY when this kind of thing happens, but the lesson deteriorates under lack of focus.

Please read these three points, with corollaries, as often as you can today, because there may be a quiz this evening. This is merely to introduce structure, if it is needed. It is NOT to frighten you.

Helen: Would you regard this communication as a kind of miracle maybe?

Christ: You better read that now.

There is nothing special or surprising about this at all. The ONE thing that happened was the Universal Miracle which was the experience of intense love that you have felt. (Don’t get embarrassed by the idea of love. Things that are true are NOT embarrassing. Embarrassment is only a form of fear, and actually a particularly dangerous form because it reflects egocentricity.)

No, don’t think of how Bill will find this fascinating, either. I told you to re-read them and you did not.

Helen: I am now.

Christ: DO NOT feel guilty about the fact that you are doubting this. Just re-read them, and their truth will come to you. I love you. And I am not afraid or embarrassed or doubtful. MY strength will support you, so don’t worry and leave the rest to me.

Do not run to Bill to tell him. There will be time, but don’t disrupt things. I’ll arrange the schedule. You have a lot to do today, get dressed or you will be late. But when you DO see Bill, be SURE you tell him how much he helped you through by giving you the right message. And don’t bother with worrying about how you received it. That doesn’t matter either. You were just afraid.

4th Principle of Miracles

All miracles mean life, and God is the Giver of life. One’s Voice will direct you very specifically.

PLAN AHEAD is good advice in this world, where you should and must control and direct where you have accepted responsibility. But the Universal Plan is in more appropriate hands. You will know all you need to know. Make NO attempts to plan ahead in this respect.

5th Principle of Miracles

Miracles are habits and should be involuntary. Consciously selected miracles can be misguided.

6th Principle of Miracles

Miracles are natural. When they do NOT occur something has gone wrong.

7th Principle of Miracles

Miracles are everyone’s right, but purification is necessary first.

8th Principle of Miracles

Miracles are healing because they supply a lack in that they are performed by those who temporarily have more for those who temporarily have less.

9th Principle of Miracles

Miracles are a kind of exchange. Like all expressions of love, which are ALWAYS miraculous in the true sense, the exchange reverses the physical laws: they bring MORE love both to the giver AND the receiver.

10th Principle of Miracles

The use of miracles as spectacles to INDUCE belief is a misunderstanding of their purpose. They are really used FOR and BY believers.

11th Principle of Miracles

Prayer is the medium of miracles. Prayer is the natural communication of the created with the Creator. Through prayer love is received, and through miracles love is expressed.

12th Principle of Miracles

Miracles are thoughts. Thoughts can represent lower-order or higher-order reality. This is the basic distinction between intellectualizing and thinking. One makes the physical and the other creates the spiritual, and we believe in what we make or create.

13th Principle of Miracles

Miracles are both beginnings and endings, thus they alter the temporal order. They are always affirmations of rebirth, which seem to go back, but really go forward. They undo the past in the present, and thus release the future.

14th Principle of Miracles

Miracles bear witness to truth. They are convincing because they arise from conviction. Without conviction they deteriorate into magic, which is mindless, and therefore destructive—or rather, the uncreative use of mind.

15th Principle of Miracles

Each day should be devoted to miracles. The purpose of time is to enable you to learn to use it constructively. Time is thus a teaching device, and a means to an end. It will cease when it is no longer useful in facilitating learning.

Since only eternity is real. Why not use the illusion of time constructively?

16th Principle of Miracles

Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating that it is more blessed to give than to receive. They simultaneously increase the strength of the giver and supply strength to the receiver. BE VERY CAREFUL in interpreting this.

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

Helen to Christ: Regarding Wally, does this mean he is on my miracles list?

Whether he is or not depends on a three way readiness. I am ALWAYS ready. Your job is to take care of YOUR readiness. His readiness is up to him.

At present he is a POTENTIAL candidate. But Amy is on it now.

She is a child you hurt. The whole problem is that they threw the miracle away and are denying it. Therefore they are now afraid of it. This should cause YOU no trouble at all in understanding.

You and Bill both have an identification problem, which makes you unstable but in different ways. He lacks confidence in his identification and needs to strengthen it. You vacillate in your identification and need better control.

Both of you needn’t worry.

You must love the children and help them. You have hated them and hurt them, but remember Azra [Helen], that you once loved them very much. You were a child of light. Forget the interval of darkness and be what you were. That is your real Self.

Chip’s story triggered the abandonment of the children, guilt, and a fear of God’s abandonment as justice. I told you I forgave you and that meant all hurt and hate you have ever experienced is cancelled. I need the children of light now. And I am calling you to be what you once were and must be again.

The interval has vanished without a trace anywhere. You who lived so close to God must not give way to guilt.

The Karmic Law demands abandonment for abandoning, but you have received God’s mercy, not human justice.

Help the children because you love them and love God.

Remember a miracle is a spark of Life. It shines through the darkness and brings in the light. You must begin to forget and remember.

I have healed the children you hurt before, but I have some I need your help in healing NOW.

Remember that there is no order in miracles because they are ALWAYS MAXIMAL expressions of love. You DID make a maximal effort for Chip and the ONLY reason you did it was because you loved Bill.

You might tell him to think about that sometimes because he DOES need signs of love. But he doesn’t always recognize them because he does not have enough confidence. You practically gave up your life for him quite voluntarily, but you did not know then that what you were REALLY giving up was death. This is what “in dying you live” really means. And I said Myself that greater love than this no man hath.

Stop crying or you won’t be fit to live now. Don’t worry about Susie. YOU are helping Chip’s readiness, and he did better than you with this one. This is unfair to you. Remember what you told him about Bobby. Chip is almost ready.

As noted earlier, your identification is strong but erratic, and that is why you have so much will power but use it wrong at times. Bill was right about that misuse of it when you were sick, and IT WAS a sign of superhuman will totally misdirected. Your body does not need it, but your spirit does. And I need it too.

The purpose of this course is integration. I told you that you will not be able to use it right until you have taken it. As long as your identification vacillates, (and Bill’s is weak) you cannot accept the gift that belongs to you. You are still vacillating between recognizing the gift and throwing it away. Bill regards himself as too weak to accept it. You do not yet know its healing power. After you have passed the course, you will accept it and keep it and use it. That is the final exam, which you will have no trouble in passing. Midterm marks are not entered in the permanent record.

17th Principle of Miracles

Miracles are the transcendence of the body. They are sudden shifts into invisibility, away from a sense of lower-order reality. That is why they heal.

18th Principle of Miracles

A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service you can render another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. The doer recognizes one’s own and one’s neighbor’s inestimable worth simultaneously.

This is why no areas of hatred can be retained. If you retain them your own value is no longer inestimable. You have set it at infinity minus that amount. This is meaningless mathematically, which uses the term “inestimable” only in the very literal sense.

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

I threw that in for Bill (who originally did not get it) because he DOES need special signs of love. He doesn't really, but he DOES think so.

Now tell him homosexuality is lacking in love only to the extent it is based on the principle of exclusion. Everybody should love everybody.

It is wrong to deny the beauty of some spirits because of body structures of which you are afraid. This is essentially an unhealthy attempt to limit fear, but fear cannot be limited, just as love cannot have limits.

Heterosexual attitudes can be similarly distorted, but DO contain a more natural POTENTIAL, since sex relations are intended for having children. You and Bill have misunderstood sex, because you regard it as a way of establishing human contact for YOURSELVES. This has led to body-image problems.

Children are miracles in their own right. They already have the gift of life and their parents provide them with the opportunity to express it.

Nothing physical, mental or spiritual should be used selfishly. The pleasure from using anything should come from utililizing it for God's will.

You should live so that God is free to arrange temporary human constellations as One sees fit.

DO NOT interpret this in terms of guilt. Many chldren who are already here need spiritual parents. The poor are always with us, and many who are born have not been reborn.

Human birth, maturation and development is a microcosmic representation of a much larger process of creation and development of abilities. It is subject to error as long as the real purpose of free will is misunderstood and misdirected. The real function of parents is to be wiser than their children in this respect, and to teach them accordingly.

19th Principle of Miracles

Miracles make minds one in God. They depend on cooperation, because the Christhood is the sum of all the Spirits God created. Miracles therefore rest on the laws of eternity, not of time.

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

Christ to Helen: As long as you take accurate notes, every word is meaningful. But I can’t always get through. Whenever possible I will correct retroactively. Be SURE to note all later corrections. This means that you are more receptive than you were when I tried before.

By the way, it is not true that you are both ‘JUST SCRIBES’. You might remember that the Scribes were very wise and holy men and are even sometimes spelled with a capital S. If you want to go further, you might change the meaning of ‘just’ from ‘merely’ to ‘honest’, a term used in the Bible in association with ‘might’ or ‘strength.’ Tell Bill you couldn’t make that pun if the original phrasing had been singular.

Remind Bill to get another notebook. I don’t give up as easily as HE does. If I could get YOU to listen, which was a miracle in itself, I can get him to register. He should appreciate this more than anyone else, having had some trouble with this problem himself.

20th Principle of Miracles

Miracles reawaken the awareness that the Spirit, not the body, is the altar of truth. This is the recognition that leads to the healing power of the miracle.

Your abilities will be very useful when they come under involuntary control rather than involuntary LACK of control. Following the right involuntary Guide will enable you to recognize both physical AND spiritual dangers, and will provide the means for avoiding each of them in the most efficient way.

This is a case in which the end DOES justify the means. It is only when means and ends are not of the same order of reality that there is fear. This fear arises out of the inescapable awareness, which you were given by God for all time, that only the appropriate means can work for the different kinds of ends you must accomplish before you can achieve your one end.

This awareness is a built-in check which was necessary if you were to use the temporary expedient of time usefully. While there is time, communion and bread both are necessary. Without either, you feel deprived, and you cannot escape this by confusing the two. All depression and all fear and embarrassment ultimately stem from this confusion.

21st Principle of Miracles

Miracles are natural expressions of total forgiveness. Through miracles, you accepts God’s forgiveness by extending it to others.

The second step is inherent in the first, because light cannot tolerate darkness. Light, by definition, dispels darkness automatically.

22nd Principle of Miracles

Miracles are associated with fear only because of the fallacious belief that darkness can HIDE. You believes that what you cannot see does not exist, and your physical eyes cannot see in the dark. This is a very primitive solution, and has led to a denial of the Spiritual eye.

The escape from darkness involves two stages, one lower, one higher:

1. The recognition that darkness CANNOT hide. This step usually entails fear.

2. The recognition that there is nothing you WANT to hide, even if you COULD. This step brings ESCAPE from fear.

When you have become willing to hide nothing, you will not only be willing to enter into communion, but will also understand peace and joy. Your commitment is not yet total, and that is why you still have more to learn than to teach. When your equilibrium stabilizes, you will be able to teach as much as you learn, which will give you the proper balance. Meanwhile, remember that no effort is wasted, for unless you remember this, you cannot avail yourselves of MY efforts, which ARE limitless.

23rd Principle of Miracles

Miracles rearrange the order of perception, and places the levels in their true perspective. This heals at ALL levels, because ALL sickness comes from confusing the levels.

The reason for your difficulty with this is not that you doubt or distantiate or cannot believe. It is more a reaction formation against a pull which you recognize is so intense that you are afraid. You think you will be uprooted.

“Lord heal me” is the only legitimate prayer. This also means “Lord atone for me,” because the only thing you should pray for is forgiveness. You HAVE everything else.

Now take this personally and listen to Divine logic:

If, when you have been forgiven, you have everything else,

and YOU HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN,

then, you HAVE everything else.

This happens to be the simplest of all propositions:

If, P then Q

P

therefore Q

Your real question is, is P true? If you will review the evidence, I think you will find this inescapable. I went on very personal record to this effect, and I am the only completely true witness for God. You have every right to examine my credentials. In fact, I urge you to do so. It may have been years since you have read the Bible.

24th Principle of Miracles

Miracles enable you to heal the sick and raise the dead because you made sickness and death yourself, and can abolish both. YOU are a miracle, capable of creating in the likeness of your Creator. Everything else is only your own nightmare, and does not exist. Only the Creations of Light are real.

25th Principle of Miracles

Miracles are part of an interlocking chain of forgiveness which, when completed, is the Atonement. This process works all the time, and in all the dimensions of time.

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

For example, Helen, you did a report rewrite for Esther. Esther had hurt something you loved, by writing a report you regarded as very bad. You atoned for her by writing one in her name that was very good. Actually, it was not your responsibility professionally to do this, but because you DO love the Shield you recognized that in this case, you ARE your sibling’s keeper. While you did not cancel Esther’s sin (later defined as “lack of love”) you DID cancel out its EFFECTS.

Someday I want to tell Esther that not only is she forgiven but that the effects of all her sins are cancelled. This is what I have already told you. When I can tell her, she will be afraid for a long time, because she will remember many things, consciously or unconsciously, including the Shield report, a lack of love which you cancelled out in advance by a miracle of devotion.

I am in charge of the process of Atonement, which I undertook to begin. My Atonement was for the canceling out of all sins (i.e., lack of love) which human beings could not otherwise correct. That is what the Biblical statement “underneath are the Everlasting Arms” means.

I would have undone Esther’s sin to everyone who was affected by it myself, of course, but this would not have helped YOU. The reason it was a miracle was because it not only atoned for Esther, but also for You because it kept the children from harm. I could have secured the new grant for the Shield anyway, being a Board Member of NIH. But this way I could cancel out some of YOUR sins as well as Esther’s, and I sit on your Boards too.

The reason why you found rewriting that so taxing was because you resented Esther’s sin, and thought she put you in a very unfair position. But no-one can really do this to anybody. If you had known that you were really performing a miracle for the Shield, for Esther, for yourself, and for Me, you would have done it with REAL JOY.

I am always here to protect against Assumption failure. (That’s a special pun for Bill. He is still under the impression that he needs special signs of love.) Note also that the special language here is a combination of both yours AND his. You two come together in My Name.

When you offer a miracle unto any of my siblings, you do it unto YOURSELF AND ME. When YOU know that you will do it with REAL JOY, because when you atone through miracles both giver and receiver are atoning. “Inasmuch as you do it unto the least of these, my siblings,” really ends with, “you do it unto yourself and ME.” The reason YOU come before ME is that I do not need miracles for my own Atonement, but I stand at the end in case you fail temporarily. The purpose of my part in the Atonement is the canceling out of all “sin” which a person could not otherwise correct.

26th Principle of Miracles

Miracles represent FREEDOM from fear. “Atoning” really means “undoing.” The undoing of fear is an essential part of the Atonement value of miracles.

The word “sin” should be changed to “lack of love,” because “sin” is a human-made word with threat connotations which one made up oneself. No REAL threat is involved anywhere. Just because nature abhors a vacuum, it does NOT follow that the vacuum is filled with “hellfire”. Nothing is gained by frightening yourselves, and it is very disruptive to do so.

The purpose of the Atonement is to restore everything TO you—or rather, to restore it to your AWARENESS. You were GIVEN everything when you were created, just as everyone was. When you have been restored to the recognition of your original state, you naturally become part of the Atonement yourself. You now share MY inability to tolerate lack of love in yourself and in everyone else, and MUST join the GREAT CRUSADE to correct it. The slogan for the Crusade is:

“Listen, learn, and DO.”

This means, LISTEN to my voice.

LEARN to undo error.

DO something to correct it.

The first two are not enough. The real members of the Great Crusade are ACTIVE workers.

The power to work miracles BELONGS to you. I will provide the opportunities for you to do them, but YOU must be ready and willing to DO them, since you are already able. Doing them will bring conviction in the ability.

I repeat, “You will see miracles through your hands through MINE.”

Conviction really comes through accomplishment. Remember that ability is the potential, Achievement is its expression and Atonement is the Purpose.

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

Helen: Lord, I will leave my desire to help him in your hands. If you will tell me what to do, only that I will to do.

Christ: And that, Helen, IS the Answer.

Helen: The impact of this was incredibly intense, like a great burst of unexpected clarity. It was briefly so compelling that it seemed as though there was nothing else at all. The whole world just disappeared.

When it faded out there was no after-effect, except a dim sense of wonder which also faded out, though a trifle slower.

I was told to write nothing else that evening, but we’d pickup the course again in the morning. It was also explained that that kind of experience is at the Revelation level, which is different but not by any means out of accord.

27th Principle of Miracles

A miracle is a universal blessing from God through me to ALL my siblings. No spirit can rest until everyone has found salvation. It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive.

The disciples were officially and specifically told to heal others as physicians of the Lord. They were also told to HEAL THEMSELVES, and were promised that I would never leave them or forsake them. Atonement is the natural profession of the Children of God, because they have professed me. The children need both strength and help. You cannot help until you are strong. The everlasting arms are your strength, and the wisdom of God is your help.

“Heaven and earth shall pass away” simply means that they will not continue to exist as separate states. My word, which is the Resurrection and the Life, shall not pass away because Life is eternal. YOU are the work of God, and One’s work is wholly lovable and wholly loving. This is how you MUST think of yourself in your heart, because this is what you ARE.

28th Principle of Miracles

Miracles are a means of organizing different levels of consciousness. Miracles come from the below or subconscious level. Revelations come from the above or superconscious level. The conscious level is in between, and reacts to either sub- or superconscious impulses in varying ratios. Consciousness is the level which engages in the world, and is capable of responding to both. The content of consciousness is fleeting. Having no impulses from itself, and being primarily a mechanism for inducing response, it can be very wrong.

For example, if the identification is with the body, consciousness may distort superconscious impulses by denying their source and seeking their impact in the orgasm. This is the result of “mistaken identity.” If you will look at the EFFECTS of revelation, you will see there there ARE some similarities in the experiential results, but hardly in the content.

Revelation induces complete but temporary suspension of doubt and fear. It represents the original form of communication between God and One’s Spirits, involving an extremely personal sense of closeness to Creation, which one tries to find in physical relationships. This confusion is responsible for the depression and fear which are often associated with sex. Sex frequently involves lack of love. But revelation is PURELY a love experience. Physical closeness CANNOT achieve this. The subconscious impulses properly induce miracles, which ARE genuinely interpersonal, and result in real closeness to others. This can be misunderstood by a PERSONALLY willful consciousness as impulses toward sexual gratification.

Revelation unites Spirits directly with God. Miracles unite minds directly with each other. Neither emanates from consciousness, but both are EXPERIENCED there. This is essential, since consciousness is the state which INDUCES action, though it DOES NOT inspire it. One is free to believe what one chooses, and what one DOES attests to what one believes. The deeper levels of the subconscious ALWAYS contain the impulse to miracles, but one is free to fill its more superficial levels, which are closer to consciousness, with the impulses of this world, and to identify oneself with them. This results in DENYING oneself access to the miracle level underneath. In one’s actions, then, one’s relationships also become superficial, and miracle-inspired relating becomes impossible.

29th Principle of Miracles

Miracles are a way of EARNING release from fear. Revelation induces a state in which fear has ALREADY been abolished. Miracles are thus a means, and revelation is an end. Miracles do not depend on revelation—they INDUCE it.

Revelation is intensely personal, and cannot actually be translated into conscious content at all. That is why any attempt to describe it in words is usually incomprehensible. Revelation induces ONLY experience. Miracles, on the other hand, induce ACTION. Miracles are more useful now, because of their interpersonal nature. In this phase of learning, working miracles is more important because freedom from fear cannot be thrust upon you. The experience cannot last.

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

Tell Bill that miracles DO NOT depend on Revelation. They INDUCE it. He is quite capable of miracles already, but he is still too fearful for Revelations.

Note, Helen, that YOUR Revelation occurred specifically after you had engaged at the visionary level in a process of DENYING fear.

Tell Bill that your propensity for Revelation, which is very great, is the result of a high level of past communion. Its transitory nature comes from the descent into fear, which has not yet been overcome. His own “suspended” state mitigates both extremes. This has been very apparent in the course of both of your recent developmental patterns.

Miracles are the essential course of ACTION for both of you. They will strengthen him and stabilize you.

NOTE that the much more personal than usual notes you are taking today reflect the Revelatory experience. This DOES NOT produce the more generalizable quality which this course is aimed at. They may, nevertheless, be of great help to Bill personally, since you asked for something that WOULD help him personally. It depends on how he listens, and how well he understands the COOPERATIVE nature of this, your joint experience. You [Helen Schucman] can help only by reading this note FIRST. Ask him later if this should be included in the written part of the course at all or whether you should keep these notes separately. He is in charge of these decisions.

Tell Bill he should try to understand the VERY important difference between Christ-control and Christ-guidance. This is what made him fearful yesterday.

30th Principle of Miracles

Miracles praise God through you. They praise God by honoring One’s Creations, affirming their perfection. They heal because they deny body-identification and affirm Spirit-identification. By perceiving the Spirit, they adjust the levels and see them in proper alignment. This places the Spirit at the center, where minds can communicate directly.

31st Principle of Miracles

Miracles should inspire gratitude, not awe. One should thank God for what one really is. The Children of God are very holy, and the miracle honors their holiness.

God’s Creations never lose their holiness, although it can be hidden. The miracle uncovers it, and brings it into the light where it belongs. Holiness can never be really hidden in darkness, but one can deceive oneself on this point. This illusion makes one fearful, because in one’s heart one KNOWS it is an illusion. Like all illusions, one exerts enormous efforts to establish its reality. The miracle sets validity where it belongs. Eternal validity belongs only to the Spirit, and the miracle acknowledges only the truth. It thus dispels one’s illusions about oneself, and puts one in communion with oneself AND with God.

32nd Principle of Miracles

Christ inspires all miracles, which are really intercessions. They intercede for one’s holiness, and make one’s perceptions holy.

By placing one beyond the physical laws, they raise one into the sphere of celestial order. In THIS order, one IS perfect. The Spirit never loses its communion with God. Only the mind NEEDS Atonement. The miracle joins in the Atonement of Christ by placing the mind in the service of the Spirit. This establishes the proper function of the mind, and corrects its errors.

33rd Principle of Miracles

Miracles honor one BECAUSE one is lovable. They dispel one’s illusions about oneself, and perceive the Light in one. They thus atone for one’s errors by freeing one from one’s own nightmares WHICH ARE ABOUT ONESELF.

They release one from a prison in which one has imprisoned ONESELF, and by freeing one’s mind from illusions, they restore one’s sanity and place one at the feet of Jesus.

One’s mind CAN be possessed by illusions, but one’s Spirit is eternally free. If a mind creates without love it creates an empty shell. This CAN be possessed by “evil”. But the Atonement restores the Spirit to its proper place. Unless there is emptiness there is no danger, and emptiness is a false creation. The mind that serves the Spirit is invulnerable.

34th Principle of Miracles

Miracles restore the mind to its fullness. By atoning for lack, they establish perfect protection. The strength of the Spirit leaves no room for intrusions. The forgiven are filled with the Spirit, and they forgive in return. The forgiven ARE the means of Atonement. Those released by Christ must join in releasing their siblings, for this is the Plan of the Atonement.

35th Principle of Miracles

Miracles are the way in which minds that serve the spirit unite with Christ for the salvation or release of all God’s creations.

Possession is very closely related to projection. “Lucifer” could literally be translated “light-bearer”, who literally PROJECTED oneself from Heaven. Projection still has this hurling connotation, because it involves hurling something you DO NOT want, and regard as dangerous and frightening, to someone else. This is the opposite of the Golden Rule, and having placed this rule upside down, the reverse of miracles, or projection, follows automatically. The correction lies in accepting what is true in YOURSELF, by bringing ALL that you are into the light.

One of the major problems with miracle workers is that they are so sure that what they are doing is right, because they KNOW it stems from love, that they frequently do not pause to let ME establish MY limits.

While what they do comes from me, they often CANNOT be induced to ask me each time whether I want them to perform THIS PARTICULAR miracle. If they did, they would not perform any miracles that could not get through constructively, and would thus save themselves unneccessary strain. Instead, some burn themselves out with indiscriminate miracles, and to this extent do not fulfill their own full purpose. The Disciples were also prone to this.

The answer is to NEVER perform a miracle without asking me IF YOU SHOULD. This spares you from exhaustion. Just because miracles are expressions of love, it does NOT follow that they will always have observable effects. I am the only one who can perform miracles indiscriminately, because I AM the Atonement. You have a ROLE in the Atonement, which I will dictate TO you.

Remember, you already have a principle about the involuntary nature of miracles. We have also established the fact that everything involuntary belongs under Christ-control to replace former habits which DID produce scarcity in place of abundance. From errors of this kind the sense of deprivation IS inevitable but very easily corrected.

Possession really means “NOT under Christ-control,” thus making the mind vulnerable to projection. The idea of earthbound entities entering into bodies really refers to being “taken over” by your own “earthbound” thoughts. This IS demon possession. After all, Lucifer fell, but one was still an angel. One is thus the symbol for humanity. Atonement is the knowledge that the belief angels can fall is false. It is true that mind can make projections as well as miracles, but it is NOT true that projections are REAL. This is what is meant by “the truth shall set you free.”

You need to understand the very important difference between Christ-control and Christ-guidance. Christ-controlled miracles are part of the Atonement, but Christ-guidance is personal and leads to PERSONAL salvation. The impersonal nature of miracles is an essential ingredient, because this enables ME to control their distribution. Christ-guidance leads to the highly PERSONAL experience of revelation. This is why it involves PERSONAL choice. A guide does NOT control, but one does DIRECT, leaving the following up to you. “Lead us not into temptation” means “guide us out of our own errors.” “Take up thy cross and follow me” means “recognize your errors and choose to abandon them by following my guidance.”

When you are afraid of possession, remember that error cannot really threaten truth, which can ALWAYS withstand it. ONLY the error is really vulnerable. The “Princesses and Princes of this World” are royalty only because they are really angels. But they are free to establish their realm where they see fit. If they will remember that ALL royalty INHERIT their power from the Monarch the right choice is inevitable if they remember this:

“The Spirit is in a state of Grace forever.

One’s reality is ONLY one’s Spirit.

Therefore one is in a state of Grace forever.”

Atonement undoes all errors in this respect, and thus uproots the REAL source of fear. WHENEVER God’s reassurances are experienced as threat, it is ALWAYS because you are defending misplaced and misdirected love and loyalty. That is what projection always involves.

“Casting spells” merely means “affirming error,” and error is lack of love. When one projects this lovelessness onto others, one DOES imprison them, but only to the extent that one reinforces errors they have ALREADY made. These distortions make them vulnerable to the curse of others, since they have already cursed themselves. The miracle worker can ONLY bless, and thus undoes their distortions, and frees them from prison.

36th Principle of Miracles

Miracles are examples of right thinking. Reality contact at all levels becomes strong and accurate, thus permitting correct delineation of intra– and interpersonal boundaries. As a result, the doer’s perceptions are aligned with truth as God created it.

37th Principle of Miracles

A miracle is a correction factor introduced into false thinking by me. It acts as a catalyst, shaking up erroneous perception, and reorganizing it properly. This places one under the Atonement principle, where one’s perception is healed. Until this has occurred, revelation of the Divine order is impossible.

38th Principle of Miracles

The Spiritual eye is the mechanism of miracles because what the Holy Spirit perceives IS true. One perceives both the Creations of God and the creations of one. Among the creations of one, One can also separate the true from the false by One’s ability to perceive totally, rather than selectively. One thus becomes the proper instrument for reality testing, which always involves the necessary distinction between the false and the true.

39th Principle of Miracles

The miracle dissolves error because the Holy Spirit identifies error as false, or unreal. This is the same as saying that by perceiving light, darkness automatically disappears.

Darkness is lack of light, as sin is lack of love. It has no unique properties of its own. It is an example of the “scarcity” fallacy, from which ONLY error can proceed. Truth is always abundant. Scarcity can lead to overeating or false pregnancy notions. Abundance eliminates those drives. Those who perceive and acknowledge that they have everything have no need for driven behavior of ANY kind.

40th Principle of Miracles

The miracle acknowledges all as your siblings and mine. It is a way of perceiving the universal mark of God in them.

The specialness of God’s Children does NOT stem from exclusion, but from inclusion. ALL my siblings are special. Miracles are a blessing from parents to children. This is just another way of phrasing the prior principle “from those who have more to those who have less.” Children do NOT belong to parents, but they DO need to share their greater abundance. If they are deprived, their perception becomes distorted. When this occurs, the whole family of God—the Christhood—is impaired in its relationships. Ultimately, every member of the family of God must return. The miracle calls one to return, because it blesses and honors one even though one may be absent in spirit.

“God is not mocked” is not a warning, but a reassurance on this point. God WOULD be mocked if any of One’s Children lacked holiness. The Child IS whole, and the mark of wholeness is holiness.

41st Principle of Miracles

Wholeness is the perceptual content of miracles. It thus corrects, or atones for, the faulty perception of lack anywhere.

Here we begin to make the fundamental distinction between miracles and projection. The stimulus MUST precede the response, and will also determine the kind of response that is evoked. The relationships of stimulus and response are EXTREMELY intimate. Behavior IS response, so the question “response to what?” becomes crucial. Since stimuli are identified through perception, you first perceive the stimulus and then behave accordingly. It follows, then, that:

“As ye perceive,

So shall ye behave.”

The Golden Rule asks you to behave toward others as you would have them behave toward you. This means that the perception of BOTH must be accurate. The Golden Rule is the rule for appropriate behavior. You cannot behave appropriately unless you perceive accurately, because appropriate behavior DEPENDS on lack of level confusion. The presence of level confusion ALWAYS results in variable reality testing, and therefore in variability in behavioral appropriateness.

All forms of self image debasement are FUNDAMENTAL perceptual distortions. They inevitably produce either self-contempt or projection, and usually both.

Since you and your neighbor are equal members of the same family, as you perceive both, so you will behave toward both. The way to perceive for Golden Rule behavior is to look out from the perception of your OWN holiness, and perceive the holiness of others.

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

Bill and you need considerable clarification of the channel role. Look carefully at Mrs. Albert. She is working miracles every day, because she knows who she is. I emphasize again that your tendency to forget names is not hostility, but a fear of involvement or RECOGNITION. You had misinterpreted human encounters as opportunities for magic rather than for miracles and so you tried to PROTECT THE NAME. This is a very ancient and primitive way of trying to protect a person. (NOTE the very old Jewish practice of changing the name of a person who is very ill, so that when the list is given to the Angel of Death, the person with that name will not be found.)

This is a good example of the curiously literal regression which can occur in very bright people when they become afraid. You and Bill both do it. Actually, it is a device closely related to the phobia, in the sense that they both narrow fear to a simple aspect of a much larger problem in order to enable them to avoid it.

A similar mechanism works when you get furious about a comparatively minor infraction by someone to whom you are ambivalent. A good example of this is your response to Jonathan, who DOES leave things around in very strange ways. Actually, he does this because he thinks that by minor areas of disorganization he can protect his stability. I remind you that you have done this yourself for years, and should understand it very well. This should be met with great charity, rather than with great fury.

The fury comes from your awareness that you do not love Jonathan as you should, and you narrow your lack of love by centering your hate on trivial behavior in an attempt to protect him from it. You also call him Jonathan for the same reason (see previous reference).

Note that a name is a human symbol that “stands for” a person. Superstitions about names are very common for just that reason. That is also why people sometimes respond with anger when their names are spelled or pronounced incorrectly.

Actually, the Jewish superstition about changing the names was a distortion of a revelation about how to alter or avert death. What the revelation’s proper content was that those “who change their mind” (not name) about destruction (or hate) do not need to die. Death is a human affirmation of a belief in hate. That is why the Bible says “There is no death,” and that is why I demonstrated that death does not exist. Remember that I came to FULFILL the law by REINTERPRETING it. The law itself, if properly understood, offers only protection to people. Those who have not yet “changed their minds” have entered the “hellfire” concept into it.

Remember, I said before that because “nature abhors a vacuum,” it does NOT follow that the vacuum is filled with hell fire. The emptiness engendered by fear should be replaced by love, because love and its absence are in the same dimension, and true correction cannot be undertaken except WITHIN a dimension. Otherwise, there has been a confusion of levels.

Returning to Mrs. Albert (not Andrews), she corrected your error about her name without embarrassment and without hostility, because she has NOT made your own mistake about names.

She is not afraid, because she knows she is protected. She made the correction ONLY because you were inaccurate, and the whole question of embarrassment did not occur to her.

She was also quite unembarrassed when she told you that everything has to be done to preserve life, because you never can tell when God may come and say “Get up, Dave,” and then he will.

She did not ask what YOU believed first, and afterwards merely added “and it’s true, too.” The RIGHT answer to the sentence completion test item is: WHEN THEY TOLD ME WHAT TO DO, I “referred the question to the only REAL authority.”

You took a lot of notes on “Those who are ashamed of Me before men, them will I be ashamed of before God.” This was rather carefully clarified, even though the quotation is not quite right, but it doesn’t matter.

The important thing is that elsewhere in the Bible it also says “Those who represent (or plead for) Me to men will be represented (or pleaded for) BY Me before God.” (Note: This quotation is also not the correct Biblical phrasing, but it IS what it means.) Note that one who represents also “witnesses for.” The quotation thus means that you represent or “witness for” the authority in whom you believe.

YOUR witnessing demonstrates YOUR belief, and thus strengthens it.

I assure you that I will witness for anyone who lets me, and to whatever extent one permits it.

Those who witness for me are expressing, through their miracles, that they have abandoned the belief in deprivation in favor of the abundance they have learned BELONGS to them.

42nd Principle of Miracles

A MAJOR contribution of miracles is their strength in releasing one from one’s misplaced sense of isolation, deprivation and lack. Miracles are affirmations of Christhood, which is a state of completion and abundance. Whatever is true and real is eternal, and CANNOT change or BE changed. The Spirit is therefore unalterable because it is ALREADY perfect, but the mind can elect the level it chooses to serve. The ONLY limit which is put on its choice is that it CANNOT serve two masters.

While the ballot itself is a secret one, and the right to vote is fully protected, voting ALWAYS entails both election AND rejection. If two candidates are voted for the ballot cancels automatically, because a split vote does not represent ANY REAL ALLEGIANCE.

Free will is an attribute of the mind, NOT Spirit. Spirit always remains changeless, because it never leaves the sight of God. The Creation of Spirit is already fully accomplished. The mind, if it elects to do so, becomes a medium by which the Spirit creates along the line of its own Creation. If it does not freely elect to do so, it retains its creative POTENTIAL, but places itself under tyrannous rather than genuinely authoritative control. As a result it imprisons, because such are the dictates of tyrants. To “change your mind” means to place it at the disposal of TRUE Authority.

The miracle is thus a sign that the mind has chosen to be led by Christ in One’s service. The abundance of Christ is the natural result of choosing to follow One.

43rd Principle of Miracles

Miracles arise from a miraculous state of mind. By being one, this state of mind goes out to ANYONE, even without the awareness of the miracle worker oneself. The impersonal nature of miracles is because the Atonement itself is one, uniting all creations with their Creator.

44th Principle of Miracles

The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ, and the acceptance of One’s Atonement. The mind is then in a state of grace, and naturally becomes gracious, both to the Host within and the stranger without. By bringing in the stranger, one becomes your sibling.

45th Principle of Miracles

A miracle is never lost. It touches many people you do not even know, and sometimes produces undreamed of changes in forces of which you are not even aware. That is not your concern. The miracle will always bless YOU. The miracles you are NOT asked to perform have not lost their value. They are still expressions of your own state of grace, but the ACTION aspect of the miracle should be Christ-controlled because of One’s complete awareness of the Whole Plan. The impersonal nature of miracle-mindedness ensures YOUR grace, but only Christ is in a position to know where grace can be BESTOWED.

46th Principle of Miracles

Miracle-mindedness means miracle-readiness. Readiness means that you should always keep your perceptions straight, so that you will ALWAYS be ready, willing and able. These are the essentials for “listen, learn and do.” You must be READY to listen, WILLING to learn, and ABLE to do. Only the last is involuntary, because it is the APPLICATION of miracles which must be Christ-controlled. The other two, which are the VOLUNTARY aspects of miracle-mindedness, ARE up to you.

47th Principle of Miracles

The miracle is a sign of love among equals. Equals cannot be in awe of one another because awe implies inequality.

Awe is an inappropriate response to miracles. Revelation is literally unspeakable because it is an experience of unspeakable love. Awe should be reserved for revelation, to which it is perfectly and correctly applicable. It is NOT appropriate for miracles because a state of awe is worshipful. It implies that one of a lesser order stands before a greater one. This is the case ONLY when a Spirit stands before its Creator. Spirits are perfect creations, and should experience awe in the Presence of the Creator of Perfection.

The miracle, on the other hand, is a sign of love among equals. Equals cannot be in awe of one another because awe implies inequality. It is therefore an inappropriate reaction to me. An elder sibling is entitled to respect for one’s greater experience, and a reasonable amount of obedience for one’s greater wisdom. One is also entitled to love because one IS a sibling, and also to devotion if one is devoted. It is only my devotion that entitles me to yours. There is nothing about me that YOU cannot attain. I have nothing that does not come from God. The main difference between us as yet is that I have NOTHING ELSE. This leaves me in a state of true holiness, which is only a POTENTIAL in you.

“No one cometh unto the Creator but by me” is among the most misunderstood statements in the Bible. It DOES NOT mean that I am in any way separate or different from you EXCEPT IN TIME, which does not really exist at all. Actually, the statement is more meaningful if it is considered on a vertical rather than a horizontal axis. Regarded along the vertical, you stands below me and I stand below God. In the process of “rising up,” I AM higher. This is because, without me, the distance between God and humans would be too great for them to encompass.

I bridge the distance as an elder sibling to you on the one hand, and as a Child of God on the other. My devotion to my siblings has placed me in charge of the Christhood, which I can render complete only to the extent to which I can SHARE it. This may appear to contradict the statement “I and my Creator are one,” but there are still separate parts in the statement, in recognition that the Creator is greater. (The original statement was “are of one kind”). The Holy Spirit is the Bringer of Revelations. Revelations are INDIRECTLY inspired by me, because I am close to the Holy Spirit, and alert to the revelation-readiness of my siblings. I can thus BRING down to them more than they can DRAW down to themselves.

48th Principle of Miracles

The Holy Spirit is the Highest Communication Medium. Miracles do not involve this type of communication because they are TEMPORARY communication devices. When one returns to one’s original form of communication with God, the need for miracles is over. The Holy Spirit mediates higher to lower communication, keeping the direct channel from God to one open for revelation. Revelation is not reciprocal. It is always FROM God TO one. The miracle IS reciprocal because it involves equality.

In the longitudinal or horizontal plane, the recognition of the true equality of all the members of the Christhood appears to involve almost endless time. But we know that time is only an artifact introduced as a learning aid.

The miracle is a learning device which lessens the need for time. The sudden shift from horizontal to vertical perception which the miracle entails introduces an interval from which the doer and receiver both emerge much farther along in time than they would otherwise have been.

The miracle thus has the unique property of abolishing time by rendering the space of time it occupies unnecessary. There is NO relationship between the time a miracle TAKES and the time it COVERS. It substitutes FOR learning that might have taken thousands of years. It does this by the underlying recognition of perfect equality and holiness between the doer and the receiver on which the miracle rests. It is unstable but perfectly consistent, that is, it does not occur predictably across time, and it rarely occurs in comparable forms, but within ITSELF it is perfectly consistent. Since it contains NOTHING BUT an acknowledgement of equality and worth, all parts ARE equal. This establishes the prerequisite for validity.

We said before that the miracle abolishes time. It does this by a process of COLLAPSING it, and thus abolishing certain INTERVALS within it. It does this, however, WITHIN the larger temporal sequence. The validity of the miracle then, is PREDICTIVE, not logical, within the temporal schema. It establishes an out-of-pattern time interval which is NOT under the usual laws of time. Only in this sense is it timeless. By collapsing time it literally saves time, much as daylight saving time does. It rearranges the distribution of light.

49th Principle of Miracles

The miracle is the only device which one has at one’s immediate disposal for controlling time. Only revelation TRANSCENDS time, having nothing to do with time at all.

The miracle is much like the body, in that both are learning aids which aim at facilitating a state in which they are unnecessary. When the Spirit’s original state of direct communication is reached, neither the body nor the miracle serves any purpose. While one believes one is IN a body, however, one can choose between loveless OR miraculous channels of creativity. One can create an empty shell, but one DOES NOT create nothing at all. One can wait, delay, paralyze oneself, reduce one’s creativity to almost nothing, and even induce a developmental arrest or even a regression. But one CANNOT abolish one’s creativity. One can destroy one’s medium of communication, but NOT one’s potential.

One was NOT created by one’s own free will. Only what ONE creates is one’s to decide. The basic decision of the miracle-minded is NOT to wait on time any longer than is necessary. Time can waste as well as be wasted. The miracle-worker, therefore, accepts the time-control factor gladly, because one recognizes that every collapse of time brings all people closer to the ultimate RELEASE from time, in which the Child and the Creator ARE one.

The real meaning of “are of one kind” is “of one mind or will.” When the will of the Christhood and the Creator are one, their perfect accord IS Heaven. Equality does not imply homogeneity NOW. When EVERYONE has EVERYTHING, individual contributions to the Christhood will no longer be necessary. When the Atonement has been completed, ALL talents will be shared by ALL the Children of God. God is NOT partial. All One’s children have One’s total Love, and ALL One’s gifts are freely given to everyone alike.

“Except ye become as little children” means that, unless you fully recognize your complete dependence on God, you cannot know the real power of the Child in one’s true relationship with the Creator. You DO have special talents which are needed for the Celestial speedup at this time. But note that the term speed-up is not one which relates to the TRANSCENDING of time. When time is abolished and all of the Children of God have come home, no special agents will be necessary. But do not underestimate the power of special agents now, or the great need there is for them. I do not claim to be more than that myself. No one in one’s RIGHT MIND ever wants either more or less than that. Those who are called on to witness for me NOW are witnessing for all people as I am.

Fantasies are distorted forms of thinking, because they always involve twisting perception into unreality. Fantasy is a debased form of vision. Vision and Revelations are closely related. Fantasies and projections are more closely associated because both attempt to control external experience according to false internal needs. “Live and let live” happens to be a very meaningful injunction. Twist reality in any way and you are perceiving destructively. Reality was lost through usurpation, which in turn produced tyranny. I told you you have a role in the Plan of Atonement, but you must still choose freely to devote your heritage to the greater Restoration. As long as a single slave remains to walk the earth, your release is not complete. COMPLETE restoration of the Christhood is the only true goal of the miracle-minded.

Sexual fantasies are distortions of perception by definition. They are a means of making false associations, and obtaining pleasure from them. One can do this only because one IS creative. But although one can perceive false associations, one can never make them real except to oneself. As was said before, one believes in what one creates. If one creates a miracle, one will be equally strong in one’s belief in that. The strength of one’s conviction will then sustain the belief of the miracle receiver.

NO fantasies, sexual or otherwise, are true. Fantasies become totally unnecessary as the wholly satisfying nature of reality becomes apparent. The sex impulse IS a miracle impulse when it is in proper focus. One individual sees in another the right partner for joint establishment of a creative home. This does not involve fantasy at all. If I am asked to participate in the decision, the decision will be a RIGHT one too.

In a situation where you or another person or both experience inappropriate sex impulses, KNOW FIRST that this is an expression of fear. Your love toward each other is NOT perfect, and this is why the fear arose. Turn immediately to me by denying the power of fear, and ask me to help you to replace it with love. This shifts the sexual impulse immediately to the miracle-impulse, and places it at MY disposal.

Then acknowledge the true creative worth of both yourself AND the other. This places strength where it belongs. Note that sexual fantasies are ALWAYS depletive in that they perceive another in an inappropriate creative role. Both people are perceived essentially as objects fulfilling THEIR OWN pleasure drives. This lack of sharing is the source of DEPLETING use of sex. Freud also observed that the tension from the sexual impulses never completely abates. The shift from miracle impulses to sexual impulses was debilitating in the first place, because of the level-confusion involved. This set up a state in which real release was impossible.

Inappropriate sex relaxes only in the sense that it may induce physical sleep. The miracle, on the other hand, is an ENERGIZER. It always strengthens and never depletes. It DOES induce peace, and by establishing tranquility—not relaxation—it enables both giver and receiver to enter into a state of GRACE. Here one’s miracle-mindedness—not release from tension—is restored.

Tension is the result of a building-up of unexpressed miracle-impulses. This can be truly abated only by releasing the miracle-drive which has been blocked. Converting it to sexual libido merely produces further blocking. Never foster this illusion in yourself, or encourage it in others. An “object” is incapable of release, because it is a concept which is DEVOID of creative power. The recognition of the real creative power in yourself AND others brings release because it brings peace. The peace of God which passeth understanding CAN keep your hearts now and forever.

Remember that you who want peace can find it only by complete forgiveness. You never really WANTED peace before, so there was no point in being told how to achieve it. No learning is acquired by anyone unless one wants to learn it, and believes in some way that one NEEDS it. A psychologist does NOT need a lesson on the hierarchy of needs as such, but like everyone else, one DOES need to understand one’s own. While the concept of lack does not exist in the Child of God, it is VERY apparent in the creations of one’s own. It is, in fact, the essential difference. A need implies lack by definition. It involves the recognition that you would be better off in a state which is somehow different from the one you are in.

Until the “separation,” which is a better term than the “fall,” nothing was lacking. This meant that one had no needs at all. If one had not deprived oneself, one would never have experienced them.

After the separation, needs became the most powerful source of motivation for human action. All behavior is essentially motivated by needs, but behavior itself is not a Divine attribute. The body is the mechanism for behavior. The belief that one COULD be better off is the reason why one has this mechanism at one’s disposal. That is why the Bible says, “By their DEEDS you shall know them.” Each one acts according to the particular hierarchy of needs one establishes for oneself. One’s hierarchy, in turn, depends on one’s perception of what one IS; that is, what one LACKS. This establishes one’s OWN rules for what one needs to know.

Separation from God is the ONLY lack one really needs to correct. This sense of separation would never have occurred if one had not distorted one’s perception of truth, and thus perceived ONESELF as lacking. The concept of ANY sort of need HIERARCHY arose because, having made this fundamental error, one had already fragmented oneself into levels with DIFFERENT needs. As one integrates ONE becomes one, and one’s ONE need becomes one accordingly. Only the fragmented can be confused about this.

Internal integration within the self will not correct the lack fallacy, but it WILL correct the NEED fallacy. Unified need produces unified action because it produces a lack of ambivalence. The concept of a need hierarchy, a corollary to the original error that one can be separated from God, requires correction at its OWN level, before the error of perceiving levels at all can be corrected. One cannot behave effectively while one operates at split levels. However, while one does, correction must be introduced from the bottom UP. This is because one now operates in space, where concepts such as “up” and “down” are meaningful. Ultimately, space is as meaningless as time. The concept is really one of space-time BELIEF. The physical world exists only because one can use it to correct one’s UNBELIEF, which placed one in it originally. As long as one KNEW one did not need anything, the whole device was unnecessary.

The dream of the “perfect partner” is an attempt to find EXTERNAL integration, while retaining conflicting needs in the self. While no sexual behavior involves magic, it IS a magic belief to engage in ANY form of body IMAGING activity at all. You neither created yourselves, nor controlled your creation. By introducing levels into your own perception, you opened the way for body-image distortions.

The lack of love—or faulty need-orientation—which led to your particular person, not OBJECT, choices CAN BE corrected within the EXISTING framework and would HAVE to be in the larger interest of overall progress. The situation is questionable largely because of its inherest vulnerability to fantasy gratification. Doing the best you can WITHIN this limitation is probably the best corrective measure at present.

Any relationship you have undertaken for whatever reasons becomes a responsibility. If you shift your own needs, some amount of corresponding shift in the need-orientation of the other person MUST result. This will be beneficial even if the partner was originally attracted to you BECAUSE of your disrespect. Teaching devices which are totally alien to a learner's perceptual system are usually merely disruptive. Transfer depends on SOME common elements in the new situation which are understandable in terms of the old.

One can never control the effects of fear oneself because one CREATED fear, and believes in what one creates. In attitude, then, though NOT in content, one resembles one’s own Creator, Who has perfect faith in One’s Children BECAUSE One created them. All creation rests on belief and the belief in the creation produces its existence. That is why one can believe in what no one else thinks is true. It is true for one because it was made BY one.

Every aspect of fear proceeds from upside-down perception. The more truly creative devote their efforts to correcting perceptual distortions. The neurotic devotes one’s to compromise. The psychotic tries to escape by establishing the certain truth of one’s own errors. It is most difficult to free this one by ordinary means, because one is more consistent in one’s own denial of truth. The miracle, however, makes no such distinctions. It corrects errors BECAUSE they are errors. Thus, the next point to remember about miracles is:

The miracle makes NO distinction among degrees of misperception.

50th Principle of Miracles

The miracle makes NO distinction among degrees of misperception. It is a device for perception-correction, effective quite apart from either the degree or the direction of the error. This is its TRUE indiscriminateness.

Christ-controlled miracles are selective ONLY in the sense that they are directed towards those who can use them for THEMSELVES. Since this makes it inevitable that they will extend them to others, a strong chain of Atonement is welded. However, Christ-control takes no account at all of the MAGNITUDE of the miracle itself, because the concept of size exists in a plane that is itself unreal. Since the miracle aims at RESTORING the awareness of reality it would hardly be useful if it were bound by the laws which govern the error it aims to correct. Only human beings makes this kind of mistake. It is an example of the foolish consistency which one’s own false beliefs have engendered.

Both the power and strength of one’s creative will must be understood before the real meaning of denial can be appreciated and relinquished. Denial is NOT mere negation. It is a positive miscreation. While the miscreation is NECESSARILY believed in by its maker, it does not exist at all at the level of true creation.

51st Principle of Miracles

The miracle compares what one has made with the higher level creation, accepting what is in ACCORD as true and rejecting the DISCORDANT as false.

This is why the miracle is so closely associated with validity. Real validity is both true AND useful, or better, it is useful BECAUSE it is true. All aspects of fear are untrue because they DO NOT exist at the higher creative levels, and therefore do not exist at all. To whatever extent one is willing to submit one’s beliefs to this test, to that extent are one’s perceptions corrected.

In sorting out the false from the true, the miracle proceeds along the following lines;

If perfect love casts out fear,

And if fear exists,

Then there is NOT perfect love.

But

Only perfect love REALLY exists.

If there IS fear,

It creates a state which does not exist.

Believe this, and you WILL be free. Only God can establish this solution and THIS faith IS One’s gift.

51st Principle of Miracles

The miracle compares what one has made with the higher level creation, accepting what is in ACCORD as true and rejecting the DISCORDANT as false.

This is why the miracle is so closely associated with validity. Real validity is both true AND useful, or better, it is useful BECAUSE it is true. All aspects of fear are untrue because they DO NOT exist at the higher creative levels, and therefore do not exist at all. To whatever extent one is willing to submit one’s beliefs to this test, to that extent are one’s perceptions corrected.

In sorting out the false from the true, the miracle proceeds along the following lines;

If perfect love casts out fear,

And if fear exists,

Then there is NOT perfect love.

But

Only perfect love REALLY exists.

If there IS fear,

It creates a state which does not exist.

Believe this, and you WILL be free. Only God can establish this solution and THIS faith IS One’s gift.

Text Chapter 1 - Introduction to Miracles

1.2 Distortions Of Miracle Impulses

One must contribute to one’s readiness here as elsewhere. The readiness for faith as for everything else that is true, entails the two steps necessary for the release from fear.

Denial of fear, in human terms, is a strong defense becaues it entails two levels of error:

1. That truth CAN be denied and

2. That absence of truth can be effective.

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

EXPERIENCING fear, which is more characteristic of Bill, involves only the second error. However, these differences do not affect the power of the miracle at all, since only THE DISTANCE BETWEEN truth and error are its concern.

YOU are both more miracle-minded, and less able to recognize fear because of your stronger, but split, identification. Bill, also characteristically, is less miracle-minded, but better able to recognize fear, because his identification is more consistently right but weaker.

Together, the conditions needed for consistent miracle-mindedness, the state in which fear has been abolished, can be particularly well worked out. In fact, it WAS already well worked out before.

Your idea about the real meaning of “possession” should be clarified. Your own denial of fear (this refers to a visionary experience of Helen Schucman) introduced some error variance, but not really a significant amount. However, there is always a chance that as the size of the sample increases, what was non-significant before MAY ATTAIN significance, so we had better get this out of the way now while you are still within the safety margin.

Fear of possession is a perverted expression of the fear of the irresistible attraction of God. (Aside. Yes, this DOES apply to homosexuality, among other errors, where the whole concept of possessing, or “entering” is a key worry or fear. It is a symbolic statement of an inverted decision NOT to enter into, or possess, the Realm of God. In physical terms, which it emphasizes because of the inherent error of Soul avoidance, REAL physical creation is avoided, and fantasy gratification is substituted.)

The truth is still that the attraction of God is irresistible at ALL levels, and the acceptance of this totally unavoidable truth is only a matter of time. But you should consider whether you WANT to wait, because you CAN return now, if you choose.

Note to Helen Schucman: You are writing this with improper motivation, but we will try anyway. If you are to stop, do so immediately.

Fear of possession is a perverted expression of the irresistible attraction OF GOD. The truth is still that THE ATTRACTION OF GOD IS IRRESISTIBLE AT ALL LEVELS, and the acceptance of this totally unavoidable truth is only a matter of time. But you should consider whether you WANT to wait, because you CAN return now, if you choose.

Possession is a concept which has been subject to numerous distortions. Some of which we will list below:

1) Possession can be associated with the body only. If this occurs, sex is particularly likely to be contaminated. Possession versus being possessed is apt to be seen as the male and female role. Since neither will be conceived of as satisfying alone, and both will be associated with fear, this interpretation is particularly vulnerable to psychosexual confusion.

2) From a rather similar misperceptual reference point, possession can also be associated with things. This is essentially a shift from 1), and is usually due to an underlying fear of associating possession with people. In this sense, it is an attempt to PROTECT people.

Both 1) and 2) are likely to become compulsive for several reasons, including:

a. They represent an attempt to escape from the REAL possession-drive, which CANNOT be satisfied this way.

b. They set up substitute goals which are relatively easy to obtain.

c. They may APPEAR to be relatively harmless and SEEM to allay the fear. The fact that they usually interfere with good interpersonal relationships can be interpreted, in this culture, as a lack of “sophistication” on the part of the OTHER (not the self) and this induces a false feeling of confidence in the solution based on reliability NOT validity. It is also fairly easy to find a partner who SHARES the illusion. Thus we have any number of relationships which are actually ESTABLISHED on the basis of 1) { possession associated with bodies} and others which HOLD TOGETHER primarily because of the joint interests in 2) { possession associated with things}

d. The manifestly EXTERNAL emphasis which both entail seems to be a safety device, and thus permits a false escape from much more basic inhibitions. As a compromise solution, the ILLUSION of interpersonal relating is preserved, along with the retention of the lack of love component. This kind of psychic juggling leaves the JUGGLER with a feeling of emptiness, which in fact is perfectly justified, because one IS acting from scarcity. One then becomes more and more driven in one’s behavior, to fill the emptiness.

When these “solutions” have been invested with extreme belief, 1) { possession associated with bodies } leads to sex crimes, and 2) { possession associated with things } leads to stealing. The kleptomaniac is a good example of the latter.

Generally two types of emotional disturbances result:

a. The tendency to maintain the illusion that only the physical is real. This produces depression.

b. The tendency to invest the physical with non-physical properties. This is essentially magic and tends more towards anxiety proneness.

c. The tendency to vacillate from one to the other, which produces a corresponding vacillation between depression AND anxiety.

BOTH result in self-imposed starvation.

3) Another type of distortion is seen in the fear of or desire for “spirit” possession. The term “spirit” is profoundly debased in this context, but it DOES entail a recognition that the body is not enough and investing it with magic will not work. This recognition ACCEPTS the fact that neither 1) { possession associated with bodies } or 2) { possession associated with things } is sufficient, but, precisely BECAUSE it does not limit fear so narrowly, it is more likely to produce greater fear in its own right.

Endowing the Spirit with human possessiveness is a more INCLUSIVE error than 1) { possession associated with bodies } or 2) { possession associated with things }, and a step further away from the “Right Mind.” Projection is also more likely to occur, with vacillations between grandiosity and fear. “Religion” in a distorted sense is also more likely to occur in this kind of error, because the idea of a “spirit” is introduced, though fallaciously, while it is excluded from 1) { possession associated with bodies } or 2) { possession associated with things }.

Witchcraft is thus particularly apt to be associated with 3) { possession associated with “spirits” } because of the greater investment in magic.

It should be noted that 1) { possession associated with bodies } involves only the body, and 2) { possession associated with things } involves an attempt to associate things with human attributes. 3) { possession associated with “spirits” }, on the other hand, is a more serious level confusion, because it endows the Spirit with EVIL attributes. This accounts both for the religious zeal of its proponents, and the aversion (or fear) of its opponents. Both attitudes stem from the same false belief.

This is NOT what the Bible means by “possessed of the Holy Spirit.” It is interesting to note that even those who DID understand that could nevertheless EXPRESS their understanding inappropriately. The concept of “speaking in many tongues” was originally an injunction to communicate to everyone in one’s own language, or at one’s own level. It hardly meant to speak in a way that NOBODY can understand. This strange error occurs when people DO understand the need for Universal communication, but have contaminated it with possession fallacies. The fear engendered by this misperception leads to a conflicted state in which communication IS attempted, but the fear is allayed by making the communication incomprehensible.

It could also be said that the fear induced selfishness, or regression, because incomprehensible communication is hardly a worthy offering from one Child of God to another.

4) Knowledge can also be misinterpreted as a means of possession. Here, the content is not physical, and the underlying fallacy is more likely to be the confusion of mind and brain. The attempt to unite non-physical content with physical attributes is illustrated by statements like “the thirst for knowledge.”

The fallacious use of knowledge can result in several errors, including:

a. The idea that knowledge will make the individual more attractive to others. This is a possession fallacy.

b. The idea that knowledge will make the individual invulnerable. This is a reaction formation against the underlying fear of vulnerability.

c. The idea that knowledge will make the individual worthy. This is largely pathetic.

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

Both you and Bill should consider type 4) { the fallacious use of knowledge } VERY carefully. Like all of these fallacies, it contains a denial mechanism, which swings into operation as the fear increases, thus cancelling out the error temporarily, but seriously impairing efficiency.

Thus, you claim you can’t read, and Bill claims that he can’t speak. Note that depression is a real risk here, for a Child of God should never REDUCE his efficiency in ANY way. The depression comes from a peculiar pseudo-solution which reads:

A Child of God is efficient.

I am not efficient.

Therefore, I am not a Child of God.

This leads to neurotic resignation, and this is a state which merely INCREASES the depression.

The corresponding denial mechanism for 1) { possession associated with bodies } is the sense of PHYSICAL inability or IMPOTENCE. The denial mechanism for 2) { possession associated with things } is often bankruptcy. Collectors of things often drive themselves well beyond their financial means, in an attempt to force discontinuance. If this idea of cessation cannot be tolerated, a strange compromise involving both insatiable possessiveness and insatiable throwing away (bankruptcy) may result. An example is the inveterate or compulsive gambler, particularly the horse-racing addict. Here, the conflicted drive is displaced both from people AND things, and is invested in animals. The implied DEROGATION of people is the cause of the underlying EXTREME superstition of the horse racing addict. The alcoholic is in a similar position, except that his hostility is more inward than outward directed.

You are involved in unconscious distortions which are producing a dense cover over miracle impulses, and which make it hard for them to reach consciousness. Sex and miracles are both WAYS OF RELATING. The nature of any interpersonal relationship is limited or defined by what you want it to DO, which is WHY you want it in the first place. Relating is a way of achieving an outcome.

Indiscriminate sexual impulses resemble indiscriminate miracle impulses in that both result in body image misperceptions. The first is an expression of an indiscriminate attempt to reach communion through the body. This involves not only the improper self identification but also the disrespect for the individuality of others. Self-control is NOT the whole answer to this problem, though I am by no means discouraging its use. It must be understood, however, that the underlying mechanism must be uprooted.

ALL shallow roots have to be uprooted because they are not deep enough to sustain you. The illusion that shallow roots can be deepened and thus made to hold is one of the corollaries on which the reversal of the Golden Rule referred to twice before is balanced. As these false underpinnings are uprooted—or given up—equilibrium is experienced as unstable. But the fact is that NOTHING is less stable than an orientation which is upside down. Anything that holds it this way is hardly conducive to greater stability.

The whole danger of defenses lies in their propensity for holding misperceptions rigidly in place. This is why rigidity is regarded AS stability by those who are off the mark. All actions which stem from reverse thinking are literally the behavioral expressions of those who know not what they do. A rigid orientation can be extremely reliable, even if it is upside-down. In fact, the more consistently upside-down it is, the MORE reliable it is.

However, validity is still the ultimate goal, which reliability can only serve. There was an artist who kept devoting himself to inventing better and better ways of sharpening pencils. He never created anything, but he had the sharpest pencil in town. The language here is intentional. Sex is often utilized on behalf of very similar errors. Hostility, triumph, vengeance, self-debasement, and all kinds of expressions of lack of love are often VERY clearly seen in the fantasies which accompany them. But it is a PROFOUND error to imagine that because these fantasies are so frequent, or occur so reliably, that this implies validity. Remember that while validity implies reliability, the relationship is NOT reversible. You can be wholly reliable and ENTIRELY wrong. While a reliable instrument DOES measure something, what USE is it unless you discover what the “something” is? Since validity is more important than reliability and is implied BY it, this course, then, will concentrate on validity, and let reliability fall naturally into place.

I want to finish the instructions about sex, because this is an area which the miracle worker MUST understand. How can one “come close” to others through the parts of one which are really invisible? The confusion of miracle impulses with physical impulses is a major source of perceptual distortion because it INDUCES, rather than straightens out, the basic level confusion which underlies the perception of all those who seek happiness with the instruments of this world. A desert is a desert is a desert. You can do anything you want in it, but you CANNOT change it from what it IS. It still lacks water, which is why it is a desert. The thing to do with a desert is to LEAVE.

Inappropriate sexual or physical impulses—misdirected miracle impulses—result in guilt if expressed and depression if denied. ALL real pleasure comes from doing God’s Will. Whenever it is NOT done an experience of lack results. This is because NOT doing the will of God IS a lack of Self.

Sex was intended as an instrument for physical creation to enable Spirits to embark on new chapters in their experience, and thus improve their RECORDS. The pencil was NOT an end in itself, it was an aid to the artist in one’s own creative endeavors. As Spirits made new homes for Spirits and guided them through the period of their own developmental readiness, one learned the role of the Creator Oneself. The whole process was set up as a learning experience in gaining Grace.

The pleasure which is derived from sex AS SUCH is reliable only because it stems from an error which people shared. AWARENESS of the error produces guilt. DENIAL of the error results in projection. CORRECTION of the error brings release.

The only VALID use of sex is procreation. It is NOT truly pleasurable in itself.

“Lead us not into temptation,”

means

“Do not let us deceive ourselves into believing that we can relate in peace to God or to our siblings with ANYTHING external.”

The “sin of Onan” was called a “sin” because it involved a related type of self-delusion; namely, that pleasure WITHOUT relating can exist. The concept of either the self or another as a “sex-OBJECT” epitomizes this strange reversal. It IS objectionable only because it is invalid. Upside down logic produces this kind of thinking.

Child of God, you were created to create the good, the beautiful, and the holy. Do not lose sight of this. The love of God, for a little while, must still be expressed through one body to another because the real vision is still so dim. Invite ME to enter anywhere temptation arises. I will change the situation from one of inappropriate sexual attraction to one of impersonal miracle-working. Everyone can use one’s body best by enlarging one’s perception so one can see the REAL vision. THIS VISION is invisible to the physical eye. The ultimate purpose of the body is to render itself unnecessary. Learning to do this is the only real reason for its creation.

The miracle worker’s prayer is, “If you will tell me what to do, ONLY THAT I will to do.” This prayer is the door that leads out of the desert forever.

Text Chapter 2 - The Illusion Of Separation

2.0 The Illusion Of Separation

This section deals with a fundamental misuse of knowledge, referred to in the Bible as the cause of the “fall,” or separation.

There are several introductory remarks which are intended to make these explanations less fear-provoking. The first is a couplet from Midsummer Night’s Dream:

“Be as thou were meant to be

See as thou were meant to see.”

It is noteworthy that these words were said by Oberon in releasing Titania from her own errors, both of being and perceiving. These were the words which re-established her true identity as well as her true abilities and judgement. The similarity here is obvious.

There are also some definitions which I asked you to take from the dictionary which will be helpful here. They are somewhat unusual, since they are not the first definitions which are given. Nevertheless, the fact that each of them does appear in the dictionary should be reassuring.

Project (verb): to extend forward or out.

Project (noun): a plan in the mind.

World: a natural grand division.

We will refer later to projection as related to both mental health and mental illness. We have already observed that one can create an empty shell, but one cannot create nothing at all. This emptiness provides the screen for the misuse of projection.

The Garden of Eden, which is described as a literal garden in the Bible, was not an actual garden at all. It was merely a mental state of complete need-lack. Even in the literal account, it is noteworthy that the pre-separation state was essentially one in which one needed nothing. The “tree of knowledge” is also an overly literal concept. These concepts need to be clarified before the real meaning of the separation, or the “detour into fear,” can be fully understood.

Text Chapter 2 - The Illusion of Separation

2.1 The Origin of Separation

To “project,” as defined above, is a fundamental attribute of God, which One gave to One’s Child. In the Creation, God projected One’s Creative Ability from Oneself to the Spirits One created, and One also imbued them with the same loving will to create. The Spirit has not only been fully created, but has also been created perfect. There is NO emptiness in it. Because of its likeness to its Creator, it is creative. No Child of God can lose this ability because it is inherent in what one IS, but one CAN use it inappropriately. Whenever projection is used inappropriately, it ALWAYS implies that some emptiness or lack exists, and that it is in one’s ability to put one’s OWN ideas there INSTEAD of truth.

If you consider carefully what this entails, the following will become quite apparent:

First, the assumption is implicit that what God created can be CHANGED by the mind of one.

Second, the concept that what is perfect can be rendered imperfect, or wanting, is accepted.

Third, the belief that one can distort the Creations of God, INCLUDING ONESELF, is accepted.

Fourth, the idea that, since one can create oneself, the direction of one’s own creation is up to ONE is implied.

These related distortions represent a picture of what actually occurred in the separation. None of this existed before, nor does it actually exist now. The world WAS made as “a natural grand division,” or a projecting outward of God. That is why everything that One created is like One. Projection, as undertaken by God, is very similar to the kind of inner radiance which the Children of the Creator inherit from One. It is important to note that the term “project outward” necessarily implies that the REAL source of projection is internal. This is as true of the Child as of the Creator.

The world, in the original connotation of the term, included both the proper Creation of the Child of God by God AND the proper creation by God’s Child in one’s right mind. The latter required the endowment of God’s Child by God with free will, because ALL loving creation is freely given. Nothing in these statements implies any sort of level involvement, or, in fact, anything except one continuous line of creation, in which all aspects are of the same order.

When the “lies of the serpent” were introduced, they were specifically called “lies” because they are not true. When one listened, all one heard was untruth. One does not have to continue to believe what is not true unless one chooses to do so. All of one’s miscreations can literally disappear in “the twinkling of an eye,” because they are merely visual misperceptions.

One’s Spiritual eye can sleep, but a sleeping eye can still see. What is seen in dreams seems to be very real. One translation of the Fall, a view emphasized by Mary Baker Eddy, and worthy of note, is that “a deep sleep fell upon Adam.” While the Bible continues to associate this sleep as a kind of anesthetic utilized for protection of Adam during the creation of Eve, Mrs. Eddy was correct in emphasizing that nowhere is there reference made to his waking up. While Christian Science is clearly incomplete, this point is much in its favor.

The history of people in the world has not yet been marked by any genuine or comprehensive reawakening or rebirth. This is impossible as long as people project in the spirit of miscreation. It still remains within one, however, to project as God projected One’s Own Spirit to one. In reality, this is one’s ONLY choice, because one’s free will was given one for one’s own joy in creating the perfect.

All fear is ultimately reducible to the basic misperception that one has the ability to USURP the power of God. It can only be emphasized that one neither CAN nor HAS been able to do this. In this fact lies the real justification for one’s escape from fear. The escape is brought about by one’s acceptance of the Atonement, which places one in a position to realize that one’s own errors never really occurred.

When the “deep sleep” fell upon Adam, he was in a condition to experience nightmares BECAUSE he was asleep. If a light is suddenly turned on while someone is dreaming a fearful dream, one may initially interpret the light itself as a part of one’s own dream, and be afraid of it. However, when one awakens, the light is correctly perceived as the RELEASE from the dream, which is no longer accorded reality. I would like to conclude this with the Biblical injunction, “Go ye and do likewise.”

It is quite apparent that this release depends on the kind of knowledge which was NOT referred to by the “Tree of Knowledge” which bore lies as fruit. The knowledge which illuminates rather than obscures is the knowledge which not only SETS you free, but which also shows you clearly that you ARE free.

The preceding sections were inserted because of the necessity of distinguishing between real and false knowledge. Having made this distinction, it is well to return to the errors listed previously. It might be well to recapitulate them here: The first involved the fallacy that only the physical is real. The second involved things rather than people. The third involves the endowment of the physical with non-physical properties. And the fourth clarified the misuse of knowledge. All of them were subsumed under posession fallacies. The denial mechanism for the endowment of the physical with non-physical qualities has already been set forth in some detail and will also continue after the following:

The corresponding denial mechanism for possession by or of bodies is the sense of PHYSICAL inability or IMPOTENCE. The denial mechanism for possession by or of things is often bankruptcy. Collectors of things often drive themselves well beyond their financial means, in an attempt to force discontinuance. If this idea of cessation cannot be tolerated, a strange compromise involving both insatiable possessiveness and insatiable throwing away may result. An example is the inveterate or compulsive gambler, particularly the horse-racing addict. Here, the conflicted drive is displaced both from people AND things, and is invested in animals. The implied DEROGATION of people is the cause of the underlying EXTREME superstition of the horse racing addict. The alcoholic is in a similar position, except that one’s hostility is more inward than outward directed. Defenses aimed at protecting, or retaining, error are particularly hard to undo, because they introduce second-order misperceptions which obstcure the underlying errors still further.

The pseudo-corrective mechanism of possesion of or by "spirits" is apt to be more varied because of the more inclusive nature of the error, which has already been mentioned. One aspect of possession/possessed fallacy can be raised to predominance. If this is attempted in connection with POSSESSING, it leads to the paranoid solution. The underlying component of "being possessed" in retained in the "persecution" fantasies which generally accompany. If "being possessed" is brought to ascendance, a state of some sort of possession by external forces results, but NOT with a major emphasis on attacking others. Attack BY others becomes the more obvious component. In the more virulent forms there is a sense of being possessed by demons, and unless there is vacillation with possession vs. being possessed, a catatonic solution is more likely than a paranoid one.

The FOCUSED paranoid has become more rigid in one's solution and centers on ONE source of projection to escape from vacillation. It should be noted that this type of paranoia is an upside down form of religion, because of its obvious attempt to unify into oneness.

Possession fallacies of bodies, things and knowledge are more likely to produce neurotic rather than psychotic states, though this is by no means guaranteed. However distortions relating to "spirit" possession are inherently more vulnerable to the psychotic direction, again because of the more fundamental level confusion which is involved. It should be noted, however, that the greater fear which is induced by distortions relating to spirit possession can ITSELF reach psychotic proportions, thus forcing the individual closer and closer to a psychotic solution.

It is emphasized here that these differences have no effect at all on the miracle, which can heal any of them with equal ease. This is because of the miracle’s inherent avoidance of within-error distinctions. Its SOLE concern is to distinguish between truth, on the one hand, and ALL kinds of error, on the other. This is why some miracles SEEM to be of greater magnitude than others. But remember the first point in this course: there is no order of difficulty in miracles. Lesson 1

The emphasis on mental illness which is marked in this and previous sections reflects the UNDOING aspect of the miracle. The DOING aspect is, of course, much more important, but a true miracle cannot occur on a false basis. Sometimes the undoing must precede it. At other times both can occur simultaneously, but you are not up to this at the moment.

Further insights into mental illness can be misused, and lead to preoccupation with one's own symptoms. This is why this area is less constructive for most people than a course primarily devoted to mental health. However, some professions will find some principles of mental illness constructive, especially those which are concerned with mental illness in others. This obviously includes psychologists.

The obvious correction for ALL types of the possession-fallacy is to redefine possession correctly. In the sense of “taking over,” the concept does not exist at all in divine reality, which is the only level of reality where real existence is a meaningful term.

No-one CAN be “taken over” unless one wills to be. However, if one places one’s mind under tyranny, rather than authority, one intrudes the submission/dominance concept onto free will oneself.  Miracle Principle 42  This produces the obvious contradiction inherent in any formulation that associates free will with imprisonment. Even in very mild forms, this kind of association is risky, and may spread quite unexpectedly, particularly under external stress. This is because it can be internally controlled ONLY if EXTERNAL conditions are peaceful. This is not safe, because external conditions are produced by the thoughts of many, not all of whom are pure in heart as yet.

Why should you be at THEIR mercy? This issue is VERY closely related to the whole possession issue. You insist on thinking that people CAN possess you, if you believe that their thoughts or the external environment can affect you, regardless of WHAT they think. You are perfectly unaffected by ALL expressions of lack of love. These can be either from yourself and others, or from yourself to others, or from others to you.

Peace is an attribute in YOU. You cannot find it outside. All mental illness is some form of EXTERNAL searching. Mental health is INNER peace. It enables you to remain unshaken by lack of love from without, and capable, through your own miracles OF CORRECTING the external conditions, which proceed from lack of love in others.

Text Chapter 2 - The Illusion of Separation

2.2 The Reinterpretation Of Defenses

When you are afraid of ANYTHING, you are acknowledging its power to hurt you. Remember that where your heart is, there is your treasure also. This means that you believe in what you VALUE. If you are AFRAID, you are VALUING WRONGLY. Human understanding will inevitably value wrongly, and, by endowing all human thoughts with equal power, will inevitably DESTROY peace. That is why the Bible speaks of “The peace of God which PASSETH (human) understanding.” THIS peace is totally incapable of being shaken by human errors of ANY kind. It denies the ability of ANYTHING which is not of God to affect you in ANY way.

This is the PROPER use of denial. It is not used to HIDE anything, but it IS used to correct error. It brings ALL error into the light, and since error and darkness are the same, it corrects error automatically. True denial is a powerful protective device. You can and should deny any belief that error can hurt you. This kind of denial is NOT a concealment device, but a correction device. The “right mind” of the mentally healthy DEPENDS on it.

You can do ANYTHING I ask. I have asked you to perform miracles, and have made it VERY clear that miracles are NATURAL, CORRECTIVE, HEALING, AND UNIVERSAL. There is nothing good they cannot do, but they cannot be performed in the spirit of doubt. Remember my own question, before you ask yours, “Oh ye of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”

God and the Spirits One created ARE symbiotically related. They are COMPLETELY dependent on each other. The creation of the Spirit has already been perfectly accomplished, but the creation BY Spirit has not. God created Spirit so One could depend on them BECAUSE One created them perfectly. One gave them One’s peace so they could not be shaken, and would be unable to be deceived. Whenever you are afraid, you ARE deceived. Your mind is NOT serving the Spirit. This literally starves the Spirit by denying its daily bread.

God offers ONLY mercy. Your words should ALWAYS reflect only mercy because that is what you have received, and that is what you should GIVE. Justice is a temporary expedient, or an attempt to teach one the meaning of mercy. Its JUDGEMENTAL side arises only because one is capable of INJUSTICE, if that is what one’s mind creates. You are afraid of God’s Will because you have used your own will, which One created in the likeness of One’s Own, to MISCREATE. What you do NOT realize is that the mind can miscreate ONLY when it is NOT free. An imprisoned mind is not free, by definition. It is possessed, or held back, by ITSELF. Its will is therefore limited, and is not free to assert itself. It is alright to remember the past, PROVIDED you also remember that ANYTHING you suffer is because of YOUR OWN ERRORS.

Denial of error is a powerful defense of truth. You will note that we have been shifting the emphasis from the negative to the positive use of denial. As we have already stated, denial is not a purely negative device; it results in positive miscreation. That is the way the mentally ill DO employ it. It has been said: “Never underestimate the power of denial.” In the service of the “right mind,” the denial of ERROR frees the mind and reestablishes the freedom of the will. When the will is REALLY free, it CANNOT miscreate because it recognizes ONLY TRUTH.

False projection arises out of FALSE DENIAL, not out of its proper use. My own role in the Atonement IS one of true projection: I can project to YOU the affirmation of truth. If you project error to me, or to yourself, you are interfering with the process. My use of projection, which can also be yours, is NOT based on faulty denial. It DOES involve, however, the very powerful use of the denial of error.

The miracle worker is one who accepts my kind of denial and projection, unites one’s own inherent abilities to deny and project with mine, and imposes them back on oneself and others. This establishes the total LACK of threat anywhere. Together we can then work for the real time of peace, which is eternal.

The improper use of defenses is quite widely recognized, but their proper use has not been sufficiently understood as yet. They can INDEED create one’s perception, both of oneself and of the world. They can distort or correct, depending on what you use them FOR.

Denial should be directed only to error, and projection should be reserved only for truth. You should truly give as you have truly received. The Golden Rule can work effectively only on this basis.

Intellectualisation is a term which stems from the mind-brain confusion. “Rightmindedness” is the device which defends the RIGHT mind, and gives it control over the body. “Intellectualisation” implies a split, while “right-mindedness” involves healing.

Withdrawal is properly employed in the service of withdrawing from the meaningless. It is NOT a device for escape, but for consolidation. There IS only one mind.

Dissociation is quite similar. You SHOULD split off or dissociate yourself from error, but only in defense of integration.

Detachment is essentially a weaker form of dissociation.

Flight can be undertaken in whatever direction you choose, but note that the concept itself implies flight FROM something. Flight from error is perfectly appropriate.

Distantiation can be properly used as a way of putting distance between yourself and what you SHOULD fly from.

Regression is an effort to return to your own original state. It can thus be utilized to RESTORE, rather than to go back to the LESS mature.

Sublimation should be a redirection of effort to the sublime.

There are many other so-called “dynamic” concepts which are profound errors due essentially to the misuse of defenses. Among them is the concept of different levels of aspiration, which actually result from level confusion. However, the main point to be understood from this section is that you can defend truth as well as error, and, in fact, much better.

So far we have concentrated on ends rather than means because unless you regard an end as worth achieving, you will not devote yourself to the means by which it can BE achieved. The means are easier to clarify after the value of the goal itself is firmly established. Everyone defends one’s own treasure. You do not have to tell one to do so, because one will do it automatically. The real questions still remain:

WHAT do you treasure?

HOW MUCH do you treasure it?

Once you have learned to consider these two questions, and to bring them into ALL your actions as the true criteria for behavior, I will have little difficulty in clarifying the means. You have not learned to be consistent about this as yet. I have therefore concentrated on showing you that the means ARE available whenever you DO ask. You can, however, save a lot of time if you do not extend this step unduly. The correct focus will shorten it immeasurably.

Text Chapter 2 - The Illusion of Separation

2.3 The Atonement

The Atonement is the ONLY defense which cannot be used destructively. That is because, while everyone must eventually join it, it is NOT a device which was generated by one. The Atonement PRINCIPLE was in effect long before the Atonement itself began. The principle was love, and the Atonement itself was an ACT of love. Acts were not necessary before the separation, because the time-space belief did not exist. It was only after the separation that the defense of Atonement, and the necessary conditions for its fulfilment, were planned.

It became increasingly apparent that all of the defenses which one can choose to use constructively OR destructively were not enough to save one. It was therefore decided that one needed a defense which was so splendid that one could not misuse it, although one COULD refuse it. One’s choice could not, however, turn it into a weapon of attack, which is the inherent characteristic of all other defenses. The Atonement thus becomes the ONLY defense which is NOT a two-edged sword.

The Atonement actually began long before the crucifixion. Many Spirits offered their efforts on behalf of the separated ones, but they could not withstand the strength of the attack and had to be brought back. Angels came, too, but their protection did not suffice, because the separated ones were not interested in peace. They had already split their minds, and were bent on further dividing, rather than reintegrating. The levels they introduced into their minds turned against each other, and they established differences, divisions, cleavages, dispersions, and all the other concepts related to the increasing splits which they produced.

Not being in their right minds, they turned their defenses from protection to assault, and acted literally insanely. It was essential to introduce a split-proof device which could be used ONLY to heal, if it were used at all. The Atonement was built into the space-time belief in order to set a limit on the need for the belief, and ultimately to make learning complete. The Atonement IS the final lesson. Learning itself, like the classrooms in which it occurs, is temporary. Let all those who overestimate human intelligence remember this. The ability to learn has no value when change of understanding is no longer necessary. The eternally creative have nothing to learn. Only after the separation was it necessary to direct the creative forces to learning, because changed behavior had become mandatory.

People can learn to improve their behavior, and can also learn to become better and better learners. This increase serves to bring them into closer and closer accord with the Christhood, but the Christhood Itself is a perfect Creation, and perfection is NOT a matter of degree. Only while there are different degrees is learning meaningful. The “evolution” of one is merely a process by which one proceeds from one degree to the next. One corrects one’s previous missteps by stepping forward. This represents a process which is actually incomprehensible in temporal terms, because one RETURNS as one goes forward.

The Atonement is the device by which one can free oneself from the past as one goes ahead. It UNDOES one’s past errors, thus making it unnecessary for one to keep retracing one’s steps without advancing to one’s return. In this sense the Atonement saves time, but, like the miracle which serves it, does NOT abolish it. As long as there is need for Atonement there is need for time. But the Atonement, as a completed plan, does have a unique relationship TO time. Until the Atonement is finished, its various phases will proceed IN time, but the whole Atonement stands at time’s end. At this point, the bridge of the return has been built.

The Atonement is a TOTAL commitment. You still think this is associated with loss. This is the same mistake ALL the separated ones make, in one way or another. They cannot believe that a defense which cannot attack IS the best defense. This is what is meant by “the meek shall inherit the earth.” They will literally take it over because of their strength. A two-way defense is inherently weak precisely BECAUSE it has two edges, and can turn against the self very unexpectedly. This tendency cannot be controlled EXCEPT by miracles.

The miracle turns the defense of Atonement to the protection of the inner self, which, as it becomes more and more secure, assumes its natural talent of protecting others. The inner self knows itself as both a sibling AND a Child.

You know that when defenses are disrupted there is a period of real disorientation, accompanied by fear, guilt, and usually vacillations between anxiety and depression. This course is different in that defenses are NOT being disrupted but REINTERPRETED, even though you may experience it as the same thing. In the reinterpretation of defenses, only their use for ATTACK is lost. Since this means they can be used only ONE way, they become much stronger and much more dependable. They no longer oppose the Atonement, but greatly facilitate it.

The Atonement can only be accepted WITHIN you. You have perceived it largely as EXTERNAL thus far, and that is why your EXPERIENCE of it has been minimal. The reinterpretation of defenses is essential in releasing the INNER light. Since the separation, people’s defenses have been used almost entirely to defend themselves AGAINST the Atonement, and thus maintain their separation. They themselves generally see this as a need to protect the BODY from external intrusion and this kind of misperception is largely responsible for the homosexual fallacy, as well as pregnancy fears. The so-called “anal” behavior is a distorted attempt to “steal” the Atonement and deny its worth by concealing it, and holding onto it in a body receptacle which is regarded as particularly vicious. “Oral” fantasies are rather similar in purpose, except that they stem more from a sense of deprivation, and insatiable thirst which results. “Anal” fallacies are more of a refusal to give, while “oral” fantasies emphasize a distorted need to take. The main error in the many body fantasies with which people’s minds are engaged is the distorted belief that the body can be used as a means for attaining Atonement.

Perceiving the body as a temple is only the first step in correcting this kind of distortion. It alters part of the misperception, but not all of it. It DOES recognize, however, that the concept of Atonement in physical terms, whether in addition or subtraction, is not appropriate. However, the next step is to realize that a Temple is not a building at all. Its REAL holiness lies in the INNER altar, around which the building is built. The inappropriate emphasis people have put on beautiful church buildings is a sign of their FEAR of Atonement, and their unwillingness to reach the altar itself. The REAL beauty of the Temple cannot be seen with the physical eye. The Spiritual eye, on the other hand, cannot see the building at all, but it perceives the altar within with PERFECT clarity. This is because the Spiritual Eye has perfect vision.

For perfect effectiveness, the chalice of the Atonement belongs at the center of the inner altar, where it undoes the separation and restores the wholeness of the mind. Before the separation the mind was invulnerable to fear, because fear did not exist. Both the separation AND the fear are MISCREATIONS of the mind, which must be undone. This is what is meant by “the restoration of the Temple.” It DOES NOT mean the restoration of the building, but it DOES mean the opening of the altar to receive the Atonement. This heals the separation, and places WITHIN one the one defense against ALL separation mind-errors, which can make one perfectly invulnerable.

The acceptance of the Atonement by everyone is only a matter of time. In fact, both TIME and MATTER were created for this purpose. This appears to contradict free will because of the inevitability of the final decision. If you review the idea carefully, however, you will realize that this is not true. Everything is limited in some way by the manner of its creation. Free will can temporize, and is capable of enormous procrastination. But it cannot depart entirely from its Creator, Who set the limits on its ability to miscreate by virtue of its own REAL purpose.

The misuse of will engenders a situation which, in the extreme, becomes altogether intolerable. Pain thresholds can be high, but they are not limitless. Eventually everyone begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition becomes more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This ultimately reawakens the Spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight. The alternating investment in the two types or levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict for a long time, and can become very acute. But the outcome is as certain as God.

The Spiritual eye literally CANNOT SEE error and merely looks for Atonement. All the solutions which the physical eyes seek dissolve in Its sight. The Spiritual eye, which looks within, recognizes immediately that the altar has been defiled, and needs to be repaired and protected. Perfectly aware of the RIGHT defense, It passes over all others, looking past error to truth. Because of the real strength of ITS vision, It pulls the will into Its service and impels the mind to concur. This reestablishes the true power of the will, and makes it increasingly unable to tolerate delay. The mind then realizes with increasing CERTAINTY that delay is only a way of increasing unnecessary pain which it need not tolerate at all. The pain threshold drops accordingly, and the mind becomes increasingly sensitive to what it would once have regarded as very minor intrusions of discomfort.

The Children of God are ENTITLED to perfect comfort, which comes from a sense of perfect trust. Until they achieve this, they WILL waste themselves and their true creative powers on useless attempts to make themselves more comfortable by inappropriate means. But the real means is ALREADY provided, and does not involve any effort at all on their part. Their egocentricity usually MISINTERPRETS this as personally insulting, an interpretation which obviously arises from their misperception of themselves. Egocentricity and communion CANNOT coexist. Even the terms are contradictory.

The Atonement is the only gift that is worthy of being offered to the Altar of God. This is because of the inestimable value of the Altar itself. It was created perfect, and is entirely worthy of receiving perfection. God IS lonely without One’s Spirits and THEY are lonely without One. People must learn to perceive the world as a means of HEALING the separation. The Atonement is the GUARANTEE that they will ultimately succeed.

Text Chapter 2 - The Illusion of Separation

2.4 Healing As Release From Fear

The emphasis will now be on healing. The miracle is the means, the Atonement is the principle, and healing is the result. Those who speak of “a miracle of healing” are combining two orders of reality inappropriately. Healing is NOT a miracle. The Atonement, or the final miracle, is a REMEDY. It is purely a means, while any type of healing is a result.

The KIND of error to which atonement is applied is irrelevant. Essentially, ALL healing is the release from fear. To undertake this, you CANNOT be fearful yourself.

You do not understand healing because of your OWN fear. You MUST heal others. The reason is that their healing merely witnesses and attests to yours.

A major step in the Atonement plan is to undo error at ALL levels. Illness, which is really “not-right-mindedness,” is the result of level confusion in the sense that it always entails the belief that what is amiss in one level can adversely affect another.

We have constantly referred to miracles as the means of correcting level confusion, and all mistakes must be corrected at the level on which they occur. Only the MIND is capable of error. The body can ACT erroneously, but this is only because it is responding to mis-THOUGHT. The body cannot create, and the belief that it CAN, a fundamental error responsible for most of the errors already referred to, produces all physical symptoms.

All physical illness represents a belief in magic. The whole distortion which created magic rests on the belief that there is a creative ability in matter which can control the mind. This error can work either way; it can be mis-believed that the mind can miscreate IN the body, or that the body can miscreate in the mind. If it is understood that the mind, which is the ONLY level of creation, cannot create beyond itself, neither type of confusion need occur.

The reason only the mind can create is more obvious than may be immediately apparent. The Spirit HAS BEEN created. The body is a learning device FOR the mind. Learning devices are not lessons in themselves. Their purpose is merely to facilitate the THINKING of the learner. The most that a faulty use of a learning device can do is to fail to facilitate learning. It has no power in itself to introduce actual learning errors.

The body, if properly understood, shares the invulnerability of the Atonement to two-edged application. This is not because the body is a miracle, but because it is not INHERENTLY open to misinterpretation. The body is merely a fact in human experience. Its ABILITIES can be, and frequently are, overevaluated. However, it is almost impossible to deny its existence. Those who do so are engaging in a particularly unworthy form of denial. (The term “unworthy” here implies simply that it is not necessary to protect the mind by denying the unmindful. There is little doubt that the mind can miscreate. If one denies this unfortunate aspect of the mind’s power, one is also denying the power itself.)

All material means which people accepts as remedies for bodily ills are merely restatements of magic principles. It was the first level of the error to believe that the body created its own illness. It is a second misstep to attempt to heal it through non-creative agents. It does not follow, however, that the use of these very weak corrective devices are evil. Sometimes the illness has a sufficiently great hold over a mind to render one inaccessible to Atonement. In this case it may be wise to utilize a compromise approach to mind AND body, in which something from the OUTSIDE is temporarily given healing belief. This is because the LAST thing that can help the non-right-minded, or the sick, is an INCREASE in fear. They are already IN a fear-weakened state. If they are inappropriately exposed to an “undiluted” miracle, they may be precipitated into panic. This is particularly likely to occur when upside-down perception has induced the belief that miracles are frightening.

The value of the Atonement does not lie in the manner in which it is expressed. In fact, if it is truly used, it will inevitably BE expressed in whatever way is most helpful to the receiver, not the giver. This means that a miracle, to attain its full efficacy, MUST be expressed in a language which the recipient can understand WITHOUT fear. It does not follow, by any means, that this is the highest level of communication of which the person is capable. It DOES mean, however, that it is the highest level of communication of which one is capable NOW.

The whole aim of the miracle is to RAISE the level of communication, not to impose regression in the improper sense upon it. Before miracle workers are ready to undertake their function in this world, it is essential that they fully understand the FEAR OF RELEASE. Otherwise, they may unwittingly foster the mis-belief that release is imprisonment, a belief that is very prevalent. This misperception arose from the underlying misbelief that harm can be limited to the body. This was because of the much greater fear that the mind can hurt itself. Neither error is really meaningful, because the miscreations of the mind do not really exist. THIS recognition is a far better protective device than ANY form of level confusion because it introduces correction at the level of the error.

It is essential to remember that ONLY the mind can create. Implicit in this is the corollary that correction belongs at the THOUGHT level, not at either level to which creation is inapplicable. To repeat an earlier statement and to extend it somewhat, the Spirit is already perfect, and therefore does not require correction. The body does not really exist except as a learning device for the mind. This learning device is NOT subject to errors of its own because it was created, but is NOT creating. It should be obvious, then, that correcting the creator, or inducing one to give up one’s miscreations, is the only application of creative ability which is truly meaningful.

Magic is essentially mindless, or the miscreative use of the mind. Physical medications are forms of “spells.” In one way, they are a more benign form, in that they do not entail the possession fallacy which DOES enter when a mind believes that it can possess another. Since this is considerably less dangerous, though still incorrect, it has its advantages. It is particularly helpful to the therapist who really wants to heal, but is still fearful oneself. By using physical means to do so, one is not engaging in any form of enslavement, even though one is not applying the Atonement. This means that one’s mind is dulled by fear, but is not actively engaged in distortion.

Those who are AFRAID to use the mind to heal should not attempt to do so. The very fact that they are afraid HAS made them vulnerable to miscreation. They are therefore likely to misunderstand any healing they might induce, and, because egocentricity and fear usually occur together, may be unable to accept the real Source of the healing. Under these conditions, it is safer for them to rely TEMPORARILY on physical healing devices, because they cannot misperceive them as their own creations. As long as their sense of vulnerability persists, they should be preserved from even attempting miracles.

We have already said that the miracle is an expression of miracle-mindedness. Miracle-mindedness merely means right-mindedness in the sense that we are now using it. The right-minded neither exalt nor depreciate the mind of the miracle worker OR the miracle receiver. However, as a creative act, the miracle need not await the right-mindedness of the receiver. In fact, its purpose is to restore one TO one’s right mind. It is essential, however, that the miracle WORKER be in one’s right mind, or one will be unable to reestablish right-mindedness in someone else.

The healer who relies on one’s OWN readiness is endangering one’s understanding. One is perfectly safe as long as one is completely unconcerned about ONE’S readiness, but maintains a consistent trust in MINE.

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

Errors of this kind produce some very erratic behavior, which usually point up an underlying unwillingness to co-operate. Note that by inserting the carbon backwards, Bill created a situation in which two copies did not exist. This reflected two levels of confidence lack: one in My readiness to heal, and the other in his own willingness to give. These errors inevitably introduce inefficiency into the miracle worker's behavior and temporarily disrupt one’s miracle miracle-mindedness. We might also make very similar comments about your own hesitation about dictating at all. This is a larger error only because it results in greater inefficiency. If you don't say anything, nobody can use it, including ME. We have established that for all corrective processes the first step is know that this is fear. Unless fear had entered, the corrective procedure would never have become necessary. If your miracle working propensities are not functioning properly, it is ALWAYS because fear has intruded on your right-mindedness, and has literally upset it (or turned it upside-down).

All forms of not-right-mindedness are the result of refusal to accept the Atonement FOR YOURSELF. If the miracle worker DOES accept it, one places oneself in a position to recognize that those who need to be healed are simply those who have not realized that right-mindedness IS healing. When you become aware of the vast radiation range of your own inner illumination you are aware that right-mindedness IS healing. The SOLE responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept Atonement ONESELF. This means that one recognizes that mind is the only creative level, and that its errors ARE healed by the Atonement. Once one accepts this, ONE’S mind can only heal. By denying one’s mind any destructive potential, and reinstating its purely constructive powers, one has placed oneself in a position where one can undo the level confusion of others. The message one then gives to others is the truth that THEIR MINDS are similarly constructive, and that their miscreations cannot hurt them. By affirming this, the miracle worker releases the mind from overevaluating its own learning device—the body—and restores the mind to its true position as the learner. It should be emphasized again that the body does not learn, any more than it creates. As a learning device it merely follows the learner, but if it is falsely endowed with self-initiative, it becomes a serious obstruction to the very learning it should facilitate.

ONLY the mind is capable of illumination. The Spirit is already illuminated, and the body in itself is too dense. The mind, however, can BRING its illumination TO the body by recognizing that density is the opposite of intelligence, and therefore unamenable to independent learning. It is, however, easily brought into alignment with a mind which has learned to look beyond density toward light.

Corrective learning always begins with the awakening of the Spiritual eye, and the turning away from the belief in physical sight. The reason this so often entails fear is because one is afraid of what one’s Spiritual eye will see, which is why one closed it in the first place. We said before that the Spiritual eye cannot see error, and is capable only of looking beyond it to the defense of Atonement. There is no doubt that the Spiritual eye DOES produce extreme discomfort by what It sees. Yet what one forgets is that the discomfort is NOT the final outcome of Its perception. When the Spiritual eye is permitted to look upon the defilement of the altar, it also looks IMMEDIATELY toward the Atonement. NOTHING the Spiritual eye perceives can induce fear. EVERYTHING that results from accurate spiritual awareness is merely channelized toward correction. Discomfort is aroused only to bring the NEED for correction forcibly into awareness.

What the physical eye sees is NOT corrective, nor can it be corrected by ANY device which can be seen physically. As long as one believes in what one’s physical sight tells one, ALL one’s corrective behavior will be misdirected. The REAL vision is obscured because one cannot endure to see one’s own defiled altar. But since the altar has BEEN defiled, one’s state becomes doubly dangerous unless it IS perceived. This perception is totally non-threatening because of the Atonement. The fear of healing arises, in the end, from an unwillingness to accept the unequivocal fact that healing is necessary. The fear arises because of the necessary willingness to look at what one has done to oneself.

Healing is an ability lent to one after the separation, before which it was completely unnecessary. Like all aspects of the space-time belief, healing ability is temporary. However, as long as time persists, healing remains among the stronger human protections. This is because healing rests on charity, and charity is a way of perceiving the perfection of another even if one cannot perceive it oneself. Most of the loftier concepts of which a person is capable now are time-dependent. Charity is really a weaker reflection of a much more powerful love-encompassment which is far beyond any form of charity that a person can conceive of as yet. Charity is essential to right-mindedness in the limited sense in which right-mindedness can now be attained. Charity is a way of looking at another AS IF one had already gone far beyond one’s actual accomplishments in time. Since one’s own thinking is faulty one cannot see the Atonement for oneself, or one would have no need for charity. The charity which is accorded one is both an acknowledgment that one IS weak and a recognition that one COULD BE stronger. The way in which both of these perceptions are stated clearly implies their dependence on time, making it quite apparent that charity lies within the framework of human limitations, though toward its higher levels.

We said before that only revelation transcends time. The miracle, as an expression of true human charity, can only shorten time at best. It must be understood, however, that whenever one offers a miracle to another, one IS shortening the suffering of BOTH. This introduces a correction into the whole record which corrects retroactively as well as progressively.

Text Chapter 2 - The Illusion of Separation

2.5 Fear As Lack Of Love

You believe that “being afraid” is involuntary; something beyond your control. Yet I have told you several times that only CONSTRUCTIVE acts should be involuntary. We have said that Christ-control can take over everything that does NOT matter, while Christ-guidance can direct everything that DOES, if you so will.

Fear cannot be Christ-controlled, but it CAN be self-controlled. Fear is always associated with what does not matter. It PREVENTS me from controlling it. The correction is therefore a matter of YOUR will, because its presence shows that you have raised the UNIMPORTANT to a higher level than it warrants. You have thus brought it under YOUR will, where it DOES NOT belong. This means that YOU feel responsible for it. The level confusion here is obvious.

The reason I cannot CONTROL fear for you is that you are attempting to raise to the mind level the proper content of lower-order reality. I do NOT foster level confusion, but YOU can will to correct it.

You would not tolerate insane BEHAVIOR on your part, and would hardly advance the excuse that you could not help it. Why should you tolerate insane THINKING? There is a confusion here which you would do well to look at clearly.

YOU believe that you ARE responsible for what you DO, but NOT for what you THINK. The truth is that you ARE responsible for what you THINK because it is only at this level that you CAN exercise choice. What you DO comes from what you think. You cannot separate the two by “giving” autonomy to behavior. This is controlled by me automatically, as soon as you place what you think under my guidance.

Whenever you are afraid, it is a sure sign that you have allowed your mind to miscreate, or have NOT allowed me to guide it. It is pointless to believe that controlling the OUTCOME of mis-thought can result in real healing. When you are fearful you have willed wrongly. This is why you feel responsible for it.

You must change your MIND, not your behavior, and this IS a matter of will. You do not need guidance EXCEPT at the mind level. Correction belongs ONLY at the level where creation is possible. The term does not mean anything at the symptom level, where it cannot work.

The correction of fear IS your responsibility. When you ask for release from fear, you are implying that it isn't. You should ask, instead, for help in the conditions which have brought the fear about. These conditions ALWAYS entail a separated mind-willingness. At that level, you CAN help it.

You are much too tolerant of mind wandering, thus tacitly condoning its miscreations. The particular result does not matter, but the fundamental error DOES. The fundamental correction is always the same. Before you will to do anything, ask me if your will is in accord with mine. If you are sure that it is, there will BE no fear.

Fear is always a sign of strain, which arises whenever the WILL to do conflicts with WHAT you do. This situation arises in two major ways:

1. You can will to do conflicting things, either simultaneously or successively. This produces conflicting behavior, which would be tolerable to the self, though not necessarily to others, except for the fact that the part of the will that wants something ELSE is outraged.

2. You can BEHAVE as you think you should, but without entirely WILLING to do so. This produces consistent behavior, but entails great strain WITHIN the self.

In both cases, the will and the behavior are out of accord, resulting in a situation in which you are doing what you do NOT will. This arouses a sense of coercion, which usually produces rage. The anger then invades the mind, and projection in the wrong sense is likely to follow. Depression or anxiety is virtually certain.

Remember that whenever there is fear, it is because YOU have NOT MADE UP YOUR MIND. Your will is split, and your behavior inevitably becomes erratic. Correcting at the behavioral level can shift the error from the first to the second type of strain described above, but will NOT obliterate the fear.

It is possible to reach a state in which you bring your will under my guidance without much conscious effort, but this implies habit patterns which you have not developed dependably as yet. God CANNOT ask more than you WILL. The strength to DO comes from your own undivided will to do. There is NO strain in doing God’s Will as soon as you recognize that it is also your own.

The lesson here is quite simple, but particularly apt to be overlooked. I will therefore repeat it, URGING you to listen:

Only your mind can produce fear. It does so whenever it is conflicted in what it wills, thus producing inevitable strain because willing and doing become discordant. This CANNOT be corrected by better DOING, but it CAN be corrected by higher WILLING.

Text Chapter 2 - The Illusion of Separation

2.6 The Correction For Lack Of Love

The first corrective step is:

KNOW FIRST that this is an expression of fear.

Then say to yourself that you MUST somehow have willed not to love or the fear which arises from behavior-will conflict could not have arisen, then the whole process is nothing more than a series of pragmatic steps in the larger process of accepting the Atonement as THE remedy. These steps can be summarized as follows:

1. Know first that this is fear.

2. Fear arises from lack of love.

3. The ONLY remedy for lack of love is perfect love.

4. Perfect love IS the Atonement.

The final procedural step (3) is inherent in the last statement (4). We have emphasized that the miracle, or the EXPRESSION of Atonement is always a sign of real respect from the worthy TO the worthy. This worth IS re-established by the Atonement.

It is obvious, then, that when you are afraid you have placed yourself in a position where you NEED Atonement, BECAUSE you have DONE something loveless, having WILLED without love. This is precisely the situation for which the Atonement was offered. The need for the remedy inspired its CREATION.

As long as you recognize only the NEED for the remedy, you will remain fearful. However, as soon as you REMEDY it, you have also abolished the fear. This is how TRUE healing occurs.

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

Everyone experiences fear, and no one enjoys it. Yet it would take very little right-thinking to realize why fear occurs. Neither you nor Bill have thought about it very much, either.

Helen: I object at this point to the use of plural verb with a properly singular subject – Helen Schucman – and remember that last time in a very similar sentence, He said it correctly and I remembered it with real pleasure. This real grammatical error makes me suspicious of the genuineness of these notes.

Christ: What it really shows is that YOU are not very receptive. The reason it came out that way, is because you are projecting (in the inappropriate way) your own anger, which has nothing to do with these notes. YOU made the error, because you are not feeling loving, so you want me to sound silly, so you won’t have to pay attention. Actually, I am trying to get through against considerable opposition, because you are not very happy, and I wish you were. I thought I’d take a chance, even though you are so resistant, because I MIGHT be able to help you feel better. You may be unable not to attack at all, but do try to listen a little, too.

Very few people appreciate the real power of the mind, and no one remains fully aware of it all the time. This is inevitable in this world, because the human being has many things one must do, and cannot engage in constant thought-watching. However, if anyone hopes to spare oneself from fear, there are some things one must realize, and realize fully, at least some of the time.

The mind is a very powerful creator and it never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is creating, and ALWAYS as you will. Many of your ordinary expressions reflect this. For example, when you say, “Don’t give it a thought,” you imply that if you do not think about something, it will have no effect on you. And this is true enough.

On the other hand, many other expressions clearly illustrate the prevailing LACK of awareness of thought-power. For example, you say, “just an idle thought,” and mean that the thought has no effect. You also speak of some actions as “thoughtless,” implying that if one HAD thought, one would not behave as one did. You also use phrases like “thought provoking,” which is bland enough, but the term “a provoking thought” means something quite different.

While expressions like “think big” give some recognition to the power of thought, they still come nowhere near the truth. You do not expect to grow when you say it, because you do not really think that you will. It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power surge that can literally move mountains.

It appears at first glance that to believe such power about yourself is merely arrogant, but that is not the real reason why you do not believe it.

People PREFER to believe that their thoughts cannot exert real control because they are literally AFRAID of them. Many psychotherapists attempt to help people who are afraid, say, of their death wishes by depreciating the power of the wish. They even try to “free” the patient by persuading one that one can think whatever one wants without ANY real effect at all.

There is a real dilemma here which only the truly right-minded can escape. Death wishes do not kill in the physical sense, but they DO kill spiritual awareness. ALL destructive thinking is dangerous. Given a death wish, one has no choice except to ACT upon the thought, or behave CONTRARY TO it. One thus chooses ONLY between homicide and fear.

The other possibility is that one depreciates the power of one’s thought. This is the usual psychoanalytic approach. It DOES allay guilt, but at the cost of rendering thinking impotent. If you believe that what you think is ineffectual you may cease to be overly afraid of it, but you are hardly likely to respect it. The world is full of examples of how one has depreciated oneself because one is afraid of one’s own thoughts. In some forms of insanity thoughts are glorified, but this is only because the underlying depreciation was too effective for tolerance.

The truth is that there ARE no “idle” thoughts. ALL thinking produces form at some level. The reason people are afraid of ESP and so often react against it is because they KNOW that thoughts can hurt them. Their OWN thoughts have made them vulnerable.

You who constantly complain about fear still persist in creating it most of the time. I told you before that you cannot ask ME to release you from fear because I KNOW it does not exist, but YOU do not. If I merely intervened between your thoughts and their results, I would be tampering with a basic law of cause and effect, the most fundamental law there is in this world. I would hardly help if I depreciated the power of your own thinking. This would be in direct opposition to the purpose of this course.

It is much more helpful to remind you that you do not guard your thoughts carefully except for a small part of the day, and somewhat inconsistently even then. You may feel at this point that it would take a miracle to enable you to do this, which is perfectly true. People are not used to miraculous thinking, but they CAN be TRAINED to think that way.

All miracle workers HAVE to be trained that way. I have to be able to count on them. I cannot let them leave their minds unguarded or they will not be able to help me. Miracle working entails a full realization of the power of thought, and real avoidance of miscreation. Otherwise a miracle will be necessary to set the mind ITSELF straight, a circular process which would hardly foster the time collapse for which the miracle was intended. Nor would it induce the healthy respect for true Cause and Effect which every miracle worker must have.

Miracles cannot free the miracle-worker from fear. Both miracles AND fear come from thoughts, and if you were not free to choose one, you would also not be free to choose the other. Remember, we said before that when electing one person, you reject another.

In the same way, by choosing the miracle you HAVE rejected fear. Fear cannot assail unless it has been created. You have been afraid of God, of me, of yourselves, and of practically everyone you know at one time or another. This is because you have misperceived or miscreated us, and believe in what you have made. You would never have done this if you were not afraid of your own thoughts. The vulnerable are essentially miscreators because they misperceive Creation.

You are willing to accept primarily what does NOT change your minds too much, and leaves you free to leave them quite unguarded most of the time. You persist in believing that, when you do not consciously watch your mind, it is unmindful.

Text Chapter 2 - The Illusion of Separation

2.7 Basic Conflict Theory

It is time to consider the whole world of the unconscious or “unwatched” mind. This may well frighten you because it is the source of fright. You may look at it as a new theory of basic conflict, if you wish, which will not be entirely an intellectual approach, because I doubt if the truth will escape you entirely.

The unwatched mind is responsible for the whole content of the unconscious which lies above the miracle level. All psychoanalytic theorists have made some contribution in this connection, but none of them has seen it in its true entirety. Jung’s best contribution was an awareness of individual vs. collective unconscious levels. He also recognized the major place of the religious spirit in his schema. His archetypes were also meaningful concepts. But his major error lay in regarding the deepest level of the unconscious as shared in terms of CONTENT. The deepest level of the unconscious is shared as an ABILITY. As MIRACE-MINDEDNESS, the content (or the particular miracles which an individual happens to perform) does not matter at all. They will, in fact, be entirely different, because, since I direct them, I make a point of avoiding redundancy. Unless a miracle actually heals, it is not a miracle at all.

The content of the miracle-level is not recorded in the individual’s unconscious, because if it were, it would not be automatic and involuntary, which we have said repeatedly it should be. However, the content IS a matter for the Record, which is NOT within the individual oneself.

All psychoanalysts have made one common error in that they attempted to uncover unconscious CONTENT. You cannot understand unconscious activity in these terms because “content” is applicable ONLY to the more superficial unconscious levels, to which the individual oneself contributes. This is the level at which one can readily introduce fear, and usually does.

Freud was right in calling this level preconscious, and emphasizing that there is a fairly easy interchange between preconscious and conscious material. He was also right in regarding the censor as an agent for the protection of consciousness from fear. HIS major error lay in his insistence that this level is necessary at all in the psychic structure. If the psyche contains fearful levels from which it cannot escape without splitting, its integration is permanently threatened. It is essential not to control the fearful, but to ELIMINATE it.

Here, Rank’s concept of the will was particularly good, except that he preferred to ally it only with a person's own truly creative ability, but did not extend it to its proper union with God’s. His “birth trauma,” another valid idea, was also too limited, in that it did not refer to the Separation, which was really a FALSE idea of birth. Physical birth is not a trauma in itself. It can, however, remind the individual of the Separation, which was a very real cause of fear.

The idea of “will-THERAPY” was potentially a very powerful one, but Rank did not see its real potential because he himself used his mind partly to create a theory OF the mind, but also partly to attack Freud. His reactions to Freud stemmed from his own unfortunate acceptance of the deprivation-fallacy, which itself arose from the Separation. This led him to believe that his own mind-creation could stand only if the creation of another’s fell. In consequence, his theory emphasized rather than minimized the two-edged nature of defenses. This is an outstanding characteristic of his concepts, because it was outstandingly true of him.

He also misinterpreted the birth-trauma in a way that made it inevitable for him to attempt a therapy whose goal was to ABOLISH FEAR. This is characteristic of all later theorists, who do not attempt, as Freud did, to split off the fear in his own form of therapy.

No-one as yet has fully recognized either the therapeutic value of fear, or the only way in which it can be truly ended. When one miscreates, one IS in pain. The cause and effect principle here is temporarily a real expeditor. Actually, Cause is a term properly belonging to God, and Effect, which should also be capitalized, is ONE’S Child. This entails a set of Cause and Effect relationships which are totally different from those which one introduced into one’s own miscreations.

The fundamental opponents in the real basic conflict are Creation and miscreation. All FEAR is implicit in the second, just as all LOVE is inherent in the first. Because of this difference, the basic conflict IS one between love and fear.

Text Chapter 2 - The Illusion of Separation

2.8 The Psychic Energy of Creation

So much, then, for the true nature of the major opponents in the basic conflict. Since all such theories lead to a form of therapy in which a redistribution of psychic energy results, it is necessary to consider OUR concept of libido next. In this respect, Freud was more accurate than his followers, who were essentially more wishful. Energy CAN emanate from both Creation AND miscreation, and the particular ratio between them which prevails at a given point in time DOES determine behavior AT that time. If miscreation did NOT engender energy in its own right, it would be unable to produce destructive behavior, which it very patently DOES.

Everything that one creates has energy because, like the Children of God, they come FROM energy, and are endowed by their Creator with the power to create. Miscreation is still a genuine creative act in terms of the underlying IMPULSE, but NOT in terms of the CONTENT of the creation. This, however, does not deprive the creation of its OWN creative power. It DOES, however, GUARANTEE that the power will be misused, or USED FEARFULLY.

To deny this is merely the previously mentioned fallacy of depreciation. Although Freud made a number of fallacies of his own, he DID avoid this one in connection with libido. The later theorists denied the split-energy concept, not by attempting to heal it, but by reinterpreting it instead of redistributing it.

This placed them in the illogical position of assuming that the split which their therapies were intended to heal had not occurred. The result of this approach is essentially a form of hypnosis. This is quite different from Freud’s approach, which merely ended in a deadlock.

A similar deadlock occurs when both the power of Creation and of miscreation coexist. This is experienced as conflict only because the individual feels AS IF both were occurring AT THE SAME LEVEL. One BELIEVES in what one has created in one’s own unconscious and one naturally believes it is real BECAUSE one has created it. One, thus, places oneself in a position where the fearful becomes REAL.

Nothing but level-confusion can result as long as this belief is held in ANY form. Inappropriate denial and equally inappropriate identification of the REAL factors in the basic conflict will NOT solve the problem itself. The conflict CANNOT disappear until it is fully recognized that miscreation is NOT real, and therefore there IS no conflict. This entails a full realization of the basic fact that, although one has miscreated in a very real sense, one need neither continue to do so, nor to suffer from one’s past errors in this respect.

A REDISTRIBUTION of psychic energy, then, is NOT the solution. Both the idea that both kinds MUST exist, and the belief that ONE kind is amenable for use or misuse, are real distortions. The ONLY way out is to STOP MISCREATING NOW, and accept the Atonement for miscreations of the past. Only this can re-establish true single-mindedness.

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

To Helen: The structure of the psyche, as you very correctly noted yourself, follows along the lines of the particular libido concept the theorist employs.

Helen: I still think it was the other way around.

Christ: This confusion arises out of the fact that you DID change the order—several times in fact. Actually, it didn’t matter, because the two concepts DO flow from each other. It was a waste of time, and one in which I hardly care to become engaged myself.

Freud’s psyche was essentially a good and evil picture, with very heavy weight given to the evil. This is because every time I mentioned the Atonement to him, which was quite often, he responded by defending his theory more and more against it. This resulted in his increasingly strong attempts to make the illogical sound more and more logical.

I was very sorry about this, because his was a singularly good mind, and it was a shame to waste it. However, the major purpose of his incarnation was not neglected. He DID succeed in forcing recognition of the unconscious into people’s calculations about themselves, a step in the right direction which should not be minimized. Freud was one of the most religious men I have known recently. Unfortunately, he was so afraid of religion that the only way he could deal with it was to regard IT—not himself—as sick. This naturally prevented healing.

Freud’s superego is a particularly interesting example of the real power of miscreation. It is noteworthy throughout the whole development of his theories that the superego never allied itself with freedom. The most it could do in this direction was to work out a painful truce in which both opponents LOST. This perception could not fail to force him to emphasize discontent in his view of civilization.

The Freudian id is really only the more superficial level of the unconscious, and not the deepest level at all. This, too, was inevitable, because Freud could not divorce miracles from magic. It was therefore his constant endeavor (even preoccupation) to keep on thrusting more and more material between consciousness and the real deeper level of the unconscious, so that the latter became increasingly obscured. The result was a kind of bedlam, in which there was no order, no control, and no sense. This was exactly how he FELT about it.

The later theoretical switch to the primacy of anxiety was an interesting device intended to deny both the instinctive nature of destructiveness, and the force of the power of miscreation. By placing the emphasis on the RESULT, the generative nature of the power was minimized.

Destructive behavior IS instinctual. The instinct for creation is NOT obliterated in miscreation. That is why it is always invested with reality.

One of the chief ways in which one can correct one’s magic-miracle confusion is to remember that one did not create oneself. One is apt to forget this when one becomes egocentric, and this places one in a position where belief in magic is virtually inevitable. One’s instincts for creation were given one by one’s own Creator, who was expressing the same instinct in One’s Creation. Since the creative ability rests solely in the mind, everything which one creates is necessarily instinctive.

We have already said that the basic conflict is one between love and fear, and that the proper organization of the psyche rests on a lack of level confusion. The section on psychic energy should be re-read very carefully, because it is particularly likely to be misinterpreted until this section is complete.

Text Chapter 2 - The Illusion of Separation

2.9 The Mastery of Love is the Correction of Error

It has already been said that one CANNOT control fear because one created it. One’s belief in it renders it out of one’s control by definition. For this reason, any attempt to resolve the basic conflict through the concept of mastery of fear is meaningless. In fact, it asserts the power of fear by the simple assumption that it need be mastered at all.

The essential resolution rests entirely on the mastery of LOVE. In the interim, the SENSE of conflict is inevitable, since one has placed oneself in a strangely illogical position. One believes in the power of what does not exist. Since we have frequently emphasized that correction must be applied within the level that error occurs, it should be clear that the miracle MUST be illogical because its purpose is to correct the illogical and restore order.

Two concepts which CANNOT coexist are “nothing” and “everything.” To whatever extent one is believed in, the other HAS BEEN abolished. In the conflict fear is really nothing, and love is everything. This is because whenever light penetrates darkness, the darkness IS abolished. The unwillingness to be seen, or submit error to light, is spuriously associated with active doing. In this incarnation, this can take the form of oedipal involvement and concomitant castration anxiety.

However, in more long range and meaningful terms, the oedipal complex is a miniature of the true separation fear, and the castration complex is a way of denying that it ever occurred. Like all pseudo-solutions, this kind of distorted thinking is very creative, but false. The Separation HAS occurred. To deny this is merely to misuse denial. However, to concentrate on error is merely a further misuse of legitimate psychic mechanisms. The true corrective procedure, which has already been described as the proper use of the Spiritual Eye (or true vision), is to accept the error temporarily, BUT ONLY as an indication that IMMEDIATE correction is mandatory. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay.

It is worth repeating that ultimately there is no compromise possible between everything and nothing. The purpose of time is essentially a device by which all compromise in this respect can be abolished. It seems to be abolished by degrees precisely because time itself involves a concept of intervals which do not really exist. The faulty use of creation has made this necessary as a corrective device.

“And God so loved the world that One gave One’s only begotten Child that whosoever believeth on One shall not perish, but have Eternal Life” needs only one slight correction to be entirely meaningful in this context. It should read, “One gave it TO One’s only begotten Child.”

It should especially be noted that God has only ONE Child. If all the Spirits God created ARE One’s Children, then every Spirit MUST be an integral part of the whole Christhood. You do not find the concept that the whole is greater than its parts difficult to understand. You should, therefore, not have too much trouble in understanding this. The Christhood in its Oneness DOES transcend the sum of its parts. However, this is obscured as long as any of its parts are missing. That is why the conflict cannot ultimately be resolved UNTIL all of the individual parts of the Christhood have returned. Only then can the meaning of wholeness, in the true sense, be fully understood.

The concept of minus numbers has always been regarded as a mathematical rather than an actual expedient. (This is a major limitation on mathematics as presently understood.) Any statement which implies degrees of difference in negation is essentially meaningless. What can replace this negative approach is a recognition of the fact that as long as one part (which is the same as a million or ten or eight thousand parts) of the Christhood is missing, it is NOT complete.

In the Divine psyche, the Creator and the Holy Spirit are not incomplete at all. The Christhood has the unique faculty of believing in error, or incompleteness, if it so elects. However, it is quite apparent that so to elect IS to believe in the existence of nothingness. The correction of this error is the Atonement.

Text Chapter 2 - The Illusion of Separation

2.10 Readiness and Accomplishment

We have already briefly spoken about readiness. But there are some additional awarenesses which might be helpful. Readiness is nothing more than the prerequisite for accomplishment. The two should not be confused. As soon as a state of readiness occurs, there is always some will to accomplish, but this is by no means undivided. The state does not imply more than the potential for a shift of will. Confidence cannot develop fully until mastery has been accomplished. We began this section with an attempt to correct the fundamental human error that fear can be mastered. The Correction was that ONLY love can be mastered. When I tell you that you are ready I do not mean that you have in any way mastered. However, you yourself, can attest to your readiness by insisting that I would not have said so if it had not been true. This IS an affirmation of readiness. Mastery of love necessarily involves a much more complete confidence in the ability than you have attained. But the readiness at least is an indication that you believe this is possible. This is only the beginning of confidence.

In case this be misunderstood as a statement that an enormous amount of time will be necessary between readiness and mastery, I would again remind you that time and space are under my control.

One of the chief ways in which one can correct one’s magic-miracle confusion is to remember that one did not create oneself. One is apt to forget this when one becomes egocentric, and this places one in a position where the belief in magic in some form is virtually inevitable. One’s instincts for creation were given one by one’s own Creator, Who was expressing the same instinct in One’s Creation. Since creative ability rests in the mind, everything that one creates is necessarily instinctive.

It also follows that whatever one creates is real in one’s own sight, but not necessarily in the Sight of God. This basic distinction leads us directly into the real meaning of the Last Judgement.

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

To Helen: I am aware of the fact that you would much rather continue with the parallels involved in other theories of basic conflict. However, this would merely be a delay which we will engage in only if you regard it as essential.

Text Chapter 2 - The Illusion of Separation

2.11 The Meaning Of The Last Judgement

The Last Judgement is one of the greatest threat concepts in one’s perception. This is only because one does not understand it. Judgement is not an essential attribute of God. Humankind brought judgement into being only because of the separation. God, Oneself, is still the God of mercy. After the separation, however, there WAS a place for judgement as one of the many learning devices which had to be built into the overall plan. Just as the separation occurred over many millions of years, the Last Judgement will extend over a similarly long period, and perhaps an even longer one. Its length depends, however, on the effectiveness of the present speed-up. We have frequently noted that the miracle is a device for shortening but not abolishing time. If a sufficient number of people become truly miracle-minded quickly, the shortening process can be almost immeasurable. It is essential, however, that these individuals free themselves from fear sooner than would ordinarily be the case, because they MUST emerge from the basic conflict if they are to bring peace to other minds.

The Last Judgement is generally thought of as a procedure undertaken by God. Actually it will be undertaken solely by human beings, with my help. It is a Final Healing, rather than a meting out of punishment, however much one may think that punishment is deserved. Punishment is a concept in TOTAL opposition to right-mindedness. The aim of the Last Judgement is to RESTORE right-mindedness TO human beings.

The Last Judgement might be called a process of RIGHT evaluation. It simply means that finally all people must come to understand what is worthy and what is not. After this, their ability to choose can be directed reasonably. Until this distinction is made, however, the vacillations between free and imprisoned will cannot BUT continue. The first step toward freedom MUST entail a sorting out of the false from the true. This is a process of division only in the constructive sense, and reflects the true meaning of the Apocalypse. One will ultimately look upon one’s own creations and will to preserve only what is good, just as God Oneself looked upon what One had created and knew that it WAS good. At this point, the Will will begin to look with love on its creations because of their great worthiness. The mind will inevitably disown its miscreations which, and having withdrawn belief from them, they will no longer exist.

The term “Last Judgement” is frightening not only because it has been falsely projected onto God, but also because of the association of “last” with death. This is an outstanding example of upside-down perception. Actually, if the meaning of the Last Judgement is objectively examined, it is quite apparent that it is really the doorway to life. No one who lives in fear is really alive.

One’s own last judgement cannot be directed toward oneself because one is not one’s own creation. One can, however, apply it meaningfully and at ANY time to everything one has created, and retain in one’s memory only what is good. This is what one’s right-mindedness CANNOT BUT dictate. The purpose of time is solely to “give one time” to achieve this judgement. It is one’s own perfect judgement of one’s own creations. When everything one retains is loveable, there IS no reason for fear to remain in one. This IS one’s part in the Atonement.

Text Chapter 3 - Retraining The Mind

3.0 - Retraining The Mind

All learning involves attention and study at some level. This is a course in MIND TRAINING.

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

Good students assign study periods for themselves. However, since this obvious step has not occurred to you, and since we are cooperating in this, I will make the obvious assignment now.

Bill is better at understanding the need to study the notes than you are, but neither of you realizes that many of the problems you keep being faced with may ALREADY have been solved there. YOU do not think of the notes in this way at all. Bill DOES from time to time, but he generally says, “It’s probably in the notes,” and DOESN’T look it up. He believes that, although he reads them over, they cannot REALLY help him until they are complete.

First of all, he cannot be sure of this unless he tries. Second, they would BE completed if both of you so willed.

You vaguely know that the course is intended for some sort of preparation. I can only say that you are not prepared.

I was amused when you reminded Bill that he, too, was being prepared for something quite unexpected, and he said, he was not at all curious about what it was. This disinterest is very characteristic of him when he is afraid. Interest and fear do NOT go together, as your respective behavior clearly shows.

Mental retardation is a defense which, like the others EXCEPT the Atonement, can be used on behalf of error or truth, as elected. When it occurs in REALITY, it is a temporary device, agreed on beforehand, to check the miscreative abilities of strong but misdirected wills.

It is necessary that this appropriate use of the defense BE considered real, because otherwise it cannot serve. The lesson involves not only the individual, but also one’s parents, siblings, and all of those who come in close relation with one. The VALUE of the experience depends on the need of each particular learner. The person is a POOR learner, by definition, only as a step toward changing from a bad to a good one.

Mental retardation can also be used as a maladaptive defense, if the wrong (or attack) side is employed. This produces the “pseudo-retardation syndrome” which is justly classified as a psychiatric (or disturbed-level) symptom. Both of you do this all the time. Bill acts as if he does not understand even his OWN special language, let alone mine, and you maintain you cannot read at all.

This represents a joint attack on both yourselves AND me, because it renders YOUR mind weak, and mine incompetent. Remember, this puts you in a truly fearful position. If you cannot understand either your own mind OR mine, you do not KNOW what is really willed. It is thus IMPOSSIBLE to avoid conflict, as defined before, because even if you act ACCORDING TO will, you wouldn’t know it.

The next part of this course rests too heavily on the earlier part not to REQUIRE its study. Without this, you will become much too fearful when the unexpected DOES occur to make constructive use of it. However, as you study the notes, you will see some of the obvious implications, unless you still persist in misusing the defense of mental retardation. Please remember that its constructive use, described above, is hardly a REAL part of your own REAL proper equipment. It is a PARTICULARLY inappropriate defense as you use it, and I can only urge you to avoid it.

The reason a solid foundation is necessary is because of the confusion between fear and awe to which we have already referred, and which so many people hold. You will remember that we said that awe is inappropriate in connection with the Children of God because you should not experience awe in the presence of your equals. However, it was also emphasized that awe IS a proper reaction in the presence of your Creator.

So far, this course has had only indirect recourse to God, and rarely even refers to One directly. I have repeatedly emphasized that awe is not appropriate in connection with me, BECAUSE of our inherent equality. I have been careful to clarify my own role in the Atonement, without either over or understating it. I have tried to do exactly the same things in connection with yours.

Some of the later steps in this course, however, DO involve a more direct approach to God Oneself. It would be most unwise to start on these steps without careful preparation, or awe will be confused with fear, and the experience will be more traumatic than beatific.

Healing is of God in the end. The means are being carefully explained to you. Revelation may occasionally REVEAL the end to you, but to reach it the means are needed.

Text Chapter 3 - Retraining the Mind

3.1 - How Error Interferes with Preparation

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

The following is the only detailed description which need be written down as to how error interferes with preparation. The events specifically referred to here could be any events, nor does their particular influence matter. It is the process which is to be noted here, and not its results. The kind of beliefs, and the fallacious premises involved in misthought are as well exemplified here as elsewhere. There is nothing of special interest about the events described below, EXCEPT their typical nature. If this is a true course in mind-training, then the whole value of this section rests ONLY in showing you what NOT to do. The more constructive emphasis is, of course, on the positive approach. Mind-watching would have prevented any of this from occurring, and will do so any time you permit it to.

Tell Bill that the reason why he was so strained yesterday is because he allowed himself a number of fear-producing attitudes. They were fleeting enough to be more will-of-the-wisps than serious will-errors, but unless he watches this kind of thing, he WILL find the notes fearful, and, knowing him well, will mis-distantiate. His unprovoked irritation was unpardonable EXCEPT by himself, and he did not choose to pardon it. YOU did, but I am afraid you were under some strain in doing so. This was unfortunate, and weakened your own ability to behave healingly toward Bill at the time, and later also toward Louis, both of whom DID act stupidly. But one stupidity at a time is usually enough. You are getting too close to the misuse of mental retardation when stupidity sets in all around.

Bill, having already weakened himself, was very un-miracle-minded, first by not asking Dora if she wanted a lift in the cab, which was going her way. Even if she didn’t want it, she would have been able to use the thought well. There is probably no human error that is more fear-provoking (in the will/behavior conflict sense) than countering any form of error with error. The result can be highly inflammable. By reacting to Dora’s stupidity with his own, all of the elements which are virtually certain to engender fear have been provided.

Bill should note that this is one of the few times that he had to wait for a cab. He thought he took care of it by holding the door of a cab which did come for that lady, but he was misguided in this belief. Beliefs are THOUGHTS, and thus come under Christ-guidance, NOT control. Actually, by giving this cab to her, he was very unkind to you. It was quite apparent that you were extremely cold, and also very late. The idea that giving her the cab would atone for his previous errors was singularly out of place, and well calculated to lead to further error. If, instead of attempting to atone on his own, he had asked for guidance, there would have been no difficulty whatever in the cab situation. It was not necessary that anyone wait at all.

Bill’s original slight to Dora, because of his own need to get home as he perceived it, stopped him from benefiting from the time-saving device of the miracle. He would have gotten home MUCH quicker if he had taken time to use time properly.

YOU were still suffering from strain (see above), and got quite irritated at the girl who stood next to the door on the side which blocked its opening. Her presence there made it necessary each time the door was opened to hold it for a much longer time than was necessary, and you were angry because this made you cold. Actually, the girl was taking care of the younger child who was standing outside, and both of them were really mentally retarded. If you will remember, the older girl asked you very uncertainly about the bus, and you were well aware at the time of her extreme uncertainty.

It would have been much wiser had you built up her confidence, instead of associating with her stupidity. This reduced your own efficiency, and the only thing that saved you then was that you DID remember, in the cab, to ask me about the notes, instead of assuming that you were necessarily to arrange to meet the next day and go over them. Bill had already become so misguided that it did not occur to him that his own will might be questionable. (You took poor notes yourself here, because you got mad at him on remembering this. While you did try to will right in the cab, you did not quite succeed. The error is showing up now.)

Bill thus placed himself in a condition to experience a fear rather than a love reaction. (Helen Schucman notes that she was going to write “an excellent position,” but did not do so. Answer: You were right about the misuse of “excellent” here, and please do cross it out. You are STILL angry. An excellent position for miscreation is not a meaningful approach to the problem.)

It was indeed discourteous (“indeed” is not necessary; it was your OWN error here; I am NOT saying this with any harsh overtones at all. I am just trying to create better learning conditions for the study periods. We want as little interference as possible, for VERY good reasons.)

Now, go back to Bill; he WAS discourteous when he told you that HE wanted to keep the original copy of the notes, having decided to have them Xeroxed on his OWN will, and then justifying it by a very slight misinterpretation of what I said about “useful for others.” In fact, if he will re-read the actual quote, he will see that it REALLY means “useful for HIM.” YOU had interpreted it that way, and frankly this was pretty clear to me at the time. But this sort of thing happens all the time. It should, be noted, however, that the result was not only considerable and totally unnecessary planning on Bill’s part, but also a failure to utilize what WAS intended for him as a help for HIMSELF. And before YOU get too self-satisfied, I would remind you that you do it all the time, too.

Bill acted inappropriately toward YOU, by saying that he wanted to be SURE that the original was not lost or dirty. It is noticeable that, having already decided what HE wanted to do, it never occurred to him that it IS possible that HE might lose or dirty them himself, especially as he had not entrusted them to me. This is a form of arrogance that he would be much happier without. He should also note that this would probably not have occurred had he not been ALREADY literally “off the beam.” Be SURE to tell him that this pun is to reassure him that I am not angry. If he does not get it, or does not like it, I KNOW it is not very good. The reason is that HE put me in a position where I can really give him very little at the moment.

But I want him to know that I am VERY well aware of the exceedingly few times he now makes errors of this kind. He has come a VERY long way in this respect. It seems a shame that he should allow himself even this much discomfort from it.

I suggest to YOU that we pray for him, and I pray for your full cooperation in this. This will correct YOUR errors, and help him react better to the work on the bookcase, which may otherwise lend itself for misuse by misprojection. There would have been no problem at all about the bookcase, and perhaps even no bookcase, if the solution of the storage problem had been left to me. I have promised to guide you OUT of problems, and will certainly not create them for you. But this means that you do not undertake to solve them yourselves. A storage problem is hardly more difficult for me to solve that a space problem, (see first Special Principle for Miracle Workers below.)

You started well in your attempt to pray with me for Bill, but ended badly. This is because you had already made a number of earlier errors. You were wrong to be pleased with Bill F’s criticism of Rose, and should not have enjoyed Bill F’s description of Zanvil’s caricaturing of her. You could have laughed WITH Bill, but NOT AT Rose. Real courtesy NEVER does this. You should know that all God’s children are fully worthy of COMPLETE courtesy. You should NEVER join with one at the EXPENSE of another.

When you called Bill about joining you, Gene, and Anne at lunch, YOU should have waited to ask ME. In fact, you should not even have told Anne that you would call. Then you could have asked Bill FIRST if HE would want to come, and called ANNE back. It is true that it was better that he came, but this has nothing to do with the real issue. There are ways of treating others in which ONLY consistent courtesy, even in very little things, is offered. This is a VERY HEALING habit to acquire.

Bill’s answer to your call was a clear statement of his own sadly conflicted state. He said, “I don’t want to join you, but that’s ungracious, so I’ll go.” Whenever ANY invitation to join others in a gracious way is offered, it should ALWAYS be met with respect, although it need not always be accepted. However, if it is MET ungraciously the resulting feeling may well be one of coercion. This is ALWAYS a split-will reaction.

Bill did not solve this by ACTING graciously. The lunch need not have entailed either mental or physical strain for him, and no “need to escape” should have arisen. This was a regression of the unprofitable kind. Bill will continue to experience this need from time to time, until he is willing to realize that there is nothing he needs or wants to escape from.

It is very hard to get out of the chain of miscreation which can arise out of even the simplest mis-thought. To borrow one of your own phrases, “This kind of human tragedy is far easier to avert than to undo.”

You must both learn not to let this kind of chain reaction START. You will NOT be able to control it once it has started, because everything and everyone will be pulled into the misprojection, and misinterpreted accordingly. NOTHING is lovely to the unloving. This is because they are CREATING ugliness.

Text Chapter 3 - Retraining the Mind

3.2 - Special Principles For Miracle Workers

1. The miracle abolishes the need for lower-order concerns. Since it is an illogical or out-of-pattern time interval, the ordinary considerations of time and space do not apply. When YOU perform a miracle, I will arrange both time and space to adjust to it.

2. Clear distinction between what HAS BEEN created and what IS BEING created is essential. ALL forms of correction (or healing) rest on this FUNDAMENTAL correction in level perception.

3. Another way of stating the above point is: NEVER confuse right with wrong-mindedness. Responding to ANY form of miscreation with anything EXCEPT A DESIRE TO HEAL (or a miracle) is an expression of this confusion.

4. The miracle is ALWAYS a DENIAL of this error and an affirmation of the truth. Only right-mindedness CAN create in a way that has any real effect. Pragmatically, what has no real effect has no real existence. Its REAL effect, then, is emptiness. Being without substantial content, it lends itself to projection in the improper sense.

5. The level-adjustment power of the miracle induces the right perception for healing. Until this has occurred healing cannot be understood. Forgiveness is an empty gesture unless it entails correction. Without this, it is essentially judgemental rather than healing.

6. Miraculous forgiveness is ONLY correction. It has NO element of judgement at all. “Creator forgive them for they know not what they do” in NO way EVALUATES what they do. It is strictly limited to an appeal to God to HEAL their minds. There is no reference to the outcome of their misthought. THAT does not matter.

7. The Biblical injunction “Be of one mind” is the statement for REVELATION-readiness. My OWN injunction “Do this in remembrance of me” is the request for cooperation from miracle-workers. It should be noted that the two statements are not in the same order of reality. The latter involves a time awareness, since to remember implies recalling the PAST in the present. Time is under MY direction, but Timelessness belongs to God alone. In time we exist for and with each other. In Timelessness we coexist with God.

Text Chapter 3 - Retraining the Mind

3.3 - Atonement Without Sacrifice

There is another point which must be perfectly clear before any residual fear which may still be associated with miracles becomes entirely groundless. The crucifixion did NOT establish the Atonement. The Resurrection did. This is a point which many very sincere Christians have misunderstood. No one who is free of the scarcity-error could POSSIBLY make this mistake.

If the crucifixion is seen from an upside-down point of view, it DOES appear AS IF God permitted, and even encouraged, one of One’s Children to suffer BECAUSE he was good. Many very devoted ministers preach this every day. This particularly unfortunate interpretation, which arose out of the combined misprojections of a large number of my would-be followers, has led many people to be bitterly afraid of God.This particularly anti-religious concept enters into many religions, and this is neither by chance nor by coincidence.

Yet the real Christian would have to pause and ask, “How could this be?” Is it likely that God Oneself would be capable of the kind of thinking which One’s own words have clearly stated is unworthy of people?

The best defense, as always, is NOT to attack another’s position, but rather to protect the truth. It is unwise to accept ANY concept, if you have to turn a whole frame of reference around in order to justify it. This procedure is painful in its minor applications, and genuinely tragic on a mass basis. Persecution is a frequent result, undertaken to justify the terrible misprojection that God Oneself persecuted One’s own Child on behalf of salvation. The very words are meaningless.

It has been particularly difficult to overcome this because, although the error itself is no harder to overcome than any other error, people were unwilling to give this one up because of its prominent “escape” value. In milder forms, a parent says, “This hurts me more than it hurts you,” and feels exonerated in beating a child. Can you believe that the Creator REALLY thinks this way?

It is so essential that ALL such thinking be dispelled that we must be VERY sure that NOTHING of this kind remains in your mind. I was NOT punished because YOU were bad. The wholly benign lesson the Atonement teaches is lost if it is tainted with this kind of distortion in ANY form.

“Vengeance is Mine sayeth the Lord” is a strictly karmic viewpoint. It is a real misperception of truth, by which one assigns one’s own “evil” past to God. The “evil conscience” from the past has nothing to do with God. One did not create it and One does not maintain it. God does NOT believe in karmic retribution. One’s Divine Mind does not create that way. ONE does not hold the evil deeds of one even against ONESELF. Is it likely, then, that One would hold against anyone the evil that ANOTHER did?

Be very sure that you recognize how utterly impossible this assumption really is, and how ENTIRELY it arises from misprojection. This kind of error is responsible for a host of related errors, including the belief that God rejected humans, and forced them out of the Garden of Eden. It is also responsible for the fact that you may believe, from time to time, that I am misdirecting you. I have made every effort to use words that are ALMOST impossible to distort, but people can be very inventive when it comes to twisting symbols around.

God Oneself is not symbolic; One is FACT. The Atonement, too, is totally without symbolism. It is perfectly clear because it exists in light. Only one’s attempts to shroud it in darkness have made it inaccessible to the unwilling and ambiguous to the partly willing. The Atonement itself radiates nothing but truth. It therefore epitomizes harmlessness and sheds ONLY blessing. It could not do this if it arose from anything but perfect innocence. Innocence is wisdom because it is unaware of evil, which does not exist. It is, however, PERFECTLY aware of EVERYTHING that is true.

The Resurrection demonstrated that NOTHING can destroy truth. Good can withstand ANY form of evil because light abolishes ALL forms of darkness. The Atonement is thus the perfect lesson. It is the final demonstration that all of the other lessons which I taught are true.

One is released from ALL errors if one believes in this. The deductive approach to teaching accepts the generalization which is applicable to ALL single instances, rather than building up the generalization after analyzing numerous single instances separately. If you can accept the ONE GENERALIZATION NOW, there will be no need to learn from many smaller lessons.

NOTHING can prevail against a Child of God who commends one’s Spirit into the hands of one’s Creator. By doing this, the mind awakens from its sleep and remembers its Creator. All sense of separation disappears, and level confusion vanishes. The Child of God IS part of the Holy Trinity, but the Trinity Itself is ONE. There is no confusion within Its levels because they are of One Mind and One Will. This Single Purpose creates perfect integration and establishes the peace of God.

Yet this Vision can be perceived only by the truly innocent. Because their hearts are pure, the innocent defend true perception instead of defending themselves AGAINST it. Understanding the lesson of the Atonement, they are without the will to attack, and therefore they see truly. This is what the Bible means when it says,

“When One shall appear (or be perceived) we shall be like One, for we shall see One AS ONE IS.”

Sacrifice is a notion totally unknown to God. It arises solely from fear. This is particularly unfortunate because frightened people are apt to be vicious. Sacrificing another in any way is a clearcut violation of God’s Own injunction that one should be merciful even as one’s Creator in Heaven.

It has been hard for many Christians to realize that this commandment (or assignment) also applies to THEMSELVES. Good teachers never terrorize their students. To terrorize is to attack, and this results in rejection of what the teacher offers. The result is learning failure.

I have been correctly referred to as “The Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world.” Those who represent the lamb as blood-stained, an all-too-widespread error, do NOT understand the meaning of the symbol.

Correctly understood, it is a very simple parable which merely speaks of my innocence. The lion and the lamb lying down together refers to the fact that strength and innocence are NOT in conflict, but naturally live in peace. “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God” is another way of saying the same thing. Only the innocent CAN see God.

There has been some controversy, in human terms, as to whether seeing is an attribute of the eyes, or an expression of the integrative powers of the brain. Correctly understood, the issue resolves around the question of whether the body or the mind can see (or understand). This is not really open to question at all.

The body is not capable of understanding, and only the mind KNOWS anything. A pure mind knows the truth, and this IS its strength. It cannot attack the body because it recognizes EXACTLY what the body IS. This is what “a sane mind in a sane body” really means.

A sane mind is NOT out for blood. It does NOT confuse destruction with innocence because it associates innocence with strength, NOT with weakness. Innocence is INCAPABLE of sacrificing anything, because the innocent mind HAS everything and strives only to PROTECT its Wholeness. This is why it CANNOT misproject. It can only honor another, because honor is the NATURAL greeting of the truly loved to others who are LIKE one.

The lamb taketh away the sins of the world only in the sense that the state of innocence, or grace, is one in which the meaning of the Atonement is perfectly apparent. The innocence of God is the true state of mind of One’s Child. In this state, one’s mind DOES see God in the sense that one sees One as One is, and realizes that the Atonement, NOT sacrifice, is the ONLY appropriate gift to One’s OWN altar, where nothing except perfection truly belongs. The understanding of the innocent is TRUTH. That is why their altars are truly radiant.

Text Chapter 3 - Retraining the Mind

3.4 - Edgar Cayce and the Misunderstanding of Sacrifice

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

Though Christians generally (but by no means universally) recognize the contradiction involved in victimizing others, they are less adept at ensuring their own inability to victimize themselves. Although this appears to be a much more benign error from the viewpoint of society, it is nevertheless inherently dangerous because once a two-edged defense is used, its direction cannot be self-controlled.

Bill recently observed how many ideas were condensed into relatively few pages here. This is because we have not been forced to dispel miscreations throughout. (There is one set of notes not yet transcribed which is devoted to this. These emphasize only the enormous waste of time that is involved.) Cayce’s notes, too, could have been much shortened. Their excessive length is due to two factors. The first involves a fundamental error which Cayce himself made, and which required constant undoing. The second is more related to the attitude of his followers. They are unwilling to omit anything he said. This is respectful enough, but not overly-judicious. I would be a far better editor, if they would allow me this position on their staff.

It is obvious that Cayce himself was not able to transcend the misperceptions of the need for sacrifice, or he could not possibly have been willing to sacrifice himself. Anyone who is unable to leave the requests of others unanswered has not entirely transcended egocentricity. I never “gave of myself” in this inappropriate way, nor would I ever have encouraged Cayce to do so.

Cayce could not see the Atonement as totally lacking in sacrifice at ANY level. It WAS obvious to him that the mind cannot be so limited. It was equally apparent to him that the Spirit is merely unaffected by such an idea. This left him only the body with which to invest his misperception. This is also why he used his own mind at the “EXPENSE of his body.”

Because Cayce was a somewhat erratic listener, he was compelled to correct his own errors at very great length, and not always adequately. Consider the basis from which he started, when he began with “yes, we have the body.” It is noteworthy that in all these readings, a large section was actually devoted to the body, even though he usually concluded with the caution that the body cannot be healed by itself. It would have saved an enormous number of words if he had always begun with this.

Cayce and his devotion to me are in no way underestimated by the realization that he worked under very great strain, which is ALWAYS a sign that something is wrong. One of the difficulties inherent in trance states is that it is very difficult to overcome the split which the trance itself induces through the medium of communications made while in the trance state.

Cayce’s whole approach put him in a real double-bind, from which he did not recover. When he spoke of a dream in which he saw his own rather immanent reincarnation, he was perfectly accurate. He was sufficiently attuned to real communication to make it easy to correct his errors, and free himself to communicate without strain. It is noticeable throughout his notes that he frequently engaged in a fallacy that we have already noted in some detail: namely, the tendency to endow the physical with nonphysical properties. Cayce suffered greatly from this error. He did not make either of the other three. However, you will remember that it is this one which is particularly vulnerable to magical associations. Cayce’s accuracy was so great that, even when he did this, he was able to apply it constructively. But it does not follow that this was a genuinely constructive approach.

It should also be noted that, when Cayce attempted to “see” the body in proper perspective, he saw physically discernible auras surrounding it. This is a curious compromise, in which the nonphysical attributes of the self are approached AS IF they could be seen with the physical eye.

Cayce’s illiteracy never stood in his way. This is because illiteracy does not necessarily imply any lack of love, and in Cayce’s case very definitely did not. He therefore had no difficulty at all in overcoming this seeming limitation. What DID hamper him was a profound sense of personal unworthiness, which, characteristically enough, was sometimes over-compensated for in what might be called a Christian form of grandiosity. Cayce was essentially uncharitable to himself. This made him very erratic in his own miracles, and, because he was genuinely anxious to help others, left himself in a highly vulnerable position.

His son comments both on the rather erratic nature of the Cayce household, and also on the rather uneven nature of Cayce’s temper. Both of these observations are true, and clearly point to the fact that Cayce did not apply the Peace of God to himself. Once this had occurred, particularly in a man whose communication channels were open, it was virtually impossible for him to escape external solutions. Cayce was a very religious man, who should have been able to escape fear through religion. Being unable to apply his religion wholeheartedly to himself, he was forced to accept certain magical beliefs which were alien to his own Christianity. This is why he was so different when he was asleep, and even disowned what he said in this state.

The lack of integration which this split state implies is clearly shown in certain off-the-mark detours into areas such as the effects of stones on the mind, and some curious symbolic attempts to integrate churches and glands. (This is hardly more peculiar than some of your own confusions)

Cayce’s mind was imprisoned to some extent by an error against which you have been cautioned several times. He looked to the past for an EXPLANATION of the present, but he never succeeded in separating the past FROM the present. When he said “mind is the builder,” he did not realize that it is only what it is building NOW that really creates the future. The past, in itself, does not have the ability to do this. Whenever we move from one instant to the next, the previous one no longer exists. In considering the body as the focus for healing, Cayce was expressing his own failure to accept this AS ACCOMPLISHED. He did not fail to recognize the value of the Atonement for others, but he did fail to accept its corrective merit for himself.

As we have frequently emphasized, man CANNOT control his own errors. Having created them, he does believe in them. Because of his failure to accept his own perfect freedom FROM the past, Cayce could not really perceive others as similarly free. This is why I have not wholly endorsed the Cayce documents for widespread use.

I am heartily supportive of the ARE’s endeavor to make Cayce’s singular contributions immortal, but it would be most unwise to have them promulgated as a faith until they have been purged of their essential errors. This is why there have been a number of unexplained setbacks in their explication. It is also one of the many reasons why the Cayce material, a major step in the speedup, must be properly understood before it can be meaningfully validated.

Cayce’s son has been wise in attempting to deal with reliability, which in Cayce’s case is very high. There is a way of validating the material, and Hugh Lynn is perfectly aware that this must be done eventually. He is also aware of the fact that he is unable to do it. In the present state of the material, it would be most unwise even to attempt it. There is too much that IS invalid. When the time comes that this can be corrected to the point of real safety, I assure you it will be accomplished. In tribute to Cayce, I remind you that no effort is wasted, and Cayce’s effort was very great.

It would be most ungrateful of me if I allowed his work to produce a generation of witch doctors. I am sorry that Cayce himself could not rid himself of a slight tendency in this direction. But fortunately I have a fuller appreciation of him than he had.

I am repeating here a Biblical injunction of my own, already mentioned elsewhere, that if my followers eat any deadly thing it shall not hurt them. This is what Cayce could NOT believe, because he could not see that, as a Child of God, he IS invulnerable.

Text Chapter 3 - Retraining the Mind

3.5 - Miracles As Accurate Perception

We have repeatedly stated that the basic concepts referred to in this course are NOT matters of degree. Certain fundamental concepts CANNOT be meaningfully understood in terms of coexisting polarities. It is impossible to conceive of light and darkness, or everything and nothing, as joint possibilities. They are all true OR all false. It is essential that you realize that behavior is erratic until a firm commitment to one or the other is made.

A firm commitment to darkness or nothingness is impossible. No one has ever lived who has not experienced SOME light and SOME thing. This makes everyone really unable to deny truth totally, even if one generally deceives oneself in this connection. That is why those who live largely in darkness and emptiness never find any lasting solace.

Innocence is NOT a partial attribute. It is not a real defense UNTIL it is total. When it is partial, it is characterized by the same erratic nature that holds for other two-edged defenses. The partly innocent are apt to be quite stupid at times. It is not until their innocence becomes a genuine viewpoint which is universal in its application that it becomes wisdom.

Innocent (or true) perception means that you NEVER misperceive and ALWAYS see truly. More simply, it means that you never see what does not exist in reality. Whenever you lack confidence in what someone will do, you are attesting to your belief that one is not in one’s Right Mind. This is hardly a miracle-based frame of reference. It also has the disastrous effect of denying the creative power of the miracle. The miracle perceives everything AS IT IS. If nothing but the truth exists, (and this is really a redundant statement because what is not true CANNOT exist), Right-Minded seeing cannot see ANYTHING BUT perfection. We have said many times that ONLY what God creates, or what one creates with the same will, has any real existence. This, then, is all the innocent can see. They do not suffer from the distortions of the separated ones.

The way to correct all such distortions is to withdraw your FAITH from them, and invest it ONLY in what is true. You CANNOT validate the invalid. I would suggest that you voluntarily give up all such attempts, because they can only be frantic. If you are willing to validate what IS true in everything you perceive, you will make it true for YOU. Truth overcomes ALL error. This means that if you perceive truly, you are canceling out misperceptions in yourself AND in others simultaneously. Because you see them as they are, you offer them your own validation of THEIR truth. This is the healing which the miracle actively fosters.

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Helen Schucman asks Christ, “Is this all?” and Christ answers:

The reason why this is so short, despite its extreme importance, is because it is not symbolic. This means that it is not open to more than one interpretation. This means that it is unequivocal. It also explains the quotation which you have never gotten correctly in complete form before: “But this we know, that when One shall appear (or be perceived) we shall be like One for we shall see One as One is. And every person that hath this hope in one purifieth oneself even as One is pure.” (1 John 3:2-3) Every person DOES have the hope that one can see correctly, because the ability to do so is IN one. One’s ONLY hope IS to see things as they are.

Helen Schucman had a sudden flash of illumination and very much wanted to offer prayer for Bill, which she did as follows: “Jesus, help me see my brother as he really is, and thus release both him and me.” Helen Schucman also thought later: Every time there is anything unlovable that crosses one’s mind (regarding sex, possession, etc.) you should immediately recognize that you do not want to hurt your sibling.

Text Chapter 3 - Retraining the Mind

3.6 - Perception Versus Knowledge

We have been emphasizing perception and have said very little about cognition as yet, because you are confused about the difference between them. One of the exceptions is in the correction formula for fear, which begins with KNOW first. The reason we have dealt so little with cognition is because you must get your perceptions straightened out before you can KNOW anything.

To know is to be certain. Uncertainty merely means that you do NOT know. Knowledge is power BECAUSE it is certain, and certainty is strength. Perception is temporary. It is an attribute of the space-time belief, and is therefore subject to fear or love. Misperceptions produce fear, and true perceptions produce love. NEITHER produces certainty, because ALL perception varies. That is why it is NOT knowledge. True perception is the BASIS for knowledge, but KNOWING is the affirmation of truth.

All your difficulties ultimately stem from the fact that you do not recognize or KNOW yourselves, each other, or God. To recognize means to “know again,” implying that you knew before. (Note that it does not mean SAW before.) You can see in many ways, because perception involves different interpretations, and this means that it is not whole. The miracle is a way of PERCEIVING, not of knowing. It is the right answer to a question, and you do not ask questions at all when you know.

Questioning illusions is the first step in undoing them. The miracle, or the “right answer,” corrects them. Since perceptions CHANGE, their dependence on time is obvious. They are subject to transitory states, and this necessarily implies variability. How you perceive at any given time determines what you DO, and action MUST occur in time. Knowledge is timeless because certainty is NOT questionable. You KNOW when you have ceased to ask questions.

The questioning mind perceives itself in time, and therefore looks for FUTURE answers. The unquestioning mind is closed because it believes the future and present will be the same. This establishes an unchanged state, or stasis. It is usually an attempt to counteract an underlying fear that the future will be WORSE than the present, and this fear inhibits the tendency to question at all.

Visions are the natural perception of the Spiritual eye, but they are still corrections. The Spiritual eye is symbolic, and therefore not a device for knowing. It IS, however, a means of right perception, which brings it into the proper domain of the miracle, but NOT of revelation. Properly speaking, “a vision of God” is a miracle rather than a revelation. The fact that perception is involved at all removes the experience from the realm of knowledge. That is why visions do not last.

The Bible instructs you to “KNOW yourself,” or BE CERTAIN. Certainty is ALWAYS of God. When you love someone, you have PERCEIVED one as one is, and this makes it possible for you to KNOW one. However, it is not until you RECOGNIZE one that you CAN know one. Only then are you ABLE to stop asking questions about one.

While you ask questions about God, you are clearly implying that you do NOT know One. Certainty does not require action. When you say that you are ACTING on the basis of knowledge, you are really confusing perception and cognition. Knowledge brings the MENTAL strength for creative THINKING, but NOT for right DOING.

Perception, miracles and doing are closely related. Knowledge is the result of revelation, and induces only thought. Perception involves the body even in its most spiritualized form. Knowledge comes from the altar within, and is timeless because it is certain. To perceive the truth is NOT the same as KNOWING it.

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This is why Bill is having so much trouble in what he calls “integrating” the notes. His tentative perception is too uncertain for knowledge, because knowledge is SURE. Your perception is so variable that you swing from sudden but real knowledge to complete cognitive disorganization. This is why Bill is more prone to irritation, while you are more vulnerable to rage. He is consistently BELOW his potential, while you achieve it at times and then swing very wide of the mark.

Actually, these differences do not matter. But I thought you might be glad to learn that you are much better off with DIFFERENT perceptual problems than you would be if you suffered from similar ones. This enables each of you to RECOGNIZE (and this is the right word here) that the misperceptions of the other are unnecessary. It is because you do not KNOW what to do about it that Bill reacts to yours with irritation, and you respond to his with fury.

I repeat again that if you attack error, you will hurt yourself. You do not RECOGNIZE each other when you attack. Attack is ALWAYS made on a stranger. You are MAKING one a stranger by misperceiving one, so that you CANNOT know one. It is BECAUSE you have made one a stranger that you are afraid of one. PERCEIVE one correctly so that you can KNOW one.

Right perception is necessary before God can communicate DIRECTLY to One’s own altars, which One has established in One’s Children. There One can communicate One’s certainty, and One’s KNOWLEDGE will bring peace WITHOUT question.

God is not a stranger to One’s Children, and One’s Children are not strangers to each other. Knowledge preceded both perception and time, and will ultimately replace them. That is the real meaning of the Biblical description of God as “Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End.” It also explains the quotation, “Before Abraham WAS, I AM.” Perception can and must be stabilized, but knowledge IS stable. “Fear God and keep One’s commandments” is a real scribal error. It should read, “KNOW God and accept One’s certainty.” This error is why the commandments are negative, in contrast to Christ’s statements about “Thou shalt love.” There are no strangers in One’s Creation. To create as One created, you can create only what you KNOW and accept as yours.

God knows One’s Children with perfect certainty. One created them BY knowing them. One recognizes them perfectly. When they do not recognize each other, they do not recognize One. Siblings can misperceive one another, but they rarely maintain that they do not KNOW each other. This is possible only if they maintain that they are NOT really siblings. The Bible is VERY specific on this point.

Text Chapter 3 - Retraining the Mind

3.7 - Conflict And The Ego

The abilities people now possess are only shadows of their real strengths. The Spirit knows, loves and creates. These are one's unequivocal functions. All of the functions of humans are equivocal and open to question or doubt. This is because a person is not certain how one will USE them. One is therefore incapable of knowledge, being uncertain. One is also incapable of true loving because one can perceive lovelessly. One cannot create surely because one’s perception deceives and illusions are not SURE.

Perception did not exist until the SEPARATION had introduced degrees, aspects and intervals. The Spirit has no levels, and ALL conflict arises from the concept of levels. Wars arise when some regard others as if they were on a different level. All interpersonal conflicts arise from this fallacy. Only the Levels of the Trinity are capable of Unity. The levels which humans created by the separation are disastrous. They cannot BUT conflict. This is because one is essentially meaningless to another. Freud realized this perfectly, and that is why he conceived the different levels in his view of the psyche as forever irreconcilable. They were conflict-prone by definition because they wanted different things and obeyed different principles.

In our picture of the psyche, there is an unconscious level which properly consists ONLY of the miracle ability, and which should be under MY direction; and a conscious level, which perceives or is aware of impulses from both the unconscious and the superconscious. These are the sources of the impulses it receives. Consciousness is thus the level of perception, but NOT of knowledge. Again, to PERCEIVE is NOT to know.

Consciousness was the first split that one introduced into oneself. One became a PERCEIVER, rather than a creator in the true sense.

Consciousness is correctly identified as the domain of the ego. Jung was right indeed in insisting that the ego is NOT the Self, and that the Self should be regarded as an achievement. He did not RECOGNIZE (a term we now understand) that the ACHIEVEMENT was God’s. In a sense the ego is a human-made attempt to perceive oneself as one WISHED to be, rather than as one IS. This is an example of the created/creator confusion we have spoken of before. Yet one can only KNOW oneself as one IS because that is all one can be SURE of. Everything else IS open to question.

The ego is the questioning compartment in the post-separation psyche which one created for oneself. It is capable of asking valid questions but NOT of perceiving valid answers, because these are cognitive and cannot BE perceived. The endless speculation about the meaning of mind has led to considerable confusion because the mind IS confused. Only One-Mindedness is without confusion. A separated or divided mind MUST be confused. A divided mind is uncertain by definition. It HAS to be in conflict because it is out of accord with itself.

Intrapersonal conflict arises from the same basis as interpersonal conflict. One part of the psyche perceives another part as on a different LEVEL, and does not understand it. This makes the parts strangers to each other, WITHOUT RECOGNITION. This is the essence of the fear-prone condition, in which attack is ALWAYS possible.

One has every reason to feel afraid, as one perceives oneself. This is why one cannot escape from fear until one KNOWS that one DID not and COULD not create oneself. One can NEVER make one’s misperceptions valid and when one at last PERCEIVES clearly, one is GLAD ONE CANNOT. One’s creation is beyond one’s own error, and that is why one MUST eventually choose to heal the separation.

Right-mindedness is not to be confused with the KNOWING mind because it is applicable only to right perception. You can be right-minded or wrong-minded, and even this is subject to degrees, a fact which clearly demonstrates a lack of association with knowledge.

The term “right-mindedness” is properly used as the CORRECTION for “wrong-mindedness,” and applies to the state of mind which induces accurate perception. It is miraculous because it HEALS misperception, and this is indeed a miracle in view of how one perceives oneself. ONLY the sick NEED healing. The Spirit does not need healing, but the mind DOES.

Freud gave a very graphic but upside down account of how the divisions of the mind arose from the bottom UP. Actually, this is impossible, because the unconscious cannot create the conscious. You cannot create something you can't KNOW. Freud was greatly worried about this, being VERY bright, though misguided, and attempted to get around it by introducing a number of “borderline” areas which merely resulted in fuzziness. This was particularly unfortunate, because he was capable of going much higher, if he had not been so afraid. This is why he kept pulling the mind DOWN.

The ego did NOT arise out of the unconscious. A lower-order perception cannot create a higher-order one, (which is the way you perceive the structure of the psyche if you look at it from the bottom UP) because it doesn’t understand it. But a higher-order perception CAN create a lower-order one by understanding it in terms of MISperception.

Perception ALWAYS involves some misuse of will because it involves the mind in areas of uncertainty. The mind is very active because it has will-power. When it willed the separation, it willed to perceive. Until then, it willed ONLY to know. Afterwards it willed ambiguously, and the only way OUT of ambiguity IS clear perception.

The ego is as frail as Freud perceived it. The later theorists have tried to introduce a less pessimistic view, but have looked in the wrong direction for their hope. Any attempt to endow the ego with the attributes of the Spirit, is merely confused thinking. Freud was more clear-sighted about this, because he knew a BAD thing when he perceived it, but he failed to recognize that a bad thing cannot exist. It is therefore wholly unnecessary to try to get out of it. As you very rightly observed yourself, the thing to do with a desert is to LEAVE.

The mind returns to its proper function only when it WILLS TO KNOW. This places it in the Spirit’s service, where perception is meaningless. The superconscious is the level of the mind which wills this. Freud was particularly distorted on this point, because he was getting too far UP for comfort according to his own perception. But he WAS right in maintaining that the “parts” of the psyche cannot be correctly perceived either as THINGS or as entirely separate. He would have thought better if he had said “entirely separated.”

The mind chose to divide itself when it willed to create both its own levels AND the ability to perceive them. But it could not entirely separate itself from the Spirit because it is FROM the Spirit that it derives its whole power to create. Even in miscreating will is affirming its source, or it would merely cease to be. This is impossible because it IS part of the Spirit, which God created and which is therefore eternal.

The ability to perceive made the body possible because you must perceive SOMETHING, and WITH something. This is why perception involves an exchange or translation, which knowledge does NOT need. The interpretive function of perception, actually a distorted form of creation, then permitted one to interpret the body as ONESELF, which, though depressing, was an attempt to escape from the conflict one had induced. (This has already been covered in some detail.)

The superconscious, which KNOWS, could not be reconciled with this loss of power because it is incapable of darkness. This is why it became almost inaccessible to the mind and entirely inaccessible to the body. Thereafter, the superconscious was PERCEIVED as a threat, because light does abolish darkness merely by establishing the fact that it IS NOT THERE. The truth will ALWAYS overcome error in this sense. This is not an ACTIVE process of destruction at all. We have already emphasized that knowledge does not DO anything. It can be PERCEIVED as an attacker, but it CANNOT attack.

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What one perceives as its attack is merely one’s own vague recognition of the fact that it can always be REMEMBERED, never having been destroyed. This is not a literal remembering as much as a re-membering. That pun is largely for Bill I wish he would decide to use that talent of his constructively. He has no idea of how powerful it could be. Actually, it does come from the unconscious, and is really a distorted form of miraculous perception which he has reduced to word twisting. Although this can be quite funny, it is still a real waste. Maybe he’d care to let me control it, and still use it humorously himself. He doesn’t have to decide it is one OR the other.

The unconscious should never have been reduced to a “container” for the waste products of conflict. Even as HE perceives his psyche, every level has a creative potential, because nothing one creates can wholly lose this.

God and the Spirits One created remain in surety, and therefore KNOW that no miscreation exists. Truth cannot deal with unwilling error, because it does not will to be blocked out. I was a man who remembered the Spirit and its knowledge, and as a man, I did not attempt to COUNTERACT error with knowledge so much as to CORRECT error from the bottom up. I demonstrated both the powerlessness of the body AND the power of the mind. By uniting MY will with that of my Creator, I brought One’s Light back into the mind which naturally remembered the Spirit and its own real purpose.

I cannot unite your will with God’s FOR you, but I CAN erase all misperceptions from your mind if you will bring it under my guidance. ONLY your misperceptions stand in your own way. Without them your own choice is certain. Sane perception INDUCES sane choosing. The Atonement was an act based on true perception. I cannot choose for you, but I CAN help you make your own right choice.

“Many are called but few are chosen” SHOULD read, “ALL are called but few choose to listen. Therefore, they do not choose RIGHT.” The “chosen ones” are merely those who choose right SOONER. This is the real meaning of the celestial speed-up. Strong wills can do this NOW. And you WILL find rest for your Spirits. God knows you only in peace, and this IS your reality.

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Helen to Christ: Who is Bill to me? He is your Sibling.

What else can you need to know? But do know that this is NOT a matter of perception, but a FACT.

Tell Bill to write a note today refusing the Steering Committe. They are dedicated to the mind-brain confusion which I do not want you to encourage. Thank Bill for me for his genuinely directed offer of cooperation which I have a better use for.

Remember my previous statement that I am in a position to correct perception from the bottom up. This represents the earlier analogy of the miracles’ power to turn time from the horizontal to the vertical axis.

The term “insight,” though referring to lofty perception, is not an attribute of knowledge. This is why terms like “lofty” are meaningless in this context. Insight is not the way TO knowledge, but it IS a prerequisite FOR knowledge. Being of God, knowledge has nothing to do with your perceptions at all. That is why it can only be a gift of God TO you.

Text Chapter 3 - Retraining the Mind

3.8 The Loss Of Certainty

We said before that the abilities which one possesses are only shadows of one’s true abilities. The Spirit’s true functions are knowing, loving, and creating. The intrusion of the ability to perceive, which is inherently judgemental, was introduced only after the separation. No one has been sure of anything since. You will also remember, however, that I made it clear that the Resurrection was the means for the return to knowledge, which was accomplished by the union of my will with the Creator’s. We can now make a distinction which will greatly facilitate clarity in our subsequent statements.

Since the separation, the words “create” and “make” have been greatly confused. When you make something, you make it first out of a sense of lack or need, and second, out of a something that already exists. Anything that is made is made for a specific purpose. It has no true generalizability. When you make something to fill a perceived lack, which is obviously why you would want to make anything, you are tacitly implying that you believe in the separation. Knowing, as we have frequently observed, does not lead to doing at all.

What appears to be contradictory about the difference between knowing and perceiving, and Revelation and miracles, is again the fallacy that is the root cause of all subsequent errors. The miracle was associated with perception, and not with knowing. However, we also noted that prayer is the medium of miracles, and also the natural communication of the Creator and the Created. Prayer is always an affirmation of knowledge, not of accurate perception. That is why unless perception has entered into it, it calls on Revelation.

The confusion between your own creation and what YOU create is so profound that it has become literally impossible for you to know anything. Knowledge is always stable. It is quite evident that human beings are not. Nevertheless, they are perfectly stable as God created them. In this sense, when their behavior is unstable they are obviously disagreeing with God’s Idea of the Creation. This is a fundamental right of God's Child and one can do this if one chooses, but one would hardly WANT to do it if one were in one’s right mind.

The problem that bothers you most is the fundamental question which one continually asks of oneself, but which cannot properly be directed to oneself at all. One keeps asking “oneself” what one IS. This implies that the answer is not only one which one knows, but is also one which is up to one to supply. The first part of this statement is perfectly true, but the second part is not. We have frequently commented on the absolute necessity of correcting all fallacious thinking which associates one in any way with one’s own Creation. One CANNOT perceive oneself correctly. One has no image at all. The word “image” is always perception-related, and NOT a product of knowing. Images are symbolic, and stand for something else. The current emphasis on “changing your image” is a good description of the power of perception, but it also implies that there is nothing to KNOW.

Prayer is the medium of miracles, not because God created perceptions, but because God created YOU. At the beginning of this course, we said that YOU are a miracle. Therefore, the miracle worker is a miracle NOT of one’s own creation. Unless perception rests on some knowing basis it is so unstable that it doesn't mean anything. Knowing is NOT open to interpretation, because its meaning is its own. It is possible to “interpret” meaning, but this is always open to error because it refers to the PERCEPTION of meaning. Such wholly needless complexities are the result of one’s attempt to regard oneself as both separated and unseparated at the same time. It is impossible to undertake a confusion as fundamental as this without engaging in further confusion.

Methodologically the human beings mind has been very creative, but, as always occurs when method and content are separated, it has not been utilized for anything but an attempt to escape a fundamental and entirely inescapable impasse. This kind of thinking cannot result in a creative outcome, although it has resulted in considerable ingenuity. It is noteworthy, however, that this ingenuity has almost totally divorced one from knowledge.

Knowledge does not require ingenuity. When we say “the truth shall set you free,” we mean that all this kind of thinking is a waste of time, but that you ARE free of the need to engage in it if you are willing to let it go.

Note again that the functions of the Spirit were not referred to as abilities. This point requires clarification, because abilities are beliefs which are BASED on the scarcity fallacy, since they do not mean anything apart from within-group comparisons. It has been said that, “Nobody has none of an ability, and nobody has all of it.” That is, of course, why the curve never rests on the line. The clearest implications of relativity, which properly inheres in this statement, DEMONSTRATE that abilities are not a function of the Spirit. The Spirit’s functions are NOT relative. They are ABSOLUTE. They are OF God and FROM God, and therefore God-like.

Prayer is a way of asking for something. Prayer is the medium of miracles, but the only meaningful prayer is for forgiveness, because those who have been forgiven HAVE everything. Once forgiveness has been accepted, prayer in the usual sense becomes utterly meaningless. Essentially, a prayer for forgiveness is nothing more than a request that we may be able to RECOGNIZE something we already have.

In electing to perceive instead of the will to know, one placed oneself in a position where one could resemble one’s Creator ONLY by perceiving miraculously. But one has lost the knowledge that one is a miracle. MIRACULOUS CREATION was one’s own Source, and also one’s own real function. “God created human beings in one’s Own image and likeness” is correct in meaning, but the words are open to considerable misinterpretation. This is avoided, however, if “image” is understood to mean “thought” and “likeness” is taken as “of a like quality.” God DID create the Child in One’s Own Thought, and of a quality like to One’s Own. There IS nothing else.

Perception, on the other hand, is impossible WITHOUT a belief in “more” and “less.” Perception at every level involves selectivity, and is incapable of organization without it. In all types of perception there is a continual process of accepting and rejecting, or organizing and reorganizing, of shifting and changing focus. Evaluation is an essential part of perception because judgements MUST be made for selection. “Lack of lack” is a concept which is meaningless to a perceiver, because the ability to perceive at all RESTS ON lack.

What happens to perceptions if there ARE no judgements and there is nothing BUT perfect equality? Perception is automatically useless. Truth can only be KNOWN. All of it is equally true, and knowing any part of it IS to know all of it.

Only perception involves partial awareness. Knowledge transcends ALL the laws which govern perception. Partial KNOWLEDGE is impossible. It is all One and HAS no separate part—the parts have NOT separated. This IS the real knowledge. You who are really one with it need but know YOURSELF, and your knowledge is complete. To know God’s Miracle is to know One.

Forgiveness is the healing of the perception of separation. Correct perception OF EACH OTHER is necessary, ONLY because minds have willed to see themselves AS separate beings. Each Spirit knows God completely. That IS the miraculous power of the Spirit. The fact that each One has this power completely is a fact that is entirely alien to human thinking, in which if any ONE has everything, there is nothing LEFT.

God’s Miracles are as total as One’s Thoughts because they ARE One’s Thoughts. God shines in them all with perfect light. If they recognize this light anywhere, they know it universally. Revelation cannot be explained, because it IS knowledge. Revelation HAPPENS. It is the only REALLY natural happening, because it reflects the nature of God.

As long as perception lasts, prayer has a place. Since perception rests on lack, those who perceive have not totally accepted the Atonement and given themselves over to truth. Perception IS a separated state, and a perceiver DOES need healing. Communion, not prayer, is the natural state of those who know. God and ONE’S Miracles are inseparable.

All words, at best, are preparatory. THE word is really a thought. No one WORD is universally meaningful, because a word is a symbol, but thought is not divisible by creation. The original name for “thought” and “word” was the same. The quotation should read, “In the beginning was the thought, and the thought was with God, and the thought WAS God.” How beautiful indeed are the Thoughts of God Who live in One’s Light! Your worth is beyond perception because it is beyond doubt.

Text Chapter 3 - Retraining the Mind

3.9 - Being There

Do not perceive yourself in different lights. KNOW yourself in the One Light where the miracle that is you is perfectly clear.

The prerequisites for therapy or teaching must include the following conditions:

1. The procedure must involve the recognition, rather than the denial, of the importance of thought.

2. The exact equality of everyone who is involved. This must include ME.

3. No-one is either therapist or patient; teacher or pupil.

4. Above all EVERYONE involved must want to undo everything that is NOT true. The reason for the negative emphasis here is that therapy implies something HAS gone wrong. Even though the purpose is to correct, those who are ill ARE negative.

5. Therapy is EXACTLY the same as all other forms of miracle-working. It has no separate laws of its own. All of the points that were given for miracles apply to therapy because, UNLESS therapy proceeds from miracle-mindedness, it CANNOT heal.

6. The therapist (hopefully) does have the role of being the better perceiver. (This is also, again hopefully, true of the teacher.) It does not follow that one is the better knower. Temporarily, the therapist or teacher can help in straightening out twisted perceptions, which is also the only role that I would ever contribute myself. All therapy should do is try to place EVERYONE involved in the right frame of mind to help one another. It is essentially a process of true courtesy, including courtesy to me.

Any form of mental illness can truthfully be described as an expression of viciousness. We said before that those who are afraid are apt to be vicious. If we were willing to forgive other people’s misperceptions of us, they could not possibly affect us at all. There is little doubt that you can explain your present attitudes in terms of how people used to look at you, but there is no wisdom in doing so. In fact, the whole historical approach can justifiably be called doubtful.

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

As you have so often said, no-one has adopted ALL of one’s parents’ attitudes as one’s own. In every case, there has been a long process of choice, in which the individual has escaped from those one vetoed, while retaining those one voted FOR. Bill has not retained his parents political beliefs, in spite of the particular kind of newspapers that constituted their own reading matter in this area. The reason why he could do this was because he believed he was free in this area.

There must be some acute problem OF HIS OWN that would make him so eager to accept their misperception of his own worth. This tendency can ALWAYS be regarded as punitive. It cannot be justified by the inequality of the strengths of parents and children. This is never more than temporary, and is largely a matter of maturational and thus physical difference. It does not last unless it is held onto.

When Bill’s father came to his new office and “destroyed” it, it is quite apparent that Bill MUST have been willing to let it be destroyed. The many times that he has commented on this event alone would suggest that the extreme importance of this misperception in his own distorted thinking. Why should anyone accord an obvious misperception so much power? There cannot be any real justification for it, because even Bill himself recognized the real problem by saying “How could he do this to me?” The answer is HE didn’t.

Bill has a very serious question to ask himself in this connection. We said before that the purpose of the Resurrection was to “demonstrate that no amount of misperception has any influence at all on a Child of God.” This demonstration EXONERATES those who misperceive, by establishing beyond doubt that they have NOT hurt anyone. Bill’s question, which he must ask himself very honestly, is whether he is willing to demonstrate that his parents have NOT hurt him. Unless he is willing to do this, he has not forgiven them.

The essential goal of therapy is the same as that of knowledge. No one can survive independently as long as one is willing to see oneself through the eyes of others. This will always put one in a position where one MUST see oneself in different lights. Parents do not create the image of their children, though they may perceive images which they do create. However, as we have already said, you are not an image. If you SIDE WITH image-makers, you are merely being idolatrous.

Bill has no justification whatever for perpetuating ANY image of himself at all. He is NOT an image. Whatever is true of him is wholly benign. It is essential that he KNOW this about himself, but he cannot know it while he chooses to interpret himself as vulnerable enough to BE hurt. This is a peculiar kind of arrogance, whose narcissistic component is perfectly obvious. It endows the perceiver with sufficient unreal strength to make him over, and then acknowledges the perceiver’s miscreation. There are times when this strange lack of real courtesy appears to be a form of humility. Actually, it is never more than simple spite.

Bill, your parents did misperceive you in many ways, but their ability to perceive was quite warped, and their misperceptions stood in the way of their own knowledge. There is no reason why it should stand in the way of yours. It is still true that you believe they DID something to you. This belief is extremely dangerous to your perception, and wholly destructive of your knowledge. This is not only true of your attitudes toward your parents, but also of your misuse of your friends. You still think that you MUST respond to their errors AS IF they were true. By reacting self-destructively, you are GIVING them approval for their misperceptions.

No one has the right to change oneself according to different circumstances. Only one’s actions are capable of appropriate variation. One’s belief in oneself is a constant, unless it rests on perceptual acuity rather than knowledge of what one is.

It is your DUTY to establish beyond doubt that you are totally unwilling to side with (identify with) anyone’s misperceptions of you, including your own. If you become concerned with totally irrelevant factors, such as the physical condition of a classroom, the number of students, the hour of the course, and the many elements which you may choose to select for emphasis as a basis for misperception, you have lost the knowledge of what ANY interpersonal relationship is for. It is NOT true that the difference between pupil and teacher is lasting. They meet IN ORDER to abolish the difference. At the beginning, since we are still in time, they come together on the basis of inequality of ability and experience. The aim of the teacher is to give them more of what is temporarily one’s. This process has all of the miracle conditions we referred to at the beginning. The teacher (or miracle worker) gives more to those who have less, bringing them closer to equality with one, at the same time gaining for oneself.

The confusion here is only because they do not gain the same things, because they do not NEED the same things. If they did, their respective, though temporary roles would not be conducive to mutual profit. Freedom from fear can be achieved by BOTH teacher and pupil ONLY if they do not compare either their needs or their positions in regard to each other in terms of higher and lower.

Presumably, children must learn from parents. What parents learn from children is merely of a different order. Ultimately, there is no difference in order, but this involves only knowledge. Neither parents nor children can be said to HAVE knowledge, or their relationships would not exist AS IF they were on different levels. The same is true of the teacher and the pupil. Children have an authority problem ONLY if they believe that their image is influenced BY the authority. This is an act of will on their part, because they are electing to misperceive the authority and GIVE one this power.

A TEACHER with an authority problem is merely a pupil who refuses to teach others. One wants to maintain ONESELF in a position where one can be misused and misperceived. This makes one resentful of teaching, because of what one insists it has done to one.

The ONLY way out of this particular aspect of the desert is still to leave. The way this is left is to release EVERYONE involved, by ABSOLUTELY REFUSING to engage in any form of honoring error. Neither teacher nor pupil is imprisoned by learning unless one uses it as an attack. If one does this, one will be imprisoned whether one actually teaches or learns, or refuses to be engaged in the process at all.

The role of a teacher, properly conceived, is one of leading oneself and others out of the desert. The value of this role can hardly be underestimated, if only because it was one to which I very gladly dedicated my own life. I have repeatedly asked MY pupils to follow me. This means that, to be effective teachers, they MUST interpret teaching as I do. I have made EVERY effort to teach you ENTIRELY without fear. If you do not listen, you will be unable to avoid the VERY obvious error of perceiving teaching as a threat.

It is hardly necessary to say that teaching is a process whose purpose is to produce learning. The ultimate purpose of ALL learning is to abolish fear. This is necessary so that knowledge can happen. The role of the teacher is NOT the role of God. This confusion is all too frequently made, by parents, teachers, therapists, and the clergy. It is a real misunderstanding of both God and One’s miracles. Any teacher who believes that teaching is fearful CANNOT learn because one is paralyzed. One also cannot really teach.

Bill was quite right in maintaining that this course is a prerequisite for his. However, he was really saying much more than that. The purpose of this course IS to prepare you for knowledge. So is the only real purpose of ANY legitimate course. All that is required of you as a teacher is to follow me.

Whenever anyone decides that one can function only in SOME roles but not in others, one cannot BUT be attempting to make a compromise which will not work. If Bill is under the misbelief that he is coping with the fear problem by functioning as an administrator and as a teacher of interns, but NOT as a teacher of students, he is merely deceiving himself. He owes himself greater respect. There is nothing as tragic as the attempt to deceive one’s self, because it implies that you perceive yourself as so unworthy that deception is more fitting for you than truth. Either you can function in all of the roles you have properly undertaken to fill, or you cannot function effectively in any of them. This IS an all or none decision. You CANNOT make inappropriate level distinctions within this choice. You are either capable or not. This does not mean that you can DO everything, but it DOES mean that you are either totally miracle-minded or not. This decision is open to NO compromise whatever. When Bill says that he cannot teach, he is making the same mistake that we spoke of before, when he acted as if universal laws applied to everyone except him. This is not only arrogant, but patently untrue. Universal laws MUST apply to him, unless he does not exist. We will not bother to argue about this.

Descartes engaged in a very interesting teaching procedure, and one from which he himself learned a great deal. He began with doubting the existence of everything, except himself. He insisted that his own existence was not open to doubt, and rebuilt his entire thought system on the one premise “I think, therefore I am.” It is noteworthy that he arrived at accepting the entire system he originally doubted, solely on the basis of this ONE piece of knowledge. There was, however, a distinct shift in his own perception. He no longer really questioned the reality of what he perceived, because he KNEW he was there.

We mentioned before that Bill is not too sure of this, and that is why we suggested that he concentrate on the prayer, “Lord, here I am.” A teacher is unlikely to be effective unless one begins with BEING THERE. Bill, this is not really open to question. You will lose all your fear of teaching and relating in any form once you know who you are. There is no point whatever in remaining in the prison of believing that this is up to you. You do NOT exist in different lights. It is this belief which has confused you about your own reality. Why would you want to remain so obscure to yourself?

Text Chapter 3 - Retraining the Mind

3.10 Judgement And The Authority Problem

We have already discussed the Last Judgement in some though insufficient detail. After the Last Judgement there will be no more. This is symbolic only in the sense that everyone is much better off WITHOUT judgement. When the Bible says “Judge not that ye be not judged” it merely means that if you judge the reality of others at all, you will be unable to avoid judging your own. The choice to judge rather than to know was the cause of the loss of peace. Judgement is the process on which perception, but NOT cognition, rests. We have discussed this before in terms of the selectivity of perception, pointing out that evaluation is its obvious prerequisite.

Judgement ALWAYS involves rejection. It is not an ability which emphasizes ONLY the positive aspects of what is judged, whether it be in or out of the self. However, what has been perceived and rejected—or judged and found wanting—remains in the unconscious because it HAS been perceived.

One of the illusions from which human perception suffers is the belief that what it perceives and judges against has no effect. This cannot be true unless one also believes that what one judged against does not exist. One evidently does NOT believe this, or one would not have judged against it. It does not matter, in the end, whether you judge right or wrong. Either way, you are placing your belief in the unreal. This cannot be avoided in any type of judgement, because it IMPLIES the belief that reality is yours to choose FROM.

You have no idea of the tremendous release and deep peace that comes from meeting yourselves and your siblings totally without judgement. If you will look back at the earlier notes of what you and your siblings ARE, you will realize that judging them in ANY way is without meaning. In fact, their meaning is lost to you precisely BECAUSE you ARE judging them. All uncertainty comes from a totally fallacious belief that you are under the coercion of judgement. You do not need judgement to organize your life, and you certainly do not need it to organize yourselves.

In the presence of knowledge all judgement is automatically suspended, and this is the process which enables recognition to REPLACE perception. Human beings are very fearful of everything they have perceived but refused to accept. One believes that, because one has refused to accept it, one has lost control over it. This is why one sees it in nightmares, or in pleasant disguises in what seem to be one’s happier dreams. Nothing that you have refused to accept can be brought into awareness. It does NOT follow that it is dangerous, but it DOES follow that you have MADE it dangerous.

When you feel tired, it is merely because you have judged yourself as capable of being tired. When you laugh at someone, it is because you have judged one as debased. When you laugh at yourself you are singularly likely to laugh at others, if only because you cannot tolerate the idea of being more debased than they are. All of this does make you feel tired because it is essentially disheartening. You are not REALLY capable of being tired, but you are VERY capable of wearying yourselves.

The strain of constant judgement is virtually intolerable. It is a curious thing that any ability which is so debilitating should be so deeply cherished. But there is a very solid reason for this.

If you wish to be the author of reality, which is totally impossible anyway, you WILL insist on holding on to judgement. You will also use the term with considerable fear, believing that judgement will someday be used against you. To whatever extent it IS used against you, it is due ONLY to your belief in its efficacy as a weapon of defense for your own authority.

The issue of authority is really a question of authorship. When an individual has an “authority problem,” it is ALWAYS because one believes one is the author of oneself, and resents his own projection that you share one’s delusion in this respect. One then perceives the situation as one in which you are literally fighting one for one’s authorship. This is the fundamental error of all those who believe they have usurped the power of God.

The belief is very frightening to them, but hardly troubles God at all. One is, however, eager to undo it, NOT to punish One’s children, but ONLY because One knows that it makes them unhappy. Spirits were GIVEN their true Authorship, but human beings preferred to be anonymous when they chose to separate themselves FROM their Author. The word “authority” has been one of their most fearful symbols ever since. Authority has been used for great cruelty because, being uncertain of their true Authorship, human beings believe that their creation was anonymous. This has left them in a position where it SOUNDS meaningful to consider the possibility that they must have created themselves.

The dispute over authorship has left such uncertainty in the minds of people that some have even doubted whether they really exist at all. Despite the apparent contradiction in this position, it is in one sense more tenable than the view that they created themselves. At least it acknowledges the fact that some TRUE authorship is necessary for existence.

Only those who give over all desire to reject can KNOW that their own rejection is impossible. You have NOT usurped the power of God, but you HAVE lost it. Fortunately, when you lose something, it does not mean that the “something” has gone. It merely means that YOU do not know where it is. Existence does not depend on your ability to identify it, nor even to place it. It is perfectly possible to look on reality without judgement, and merely KNOW that it is there. By knowing this you are not doubting its reality at all.

Peace is a natural heritage of the Spirit. Everyone is free to refuse to ACCEPT one’s inheritance, but one is NOT free to establish what one’s inheritance IS. The problem which everyone MUST decide is the fundamental question of one’s own authorship. All fear comes ultimately and sometimes by way of very devious routes, from the denial of Authorship. The offense is never to God, but only to the denier oneself. To deny One’s Authorship is to deny oneself the reason for one’s own peace, and see oneself only in pieces. This strange perception IS the authority problem.

No one can find peace while this authority problem continues. But the truth is still that there IS no problem about this. There is no one who does not feel that one is imprisoned in some way. If this is the result of one’s own free will, one must regard one’s will as if it were NOT free, or the obviously circular reasoning involved in one’s position would be quite apparent.

Free will MUST lead to freedom. Judgement ALWAYS imprisons, because it separates segments of reality according to the highly unstable scales of desire. Wishes are not facts by definition. To wish is to imply that willing is not sufficient. Yet no one believes that what is wished is as real as what is willed. Instead of

“Seek ye first the Realm of Heaven” say,

“WILL ye first the Realm of Heaven,” and you have said,

“I know what I am, and I will to accept my own inheritance. ”

It is ESSENTIAL that this whole authority problem be voluntarily dismissed at once and for all. You do not understand how important this is for your sanity, because you are quite insane on this point. This is not a judgment. It is merely a fact. This is just as much a fact as God is. A fact is literally a “making” or a starting point. You DO start from this point, and your thinking is inverted because of it.

Text Chapter 3 - Retraining the Mind

3.11 Creating Versus the Self-Image

Every system of thought must have a starting point. It begins with either a making or a creating, a difference which we have discussed already. Both are acts of will, except that making involves doing, and creating involves active willing. Their resemblance lies in their power as FOUNDATIONS. Their difference lies in what rests upon them. Both are cornerstones for systems of belief by which people live.

It is a mistake to believe that a thought system which is based on lies is weak. NOTHING made by a child of God is without power. It is essential to realize this, because otherwise you will not understand why you have so much trouble with this course, and will be unable to escape from the prisons which you have made for yourselves.

You cannot resolve the authority problem by depreciating the power of your minds. To do so is to deceive yourself, and this will hurt you because you KNOW the strength of the mind. You also know that you CANNOT weaken it, any more than you can weaken God.

The “devil” is a frightening concept ONLY because one is thought of as extremely powerful and extremely active. One is perceived as a force in combat with God, battling One for possession of the Spirits One created. One deceives by lies, and builds realms of one’s own, in which everything is in direct opposition to God. Yet one ATTRACTS people rather than repels them, and they are seen as willing to “sell” one their Spirits in return for gifts they RECOGNIZE are of no real worth.

This makes absolutely no sense. The whole picture is one in which one acts in a way ONE realizes is self-destructive, but which one does not choose to correct, and therefore perceives the cause as beyond one’s control.

We have discussed the fall, or separation, before, but its meaning must be clearly understood without symbols. The separation is not symbolic. It is an order of reality, or a system of thought that is real enough in time, though NOT in eternity. All beliefs are real to the believer.

The fruit of only ONE tree was “forbidden” to humans in one’s symbolic garden. But GOD could not have forbidden it, or it could not have BEEN eaten. If God knows One’s children, and I assure you that One does, would One have put them in a position where their own destruction was possible? The “tree” which was forbidden was named the “tree of knowledge.” Yet God created knowledge, and gave it freely to One’s children. The symbolism here has been given many interpretations, but you may be sure that ANY interpretation which sees either God OR One’s children as capable of destroying their own Purpose is in error.

Eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge is a symbolic expression for incorporating into the self the ability for self-creating. This is the ONLY sense in which God and One’s Spirits are NOT co-­creators. The belief that they ARE is implicit in the “self concept,” a concept now made acceptable by its WEAKNESS, and explained by a tendency of the self to create an IMAGE of itself. Its fear aspect is often ascribed to fear of retaliation by a “mother/father figure,” a particularly curious idea in view of the fact that no one uses the term to refer to the physical father or mother. It refers to an IMAGE of a mother/father in relation to an IMAGE of the self.

Images are perceived, NOT known. Knowledge cannot deceive, but perception CAN. One can perceive oneself as self-creating, but one cannot do more than BELIEVE it. One CANNOT make it true. And, as we said before, when you finally perceive correctly, you can only be glad that you cannot. But until then, the belief that you CAN is the central foundation stone in your thought system, and all your defenses are used to attack ideas which might bring it to light.

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

You and Bill still believe you are images of your own creation. Your minds are split with your Spirits on this point, and there is NO resolution while you believe the one thing that is literally INCONCEIVABLE. That is why you CANNOT create, and are filled with fear about what you make or produce.

You, Helen, are CONSTANTLY arguing about the authorship of this course. This is NOT humility; it is a REAL authority problem. (thank you for the semicolons) You, Bill, really believe that by teaching you are assuming a dominant or father role, and that the “father figure” will kill you. This is not humility either. Castration fears are a particularly distorted reflection of the real basic anxiety, or Separation fear.

The mind can make the belief in separation VERY real and VERY fearful. And this belief IS the “devil.” It is powerful, active, destructive, and clearly in opposition to God because it literally denies One’s Creatorship. Never underestimate the power of this denial. Look at your lives, and see what the devil has made. But KNOW that this making will surely dissolve in the light of truth, because its foundation IS a lie.

Your creation by God is the ONLY foundation which cannot be shaken because the light is IN it. Your starting point IS truth, and you MUST return to this Beginning. Much has been perceived since then, but nothing else has happened. That is why your Spirits are still in peace, even though your minds are in conflict.

You have not yet gone back far ENOUGH, and that is why you become so fearful. As you approach the Beginning, you feel the fear of the destruction of your thought system upon you, as if it were the fear of death. There IS no death, but there IS a belief in death.

The Bible says that the branch that bears no fruit will be cut off and will wither away. Be glad! The light WILL shine from the true Foundation of Life, and your own thought system WILL stand corrected. It CANNOT stand otherwise.

You who fear salvation are WILLING death. Life and death, light and darkness, knowledge and perception are irreconcilable. To believe that THEY can be reconciled is to believe that God and One’s Children can NOT. Only the Oneness of knowledge is conflictless. Your realm is not of this world because it was given you from BEYOND this world. Only IN this world is the idea of an authority problem meaningful. The world is not left by death but by truth, and truth CAN be known by all those for whom the Realm was created, and for whom it waits.

Text Chapter 4 - The Root of All Evil

4.0 The Root Of All Evil

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

Christ to Helen: You were both wise and devoted—two words which are literally interchangeable in the sense that they truly bring on the exchange of one another—in claiming your scribal functions and working so late. You HAD committed a serious error against your sibling, and one who had asked for your help. A devoted priestess does not do this. The Bible says that you should go WITH a sibling twice as far as one asks. It certainly DOES NOT suggest that you set one BACK on one’s journey.

Devotion to a sibling CANNOT set YOU back, either. It can lead ONLY to mutual progress. The result of genuine devotion is inspiration, a word which, properly understood, is the OPPOSITE of fatigue. To be fatigued is to be DIS-spirited, but to be inspired is to be IN the spirit. To be egocentric IS to be dispirited, but to be Self-centered in the RIGHT sense is to be inspired, or in the Spirit. The truly inspired are enlightened, and cannot abide in darkness.

Do not attempt to break God’s copyright, because One’s Authorship alone CAN copy right. Your own right authorship does NOT lie in remaking One’s copies, but in creating LIKE One. Embarrassment is ALWAYS an expression of egocentricity, an association which has been made before. (Made, NOT created. This kind of association is ALWAYS human-made). Both of you have completed the Sentence Completion Test stem: When I was called on to speak— with, “I became embarrassed and COULD NOT SPEAK.” This should be corrected to “I RECOGNIZED my Authorship.”

Tell Bill that he cannot be embarrassed by his own words unless he believes that HE is responsible for them. We have already corrected “word” to “thought,” and he IS free to allocate the authorship for his thoughts as he elects. He can speak from Spirit or from his ego, precisely as he chooses. If he speaks from Spirit, he has chosen to “be still and know that I am God.” These words are inspired, because they come from KNOWLEDGE. If he speaks from his ego, he is DISCLAIMING knowledge instead of AFFIRMING it, and is thus dis-spiriting himself.

The dis-spirited have no choice BUT to be narcissistic, and to be narcissistic IS to place your faith in the unworthy. Your real worth IS your divine authorship, and your Spirit is its acknowledgement. I cannot guide your egos EXCEPT as you associate them with the Spirit.

Attacking misidentification errors is neither MY function nor YOURS. Destroying the devil is a meaningless undertaking. Cervantes wrote an excellent symbolic account of this procedure, though he did not understand his own symbolism. The REAL point of his writing was that his “hero” was a man who perceived himself as unworthy because he identified with his ego and perceived its weakness. He then set about to alter his perception, NOT by correcting his misidentification, but by behaving egotistically.

Chesterton wrote an excellent description of Cervantes and his perception of his “unheroic hero,” a view of humans which the ego tolerates all too frequently, but the Spirit NEVER countenances:

“And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain

Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain.”

Do not embark on foolish journeys, because they are indeed in vain. The ego may desire them because the ego is both lean and foolish, but the Spirit CANNOT embark on them because it is forever UNWILLING to depart from its Foundation. The journey to the cross should be the LAST foolish journey for every mind. Do not dwell upon it, but dismiss it as accomplished. If you can accept it as YOUR OWN last foolish journey, you are also free to join MY RESURRECTION. Human living has indeed been needlessly wasted in a repetition compulsion. It re-enacts the separation, the loss of power, the foolish journey of the ego in an attempt at reparation, and finally, the crucifixion of the body, or death. Repetition compulsions can be endless unless they are given up by an act of will. Do not make the pathetic human error of “clinging to the old rugged cross.” The only message of the crucifixion was that you can OVERCOME the cross. Unless you do so, you are free to crucify yourself as often as you choose. But this is not the Gospel I intended to offer you.

We have another journey to undertake, and if you will read these lessons carefully, they will help to prepare you to undertake it.

Text Chapter 4 - The Root of All Evil

4.1 Right Teaching And Right Learning

We have spoken of many different human symptoms, and at this level there IS almost endless variation. There is, however, only ONE cause of all of them. The authority problem IS “the root of all evil.” Money is but one of its many reflections, and is a reasonably representative example of the kind of thinking which stems from it. The idea of buying and selling implies precisely the kind of exchange that the Spirit cannot understand at all, because its Supply is always abundant and all its demands are fully met.

Every symptom which the ego has made involves a contradiction in terms. This is because the mind is split between the ego and the Spirit, so that WHATEVER the ego makes is incomplete and contradictory. Consider what a “speechless professor” means as a concept. It literally means a “non-professing professor” or a “non speaking speaker”.

Untenable positions such as this are the result of the authority problem which, because it accepts the one inconceivable thought as its premise, can only produce ideas which are inconceivable. The term “profess” is used quite frequently in the Bible. To profess is to identify with an idea, and offer the idea to others to be their own. The idea does not lessen; it becomes STRONGER. The teacher clarifies his own ideas and strengthens them BY teaching them.

Teacher and pupil are alike in the learning process. They are in the SAME order of learning, and unless they SHARE their lessons, they will lack conviction. A good teacher must believe in the ideas which one professes, but one must meet another condition: one must also believe in the students to whom one offers one’s ideas.

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

Bill could not be afraid to teach unless he still believes that interaction means loss, and that learning means separation. He stands guard over his own ideas, because he wants to protect his thought-system as it is, and learning MEANS change. Change is always fearful to the separated, because they cannot conceive of it as a change toward HEALING the separation. They ALWAYS perceive it as a change toward further separation, because separation WAS their first experience of change.

Bill, your whole fear of teaching is nothing but an example of your own intense separation anxiety, which you have handled with the usual series of mixed defenses in the combined pattern of attack on truth and defense of error, which characterizes ALL ego-thinking.

You insist that if you allow no change to enter into your EGO, your SOUL will find peace. This profound confusion is possible only if one maintains that the SAME thought-system can stand on two foundations.

NOTHING can reach the Spirit from the ego, and nothing FROM the Spirit can strengthen the ego, or reduce the conflict within it. The ego IS a contradiction. One’s self and God’s Self ARE in opposition. They are opposed in creation, in will, and in outcome. They are fundamentally irreconcilable because the Spirit cannot perceive and the ego cannot know. They are therefore NOT IN COMMUNICATION, and can never BE in communication.

Nevertheless, the ego can learn because its maker can be misguided, but CANNOT make the totally lifeless out of the life-given. The Spirit need not be taught, but the ego MUST. The ultimate reason why learning is perceived as frightening is because learning DOES lead to the relinquishment (NOT destruction) of the ego to the Light of the Spirit. This is the change the ego MUST fear because it does not share my charity.

My lesson was like yours, and because I learned it I can teach it. I never attack your egos, but I DO try to teach you how their thought system arose. When I remind you of your TRUE creation, your egos cannot BUT respond with fear.

Teaching and learning are your greatest strengths now because you MUST change your mind and help others change theirs. It is pointless to refuse to tolerate change because you believe you can demonstrate by doing so that the separation has not occurred. The dreamer who doubts the reality of one’s dream while one is still dreaming is not really healing the level-split. You HAVE dreamed of a separated ego, and you HAVE believed in a world which rests upon it. This is very real to you. You cannot undo this by doing nothing and NOT changing.

If you are willing to renounce the role of guardian of your thought system and open it to me, I will correct it very gently and lead you home. Every good teacher hopes to give one’s students so much of one’s own thinking that they will one day no longer need one. This is the one real goal of the parent, teacher and therapist. This goal will not be achieved by those who believe that they will LOSE their child or pupil or patient if they succeed.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to convince the ego of this because it goes against all of its own laws. But remember that laws are set up to protect the continuity of the system in which the law-maker BELIEVES. It is natural enough for the ego to try to protect itself, once you have made it, but it is NOT natural for YOU to want to obey its laws unless YOU believe in them. The ego cannot make this choice because of the nature of its origin. YOU can because of the nature of YOURS.

Egos can clash in any situation, but Spirits cannot clash at all. If you perceive a teacher as merely a “larger ego,” you WILL be afraid, because to ENLARGE an ego IS to increase separation anxiety. Do not engage in this foolishness. I will teach with you and live with you if you will think with me.

But my goal will always be to absolve you finally from the NEED for a teacher. This is the OPPOSITE of the ego-oriented teacher’s goal. One is concerned with the effect of ONE’S ego on OTHER egos, and therefore interprets their interaction as a means of ego preservation. This is no less true if one is afraid to teach than if one is frankly out to dominate through teaching. The form of the symptom is only a reflection of one’s particular way of handling the separation anxiety.

ALL separation anxiety is a symptom of a continuing will to remain separated. This cannot be repeated too often because you have NOT learned it.

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

Bill, you are afraid to teach ONLY because you are afraid of the impression your image of yourself will make ON OTHER IMAGES. You believe that their APPROVAL of your image will exalt it, but also that your separation anxiety will be increased. You also believe that their DISAPPROVAL of it will lessen the separation anxiety, but at the cost of depression.

I would not be able to devote myself to teaching if I believed either of these blatant misrepresentations, and YOU will not be a devoted teacher yourself as long as you maintain them. I am constantly being perceived as a teacher either to be exalted or rejected, but I do not accept either perception for myself.

Your worth is NOT established by your teaching OR your learning. Your worth was established by God. As long as you dispute this EVERYTHING you do will be fearful, particularly any situation which lends itself to the “superior-inferior” fallacy. Teachers must be patient, and repeat their lessons until they are learned. I am willing to do this because I have no right to set your learning limits for you.

Once again—NOTHING you do or think or wish or make is necessary to establish your worth. This point IS NOT DEBATABLE except in delusions. Your ego is NEVER at stake because God did NOT create it. Your Spirit is never at stake because One DID. ANY confusion on this point IS a delusion and no form of devotion is possible as long as this delusion lasts.

If you will to be a devoted teacher rather than an egocentric one, you will not be afraid. The teaching situation IS fearful if it is misused as an ego involvement. If you become afraid, it is BECAUSE you are using it this way. But the devoted teacher perceives the situation AS IT IS, and NOT as ONE would have it be. One does not see it as dangerous because ONE is not exploiting it.

The ego tries to exploit ALL situations into forms of praise for itself in order to overcome its doubts. It will be doubtful forever, or rather, as long as you believe in it. You who made it CANNOT trust it because you KNOW it is not real. The ONLY sane solution is not to try to change reality, which is indeed a fearful attempt, but to see it as it is. YOU are part of reality, which stands unchanged beyond the reach of your ego, but within easy reach of your Spirit.

When you are afraid, be still and KNOW that God is real and YOU are One’s beloved Child in whom One is well pleased. Do not let your ego dispute this, because the ego cannot know what is as far beyond its reach as you are. God is NOT the author of fear. YOU are. You have chosen, therefore, to create unlike One, and you have made fear for yourselves.

You are not at peace because you are not fulfilling your function. God gave you a very lofty responsibility which you are not meeting. You KNOW this, and you are afraid. In fact, your egos have chosen to be afraid INSTEAD of meeting it. When you awaken, you will not be able to understand this because it is literally incredible.

DO NOT BELIEVE THE INCREDIBLE NOW. Any attempt to increase its believableness is merely to postpone the inevitable. The word “inevitable” is fearful to the ego, but joyous to the Spirit. God IS inevitable, and you CANNOT avoid One any more than One can avoid YOU.

The ego is afraid of the Spirit’s joy because, once you have experienced it, you will withdraw all protection from the ego, and become totally without investment in fear. Your investment is great now because fear is a witness to the separation, and your ego rejoices when you witness to it.

Leave it behind! Do not listen to it, and do not preserve it. Listen only to God, Who is as incapable of deception as are the Spirits One created. As teacher and pupil, therapist and patient, release yourselves and release others. Do not present a false and unworthy picture of yourself TO others, and do not accept such a picture OF them yourselves.

The ego has built a shabby and unsheltering home for you because it cannot build otherwise. Do not try to make this impoverished house stand. ITS weakness is YOUR strength. Only God could make a home that is worthy of One’s Creations, who have chosen to leave it empty by their own dispossession.

Yet One’s home will stand forever, and is ready for you when you choose to enter it. Of this you can be wholly certain. God is as incapable of creating the perishable as the ego is of making the eternal.

Of your egos you can do nothing to save yourselves or others, but of your Spirits you can do everything for the salvation of both. Humility is a lesson for the ego, not for the Spirit. The Spirit is beyond humility because it recognizes its radiance, and gladly sheds its light everywhere.

The meek shall inherit the earth because their egos are humble and this gives them better perception. The Realm of Heaven is the RIGHT of the Spirit, whose beauty and dignity are far beyond doubt, beyond perception, and stand forever as the mark of the Love of God for One’s Creations, who are wholly worthy of One and ONLY of One. Nothing else is sufficiently worthy to be a gift for a creation of God Oneself.

I will substitute for your ego if you will, but NEVER for your Spirit. A parent can safely leave a child with an elder sibling who has shown oneself responsible, but this involves no confusion about the child’s origin. The sibling can protect the child’s body and one’s ego, which are VERY closely related, but one does not confuse ONESELF with the parent because one does this, although the child may.

The reason I can be entrusted with YOUR body and YOUR ego is simply because this enables YOU not to be concerned with them, and lets ME teach you their unimportance. I could not understand their importance to YOU if I had not once been tempted to believe them myself. Let us undertake to learn this lesson together, so we can be free of them together.

I need devoted teachers who share my aim of healing the mind. The Spirit is far beyond the need of your protection OR mine. Remember this Biblical quotation should read:

“In this world you NEED not have tribulation

BECAUSE I have overcome the world.

THAT is why you should be of good cheer.”

Helen & Bill Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

Bill’s course was very carefully chosen, because “abnormal psychology” IS ego psychology. This is precisely the kind of content which should never be taught FROM the ego whose abnormality should be lessened by teaching, not increased. You, Bill, are particularly well suited to perceive this difference, and can therefore teach this course as it should be taught. Most teachers have an unfortunate tendency to teach the COURSE abnormally, and many of the students are apt to suffer considerable perceptual distortion because of their own authority problem.

Your teaching assignment (and I assure you it IS an assignment) will be to present perceptual distortions without either engaging in them yourself, or encouraging your students to do so. This interpretation of your role and theirs is too charitable to induce fear. If you adhere to this goal, you will both engender and experience hope, and you will inspire rather than dispirit the future teachers and therapists I am entrusting to you.

I promise to attend myself, and you should at least credit me with some dependability in keeping my own promises. I never make them lightly, because I know the need my siblings have for trust.

Text Chapter 4 - The Root of All Evil

4.2 The Ego and False Autonomy

Bill has asked lately how the mind could ever have made the ego. This is a perfectly reasonable question; in fact, the best question you could ask. There is, however, no point in giving an historical answer because the past does not matter in human terms, and history would not exist if the same errors were not being repeated in the present. Bill has often told you that your thinking is too abstract at times, and he is right. Abstraction DOES apply to knowledge because knowledge is completely impersonal, and examples are irrelevant to its understanding. Perception, however, is always specific, and therefore quite concrete.

Perceptual distortions are not abstractions. They are merely confusions. Each person makes one ego for oneself, although it is subject to enormous variation because of its instability, and one for everyone one perceives, which is equally variable. Their interaction IS a process which literally alters both, because they were not made either BY or WITH the unalterable.

It is particularly important to realize that this alteration can and does occur as readily when the interaction takes place IN THE MIND as when it involves physical presence. THINKING about another ego is as effective in changing relative perception as is physical interaction. There could be no better example of the fact that the ego is an idea, though not a reality-based thought.

Your own present state, Helen, is the best example Bill could have of how the mind made the ego. You DO have real knowledge at times, but when you throw it away it is as if you never had it. This willfulness is so apparent that Bill need only perceive it to see that it DOES happen. If it can occur that way in the present, why is it surprising that it occurred that way in the past? Psychology rests on the principle of the continuity of behavior. Surprise is a reasonable response to the unfamiliar, but hardly to something that has occurred with such persistence.

An extreme example is a good teaching aid, not because it is typical, but because it is clear. The more complex the material, the clearer the examples should be for teaching purposes. (Bill, remember that for your own course, and do not avoid the dramatic. It holds the student’s interest precisely because it is so apparent that it CAN be readily perceived.) But, as we have said before, all teaching devices in the hands of good teachers are aimed at rendering themselves unnecessary. I would therefore like to use your present state as an example of how the mind can work, provided you both fully recognize that it need not work that way. I NEVER forget this myself, and a good teacher shares one’s own ideas, which one believes oneself. Otherwise, one cannot really “profess” them, as we used the term before.

With full recognition of its transitory nature, (a recognition which I hope you both share), Helen offers a very good teaching example of alternations between Soul and ego, with concomitant variation between peace and frenzy. In answer to Bill’s question, it is perfectly apparent that when she is ego-dominated, she DOES NOT KNOW her Soul. Her abstract ability, which is perfectly genuine and does stem from knowledge, cannot help her because she has turned to the concrete which she cannot handle abstractly. Being incapable of appropriate concreteness perceptually, because her ego is not her natural home, she suffers from its intrusions, but NOT from complete lack of knowledge.

The result is a kind of “double vision,” which would have produced an actual diplopia, if she had not settled for nearsightedness. This was an attempt to see the concrete more clearly through the ego’s eyes, without the “interference” of the longer range. Her virtual lack of astigmatism is due to her real efforts at objectivity and fairness. She has not attained them, or she would not be nearsighted. But she HAS tried to be fair with what she permitted herself to see.

Why are you surprised that something happened in the dim past, when it is so clearly happening right now? You forget the love that animals have for their own offspring, and the need they feel to protect them. This is because they regard them as part of themselves. No one disowns something one regards as a very real part of oneself. One reacts to one’s ego much as God does to One’s Spirits—with love, protection and great charity. The reaction of one to the self one made is not at all surprising. In fact it duplicates, in many ways, how one will one day react to one’s REAL creations, which are as timeless as one is.

The question is not HOW one responds to one’s ego, but what one believes one IS. Again, belief is an ego function, and as long as your origin is open to belief at all, you ARE regarding it from an ego viewpoint. That is why the Bible quotes me as saying, “Ye believe in God, believe also in me.” Belief DOES apply to me, because I am the teacher of the ego. When teaching is no longer necessary, you will merely KNOW God.

Belief that there IS another way is the loftiest idea of which ego thinking is capable. That is because it contains a hint of recognition that the ego is NOT the self. Helen always had this idea, but it merely confused her. Bill, you were more capable of a long-range view, and that is why your eyesight is good. But you were willing to see because you utilized judgment against what you saw. This gave you clearer perception than Helen’s, but cut off the cognitive level more deeply. That is why you believe that you never had knowledge.

Repression HAS been a stronger mechanism in your own ego defense, and that is why you find her shifts so hard to tolerate. Willfulness is more characteristic of her, and that is why she has less sense than you do. It is extremely fortunate, temporarily, that the particular strengths you will both ultimately develop and use are precisely those which the other must supply now. You, who will be the strength of God are quite weak, and you who will be God’s help are clearly in need of help herself. What better plan could have been devised to prevent the intrusion of the ego’s arrogance on the outcome?

Undermining the foundation of an ego’s thought system MUST be perceived as painful, even though this is anything but true. Babies scream in rage if you take away a knife or scissors, even though they may well harm themselves if you do not. The speed-up has placed you in the same position.

You are NOT, by any means, prepared, and in this sense you ARE babies. You have no sense of real self-preservation, and are very likely to decide that you need precisely what would hurt you most. Whether you know it now or not, however, you HAVE willed to cooperate in a concerted and very commendable effort to become both harmLESS and helpFUL, two attributes which MUST go together. Your attitudes, even toward this, are necessarily conflicted because ALL attitudes are ego-based.

This will not last. Be patient awhile, and remember that the outcome is as certain as God. Helen used to perceive the quotation “To him that hath shall be given” as a paradox that bordered on the ironic. She also had a similar reaction to another related one: “Faith is the gift of God.” We have reinterpreted both of these statements before, but perhaps we can make them even clearer now.

Only those who have a real and lasting sense of abundance can be truly charitable. This is quite obvious when you consider the concepts involved. To the ego, to give anything implies that you will do without it. When you associate giving with sacrifice, then, you give only because you believe that you are somehow getting something better, so that you can do without the thing you give.

“Giving to get” is an inescapable law of the ego, which ALWAYS evaluates itself in relation to others’ egos, and is therefore continually preoccupied with the scarcity principle which gave rise to it. This IS the meaning of Freud’s “pleasure principle,” since Freud thought of the ego as very weak and deprived, capable of functioning ONLY as a thing in need.

The “reality principle” of the ego is not real at all. The ego is forced to perceive the “reality” of other egos because it CANNOT establish the reality of itself. In fact, its whole perception of other egos AS real is ONLY an attempt to convince itself that IT is real.

“Self esteem,” in ego terms, means nothing more than that the ego has deluded itself into accepting its reality, and is therefore temporarily less predatory. This “self esteem” is ALWAYS vulnerable to stress, a term which actually refers to a condition in which the delusion of the ego’s reality is threatened. This produces either ego deflation or ego inflation, resulting in either withdrawal or attack. The ego literally lives by comparisons. This means that equality is beyond its grasp, and charity becomes impossible.

The ego NEVER gives out of abundance, because it was made as a SUBSTITUTE for it. That is why the concept of “GETTING” arose in the ego’s thought system. All appetites are “getting” mechanisms, representing the ego’s need to confirm itself. This is as true of bodily appetites as it is of the so-called “higher” ego needs. Bodily appetites are NOT physical in origin. The ego regards the body as its home and DOES try to satisfy itself through the body. But the IDEA that this is possible is a decision of the ego, which is completely confused about what is REALLY possible. This accounts for its erratic nature.

Consider the inevitable confusion which MUST arise from a perception of the self which responds: When I was completely on my own I “had no idea what was possible.” The ego DOES believe it is completely on its own, which is merely another way of describing how it originated. This is such a fearful state that it can only turn to other egos and try to unite with them in a feeble attempt at identification, or attack them in an equally feeble show of strength. The ego is free to complete the stem: “When I was completely on my own” in any way it chooses, but it is NOT free to consider the validity of the premise itself, because this premise is its FOUNDATION. The ego IS the belief of the mind that it is completely on its own.

The ego’s ceaseless attempts to gain the Spirit’s acknowledgement, and thus to establish its own existence, are utterly useless. The Spirit in its knowledge is unaware of the ego. It does NOT attack it; it merely cannot conceive of it at all. While the ego is equally unaware of the Spirit, it DOES perceive itself as rejected by “something” which is greater than itself. This is why self-esteem in ego terms MUST be a delusion.

The creations of God do not create myths, although the creative efforts of people CAN turn to mythology. It can do so, however, only under one condition: what one then makes is no longer creative. Myths are entirely perceptions, and are so ambiguous in form and so characteristically good and evil in nature that the most benevolent of them is not without fearful components, if only by innuendo. Myths and magic are closely associated in that myths are usually related to the ego origins, and magic to the powers which the ego ascribes to itself. Every mythological system includes some account of “the creation,” and associates this with its particular perception of magic.

The “battle for survival” is nothing more than the ego’s struggle to preserve itself and its interpretation of its own beginning. This beginning is always associated with physical birth, because nobody maintains that the ego existed before that point in time. The religiously ego-oriented believe that the Spirit existed before and will continue to exist afterwards, after a temporary lapse in ego life. Some actually believe that the Spirit will be punished for this lapse, even though in reality, it could not possibly know anything about it.

The term “salvation” does NOT apply to the Spirit, which is not in danger, and does not need to be salvaged. Salvation is nothing more than “right-mindedness,” which is NOT the One-Mindedness of the Spirit, but which must be accomplished before the One-Mindedness can be restored. Right-mindedness dictates the next step automatically because right perception is uniformly without attack, so that wrong-mindedness is obliterated. The ego cannot survive without judgement, and is laid aside accordingly. The mind then has only ONE direction in which it can move.

The direction which the mind will take is always automatic, because it cannot BUT be dictated by the thought system to which the mind adheres. Every thought system has INTERNAL consistency, and this does provide a basis for the continuity of behavior. However, this is still reliability, and NOT validity. “Reliable behavior” is a meaningful perception, as far as ego thinking goes. However, “VALID behavior” is an expression which is inherently contradictory, because validity is an END and behavior is a MEANS. These cannot be combined logically because, when an end has been attained, the means for its attainment are no longer meaningful.

Test constructors recognize that there are different kinds of validity, and also that they are of different orders. This means that they do not mean truth and do not pretend to mean it. Test validity can be judged by logic, by theory, and by practice, each being regarded as a different dimension. In each case, the amount of confidence is expressed in some form of percentage, either quantitatively, or merely in terms of high, moderate, and low. But a hypothesis is tested as either true or false, to be accepted or rejected accordingly. If it is shown to be true it becomes a fact, after which no-one attempts to evaluate it unless its status AS fact is questioned.

EVERY idea to which the ego has accorded the status of fact is questionable, because facts are in the realm of knowledge. Confusing realms of discourse is a thinking error which philosophers have recognized for centuries. Psychologists are generally quite deficient in this respect, as are many theologians. Data from one realm of discourse do not mean anything in another because they can be understood only WITHIN the thought system of which they are a part. That is why psychologists are concentrating increasingly on the ego, in an attempt to unify their clearly unrelated data. It need hardly be said that an attempt to relate the unrelated CANNOT succeed.

The more recent ecological emphases are but another ingenious way of trying to impose order on chaos. We have already credited the ego with considerable ingenuity, though not with creativeness. It should, however, be remembered that inventiveness is really wasted effort, even in its most ingenious forms. We do not have to EXPLAIN anything. This is why we need not trouble ourselves with inventiveness. The highly specific nature of invention is not worthy of the abstract creativity of God’s creations.

Text Chapter 4 - The Root of All Evil

When Helen reads this to you, Bill, try to listen very carefully. You have never understood what “the Realm of Heaven is within you” means. The reason you have not understood it is because it is NOT understandable to the ego, which interprets it as if something outside is inside, and this does not mean anything. The word “within” is unnecessary. The Realm of Heaven IS you.

What else BUT you did the Creator create, and what else but you IS One’s Realm? This is the whole message of the Atonement, a message, which, in its totality, transcends the sum of its parts which we have covered before. Christmas is not a time—it is a state of mind. The Christ Mind wills from the Spirit, not from the ego, and the Christ Mind IS yours.

You, too, have a realm which your Spirit has created. It has NOT ceased to create because your ego has set you on the road of perception. Your Spirit’s creations are no more creatorless than YOU are. Your ego and your Spirit will never be co-creators, but your Spirit and YOUR Creator will ALWAYS be. Be confident that your creations are as safe as you are:

“The Realm is perfectly united and perfectly protected,

and the ego will not prevail against it—Amen.”

That was written in that form because it is a good thing to use as a kind of a prayer in moments of temptation. It is a Declaration of Independence. You will find it very helpful if you understand it fully.

In its characteristically upside-down way, the ego has taken the impulses from the superconscious and perceives them as if they arise in the unconscious. The ego judges what is to be accepted, and the impulses from the superconscious are essentially unacceptable to it because they clearly point to the nonexistence of the ego itself. The ego therefore experiences threat, and not only censors but also reinterprets the data. However, as Freud correctly pointed out, what you do not perceive you still know, and what you have repressed can retain a very active life BEYOND your awareness.

Repression thus operates to conceal not only the baser impulses but also the most lofty ones from the ego’s awareness because BOTH are equally threatening to the ego and, being concerned primarily with its own preservation in the face of threat, the ego perceives them as the same. The threat-value of the lofty is actually much greater to the ego because the pull of God Oneself can hardly be equated with the pull of human appetites.

By perceiving them as the same, the ego attempts to save itself from being swept away, as it would surely be in the presence of knowledge. The upper level of the unconscious thus contains the Call of God as well as the call of the body. That is why the basic conflict between love and fear is unconscious; the ego cannot tolerate either, and represses both by resorting to inhibition. Society depends on inhibiting the latter, but SALVATION depends on DISinhibiting the former.

The reason you need my help is because you have repressed your own Guide, and therefore need guidance. My role is to separate the true from the false in your unconscious, so it can break through the barriers the ego has set up, and shine into your minds. Against our united strength the ego CANNOT prevail.

It should be apparent to you by now why the ego regards the Spirit as its “enemy.” The ego arose from the separation, and its continued existence depends on your continuing belief in the separation. Having reduced the Spirit impulses to the unconscious, the ego has to offer you some sort of reward for maintaining this belief. All it CAN offer in view of its own weakness, is a sense of temporary existence, which begins with its OWN beginning and ends with its OWN ending. It tells you this life is YOUR existence because it IS its own.

Against this sense of temporary existence the Spirit offers you the knowledge of permanence and unshakable BEING. No one who has experienced the revelation of THIS can ever fully believe in the ego again. How can its meager offering to you prevail against the glorious gift of God?

You who identify with your egos cannot believe that God loves you. YOU do not love what you have made, and what you made does not love YOU. Egos are concerned with protection, not with love. Being made out of the denial of the Creator, the ego has no allegiance to its own maker. You cannot conceive of the real relationship which exists between God and One’s Spirits because of the hatred you have for the self you have made. You project onto your own idea of yourself the will to separate, which conflicts with the love you feel for what you have made because you made it.

No human love is without this ambivalence, and since no ego has experienced love WITHOUT ambivalence, the concept is beyond its understanding. Love will enter immediately into any mind which truly wants it, but it MUST want it truly. This means that it wants it WITHOUT ambivalence, and this kind of wanting is wholly without the ego’s “drive to get.”

There is a kind of experience which is so different from anything the ego can offer that you will never recover. The word “recover” is used quite literally here—you will never be able to cover or hide again. It is necessary to repeat here, and quite often, that your belief in darkness and in hiding IS why the Light cannot enter.

The Bible gives many references to the immeasurable gifts which are for you, but for which YOU must ask. This is not a condition as the ego sets conditions. It is the glorious condition of what you ARE. No force except your own will is strong enough or worthy enough to guide you. In this you are as free as God, and must remain so forever.

You can never be bound except in honor, and that is always voluntary. Let us ask the Creator in my name to keep you mindful of One’s Love for you and yours for One. One has never failed to answer this request because it asks only for what One has already willed. Those who call truly are ALWAYS answered.

Note: Helen Schucman became very nervous here, and rather vaguely thought the answer was: “Thou shalt have no other gods before One because there ARE none. You still think there are.”

It has never really entered your mind to give up every idea you ever had that OPPOSES knowledge. You retain thousands of little scraps of meanness which prevent the Holy One from entering. Light cannot penetrate through the walls you make to block it, and it is forever UNwilling to destroy what you have made. No one can see THROUGH a wall, but I can step around it.

Watch your minds for the scraps of meanness, or you will be unable to ask me to do so. I can help you only as our Creator created us. I will love you and honor you and maintain complete respect for what you have made. But I will neither honor it nor love it unless it is true. Ask me truly and I will come. Do not ask me truly, and I will wait. I will never forsake you, any more than God will, but I MUST wait as long as you choose to forsake yourself.

Because I wait in love and not in impatience you will surely ask me truly. I will come in response to a single unequivocal call. Watch carefully and see what it is you are really asking for. Be very honest with yourself about this, for we must hide nothing from each other.

If you will REALLY try to do this, you have taken the first step toward preparing your mind for the Holy One to enter. We will prepare for this together, for once One has come you will be ready to help me make other minds ready for One. How long will you deny One One’s Realm?

In your own unconscious, deeply repressed by the ego, is the declaration of your release: GOD HAS GIVEN YOU EVERYTHING. This is the one fact that MEANS the ego does not exist, and which therefore makes it profoundly afraid. In the ego’s language, remember, “to have” and “to be” are different, but they are identical to the Spirit. The Spirit knows that you both HAVE everything and ARE everything. Any distinction in this respect is meaningful only when the idea of “getting,” which implies a lack, has already BEEN accepted. That is why we made no distinction before between HAVING the Realm of God and BEING the Realm of God.

The calm being of God’s Realm, which in your sane mind is perfectly conscious, is ruthlessly banished from the part of the mind which the ego rules. The ego is desperate because it opposes literally invincible odds, whether you are asleep or awake. Consider how much vigilance you have been willing to exert to protect your ego, and how little you have been willing to expend to protect your higher mind. Who but the insane would undertake to believe what is not true, and then protect this belief at the cost of Truth?

Text Chapter 4 - The Root of All Evil

4.4 The Escape From Fear

If you cannot hear the Voice of God, it is because you do not choose to listen. The fact that you DO listen to the voice of your ego is demonstrated by your attitudes, your feelings and your behavior. Your attitudes are obviously conflicted, your feelings have a narrow range on the negative side but are never purely joyous, and your behavior is either strained or unpredictable. Yet this IS what you want. This is what you are fighting to keep and what you are vigilant to save. Your minds are filled with schemes to save the face of your egos, and you do not seek the Face of God.

The glass in which the ego seeks to see its face is dark indeed. How can it maintain the trick of its existence except with mirrors? But where YOU look to find yourself is up to you. We have said that you cannot change your mind by changing your behavior, but we have also said, and many times before, that you CAN change your mind.

When your mood tells you that you have chosen wrongly, and this is so whenever you are not joyous, then KNOW this need not be.

In every case you have thought wrongly about some Spirit that God created, and are perceiving images your ego makes in a darkened glass. Think honestly what you have thought that God would NOT have thought, and what you have NOT thought that God would have you think. Search sincerely for what you have done and left undone accordingly, and then change your minds to THINK WITH GOD’S.

This may seem hard to you, but it is MUCH easier than trying to think AGAINST It. Your mind IS one with God’s. Denying this and thinking otherwise has held your ego together, but has literally split your mind. As a loving sibling, I am deeply concerned with your minds, and urge you to follow my example as you look at yourselves and at each other, and see in both the glorious Creations of a glorious Creator.

When you are sad, KNOW that this NEED NOT BE. Depression ALWAYS arises ultimately from a sense of being deprived of something you want and do not have. KNOW you are deprived of nothing except by your own decisions, and then decide otherwise.

When you are anxious, KNOW that all anxiety comes from the capriciousness of the ego, and NEED NOT BE. You can be as vigilant AGAINST the ego’s dictates as FOR them.

When you feel guilty, KNOW that the ego has indeed violated the laws of God, but YOU have not. Leave the sins of the ego to me. That is what Atonement is for. But until you change your mind about those your ego has hurt, the Atonement cannot release you. As long as you feel guilty your ego is in command because only the ego CAN experience guilt. THIS NEED NOT BE.

You, Helen, have been more honest than Bill in really trying to see whom your ego has hurt, and also in trying to change your mind about them. (Helen Schucman doubtful whether this is accurate – written at a time when she was very angry.) I am not unmindful of your efforts, but you still have much too much energy invested in your ego. THIS NEED NOT BE. Watch your minds for the temptations of the ego, and do not be deceived by it. KNOW it offers you nothing.

You, Bill, have not made consistent efforts to change your mind except through applying old habit patterns to new ideas. But you have learned, and learned it better than Helen, (Helen Schucman doubtful about accuracy here) that your mind gains control over ITSELF when you direct it genuinely toward perceiving someone ELSE truly. Your lack of vitality is due to your former marked effort at solving your needless depression and anxiety through disinterest. Because your ego WAS protected by this unfortunate negative attribute, you are afraid to abandon it.

When you have given up this voluntary dis-spiriting, you have already seen how your mind can focus, and rise above fatigue, and heal. But you are not sufficiently vigilant against the demands of your ego that you disengage yourself. THIS NEED NOT BE. The habit of engaging WITH God and One’s Creations is easily made if you refuse actively to let your minds slip away. Your problem is not concentration: it is a belief that nobody, including yourself, is WORTH consistent effort.

Side with me CONSISTENTLY against this deception, and do not permit this shabby belief to pull you back. The disheartened are useless to themselves and to me, but only the ego can BE disheartened.

Have you REALLY considered how many opportunities you have to gladden yourselves, and how many of them you have refused? There is no limit to the power of a Child of God, but one can limit the expression of one’s power as much as one chooses. Your mind and mine can unite in shining your ego away, and releasing the strength of God into everything you think and will and do. Do not settle for ANYTHING less than this, and refuse to accept anything BUT this as your goal.

Watch your minds carefully for any beliefs that hinder its accomplishment, and step away from them. Judge how well you have done this by your own feelings, for this is the one RIGHT use of judgement. Judgement, like any other defense, can be used to attack or protect, to hurt or to heal. The ego SHOULD be brought to your judgement and found wanting there. Without your own allegiance, protection and love, it cannot exist.

Judge your ego truly and you MUST withdraw allegiance, protection and love from it. You are mirrors of truth in which God Oneself shines in perfect Light. To the ego’s dark glass you need but say,

“I will not look there because I KNOW these images are not true.”

Then let the Holy One shine on you in peace, knowing that this and only this MUST be. One’s Mind shone on you in your creation and brought YOUR mind into being. One’s Mind still shines on you, and MUST shine THROUGH you. Your ego cannot prevent ONE from shining on you, but it CAN prevent you from letting One shine THROUGH you.

The first coming of Christ is just another name for the Creation, for Christ is the Child of God. The SECOND coming of Christ means nothing more than the end of the belief in the ego’s rule over part of the minds of people, and the healing of the mind. I was created like you in the first, and I am reminding you that I have called you to join with me in the second.

If you will think over your lives you will see how carefully the preparations were made. I am in charge of the Second Coming, and my judgement, which is used only for protection, cannot be wrong because it NEVER attacks. YOURS is so distorted that you believe I was mistaken in choosing you. I assure you this is a mistake of your egos. Do NOT mistake it for humility.

Your egos are trying to convince you that THEY are real and I am not, because if I AM real, I am no more real than YOU are. That knowledge, and I assure you that it IS knowledge, means that Christ has come into your minds and healed them.

Although I am NOT attacking your egos, I AM working with your higher mind whether you are asleep or awake, just as your ego does with your lower mind. I am your vigilance in this because you are too confused to recognize your own hope.

I was NOT mistaken. Your minds WILL elect to join with mine, and together we are invincible. You will yet come together in my name and your sanity will be restored. I raised the dead by KNOWING that life is an eternal attribute of everything that the living God created. Why do you believe it is harder for me to inspire the dispirited, or to stabilize the unstable? I do not believe that there is an order of difficulty in miracles—YOU do. I have called, and you will answer. I KNOW that miracles are natural because they are expressions of love. My calling you is as natural as your answer, and as inevitable.

Text Chapter 4 - The Root of All Evil

4.5 The Ego-Body Illusion

ALL things work together for good. There are NO exceptions except in the ego’s judgement. The ego resents everything it does not control. Control is a central factor in what the ego permits into consciousness, and one to which it devotes its maximum vigilance. This is NOT the way a balanced mind holds together. ITS control is unconscious.

The ego is further off balance by keeping its primary motivation UNconscious, and raising control rather than sensible judgement to predominance. The ego has every reason to do this, according to the thought system which gave rise to it, and which it serves. Sane judgement would inevitably judge AGAINST the ego, and MUST be obliterated BY the ego in the interest of its self-preservation.

A major source of the ego’s off-balanced state is its lack of discrimination between impulses from God and from the body. Any thought system which makes THIS confusion MUST be insane. Yet this demented state is ESSENTIAL to the ego, which judges ONLY in terms of threat or non-threat TO ITSELF.

In one sense the ego’s fear of the idea of God is at least logical, since this idea DOES dispel the ego. Fear of dissolution from the Higher Source, then, makes SOME sense in ego-terms. But fear of the body, with which the ego identifies so closely, is more blatantly senseless. The body is the ego’s home by its own election. It is the only identification with which the ego feels safe because the body’s vulnerability is its own best argument that you CANNOT be of God.

This is the belief that the ego sponsors eagerly. Yet the ego hates the body because it does not accept the idea that the body is good enough to be its home. Here is where the mind becomes actually dazed. Being told by the ego that it is really part of the body and that the body is its protector, the mind is also constantly informed that the body can NOT protect it. This, of course, is not only accurate but perfectly obvious.

Therefore the mind asks,

“Where can I go for protection?” to which the ego replies,

“Turn to me.”

The mind, and not without cause, reminds the ego that it has itself insisted that it IS identified with the body, so there is no point in turning to it for protection. The ego has no real answer to this because there IS none, but it DOES have a typical solution. It obliterates the question from the mind’s awareness. Once unconscious, the question can and does produce uneasiness, but it cannot be answered because it cannot be asked.

This is the question which MUST be asked:

“Where am I to go for protection?”

Only an insane mind FAILS to ask it. Even the insane ask it unconsciously, but it requires real sanity to ask it consciously.

When the Bible says, “Seek and ye shall find,” it does not mean that you should seek blindly and desperately for something you would not recognize. Meaningful seeking is consciously undertaken, consciously organized, and consciously directed. Bill’s chief contribution to your joint venture is his insistence that the goal be formulated clearly, and KEPT IN MIND.

You, Helen, are not good at doing this. You still search for many goals simultaneously, and this goal confusion, given a strong will, MUST produce chaotic behavior. Bill’s behavior is not chaotic, because he is not so much goal-divided as not goal-ORIENTED. Where Helen has overinvested in many goals, Bill has underinvested in ALL goals. He has the advantage of POTENTIALLY greater freedom from distractibility, but he does not always care enough to use it. Helen has the advantage of great effort, but she keeps losing sight of the goal.

Bill has very intelligently suggested that you both should set yourself the goal of really studying for this course. There can be no doubt of the wisdom of this decision, for any student who wants to pass it. But, knowing your individual weaknesses as learners and being a teacher with some experience, I must remind you that learning and wanting to learn are inseparable.

All learners learn best when they believe that what they are trying to learn is of value to them. However, values in this world are hierarchical, and not everything you may WANT to learn has lasting value. Indeed, many of the things you want to learn are chosen BECAUSE their value will not last. The ego thinks it is an advantage not to commit itself to ANYTHING that is eternal because the eternal MUST come from God.

Eternalness is the one function which the ego has tried to develop, but has systematically failed. It may surprise you to learn that had the ego willed to do so it COULD have made the eternal because, as a product of the mind, it IS endowed with the power of its own creator. However, the DECISION to do this, rather than the ability to do it, is what the ego cannot tolerate. That is because the decision, from which the ability would naturally develop, would necessarily involve true perception, a state of clarity which the ego, fearful of being judged truly, MUST avoid.

The results of this dilemma are peculiar, but no more so than the dilemma itself. The ego has reacted characteristically here as elsewhere because mental illness, which is ALWAYS a form of ego involvement, is not a matter of reliability as much as of validity. The ego compromises with the issue of the eternal, just as it does with all issues that touch on the real question in any way. By compromising in connection with all TANGENTIAL questions, it hopes to hide the REAL question and keep it OUT OF MIND. The ego’s characteristic busyness with non-essentials is for precisely that purpose.

Consider the alchemist’s age-old attempts to turn base metal into gold. The one question which the alchemist did not permit oneself to ask was,

“What FOR?”

One COULD not ask this, because it would immediately become apparent that there was no sense in one’s efforts even if one succeeded. If gold became more plentiful its value would decrease, and one’s own purpose would be defeated. The ego has countenanced some strange compromises with the idea of the eternal, making many odd attempts to relate the concept to the unimportant, in an effort to satisfy the mind without jeopardizing itself. Thus, it has permitted many good minds to devote themselves to the possibility of perpetual MOTION, but NOT to ETERNAL THOUGHTS.

Ideational preoccupations with problems set up to be incapable of solution are also favorite ego devices for impeding the strong-willed from making real learning progress. The problems of squaring the circle and carrying pi to infinity are good examples. A more recent ego attempt is particularly noteworthy. The idea of preserving the body by suspension, thus giving it the kind of limited immortality which the ego can tolerate, is among its more recent appeals to the mind.

It is noticeable, however, that in all these diversionary tactics, the ONE question which is NEVER asked by those who pursue them is,

“What FOR?”

This is the question which YOU must learn to ask, in connection with EVERYTHING your mind wishes to undertake. What is the purpose? Whatever it is, you cannot doubt that it will channelize your efforts automatically. When you make a decision of purpose, then, you HAVE made a decision about your future effort, a decision which will remain in effect UNLESS you change the DECISION.

Psychologists are in a good position to realize that the ego is capable of making and accepting as real some very distorted associations which are not true. The confusion of sex with aggression, and the resulting behavior which is perceived as the same for BOTH, serves as an example. This is “understandable” to the psychologist, and does not produce surprise. The lack of surprise, however, is NOT a sign of understanding. It is a symptom of the psychologist’s ability to accept as reasonable a compromise which is clearly senseless; to attribute it to the mental illness of the patient, rather than one’s own, and to limit one’s questions about both the patient AND oneself to the trivial.

Such relatively minor confusions of the ego are not among its more profound misassociations, although they DO reflect them. Your egos have been blocking the more important questions which your minds SHOULD ask. You do NOT understand a patient or student while you yourselves are willing to limit the questions you raise about ONE’S mind, because you are also accepting these limits for YOURS. This makes you unable to heal one AND yourselves. Be ALWAYS unwilling to adapt to ANY situation in which miracle-mindedness is unthinkable. That state in ITSELF is enough to demonstrate that the perception is wrong.

Text Chapter 4 - The Root of All Evil

4.6 The Constant State

It cannot be emphasized too often that CORRECTING perception is merely a temporary expedient. It is necessary to do so ONLY because MISperception is a BLOCK to knowledge, while ACCURATE perception is a stepping-stone TOWARD it. The whole value of right perception lies in the inevitable judgement which it entails that it is UNNECESSARY. This removes the block entirely.

You may ask how this is possible as long as you appear to be living in this world, and since this is a sensible question, it has a sensible answer. You must be careful, however, that you really understand the question. What IS the “you” who are living in this world? Bill will probably have more trouble with this that you, Helen, but if he will try not to close his mind, he may decide that we are NOT engaging in denial after all.

To help him, it might be wise to review a number of the concepts with which he does not appear to have trouble, except at times. He liked the idea of invisibility, and was particularly open to the concept of different orders of reality. He also found the notion of varying densities of energy appealing. While he may yet agree that these are merely teaching aids, this is a good time to employ them.

Immortality is a constant state. It is as true now as it ever was or ever will be, because it implies NO CHANGE AT ALL. It is not a continuum, and it is NOT understood by comparing it with an opposite. Knowledge NEVER involves comparisons. That is its essential difference from everything else the mind can grasp.

“A little knowledge” is not dangerous except to the ego. Vaguely the ego senses threat, and being unable to realize that “a little knowledge” is a meaningless phrase since “all” and “a little” in this context are the same, the ego decides that since “all” is impossible, the fear does not lie there. “A little,” however, is a scarcity concept, and this the ego understands well. Regarding “all” as impossible, “A little,” then, is perceived as the real threat.

The essential thing to remember is that the ego DOES NOT RECOGNIZE the real source of its perceived threat, and if YOU associate yourself with the ego, YOU do not perceive the whole situation as it is. Only your allegiance to it gives the ego ANY power over you. We have spoken of the ego as if it were a separate thing acting on its own. This was necessary to persuade you that you cannot dismiss it lightly, and MUST realize how much of your thinking is ego-directed. We cannot safely let it go at that, however, or you will regard yourselves as necessarily conflicted as long as you are here, or more properly, as long as you BELIEVE that you are here.

The ego is nothing more than a PART of your belief about yourselves. Your other life has continued without interruption, and has been and always will be totally unaffected by your attempts to disassociate. The ratio of repression and dissociation of truth varies with the individual ego-illusion, but dissociation is always involved, or you would not believe that you ARE here.

When I told Bill to concentrate on the phrase “here I am, Lord,” I did not mean “in this world” by “here.” I wanted him to think of himself as a separate consciousness, capable of direct communication with the Creator of that consciousness. He, too, MUST begin to think of himself as a very powerful receiving and sending channel, a description I once gave you (very clearly) though symbolically in the dream of the radio transmitter. Remember that HE understood it before you did, because you are more dissociative and less repressed.

In learning to escape from the illusions you have made, your great debt to each other is something you must never forget. It is exactly the same debt that you owe to me. Whenever you react egotistically towards each other, you are throwing away the graciousness of your indebtedness, and the holy perception it would produce. The reason why the term “holy” can be used here is because, as you learn how much you ARE indebted to the whole Christhood, which INCLUDES me, you come as close to knowledge as perception ever can. The gap is then so small that knowledge can easily flow across it, and obliterate it forever.

You have very little trust in me as yet, but it will increase as you turn more and more often to me INSTEAD of your egos for guidance. The results will convince you increasingly that your choice in turning to me is the only sane one you can make. No-one who has learned from experience that one choice brings peace and joy, while another brings chaos and disaster, needs much conditioning. The ego cannot withstand the conditioning process because the process itself DEMONSTRATES that there is another way.

Conditioning by rewards has always been more effective than conditioning by pain because pain is an ego-illusion, and can never induce more than a temporary effect.

The rewards of God, however, are immediately recognized as eternal. Since this recognition is made by YOU and NOT the ego, the recognition ITSELF establishes that you and your ego CANNOT be identical. You may believe that you have already accepted the difference, but you are by no means convinced as yet. The very fact that you are preoccupied with the idea of escaping FROM the ego shows this.

You cannot escape from the ego by humbling it or controlling it or punishing it. Remember that the ego and the Spirit DO NOT KNOW each other. The separated mind cannot maintain the separation EXCEPT by dissociating. Having done this, it utilizes repression against all truly natural impulses, not because the EGO is a separate thing, but because you want to believe that YOU are. The ego is a device for maintaining this belief, but it is still only YOUR willingness to use the device that enables it to endure.

My trust in you is greater than yours in me at the moment, but it will not always be that way. Your mission is very simple. You have been chosen to live so as to demonstrate that you are NOT an ego. I repeat that I do not choose God’s channels wrongly. The Holy One shares my trust, and always approves my Atonement decisions because my will is never out of accord with One’s.

I have told you before that I am in charge of the whole Atonement. This is ONLY because I completed my part in it as a person, and can now complete it through other people. My chosen receiving and sending channels cannot fail because I will lend them MY strength as long as theirs is wanting. I will go with you to the Holy One, and through MY perception ONE can bridge the little gap. Your gratitude to each OTHER is the only gift I want. I will bring it to God for you, knowing that to know your sibling IS to know God.

A little knowledge is an all-encompassing thing. If you are grateful to each other, you are grateful to God for what One created. Through your gratitude you can come to know each other, and one moment of real recognition makes all people your siblings, because they are all of your Creator. Love does not conquer all things, but it DOES set all things right.

Because you are all the Realm of God, I can lead you back to your own creations, which you do not yet know. God has kept them very safe in ONE’S knowing while your attention has wandered. Bill gave you a very important idea when he told you that what has been dissociated IS STILL THERE. I am grateful to him for that, and I hope he will not decide that it is true only for you. Even though dissociation is much more apparent in you, and repression is much more evident in him, each of you utilizes both.

Wisdom always dictates that a therapist work through WEAKER defenses first. That is why I suggested to Bill that he persuade you to deal with REPRESSION first. We have only just about reached the point where dissociation means much to you, because it is so important to your misbeliefs. Bill might do well—and you could help him here—to concentrate more on HIS dissociative tendencies and not try to deal with repression yet.

I hinted at this when I remarked on his habit of disengaging himself, and when I spoke to him about distantiation. These are all forms of dissociation, and these weaker forms were always more evident in him than in you. That is because dissociation was so extreme in your case that you did not have to hide it because you were not aware that it was there. Bill, on the other hand, DOES dissociate more than he thinks, and that is why he cannot listen. He does not need to go through the same course in repression that you did, because he will give up his major misdefense AFTER he has rid himself of the lesser ones.

Do not disturb yourself about repression, Bill, but DO train yourself to be alert to any tendency to withdraw from your siblings. Withdrawal is frightening, and you do not recognize all the forms it takes in you. Helen is right that she will experience things that will cut across all her perceptions because of their stunning knowledge. You were right that this will occur when she learns to recognize what she ALREADY knows and has dissociated.

You, Bill, will learn somewhat differently, because you are afraid of all complete involvements, and believe that they lessen YOU. You have learned to be so much more clear-sighted about this that you should be ready to oppose it in yourself RELATIVELY easily. As you come closer to a sibling, you DO approach me, and as you withdraw from one I become distant to you.

Your giant step forward was to INSIST on a collaborative venture. This does NOT go against the true spirit of meditation at all. It is inherent IN it. Meditation is a collaborative venture with GOD. It CANNOT be undertaken successfully by those who disengage themselves from the Christhood, because they are disengaging themselves from me. God will come to you only as you will give One to your siblings. Learn first of them, and you will be ready to hear God as you hear them. That is because the function of love is One.

Helen & Bill’s Joint Venture to Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

Helen to Christ: Why does that bring up fear in me?

The reason for the fear reaction is quite apparent. You have not yet been able to suspend judgment and have nearly succeeded in weakening your strength over this. Since you have unfortunately the tendency to be self-preserving you believe that control of judgment is a self-preserving function and therefore requires it as a necessary defense of your self. Weakening this defense deliberately is thus perceived as dangerous necessarily which frightens you.

Bill was right that you should ask before attempting miracles again. It would be very unwise to try it before we can do it together as I told you last night. I assure you I will be vigilant in identifying the right time, and as I told you very clearly next time we will do it together. I did not tell you when that will be because I don’t know. You will tell me that but may not recognize that you have done so. That is why you need me to relay your own message back to you. When we are both ready, it cannot be fearful.

In answer to Bill’s question as to why he has so much difficulty in communication, you were right in what you said in the cab and Bill could not listen. However he seems to be able to listen quite carefully to the notes. Ask him please to listen VERY carefully to these.

If you ask me for guidance you HAVE signified your willingness to give over your own control at least to some extent. Your frequent failure to ask at all indicates that at such times you are not willing to go even that far. But when you at least ask, you are acting with a cooperative thought even though it may not lack ambivalence. You are therefore entitled to a specific answer but unless you follow it without judging it, you will become defensive about the next steps which you will take.

You asked merely what you should do now. The Answer was to tell Jack to pick you up at 3. Bill’s reaction to this was unfortunate and yours was much more constructive making it particularly unfortunate that Bill accepted your very correct response to his reaction with imitation. But it was inevitable because he had ALREADY given way to fear. Then you reacted to his mistake with imitation and we lost our communication for a time. Let us try to re-establish our communication now.

Bill was unwise in deciding on his own that unless he went to his apartment, Jack would be in trouble. This association meant that he saw only one alternative and was unable to keep an open mind. Certainly he should be careful that way. Guidance which comes from me will not jeopardize anyone.

It should also be noted that he projected his misperception onto you, assuming that you were counting on magic to get Jack to take you home in spite of the traffic, and not realizing that situation as it is. I would like to tell him for you that this was a misperception of his and although you have done this many times in the past you were not doing it then. As you very correctly stated but Bill could not listen at the time, you were merely repeating a message for which you had asked and were not judging the outcomes. Bill was. If you can continue not to evaluate my messages and merely follow them, they will lead to good for everyone. Since this is the same area of discipline which is causing both of you trouble with meditation, to practice in this is ESSENTIAL.

I do not yet know what decisions those who are involved in happenings later today will make but I assure you wholeheartedly, and I urge you to share, that WHATEVER they may be can be utilized for good if you will let them be. Why not unburden yourselves of the kind of responsibility which you CAN’T meet and devote yourselves in peace to the many others which you can discharge without strain? It is their responsibility to recognize the difference. Any confusion in this respect is arrogance. Note also that I specifically told you in answer to your own question of this being that miracles should be offered both to Art and to your brother. They are urgently needed for YOU although this is not the spirit in which you must undertake them. You have hurt yourselves and need healing. It does not matter whether the people you think have hurt you have really thought hurtfully. You have. We must undo this and our attempts will surely be blessed.

Since both of you have asked me to point up errors in perceiving, I would request that Bill review carefully his reactions to your suggestion that you go over the same material. Even though you did not ask which was a mistake, Bill immediately evaluated the suggestion in terms of his own convenience which was another mistake. Your motives were not uncharitable even though your failure to ask for guidance was a sign of fear. You thought that Art would be able to understand Bill’s going to the hospital while he could not understand your presence.

Bill’s reaction did not take alternate possibilities into account which is one of his uses for problems. He should also train himself to learn that alternate possibilities are better not left up to him. Whenever he reacts as though they are he will have trouble.

If you had asked where to go, and Bill had been willing to forgo control of the decision, whatever you had done would have been only benign. Could you continue the day in that spirit? If you will to help Bill overcome his limitation, which is totally unjustified in spite of his misperception, we will not only help him but enable both of us to help you. This will institute the chain of helpfulness and harmlessness which always leads to the Atonement and becomes a powerful part of its beneficence.

I offer far more than partial guidance although you do not ask for more. The uneven quality of your skill in both asking and following my directions is due to the alternations you experience between ego and miracle orientated perception. This is a strain, but fortunately one which can be overcome along with the rest. There will never be a time when I do not will to try again. You might be gladdened by remembering that.

How can you teach someone the value of something one has deliberately thrown away? One must have thrown it away because one did NOT value it. You can only show one how miserable one is WITHOUT it, and bring it near very slowly, so one can learn how one’s misery lessens as one approaches it. This conditions one to associate one’s misery with its ABSENCE, and to associate the OPPOSITE of misery with its presence. It gradually becomes desirable, as one changes one’s mind about its worth.

I am conditioning you to associate misery with the ego and joy with Spirit. You have conditioned yourselves the other way around. A far greater reward, however, will break through any conditioning, if it is repeatedly offered whenever the old habit pattern is broken. You are still free to choose, but can you really WANT the rewards of the ego in the presence of the rewards of God?

Text Chapter 4 - The Root of All Evil

4.7 Creation And Communication

It should be clear by now that, while the content of any particular ego-illusion does not matter, it is usually more helpful to correct it in a specific context. Bill is quite right that you are too abstract in this matter. Ego-illusions are QUITE specific, although they frequently change, and although the mind is naturally abstract. The mind nevertheless became concrete voluntarily as soon as it split. However, only PART of it splits, so only PART of it is concrete.

The concrete part is the same part that believes in the ego because the ego DEPENDS on the specific. It is the part that believes your existence means you are SEPARATE. Everything the ego perceives is a separate whole, without the relationships that imply BEING. The ego is thus AGAINST communication, except in so far as it is utilized to ESTABLISH separateness rather than to abolish it.

The communication system of the ego is based on its own thought system, as is everything else it dictates. Its communication is controlled by its need to protect itself, and it will disrupt communication when it experiences threat. While this is always so, individual egos perceive different kinds of threat, which are quite specific in their own judgement. For example, although all forms of perceived demands may be classified, or judged, by the ego as coercive communication which must be disrupted, the response of breaking communication will nevertheless be to a SPECIFIC PERSON or persons.

The specificity of the ego’s thinking, then, results in a spurious kind of generalization which is really not abstract at all. It will respond in certain specific ways to all stimuli which it perceives as related. In contrast, the Spirit reacts in the same way to everything it knows is true, and does not respond at all to anything else. Nor does it make any attempt to ESTABLISH what is true. It knows that what is true is everything that God created. It is in complete and direct communication with every aspect of Creation because it is in complete and direct communication with its Creator.

THIS communication IS the Will of God. Creation and communication are synonymous. God created every mind by communicating One’s Mind to it, thus establishing it forever as a channel for the reception of One’s Mind and Will. Since only beings of a like order can truly communicate, One’s creations naturally communicate WITH One and LIKE One. This communication is perfectly abstract in that its quality is universal in application, and not subject to ANY judgement, ANY exception, or ANY alteration.

God created you BY this and FOR this. The mind can distort its function, but it cannot endow itself with functions it was not given. That is why the mind cannot totally lose the ability to communicate, even though it may refuse to utilize it on behalf of being. Existence as well as being rests on communication.

Existence, however, is SPECIFIC in how, what, and with whom communication is judged to be worth undertaking. Being is completely without these distinctions. It is a state in which the mind IS in communication with everything that is real, including the Spirit. To whatever extent you permit this state to be curtailed, you are limiting your sense of your OWN reality, which becomes total only by your recognizing ALL reality in the glorious context of its REAL relationship to YOU. This IS your reality. Do not desecrate it or recoil from it. It is your real home, your real temple, and your real Self.

God, Who encompasses ALL being, nevertheless created beings who have everything individually, but who want to share it to increase their joy. Nothing that is real can be increased EXCEPT by sharing. That is why God Oneself created you. Divine Abstraction takes joy in application, and that is what creation MEANS. “How,” “what” and “to whom” are irrelevant because real creation gives everything, since it can create ONLY like itself. Remember that in being there is no difference between “having” and “being,” as there is in existence. In the state of being, the mind gives everything always.

The Bible repeatedly states that you should praise God. This hardly means that you should tell One how wonderful One is. One has no ego with which to accept such thanks, and no perception with which to judge such offerings. But unless you take your part in the creation, One’s joy is not complete because YOURS is incomplete. And THIS One does know. One knows it in One’s own Being and Its experience of One’s Child’s experience. The constant GOING OUT of One’s Love is blocked when One’s channels are closed, and One IS lonely when the minds One created do not communicate fully with One.

God HAS kept your realm for you, but One cannot share One’s joy with you until you know it with your whole mind. Even revelation is not enough, because it is communication FROM God. It is not enough until it is SHARED. God does not need revelation returned to One, which would clearly be impossible, but One DOES want revelation brought to others. This cannot be done with the actual revelation because its content cannot be expressed, and it is intensely personal to the mind which receives it. It can, however, still be returned BY that mind through its attitudes to other minds which the knowledge from the revelation brings.

God is praised whenever any mind learns to be wholly helpful. This is impossible without being wholly harmless because the two beliefs coexist. The truly helpful are invulnerable because they are NOT protecting their egos, so that nothing CAN hurt them. Their helpfulness IS their praise of God, and One will return their praise of One because they are like One, and they can rejoice together. God goes out to them and through them, and there is great joy throughout the Realm. Every mind that is changed adds to this joy with its own individual willingness to share in it.

The truly helpful are God’s miracle workers, whom I direct until we are all united in the joy of the Realm. I will direct you to wherever you can be truly helpful, and to whoever can follow my guidance through you.

Text Chapter 4 - The Root of All Evil

4.8 True Rehabilitation

I arranged for Bill to attend the rehabilitation meetings for very good reasons, and I want him to know them so we can share our goal there. Every mind which is split needs rehabilitation. The medical orientation to rehabilitation emphasizes the body, while the vocational orientation stresses the ego. The “team” approach generally leads more to confusion than to anything else because it is too often misused as a way of exerting the ego’s dominion over other egos, rather than as a real experiment in the cooperation of minds.

The reason why Bill needs this experience is because he needs rehabilitating himself. How often have I answered “help him” when you have asked me to help you? He, too, has asked for help, and he has been helped whenever he was truly helpful to you. He has also gained to whatever extent he could give. He will help YOU more truly by going, if he can remember all the time he is there that his ONLY reason for being there is to REPRESENT ME.

Rehabilitation as a movement is an improvement over the overt neglect of those in need of help, but it is often little more than a painful attempt on the part of the halt to lead the blind. Bill, you will see this at every meeting. But this is not why you were chosen to go. You have a fear of broken bodies, because your ego cannot tolerate them. Your ego cannot tolerate ego-weakness, either, without ambivalence, because it is afraid of its own weakness and the weakness of its chosen home.

That is really why you recoil from the demands of the dependent, and from the sight of a broken body. Your ego is threatened, and blocks your natural impulse to help, placing you under the strain of divided will. You withdraw to allow your ego to recover, and to regain enough strength to be helpful again on a basis limited enough NOT to threaten your ego, but also too limited to give YOU joy

Those with broken bodies are often looked down on by the ego, because of its belief that nothing but a perfect body is worthy as its OWN temple. A mind that recoils from a hurt body is in great need of rehabilitation itself. A damaged brain is also hardly a danger. ALL symptoms of hurt need true helpfulness, and whenever they are met with this, the mind that so meets them heals ITSELF.

Rehabilitation is an attitude of praising God as One knows praise. One offers praise to you, and you must offer it to others. The chief handicaps of the clinicians lie in their attitudes to those whom their egos perceive as weakened and damaged. BY these evaluations, they have weakened and damaged their own helpfulness, and have thus set their own rehabilitation back. Rehabilitation is NOT concerned either with the ego’s fight for control, or its need to avoid and withdraw.

You can do much on behalf of your own rehabilitation AND that of others if, in a situation calling for healing, you think of it this way:

“I am here ONLY to be truly helpful.

I am here to represent Christ, Who sent me.

I do NOT have to worry about what to say or what to do

because One Who sent me will direct me.

I am content to be wherever One wishes, knowing One goes there with me.

I will be healed as I let One teach me to heal.”

Text Chapter 5 - Healing & Wholeness

5.0 Healing & Wholeness

To heal is to make happy. I have told you before to think how many opportunities you have to gladden yourselves, and how many you have refused. This is exactly the same as telling you that you have refused to heal yourselves. The light that belongs to you is the light of joy. Radiance is not associated with sorrow. Depression is often contagious, but although it may affect those who come in contact with it, they do not yield to the influence whole-heartedly. But joy calls forth an integrated willingness to share in it, and thus promotes the mind’s natural impulse TO RESPOND AS ONE.

Those who attempt to heal without being wholly joyous themselves call forth different kinds of responses at the same time, and thus deprive others of the joy of responding whole-heartedly. To be whole-hearted, you MUST be happy. If fear and love cannot coexist, and if it is impossible to be wholly fearful and remain alive, then the only possible whole state IS that of love. There is no difference between love and joy. Therefore, the only possible whole state IS the wholly joyous.

To heal or to make joyous is therefore the same as to integrate and MAKE ONE. That is why it makes no difference TO what part or BY what part of the Christhood the healing is done. EVERY part benefits, and benefits equally. YOU are being blessed by every beneficent thought of any of your siblings anywhere. You should want to bless them in return, out of gratitude.

You do not have to know them individually, or they you. The light of joy is so strong that it radiates throughout the Christhood, and returns thanks to the Creator for radiating ONE’S joy upon it. Only God’s holy children are worthy to be channels of One’s beautiful joy, because only they are beautiful enough to hold it by sharing it. It is impossible for a Child of God to love one’s neighbor EXCEPT as oneself. That is why the healer’s prayer is:

“Let me know this sibling as I know myself.”

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5.1 Healing As Joining

Healing is an act of thought by which two minds perceive their oneness and become glad. This gladness calls to every part of the Christhood to rejoice with them, and lets God Oneself go out into them and through them. Only the healed mind can experience revelation with lasting effect because revelation is an experience of pure joy. If you do not choose to be wholly joyous, your mind cannot HAVE what it does not choose to BE.

Remember that the Spirit knows no difference between “being” and “having.” The higher mind thinks according to the laws which the Spirit obeys, and therefore honors only the laws of God. To One, getting is meaningless and giving is all. Having everything, the Spirit HOLDS everything by GIVING it, and thus creates as the Creator created.

If you think about it, you will see that, while this kind of thinking is totally alien to having THINGS, even to the lower mind it is quite comprehensible in connection with IDEAS. If you share a physical possession, you DO divide its ownership. If you share an IDEA, however, you do NOT lessen it. ALL of it is still yours, although all of it has been given away. Further, if the person to whom you give it accepts it as ONE’S, one reinforces it in YOUR mind, and thus INCREASES it.

If you can accept the concept that the world IS one of ideas, the whole belief in the false association which the ego has made between giving and LOSING is gone.

Let us start our process of re-awakening with just a few simple concepts:

Thoughts INCREASE by being given away.

The more who BELIEVE in them, the STRONGER they become.

EVERYTHING is an idea.

How, then, is it possible that giving and losing CAN be meaningfully associated?

This is the invitation to the Holy Spirit. I told you that I could reach up and bring the Holy Spirit down to you. But I can bring One to you ONLY at your own invitation. The Holy Spirit is nothing more than your own right mind. One was also mine. The Bible says, “May the mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus,” and uses this as a BLESSING. It is the blessing of miracle-mindedness. It asks that you may think as I thought, joining with me in Christ-thinking.

The Holy Spirit is the only part of the Holy Trinity which is symbolic. One is referred to in the Bible as the Healer, the Comforter, and the Guide. One is also described as something “separate,” apart from the Creator and from the Child. I myself said,

“If I go I will send you another comforter, and One will abide with you.”

The Holy Spirit is a difficult concept to grasp precisely because it IS symbolic, and therefore open to many different interpretations. As a man and as one of God’s creations, my right thinking, which came from the Universal Inspiration which IS the Holy Spirit, taught me first and foremost that this Inspiration is for ALL. I could not have It myself without knowing that.

The word “know” is proper in this context, because the Holy Inspiration is a borderline concept between perception and knowledge, in the same sense that right perception is, so close to knowledge that It calls it forth, or better, allows it to come. We have spoken before of the higher, or the “true” perception, which is so close to truth that God Oneself can flow across the little gap. Knowledge is always ready to flow everywhere, but it cannot oppose. Therefore, you can obstruct it, although you can never lose it.

The Holy Spirit is the Christ Mind Which senses the knowledge that lies beyond perception. It came into being with the separation as a protection, inspiring the beginning of the Atonement at the same time. Before that, there was no need for healing, and no one was comfortless.

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5.2 The Mind Of The Atonement

God honored even the miscreations of One’s Children because they had made them, but One also blessed them with a way of thinking that could raise their perceptions until they became so lofty that they could reach almost back to One.

The Holy Spirit, the Corrector of Perceptions, is the Mind of the Atonement. It represents a state of mind that comes close enough to One-Mindedness that transfer to it is at last possible. Transfer depends on common elements in the old learning and the new situation to which it is transferred. Perception is not knowledge, but it can be TRANSFERRED to knowledge, or CROSS OVER into it. It might even be more helpful here to use the literal meaning of “carried over”, since the last step is taken by God.

The Holy Spirit, the shared Inspiration of all the Christhood, induces a kind of perception in which many elements are like those in the Realm of Heaven itself.

First, its universality is perfectly clear, and no one who receives it could ever believe for one instant that sharing it involves anything BUT gain.

Second, it is incapable of attack, and is therefore truly open. This means that, although it does not engender knowledge, it does not OBSTRUCT it in any way.

Third, it is an unequivocal call to love. Every other voice is still.

There is a point at which sufficient quantitative changes produce real qualitative differences. The next point requires real understanding because it is the point at which the shift occurs:

Finally, it points the way BEYOND the healing which it brings, and leads the mind beyond its own integration into the paths of creation.

Healing is not creating; it is reparation. The Holy Spirit promotes healing by looking BEYOND it, to what the Children of God were before healing was needed, and will be when they have BEEN healed. This alteration of the time sequence should be quite familiar because it is very similar to the shift in time perception which the miracle introduces.

The Holy Spirit is the MOTIVATION for miracle-mindedness; the will to HEAL the separation by letting it go. This will is IN you because God placed it in your mind, and although you can keep it asleep, you cannot obliterate it. God Oneself keeps this will alive by transmitting it from One’s Mind to yours as long as there is time. It is partly One’s and partly yours. The miracle itself is just this fusion or union of will between Creator and Child.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Joy. One is the Call to return with which God blessed the minds of One’s separated Children. This is the vocation of the mind. The mind had no calling until the separation because, before that, it had only BEING, and would not have understood the call to right thinking. The Holy Spirit was God’s Answer to the separation, the means by which the Atonement could repair until the whole mind returned to creating. The Atonement and the separation began at the same time. When one made the ego, God placed in one the call to joy. This call is so strong that the ego always dissolves at its sound.

That is why you can choose to listen to two voices within you. One you made yourself, and that one is not of God. But the other is given you BY God, Who asks you only to listen to it. The Holy Spirit is in you in a very literal sense. One’s is the Voice that calls you back to where you were before, and will be again.

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5.3 The Voice For God

It is possible, even in this world, to hear ONLY that voice and no other. It takes effort and great willingness to learn. It is the final lesson that I learned, and God’s Children are as equal as learners as they are as Spirits. The Voice of the Holy Spirit IS the call to Atonement, or the restoration of the integrity of the mind. When the Atonement is complete and the whole Christhood is healed, there will be no call to return, but what God creates is eternal. The Holy Spirit will remain with the Children of God, to bless THEIR creations, and keep them in the light of joy.

You ARE the Realm of Heaven, but you have let the belief in darkness enter your minds, and so you need a new light. The Holy Spirit is the radiance that you must let banish the idea of darkness. One’s is the glory before which dissociation falls away, and the Realm of Heaven breaks through into its own.

Before the separation you did not need guidance. You KNEW as you will know again, but as you do NOT know now. God does not guide because one can share only PERFECT KNOWLEDGE. Guidance is EVALUATIVE because it implies that there is a RIGHT way and also a WRONG way, one to be chosen and the other to be avoided. By choosing one, you give up the other. This IS a conflict state. It MEANS that knowledge has been lost because knowledge is SURE.

God is not in you in a literal sense; YOU are part of ONE. When you chose to leave One, One gave you a Voice to speak FOR One because One could no longer share One’s knowledge with you without hindrance. Direct communication was broken because you had made another voice through another will. The Holy Spirit calls you both to remember and to forget. You have chosen to be in a state of opposition, in which opposites are possible. As a result, there ARE choices which you must make. In the holy state, the will is free in the sense that its CREATIVE power is unlimited, but choice itself is meaningless.

Freedom to choose is the same POWER as freedom to create, but its APPLICATION is different. Choosing MEANS divided will. The Holy Spirit is one way of choosing. This way is in you BECAUSE there is also another way. God did not leave One’s Children comfortless, even though they chose to leave One. The voice they put in their minds was NOT the voice of One’s Will, for which the Holy Spirit speaks. The call to return is stronger than the call to depart, but it speaks in a different way.

The Voice of the Holy Spirit does not command because it is incapable of arrogance. It does not demand because it does not seek control. It does not overcome because it does not attack. It merely REMINDS. It is compelling only because of what it reminds you OF. It brings to your mind the OTHER way, remaining quiet even in the midst of the turmoil you have made for yourselves. The Voice for God is always quiet because it speaks of peace. Yet peace is stronger than war because it heals. War is DIVISION, not increase. No one gains from strife.

“What profiteth a person if one gain the whole world and lose one’s own Spirit?” This means that if one listens to the wrong voice, one has LOST SIGHT of one’s Spirit. One CANNOT lose it, but one CAN not know it. It is therefore LOST TO ONE until one chooses right. The Holy Spirit is your Guide in choosing. One is the part of your mind which ALWAYS speaks for the right choice because One speaks for God. One is your remaining communication with God, which you can interrupt but cannot destroy.

The Holy Spirit is the way in which God’s Will can be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Both Heaven and earth are in YOU because the call of both is in your will, and therefore in your mind. The Voice for God comes from your own altars to One. These altars are not THINGS. They are DEVOTIONS. Yet you have other devotions now. Your divided devotion has given you the two voices, and you must choose at which altar you will to serve. The call you answer now IS an evaluation because it is a DECISION. The decision itself is very simple. It is made on the basis of which call is worth more to you.

My mind will always be like yours because we were created as equals. It was only my DECISION that gave me all power in Heaven and earth. My only gift to you is to help you make the same decision FOR YOURSELF. The will for this decision is the will to SHARE it because the decision itself IS the decision to share. It is MADE BY GIVING, and is therefore the ONE act of mind that resembles true creation.

You understand the role of “models” in the learning process, and the importance of the models you value and choose to follow in determining what you will to learn. I am your model for decision. By deciding for God I showed you that this decision CAN be made, and that YOU can make it. I promised you that the mind that made the decision for me is also in YOU, and that you can let it change you just as it changed me. This mind is unequivocal because it hears only ONE VOICE and answers in only ONE WAY.

You are the light of the world with me. Rest does not come from sleeping but from waking. The Holy Spirit is the call to awake and be glad. The world is very tired because it is the IDEA of weariness. Our task is the joyous one of waking it to the Call for God. Everyone will answer the Call of the Holy Spirit, or the Christhood cannot be as one. What better vocation could there be for any part of the Realm than to restore it to the perfect integration that can make it whole?

Hear only this through the Holy Spirit within you, and teach your siblings to listen as I am teaching you. When you are tempted by the wrong voice, call on me to remind you how to heal by sharing my decision and MAKING IT STRONGER. As we share this goal we increase its power to attract the whole Christhood, and to bring it back into the Oneness in which it was created.

Remember that “yoke” means “join together” and “burden” means message. Let us reconsider the Biblical statement “my yoke is easy and my burden light” in this way:

“Let us join together, for my message is Light.”

I came into your minds because you had grown vaguely aware of the fact that there IS another way, or another Voice. Having given this invitation to the Holy Spirit, I could come to provide the model for HOW TO THINK.

Psychology has become the study of BEHAVIOR, but no one denies the basic law that behavior is a response to MOTIVATION, and motivation is will. I have enjoined you to behave as I behaved, but we must respond to the same mind to do this. This mind is the Holy Spirit, Whose will is for God always. One teaches you how to keep me as the model for your thought, and to behave like me as a result.

The power of our joint motivation is literally beyond belief but NOT beyond accomplishment. What we can accomplish together HAS no limits because the Call for God IS the call to the unlimited. Child of God, my message is for YOU, to hear and give away as you hear and answer the Holy Spirit within you.

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5.4 The Guide To Salvation

The way to LEARN TO KNOW your sibling is by perceiving the Holy Spirit in one. We have already said that the Holy Spirit is the bridge or thought-transfer of perception TO knowledge, so we CAN use the terms as if they were related because, in ONE’S mind, they are. The relationship MUST be in One’s mind because, unless it were, the separation between the two ways of thinking would not be open to healing. One is part of the Holy Trinity because One’s mind is partly YOURS and also PARTLY GOD’S. This needs clarification, not in statement since we have said it before, but in EXPERIENCE.

The Holy Spirit is the IDEA of healing. Being thought, the idea GAINS AS IT IS SHARED. Being the Call FOR God, it is also the idea OF God. Since YOU are part of God, it is also the idea of YOURSELF, as well as of all the parts of God. The idea of the Holy Spirit shares the properties of other ideas because it follows the laws of the Universe of which IT is a part. Therefore, it is strengthened by being given away. It increases in YOU as you give it to your siblings.

Since thoughts do not have to be conscious to exist, your sibling does NOT have to be AWARE of the Holy Spirit, either in oneself or in you, for this miracle to occur. Your sibling may have dissociated the Call for God, just as YOU have. The dissociation is healed in BOTH of you as you become aware of the Call for God in one, and thus acknowledge its BEING. Bill, who has made a number of vital contributions to our joint venture, made a major one a while ago, which he himself did not appreciate or even understand. If we recognize its value together, we will be able to use it together, because it is an idea, and must therefore be shared to be held.

When Bill said that he was determined “NOT to see you that way,” he was speaking negatively. If he will state the same idea POSITIVELY, he will see the POWER of what he said. He had realized that there are two ways of seeing your sibling which are diametrically opposed to each other. They must both be in HIS mind because he was referring to HIMSELF as the perceiver. They must also be in YOURS because he was perceiving YOU.

What Bill was really saying was that he would NOT look at you through HIS ego, or perceive YOUR ego in you. Stated positively, he would see you through the Holy Spirit in HIS mind, and perceive it in YOURS. See one through the Holy Spirit in ONE’S mind, and you will recognize One in YOURS. What you acknowledge in your sibling you ARE acknowledging in yourself, and what you share you strengthen. The Voice of the Holy Spirit IS weak in you. That is why you MUST share it. It must be INCREASED in strength before YOU can hear it. It is impossible to hear it in yourself while it is so weak in your OWN mind. It is NOT weak in itself, but it IS limited by your unwillingness to hear it.

Will itself is an idea. And is therefore strengthened by being shared. If you make the mistake of looking for the Holy Spirit in YOURSELF alone, your meditations will frighten you because, by ADOPTING the ego’s viewpoint, you are undertaking an ego-alien journey WITH THE EGO AS GUIDE. This is BOUND to produce fear.

Bill’s better idea needs to be strengthened in BOTH of you. Since it was HIS, HE can increase it by giving it to you. I suggest that he might care to talk to you about it, and perhaps even let you take notes for him. He has much to teach through the Holy Spirit and this might be a very good ‘new’ beginning.

Delay is of the ego because time is ITS concept. Delay is obviously a TIME idea. Both time AND delay are meaningless in eternity. We have said before that the Holy Spirit is God’s answer to the ego. Everything of which the Holy Spirit reminds you is in direct opposition to the ego’s notions because true and false perceptions are THEMSELVES opposed. The Holy Spirit has the task of UNDOING what the ego has made. One undoes it in the same realm of discourse in which the ego itself operates, or the mind would be unable to understand the change. We have repeatedly emphasized that one level of the mind is not understandable to another. So it is with the ego and the Spirit; with time and eternity.

Eternity is an idea of God, so the Spirit understands it perfectly. Time is a belief of the ego, so the lower mind, which IS the ego’s domain, accepts it without question. The only aspect of time which is really eternal is NOW. That is what we REALLY mean when we say that “now is the only time.” The literal nature of this statement does not mean anything to the ego, which interprets it, at best, to mean “don’t worry about the future.” That is not what it really means at all.

The Holy Spirit is the Mediator between the interpretations of the ego and the knowledge of the Spirit. One’s ability to deal with symbols enables One to work AGAINST the ego’s beliefs in its own language. One’s equal ability to look BEYOND symbols into eternity also enables One to understand the laws of God, for which One speaks.

One can thus perform the function of REINTERPRETING what the ego makes, NOT by destruction, but by UNDERSTANDING. Understanding is light, and light leads to knowledge. The Holy Spirit is IN light because One is IN YOU who ARE light. But you yourself do not know this. It is therefore the task of the Holy Spirit to re-interpret you on behalf of God.

You cannot understand yourselves alone. This is because you have no meaning apart from your rightful place in the Christhood, and the rightful place of the Christhood in God. This is your life, your eternity and YOURSELF. It is of this that the Holy Spirit reminds you. It is this that the Holy Spirit SEES. This vision invariably frightens the ego because it is so calm. Peace is the ego’s greatest enemy because, according to ITS interpretation of reality, war is the guarantee of its survival. The ego becomes strong in strife. If you believe there IS strife, you will react viciously because the idea of danger has entered your mind. The idea itself IS an appeal to the ego.

The Holy Spirit is as vigilant as the ego to the call of danger, opposing it with ONE’S strength just as the ego WELCOMES it with all its might. The Holy Spirit counters this welcome by welcoming peace. Peace and eternity are as closely related as are time and war. Perception as well as knowledge derives meaning from RELATIONSHIPS. Those which you accept are the foundations of your beliefs.

The separation is merely another term for a split mind. It was not an act, but a THOUGHT. Therefore, the idea of separation can be given away, just as the idea of unity can. Either way, the idea will be STRENGTHENED IN THE MIND OF THE GIVER. The ego is the symbol of separation, just as the Holy Spirit is the symbol of peace. What you perceive in others you are STRENGTHENING IN YOURSELF. You let your mind misperceive, but the Holy Spirit lets your mind reinterpret its own misperceptions. The Holy Spirit is the perfect teacher. One uses only what your minds ALREADY understand to teach you that you do NOT understand it.

The Holy Spirit can deal with an unwilling learner without going counter to one’s will because part of one’s will IS still for God. Despite the ego’s attempts to conceal this part it is still much stronger than the ego, even though the ego does not recognize it. The Holy Spirit recognizes it perfectly because it is One’s own dwelling place, or the place in the mind where One is at home. YOU are at home there, too, because it is a place of peace and peace is of God.

You who are part of God are not at home EXCEPT in One’s peace. If peace is eternal, you are at home only in eternity. The ego made the world as IT perceives it, but the Holy Spirit, the RE-INTERPRETER of what the ego made, sees it only as a teaching device for bringing you home. The Holy Spirit must perceive time and re-interpret it into the timeless. The mind must be led into eternity THROUGH time because, having made time, it is capable of perceiving its opposite.

The Holy Spirit must work through opposites because One must work with and for a mind that IS in opposition. Correct and learn, and be open to learning. You have NOT made truth, but truth can still set you free. Look as the Holy Spirit looks and understand as One understands. One’s understanding looks back to God in remembrance of me. One is in Holy Communion always, and One is part of YOU. One is your Guide to salvation because One holds the remembrance of things past and to come. One holds this gladness gently in your minds, asking only that you INCREASE it in One’s name by sharing it to increase One’s joy in YOU.

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5.5 Therapy And Teaching

You must have noticed how often I have used your own ideas to help you. Bill is right in saying that you have learned to be a loving, wise and very understanding therapist except for yourself. That exception has given you more than perception for others because of what you saw in THEM, but LESS than knowledge of your real relationships TO them because you did NOT accept them as part OF you. Understanding IS beyond perception because it introduces meaning. It is, however, below knowledge, even though it can grow TOWARD it. It is possible, with great effort, to understand someone else to some extent and to be quite helpful to one, but the effort is misdirected. The misdirection is quite apparent; it is directed AWAY from you.

This does NOT mean that it is lost to you, but it DOES mean that you are not aware of it. I have saved all your kindnesses and every loving thought you have had. I have purified them of the errors which hid their light, and have kept them for you in their own perfect radiance. They are beyond destruction and beyond guilt. They came from the Holy Spirit within YOU, and we know what God creates is eternal. What fear has hidden still is part of you.

Bill once spoke of the Realm in this way, because he yearns for what he has repressed. You are much more afraid of it, because dissociation is more fearful. Bill’s better contact has allowed him the strength to retain the fear in awareness, and to resort to displacement, which he is learning to overcome with YOUR help. That is because you do not perceive HIM as dissociated, and can help him with his repression, which does not frighten you. He, on the other hand, has no difficulty in seeing YOU dissociate, and does not have to deal with repression in you, which WOULD produce fear in him.

Joining the Atonement, which I have repeatedly asked you to do, is ALWAYS a way OUT of fear. This does not mean that you can safely fail to acknowledge anything that is true. However, the Holy Spirit will not fail to help you re-interpret EVERYTHING that you perceive as fearful, and teach you that ONLY what is loving IS true. Truth is beyond your ability to destroy, but entirely within your grasp. It BELONGS to you because YOU created it. It is yours because it is a part of you, just as you are part of God because One created YOU.

The Atonement is the GUARANTEE of the safety of the Realm. Nothing good is lost because it comes from the Holy Spirit, the Voice for Creation. Nothing that is NOT good was ever created. And therefore CANNOT be protected. What the ego makes it KEEPS TO ITSELF, and so it is without strength. Its unshared existence does not die; it was merely never born. Real birth is not a beginning; it is a CONTINUING. Everything that CAN continue has BEEN born. But it can INCREASE as you are willing to return the part of your mind that needs healing to the higher part, and thus render your creating undivided.

As a therapist, Helen, you yourself tell your patients that the real difference between neurotic and “healthy” guilt feelings is that neurotic guilt feelings DO NOT HELP ANYONE. This distinction is wise though incomplete. Let us make the distinction a little sharper now. Neurotic guilt feelings are a device of the ego for “atoning” without sharing, and for asking pardon without changing. The ego NEVER calls for real Atonement, and cannot tolerate real forgiveness, which IS change.

Your concept of “healthy guilt feelings” has merit, but without the concept of the Atonement it lacks the healing potential it holds. YOU made the distinction in terms of feelings which led to a decision not to REPEAT the error, which is only PART of healing. Your concept lacked the idea of UNDOING it. What you were really advocating, then, was adopting a policy of sharing without a real FOUNDATION.

I have come to GIVE you the foundation, so your own thoughts can make you REALLY free. You have carried the burden of the ideas you did NOT share and which were therefore too weak to increase, but you did NOT recognize how to UNDO their existence because you HAD made them. You CANNOT cancel out your past errors alone. They will NOT disappear from your mind without remedy. The remedy is NOT of your making, any more than YOU are.

The Atonement cannot be understood except as a PURE ACT OF SHARING. That is what is meant when we said it is possible, even in this world, to listen to ONE voice. If you are part of God and the Christhood is one, you CANNOT be limited to the “self” the ego sees. Every loving thought held in ANY part of the Christhood belongs to every part. It is shared BECAUSE it is loving. Sharing is God’s way of creating, and also YOURS. Your ego can keep you in exile FROM the Realm, but in the Realm itself it has no power.

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5.6 If You Will to Learn, You Must Will to Teach

You have become willing to receive my messages as I give them without interference by the ego, so we can clarify an earlier point. We said that you will one day teach as much as you learn, and that will keep you in balance. The time is now because you have LET it be now. You cannot learn EXCEPT by teaching. I heard one voice because I had learned that learning is attained BY teaching. I understood that I COULD NOT ATONE FOR MYSELF ALONE.

Listening to one voice MEANS the will to share the voice in order to hear it yourself. The mind that was in me is still irresistibly drawn to every mind created by God because God’s Wholeness IS the wholeness of One’s Child. Turning the other cheek does NOT mean that you should submit to violence without protest. It means that you cannot be hurt, and do not want to show your sibling anything except your wholeness. Show one that one CANNOT hurt you and hold nothing against one, or you hold it against yourself.

Teaching is done in many ways—by formal means, by guidance, and above all BY EXAMPLE. If you will to learn, you MUST will to teach. Teaching is therapy because it means the SHARING of ideas, and the awareness that to share them is to STRENGTHEN them. The union of the Christhood IS its protection. The ego cannot prevail against the Realm BECAUSE it is united, and the ego fades away and is undone in the presence of the attraction of the parts of the Christhood which hear the call of the Holy Spirit to be as One.

I cannot forget my need to teach what I have learned, which arose in me BECAUSE I learned it. I call upon you to teach what you have learned because, by so doing, YOU can depend on it. Make it dependable in my name because my name is the name of God’s Child. What I learned I give you freely, and the mind which was in me rejoices as YOU choose to hear it. The Holy Spirit atones in all of us by UNDOING, and thus lifts the burden you have placed in your mind. By following One, One leads you back to God where you belong, and how can you find this way except by taking your sibling with you?

My part in the Atonement is not complete until YOU join it and give it away. As you teach, so shall you learn. I will never leave you or forsake you, because to forsake you would be to forsake myself and God who created me. You will forsake yourselves and God if you forsake any of YOUR siblings. You are more than your sibling’s keeper. In fact, you do not WANT to keep one. You must learn to see one as one is, and KNOW that one belongs to God as you do. How could you treat your sibling better than by rendering unto God the things which are God’s?

Ideas do not LEAVE the mind which thought them in order to have a separate being, nor do separate thoughts conflict with one another in space because they do not occupy space at all. However, HUMAN ideas CAN conflict in content because they occur at different levels, and include opposite thoughts at the SAME level. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO SHARE OPPOSING THOUGHTS. The Holy Spirit does not LET you forsake your siblings. Therefore, you can really share ONLY the parts of your thoughts which are of One, and which One also keeps for YOU. And of such is the Realm of Heaven. All the rest remains with you until One has re-interpreted them in the light of the Realm, making them, too, worthy of being shared. When they have been sufficiently purified One lets you give them away. The will to share them IS their purification.

The Atonement gives you the power of a healed mind, but the power to create is of God. Therefore, those who have been forgiven must devote themselves first to healing because, having RECEIVED the idea of healing, they MUST give it to hold it. The full power of creating cannot be expressed as long as ANY of God’s ideas are withholding it from the Realm. The joint will of ALL the Christhood is the only creator that can create like the Creator, because only the complete can think completely, and the thinking of God lacks nothing. Everything YOU think that is not through the Holy Spirit IS lacking.

How can you who are so holy suffer? All your past, except its beauty, is gone, and nothing is left except a blessing. You can indeed depart in peace because I have loved you as I loved myself. You go WITH my blessing and FOR my blessing. Hold it and share it, that it may always be ours. I place the peace of God in your heart and in your hands, to hold and share. The heart is pure to hold it and the hands are strong to give it. We cannot lose. My judgement is as strong as the wisdom of God, in Whose Heart and Hands we have our being. One’s quiet children are One’s blessed creations. The Thoughts of God are with you.

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5.7 The Two Decisions

How can you who are so holy suffer? All your past, except its beauty, is gone, and nothing is left except a blessing. You can indeed depart in peace because I have loved you as I loved myself. You go WITH my blessing and FOR my blessing. Hold it and share it, that it may always be ours. I place the peace of God in your heart and in your hands, to hold and share. The heart is pure to hold it and the hands are strong to give it. We cannot lose. My judgement is as strong as the wisdom of God, in Whose Heart and Hands we have our being. One’s quiet children are One’s blessed creations. The Thoughts of God are with you.

Perhaps this will become clearer and more personally meaningful if the ego’s use of guilt is clarified. The ego has a purpose, just as the Holy Spirit has. The ego’s purpose is FEAR, because only the fearful can be egotistic. The ego’s logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit because your mind has all the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects. But again, let us remember that both are in you.

In Heaven there is no guilt because the Realm is attained through the Atonement, which creates it in you. The word “create” is appropriate here because, once what YOU have made is undone by the Holy Spirit, the blessed residue IS restored, and therefore continues in creation. What is truly blessed is incapable of giving rise to guilt, and must give rise to joy. This makes it invulnerable to the ego because its peace is unassailable. It is invulnerable to disruption BECAUSE it is whole.

Guilt is ALWAYS disruptive. Anything that engenders fear is divisive because it obeys the law of division. If the ego is the symbol of the separation, it is also the symbol of guilt. Guilt is more than merely not of God. It is the symbol of the ATTACK on God. This is a totally meaningless concept EXCEPT to the ego, of course, but do not underestimate the power of the ego’s belief in it. This is the belief from which ALL guilt really stems.

The ego IS the part of the mind which believes in division. How can part of God detach itself WITHOUT believing it is attacking One? We spoke before of the authority problem as involving the concept of USURPING God’s power. The ego believes that this is what YOU did because it believes it IS you. It follows, then, that if you identify WITH the ego, you MUST perceive yourself as guilty.

Whenever you respond to your ego you WILL experience guilt, and you WILL fear punishment. The ego is quite literally a fearful thought. And however ridiculous the idea of attacking God may be to the sane mind, never forget that the ego is NOT SANE. It REPRESENTS a delusional system, and it speaks FOR it. Listening to the ego’s voice MEANS that you believe it is possible to attack God. You believe that a part of One has been torn away by YOU.

The classic picture of fear of retaliation FROM WITHOUT then follows because the severity of the guilt is so acute that it MUST be projected. Although Freud was wrong about the basic conflict itself, he was very accurate in describing its effects. Whatever you accept INTO your mind has reality for you. It is, however, only your ACCEPTANCE of it that makes it real.

As an extreme example of dissociation yourself, Helen, you should have little trouble in understanding that it is perfectly possible not to ACCEPT what IS in your minds. If you enthrone the ego in it, the fact that you have accepted it or allowed it to enter MAKES IT YOUR REALITY. This is because the mind, as God created it, IS capable of creating reality. We said before that you must learn to think WITH God. To think WITH One is to think LIKE One. This engenders joy, not guilt, because it is natural. Guilt is a sure sign that your thinking is UNnatural. Perverted thinking will ALWAYS be attended with guilt because it IS the belief in sin.

The ego does not perceive sin as a lack of love. It perceives sin as a POSITIVE ACT OF ASSAULT. This is an interpretation which is necessary to the ego’s survival because, as soon as YOU regard sin as a LACK, you will automatically attempt to remedy the situation. And you will succeed. The ego regards this as doom, but YOU must learn to regard it as freedom.

The guiltless mind CANNOT suffer. Being sane, it heals the body because IT has been healed. The sane mind cannot conceive of illness because it cannot conceive of attacking anyone or anything. We said before that illness is a form of magic. It might be better to say that it is a form of magical SOLUTION. The ego believes that by punishing ITSELF it will mitigate the punishment of God. Yet even in this it is arrogant. It attributes to God a punishing intent, and then takes over this intent as its OWN prerogative. It tries to usurp ALL the functions of God as it perceives them because it recognizes that only total allegiance can be trusted.

The ego cannot OPPOSE the laws of God any more than YOU can. But it can INTERPRET them according to what it wants, just as YOU can. That is why the question, “What DO you want?” must be answered. You ARE answering it every minute and every second, and each moment of decision is a judgement which is anything BUT ineffectual. Its effects will follow automatically UNTIL THE DECISION IS CHANGED. This is repeated here because you have NOT learned it. But again, your decision can be UNmade as well as made.

Remember, though, that the ALTERNATIVES are unalterable. The Holy Spirit, like the ego, is a decision. Together they constitute all the alternatives which the mind CAN accept and obey. The ego and the Holy Spirit are the ONLY choices open to you. God created one, and so you CANNOT eradicate it. YOU made the other, and so you CAN. Only what God creates is irreversible and unchangeable. What YOU have made can always be changed because, when you do not think LIKE God, you are not really thinking at all. Delusional ideas are NOT real thoughts, although you CAN think that you believe in them.

But you are wrong. The function of thought comes FROM God and is IN God. As part of ONE’S Thought, you cannot think APART from One. Irrational thought is a thought DISORDER. God Oneself orders your thought because your thought was created BY One. Guilt feelings are always a sign that you do not know this. They also show that you believe you CAN think apart from God and WANT to.

Every thought disorder is attended by guilt at its inception and MAINTAINED by guilt in its continuance. Guilt is inescapable for those who believe they order their OWN thought and must therefore obey its orders. This makes them feel RESPONSIBLE for their mind ERRORS, without recognizing that, by ACCEPTING this responsibility, they are really reacting IRresponsibly. If the SOLE responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the ATONEMENT for oneself, and I assure you that it is, then the responsibility for what is atoned FOR CANNOT be yours.

This contradiction cannot BE resolved except by accepting the solution of undoing. You WOULD be responsible for the effects of all your wrong thinking IF IT COULD NOT BE UNDONE. The purpose of the Atonement is to save the past in PURIFIED form only. If you accept the remedy FOR a thought disorder, and a remedy whose efficacy is beyond doubt, how can its symptoms remain? You have reason to question the validity of symptom cure, but NOBODY believes that the symptoms can remain if the underlying CAUSE is removed.

Text Chapter 5 - Healing & Wholeness

5.8 - Your Mind DOES Create Your Future

The CONTINUING will to remain separated is the only possible reason for continuing guilt feelings. We have said this before, but we did not emphasize the destructive results of this decision at that time. ANY decision of the mind will affect both behavior AND experience. What you will, you EXPECT. This is NOT delusional. Your mind DOES create your future, and CAN turn it back to full creation at any minute, IF IT ACCEPTS THE ATONEMENT FIRST. It will also turn back to full creation the instant it has done so. Having given up its thought DISORDER, the proper ordering of thought becomes quite apparent.

God in One’s knowledge is not waiting, but One’s Realm IS bereft while YOU wait. All the Children of God are waiting for your return, just as YOU are waiting for THEIRS. Delay does not matter in eternity, but it IS tragic in time. You have elected to be in time rather than eternity, and have therefore changed your belief in your status. Yet your election is both free and alterable. You do NOT belong in time. Your place is ONLY in eternity, where God Oneself placed you forever.

Guilt feelings are the PRESERVERS of time. They induce fears of FUTURE retaliation or abandonment, and thus ensure that the future will remain like the past. This IS the ego’s continuity, and gives it a false sense of security through the belief that you cannot escape from it. But you can and MUST. God offers you the continuity of eternity in exchange. When you choose to make this exchange, you will simultaneously exchange guilt for peace, viciousness for love, and pain for joy.

My role is only to unchain your will and make it free. Your ego cannot accept this freedom, and will oppose your free decision at every possible moment and in every possible way. And as its maker you RECOGNIZE what it can do because you GAVE IT the power to do it. The mind does indeed know its power, because the mind does indeed know God. Remember the Realm always, and remember that you who are part of the Realm cannot BE lost. The mind that was in me IS in you, for God creates with perfect fairness. Let the Holy Spirit remind you always of One’s fairness, and let me teach you how to share it with your siblings. How else can the chance to claim it for yourself be given you?

What you do not understand is that the two voices speak for different interpretations of the same thing simultaneously, or almost simultaneously, for the ego always speaks first. Alternate interpretations were unnecessary until the first one was made, and speaking itself was unnecessary before the ego was made. The ego speaks in judgement and the Holy Spirit reverses its decisions, much as the Supreme Court has the power to reverse the lower courts’ decisions about the laws of this world.

The ego’s decisions are ALWAYS wrong because they are based on a complete fallacy which they were made to uphold. NOTHING the ego perceives is interpreted correctly. Not only does it cite Scripture for its purpose but it even interprets Scripture as a witness for itself. The Bible is a fearful thing to the ego because of its prejudiced judgement. Perceiving it as fearful, it interprets it fearfully. Having made YOU afraid, you do not appeal to the Higher Court because you believe its judgement would be AGAINST you.

We need cite only a few examples to see how the ego’s interpretations have misled you. A favorite ego quotation is, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” Another is, “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.” Still another is, “I will visit the sins of the parent unto the third and fourth generation,” and also, “The wicked shall perish.” There are many others, but if you will let the Holy Spirit re-interpret these in One’s own light, they will suffice.

“As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” merely means that what you believe to be worth cultivating you will cultivate in yourself. Your judgement of what is worthy MAKES it worthy for you.

“Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord,” is easily explained if you remember that ideas increase only by being shared. This quotation therefore emphasizes the fact that vengeance CANNOT be shared. Give it therefore to the Holy Spirit, Who will undo it in you because it does not BELONG in your mind, which is part of God.

“I will visit the sins of the fathers unto the third and fourth generation,” as interpreted by the ego, is particularly vicious. It is used, in fact, as an attempt to guarantee its survival beyond itself. Actually, all the quotation means is that the Holy Spirit, in later generations, retains the power to interpret CORRECTLY what former generations have thought, and thus release THEIR thoughts from the ability to produce fear ANYWHERE in the Christhood.

“The wicked shall perish” is merely a statement of fact, if the word “perish” is properly understood. Every loveless thought MUST be undone. Even the word “undone” is fearful to the ego, which interprets “I am undone” as “I am destroyed.” The ego will NOT be destroyed because it is part of YOUR thought. But because it is uncreative, and therefore unsharing, it WILL be re-interpreted entirely, to release you from fear.

The part of your thought which you have given TO the ego will merely return to the Realm where your whole mind BELONGS. The ego is a form of ARREST, but arrest is merely delay. It does NOT involve the concept of punishment, although the ego welcomes that interpretation. You CAN delay the completion of the Realm, but you CANNOT introduce the concept of ASSAULT into it.

When I said, “I am come as a light into the world,” I surely came to share the light with you. Remember the symbolic reference we made before to the ego’s dark glass, and remember also that we said, “Do not look there.” It is still true that “where you look to find yourself is up to you.” The Higher Court will not condemn you. It will merely dismiss the case against you. There can BE no case against a Child of God, and every witness to guilt in God’s Creations is bearing false witness to God Oneself.

Appeal everything you believe gladly to God’s Own Higher Court because it speaks for One, and therefore speaks truly. It WILL dismiss the case against you however carefully YOU have built it. The case may be foolproof, but it is NOT God-proof. The Voice for God will not hear it at all because One can only witness truly. One’s verdict will always be “Thine is the Realm” because One was given you to remind you of what you ARE.

Your patience with each other is your patience with yourselves. Is not a Child of God worth patience? I have shown you infinite patience because my will IS that of our Creator, from Whom I learned of infinite patience. One’s Voice was in me as it is in you, speaking for patience towards the Christhood in the Name of its Creator. What you need to learn now is that only infinite patience CAN produce immediate effects. This is the way in which time is exchanged for eternity. Infinite patience calls upon infinite love, and by producing results NOW it renders time unnecessary.

To say that time is temporary is merely redundant. We have repeatedly said that time is a learning device which will be abolished when it is no longer useful. The Holy Spirit, Who speaks for God in time, also knows that time is meaningless. One reminds you of this in every passing moment of time because it is One’s special function to return YOU to eternity, and remain to bless YOUR creations there. One is the only blessing you can truly give because One is so truly blessed, and because One has been given you so freely by God, you must give One as you received One.

Text Chapter 5 - Healing & Wholeness

5.9 The Eternal Fixation

The idea of “set” is among the better psychological concepts. Actually, it is used quite frequently in the Bible and also in this course under many different terms. For example, “God will keep one in perfect peace whose mind is stayed (or set) on thee, because one trusteth in thee.”

The pronouns here are confusing without explanation, and the attempt to shift “thee” to “One” is a misinterpretation. The statement means that God’s peace is set in the Holy Spirit because it is fixed on God. It is also fixed in you. You, then, ARE fixed in the peace of God.

The concept of “fixation” is also a very helpful one which Freud understood perfectly. Unfortunately, he lost his understanding because he was afraid, and, as you know all too well, fear is incompatible with good judgement. Fear DISTORTS thinking, and therefore DISorders thought. Freud’s system of thought was extremely ingenious because Freud was extremely ingenious, and a mind MUST endow its thoughts with its own attributes. This is its inherent STRENGTH, although it may misuse its power.

Freud lost much of the potential value of one’s thought system because, much like Cayce, he did NOT include himself in it. This IS a dissociated state because the thinker cuts oneself off from one’s thoughts. Freud’s thought was so conflicted that he could not have retained his sanity as HE saw it WITHOUT dissociating. That is why the many contradictions which are quite apparent in his thinking became increasingly less apparent to HIM.

A person who knows what fixation REALLY means and yet does NOT yield to it is terribly afraid. Fixation is the pull of God, on Whom your mind IS fixed because of the Holy Spirit’s irrevocable set. “Irrevocable” means “cannot be called back or redirected.” The irrevocable nature of the Holy Spirit’s set is the basis for One’s unequivocal Voice. The Holy Spirit NEVER changes One’s mind. Clarity of thought CANNOT occur under conditions of vacillation. Unless a mind is fixed in its purpose it is NOT clear. Clarity literally means the state of light, and enlightenment IS understanding. Enlightenment stands UNDER perception because you have denied it as the REAL foundation of thought. This is the basis for ALL delusional systems.

The concept of fixation, as Freud saw it, has a number of real learning advantages. First, it recognizes that one CAN be fixated at a point in development which does NOT accord with a point in time. This clearly could have been a means toward real release from the time belief had Freud pursued it with an open mind. Freud, however, suffered all his life from refusal to allow eternity to dawn upon his mind and enlighten it truly. As a result, he overlooked NOW entirely, and merely saw the continuity of past and future.

Second, although Freud misinterpreted what the Holy Spirit told him, or better, reminded him of, he was too honest to deny more than was necessary to keep his fear in tolerable bounds as he perceived the situation. Therefore, he EMPHASIZED that the point in development at which the mind is fixated is more real to ITSELF than the external reality with which it DISAGREES. This, again, could have been a powerful RELEASE mechanism had Freud not decided to involve it in a strong defense system because he perceived it as an attack.

Third, although Freud interpreted fixation as involving irrevocable “danger points” to which the mind could always regress, the concept can also be interpreted as an irrevocable call to sanity which the mind cannot LOSE. Freud saw return as a threat to maturity because he did not understand prodigality. He merely interpreted it as squandering. Actually, “prodigal” also means careful. This confusion between careful and careless led him to confuse the escape from care with something desirable. In fact, he even went so far as to equate it quite literally WITH desire.

Freud himself could not accept this interpretation, but throughout his thought system, the “threat” of fixation remained, and could never be eliminated by any living human being. This was personally as well as theoretically the case. Freud tried every means his very inventive mind could devise to set up a form of therapy which could enable the mind to escape from fixation forever, even though he KNEW this was impossible. The knowledge plagued his belief in his own thought-system at every turn, because he was both an honest man and a healer. He was therefore only PARTIALLY insane at the perceptual level, and was unable to relinquish the hope of release even though he could not cope with it.

The reason for this amount of detail is because YOU are in the same position. You were eternally fixated on God in your creation, and the pull of this fixation is so strong that you will never overcome it. The reason is perfectly clear. The fixation is on a level so high that it cannot BE surmounted. You are ALWAYS being pulled back to your Creator because you BELONG in One.

Do you REALLY believe you can make a voice that can drown out One’s? Do you REALLY believe that you can devise a thought system which can separate you from One’s? Do you REALLY believe that you can plan for your safety and joy better than One can? You need be neither careful nor careless; you need merely cast your cares upon One because One careth for YOU. You ARE One’s care because One loves you. One’s Voice reminds you always that all hope is yours BECAUSE of One’s care.

You CANNOT choose to escape One’s care because that is not One’s Will. But you CAN choose to accept One’s care and use the infinite power OF One’s care for all those One created BY it. There have been many healers who did not heal themselves. They have not moved mountains by their faith because their faith was not WHOLE. Some of them have healed the sick at times, but they have not raised the dead. Unless the healer heals ONESELF one does NOT believe that there is no order of difficulty in miracles. One has not learned that EVERY mind God created is equally worthy of being healed because GOD CREATED IT WHOLE.

You are merely asked to return to God the mind as ONE created it. One asks you only for what One gave, knowing that this giving will heal YOU. Sanity IS wholeness, and the sanity of your siblings IS yours. Why should you listen to the endless insane calls which you think are made upon you when you KNOW the Voice of God Oneself is in you? God commended One’s Spirit to you, and asks that you commend yours to One. One wills to keep it in perfect peace because you are of one mind and Spirit with One.

Excluding yourself from the Atonement is the ego’s last-ditch defense of its own existence. It reflects both the ego’s need to separate, and your willingness to side with its separateness. This willingness means that YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE HEALED.

Helen & Bill’s Joint Venture to Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

When I told Bill that there is “just one more thing,” he heard me very well. I hope he will hear me as well now. His intelligent mis-hearing of “river” as “rivet” showed that, even though he wanted release, he was not able to cope with it at the time.

But the time IS now. You have not been asked to work out the plan of salvation yourselves because, as I told you before, the remedy for what you have made is NOT of your own making. God Oneself gave you the perfect correction for everything you have made which is NOT in accord with One’s holy Will. I have made One’s plan perfectly explicit to you, and have also told you of your part in One’s plan, and how urgent it is that you fulfill it.

There is time for delay, but there need not be. God weeps at the “sacrifice” of One’s Children who believe they are lost to One. The “one more thing” that Bill must learn is merely that he is NOT the one more. He is both ONE and AT ONE. If he will learn this NOW, he will be willing in accord with the last judgment, which is really only the Biblical reminder of the inevitability of self-INCLUSION. This is what “Physician, heal thyself” really means. Bill has frequently observed for HIMSELF that this is hard to do. He has, however, been perfectly aware of JUST what YOU should do about it.

You might ask Bill for me whether he does not think he might be dissociating HIMSELF from his own awareness, since he is so clear about the remedy for YOU. You might also remind him that to whatever extent he separates himself from you, he is separating himself from ME. This IS a collaborative venture. Let me therefore return his own ideas to him, so that you can share them and thus help each other to help me.

But let me first remind you of something I told you myself: whenever you are not wholly joyous it is because you have reacted with a lack of love to some Spirit which God created. Perceiving this as “sin,” you become defensive because you EXPECT ATTACK. The decision to react in this way, however, was YOURS, and can therefore be undone. It CANNOT be undone by repentance in the usual sense, because this implies guilt. If you allow yourself to feel guilty you will REINFORCE the error rather than allow it to be undone FOR you.

Decisions CANNOT be difficult. This is obvious if you realize that you must ALREADY have made a decision NOT to be wholly joyous if that is how you feel. Therefore, the first step in the undoing is to recognize that YOU ACTIVELY DECIDED WRONGLY, BUT CAN AS ACTIVELY DECIDE OTHERWISE.

Be very firm with yourselves in this, and keep yourselves fully aware of the fact that the UNDOING process, which does NOT come from you, is nevertheless WITHIN you because God placed it there. YOUR part is merely to return your thinking to the point at which the error was made, and give it over to the Atonement in peace. Say to yourselves the following as sincerely as you can, remembering that the Holy Spirit will respond fully to your slightest invitation:

“I must have decided wrongly because I am NOT at peace.

I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.

I WILL to decide otherwise because I WANT to be at peace.

I do NOT feel guilty because the Holy Spirit will undo ALL the consequences of my wrong decision IF I WILL LET ONE.

I WILL to let One by allowing One to decide for God for me.”

Text Chapter 6 - Attack & Fear

6.0 Attack And Fear

The relationship of anger to attack is obvious, but the inevitable association of anger and FEAR is not always so clear. Anger ALWAYS involves PROJECTION OF SEPARATION, which must ultimately be accepted as entirely one’s own responsibility. Anger cannot occur unless you believe that you have BEEN attacked; the attack was UNJUST; and that you are in no way responsible for it. Given these three wholly irrational premises, the equally irrational conclusion that a sibling is worthy of attack rather than of love follows. What can be expected from insane premises EXCEPT an insane conclusion?

The way to undo an insane conclusion is to consider the sanity of the premises on which it rests:

You cannot BE attacked;

attack HAS no justification;

and you ARE responsible for what you believe.

You have been asked to take me as your model for learning, since an extreme example is a particularly helpful learning device. EVERYONE teaches, and teaches all the time. This is a responsibility which one inevitably assumes the moment one accepts any premise at all. And NO ONE can organize one’s life without ANY thought system. Once one has developed a thought system of any kind, one lives by it AND TEACHES IT.

Helen & Bill’s Joint Venture to Learn A Course in Miracles with Christ

You have been chosen to teach the Atonement precisely BECAUSE you have been EXTREME examples of allegiance to your thought systems, and therefore have developed the capacity FOR allegiance. It has indeed been misplaced. Bill had become an outstanding example of allegiance to apathy, and you, Helen, have become a startling example of fidelity to variability. But it IS a form of faith, which you yourselves have been willing to redirect. You cannot doubt the STRENGTH of your devotion, when you consider how faithfully you have observed it. It was quite evident that you had ALREADY developed the ability to follow a better model, if you could ACCEPT it.

Text Chapter 6 - Attack & Fear

6.1 The Message Of The Crucifixion

For teaching purposes, let us consider the crucifixion again. We have not dwelt on it before, because of its fearful connotations. The only emphasis we laid upon it was that it was NOT a form of punishment. Nothing, however, can be really explained in negative terms only. There is a positive interpretation of the crucifixion which is wholly devoid of fear, and therefore wholly benign in what it teaches, if it is properly understood. The crucifixion is nothing more than an extreme example. Its value, like the value of any teaching device, lies solely in the kind of learning it facilitates. It can be, and has been, misunderstood. This is only because the fearful are apt to perceive fearfully.

I have already told you that you can always call on me to share my decision and thus MAKE IT STRONGER. I also told you that the crucifixion was the last foolish journey that the Christhood need take, and that it should mean RELEASE from fear to anyone who understands it. While we emphasized only the resurrection before, the purpose of the crucifixion and how it actually LED to the resurrection was not clarified at that time. Nevertheless, it has a definite contribution to make to your own lives, and if you will consider it WITHOUT fear, it will help you understand your own role as teachers.

You have reacted for years AS IF you were being crucified. This is a marked tendency of the separated ones, who ALWAYS refuse to consider what they have done to THEMSELVES. Projection means anger, anger fosters assault, and assault promotes fear. The real meaning of the crucifixion lies in the APPARENT intensity of the assault of some of the Children of God upon another. This, of course, is impossible, and must be fully understood AS an impossibility. In fact, unless it IS fully understood as ONLY that, I cannot serve as a real model for learning.

Assault can ultimately be made ONLY on the body. There is little doubt that one BODY can assault another, and can even destroy it. Yet if destruction ITSELF is impossible, then ANYTHING that is destructible cannot be REAL. Therefore, its destruction does NOT justify anger. To the extent to which you believe that it DOES, you MUST be accepting false premises and TEACHING THEM TO OTHERS. The message which the crucifixion was intended to teach was that it is not necessary to perceive ANY form of assault as persecution because you cannot BE persecuted. If you respond with anger you MUST be equating yourself with the destructible, and are therefore regarding yourself insanely. I have made it perfectly clear that I am like you and you are like me, but our fundamental equality can be demonstrated only through joint decision.

You are free to perceive yourselves as persecuted if you choose. You might remember, however, when you DO choose to react that way, that I WAS persecuted as the world judges, and did NOT share this evaluation for myself. And because I did not share it I did NOT strengthen it. I therefore offered a DIFFERENT interpretation of attack, and one which I DO want to share with you. If you will BELIEVE it, you will help me to TEACH it.

We have said before, “As you teach so shall you learn.” If you react as if you are persecuted, you ARE teaching persecution. This is not a lesson which the Children of God should WANT to teach if they are to realize their own salvation. Rather teach your own perfect immunity, which IS the Truth in you, and KNOW that it cannot be assailed. Do not protect it yourselves, or you have believed that it IS assailable. You are not asked to BE crucified, which was part of my own teaching contribution. You are merely asked to follow my example in the face of much less extreme temptations to misperceive, and NOT to accept them falsely as justifications for anger.

There can BE no justification for the unjustifiable. Do not believe there is, and do not TEACH that there is. Remember always that what you believe, you WILL teach. Believe with me, and we will become equal as teachers. YOUR resurrection is your re-awakening. I am the model for rebirth, but rebirth itself is merely the dawning on your minds of what is already in them. God placed it there Oneself, and so it is true forever. I believed in it, and therefore made it forever true for me. Help me to teach it to our siblings in the name of the Realm of God, but first believe that it is true for YOU, or you will teach amiss.

My siblings slept during the so-called “agony in the garden,” but I could not be angry with them because I had learned I could not BE abandoned. Peter swore he would never deny me, but he did so three times. He did offer to defend me with the sword, which I naturally refused, not being at all in need of bodily protection. I AM sorry when my siblings do not share my decision to hear only one voice, because it weakens them as teachers AND as learners. Yet I know that they cannot really betray themselves OR me, and that it is still on them that I MUST build my church.

There is no choice in this because only you can BE the foundation of God’s church. A church is where an altar is, and the presence of the altar is what makes it a church. Any church which does not inspire love has a hidden altar which is not serving the purpose for which God intended it. I must found One’s church on you because you who accept me as a model are literally my disciples. Disciples are followers, but if the model they follow has chosen to SAVE THEM PAIN IN ALL RESPECTS, they are probably unwise NOT to follow one.

I elected, both for your sake AND mine, to demonstrate that the most outrageous assault, as judged by the ego, did not matter. As the world judges these things, but NOT as God knows them, I was betrayed, abandoned, beaten, torn, and finally killed. It was perfectly clear that this was only because of the projection of others, because I had not harmed anyone and had healed many. We are still equal as learners, even though we need not have equal experiences. The Holy Spirit is glad when you can learn enough from MINE to be re-awakened by them. That was their only purpose, and that is the only way in which I can be perceived as the Way, the Truth and the Light.

When you hear only one voice you are NEVER called on to sacrifice. On the contrary, by enabling YOURSELVES to hear the Holy Spirit in others, you can learn from their experiences, and gain from them WITHOUT experiencing them yourselves. That is because the Holy Spirit IS one, and anyone who listens is inevitably led to demonstrate One’s way for ALL. You are not persecuted, nor was I. You are not asked to REPEAT my experiences because the Holy Spirit, Whom we SHARE, makes this unnecessary. To USE my experiences constructively, however, you must still follow my example in how to perceive them.

My siblings and yours are constantly engaged in justifying the unjustifiable. My one lesson, which I must teach as I learned, is that no perception which is out of accord with the judgement of the Holy Spirit CAN be justified. I undertook to show this was true in a very extreme case merely because it would serve as a good teaching aid to those whose temptations to give in to anger and assault would NOT be so extreme.

I will, with God, that none of One’s Children should suffer. Remember that the Holy Spirit is the communication link between God the Creator and One’s separated Children. If you will listen to One’s Voice, you will know that you cannot either hurt or BE hurt, and that many need your blessing to help them hear this for themselves. When you perceive ONLY this need in them, and do not respond to ANY other, you will have learned of me, and will be as eager to share your learning as I am. The crucifixion CANNOT be shared because it is the symbol of projection. But the resurrection IS the symbol of SHARING because the re-awakening of every Child of God is necessary to enable the Christhood to know its wholeness. Only this IS knowledge.

The message of the crucifixion is perfectly clear:

“Teach ONLY love, for that is what you ARE. ”

If you interpret the crucifixion in any other way, you are using it as a weapon for assault rather than as the call for peace for which it was intended. The Apostles often misunderstood it, and always for the same reason that makes anyone misunderstand anything. Their own imperfect love made them vulnerable to projection, and out of their own fear they spoke of the “wrath of God” as One’s RETALIATORY weapon. Nor could they speak of the crucifixion entirely without anger because their own sense of guilt had made them angry.

There are two glaring examples of upside-down thinking in the New Testament, whose whole gospel is ONLY the message of love. These are not like the several slips into impatience which I made. I had learned the Atonement prayer, which I also came to teach, too well to engage in upside-down thinking myself. If the Apostles had not felt guilty they never could have quoted me as saying, “I come not to bring peace but a sword.” This is clearly the exact opposite of everything I taught.

Nor could they have described my reactions to Judas as they did if they had really understood ME. They would have realized I COULD not have said, “Betrayest thou the Child of God with a kiss?” unless I BELIEVED IN BETRAYAL. The whole message of the crucifixion was simply that I did NOT. The “punishment” which I am said to have called forth upon Judas was a similar reversal. Judas was my sibling and a Child of God, as much a part of the Christhood as myself. Was it likely that I would condemn one when I was ready to demonstrate that condemnation is impossible?

I am very grateful to the Apostles for their teaching and fully aware of the extent of their devotion to me. Nevertheless, as you read their teachings, remember that I told them myself that there was much they would understand later because they were NOT wholly ready to follow me at the time. I emphasize this only because I do not want you to allow ANY fear to enter into the thought system toward which I am guiding you. I do NOT call for martyrs, but for TEACHERS.

Bill is an outstanding example of this confusion, and has literally believed for years that teaching IS martyrdom. This is because he thought, and still thinks at times, that teaching leads to crucifixion rather than to re-awakening. The upside down nature of this association is so obvious that he could only have made it BECAUSE he felt guilty. No one is “punished” for sins, and the Children of God are not sinners. ANY concept of “punishment” involves the projection of blame, and RE-INFORCES the idea that blame is justified. The behavior that results is a LESSON IN BLAME, just as all behavior teaches the beliefs which motivate it.

The crucifixion was a complex of behaviors arising out of clearly opposed thought systems. As such, it was the perfect symbol of conflict between the ego and the Child of God. It was as much intrapersonal as interpersonal then, just as it is now, and it is still just as real. The conflict is just as real now, and its lessons, too, have equal reality WHEN THEY ARE LEARNED. I do not need gratitude any more than I needed protection, but YOU need to develop your weakened ability to BE grateful, or you cannot appreciate God. ONE does not need your appreciation, but you DO.

You cannot love what you do not appreciate, and FEAR MAKES APPRECIATION IMPOSSIBLE. Whenever you are afraid of what you are you do NOT appreciate it, and will therefore reject it. As a result, you will TEACH REJECTION. The power of the Children of God is operating all the time because they were created as creators. Their influence on EACH OTHER is without limit, and MUST be used for their joint salvation. Each one MUST learn to teach that all forms of rejection are utterly meaningless.

The separation IS the notion of rejection. As long as you TEACH this, YOU still believe it. This is NOT as God thinks, and you must think as One thinks if you are to know One again.

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6.2 The Uses Of Projection

Any split in will MUST involve a rejection of part of it, and this IS the belief in separation. The wholeness of God, which IS One’s peace, cannot be appreciated EXCEPT by a whole mind, which recognizes the wholeness of God’s creation, and BY this recognition, knows its Creator.

Exclusion and separation are synonymous, as are separation and dissociation. We have said before that the separation was and IS dissociation, and also that, once it had occurred, projection became its main defense, or the device that KEEPS IT GOING. The reason, however, may not be as clear as you think. In the ego’s use of projection, to which we are obviously referring, what you project you disown, and therefore DO NOT BELIEVE IS YOURS. You are EXCLUDING yourself by the very statement you are making that you are DIFFERENT from the one on whom you project. Since you have also judged AGAINST what you project, you continue to attack it because you have already attacked it BY projecting it. By doing this UNCONSCIOUSLY, you try to keep the fact that you must have attacked yourself FIRST out of awareness, and thus imagine that you have made yourself safe.

Projection will ALWAYS hurt you. It re-inforces your belief in your own split mind, and its ONLY purpose is to KEEP THE SEPARATION GOING. It is SOLELY a device of the ego to make you feel DIFFERENT from your siblings, and separated FROM them. The ego justifies this on the wholly spurious grounds that it makes you seem “better” than they are, thus obscuring your equality WITH them still further.

Projection and attack are inevitably related because projection is ALWAYS a means of JUSTIFYING attack. Anger without projection is impossible. The ego uses projection ONLY to distort your perception of both yourself AND your siblings. The process begins by excluding something you think exists in you which you do not want, and leads directly to excluding yourself from your siblings.

We have learned, however, that there is another use of projection. Every ability of the ego has a better counterpart because its abilities are directed by the mind, which has a better voice. The Holy Spirit as well as the ego utilizes projection, but since their goals are opposed, so is the result. The Holy Spirit begins by perceiving YOU as perfect. KNOWING this perfection is shared, One RECOGNIZES it in others, thus strengthening it in both. Instead of anger this arouses love FOR both because IT ESTABLISHES INCLUSION. Perceiving equality, the Holy Spirit perceives equal needs. This invites Atonement automatically because Atonement IS the one need which, in this world, is universal.

To perceive YOURSELF this way is the ONLY way in which you can find happiness in the world. That is because it is the acknowledgement that you are NOT in this world, for the world IS unhappy. How else can you find joy in a joyless place EXCEPT by realizing that YOU ARE NOT THERE? You cannot be ANYWHERE that God did not put you, and God created you as part of ONE. That is both WHERE you are and WHAT you are. It is COMPLETELY unalterable. It is total inclusion. You cannot change it now or ever. It is forever true. It is NOT a belief, but a fact.

Anything that God created is as true as One is. Its truth lies only in its perfect inclusion in One Who alone IS perfect. To deny this in any way is to deny yourself AND One, since it is impossible to accept one WITHOUT the other. The perfect equality of the Holy Spirit’s perception is the counterpart of the perfect equality of God’s knowing. The ego’s perception has no counterpart in God, but the Holy Spirit remains the bridge between perception and knowledge. By enabling you to use perception in a way that PARALLELS knowledge, you will ultimately meet it and KNOW it.

The ego would prefer to believe that this meeting is impossible, yet it is YOUR perception which the Holy Spirit guides. You might remember that the human eye perceives parallel lines AS IF they meet in the distance, which is the same as IN THE FUTURE, if time and space are one dimension. Your perception WILL end where it began. EVERYTHING meets in God because everything was created BY One and IN One. God created One’s Children by extending One’s thought and retaining the extensions of One’s Thought in One’s Mind. ALL One’s Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other because they were created neither partially nor in part.

The Holy Spirit enables you TO PERCEIVE THIS WHOLENESS NOW. You can no more pray for yourselves alone than you can find joy for yourself alone. Prayer is the re-statement of INCLUSION, directed by the Holy Spirit under the laws of God. God created you to create. You cannot EXTEND One’s Realm until you KNOW of its wholeness. Thoughts begin in the mind OF THE THINKER, from which they extend outward. This is as true of God’s Thinking as it is of yours. Because your minds are split, you can also perceive as well as think. Yet perception cannot escape from the basic laws of mind. You perceive FROM your mind and extend your perceptions outward.

Although perception of any kind is unnecessary, YOU made it, and the Holy Spirit can therefore use it well. One can INSPIRE perception and lead it toward God by making it PARALLEL to God’s way of thinking, and thus guarantee their ultimate meeting. This convergence SEEMS to be far in the future ONLY because your mind is NOT in perfect alignment with the idea, and therefore DOES NOT WANT IT NOW. The Holy Spirit USES time, but does NOT believe in it. Coming from God One uses EVERYTHING for good, but One does not BELIEVE in what is not true.

Since the Holy Spirit IS in your minds, your minds MUST also be able to believe ONLY what is true. The Holy Spirit can speak only for this, because one speaks for God. One tells you to return your whole mind to God BECAUSE IT HAS NEVER LEFT ONE. If it has never left One you need only perceive it AS IT IS to BE returned. The full awareness of the Atonement, then, is the recognition that the separation NEVER OCCURRED. The ego CANNOT prevail against this because it is an explicit statement that the EGO never occurred.

The ego can accept the idea that RETURN is necessary because it can so easily make the idea seem so difficult. Yet the Holy Spirit tells you that even RETURN is unnecessary because what never happened CANNOT involve ANY problem. It does NOT follow, however, that YOU cannot make the idea of return both necessary AND difficult. God made nothing either necessary OR difficult. But YOU have perceived both AS IF they were part of One’s perfect Creations. It is surely clear, however, that the perfect NEED nothing, and CANNOT experience perfection as a difficult accomplishment because that is what they ARE.

This is the way in which you MUST perceive God’s creations, bringing all of your perceptions into the one parallel line which the Holy Spirit sees. This line is the direct line of communication with God, and lets your mind converge with ONE’S. There is NO CONFLICT ANYWHERE in this perception because it means that ALL perception is guided by the Holy Spirit, Whose mind is fixed on God. ONLY the Holy Spirit can resolve conflict because ONLY the Holy Spirit is conflict-free. One perceives ONLY what is true in your mind, and extends outward ONLY to what is true in other minds.

The difference between the ego’s use of projection and projection as the Holy Spirit uses it is very simple. The ego projects to EXCLUDE, and therefore to deceive. The Holy Spirit projects by RECOGNIZING ONESELF in EVERY mind, and thus perceives them as ONE. Nothing conflicts in this perception because what the Holy Spirit perceives IS the same. Wherever One looks One sees Oneself, and because One is UNITED, One offers the whole Realm always. This is the one message God gave TO One, and for which One must speak because that is what One IS. The peace of God lies in that message, and so the peace of God lies in YOU.

The great peace of the Realm shines in your mind forever, but it must shine OUTWARD to make YOU aware of it. The Holy Spirit was given you with perfect impartiality, and only by perceiving One impartially can you perceive One at all. The ego is legion, but the Holy Spirit is One. No darkness abides ANYWHERE in the Realm, but your part is only to allow no darkness to abide in your OWN mind. This alignment with Light is unlimited because it is in alignment with the Light of the world. Each of us IS the Light of the world, and by joining our minds IN this Light, we proclaim the Realm of God together and AS ONE.

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6.3 The Relinquishment Of Attack

We have used many words as synonymous which are not ordinarily regarded as the same. We began with having and being, and more recently have used others. Hearing and being are examples, to which we can also add teaching and being, learning and being, and, above all, PROJECTING and being. This is because, as we have said before, every idea begins in the mind of the thinker and extends outward. Therefore, what extends FROM the mind IS STILL IN IT, and FROM what it extends IT KNOWS ITSELF. That is its natural talent.

The word “knows” is correct here, even though the ego does NOT know, and is not concerned with BEING at all. The Holy Spirit still holds knowledge safe through One’s impartial perception. By attacking nothing, One presents no barrier at all to the communication of God. Thus, being is never threatened. Your Godlike mind can never be defiled. The ego never was and never will be part of it.

But through the ego you CAN hear and teach and learn WHAT IS NOT TRUE. From this, which YOU have made, you have taught yourselves to believe that you ARE NOT WHAT YOU ARE. You CANNOT teach what you have not learned. And what you teach you strengthen in yourselves BECAUSE you are sharing it. Every lesson you teach, YOU are learning.

That is why you must teach only ONE lesson. If you are to be conflict-free yourselves, you must learn ONLY from the Holy Spirit, and teach ONLY by One. You ARE only love, but when you denied this you made what you ARE something you must LEARN. We said before that the message of the crucifixion was,

“Teach ONLY love, for that is what you ARE.”

This is the ONE lesson which is perfectly unified because it is the only lesson which IS one. Only BY teaching it can YOU learn it.

“As you teach so will you learn.”

If that is true, and it is true indeed, you must never forget that what you teach is teaching YOU. What you project you BELIEVE. The only REAL safety lies in projecting only the Holy Spirit, because as you see One’s gentleness in others, your OWN mind perceives ITSELF as totally harmless. Once it can accept this fully, it does NOT see the need to PROTECT ITSELF. The protection of God then dawns upon it, assuring it that it is perfectly safe forever.

The perfectly safe ARE wholly benign. They bless because they know they ARE blessed. Without anxiety the mind is wholly kind, and because it PROJECTS beneficence, it IS beneficent. Safety is THE COMPLETE RELINQUISHMENT OF ATTACK. No compromise is possible in this. Teach attack in ANY form, and YOU HAVE LEARNED IT AND IT WILL HURT YOU. Yet your learning is not immortal, and you can unlearn it by NOT TEACHING IT. Since you cannot NOT teach, your salvation lies in teaching the exact opposite of EVERYTHING THE EGO BELIEVES. This is how YOU will learn the truth that will set you free, and keep you so as others learn it of YOU.

The only way to HAVE peace is to TEACH peace. By learning it through projection, it becomes a part of what you KNOW because you cannot teach what you have dissociated. Only thus can you win back the knowledge that you threw away. An idea which you SHARE you MUST HAVE. It awakens in you through the CONVICTION of teaching. Remember that if teaching is being and learning is being, teaching is learning. EVERYTHING you teach YOU are learning. Teach only love, and learn that love is yours, and YOU are love.

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6.4 The Only Answer

Remember that the Holy Spirit is the ANSWER, not the question. The ego always speaks first because it is capricious, and does NOT mean its maker well. That is because it believes, and correctly, that its maker may withdraw one’s support from it at any moment. If it meant you well it would be glad, as the Holy Spirit will be glad when One has brought you home, and you no longer need One’s guidance. The ego does NOT regard itself as part of you. Herein lies its primary perceptual error, the foundation of its whole thought system.

When God created you, One made you part of One. That is why attack WITHIN the Realm is impossible. But YOU made the ego without love, and so it does not love YOU. You could not remain WITHIN the Realm without love, and since the Realm IS love, you believe that you are WITHOUT it. This enables the ego to regard itself as SEPARATE AND OUTSIDE ITS MAKER, thus speaking for the part of your mind that believes YOU are separate and outside the Mind of God.

The ego, then, raised the first question that was ever asked, but one which it can never answer. That question—“What are you?”—was the beginning of doubt. The ego has never answered ANY questions since, although it has raised a great many. The most inventive activities of the ego have never done more than OBSCURE THE QUESTION because you HAVE the answer, and THE EGO IS AFRAID OF YOU. You cannot understand the conflict until YOU fully understand one basic fact that the ego does not know. The Holy Spirit does not speak first, but One ALWAYS answers. EVERYONE has called upon One for help at one time or another and in one way or another AND HAS BEEN ANSWERED. Since the Holy Spirit answers truly, One answers FOR ALL TIME, which means that EVERYONE HAS THE ANSWER NOW.

The ego cannot hear the Holy Spirit, but it DOES sense that part of the same mind that made it is AGAINST it. It interprets this wholly as a justification for ATTACKING its maker. It believes that the best defense IS attack, and WANTS YOU TO BELIEVE THIS. Unless you DO believe it you will not side with it, and the ego feels badly in need of allies, though NOT of siblings.

Perceiving something alien to itself in your MIND, the ego turns to the body, NOT the mind, as its ally BECAUSE the body is not part of you. This makes the body the ego’s friend. It is an alliance frankly based on separation. If you side with this alliance you WILL be afraid, because you are siding with an alliance OF fear. The ego and the body conspire AGAINST your minds, and because the ego realizes that its “enemy” CAN end them both merely by knowing they are NOT part of one, they join in the attack together. This is perhaps the strangest perception of all, if you consider what it really involves. The ego, which is NOT real, attempts to persuade the mind, which IS real, that the body IS its own learning device, and that the learning device is more real than IT is. No one in one’s right mind could POSSIBLY believe this, and no one in one’s right mind DOES believe it.

Hear, then, the ONE answer of the Holy Spirit to ALL the questions which the ego raises. You are a Child of God, a priceless part of One’s Realm, which One created as part of One. Nothing else exists and ONLY this is real. You have chosen a sleep in which you have had bad dreams, but the sleep is not real, and God calls you to awake. There will be nothing left of your dream when you hear One because you WILL be awake. Your dreams have contained many of the ego’s symbols, and they have confused you. Yet that was only because you were asleep AND DID NOT KNOW.

When you awake you will see the truth around you and in you, and you will no longer believe in dreams because they will have no reality for you. Yet the Realm and all that you have created there will have great reality for you because they are beautiful and true. In the Realm, where you are and what you are is perfectly certain. There is no doubt there because the first question was never asked. Having finally been wholly answered, IT HAS NEVER BEEN. BEING alone lives in the Realm, where everything lives in God without question. The time that was spent on questioning in the dream has given way to Creation and to its Eternity.

YOU are as certain as God because you are as true as One is, but what was once quite certain in your minds has become only the ABILITY for certainty. The introduction of abilities into being was the beginning of UNcertainty because abilities are POTENTIALS, not accomplishments. Your abilities are totally useless in the presence of God’s accomplishments, and also of yours. Accomplishments are RESULTS which HAVE BEEN achieved. When they are perfect, abilities are meaningless.

It is curious that the perfect must now be perfected. In fact, it is impossible. You must remember, however, that when you put yourselves in an impossible situation, you believed that the impossible WAS possible.

Abilities must be DEVELOPED, or you cannot use them. This is not true of anything that God created, but it is the kindest solution possible to what YOU have made. In an impossible situation you can develop your abilities to the point where they CAN GET YOU OUT OF IT. You have a Guide to how to develop them, but you have no commander EXCEPT YOURSELF. This leaves YOU in charge of the Realm, with both a Guide to FIND it and a MEANS to KEEP it. You have a model to follow who will strengthen YOUR command, and never detract from it in any way. You therefore retain the central place in your perceived enslavement, a fact which ITSELF demonstrates that you are NOT enslaved.

You are in an impossible situation only because you thought it was possible to be in one. You WOULD be in an impossible situation if God showed you your perfection and PROVED to you that you were wrong. This would demonstrate that the perfect were inadequate to bring THEMSELVES to the awareness of their perfection, and thus side with the belief that those who have everything need help and are therefore helpless.

This is the kind of “reasoning” which the ego engages in, but God, Who KNOWS that One’s creations are perfect, does NOT insult them. This would be as impossible as the ego’s notion that it has insulted One. That is why the Holy Spirit NEVER commands. To command is to assume INequality, which the Holy Spirit demonstrates does not exist. Fidelity to premises is a law of mind, and everything God created is faithful to One’s laws. But fidelity to other laws is also possible, however, not because the laws are true, but because YOU MADE THEM.

What would be gained if God proved to you that you have thought insanely? Can God lose One’s own certainty? We have frequently stated that what you teach you ARE. Would you have God teach you that you have sinned? If One confronted the self you made with the truth One created FOR you, what could you be but afraid? You would doubt your sanity, which is the one thing in which you can FIND the sanity One gave you. God does not teach. To teach is to imply a lack which God KNOWS is not there. God is not conflicted. Teaching aims at change, but God created only the changeless.

The separation was not a loss of perfection, but a failure in COMMUNICATION. A harsh and strident form of communication arose as the ego’s voice. It could not shatter the peace of God, but it COULD shatter YOURS. God did not blot it out, because to eradicate it would be to attack it. Being questioned, One did not question. One merely gave the Answer. One’s Answer IS your Teacher.

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6.5 The Holy Spirit's 1st Lesson:

“To Have, Give All to All”

Like any good teacher, the Holy Spirit DOES know more than you do NOW, but One teaches only to make you EQUAL with One. This is because you had ALREADY taught wrongly, having believed what was not true. YOU DID NOT BELIEVE IN YOUR OWN PERFECTION. Could God teach you that you had made a split mind, when One knows your mind only as whole?

What God DOES know is that One’s communication channels are not open to One, so that One cannot impart One’s joy, and know that One’s Children are wholly joyous. This is an ongoing process, not in time, but in eternity. God’s extending outward, though not One’s completeness, is blocked when the Christhood does not communicate with One as one. So One thought, “My Children sleep, and must be awakened.”

How can you wake children better and more kindly than by a gentle Voice that will not frighten them, but will merely remind them that the night is over and the Light has come? You do not inform them that the nightmares which frightened them so badly were not real because children BELIEVE in magic. You merely reassure them that they are safe NOW. Then you train them to RECOGNIZE THE DIFFERENCE between sleeping and waking, so that THEY will understand they need not be afraid of dreams. Then, when bad dreams come, they will call on the Light THEMSELVES to dispel them.

A wise teacher teaches through approach, NOT avoidance. One does NOT emphasize what you must avoid to escape from harm so much as what you need to learn to have joy. This is true even of the world’s teachers. Consider the confusion a child would experience if one were told, “Do not do THIS because it might hurt you and make you unsafe, but if you do THAT you will escape from harm and be safe, and then you will not be afraid.” All of this could be included in only three words: “Do ONLY that!” This simple statement is perfectly clear, easily understood, and very easily remembered.

The Holy Spirit NEVER itemizes errors because One does not frighten children, and those who lack wisdom ARE children. Yet One ALWAYS answers their call, and One’s dependability makes THEM more certain. Children DO confuse fantasy and reality, and they ARE frightened because they do not know the difference.

The Holy Spirit makes NO distinction among dreams. One merely shines them away. One’s Light is ALWAYS the call to awake, WHATEVER you have been dreaming. Nothing lasting lies in dreams, and the Holy Spirit, shining with the Light from God Oneself, speaks only for what lasts forever.

When your body and your ego and your dreams are gone, you will know that YOU will last forever. Many think this is accomplished through death, but NOTHING is accomplished through death because death IS nothing. EVERYTHING is accomplished through life, and life is of the mind and IN the Mind. The body neither lives nor dies because it cannot contain you who ARE life. If we share the same mind, YOU CAN OVERCOME DEATH BECAUSE I DID. Death is an attempt to resolve conflict by not willing at all. Like any other impossible solution which the ego attempts, IT WILL NOT WORK.

God did not make the body because it is destructible, and therefore not of the Realm. The body is the symbol of WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE. It is clearly a separation device, and therefore does not exist. The Holy Spirit, as always, takes what you have made and translates it into a learning device FOR you. Again as always, One re­interprets what the ego uses as an argument FOR separation into a demonstration AGAINST it.

If the mind can heal the body but the body cannot heal the mind, then the mind MUST BE STRONGER. Every miracle demonstrates this. We have said that the Holy Spirit is the MOTIVATION for miracles. This is because One ALWAYS tells you that ONLY the mind is real since ONLY the mind CAN BE SHARED. The body IS separate, and therefore CANNOT be part of you. To be of one mind IS meaningful, but to be of one body is meaningless. By the laws of mind, then, the body IS meaningless.

To the Holy Spirit THERE IS NO ORDER OF DIFFICULTY IN MIRACLES. This is FAMILIAR enough to you by now, but it has not yet become believable. Therefore, you do not understand it and cannot USE it. We have too much to accomplish on behalf of the Realm to let this crucial concept slip away. It is a real foundation stone of the thought system I teach and want YOU to teach. You cannot perform miracles without believing it because it is a belief in perfect equality.

Only one equal gift CAN be offered to the equal Children of God, and that is FULL APPRECIATION. Nothing more and nothing less. Without a range an order of difficulty IS meaningless, and there must BE no range in what you offer to each other. The Holy Spirit, Who leads to God, translates communication into being, just as One ultimately translates perception into knowledge.

YOU DO NOT LOSE WHAT YOU COMMUNICATE. The ego uses the body for attack, for pleasure, and for pride. The insanity of this perception makes it a fearful one indeed. The Holy Spirit sees the body ONLY as a means of COMMUNICATION. And because communicating IS sharing, it becomes communion. You might argue that fear as well as love can be communicated, and therefore can be shared. Yet this is not so real as it sounds. Those who communicate fear are promoting attack and attack always BREAKS communication, and therefore makes communion impossible.

Egos DO join together in temporary allegiance, but always for WHAT EACH ONE CAN GET SEPARATELY. The Holy Spirit communicates only WHAT EACH ONE CAN GIVE TO ALL. One never takes ANYTHING back because One wants YOU to keep it. Therefore, One’s teaching begins with the lesson:

“To HAVE, GIVE all TO all”

This is a very preliminary step, and THE ONLY ONE YOU MUST TAKE FOR YOURSELF. It is not even necessary that you COMPLETE the step yourself, but it IS necessary that you turn in that direction. Having chosen to go that way, you place YOURSELF in charge of the journey, where you and ONLY you must remain.

This step APPEARS to exacerbate conflict rather than resolve it because it is the BEGINNING step in reversing your perception, and turning it right-side up. This conflicts with the upside-down perception which you have not yet abandoned, or the change in direction would not have been necessary. Some people remain at this step for a very long time, experiencing VERY acute conflict. At this point many try to accept the CONFLICT, rather than take the next step towards its resolution. Having taken the first step, however, they WILL be helped. Once they have chosen what they CANNOT complete alone, THEY ARE NO LONGER ALONE.

You, Helen, had taken this step, and because you believed in it, you taught it to Bill, who still believed in the solution of sleep. You were not consistent in teaching it, but you did so often enough to enable him to learn it. Once HE learned it, he could teach YOU how to become more consistently awake, and thus begin to waken HIMSELF. This placed him, too, in command of the journey. His recognition of the direction it must take was perfectly stated when he INSISTED ON COLLABORATION.

You, Helen, had taken a giant step INTO conflict, but Bill turned you both forwards TOWARD THE WAY OUT. The more he teaches this, the more he will learn it.

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6.6 The Holy Spirit's 2nd Lesson:

“To Have Peace, Teach Peace to Learn It”

All the separated ones have a basic fear of retaliation and abandonment. This is because they BELIEVE in attack and rejection, so this is what they perceive and teach and LEARN. These insane concepts are clearly the result of their own dissociation and projection. What you teach you are, but it is quite apparent that you can teach wrongly, and therefore TEACH YOURSELVES WRONG. Many thought that I was attacking them, even though it was quite apparent that I was NOT. An insane learner learns strange lessons.

What you must understand is that, when you do not SHARE a thought system, you ARE weakening it. Those who BELIEVE in it therefore perceive this as an ATTACK ON THEM. This is because everyone identifies oneself WITH one’s thought system, and EVERY thought system centers on WHAT YOU BELIEVE YOU ARE. If the center of the thought system is true, only truth extends from it. But if a lie is at its center, only DECEPTION proceeds from it.

All good teachers realize that only fundamental change will last, but they do NOT begin at that level. Strengthening MOTIVATION for change is their first and foremost goal. It is also their last and final one. Increasing motivation for change IN THE LEARNER is all that a teacher NEED do to GUARANTEE change. This is because a change in motivation IS a change of mind, and this will INEVITABLY produce fundamental change BECAUSE the mind IS fundamental.

The first step in the reversal or undoing process, then, is the UNDOING of the getting concept. Accordingly, the Holy Spirit’s first lesson was

“To HAVE, GIVE all TO all.”

We said that this is apt to INCREASE conflict temporarily, and we can clarify this still further now.

At this point, the equality of “having” and “being” is not yet perceived. Until it IS, “having” appears to be the OPPOSITE of “being.” Therefore, the first lesson SEEMS to contain a contradiction, since it is BEING LEARNED BY A CONFLICTED MIND. This MEANS conflicting motivation, and so the lesson CANNOT be learned consistently as yet.

Further, the mind of the learner projects its own split, and thus does NOT perceive consistent minds in others, making one suspicious of THEIR motivations. This is the real reason why, in many respects, the first lesson is the hardest to learn. Still strongly aware of the ego in oneself, and responding primarily TO the ego in others, one is learning to react to BOTH as if what one DOES believe IS NOT TRUE.

Upside-down as always, the ego perceives the first lesson as insane. In fact, this is its only alternative here, since the other one, which would be much LESS acceptable to it, would obviously be that IT is insane. The ego’s judgement, then, is predetermined by what it IS, though no more so than is any other product of thought. The fundamental change will still occur with the change of mind IN THE THINKER.

Meanwhile, the increasing clarity of the Holy Spirit’s Voice makes it impossible for the learner NOT TO LISTEN. For a time, then, one IS receiving conflicting messages, AND ACCEPTING BOTH. This is the classic “double bind” in communication, which you wrote about yourselves quite recently, and with good examples too. It is interesting that Helen claimed at the time that she had never heard of it and did not understand it. I thought it might help both of you if you were called on to write about it together. You might remember our brother’s insistence on its inclusion. Helen thought he had become quite irrational on this point, but it was quite strongly reinforced in HIS mind, and so he wanted to teach it in his text. This, of course, was a very good way for YOU to learn it.

The way OUT of conflict between two opposing thought systems is clearly TO CHOOSE ONE and RELINQUISH THE OTHER. If you identify WITH your thought system—and you cannot escape this—and if you accept two thought systems which are in COMPLETE DISagreement, peace of mind IS impossible. If you TEACH both, which you will surely do as long as you ACCEPT both, you are teaching conflict and LEARNING it. Yet you DO want peace, or you would not have called upon the Voice for PEACE to help you. One’s LESSON is not insane; the CONFLICT IS.

There can BE no conflict between sanity and insanity. Only one is true, and therefore only ONE is REAL. The ego tries to persuade you that it is up to YOU to decide which voice is true, but the Holy Spirit teaches you that truth was created by God, and YOUR decision CANNOT change it. As you begin to realize the quiet power of the Holy Spirit’s Voice AND ITS PERFECT CONSISTENCY, it MUST dawn on your minds that you are trying to undo a decision which was made irrevocably FOR you. That is why we suggested before that there was help in reminding yourselves to allow the Holy Spirit to decide for God for YOU.

You are NOT asked to make insane decisions, although you are free to THINK you are. It MUST, however, be insane to believe that IT IS UP TO YOU to decide what God’s Creations ARE. The Holy Spirit perceives the conflict EXACTLY AS IT IS. Therefore, One’s second lesson is:

“To HAVE peace, TEACH peace to LEARN it”

This is still a preliminary step, since “having” and “being” are still not equated. It is, however, more advanced than the first step, which is really only a thought REVERSAL. The second step is a positive affirmation of WHAT YOU WANT. This, then, IS a step in the direction OUT of conflict, since it means that alternatives have been considered, and ONE has been chosen as MORE DESIRABLE.

Nevertheless, the evaluation “more desirable” still implies that the desirable has DEGREES. Therefore, although this step is essential for the ultimate decision, it is clearly NOT the final one.

It should be clear that the recognition of the lack of order of difficulty in miracles has not yet been accepted, because NOTHING is difficult that is WHOLLY DESIRED. To desire wholly is to CREATE, and creating CANNOT be difficult if God Oneself created you AS a creator. The second step, then, is still perceptual, although it is a giant step toward the unified perception which parallels God’s knowing.

As you take this step and HOLD THIS DIRECTION, you will be pushing toward the center of your thought system, where the FUNDAMENTAL change will occur. You are only beginning this step now, but you have started on this way by realizing that ONLY ONE WAY IS POSSIBLE. You do not yet realize this consistently and so your progress is intermittent, but the second step is easier than the first because it FOLLOWS. The very fact that you have accepted THAT is a demonstration of your growing awareness that the Holy Spirit WILL lead you on.

Text Chapter 6 - Attack & Fear

6.7 The Holy Spirit's 3rd Lesson:

“Be Vigilant Only for God and One’s Realm”

For your own salvation you MUST be critical, since YOUR salvation IS critical to the whole Christhood. We said before that the Holy Spirit IS evaluative, and MUST be. Yet One’s evaluation does not extend BEYOND you, or you WOULD share it. In YOUR mind, and your mind ONLY, One sorts out the true from the false, and teaches you to judge every thought that you allow to ENTER your mind in the light of what God PUT there. Whatever is IN ACCORD with this light One retains, to strengthen the Realm in YOU. What is PARTLY in accord with truth One accepts and purifies. But what is OUT OF ACCORD ENTIRELY One rejects by judging AGAINST. This is how One keeps the Realm perfectly consistent and perfectly unified.

What you must remember, however, is that what the Holy Spirit REJECTS the ego ACCEPTS. This is because they are in fundamental disagreement about everything, being in fundamental disagreement about WHAT YOU ARE. The ego’s beliefs on this crucial issue vary, and that is why it promotes different moods. The Holy Spirit NEVER varies on this point, and so the ONE mood One engenders is joy. One PROTECTS it by rejecting everything that does NOT foster joy, and so One alone can keep you wholly joyous.

The Holy Spirit does not teach your mind to be critical of other minds because One does not want you to teach errors and LEARN THEM YOURSELVES. One would hardly be consistent if One allowed you to STRENGTHEN what you must learn to avoid. In the mind of the THINKER, then, One IS judgemental, but only in order to unify the mind so IT CAN perceive WITHOUT judgement. This enables the mind to TEACH without judgement, and therefore to learn to BE without judgement. The UNdoing is necessary only in YOUR mind, so that you cannot PROJECT falsely. God Oneself has established what you can project with perfect safety. Therefore, the Holy Spirit’s third lesson is:

“Be vigilant ONLY for God and ONE’S Realm”

This is a major step toward FUNDAMENTAL change. Yet it is still a lesson in thought REVERSAL, since it implies that there is something you must be vigilant AGAINST. It has advanced far from the first lesson which was PRIMARILY a reversal, and also from the second which was essentially the identification of what is MORE desirable. THIS step, which follows from the second as the second follows from the first, emphasizes the DICHOTOMY between the desirable and the UNdesirable. It therefore makes the ULTIMATE choice inevitable. But while the first step seems to INCREASE conflict and the second step still entails it to some extent, this one calls for CONSISTENT EFFORT AGAINST IT.

We said already that you can be as vigilant AGAINST the ego as FOR it. This lesson teaches not only that you CAN be, but that you MUST be. It does not concern itself with order of difficulty, but with CLEARCUT PRIORITY FOR VIGILANCE. This step is unequivocal in that it teaches THERE MUST BE NO EXCEPTIONS, although it does NOT deny that the temptation to MAKE exceptions will occur. Here, then, your consistency is called on DESPITE chaos. Yet chaos and consistency CANNOT coexist for long, since they are MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. As long as you must be vigilant against ANYTHING, however, you are not recognizing this mutual exclusiveness, and are holding the belief that you can CHOOSE EITHER ONE.

By teaching you WHAT to choose, the Holy Spirit will ultimately be able to teach you that YOU NEED NOT CHOOSE AT ALL. This will finally liberate your will FROM choice, and direct it towards creation WITHIN the Realm. Choosing through the Holy Spirit will lead you TO the Realm. You create by what you ARE, but this IS what you must learn. The way to learn it is INHERENT in the third step, which brings together the lessons implied in the others, and goes beyond them towards real integration.

If you allow yourselves to HAVE in your minds only what God put there, you ARE acknowledging your mind as God created it. Therefore, you are accepting it AS IT IS. Since it IS whole, you are teaching peace BECAUSE you believe in it. The final step will still be taken FOR you by God, but by the third step, the Holy Spirit has PREPARED you for God. One is GETTING YOU READY for the translation of having into being by the very nature of the steps you must take WITH One. You learn first that having rests on GIVING, and NOT on getting. Next you learn that you learn what you TEACH, and that you WANT TO LEARN PEACE. This is the CONDITION for identifying WITH the Realm, since it is the condition OF the Realm.

You have believed that you are WITHOUT the Realm, and have therefore excluded yourself FROM it in your belief. It is therefore essential to teach you that YOU must be INCLUDED, and that the BELIEF THAT YOU ARE NOT is the ONLY thing that you must exclude.

The third step is thus one of PROTECTION for your minds, allowing you to identify ONLY with the center, where God placed the altar to Oneself. We have already said that altars are BELIEFS, but God and One’s creations are BEYOND belief because they are beyond question. The Voice FOR God speaks only for BELIEF beyond question, which IS the preparation for BEING without question.

As long as belief in God and One’s Realm is assailed by ANY doubts in your minds, One’s perfect Accomplishment is NOT apparent to you. This is why you MUST be vigilant ON GOD’S BEHALF. The ego speaks AGAINST One’s Creation, and therefore DOES engender doubt. You cannot go BEYOND belief UNTIL you believe fully. No one can EXTEND a lesson one has NOT LEARNED FULLY. Transfer, which IS extension, is a measure of learning because it is its MEASURABLE RESULT. This, however, does NOT mean that what it transfers TO is measurable. On the contrary, unless it transfers to the whole Christhood, which is immeasurable because it was created BY the Immeasurable, the learning itself MUST be incomplete.

To teach the WHOLE Christhood WITHOUT EXCEPTION demonstrates that you PERCEIVE ITS WHOLENESS, and have learned that it IS one. Now you must be vigilant to HOLD its oneness in your minds because, if you let doubt enter, YOU will lose awareness of its wholeness and WILL BE UNABLE TO TEACH IT. The wholeness of the Realm does NOT depend on your perception, but your AWARENESS of its wholeness DOES. It is only your awareness which NEEDS protection, since your being cannot BE assailed. Yet a real sense of being CANNOT be yours while you are doubtful of what you ARE. THIS IS WHY VIGILANCE IS ESSENTIAL. Doubts ABOUT being MUST not enter your mind, or you CANNOT know what you are with certainty.

Certainty is OF God for YOU. Vigilance is not necessary for truth, but it IS necessary AGAINST ILLUSIONS. Truth is WITHOUT illusions, and therefore WITHIN the Realm. Everything OUTSIDE the Realm IS ILLUSION. But you must learn to ACCEPT truth BECAUSE YOU THREW IT AWAY. You therefore saw yourself AS IF you were WITHOUT it. By making another realm WHICH YOU VALUED, you did NOT keep only the Realm of God in your minds, and thus placed part of your mind OUTSIDE it. What you have made has thus DIVIDED YOUR WILL, and given you a sick mind which MUST be healed. Your vigilance AGAINST this sickness IS the way to heal it.

Once YOUR mind is healed, it radiates health and thereby TEACHES healing. This establishes you as a teacher who teaches LIKE me. Vigilance was required of me as much as of you. But remember that those who will to teach the same thing MUST be in agreement about what they believe.

The third step, then, is a statement of what you WANT to believe, and entails a willingness to RELINQUISH EVERYTHING ELSE. I told you that you were just beginning the second step, but I also told you that the third one FOLLOWS it. The Holy Spirit WILL enable you to go on, IF YOU FOLLOW ONE. Your vigilance is the sign that you WANT One to guide you. Vigilance DOES require effort, but only to teach you that effort ITSELF is unnecessary. You have exerted GREAT effort to preserve what you made BECAUSE it was NOT true. Therefore, you must now turn your effort AGAINST it. Only this can cancel out the NEED for effort, and call upon the BEING which you both HAVE and ARE. THIS recognition is wholly WITHOUT effort, since it is ALREADY true and needs no protection. It is in the perfect safety of God. Therefore inclusion is total and Creation is WITHOUT LIMIT.

Text Chapter 7 - The Consistency Of The Realm

7.0 - The Consistency Of The Realm

The creative power of both God AND One’s Creations is limitless, but they are NOT in reciprocal relationship. You DO communicate fully WITH God, as One does with YOU. This is an ongoing process in which you SHARE, and BECAUSE you share it, you are inspired to create LIKE God. Yet in creation you are NOT in reciprocal relation to God, since One created YOU, but you did NOT create One. We have already said that only in this respect your creative power differs from One’s. Even in this world there is a parallel. Parents give birth to children, but children do NOT give birth to parents. They DO, however, give birth to their children and thus give birth AS their parents do.

If you created GOD and One created you, the REALM could not increase through its OWN creative thought. Creation would therefore be limited, and you would NOT be co-creators WITH God. As God’s creative Thought proceeds FROM One TO you, so must YOUR creative thoughts proceed FROM you to YOUR creations. Only in this way can ALL creative power EXTEND OUTWARD. God’s accomplishments are NOT yours. But yours are LIKE One’s. ONE created the Christhood, and YOU increase it. You HAVE the power to ADD to the Realm, but NOT to add to the Creator OF the Realm.

You claim this power when you become vigilant only for God AND One’s Realm. BY ACCEPTING this power as YOURS, you have learned to be what you ARE. YOUR creations belong in YOU, as YOU belong in God. You are part of God, as your children are part of One’s Children. To create is to love. Love extends outward simply because it cannot be contained. Being limitless, IT DOES NOT STOP. It creates forever, but NOT in time. God’s creations have ALWAYS BEEN, because ONE has always been. YOUR creations have always been, because you can create only as GOD creates.

Eternity is yours because One created you eternal.

Text Chapter 7 - The Consistency Of The Realm

7.1 - Bargaining Versus Healing

The ego demands RECIPROCAL rights, because it is competitive rather than loving. It is always willing to make a “deal,” but it cannot understand that to be LIKE another means that NO DEALS ARE POSSIBLE. To gain you must GIVE, not bargain. To bargain is to LIMIT giving, and this is NOT God’s Will. To will WITH God is to create like ONE. God does not limit ONE’S gifts in ANY way. You ARE One’s gifts, and so your gifts must be like ONE’S.

Your gifts TO the Realm must be like One’s Gifts to YOU. I gave ONLY love to the Realm because I believed that was what I WAS. What you believe you are DETERMINES your gifts, and if God created you by extending ONESELF AS you, you can only extend YOURSELF as One did. Only joy increases forever. Joy and Eternity are INSEPARABLE. God extends outward beyond limits and beyond time, and you, who are co-creators with One, extend One’s Realm forever and beyond limit. Eternity is the indelible stamp of Creation. The eternal are in peace and joy forever.

To think like God is to share One’s certainty of WHAT YOU ARE. And to CREATE like One is to share the perfect Love One shares with YOU. To this the Holy Spirit leads you, that your joy may be complete because the Realm of God is whole. We have said that the last step in the re-awakening of knowledge is taken by God. This is true, but it is hard to explain in words, because words are symbols, and nothing that is true NEEDS to be explained. However, the Holy Spirit has the task of translating the useLESS into the useFUL, the meaningLESS into the meaningFUL, and the temporary into the timeLESS. One CAN, therefore, tell you something about this last step, although this one you must know yourself, since BY it you know what you are. This IS your being.

God does not TAKE steps because One’s Accomplishments are NOT gradual. One does not teach because One’s Creations are changeless. One does nothing LAST because One created FIRST and FOR ALWAYS. It must be understood that the word “first” as applied to One is NOT a time concept. One is first in the sense that One is the first in the Holy Trinity Itself. One is the Prime Creator because One created One’s co-creators. BECAUSE One DID, time applies neither to One NOR to what One created.

The “last step” that God will take was therefore true in the beginning, is true now, and will be true forever. What is timeless is ALWAYS THERE because its BEING is eternally changeless. It does NOT change by increase because it was forever created TO increase. If you perceive it as NOT increasing, you do not know what it IS. You also do not know what created it, or Who ONE is. God does not REVEAL this to you because it was never hidden. One’s Light was never obscured because it is One’s Will to SHARE it. How can what is fully shared be withheld, and then revealed?

To heal is the ONLY kind of thinking in this world that resembles the Thought of God, and because of the elements which they SHARE, can transfer TO it. When a sibling perceives oneself as sick, one IS perceiving oneself as NOT WHOLE, and therefore IN NEED. If you, too, see one this way, you are seeing one as if one were ABSENT from the Realm or separated FROM it, thus making the Realm ITSELF obscure to BOTH OF YOU. Sickness and separation are not of God, but the Realm IS. If you obscure the Realm, you are perceiving WHAT IS NOT OF GOD.

Text Chapter 7 - The Consistency Of The Realm

7.2 - The Laws Of Mind

To heal, then, is to correct perception in your sibling AND yourself by SHARING THE HOLY SPIRIT WITH ONE. This places you both WITHIN the Realm, and restores ITS wholeness in your minds. This PARALLELS creation because it UNIFIES BY INCREASING and INTEGRATES BY EXTENDING.

WHAT YOU PROJECT YOU BELIEVE. This is an immutable law of the mind in this world as well as in the Realm. However, its CONTENT is somewhat different in this world from what it REALLY is, because the thoughts it governs are VERY different from the thoughts in the Realm. Laws must be adapted to circumstances, if they are to maintain order.

The outstanding characteristic of the laws of mind as they operate in this world is that by obeying them—and I assure you that you MUST obey them—you can arrive at diametrically opposed results. This is because the laws have adapted to the circumstances of this world, in which diametrically opposed outcomes are BELIEVED in. The laws of mind govern thoughts, and you DO respond to two conflicting voices. You have heard many arguments on behalf of “the freedoms,” which would indeed have BEEN freedom if one had not chosen to FIGHT for them. That is why they perceive “the freedoms” as many, instead of ONE.

Yet the argument that underlies the DEFENSE of freedom is perfectly valid. Because it is true it should not be FOUGHT for, but it SHOULD be sided WITH. Those who are AGAINST freedom believe that its outcome will HURT them, which CANNOT be true. But those who are FOR freedom, even if they are misguided in HOW to defend it, are siding with the one thing in this world which IS true. Whenever anyone can listen fairly to both sides of ANY issue, one WILL make the right decision. This is because one HAS the answer. Conflict can indeed be projected and SEEM to be interpersonal, but it MUST be intrapersonal first.

The term “intraPERSONAL” is an ego term, because “personal” implies “of ONE person,” and NOT of others. “Interpersonal” has a similar error, in that it refers to something that exists among DIFFERENT or SEPARATE people. When we spoke before of the extremely PERSONAL nature of revelation, we followed this statement immediately with a description of the inevitable outcomes of the revelation in terms of SHARING. A PERSON conceives of oneself as separate largely because one perceives OF oneself as bounded by a body. ONLY if one perceives oneself as a MIND can this be overcome. THEN one is free to use terms like “intraMENTAL” and “interMENTAL” WITHOUT seeing them as different or conflicting because minds CAN be in perfect accord.

OUTSIDE the Realm, the law which prevails INSIDE it is ADAPTED to “what you project you believe.” This is its TEACHING form, since outside the Realm teaching is mandatory because LEARNING is essential. This form of the law clearly implies that you will learn what YOU are from what you have projected onto others, and therefore believe THEY are. IN the Realm there is no teaching OR learning because there is no BELIEF. There is only CERTAINTY. God and One’s Children, in the surety of being, KNOW that what you project you ARE.

That form of the law is NOT adapted at all, being the Law of Creation. God Oneself created the law by creating BY it. And One’s Children, who create LIKE One, follow it gladly, knowing that the INCREASE of the Realm depends on it, just as THEIR own creation did. Laws must be communicated if they are to be helpful. In effect, they must be TRANSLATED for those who speak a different language. Nevertheless, a good translator, although one MUST alter the FORM of what one translates, NEVER changes the meaning. In fact, one’s whole PURPOSE is to change the form SO THAT the original meaning IS retained.

The Holy Spirit IS the translator of the Laws of God to those who do NOT understand them. YOU could not do this yourselves because conflicted minds CANNOT be faithful to one meaning, and will therefore CHANGE THE MEANING TO PRESERVE THE FORM. The Holy Spirit’s purpose in translating is naturally EXACTLY the opposite. One translates ONLY to preserve the original meaning in ALL respects and in ALL languages. Therefore, One OPPOSES differences in form as meaningful, emphasizing always that THESE DIFFERENCES DO NOT MATTER. The meaning of One’s message is ALWAYS the same, and ONLY the meaning matters.

God’s Law of Creation in perfect form does NOT involve the USE of truth to convince One’s Children OF truth. The EXTENSION of truth, which IS the Law of the Realm, rests only on the knowledge of WHAT TRUTH IS. This is your INHERITANCE and requires no learning at all, but when you DISinherited yourselves, you BECAME learners. No one questions the intimate connection of learning and memory. Learning is impossible WITHOUT memory since it CANNOT be consistent UNLESS it is remembered.

That is why the Holy Spirit IS a lesson in remembering. We said before that One teaches remembering and FORGETTING, but the forgetting aspect is only TO MAKE THE REMEMBERING CONSISTENT. You forget in order to REMEMBER BETTER. You will NOT understand One’s translations while you listen to two ways of perceiving them. Therefore, you must forget, or relinquish, one to UNDERSTAND the other. This is the only way you can LEARN consistency, so that you can finally BE consistent. What can the perfect consistency of the Realm MEAN to the confused? It MUST be apparent that confusion INTERFERES with meaning, and therefore PREVENTS THE LEARNER FROM APPRECIATING IT.

There is NO confusion in the Realm, because there IS only one meaning. This meaning comes from God and IS God. Because it is also YOU, you share it and EXTEND it AS YOUR CREATOR DID. This needs no translation because it is perfectly understood, but it DOES need extension because it MEANS extension. Communication here is perfectly direct and perfectly united. It is totally without strain because nothing discordant EVER enters. That is why it IS the Realm of God. It belongs to One, and is therefore LIKE One. That IS its reality, and nothing CAN assail it.

Text Chapter 7 - The Consistency Of The Realm

7.3 - The Unified Curriculum

To heal is to liberate totally. We once said there is no order of difficulty in miracles because they are all MAXIMAL EXPRESSIONS OF LOVE. This has no range at all. The non-maximal only APPEARS to have a range. This is because it SEEMS to be meaningful to measure it FROM the maximum, and identify its position by HOW MUCH IT IS NOT THERE. Actually, this does not mean ANYTHING. It is like negative numbers in that the concept can be used theoretically, but it has no application practically. It is true that if you put three apples on the table and then take them AWAY, the three apples are NOT THERE. But it is NOT true that the table is now MINUS three apples. If there is NOTHING on the table, it does NOT matter what WAS there in terms of amount. The “nothing” is neither greater nor less because of what is ABSENT.

That is why “all” and “nothing” are dichotomous, WITHOUT A RANGE. This is perfectly clear in considering psychological tests of maximal performance. You cannot interpret the results AT ALL unless you assume either MAXIMAL motivation or its COMPLETE ABSENCE. Only in these two conditions can you validly COMPARE responses, and you MUST assume the former because, if the LATTER were true, the subject WOULD NOT DO ANYTHING. Given VARIABLE motivation one WILL do something, but you CANNOT UNDERSTAND WHAT IT IS.

The RESULTS of such tests are evaluated relatively ASSUMING maximal motivation, but this is because we are dealing with ABILITIES, where degree of development IS meaningful. This does NOT mean that what the ability is used FOR is necessarily either limited OR divided. Yet one thing is certain: abilities are POTENTIALS for learning, and you will apply them to WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN. Learning is EFFORT, and effort MEANS will.

We have used the term “abilities” in the plural because abilities began with the ego, which perceived them as POTENTIALS FOR EXCELLING. This is how the ego STILL perceives them and uses them. The ego does NOT want to teach everyone all it has learned, because that would DEFEAT its purpose in learning. Therefore, it does not REALLY learn at all. The Holy Spirit teaches YOU to use what the ego has made to TEACH the opposite of what the ego has LEARNED. The KIND of learning is as irrelevant as is the particular ability which was applied TO the learning.

You could not have a better example of the Holy Spirit’s unified purpose than this course. The Holy Spirit has taken very diversified areas of YOUR past learning, and has applied them to a UNIFIED curriculum. The fact that this was NOT the ego’s reason for learning is totally irrelevant. YOU made the effort to learn, and the Holy Spirit has a unified goal for ALL effort. One ADAPTS the ego’s potentials for excelling to potentials for EQUALIZING. This makes them USELESS for the ego’s purpose, but VERY useful for One’s.

If different abilities are applied long enough to one GOAL, the abilities THEMSELVES become unified. This is because they are channelized in one direction, or in one WAY. Ultimately, then, they all contribute to ONE RESULT, and by so doing, their SIMILARITY rather than their differences is emphasized. You can EXCEL in many DIFFERENT ways, but you can EQUALIZE in ONE WAY ONLY. Equality is NOT a variable state, by definition.

That is why you will be able to perform ALL aspects of your work with ease when you have learned THIS course. To the ego there appears to be no connection because the EGO is discontinuous. Yet the Holy Spirit teaches ONE lesson, and applies it to ALL individuals in ALL situations. Being conflict-free, One maximizes ALL efforts and ALL results. By teaching the power of the Realm of God Oneself, One teaches you that ALL POWER IS YOURS. Its application does not matter. It is ALWAYS maximal. Your vigilance does not ESTABLISH it as yours, but it DOES enable you to use it ALWAYS and in ALL WAYS.

When I said, “I am with you always,” I meant it literally. I am not absent to ANYONE, in ANY situation. BECAUSE I am always with you, YOU are the Way and the Truth and the Light. YOU did not make this power any more than I did. It was created to BE shared, and therefore cannot be meaningfully perceived as BELONGING to anyone AT THE EXPENSE of another. Such a perception makes it meaningLESS by eliminating or overlooking its real and ONLY meaning.

Text Chapter 7 - The Consistency Of The Realm

7.4 - The Recognition Of Truth

God’s MEANING waits in the Realm because that is where One placed it. It does NOT wait in time. It merely RESTS in the Realm because it BELONGS there, as YOU do. How can you, who ARE God’s meaning, perceive yourselves as absent FROM it? You can see yourselves as separated FROM your meaning only BY EXPERIENCING YOURSELF AS UNREAL. This is WHY the ego is insane; it teaches that you are NOT what you ARE. This is so contradictory that it is clearly impossible. It is therefore a lesson which you CANNOT REALLY LEARN, and therefore, CANNOT REALLY TEACH. Yet you ARE always teaching. You MUST, therefore, be teaching SOMETHING ELSE AS WELL, even though the ego DOES NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS.

The ego, then, IS always being undone, and DOES suspect your motives. Your mind CANNOT be unified in allegiance to the ego, because the mind does NOT BELONG to it. Yet what is “treacherous” to the ego IS faithful to peace. The ego’s “enemy” is therefore YOUR friend. We said before that the ego’s friend is not part of you, since the ego perceives itself as at war, and therefore in need of allies. YOU, who are NOT at war, must look for siblings and RECOGNIZE all whom you see AS siblings, because ONLY EQUALS ARE AT PEACE.

Because God’s equal Children have everything, they CANNOT compete. Yet if they perceive ANY of their siblings as anything OTHER than their perfect equals, the IDEA of competition HAS entered their minds. Do not underestimate your need to be vigilant AGAINST this idea, because ALL your conflicts come FROM it. It IS the belief that conflicting interests are possible, and therefore means that you have accepted the IMpossible as true. How is that different from saying that you are perceiving YOURSELF as unreal?

To be IN the Realm is merely to focus your full attention ON it. As long as you believe that you can ATTEND to what is NOT true, you are accepting conflict as your CHOICE. IS IT REALLY A CHOICE? It SEEMS to be, but seeming and reality are hardly the same. You who ARE the Realm are not concerned with seeming. Reality is yours because you ARE reality. This is how having and being are ultimately reconciled, not in the Realm, but IN YOUR MINDS. The altar there is the ONLY reality. The altar is PERFECTLY clear in thought because it is a reflection of PERFECT Thought. It SEES only siblings because it sees ONLY in its own Light.

God has lit your minds Oneself, and keeps your minds lit BY One’s Light because One’s Light is WHAT YOUR MINDS ARE. This is TOTALLY beyond question. And when YOU questioned it, you WERE answered. The answer merely UNDOES the question by establishing the fact that to QUESTION reality is to question MEANINGLESSLY. That is why the Holy Spirit NEVER questions. One’s sole function is to UNdo the questionable, and thus LEAD TO CERTAINTY. The certain are perfectly calm because they are not in doubt. They do NOT raise questions because NOTHING QUESTIONABLE ENTERS THEIR MINDS. This holds them in perfect serenity because this is what they SHARE, KNOWING what they are.

As has so often been said, healing is both an art and a science. It is an art because it depends on inspiration in the sense that we have already used the term. Inspiration is the opposite of dis-spiriting, and therefore means to make joyous. The dis-spirited are depressed because they believe that they are literally “without the Spirit,” which is an illusion. You do not PUT the Spirit in them by inspiring them because that would be “magic,” and therefore would not be real healing. You DO, however, recognize the Spirit that is ALREADY THERE, and thereby REAWAKEN IT. This is why the healer is part of the RESURRECTION and the LIFE. The SPIRIT is not asleep in the minds of the sick, but the part of the mind that can perceive it and be glad IS.

Healing is also a science because it obeys the laws of God, Whose laws are true. BECAUSE they are true they are perfectly dependable, and therefore UNIVERSAL in application. The real aim of science is neither prediction nor control, but ONLY UNDERSTANDING. This is because it does NOT establish the laws it seeks; CANNOT discover them through prediction; and has NO control over them at all. Science is nothing more than an approach to WHAT ALREADY IS. Like inspiration it can be misunderstood as magic, and WILL be whenever it is undertaken as SEPARATE from what already is, and perceived as a means for ESTABLISHING it. To believe this is possible is to believe YOU CAN DO IT. This can ONLY be the voice of the ego.

Truth can only be RECOGNIZED, and NEED only be recognized. Inspiration is of the Spirit, and certainty is of God according to One’s laws. Both, therefore, come from the same Source, since inspiration comes from the Voice FOR God and certainty comes from the laws OF God. Healing does not come DIRECTLY from God, Who knows One’s creations as perfectly whole. Yet healing is still OF God because it proceeds from One’s Voice and from One’s laws. It is their result, in a state of mind which does NOT know One. The STATE is unknown to One and therefore does not exist, but those who sleep are stupefied, or better, UNAWARE. And BECAUSE they are unaware, THEY DO NOT KNOW.

The Holy Spirit must work THROUGH you to teach you One is IN you. This is an intermediary step toward the knowledge that YOU are in God BECAUSE YOU ARE PART OF ONE. The miracles which the Holy Spirit inspires CAN have no order of difficulty because every part of creation IS of one order. This is God’s will AND yours. The laws of God ESTABLISH this, and the Holy Spirit reminds you OF it. When you heal, you are REMEMBERING THE LAWS OF GOD and FORGETTING the laws of the ego. We said before that forgetting is merely a way of REMEMBERING BETTER. It is therefore NOT the opposite of remembering, when it is properly perceived. Perceived IMproperly, it induces a perception of CONFLICT WITH SOMETHING ELSE, as all incorrect perception does. PROPERLY perceived, it can be used as a way OUT of conflict, as all proper perception can.

ALL abilities, then should be given over to the Holy Spirit WHO KNOWS HOW TO USE THEM PROPERLY. One can use them ONLY for healing because One knows you ONLY as whole. BY healing you learn of wholeness, and by learning of wholeness you learn to remember God. You HAVE forgotten One, but the Holy Spirit still knows that YOUR forgetting MUST be translated into a way of REMEMBERING, and NOT perceived as a SEPARATE ability which OPPOSES AN OPPOSITE. That is the way in which the ego tries to use ALL abilities, since its goal is ALWAYS to make YOU believe that YOU are in opposition.

The ego’s goal is as unified as the Holy Spirit’s, and it is BECAUSE of this that their goals can NEVER be reconciled in ANY way or to ANY extent. The ego ALWAYS seeks to divide and separate. The Holy Spirit ALWAYS seeks to unify and HEAL. As you heal you ARE healed because the Holy Spirit sees NO ORDER OF HEALING. Healing is the way to undo the belief in differences, being the ONLY way of perceiving the Christhood WITHOUT this belief. This perception is therefore IN accord with the laws of God even in a state of mind which is OUT of accord with One’s. The strength of right perception is so great that it brings the mind INTO accord with One’s because it yields to One’s pull, which IS in all of you.

To oppose the pull or the Will of God is not an ability but a real delusion. The ego believes that it HAS this ability, and can offer it to YOU as a gift. YOU DO NOT WANT IT. It is NOT a gift. It is NOTHING AT ALL. God has given you a gift which you both HAVE and ARE. When you do not USE it, you do not know you HAVE it. By NOT knowing this, you do not know what you ARE. Healing, then, is a way of APPROACHING knowledge by THINKING in accordance with the laws of God, and RECOGNIZING THEIR UNIVERSALITY. WITHOUT this recognition, you have made the laws themselves meaningless TO you. Yet the LAWS are not meaningless since all meaning is contained BY them and IN them.

Seek ye FIRST the Realm of Heaven because that is where the laws of God operate truly, and they can operate ONLY truly, since they are the laws of Truth. But SEEK THIS ONLY because you can FIND nothing else. There IS nothing else. God is all in all in a very literal sense. All being is in One Who IS all Being. YOU are therefore in One since YOUR being IS One’s. Healing is a way of FORGETTING the sense of danger the ego has induced in YOU by not recognizing its existence in your siblings. This strengthens the Holy Spirit in BOTH of you because it is a REFUSAL TO ACKNOWLEDGE FEAR. Love needs only this invitation. It comes freely to ALL the Christhood, being what the Christhood IS. By their awakening TO it, they merely forget what they are NOT. This enables them to remember what they ARE.

Text Chapter 7 - The Consistency Of The Realm

7.5 - Healing And The Changelessness Of Mind

The body is nothing more than a framework for developing abilities. It is therefore a means for developing potentials, which is quite apart from what the potential is used FOR. This IS a decision. The effects of the ego’s decision in this matter are so apparent that they need no elaboration here, but the Holy Spirit’s decision to use the body ONLY for communication has such a direct connection with healing that it DOES need clarification. The unhealed healer OBVIOUSLY does not understand one’s own vocation.

ONLY minds communicate. Since the ego CANNOT obliterate the impulse to communicate because it is also the impulse to CREATE, the ego can only teach you that the BODY can both communicate AND create, and therefore DOES NOT NEED THE MIND. The ego thus tries to teach you that the body can ACT like the mind, and IS therefore self-sufficient. Yet we have learned that behavior is NOT the level for either teaching OR learning. This MUST be so, since you CAN act in accordance with what you do NOT believe. To do this, however, will weaken you as teachers AND learners because, as has been repeatedly emphasized, you teach what you DO believe. An inconsistent lesson WILL be poorly taught AND POORLY LEARNED. If you teach both sickness AND healing you ARE both a poor teacher and a poor learner.

Healing is the one ability which everyone CAN develop and MUST develop, if one is to BE healed. Healing IS the Holy Spirit’s form of communication, and THE ONLY ONE ONE KNOWS. One recognizes no other because One does NOT accept the ego’s confusion of mind and body. Minds CAN communicate, but they CANNOT hurt. The body in the service of the ego can hurt other BODIES, but this CANNOT occur UNLESS the body has ALREADY been confused WITH the mind. This fact, too, can be used either for healing or for magic, but you must remember that magic is ALWAYS the belief that healing is HARMFUL. This is its totally insane premise, and so it proceeds accordingly.

Healing ONLY STRENGTHENS. Magic always tries to weaken. Healing perceives NOTHING in the healer that everyone else does not share WITH one. Magic ALWAYS sees something “special” in the healer, which one believes one can offer as a gift to someone who does NOT have it. One may believe that the gift comes from God TO One, but it is quite evident that one does NOT understand God if one thinks ONE has something that others LACK. You might well ask, then, why SOME healing CAN result from this kind of thinking, and there is a reason for this.

However misguided the “magical healer” may be, ONE IS ALSO TRYING TO HELP. One IS conflicted and unstable, but AT TIMES one is offering SOMETHING to the Christhood, and the ONLY thing the Christhood can ACCEPT IS healing. When the so-called “healing” works, then, the impulse to help and to BE helped have coincided. This is coincidental, because the healer may NOT be experiencing oneself as truly helpful at the time, but the belief that one IS, in the mind of ANOTHER, HELPS ONE.

The Holy Spirit does NOT work by chance, and healing that is of ONE ALWAYS works. Unless the healer ALWAYS heals BY One, the results WILL vary. Yet healing itself IS consistence, since ONLY consistence is conflict-free, and only the conflict-free ARE whole. By accepting exceptions and acknowledging that one can SOMETIMES heal and SOMETIMES not, the healer is OBVIOUSLY accepting INconsistency. One is therefore IN conflict and TEACHING conflict.

Can ANYTHING of God NOT be for all and for always? Love is incapable of ANY exceptions. Only if there is fear does the whole IDEA of exceptions of any kind seem to be meaningful. Exceptions ARE fearful because they were made BY fear. The “fearful healer” is a contradiction in terms, and is therefore a concept which ONLY a conflicted mind could POSSIBLY perceive as meaningful. Fear does NOT gladden. Healing DOES. Fear ALWAYS makes exceptions. Healing NEVER does. Fear produces dissociation because it induces SEPARATION. Healing ALWAYS induces harmony because it proceeds from harmony.

Healing is predictable BECAUSE it can be counted on. EVERYTHING that is of God can be counted on, because everything of God is WHOLLY REAL. HEALING can be counted on BECAUSE it is inspired by One’s Voice, and is in accord with One’s laws. Yet if healing IS consistence, it CANNOT be inconsistently understood. Understanding MEANS consistence because GOD means consistence. Since that IS One’s MEANING, it is also YOURS. YOUR meaning CANNOT be out of accord with One’s because your whole meaning, and your ONLY meaning, comes FROM One’s and is LIKE One’s. God CANNOT be out of accord with ONESELF, and YOU cannot be out of accord with One. You cannot separate your SELF from YOUR Creator, Who created YOU by sharing ONE’S Being WITH you.

The unhealed healer wants gratitude FROM one’s siblings, but one is NOT grateful TO them. This is because one thinks one is GIVING something TO them and is NOT receiving something equally desirable in return. One’s TEACHING is limited because one is LEARNING so little. One’s HEALING lesson is limited by one’s own ingratitude, which is a lesson in sickness. Learning is constant, and so vital in its power for change that a Child of God can recognize one’s power in one instant, and change the world in the next. That is because, by changing ONE’S mind, one has changed the most powerful device that was ever created FOR change.

This in no way contradicts the changelessness of mind as GOD created it, but YOU think that you HAVE changed it as long as you learn through the ego. This DOES place you in a position of needing to learn a lesson which SEEMS contradictory: you must learn to change your mind ABOUT your mind. Only by this can you learn that it IS changeless.

When you heal, that is exactly what you ARE learning. You are recognizing the changeless mind in your sibling by recognizing that one COULD not have changed one’s mind. That is how you perceive the Holy Spirit in one. It is ONLY the Holy Spirit in one that never changes One’s mind. One must think one CAN, or one would not perceive oneself as sick. One therefore does not know what one’s self IS. If YOU see only the changeless in one, you have not really changed one at all. By changing YOUR mind about ONE’S FOR one, you help one UNDO the change one’s ego thinks it has made in one. As you can hear two voices, so you can see in two ways. One way shows you an image, or better, an idol, which you may worship out of fear, but which you will never love. The other shows you only truth, which you will love because you will UNDERSTAND it. Understanding is APPRECIATION, because what you understand you can IDENTIFY with, and by making it part of YOU, you have accepted it with love. That is how God Oneself created YOU: in understanding, in appreciation, and in love.

The ego is totally unable to understand this because it does NOT understand what it makes; it does NOT appreciate it; it does NOT love it. It incorporates to TAKE AWAY. It literally believes that every time it deprives someone of something, IT has increased. We have spoken often of the INCREASE of the Realm by YOUR creations, which can only BE created as YOU were.

The whole glory and perfect joy that IS the Realm lies in you to give. Do you not WANT to give it? You CANNOT forget the Creator because I am with you, and I CANNOT forget One. To forget ME is to forget yourself and One who created you. Our siblings ARE forgetful. That is why they need your remembrance of me, and One who created me. Through this remembrance you can change THEIR minds about themselves, as I can change YOURS. Your minds are so powerful a light that you can look into theirs and enlighten them, as I can enlighten yours.

I do not want to share my BODY in communion because that is to share nothing. Would I try to share an illusion with the most holy children of a most holy Creator? Yet I do want to share my MIND with you because we ARE of one Mind, and that Mind IS ours. See ONLY this MIND everywhere, because only this IS everywhere and in everything. It IS everything because it encompasses all things within ITSELF. Blessed are you who perceive only this, because you perceive only what is true. Come therefore unto me, and learn of the truth in YOU.

The Mind WE share IS shared by all our siblings, and as we see them truly, they WILL be healed. Let YOUR mind shine with mine upon their minds, and by our gratitude to them, make THEM aware of the light in THEM. This light will shine back upon YOU and on the whole Christhood because this IS your proper gift to God. One will accept it and give it to the Christhood because it is acceptable to One, and therefore to One’s Children. This is the true communion of the Spirit Who sees the altar of God in everyone, and by bringing it to YOUR appreciation, calls upon you to love God and One’s Creation.

Text Chapter 7 - The Consistency Of The Realm

7.6 - From Vigilance To Peace

You can think of the Christhood ONLY as one. This is part of the law of creation, and therefore governs ALL thought. Although you can LOVE the Christhood only as one, you can PERCEIVE it as fragmented. It is IMPOSSIBLE, however, for you to see something in part of it that you will not attribute to ALL of it. That is why attack is NEVER discrete, and why attack MUST be relinquished entirely. If it is NOT relinquished entirely, it is not relinquished at all. Fear and love are equally reciprocal. They make or create depending on whether the ego or the Holy Spirit begets or inspires them, but they WILL return to the mind of the thinker, and they WILL affect one’s total perception. That includes one’s perception of God, of One’s Creations, and of one’s own. One will not appreciate ANY of them if one regards them fearfully. One will appreciate ALL of them if one regards them with love.

The mind that accepts attack CANNOT love. That is because it believes that it can DESTROY love, and therefore does not understand what love IS. If it does not understand what love IS, it CANNOT perceive itself as loving. This loses the awareness of being; induces feelings of unreality; and results in utter confusion. Your own thinking has done this because of its power. But your own thinking can also save you FROM this because its power is not of your making. Your ability to DIRECT your thinking as you will IS part of its power. If you do not believe you can do this, you have DENIED the power of your thought, and thus rendered it powerLESS in your belief.

The ingeniousness of the ego to preserve itself is enormous, but it stems from the power of the mind WHICH THE EGO DENIES. This means that the ego attacks WHAT IS PRESERVING IT, and this MUST be a source of extreme anxiety. That is why the ego NEVER knows what it is doing. It is perfectly logical, but clearly insane. The ego draws upon the one source which is totally inimical to its existence FOR its existence. Fearful of perceiving the POWER of this source, it is forced to DEPRECIATE it. This threatens its OWN existence, a state which it finds intolerable.

Remaining logical but still insane, the ego resolves this completely insane dilemma in a completely insane way. It does not perceive ITS existence as threatened by projecting the threat onto YOU, and perceiving your BEING as NONexistent. This ensures ITS continuance, if you side WITH it, by guaranteeing that you will NOT know your OWN safety. The ego CANNOT AFFORD TO KNOW ANYTHING. Knowledge is total, and the ego DOES NOT BELIEVE IN TOTALITY. This unbelief is its origin, and while the ego does not love YOU, it IS faithful to its own antecedents, begetting as it was begotten.

Mind ALWAYS REproduces as it was produced. Produced by fear, the ego REproduces fear. This IS its allegiance, and this allegiance makes it treacherous to love BECAUSE you are love. Love IS your power, which the ego MUST deny. It must also deny everything which this power gives TO you BECAUSE it gives you everything. No one who has everything WANTS the ego. Its own maker, then, DOES NOT WANT IT. Rejection is therefore the only decision which the ego could POSSIBLY encounter, if the mind which made it knew ITSELF. And if it recognized ANY part of the Christhood it WOULD know itself.

The ego therefore opposes ALL appreciation, ALL recognition, ALL sane perception and ALL knowledge. It perceives their threat as total because it senses the fact that ALL commitments the mind makes ARE total. Forced, therefore, to detach itself from you who ARE mind, it is willing to attach itself to anything ELSE. But there IS nothing else. It does NOT follow that the mind cannot make illusions, but it DOES follow that, if it makes illusions, it will BELIEVE in them, because THAT IS HOW IT MADE THEM.

The Holy Spirit undoes illusions without attacking them merely because One cannot perceive them at all. They therefore do not exist for One. One resolves the APPARENT conflict which they engender by perceiving CONFLICT as meaningless. We said before that the Holy Spirit perceives the conflict EXACTLY AS IT IS, and it IS meaningless. The Holy Spirit does not want you to UNDERSTAND conflict. One wants you to realize that BECAUSE conflict is meaningLESS, it cannot BE understood. We have already said that understanding brings appreciation, and appreciation brings love. Nothing else CAN be understood because nothing else is REAL, and therefore nothing else HAS meaning.

If you will keep in mind what the Holy Spirit offers you, you cannot be vigilant for anything BUT God and One’s Realm. The ONLY reason you find this difficult is because you think there IS something else. Belief does not require vigilance UNLESS it is conflicted. If it IS, there ARE conflicting components within it which have engendered a state of war, and vigilance has therefore BECOME essential. Vigilance has no place at all in peace. It is necessary ONLY AGAINST beliefs which are NOT true, and would never have been called upon by the Holy Spirit if you had not believed the untrue.

You CANNOT deny that when you BELIEVE something, you have MADE it true FOR YOU. When YOU believe what God DOES NOT KNOW, your thought seems to CONTRADICT One’s, and this makes it appear AS IF YOU ARE ATTACKING ONE. We have repeatedly emphasized that the ego DOES believe it can attack God, and tries to persuade you that YOU have done this. If the mind CANNOT attack, the ego proceeds perfectly logically to the position that YOU cannot be mind. By not seeing you as YOU are, it can see ITSELF as it WANTS to be. Aware of its weakness the ego wants your allegiance, but NOT as you really are. The ego therefore wants to engage your mind in its OWN delusional system because otherwise the light of YOUR understanding WOULD dispel it.

The ego wants no part of truth because the truth is that the EGO is not true. IF truth is total the UNtrue CANNOT exist. Commitment to either MUST be TOTAL, since they cannot co-exist in your minds WITHOUT splitting them. If they cannot co-exist in peace, and if you WANT peace, you MUST give up the IDEA of conflict ENTIRELY and for ALL TIME. This requires vigilance ONLY as long as YOU DO NOT RECOGNIZE WHAT IS TRUE. While you believe that two totally contradictory thought systems SHARE truth, your need for vigilance is apparent. Your minds ARE dividing their allegiance between two realms, and YOU are totally committed to neither.

Your identification with the Realm is totally beyond question except by you, WHEN YOU ARE THINKING INSANELY. What you are is NOT established by your perception, and is NOT influenced BY it at all. ALL perceived problems in identification at ANY level ARE NOT PROBLEMS OF FACT. They are problems of UNDERSTANDING, since they MEAN that you perceive WHAT you can understand as UP TO YOU TO DECIDE. The ego believes THIS totally, being fully committed TO it. It is NOT TRUE. The ego therefore is totally committed to UNtruth, perceiving in total contradiction to the Holy Spirit and to the knowledge of God.

You can be perceived with meaning ONLY by the Holy Spirit because your being IS the knowledge of God. ANY belief that you accept which is APART from this WILL obscure God’s Voice in you, and will therefore obscure God TO you. Unless you perceive One’s creation truly you CANNOT know the Creator, since God and One’s Creation ARE NOT SEPARATE. The Oneness of the Creator and the Creation is your wholeness, your sanity, and your limitless power. This limitless power is God’s gift to you because it is WHAT YOU ARE. If you dissociate your mind FROM it, you are perceiving the most powerful force in the universe of thought AS IF it were weak because you do NOT believe YOU are part of it.

Perceived WITHOUT your part in it, God’s creation IS perceived as weak, and those who SEE themselves as weakened DO attack. The attack MUST be blind, however, because there is nothing TO attack. Therefore, they make up images, perceive them as unworthy, and attack them for their unworthiness. That is all the world of the ego is. NOTHING. It has no meaning. It does not exist. Do not TRY to understand it because, if you do, you are believing that it CAN BE understood, and is therefore capable of being appreciated and loved. That WOULD justify it, and it CANNOT BE justified. YOU cannot make the meaningLESS meaningFUL. This can ONLY be an insane attempt.

Allowing insanity to enter your minds means that you have not judged sanity AS WHOLLY DESIRABLE. If you WANT something else you WILL MAKE something else. But because it IS something else it WILL attack your thought system and divide your allegiance. You CANNOT create in this divided state, and you MUST be vigilant AGAINST this divided state because ONLY peace CAN BE extended. Your divided minds ARE blocking the extension of the Realm, and its extension IS your joy. If you do not extend the Realm, you are NOT thinking with your Creator and creating as One created.

In this depressing state the Holy Spirit reminds you gently that you are sad because you are not fulfilling your function as co-creators WITH God, and are therefore depriving YOURSELVES of joy. This is not God’s Will, but YOURS. If your will is out of accord with God’s, YOU ARE WILLING WITHOUT MEANING. Yet because ONLY God’s Will is unchangeable, no REAL conflict of will is possible. This is the Holy Spirit’s perfectly consistent teaching. Creation, NOT separation, IS your will BECAUSE it is God’s, and nothing that opposes this means anything at all. Being a perfect Accomplishment, the Christhood can only accomplish perfectly, EXTENDING the joy in which it was created, and identifying itself with both its Creator and its creations, KNOWING they are One.

Text Chapter 7 - The Consistency Of The Realm

7.7 - The Total Commitment

Whenever you deny a blessing to a sibling YOU will feel deprived. This is because denial is as total as love. It is as impossible to deny part of the Christhood as it is to love it in part. Nor is it possible to love it totally AT TIMES. You cannot be TOTALLY committed SOMETIMES. Remember a very early lesson:

“Never underestimate the power of denial.”

It has no power in ITSELF, but YOU can give it the power of YOUR mind, whose power is without limit of ANY kind. If you use it to deny reality, reality is gone FOR YOU. REALITY CANNOT BE PARTLY APPRECIATED. That is why denying any part of it means you have lost awareness of ALL of it.

That is the negative side of the law, as it operates in this world. Yet denial is a defense, and so it is as capable of being used positively as it is of being used destructively. Used negatively it WILL be destructive because it will be used for attack, but in the service of the Holy Spirit, the law becomes as beneficient as all the laws of God since it requires you to recognize only PART of reality to appreciate ALL of it. Mind is too powerful to be subject to exclusion. You will NEVER be able to exclude yourself from what you project.

When a sibling acts insanely, one is offering you an opportunity to bless one. One’s need is YOURS. YOU need the blessing you can offer one. There is no way for you to have it EXCEPT by giving it. This IS the law of God, and it HAS NO EXCEPTIONS. What you deny, you LACK, not because it IS lacking, but because you have denied it in another, and are therefore not aware of it in YOU. Every response you make is determined by what you think you ARE, and what you WANT to be determines what you think you are. Therefore, what you WANT to be determines every response you make.

You do NOT need God’s blessing, since that you have forever, but you DO need YOURS. The picture you see of yourselves is deprived, unloving and very vulnerable. You CANNOT love this. Yet you can very easily escape FROM it, or better, leave it behind. You are NOT there, and that is not YOU. Do not see this picture in anyone, or you HAVE accepted it AS you. ALL illusions about the Christhood are DISPELLED together, as they were MADE together. Teach no one that ONE is what YOU would NOT want to be. Your sibling is the mirror in which you will see the image of yourself, as long as perception lasts. And perception WILL last until the Christhood knows itself as whole.

You MADE perception, and it MUST last as long as you WANT it. Illusions are investments. They will last as long as you value them. Values are relative, but they are powerful because they are MENTAL JUDGEMENTS. The only way to dispel illusions is to withdraw ALL investment from them, and they will HAVE no life for you because you have put them OUT OF YOUR MIND. While you include them IN it, you are GIVING life to them. Except there is nothing there to receive your gift.

The gift of life IS yours to give, because it was given YOU. You are unaware of YOUR gift BECAUSE you do not give it. You CANNOT make nothing live, since it cannot BE enlivened. Therefore, you are NOT extending the gift you both have and are, and so you do NOT know your being. ALL confusion comes from not extending life, since that is NOT the Will of your Creator. You CAN do nothing apart from One, and you DO do nothing apart from One. Keep One’s Way to remember yourselves, and teach One’s Way, lest you forget yourselves. Give only honor to the Children of the Living God, and count yourselves among them gladly.

ONLY honor is a fitting gift for those whom God Oneself created worthy of honor, and whom One honors. Give them the appreciation which God accords them always, because they are One’s beloved Children in whom One is well pleased. You CANNOT BE apart from them because you are not apart from One. Rest in One’s Love, and protect your rest by loving. But love EVERYTHING One created, of which YOU are a part, or you cannot learn of One’s peace, and accept One’s gift FOR yourself and AS yourself. You CANNOT know your own perfection until you have honored all those who were created LIKE you.

One Child of God is the only teacher sufficiently worthy to teach another. One Teacher is in all your minds, and One teaches the same lesson to all. One always teaches you the inestimable worth of EVERY Child of God, teaching it with infinite patience born of the INFINITE Love of One for whom One speaks. Every attack is a call for One’s patience since ONLY One’s patience can translate attack into blessing. Those who attack DO NOT KNOW THEY ARE BLESSED. They attack BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE THEY ARE DEPRIVED. Give, therefore, of YOUR abundance, and teach your siblings THEIRS. Do not share their delusions of scarcity, or you will perceive YOURSELF as lacking.

Attack could never PROMOTE attack unless you perceived it as a means of depriving you of SOMETHING YOU WANT. Yet you cannot lose ANYTHING unless YOU do not value it, and therefore DO NOT WANT IT. This makes you feel DEPRIVED of it, and by projecting YOUR own rejection, you believe that others are TAKING IT FROM YOU. One MUST be fearful, if one believes that one’s sibling is attacking one to tear the Realm of Heaven from one.

This is the ultimate basis for ALL of the ego’s projection. Being the part of your mind which does NOT believe it is responsible for ITSELF, and being without allegiance to God, the ego is incapable of trust. Projecting its insane belief that YOU have been treacherous to YOUR Creator, it believes that your siblings, who are as incapable of this as YOU are, are out to TAKE GOD FROM YOU. Whenever a sibling attacks another, THIS IS WHAT ONE BELIEVES. Projection ALWAYS sees YOUR will in others. If you will to separate YOURSELF from God, that IS what you will think others are doing TO you.

You ARE the Will of God. Do not accept anything else AS YOUR will, or you ARE denying what you are. Deny THIS and you WILL attack, believing you have BEEN attacked. But see the Love of God in you, and you will see It everywhere because it IS everywhere. See One’s abundance in everyone, and you will know that you are in One WITH them. They are part of you, as you are part of God. YOU are as lonely without understanding this as God Oneself is lonely when One’s Children do not know One. The peace of God IS understanding this.

There is only one way OUT of the world’s thinking, just as there was only one way INTO it:

Understand totally by understanding TOTALITY.

Perceive ANY part of the ego’s thought system as wholly insane, wholly delusional and wholly undesirable, and you have CORRECTLY EVALUATED ALL OF IT. This correction enables you to perceive ANY part of creation as wholly real, wholly perfect, and WHOLLY DESIRABLE. Wanting this ONLY, you will HAVE this only, and giving this only, you will BE only this. The gifts you offer to the ego are ALWAYS experienced as sacrifices, but the gifts you offer to the Realm are gifts to YOU. They will always be treasured by God because they belong to One’s beloved Children, who belong to One. All power and glory are yours because the Realm is One’s.

Text Chapter 7 - The Consistency of the Realm

7.8 The Defense Of Conflict

We once said that without projection there can be no anger, but it is also true that without projection there can be no love. Projection is a fundamental law of the mind, and therefore one which ALWAYS operates. It is the law by which you create and were created. It is the law which unifies the Realm, and keeps it in the Mind of God. To the ego, the law is perceived as a way of getting RID of something it does NOT want. To the Holy Spirit, it is the fundamental law of sharing by which you GIVE what you value in order to keep it in your OWN mind.

Projection, to the Holy Spirit, is the law of extension. To the ego, it is the law of deprivation. It therefore produces abundance or scarcity, depending on how you choose to apply it. This choice IS up to you, but it is NOT up to you to decide whether or not you will UTILIZE projection. Every mind MUST project because that is how it lives, and every mind IS life. The ego’s use of projection must be fully understood before its INEVITABLE association between projection and anger can be finally undone.

The ego ALWAYS tries to preserve conflict. It is very ingenious in devising ways which SEEM to diminish conflict because it does NOT want you to find conflict so intolerable that you will INSIST on giving it up. Therefore, the ego tries to persuade you that IT can free you OF conflict, lest you give the EGO up and free YOURSELF.

The ego, using its own warped version of the laws of God, utilizes the power of the mind ONLY to defeat the mind’s real purpose. It projects conflict FROM your mind to OTHER minds, in an attempt to persuade you that you have gotten RID of it. This has several fallacies which may not be so apparent.

Strictly speaking, conflict cannot BE projected precisely BECAUSE it cannot be fully shared. Any attempt to keep PART of it and get rid of ANOTHER part does not really mean ANYTHING. Remember that a conflicted teacher is a poor teacher AND A POOR LEARNER. One’s lessons are confused, and their transfer value is severely limited BY one’s confusion. A second fallacy is the idea that you can GET RID of something you do not want by giving it away. GIVING it is how you KEEP it. The belief that by giving it OUT you have excluded it from WITHIN is a complete distortion of the power of EXTENSION.

That is why those who project from the ego are vigilant for their OWN safety. THEY ARE AFRAID THAT THEIR PROJECTIONS WILL RETURN AND HURT THEM. They DO believe they have blotted their projections from their OWN minds, but they also believe their projections are trying to creep back INTO them. That is because the projections have NOT left their minds, and this, in turn, forces them to engage in compulsive activity in order NOT to recognize this. You CANNOT perpetuate an illusion about another WITHOUT perpetuating it about yourself. There is no way out of this because it is IMPOSSIBLE to fragment the mind.

To fragment is to break into pieces, and mind CANNOT attack or BE attacked. The belief that it CAN, a fallacy which the ego ALWAYS makes, underlies its whole use of projection. It does not understand what mind IS, and therefore does not understand what YOU are. Yet ITS existence is dependent on YOUR mind because the ego IS your BELIEF. The ego IS therefore a confusion in identification which never had a consistent model, and never developed consistently. It is the distorted product of the misapplication of the laws of God, by distorted minds which are misusing their own power.

DO NOT BE AFRAID OF THE EGO. It DOES depend on your mind, and as you made it by believing in it, so you can dispel it by withdrawing belief FROM it. Do NOT project the responsibility for your belief in it onto ANYONE else, or you will PRESERVE the belief. When you are willing to accept sole responsibility for the ego’s existence YOURSELF you will have laid aside all anger and all attack, because they COME from the attempt to PROJECT RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN ERRORS. But having ACCEPTED the errors as yours, DO NOT KEEP THEM. Give them over quickly to the Holy Spirit to be undone completely, so that ALL their effects will vanish from your minds, and from the Christhood AS A WHOLE. The Holy Spirit will teach you to perceive BEYOND belief because truth is beyond belief, and One’s perception IS true.

The ego can be completely forgotten at ANY time because it was always a belief that is totally incredible. No one can KEEP a belief one has judged to be unbelievable. The more you learn ABOUT the ego, the more you realize that it cannot BE believed. The incredible cannot BE understood because it IS unbelievable. The utter meaninglessness of ALL perception that comes from the unbelievable MUST be apparent, but it is not RECOGNIZED as beyond belief because it was made BY belief.

The whole purpose of this course is to teach you that the ego is unbelievable and will forever BE unbelievable. You who made the ego by BELIEVING the unbelievable CANNOT make this judgement alone. By accepting the Atonement for YOURSELF, you are deciding AGAINST the belief that you can BE alone, thus dispelling the idea of separation, and affirming your true identification with the whole Realm as literally PART OF YOU. This identification is as beyond doubt as it is beyond belief. Your wholeness HAS no limits because being is in infinity.

Text Chapter 7 - The Consistency Of The Realm

7.9 - The Extension Of The Realm

Only YOU can limit your creative power, but God wills to release it. One no more wills you to deprive yourself of YOUR creations than One wills to deprive Oneself of One’s.

Do not withhold your gifts to the Christhood, or you withhold yourself from God. Selfishness is of the ego, but self-fullness is of the Spirit because that is how God created it. The Holy Spirit is the part of the mind that lies between the ego and the Spirit, mediating between them ALWAYS IN FAVOR OF THE SPIRIT. To the ego this is partiality, and it therefore responds as if it were the part that is being sided AGAINST. To the Spirit this is truth, because it knows its fullness, and cannot conceive of any part from which it is excluded. The Spirit KNOWS that the consciousness of all its siblings is included in its own, as IT is included in God. The power of the whole Christhood AND OF ITS CREATOR is therefore the Spirit’s OWN fullness, rendering its creations equally whole and equal in perfection.

The ego cannot prevail against a totality which includes God, and any totality MUST include God. Everything One created is given ALL One’s power because it is part of One and shares One’s Being WITH One. Creating is the OPPOSITE of loss, as blessing is the opposite of sacrifice. Being MUST be extended. That is how it retains the knowledge of ITSELF. The Spirit yearns to share ITS being as ITS Creator did. Created BY sharing, its will is to create. It does NOT wish to CONTAIN God but to EXTEND ONE’S BEING.

The extension of God’s Being is the Spirit’s ONLY function. ITS fullness cannot be contained, any more than can the fullness of its Creator. Fullness IS extension. The ego’s whole thought system BLOCKS extension, and thus blocks YOUR ONLY FUNCTION. It therefore blocks your joy, and THAT is why you perceive yourselves as unfulfilled. Unless you create you ARE unfulfilled, but God does NOT know of unfulfillment, and therefore you MUST create. YOU may not know your own creations, but this can no more interfere with their reality than your unawareness of your Spirit can interfere with its being.

The Realm is forever extending because it is in the Mind of God. YOU do not KNOW your joy because you do not know your own self-fullness. Exclude ANY part of the Realm FROM yourself, and you are NOT whole. A split mind CANNOT perceive its fullness, and needs the miracle OF its wholeness to dawn upon it and heal it. This reawakens the wholeness IN it, and restores it to the Realm because of its ACCEPTANCE of wholeness. The full appreciation of its self-fullness makes selfishness impossible and extension inevitable. That is why there is perfect peace in the Realm. Every Spirit IS fulfilling its function, and ONLY complete fulfilment IS peace.

Insanity APPEARS to add to reality, but no one would claim that what it adds is true. Insanity is therefore the NON-extension of truth, which blocks joy because it blocks creation, and thus blocks self-FULFILMENT. The unfulfilled MUST be depressed because their self-fullness is UNKNOWN to them. Your creations are protected FOR you because the Holy Spirit, Who is in your mind, knows of them and can bring them INTO your awareness whenever you will let One. They ARE there as part of your own being because YOUR fulfilment INCLUDES them. The creations of every Child of God are yours since every creation belongs to everyone, being created for the Christhood as a whole.

You have NOT failed to add to the inheritance of the Children of God, and thus have not failed to secure it for yourselves. If it was the Will of God to give it to you, One gave it forever. If it was One’s Will that you have it forever, One gave you the means for keeping it, AND YOU HAVE DONE SO. Disobeying God’s Will is meaningful only to the insane. In truth it is impossible.

Your self-fullness is as boundless as God’s. Like One’s, it extends forever and in perfect peace. Its radiance is so intense that it creates in perfect joy, and only the whole can be born of its wholeness. Be confident that you have never lost your identity and the extension which maintains it in wholeness and peace. Miracles are AN EXPRESSION OF THIS CONFIDENCE. They are reflections both of your own proper identification WITH your siblings, and of your own awareness that YOUR identification IS maintained by extension. The miracle is a LESSON IN TOTAL PERCEPTION. By including ANY part of totality in the lesson, you HAVE included the whole.

You have said that, when you write of the Realm and your creations which belong to it, you are describing WHAT YOU DO NOT KNOW. That is true in a sense, but no more true than your failure to acknowledge the whole result of the ego’s premises. The Realm is the result of premises, just as this world is. You HAVE carried the ego’s reasoning to its logical conclusion, which is TOTAL CONFUSION ABOUT EVERYTHING. Yet you do not really BELIEVE this, or you could not possibly maintain it. If you REALLY saw this result, you COULD not want it. The ONLY reason why you could possibly want ANY part of it is because YOU DO NOT SEE THE WHOLE OF IT.

You ARE willing to look at the ego’s premises, but NOT at their logical outcome. Is it not possible that you have done the same thing with the premises of God? Your creations ARE the logical outcome of One’s premises. ONE’S thinking has established them FOR you. They are therefore THERE, EXACTLY where they belong. They belong to your mind as part of your identification with ONE’S, but your state of mind and your recognition of WHAT IS IN YOUR MIND depends, at any given moment, on what you believe ABOUT your mind. Whatever these beliefs may be, they are the premises which will determine WHAT YOU ACCEPT INTO YOUR MIND.

It is surely clear that you can both accept into your mind what is NOT really there, and DENY WHAT IS. Neither of these possibilities requires further elaboration here, but both are clearly indefensible, even if YOU elect to defend them. Yet the function which God Oneself GAVE your minds through One’s you may DENY, but you CANNOT prevent. It is the logical outcome of what you ARE. The ability to SEE a logical outcome depends on the WILLINGNESS TO SEE IT, but its TRUTH has nothing to do with your willingness at all. Truth is GOD’S will. SHARE One’s Will, and you share what One KNOWS. Deny One’s Will AS YOURS, and you are denying One’s Realm AND yours.

The Holy Spirit will direct you ONLY so as to avoid all pain. The UNDOING of pain must OBVIOUSLY avoid pain. Surely no one would OBJECT to this goal IF ONE RECOGNIZED IT. The problem is NOT whether what the Holy Spirit says is true, but whether you want to LISTEN to what One says.

Text Chapter 7 - The Consistency Of The Realm

7.10 - The Confusion Of Strength And Weakness

You no more recognize what is painful than you know what is joyful, and are, in fact, very apt to confuse the two. The Holy Spirit’s main function is to teach you TO TELL THEM APART.

However strange it may seem that this is necessary, it obviously IS. The reason is equally obvious. What is joyful to you IS painful to the ego, and as long as you are in doubt about what YOU are, you WILL be confused about joy and pain. This confusion is the cause of the whole idea of sacrifice. Obey the Holy Spirit and you WILL be giving up the ego. But you will be SACRIFICING nothing. On the contrary, you will be gaining EVERYTHING. If you BELIEVED this, there would BE no conflict. That is why you need to DEMONSTRATE THE OBVIOUS TO YOURSELVES. It is NOT obvious to you.

You REALLY believe that doing the OPPOSITE of God’s Will CAN be better for you. You also believe that it is POSSIBLE to do the opposite of God’s WILL. Therefore, you believe that an impossible choice IS open to you, and one which is both very fearful and very desirable. Yet God WILLS. One does NOT wish. YOUR will is as powerful as One’s because it IS One’s. The ego’s wishes do not mean anything, because the ego wishes for the impossible. You CAN wish for the impossible, but you can WILL only with God. This is the ego’s weakness, and YOUR strength.

The Holy Spirit ALWAYS sides with YOU and with your STRENGTH. As long as you avoid One’s guidance in any way, you WANT TO BE WEAK. Yet weakness IS frightening. What else, then, can this decision mean except that you WANT to be fearful? The Holy Spirit NEVER asks for sacrifice, but the ego ALWAYS does. When you are confused about this VERY clear distinction in motivation, it CAN ONLY be due to projection. Projection of this kind IS a confusion in motivation, and given THIS confusion, TRUST becomes impossible.

No one obeys gladly a guide one does not trust, but this does not mean that the GUIDE is untrustworthy. In this case, it ALWAYS means that the FOLLOWER IS. However, this, too, is merely a matter of one’s own belief. Believing that ONE can betray, one believes that everything can betray ONE. Yet this is ONLY because one has ELECTED TO FOLLOW FALSE GUIDANCE. Unable to follow THIS guidance WITHOUT fear, one associates fear WITH guidance, and refuses to follow ANY guidance at all.

The Holy Spirit is perfectly trustworthy, as YOU are. God Oneself trusts you, and therefore your trustworthiness IS beyond question. It will always remain beyond question, however much YOU may question it. I trust MY choices ONLY because they ARE God’s Will. We said before that YOU are the Will of God. One’s Will is not an idle wish, and your identification WITH One’s Will is not optional since it IS what you are. Sharing One’s Will WITH me is not really open to choice, though it may SEEM to be. The whole separation lies in this fallacy. The ONLY way out of the fallacy is to decide that YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DECIDE ANYTHING.

Everything has been given you by GOD’S decision. That IS One’s Will, and you can NOT undo it. Even the relinquishment of your false decision-making prerogative, which the ego guards so jealously, is not accomplished by your wish. It was accomplished FOR you by the Will of God, Who has not left you comfortless. One’s Voice WILL teach you how to distinguish between pain and joy, and WILL lead you out of the confusion which YOU have made. There IS no confusion in the mind of a Child of God, whose will MUST be the Will of the Creator because the Creator’s Will IS One’s Child.

Miracles are IN ACCORD with the Will of God, Whose Will you do NOT know, because you are confused about what YOU will. This MEANS that you are confused about what you are. If you ARE God’s Will and do NOT ACCEPT One’s will, you can ONLY be not accepting what you are. But if your joy IS what you are, you ARE denying joy. The miracle is therefore a lesson in WHAT JOY IS. Being a lesson in SHARING, it is a lesson in love, which IS joy. Every miracle is thus a lesson in truth, and by OFFERING truth YOU are learning the difference between pain and joy.

Text Chapter 7 - The Consistency Of The Realm

7.11 - The State Of Grace

The Holy Spirit will ALWAYS guide you truly, because YOUR joy IS One’s. This is One’s Will for everyone, because One speaks for the Realm of God, which IS joy. Following One is therefore the easiest thing in the world, and the only thing that IS easy, because it is NOT of the world, and is therefore NATURAL. The world goes AGAINST your nature, being out of accord with God’s laws. The world perceives orders of difficulty in EVERYTHING. This is because the ego perceives nothing as wholly desirable. By DEMONSTRATING to yourselves that THERE IS NO ORDER OF DIFFICULTY IN MIRACLES, you will convince yourselves that, in your NATURAL state, there IS no difficulty because it is a state of grace.

Grace is the NATURAL state of every Child of God. When one is NOT in a state of grace, one IS out of one’s natural environment and does NOT function well. Everything one does becomes a strain, because one was not created for the environment that one has made. One therefore CANNOT adapt to it, nor can one adapt IT to ONE. There is no point in trying. A Child of God is happy ONLY when one knows one is WITH God. That is the only environment in which one will not experience strain, because that is where one belongs. It is also the only environment that is worthy of one, because one’s own worth is beyond ANYTHING one can make.

Consider the realm YOU have made, and judge its worth fairly. Is it worthy to be a home for a Child of God? Does it protect one’s peace, and shine love upon one? Does it keep one’s heart untouched by fear, and allow one to give always, without any sense of loss? Does it teach one that this giving IS one’s joy, and that God Oneself thanks one for one’s giving?

That is the ONLY environment in which you can be happy. You cannot make it, any more than you can make yourselves. It has been created FOR you, as you were created for it. God watches over One’s Children and denies them nothing. Yet when they deny One they do NOT know this, because THEY deny themselves everything. You who could give the Love of God to everything you see and touch and remember are literally denying Heaven to yourselves. I call upon you again to remember that I have chosen you to teach the Realm TO the Realm. There are no exceptions to this lesson because the lack of exceptions IS the lesson.

Every Child who returns to the Realm with this lesson in one’s heart has healed the Christhood and given thanks to God. Everyone who learns this lesson has become the perfect teacher because one has learned it of the Holy Spirit, Who wants to teach one everything One knows. When a mind has only light, it KNOWS only light. Its own radiance shines all around it, and extends out into the darkness of other minds, transforming them into majesty. The Majesty of God is there, for YOU to recognize and appreciate and KNOW.

Perceiving the Majesty of God AS your sibling is to accept your OWN inheritance. God gives only equally. If you recognize One’s gift to anyone ELSE, you have acknowledged what One has given YOU. Nothing is so easy to perceive as truth. This is the perception which is immediate, clear and natural. You have trained yourselves NOT to see it, and this HAS been very difficult for you. OUT of your natural environment you may well ask, “What is truth?” since truth IS the environment by which and for which you were created. You do not know yourselves because you do not know YOUR Creator. You do not know YOUR creations because you do not know your siblings, who created them WITH you.

We said before that only the whole Christhood is a worthy co-creator with God because only the whole Christhood can create LIKE One. Whenever you heal a sibling by recognizing one’s worth, you are acknowledging ONE’S power to create and YOURS. ONE cannot have lost what YOU recognize, and you MUST have the glory you see in ONE. One is a co-­creator with God with YOU. Deny one’s creative power, and you are denying yours AND THAT OF GOD WHO CREATED YOU. You cannot deny part of truth. You do not know your creations because you do not know their creator. You do not know yourselves because you do not know YOURS.

Your creations cannot establish your reality, any more than YOU can establish God’s. But you can KNOW both. Being is known by sharing. BECAUSE God shared One’s Being with you, you can know One. But you must also know all One created, to know what THEY have shared. Without your Creator, you will not know your creatorship. The Realm of God includes all One’s Children and their children, who are like the Children as they are like the Creator. Know, then, the Children of God, and you will know ALL creation.

Text Chapter 8 - The Journey Back

8.0 - The Journey Back

You are hampered in your progress by your demands to know what you do not know. This is actually a way of holding on to deprivation. You cannot reasonably object to following instructions in a course FOR knowing on the grounds that you do not know. The need for the course is implicit in your objection. Knowledge is not the motivation for learning this course. PEACE is. As the PREREQUISITE for knowledge, peace MUST be learned. This is ONLY because those who are in conflict are not peaceful, and peace is the CONDITION of knowledge, because it is the condition of the Realm.

Knowledge will be restored when YOU meet its conditions. This is not a bargain made by God, Who makes no bargains. It is merely the result of your misuse of One’s laws on behalf of a will that is not One’s. Knowledge IS One’s Will. If you are OPPOSING One’s Will, how CAN you have knowledge? I have told you what knowledge OFFERS you, but it is clear that you do NOT regard this as wholly desirable. If you did, you would hardly be willing to throw it away so readily, when the ego asks for your allegiance.

The distraction of the ego SEEMS to interfere with your learning, but the ego HAS no power to distract you, unless you GIVE it the power. The ego’s voice is an hallucination. You cannot expect it to say, “I am not real.” Hallucinations ARE inaccurate perceptions of reality. Yet you are NOT asked to dispel them alone. You are merely asked to evaluate them in terms of their results TO YOU. If you DO NOT WANT THEM on the basis of LOSS OF PEACE, they will be removed from your mind FOR you. Every response to the ego is a call to war, and war DOES deprive you of peace.

Yet in this war THERE IS NO OPPONENT. THIS is the reinterpretation of reality which you must make to secure peace, and the ONLY one you need ever make.

Text Chapter 8 - The Journey Back

8.1 - The Direction Of The Curriculum

Those whom you PERCEIVE as opponents are PART of your peace, which YOU are giving up by attacking them. How can you have what YOU give up? You SHARE to have, but you do NOT give it up yourself. When you GIVE UP peace, you are EXCLUDING yourself FROM it. This is a condition which is so ALIEN to the Realm that you CANNOT understand the state which prevails WITHIN it.

Your past learning MUST have taught you the wrong things, simply because it has not made you happy. On this basis alone, its value should be questioned. If learning aims at CHANGE, and that is ALWAYS its purpose, are you satisfied with the changes YOUR learning has brought you? Dissatisfaction with learning outcomes MUST be a sign of learning failure, since it means that you did NOT get what you WANT.

The curriculum of the Atonement IS the opposite of the curriculum you have established for yourselves, BUT SO IS ITS OUTCOME. If the outcome of yours has made you unhappy, and if you WANT a different one, a change in the curriculum is obviously necessary.

The first change that MUST be introduced is a change in DIRECTION. A meaningful curriculum CANNOT be inconsistent. If it is planned by two teachers, each believing in diametrically opposed ideas, it CANNOT be integrated. If it is carried out by these two teachers simultaneously, EACH ONE MERELY INTERFERES WITH THE OTHER. This leads to fluctuation, but NOT to change. The volatile HAVE no direction. They cannot choose one, because they CANNOT relinquish the other EVEN IF THE OTHER DOES NOT EXIST. Their conflicted curriculum teaches them ALL directions exist, and gives them no RATIONALE for choice.

The total senselessness of such a curriculum must be fully recognized before a real change in direction becomes possible. You CANNOT learn simultaneously from two teachers who are in TOTAL DISAGREEMENT ABOUT EVERYTHING. Their joint curriculum presents an IMPOSSIBLE learning task. They are teaching you ENTIRELY different things in ENTIRELY different ways, which MIGHT be possible, except for the crucial fact that both are TEACHING YOU ABOUT YOURSELF. Your REALITY is unaffected by both, but if you LISTEN to both, your mind will be split about WHAT YOUR REALITY IS.

Text Chapter 8 - The Journey Back

8.2 The Rationale For Choice

There IS a rationale for choice. Only ONE Teacher KNOWS what your reality is. If learning that is the PURPOSE of the curriculum, you MUST learn it of One. The ego does NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS TRYING TO TEACH. It is trying to teach you what you are WITHOUT KNOWING IT. The ego is expert ONLY in confusion. It does not understand ANYTHING ELSE. As a teacher, then, it is totally confused and TOTALLY CONFUSING.

Even if you could disregard the Holy Spirit entirely, which is quite impossible, you could learn nothing from the ego because the ego KNOWS nothing. Is there ANY possible reason for choosing a teacher such as this? Does the TOTAL disregard of ANYTHING it teaches make anything BUT sense? Is THIS the teacher to whom a Child of God should turn to find ONESELF? The ego has never given you a sensible answer to ANYTHING. Simply on the grounds of your own experience with the ego’s teaching, should not this alone disqualify it as your future teacher?

Yet the ego has done more harm to your learning than this alone. Learning is joyful if it leads you along your natural path, and facilitates the development of WHAT YOU HAVE. When you are taught AGAINST your nature, however, you will LOSE by your learning because your learning will IMPRISON you. Your will is IN your nature, and therefore CANNOT GO AGAINST it. The ego cannot teach you anything as long as your will is free because you WILL NOT LISTEN TO IT. It is NOT your will to be imprisoned BECAUSE your will is free.

That is why the ego IS the denial of free will. It is NEVER God Who coerces you because One SHARES One’s Will WITH you. One’s Voice teaches ONLY One’s Will, but that is not the Holy Spirit’s lesson because that is what you ARE. The LESSON is that your will and God’s CANNOT be out of accord because they ARE one. This is the UNdoing of EVERYTHING the ego tries to teach. It is not, then, only the DIRECTION of the curriculum which must be unconflicted, but also the CONTENT.

The ego wants to teach you that you want to OPPOSE God’s Will. This UNNATURAL lesson CANNOT BE learned, but the ATTEMPT to learn it is a violation of your own freedom, and makes you AFRAID of your will BECAUSE it is free. The Holy Spirit opposes ANY imprisoning of the will of a Child of God, KNOWING that the will of the Child IS the Creator’s. The Holy Spirit leads you steadily along the path of freedom, teaching you how to disregard, or look beyond, EVERYTHING that would hold you back.

We said before that the Holy Spirit teaches you the difference between pain and joy. That is the same as saying that One teaches you the difference between imprisonment and freedom. YOU CANNOT MAKE THIS DISTINCTION WITHOUT ONE. That is because you have taught YOURSELF that imprisonment IS freedom. Believing them to be the same, how can you tell them apart? Can you ask the part of your mind that taught you to believe they ARE the same to teach you the DIFFERENCE between them?

The Holy Spirit’s teaching takes only ONE direction and has only ONE goal. One’s direction is freedom and One’s goal is God. Yet one cannot conceive of God without YOU because it is not God’s Will to BE without you. When you have learned that your will IS God’s, you could no more will to be without One than One could will to be without YOU. This IS freedom and this IS joy. Deny YOURSELF this and you ARE denying God One’s Realm because One created you FOR this.

When we said,

“All power and glory are yours because the Realm is One’s,”

this is what we meant: The Will of God is without limit, and all power and glory lie within it. It is boundless in strength and in love and in peace. It has no boundaries because Its extension is unlimited, and It encompasses all things because It CREATED all things. By CREATING all things It made them PART OF ITSELF. YOU are the Will of God because this is how you were created. Because your Creator creates only like Oneself, you ARE like One.

You are part of One Who IS all power and glory, and are therefore as unlimited as One is. To what else EXCEPT all power and glory can the Holy Spirit appeal to restore God’s Realm? One’s appeal, then, is merely to what the Realm IS, and for its own acknowledgment of what it is. When you acknowledge THIS, you bring the acknowledgment automatically to everyone because YOU HAVE ACKNOWLEDGED EVERYONE. By YOUR recognition you awaken THEIRS, and through theirs YOURS is extended. Awakening runs easily and gladly through the Realm, in answer to the Call of God. This is the natural response of every Child of God to the Voice of one’s Creator, because it is the Voice for ONE’S creations and for one’s own extension.

Text Chapter 8 - The Journey Back

8.3 - The Holy Encounter

Glory be to God in the highest, and to you because One has so willed it. Ask and it shall be given you because it has already been given. Ask for light and learn that you are light. If you WANT understanding and enlightenment you will learn it, because your will to learn it is your decision to listen to the Teacher Who knows of light, and can therefore TEACH IT TO YOU.

There is no limit on your learning because there is no limit on your MINDS. There is no limit on One’s will to teach because One was created by unlimited Will in ORDER to teach. KNOWING One’s function perfectly One wills to fulfill it perfectly, because that is One’s joy AND YOURS. To fulfill the Will of God perfectly is the only joy and peace that can be fully KNOWN because it is the only function that can be FULLY EXPERIENCED. When this is accomplished, then, there IS no other experience. But the WISH for other experience will block its accomplishment because God’s Will CANNOT be forced upon you, being an experience of total WILLINGNESS.

The Holy Spirit knows how to teach this, but YOU do not. That is why you need One and why God gave One TO you. Only ONE’S teaching will release your will to God’s, uniting it with One’s power and glory, and establishing them as YOURS. You share them as God shares them because this is the natural outcome of their being. The Will of the Creator and of the Child are One together BY THEIR EXTENSION. Their extension is the RESULT of their Oneness, holding THEIR unity by extending their JOINT will.

This is perfect creation by the perfectly created in union with the Perfect Creator. The Creator MUST give creatorship to One’s Children because One’s own Creatorship must be extended outward. You who belong in God have the holy function of extending One’s Creatorship by placing no limits upon It. Let the Holy Spirit teach you HOW to do this, for you will know what it MEANS of God Oneself.

When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see one you will see yourself. As you treat one you will treat yourself. As you think of one you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in one you will find yourself or lose sight of yourself. Whenever two Children of God meet, they are given another chance at salvation. Do not leave anyone without giving salvation TO one and receiving it yourself. For I am always there WITH you, in remembrance of YOU.

The goal of the curriculum, regardless of the teacher you choose, is KNOW THYSELF. There is nothing else to learn. Everyone is looking for oneself, and for the power and glory one thinks one has lost. Whenever you are with anyone ELSE, you have another opportunity to find them. Your power and glory are in ONE BECAUSE they are yours. The ego tries to find them in YOURSELF because it does not know where to look. The Holy Spirit teaches you that, if you look only at yourself, you CANNOT find yourself because that is NOT what you are.

Whenever you are with a sibling, you are learning what you are because you are TEACHING what you are. One will respond either with pain or with joy, depending on which teacher YOU are following. ONE will be imprisoned or released according to your decision, AND SO WILL YOU. Never forget your responsibility to one because it is your responsibility to YOURSELF. Give one ONE’S place in the Realm, and you will have YOURS. The Realm CANNOT be found alone, and you who ARE the Realm cannot find YOURSELVES alone.

To achieve the goal of the curriculum, then, you CANNOT listen to the ego. Its purpose is to DEFEAT ITS OWN GOAL. The ego does not know this because it does not know anything. But YOU can know this, and you WILL know it if you are willing to look at what the ego has made of YOU. This IS your responsibility because, once you have really done this, you WILL accept the Atonement for yourself. What other choice could you make?

Having made this choice, you will begin to learn and understand why you have believed that, when you met someone else, you had thought that one WAS someone else. And every holy encounter in which YOU enter fully will teach you THIS IS NOT SO. You can encounter ONLY part of yourself because you are part of God, WHO IS EVERYTHING. One’s power and glory are everywhere, and you CANNOT be excluded from them. The ego teaches that your strength is in you ALONE. The Holy Spirit teaches that ALL strength is in God and THEREFORE in you.

God wills NO ONE suffer. One does not will ANYONE to suffer for a wrong decision, including YOURSELF. That is why One has given you the means for UNDOING it. Through One’s power and glory all your wrong decisions are undone COMPLETELY releasing you AND your siblings from EVERY IMPRISONING THOUGHT ANY part of the Christhood has accepted. Wrong decisions HAVE no power BECAUSE they are not true. The imprisonment which they SEEM to produce is no more true than THEY are.

Power and glory belong to God alone. So do YOU. God gives WHATEVER belongs to One because One gives OF ONESELF, and EVERYTHING belongs to One. Giving of YOUR self is the function One gave you. Fulfilling it perfectly will teach you what YOU have of ONE. And this will teach you what you are IN One. You CANNOT be powerLESS to do this because this IS your power. Glory is God’s gift to you because that is what ONE is. See this glory everywhere to learn what YOU are.

Text Chapter 8 - The Journey Back

8.4 - The Light Of The World

If God’s Will for you is complete peace and joy, unless you experience ONLY this you MUST be refusing to acknowledge One’s Will. One’s Will does not vacillate, being changeless forever. When you are not at peace, it can only be because you do not believe you are IN ONE. Yet One is all in all. One’s peace IS complete, and you MUST be included in it. One’s laws govern you because they govern EVERYTHING. You cannot exempt yourself from One’s laws, although you CAN disobey them. Yet if you do, and ONLY if you do, you WILL feel lonely and helpless because you ARE denying yourself everything.

I am come as a light into a world that DOES deny itself everything. It does this simply by dissociating itself FROM everything. It is therefore an illusion of isolation, MAINTAINED by fear of the same loneliness which IS its illusion. I have told you that I am with you always, even to the end of the world. That is WHY I am the light of the world. If I am with you in the loneliness of the world, THE LONELINESS IS GONE. You CANNOT maintain the illusion of loneliness if you are NOT alone.

My purpose, then, IS to overcome the world. I do not attack it, but my light must dispel it because of WHAT IT IS. Light does not ATTACK darkness, but it DOES shine it away. If my light goes with you everywhere, YOU shine it away WITH ME. The light becomes OURS, and you CANNOT abide in darkness any more than darkness can abide wherever you go. The remembrance of me IS the remembrance of yourself and of One Who sent me to you.

You WERE in darkness until God’s Will was done completely by ANY part of the Christhood. When this was done, it was perfectly accomplished by ALL. How else could it BE perfectly accomplished? My mission was simply to UNITE the will of the Christhood WITH the Will of the Creator by being aware of the Creator’s Will myself. This is the awareness I came to give YOU, and YOUR problem in accepting it IS the problem of this world. Dispelling it is salvation, and in this sense I AM the salvation of the world.

The world MUST despise and reject me because the world IS the belief that love is impossible. YOUR reactions to me ARE the reactions of the world to God. If you will accept the fact that I am with you, you are DENYING the world and ACCEPTING GOD. My will IS One’s, and YOUR will to hear me IS the decision to hear One’s Voice and abide in One’s Will. As God sent me to you, so will I send you to others. And I will go to them WITH you, so we can teach them union and peace.

Do you not think the world needs peace as much as you do? Do you not want to give it to the world as much as you want to receive it? For unless you do, you will NOT receive it. If you will to have it of me, you MUST give it. Rehabilitation does not come from anyone ELSE. You can have GUIDANCE from without, but you must ACCEPT it from within. The guidance must be what YOU want, or it will be meaningless to you. That is why rehabilitation is a collaborative venture. I can tell you what to DO, but this will not help you unless you collaborate by believing that I KNOW what to do. Only then will your MIND will to follow me.

Without YOUR will you cannot BE rehabilitated. MOTIVATION TO BE HEALED is the crucial factor in rehabilitation. Without this, you are deciding AGAINST healing, and your veto of my will FOR you MAKES HEALING IMPOSSIBLE. If healing IS our joint will, unless our wills ARE joined you CANNOT be healed. This is obvious when you consider what healing is FOR.

Healing is the way in which the separation is overcome. Separation is overcome by UNION. It CANNOT be overcome by separating. The WILL to unite must be unequivocal, or the will ITSELF is divided or NOT WHOLE. Your will is the means by which you determine your own condition because will is the MECHANISM OF DECISION. It is the power by which you separate or join, and experience pain or joy accordingly. My will cannot OVERCOME yours, because YOURS IS AS POWERFUL AS MINE. If it were not so, the Children of God would be unequal.

All things BECOME possible through our JOINT will, but my will alone cannot help you. Your will is as free as mine, and God Oneself would not go against it. I cannot will what God does NOT will. I CAN offer you my will to make YOURS invincible by this sharing, but I CANNOT oppose yours without competing with it, and thereby violating God’s Will for you. Nothing God created can oppose your will, as nothing God created can oppose One’s. God GAVE your will its power, which I can only acknowledge in honor of ONE’S.

If you want to be LIKE me I will help you, knowing that we ARE alike. If you want to be DIFFERENT, I will wait until you change your mind. I can TEACH you, but only you can choose to LISTEN to my teaching. How else can it be, if God’s Realm IS freedom? Freedom cannot be learned by tyranny of ANY kind, and the perfect equality of ALL God’s Children cannot be recognized through the dominion of one will over another. God’s Children are equal in will, all being the Will of their Creator. This is the ONLY lesson I came to teach, knowing that it is true.

When your will is NOT mine, it is not Our Creator’s. This means that you have imprisoned YOURS, and have not LET it be free. Of yourselves you can do nothing, because of yourselves you ARE nothing. I am nothing without the Creator, and YOU are nothing without me because, by DENYING the Creator, you deny YOURSELF. I will ALWAYS remember you, and in MY remembrance OF you lies your remembrance of YOURSELF. In our remembrance of EACH OTHER lies our remembrance of God. And in this remembrance lies your freedom because your freedom is in One.

Join, then, with me in praise of One AND you whom One created. This is our gift of gratitude to One, which One will share with ALL One’s Creations, to whom One gives equally whatever is acceptable to One. BECAUSE it is acceptable to One it is the gift of freedom, which IS One’s Will for all One’s Children. By OFFERING freedom YOU will be free because freedom is the only gift you can offer to God’s Children, being an ACKNOWLEDGMENT of what THEY are and what ONE is.

Freedom is creation because it is love. What you seek to imprison you do NOT love. Therefore, when you seek to imprison ANYONE, including YOURSELF, you do not love one, and you cannot identify WITH one. When you imprison yourself, you are losing sight of your true identification with me and with the Creator. Your identification IS with the Creator and with the Child. It CANNOT be with one and not the other. If you are part of one, you MUST be part of the other because they ARE One.

The Holy Trinity is holy BECAUSE It is One. If you exclude YOURSELF from this union, you are perceiving the Holy Trinity as separated. You MUST be included IN It, because It IS everything. Unless you take your place in It and fulfill your function AS part of It, It is as bereft as YOU are. No part of It can be imprisoned if Its truth is to be known.

Can you be separated from your identification and be at peace? Dissociation is NOT a solution; it is a DELUSION. The delusional believe that truth will ASSAIL them, and so they DO NOT SEE IT because they prefer the delusion. Judging truth as something they do NOT want, they perceive deception and block knowledge. Help them by offering them YOUR unified will on their behalf, as I am offering you mine on YOURS. Alone we can do nothing, but TOGETHER, our wills fuse into something whose power is far beyond the power of its separate parts.

By NOT BEING SEPARATE, the Will of God is established IN ours and AS ours. This Will is invincible BECAUSE it is undivided. The UNDIVIDED will of the Christhood is the perfect creator, being wholly in the likeness of God, Whose Will it IS. YOU cannot be exempt from it, if you are to understand what IT is and what YOU are. By separating your will FROM mine, you are exempting yourself from the Will of God which IS yourself.

Yet to heal is still to make whole. Therefore, to heal is to UNITE with those who are LIKE you because perceiving this likeness IS to recognize the Creator. If YOUR perfection is in One and ONLY in One, how can you KNOW it WITHOUT recognizing One? The recognition of God IS the recognition of yourself. There IS no separation of God and One’s creation. You will learn this as you learn that there is no separation of YOUR will and mine.

Let the Love of God shine upon you by your acceptance of me. MY reality is yours and One’s. By joining YOUR will with mine you are signifying your awareness that the Will of God is one. God’s Oneness and ours are not separate because One’s Oneness ENCOMPASSES ours. To join WITH me is to restore One’s power TO you BECAUSE we are sharing it. I offer you only the recognition of One’s power in you, but in that lies ALL truth. As WE unite, we unite with One. Glory be to the union of God and One’s holy Children! All glory lies IN them because they ARE united.

The miracles WE do bear witness to the Will of the Creator for One’s Child, and to our joy in uniting WITH One’s Will FOR us. When you unite with me, you are uniting WITHOUT the ego because I have renounced the ego in myself, and therefore CANNOT unite with yours. OUR union is therefore the way to renounce the ego in YOURSELF. The truth in both of us is BEYOND the ego. By willing that, you HAVE gone beyond it toward truth.

Our success in transcending the ego is guaranteed by God, and I can share my perfect confidence IN One’s Promise because I know One gave me this confidence for both of us and ALL of us. I bring God’s peace back to all One’s children because I received it of One for us all. Nothing can prevail against our united wills because nothing can prevail against God’s. Would you know the Will of God for YOU? Ask it of me who knows it FOR you, and you will find it. I will deny YOU nothing, as God denies ME nothing.

Ours is simply the journey back to God, Who is our home. Whenever fear intrudes anywhere along the road to peace, it is ALWAYS because the ego has attempted to JOIN the journey with us, AND CANNOT DO SO. Sensing defeat and angered by it, the ego regards itself as rejected and becomes retaliative. You are invulnerable to its retaliation BECAUSE I AM WITH YOU. On this journey you have chosen me as your companion INSTEAD of the ego. Do not try to hold on to both, or you will try to go in different directions, and will lose the way.

The ego’s way is not mine, but it is also NOT YOURS. The Holy Spirit has ONE direction for ALL minds, and the one One taught me IS yours. Let us not lose sight of One’s direction through illusions, for ONLY illusions of another direction can obscure the one for which God’s Voice speaks in all of us. Never accord the ego the power to interfere with the journey because it HAS none, since the journey is the way to what is TRUE. Leave ALL deception behind, and reach beyond all attempts of the ego to hold you back.

I DO go before you because I AM beyond the ego. Reach, therefore, for my hand because you WANT to transcend the ego. My will will NEVER be wanting, and if you want to share it, YOU WILL. I give it willingly and gladly because I need YOU as much as you need ME.

Text Chapter 8 - The Journey Back

8.5 - The Power Of Joint Decision

WE are the joint will of the Christhood, whose wholeness is for all. We begin the journey back by setting out TOGETHER, and gather in our siblings as we CONTINUE together.

Every gain in our strength is offered for all, so they, too, can lay aside their weakness and add their strength to us. God’s welcome waits for us all, and One will welcome us as I am welcoming YOU. Forget not the Realm of God for anything the world has to offer. The world can ADD nothing to the power and the glory of God and One’s holy Children, but it CAN blind the Children to the Creator if they behold it. You cannot behold the world and know God. Only one is true.

I am come to tell you that the choice of which is true is not yours. If it were, you would have destroyed yourselves. Yet God did not will the destruction of One’s Creations, having created them for eternity. One’s Will has saved you, not from yourselves but from your illusions of yourselves. One has saved you FOR yourselves. Let us glorify One Whom the world denies, for over One’s Realm it has no power.

No one created by God can find joy in anything except the eternal. That is not because one is DEPRIVED of anything else, but because nothing else is WORTHY of one. What God AND One’s Children create IS eternal, and in this and this only is their joy. Listen to the story of the prodigal son, and learn what God’s treasure is and YOURS.

This son of a loving father left his home and thought he squandered everything for nothing of any value, although he did not know its worthlessness at the time. He was ashamed to return to his father and his home because he thought he had hurt him. Yet when he came home, the father welcomed him with joy because only the son himself WAS his father’s treasure. HE WANTED NOTHING ELSE.

God wants only One’s Child because One’s Child is One’s only treasure. You want your creations as One wants One’s. Your creations are your gift to the Holy Trinity, created in gratitude for YOUR creation. They do not leave you any more than you have left YOUR Creator. But they EXTEND your creation as God extended Oneself to YOU. Can the creations of God Oneself take joy in what is not real? And what IS real except the Creations of God and those which are created like One’s? YOUR creations love you as your Spirit loves your Creator FOR THE GIFT OF CREATION. There IS no other gift which is eternal, and therefore THERE IS NO OTHER GIFT WHICH IS TRUE.

How, then, can you ACCEPT anything else or GIVE anything else, and expect joy in return? And what else BUT joy would you want? You made neither yourself nor your function. YOU have made only the DECISION to be unworthy of both. Yet you COULD not make YOURSELF unworthy, because YOU ARE THE TREASURE OF GOD. What ONE values IS valuable. There can BE no question of its worth because its whole value lies in God’s sharing Oneself with it and ESTABLISHING ITS VALUE FOREVER. YOUR function is to ADD to God’s treasure by creating YOURS. One’s Will TO you is One’s Will FOR you. One would not withhold creation from you because ONE’S joy is in it.

You CANNOT find joy EXCEPT as God does. ONE’S joy lay in creating YOU, and One extends One’s Creatorship to you so that you can extend yourself AS ONE DID. You do not understand this because you do not understand ONE. No one who does not know one’s function can understand it, and no one CAN know one’s function unless one knows who one IS. Creation is the Will of God. One’s Will created you TO CREATE. Your will was not created separate from One’s, and so it wills as ONE wills.

An “unwilling will” does not mean anything, because it is a contradiction in terms which actually leaves nothing. You can make yourself powerless only in a way that has NO MEANING AT ALL. When you THINK you are unwilling to will with God, YOU ARE NOT THINKING. God’s Will IS thought. It cannot be contradicted BY thought. God does not contradict ONESELF. And One’s Children, who are like One, cannot contradict themselves OR One. Yet their thought is so powerful that they can even imprison the mind of God’s Child, IF THEY SO CHOOSE. This choice DOES make the Child’s function unknown TO ONE, but NEVER to one’s Creator. And BECAUSE it is not unknown to one’s Creator, it is forever knowable to one.

There is no question but one you should ever ask of yourself:

“Do I WANT to know my Creator’s Will for me?”

ONE will not hide it. One has revealed it to me because I asked it of One, and learned of what One had already given. Our function is to function together because, apart from each other, we cannot function at all. The whole power of God’s Child lies in all of us, but not in any of us alone. God would not have us be alone because ONE does not will to be alone. That is why One created One’s Child, and gave one the power to create with One. Our creations are as holy as we are, and we are the Children of God Oneself, and therefore as holy as One is. Through our creations we extend our Love, and thus increase the joy of the Holy Trinity. You do not understand this for a very simple reason. You who are God’s own treasure do not regard yourselves as valuable. Given this belief YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND ANYTHING.

I share with God the knowledge of the value ONE puts upon you. My devotion to you is of One, being born of my knowledge of myself AND One. We cannot BE separated. Whom God has joined CANNOT be separated, and God has joined all One’s Children WITH ONESELF. Can you be separated from your life and your being? The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always, and what you are forever. It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed.

Truth can only be EXPERIENCED. It cannot be described, and it cannot be explained. I can make you aware of the CONDITIONS of truth, but the experience is of God. Together we can meet its conditions, but truth will dawn upon you of itself. What God has willed for you IS yours. One has given One’s Will to One’s treasure, whose treasure It is. Your heart lies where your treasure is, as One’s does. You who are beloved of God are wholly blessed. Learn this of me, and free the holy will of all those who are as blessed as YOU are.

Text Chapter 8 - The Journey Back

8.6 - Communication And The Ego-body Equation

Attack is ALWAYS physical. When attack in ANY form enters your mind, you are EQUATING YOURSELF WITH A BODY. This is the ego’s INTERPRETATION of the body. You do not have to ATTACK physically to accept this interpretation; you ARE accepting it simply by the belief that attack can GET YOU SOMETHING YOU WANT. If you did NOT believe this, the IDEA of attack would have no appeal for you.

When you equate yourself with a body you will ALWAYS experience depression. When a Child of God thinks of oneself in this way one is belittling oneself and seeing one’s siblings as similarly belittled. Since one can find oneself ONLY in them, one has cut oneself off from salvation. Remember that the Holy Spirit interprets the body ONLY as a means of communication. Being the communication link between God and One’s separated Children, the Holy Spirit interprets everything YOU have in the light of what ONE is.

The ego SEPARATES through the body. The Holy Spirit reaches THROUGH it to others. You do not perceive your siblings as the Holy Spirit does because you do not interpret their bodies AND YOURS solely as a means of JOINING THEIR MINDS and uniting them with yours and mine. This interpretation of the body will change your mind entirely about its value. Of itself it has NONE. If you use the body for attack, it IS harmful to you. But if you use it ONLY to reach the minds of those who believe they ARE bodies, and teach them THROUGH the body that THIS IS NOT SO, you will begin to understand the power of the mind that is in both of you. If you use the body for this and ONLY for this, you CANNOT use it for attack. In the service of uniting, it becomes a beautiful lesson in communion, which has value until communion IS.

This is God’s way of making unlimited what YOU have limited. The Holy Spirit does not see the body as YOU do because One knows the ONLY reality ANYTHING can have is the service it can render God on behalf of the function ONE has given it. Communication ENDS separation. Attack PROMOTES it. The body is beautiful or ugly, holy or savage, helpful or harmful, according to the use to which it is put. And in the body of another you will SEE the use to which you have put YOURS.

If the body becomes for you a means which you give to the Holy Spirit to use on behalf of union of the Christhood, you will not see ANYTHING physical except as WHAT IT IS. Use it for truth, and you will see it truly. MISuse it, and you WILL misunderstand it because you have already done so BY misusing it. Interpret ANYTHING apart from the Holy Spirit, and you will mistrust it. This will lead you to hatred and attack and LOSS OF PEACE.

Yet ALL loss comes only from your own misunderstanding. Loss of ANY kind is impossible. When you look upon a sibling as a physical entity, ONE’S power and glory are lost to you, and SO ARE YOURS. You HAVE attacked one, but you MUST have attacked yourself first. Do not see one this way for your OWN salvation, which MUST bring one one’s. Do not ALLOW one to belittle oneself in YOUR mind, but give one freedom from one’s belief in littleness, and thus escape from YOURS. As part of YOU, ONE is holy. As part of ME, YOU are. To communicate with part of God Oneself is to reach beyond the Realm to its Creator, through One’s Voice Which One has established as part of YOU.

Rejoice, then, that of yourselves you can do nothing. You are not OF yourselves. One of Whom you ARE has willed your power and glory FOR you, with which you can perfectly accomplish One’s holy Will for you, when you so will it yourself. One has not withdrawn One’s gifts from YOU, but YOU have withdrawn them from One. Let no Child of God remain hidden for One’s Name’s sake, because One’s Name is YOURS.

Remember that the Bible says, “The Word (or thought) was made flesh.” Strictly speaking this is impossible, since it seems to involve the translation of one order of reality into another. Different orders of reality merely APPEAR to exist, just as different orders of miracles do. Thought cannot be MADE into flesh except by belief, since thought is NOT physical. Yet thought IS communication, for which the body CAN be used. This is the only NATURAL use to which it CAN be put. To use the body UNNATURALLY is to lose sight of the Holy Spirit’s purpose, and thus to confuse the goal of One’s curriculum.

There is nothing so frustrating to a learner as to be placed in a curriculum which one cannot learn. One’s sense of adequacy suffers, and one MUST become depressed. Being faced with an impossible learning situation, REGARDLESS of why it is impossible, is the most depressing thing in the world. In fact, it is ultimately WHY the world is depressing. The Holy Spirit’s curriculum is NEVER depressing because it is a curriculum in joy. Whenever the reaction to learning is depression, it is only because the goal of the curriculum has been lost sight of.

In the world, not even the body is perceived as whole. Its purpose is seen as fragmented into many functions which bear little or no relationship to each other, so that it appears to be ruled by chaos. Guided by the ego, it IS. Guided by the Holy Spirit, it is NOT. It becomes ONLY a means by which the part of the mind you have separated from your Spirit can reach beyond its distortions, and RETURN to the Spirit. The ego’s temple thus becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit, where devotion to One replaces devotion to the ego. In this sense the body DOES become a temple to God, because One’s Voice abides in it by directing the use TO WHICH YOU PUT IT.

Healing is the result of using the body SOLELY for communication. Since this IS natural, it heals by making whole, which is ALSO natural. ALL mind is whole, and the belief that part of it is physical, or NOT MIND, is a fragmented (or sick) interpretation. Mind CANNOT be made physical, but it CAN be made manifest THROUGH the physical if it uses the body to GO BEYOND itself. By reaching OUT, the mind EXTENDS itself. It does not STOP at the body, for if it does, it is blocked in its purpose. A mind which has been blocked has allowed itself to be vulnerable to attack because it has TURNED AGAINST ITSELF.

The removal of the blocks, then, is the ONLY way to guarantee help and healing. Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind which is working THROUGH the body, but not IN it. If the mind believes the body is its GOAL, it WILL distort its perception OF the body, and by blocking its own extension BEYOND, it will INDUCE illness by FOSTERING SEPARATION. Perceiving the body AS A SEPARATE ENTITY cannot BUT foster illness, because it is not true. A medium of communication WILL lose its usefulness if it is used for anything else.

To use a medium of communication as a medium of ATTACK is an obvious confusion in purpose. To communicate is to join, and to attack is to separate. How can you do both simultaneously WITH THE SAME THING, and NOT suffer? Perception of the body can be unified only by ONE PURPOSE. This releases the mind from the temptation to see the body in many lights, and gives it over ENTIRELY to the One Light in which it can be really understood at all.

To confuse a learning device with a curriculum GOAL is a fundamental confusion. Learning can hardly be arrested at its own aids with hope of understanding either the aids OR the learning’s real purpose. Learning must lead BEYOND the body to the re-establishment of the power of the mind IN it. This can be accomplished ONLY if the mind EXTENDS to other minds, and does not ARREST ITSELF in its extension. The arrest of the mind’s extension is the cause of ALL illness because ONLY EXTENSION IS THE MIND’S FUNCTION. Block this, and you have blocked health because you have BLOCKED THE MIND'S JOY.

The opposite of joy is depression. When your learning promotes depression INSTEAD of joy, you CANNOT be listening to God’s joyous Teacher, and you MUST be learning amiss. To see a body as anything EXCEPT a means of pure extension is to limit your mind and HURT YOURSELF. Health is therefore nothing more than united purpose. If the body is brought under the purpose of the mind, the body becomes whole because the mind’s purpose IS one.

Attack can only be an ASSUMED purpose of the body, because APART from the mind the body HAS NO PURPOSE AT ALL. You are NOT limited by the body, and thought CANNOT be made flesh. Yet mind can be manifested through the body if it goes beyond it and DOES NOT INTERPRET IT AS LIMITATION. Whenever you see another as limited TO or BY the body, you are imposing this limit ON YOURSELF. Are you willing to ACCEPT this, when your whole purpose for learning should be to escape FROM limitations?

To conceive of the body as a means of attack of any kind and to entertain even the possibility that joy could POSSIBLY result, is a clear-cut indication of a poor learner. One has accepted a learning goal in obvious contradiction to the unified purpose of the curriculum, and is interfering with one’s ability to accept its purpose AS ONE’S OWN.

Joy is unified purpose, and unified purpose is ONLY God’s. When yours is unified, it IS One’s. Interfere with One’s purpose, and YOU NEED SALVATION. You have condemned yourself, but condemnation is not of God. Therefore, it is not true. No more are any of the RESULTS of your condemnation. When you see a sibling as a body, you are condemning one BECAUSE you have condemned yourself. Yet if ALL condemnation is unreal, and it MUST be unreal since it is a form of attack, then it can HAVE no results.

Do not allow yourselves to suffer from the results of what is not true. Free your minds from the belief that this is POSSIBLE. In its complete impossibility, and your full awareness OF its complete impossibility, lie your only hope for release. But what other hope would you want? Freedom from illusions lies only in not BELIEVING them. Where are they without your belief? THERE IS NO ATTACK, but there IS unlimited communication, and therefore unlimited power and wholeness. The power of wholeness is EXTENSION. Do not arrest your thought in this world, and you will open your mind to Creation in God.

Text Chapter 8 - The Journey Back

8.7 - The Body As Means Or End

Attitudes toward the body are attitudes toward ATTACK. The ego’s definitions of ANYTHING are childish, and ALWAYS based on what it believes a thing is FOR. This is because it is incapable of true generalizations, and equates what it sees with the function IT ascribes to it. It does NOT equate it with what it IS. To the ego, the body IS TO ATTACK WITH. Equating YOU with the body, it teaches that YOU are to attack with because THIS IS WHAT IT BELIEVES. The body, then, is not the source of its own health. The body’s condition lies solely in your interpretation of its function.

The reason why definitions in terms of function are inferior is that they may well be inaccurate. Functions are part of being since they arise FROM it. But the relationship is NOT reciprocal. The whole DOES define the part, but the part does NOT define the whole. This is as true of knowledge as it is of perception. The reason why to KNOW in part is to know ENTIRELY is because of the fundamental difference between knowledge and perception. In perception the whole is built up of parts, which CAN separate and reassemble in different constellations. Knowledge never changes, so ITS constellation is permanent. The only areas in which part-whole relationships have ANY meaning are those in which change is possible. There IS no difference between the whole and the part where change is impossible.

The body exists in a world which SEEMS to contain two voices which are fighting for its possession. In this perceived constellation, the body is regarded as capable of shifting its control from one to the other, making the concept of both health AND sickness possible. The ego makes a fundamental confusion between means and ends as it always does. Regarding the body as an end, the ego has no REAL use for it because it is NOT an end. You must have noticed an outstanding characteristic of every end that the ego has accepted as its own. When you have achieved it, IT HAS NOT SATISFIED YOU. This is why the ego is forced to shift from one end to another without ceasing, so that YOU will continue to hope that it can yet offer you something.

It has been particularly difficult to overcome the ego’s belief in the body as an end because this is synonymous with the belief in ATTACK AS AN END. The ego has a real INVESTMENT IN SICKNESS. If you are sick, how can you OBJECT to the ego’s firm belief that you are NOT invulnerable? This is a particularly appealing argument from the ego’s point of view because it obscures the obvious ATTACK which underlies the sickness. If you accepted THIS and also decided AGAINST attack, you could not give this false witness to the ego’s stand. It is hard to perceive sickness AS a false witness, because you do not realize that it IS entirely out of keeping with what YOU want. This witness, then, APPEARS to be innocent and trustworthy because YOU have not seriously cross-examined one.

If you did, you would not consider sickness such a strong witness on behalf of the ego’s views. A more honest statement would be as follows: Those who WANT the ego are predisposed to defend it. Therefore, their choice of witnesses should be suspect from the beginning. The ego does not call upon witnesses who would disagree with its case, NOR DOES THE HOLY SPIRIT. We have said that judgement IS the function of the Holy Spirit, and one which One is perfectly equipped to fulfill. The ego, as a judge, gives anything BUT an impartial judgement. When the ego calls on a witness, it has ALREADY MADE THE WITNESS AN ALLY. It is still true that the body has no function of itself because it is NOT an end. The ego, however, establishes it AS an end because, as such, IT WILL LOSE ITS TRUE FUNCTION.

This is the purpose of everything the ego does. Its sole aim is to lose sight of the function of EVERYTHING. A sick body does not make any sense. It COULD not make sense because sickness is not what the body is FOR. Sickness is meaningful only if the two basic premises on which the ego’s interpretation of the body rests are true. Specifically, these are that the body is for attack, and that you ARE a body. Without these premises, sickness is completely inconceivable. Sickness is a way of demonstrating that YOU CAN BE HURT. It is a witness to your frailty, your vulnerability, and your extreme need to depend on EXTERNAL guidance. The ego uses this as its best argument for your need for ITS guidance. It dictates endless prescriptions for AVOIDING catastrophic outcomes. The Holy Spirit, perfectly aware of the same data, does not bother to analyze them. If the data are meaningless there is no point in considering them at all.

The function of truth is to collect data which are TRUE. There is no point in trying to make sense out of meaningless data. ANY way you handle them results in nothing. The more complicated the results become, the harder it may be to recognize their nothingness, but it is not necessary to examine ALL possible outcomes to which premises give rise to judge the PREMISES truly.

A learning DEVICE is NOT a teacher. IT cannot tell you how YOU feel. YOU do not KNOW how you feel because YOU HAVE ACCEPTED THE EGO’S CONFUSION, and YOU think that A LEARNING DEVICE CAN TELL YOU HOW YOU FEEL. Sickness is merely another example of your insistence on asking the guidance of a teacher WHO DOES NOT KNOW THE ANSWER. The ego is INCAPABLE of knowing how you feel. When we said that the ego DOES NOT KNOW ANYTHING, we said the one thing about the ego that IS wholly true. But there IS a corollary: if knowledge is being and the ego has no knowledge, then the ego HAS NO BEING.

You might well ask how the voice of something which does not exist can be so insistent. Have you seriously considered the distorting power of something you WANT, even if it is NOT true? You have had many instances of how what you want can distort what you see and hear. No one can doubt the ego’s skill in building up false cases. Nor can anyone doubt your willingness to listen until YOU will not to tolerate ANYTHING except truth.

When YOU lay the ego aside, it will be gone. The Holy Spirit’s Voice is as loud as your willingness to listen. It cannot be louder without violating your will, which the Holy Spirit seeks to free, but NEVER to command. The Holy Spirit teaches you to use your body ONLY to reach your siblings, so One can teach One’s message THROUGH you. This will heal them and THEREFORE heal you. Everything used in accordance with its function as the HOLY SPIRIT sees it CANNOT be sick. Everything used otherwise IS.

Do not allow the body to be a mirror of a split mind. Do not let it be an image of your own perception of littleness. Do not let it reflect your will to attack. Health is the natural state of anything whose interpretation is left to the Holy Spirit, Who perceives no attack on anything. Health is the result of relinquishing ALL attempts to use the body lovelessly. Health is the beginning of the proper perspective on life under the guidance of the one Teacher Who knows what life IS, being the Voice for Life Itself.

Text Chapter 8 - The Journey Back

8.8 - Healing As Corrected Perception

We once said that the Holy Spirit is the ANSWER. One is the answer to EVERYTHING, because One knows what the answer to everything IS. The ego does not know what a REAL question is, although it asks an endless number. Yet YOU can learn this as you learn to question the value of the ego, and thus establish your ability to EVALUATE its questions. When the ego tempts you to sickness, do not ask the Holy Spirit to heal the body, for this would merely be to accept the ego’s belief that the BODY is the proper aim for healing. Ask, rather, that the Holy Spirit teach you the right PERCEPTION of the body, for perception alone can be distorted.

ONLY PERCEPTION CAN BE SICK, because only perception can be WRONG. Wrong perception is DISTORTED WILLING, which WANTS things to be as they are not. The REALITY of everything is totally harmless, because total harmlessness is the CONDITION of its reality. It is also the condition of your AWARENESS of its reality. You do not have to SEEK reality. It will seek YOU and FIND you, WHEN YOU MEET ITS CONDITIONS. Its conditions are part of WHAT IT IS. And this part only is up to you. The rest is of Itself. You need do so little, because it is so powerful that your little part WILL bring the whole TO you. Accept, then, your little part, and LET the whole be yours. Wholeness heals BECAUSE it is of the mind.

ALL forms of sickness, even unto death, are physical expressions of the FEAR OF AWAKENING. They are attempts to reinforce UNCONSCIOUSNESS out of fear of CONSCIOUSNESS. This is a pathetic way of TRYING NOT TO KNOW by rendering the faculties for knowing ineffectual. “Rest in peace” is a blessing for the living, not the dead, because rest comes from WAKING, not from sleeping. Sleep is withdrawing; waking is JOINING. Dreams are ILLUSIONS of joining, taking on the ego’s distortions about what joining means if you are sleeping under its guidance. Yet the Holy Spirit, too, has use for sleep, and can use dreams on behalf of WAKING, if you will let One.

How you wake is the sign of how you have used sleep. To whom did you give it? Under which teacher did you place it? Whenever you wake dispiritedly, it was NOT of the Holy Spirit. ONLY when you awaken joyously have you utilized sleep ACCORDING TO THE HOLY SPIRIT’S PURPOSE. You can indeed be “drugged by sleep,” but this is ALWAYS because you have MISUSED IT ON BEHALF OF SICKNESS. Sleep is no more a form of death than death is a form of unconsciousness. UNCONSCIOUSNESS IS IMPOSSIBLE. You can rest in peace only BECAUSE YOU ARE AWAKE.

Healing is release from the fear of waking and the substitution of the will to wake. The will to wake is the will to love, since ALL healing involves replacing fear with love. The Holy Spirit cannot distinguish among degrees of error, for if One taught that one form of sickness is more serious than another, One would be teaching that one error can be MORE REAL than another. One’s function is to distinguish ONLY between the false and the true, REPLACING the false WITH the true.

The ego, which always WEAKENS the will, wants to SEPARATE the body from the mind. This IS an attempt to DESTROY it, yet the ego actually believes that it is PROTECTING it. This is because the ego believes that MIND IS DANGEROUS, and that to MAKE MINDLESS is to heal. But to make mindless is impossible, since it would mean to make nothing out of what God created. The ego DESPISES weakness, even though it makes every effort to INDUCE it. THE EGO WANTS ONLY WHAT IT HATES. To the ego this is perfectly sensible. Believing in the power of attack, the ego WANTS attack.

You have surely begun to realize that this is a very practical course, which means EXACTLY what it says. So does the Bible, if it is properly understood. There has been a marked tendency on the part of many of the Bible’s followers, and also its translators, to be entirely literal about fear and ITS effects, but NOT about love and ITS results. Thus, “hellfire” means “burning,” but raising the dead becomes allegorical. Actually, it is PARTICULARLY the references to the outcomes of love which SHOULD be taken literally because the Bible is ABOUT love, being about GOD.

The Bible enjoins you to be perfect, to heal ALL errors, to take no thought of the body AS SEPARATE, and to accomplish all things IN MY NAME. This is not my name alone, for ours is a shared identification. The Name of God’s Child is One, and you are enjoined to do the works of love BECAUSE we SHARE this oneness. Our minds are whole BECAUSE they are one. If you are sick you are withdrawing from me. Yet you CANNOT WITHDRAW FROM ME ALONE. You can only withdraw from yourself AND me.

I would not ask you to do the things you CANNOT do, and it is impossible that I could do things YOU cannot do. Given this, and given this QUITE LITERALLY, there CAN be nothing which prevents you from doing EXACTLY what I ask, and EVERYTHING which argues FOR your doing it. I give you NO limits because God lays none upon you. When you limit YOURSELF we are NOT of one mind, and that IS sickness. Yet sickness is not of the body, but OF THE MIND. ALL forms of DYSfunction are merely signs that the mind has split, and does not accept a UNIFIED PURPOSE.

The unification of PURPOSE, then, is the Holy Spirit’s ONLY way of healing. This is because it is the only level at which healing MEANS anything. The re-establishing of meaning in a chaotic thought system IS the only way to heal it. We have said that your task is only to meet the conditions FOR meaning, since meaning itself is of God. Yet your RETURN to meaning is essential TO ONE’S because YOUR meaning is PART of One’s. Your healing, then, is part of ONE’S health since it is part of One’s Wholeness. One cannot LOSE this, but YOU can NOT KNOW it. Yet it is still One’s Will for you, and One’s Will MUST stand forever and in all things.

Text Chapter 8 - The Journey Back

8.9 - The Acceptance Of Reality

Fear of the Will of God is one of the strangest beliefs that the human mind has ever made. This could not possibly have occurred unless the mind were ALREADY profoundly split, making it possible for THE MIND to be afraid of what it really is. It is apparent that reality CANNOT “threaten” anything except illusions, since reality can only UPHOLD truth. The very fact that the Will of God, which IS what you are, is perceived as fearful TO you demonstrates that you ARE afraid of what you are. It is not, then, the Will of God of which you are afraid, but YOURS. Your will is NOT the ego’s, and that is why the ego is against you. What seems to be the fear of God is really only the fear of YOUR OWN REALITY.

It is impossible to learn anything consistently in a state of panic. If the purpose of this course is to help you learn what you are, and if you have ALREADY DECIDED that what you are is FEARFUL, then it MUST follow that you WILL NOT LEARN THIS COURSE. Yet you might remember that the reason FOR the course is that you do NOT know who you are. If you do not know your reality, how would you know whether it is fearful or not? The association of truth and fear, which would be highly artificial at most, is particularly inappropriate in the minds of those who do not know what truth IS. All that this kind of association means is that you are arbitrarily endowing something quite beyond your awareness with something YOU DO NOT WANT.

It is evident, then, that you are judging something of which you are totally unaware. You have set this strange situation up so that it is COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE to escape from it WITHOUT a Guide Who DOES know what your reality is. The purpose of this Guide is merely to remind you of what YOU want. One is not attempting to force an alien will UPON you. One is merely making every possible effort, within the limits YOU impose on One, to RE-ESTABLISH your OWN will in your consciousness. You have IMPRISONED your will in your UNconscious, where it remains available but cannot help you. When we said that the Holy Spirit’s function is to sort out the true from the false in your unconscious, we meant that One has the power to look into what YOU have hidden and perceive the Will of God there.

One’s perception of this Will can make it real to YOU because One is in your mind, and therefore One IS your reality. If, then, One’s perception of your mind brings its reality TO you, One IS teaching you what you are. The only source of fear in this whole process can ONLY be WHAT YOU THINK YOU LOSE. Yet it is only what the Holy Spirit sees that you can possibly HAVE. We have emphasized many times that the Holy Spirit will never call upon you to sacrifice ANYTHING. But if you ask the sacrifice of reality OF YOURSELF, the Holy Spirit MUST remind you that this is not God’s Will BECAUSE it is not yours.

There is NO DIFFERENCE between your will and God’s. If you did not have divided wills, you would recognize that willing is salvation because it IS communication. It is impossible to communicate in alien tongues. You and your Creator can communicate through creation because that, and ONLY that, IS your joint Will. Divided wills do not communicate because they speak for different things TO THE SAME MIND. This loses the ability to communicate simply because confused communication DOES NOT MEAN ANYTHING. A message cannot be said to be communicated UNLESS it makes sense.

How sensible can your messages be when you ask for WHAT YOU DO NOT WANT? Yet as long as you are afraid of your will, this is precisely what you WILL ask for. You may insist that the Holy Spirit does not answer you, but it might be wiser to consider the kind of ASKER you are. YOU DO NOT ASK ONLY FOR WHAT YOU WANT. This is SOLELY because you are afraid you might RECEIVE it, AND YOU WOULD. THAT is really why you persist in asking the teacher who could not possibly TEACH you your will. Of one you can NEVER learn it, and this gives you the illusion of safety. Yet you cannot be safe FROM truth, but only IN it. Reality is the ONLY safety.

Your will is your salvation BECAUSE IT IS THE SAME AS GOD’S. The separation is nothing more than the belief that it is DIFFERENT. NO mind can believe that its will is STRONGER than God’s. If, then, a mind believes that ITS will is different FROM One’s, it can only decide either that there IS no God or that GOD’S WILL IS FEARFUL. The former accounts for the atheist and the latter for the martyr. Martyrdom takes many forms, the category including ALL doctrines which hold that God demands sacrifices of ANY kind.

Either basic type of insane decision will induce panic because the atheist believes one is alone, and the martyr believes that God is crucifying one. Both really fear abandonment AND retaliation, but the atheist is more reactive against abandonment, and the martyr against retaliation. The atheist maintains that God has left one, but one does not care. One will, however, become very fearful, and hence very ANGRY, if anyone suggests that God has NOT left one. The martyr, on the other hand, is more aware of guilt, and believing that punishment is inevitable, attempts to teach oneself to LIKE it.

The truth is, very simply, that NO ONE WANTS EITHER ABANDONMENT OR RETALIATION. Many people SEEK both, but it is still true that they do NOT want them. Can you ask the Holy Spirit for “gifts” such as these, and actually expect to RECEIVE them? The Holy Spirit is totally incapable of giving you anything that does not come from God. His task is NOT to make anything FOR you. One cannot make you want something you do NOT want. When you ask the Universal Giver for what you do not want, YOU are asking for what CANNOT be given BECAUSE IT WAS NEVER CREATED. It was never created because it was never your will for YOU.

Ultimately everyone must remember the Will of God, because ultimately everyone must recognize ONESELF. This recognition IS the recognition that ONE’S WILL AND GOD’S ARE ONE. In the presence of truth there are NO unbelievers and NO sacrifices. In the security of reality, fear is totally meaningless. To deny what IS can only SEEM to be fearful. Fear cannot be real without a cause, and God is the ONLY Cause. God is Love, and you DO want One. This IS your will. Ask for THIS and you WILL be answered because you will be asking only for what BELONGS to you.

When you ask the Holy Spirit for what would hurt you, One CANNOT answer because NOTHING can hurt you, AND SO YOU ARE ASKING FOR NOTHING. ANY desire which stems from the ego IS a desire for nothing, and to ask for it is NOT A REQUEST. It is merely a denial in the FORM of a request. The Holy Spirit is not concerned with form at all, being aware only of MEANING. The ego cannot ask the Holy Spirit for ANYTHING because there is COMPLETE COMMUNICATION FAILURE between them. Yet YOU can ask for EVERYTHING of the Holy Spirit because YOUR requests are real, being of your will. Would the Holy Spirit deny the Will of God? And could One fail to recognize it in God’s Children?

The energy which you withdraw from Creation you expend on fear. This is not because your ENERGY is limited, but because YOU HAVE LIMITED IT. You do not recognize the ENORMOUS waste of energy which you expend in denying truth. What would YOU say of someone who PERSISTED in attempting the impossible, believing that to ACHIEVE it is SUCCESS? The belief that you MUST HAVE THE IMPOSSIBLE in order to be happy is totally at variance with the principle of creation. God COULD not will that happiness DEPENDED on what you could never have.

The fact that God is Love does not require belief, but it DOES require ACCEPTANCE. It is indeed possible for you to DENY facts, although it is IMPOSSIBLE for you to CHANGE them. If you hold your hands over your eyes, you will NOT see because you are interfering with the laws of seeing. If you deny love, you will NOT KNOW IT because your cooperation is THE LAW OF ITS BEING. You cannot change laws you did not make, and the laws of happiness were created FOR you, not BY you.

Attempts of any kind to deny what IS are fearful, and if they are strong, they WILL induce panic. WILLING AGAINST reality, though impossible, can be MADE into a very persistent goal EVEN THOUGH YOU DO NOT WANT IT. But consider the result of this strange decision. You are DEVOTING your mind to what you DO NOT WANT. How real can this devotion be? If you do not want it, it was never created. If it was never created, it is nothing. Can you REALLY devote yourself to nothing?

God in One’s devotion to YOU created you devoted to EVERYTHING, and GAVE you what you are devoted TO. Otherwise, you would not have been created perfect. Reality IS everything, and therefore you have everything BECAUSE you are real. You cannot create the UNreal because the ABSENCE of reality is fearful, and fear cannot BE created. As long as you believe that fear is possible, YOU WILL NOT CREATE. Opposing orders of reality MAKE REALITY MEANINGLESS, and reality IS MEANING.

Remember, then, that God’s Will is ALREADY possible, and nothing else will EVER be. This is the simple acceptance of reality because only this is real. You cannot DISTORT reality and KNOW WHAT IT IS. And if you DO distort reality, you will experience anxiety, depression and ultimately panic because you are trying to MAKE YOURSELF UNREAL. When you feel these things, do not try to look BEYOND yourself for truth, for truth can only be WITHIN you. Say, therefore,

“Christ is in me

And where One is God MUST be,

For Christ is PART of One.”

Text Chapter 8 - The Journey Back

8.10 - The Answer To Prayer

Everyone who has ever tried to use prayer to request something has experienced what appears to be failure. This is not only true in connection with specific things which might be harmful, but also in connection with requests which are strictly in line with this course. The latter, in particular, might be incorrectly interpreted as “proof ” that the course does not mean what it says. You must remember, however, that the course does state, and REPEATEDLY, that its purpose is the ESCAPE FROM FEAR.

Let us suppose, then, that what you request of the Holy Spirit IS what you really want, but YOU ARE STILL AFRAID OF IT. Should this be the case, your ATTAINMENT of it would no longer BE what you want, even if IT is. This accounts for why CERTAIN SPECIFIC FORMS of healing are not achieved, even though the STATE of healing IS. It frequently happens that an individual asks for physical healing because one is fearful OF BODILY HARM. At the same time, however, if one WERE healed physically, the threat to one’s thought system would be considerably MORE fearful to one than its physical EXPRESSION. In this case one is not really asking for RELEASE from fear, but for the removal of a symptom WHICH ONE HAS SELECTED. This request is, therefore, NOT for healing at all.

The Bible emphasizes that ALL prayers are answered, and this must be true if no effort is wasted. The very fact that one has asked the Holy Spirit for ANYTHING will ensure a response. Yet it is equally certain that NO response given by the Holy Spirit will EVER be one which would INCREASE fear. It is possible that One’s answer will not be heard at all. It is IMpossible, however, that it will be lost. There are many answers which you have already received, but have NOT YET HEARD. I assure you that they are waiting for you. It is indeed true that no effort is wasted.

If you would know your prayers are answered, never doubt a Child of God. Do not question one and do not confound one, for your faith in one is your faith in YOURSELF. If you would know God and One’s Answer, believe in me whose faith in YOU cannot be shaken. Can you ask of the Holy Spirit truly, and doubt your sibling? Believe one’s words are true because of the truth which is in one. You will unite with the truth in one, and one’s words will BE true. As you hear one you will hear me.

LISTENING to truth is the only way you can hear it now, and finally KNOW it. The message your sibling gives you is UP TO YOU. What does one say to you? What would YOU have one say? Your decision ABOUT one determines the message YOU receive. Remember that the Holy Spirit is in one, and One’s Voice speaks to YOU through one. What can so holy a sibling tell you EXCEPT truth? But are you LISTENING to it?

Your sibling may not know who one is, but there is a Light in one’s mind which DOES know. This Light can shine into yours, making ONE’S words true and making you ABLE TO HEAR THEM. One’s words ARE the Holy Spirit’s answer to YOU. Is your faith in one strong enough to let you listen and hear? Salvation is of your sibling. The Holy Spirit extends from your mind to one’s, and answers YOU. You cannot hear the Voice for God in yourself alone because you are NOT alone. And One’s answer is only for what you ARE.

You will not know the trust I have in you unless you EXTEND it. You will not trust the guidance of the Holy Spirit, or believe that it is for YOU unless you hear it in others. It MUST be for your sibling BECAUSE it is for you. Would God have created a Voice for you alone? Could you hear One’s answer EXCEPT as One answers ALL of God’s Children? Hear of your sibling what you would have me hear of YOU, for you would not want ME to be deceived.

I love you for the truth in you, as GOD does. Your deceptions may deceive YOU, but they CANNOT deceive ME. Knowing what you ARE, I CANNOT doubt you. I hear only the Holy Spirit in you, Who speaks to me through YOU. If you would hear ME, hear my siblings in whom God’s Voice speaks. The answer to ALL your prayers lies in them. You will be answered as you HEAR THE ANSWER IN EVERYONE. Do not listen to anything else or you will not hear truth.

Believe in your siblings BECAUSE I believe in you, and you will learn that my belief in you is justified. Believe in me BY believing in them, for the sake of what God gave them. THEY WILL ANSWER YOU, if you learn to ask truth of them. Do not ask for blessings without blessing THEM, for only in this way can YOU learn how blessed YOU are. By following this way, you ARE looking for the truth in YOU. This is not going BEYOND yourself but TOWARD yourself. Hear only God’s Answer in One’s Children, and YOU are answered.

To disbelieve is to side AGAINST, or to ATTACK. To believe is to accept, and SIDE WITH. To believe is not to be credulous, but to accept and APPRECIATE. What you do NOT believe you do NOT APPRECIATE, and you CANNOT be grateful for what you do not VALUE. There is a price you will pay for judgement because judgement IS the setting of a price. And as you set it you WILL pay it.

If paying is equated with GETTING, you will set the PRICE low but demand a high RETURN. You will have forgotten that to price is to VALUE, so that YOUR return is IN PROPORTION TO YOUR JUDGEMENT OF WORTH. If paying is associated with giving, IT CANNOT BE PERCEIVED AS LOSS, and the RECIPROCAL relationship of giving and RECEIVING will be recognized. The price will then be set high because of the value of the RETURN.

To price for GETTING is to LOSE SIGHT OF VALUE, making it inevitable that you will NOT value what you receive. Valuing it little, you will not appreciate it and will not WANT it. Never forget, then, that YOU have set the value on what you receive, and have priced it BY what you give. To believe that it is possible to get much FOR little is to believe that you can bargain with God.

God’s laws are ALWAYS fair and PERFECTLY consistent. BY giving you receive. But to receive is to ACCEPT, NOT to get. It is impossible not to HAVE, but it IS possible NOT TO KNOW YOU HAVE. The recognition of HAVING is the willingness for GIVING, and ONLY by this willingness can you RECOGNIZE what you have. What you give is therefore the value you put on what you have, being the exact measure of the value you PUT upon it. And this, in turn, is the measure of HOW MUCH YOU WANT IT.

You can ASK of the Holy Spirit, then, only by giving TO One, and you can GIVE to One only where you SEE One. If you see One in everyone, consider how much you will be ASKING of One, and HOW MUCH YOU WILL RECEIVE. One will deny you nothing because you have denied ONE nothing, and so you can share everything. This is the way, and the ONLY way, to have One’s answer because One’s answer is all you CAN ask for and WANT. Say, then, to everyone:

“Because I will to know myself,

I see you as God’s Child and my sibling.”

Text Chapter 9 - The Correction of Error

9.0 - The Correction Of Error

The alertness of the ego to the errors which other egos make is NOT the kind of vigilance the Holy Spirit would have you maintain. Egos are critical in terms of the kind of “sense” they STAND FOR. THEY understand this kind of sense, because it IS sensible to them. To the Holy Spirit, it makes no sense at all. To the ego, it is kind and right and good to point out errors and “correct” them. This makes PERFECT sense to the ego, which is TOTALLY unaware of what errors ARE and what correction IS.

Errors ARE of the ego, and CORRECTION of errors of ANY kind lies solely in the RELINQUISHMENT of the ego. When you CORRECT a sibling, you are telling one that one is WRONG. One may be making no sense at the time, and it is certain that, if one is speaking from the ego, one WILL be making no sense. But your task is still to tell one, ONE IS RIGHT. You do not tell one this verbally, if one is SPEAKING foolishly, because one needs correction AT ANOTHER LEVEL, since one’s error IS at another level. ONE is still right, because one is a Child of God. One’s ego is ALWAYS wrong, no matter WHAT it says or does.

If you point out the errors of YOUR SIBLING’S ego, you MUST be seeing through yours, because the Holy Spirit DOES NOT PERCEIVE ONE’S ERRORS. This MUST be true if there is no communication AT ALL between the ego and the Holy Spirit. The ego makes NO sense, and the Holy Spirit does not attempt to understand ANYTHING that arises from it. Since One does not understand it, One DOES NOT JUDGE IT, KNOWING that nothing it engenders MEANS ANYTHING.

Text Chapter 9 - The Correction of Error

9.1 - Sanity And Perception

When you react AT ALL to errors, you are NOT LISTENING TO THE HOLY SPIRIT. One has merely disregarded them, and if you ATTEND to them, you are NOT HEARING ONE. If you do not hear ONE, you are listening to YOUR ego, and making as little sense as the sibling whose errors you perceive. This CANNOT be correction. Yet it is more than merely lack of correction for one. It is the GIVING UP of correction in YOURSELF.

When a sibling behaves insanely, you can heal one ONLY by perceiving the SANITY in one. If you perceive one’s errors and ACCEPT them, you are accepting YOURS. If you want to give YOURS over to the Holy Spirit, you must do this with ONE’S. Unless this becomes the ONE way in which you handle ALL errors, you cannot understand HOW ALL ERRORS ARE UNDONE. How is this different from telling you that what you teach you LEARN? Your sibling is as right as you are, and if you think one is WRONG you are condemning YOURSELF.

YOU cannot correct YOURSELF. Is it possible, then, for you to correct another? Yet you CAN see one truly because it IS possible for you to see YOURSELF truly. It is not up to you to CHANGE one, but merely to accept one AS ONE IS. One’s errors do not come from the truth that is in one, and ONLY this truth is yours. One’s errors cannot change this, and can have no effect at all on the truth in YOU.

To perceive errors in anyone, and to REACT to them AS IF THEY WERE REAL, is to MAKE them real to you. You will not escape paying the price for this, NOT because you are being PUNISHED for it, but because you are following the wrong guide, and WILL lose your way. Your sibling’s errors are not of one, any more than yours are OF YOU. Accept one’s errors as real, and you have attacked YOURSELF. If you would find YOUR way AND KEEP IT, see only truth beside you, for you walk together.

The Holy Spirit in you forgives all things in you AND your sibling. ONE’S errors are forgiven WITH yours. Atonement is no more separate than love. Atonement CANNOT be separate because it COMES from love. ANY attempt you make to correct a sibling means that you believe correction by YOU is possible, and this can ONLY be the arrogance of the ego. Correction is of God, Who does not know of arrogance. The Holy Spirit forgives everything BECAUSE GOD CREATED EVERYTHING. Do not undertake ONE’S function or you will forget YOURS.

Accept ONLY the function of healing in time because that is what time is FOR. GOD gave you the function to create in eternity. You do not need to learn this, but you DO need to learn to WANT this, and for THIS all learning was made. This is the Holy Spirit’s good use of an ability which you do not need, but which you HAVE made. Give it to One; you do NOT know how to use it. One will teach you how to see YOURSELF without condemnation by learning how to look on EVERYTHING without it. Condemnation will then not be real to you, and all YOUR errors WILL be forgiven.

Text Chapter 9 - The Correction of Error

9.2 - Atonement As A Lesson In Sharing

Atonement is for all because it is the way to UNDO the belief that ANYTHING is for you ALONE. To forgive is to OVERLOOK. Look, then, BEYOND error, and do not let your perception rest UPON it, for you will believe what your perception HOLDS. Accept as true only what your sibling IS, if you would know yourself. Perceive what one is NOT, and you CANNOT know what you are BECAUSE you see ONE falsely. Remember always that your identity is shared, and that its sharing IS its reality.

You have a PART to play in the Atonement, but the plan of the Atonement IS beyond you. You do not know how to OVERLOOK errors, or you would not make them. It would merely be further error to think either that you do NOT make them, or that you can correct them without a GUIDE TO CORRECTION. And if you do not FOLLOW this Guide, your errors will NOT be corrected. The plan is not yours BECAUSE of your limited ideas of WHAT YOU ARE. This limitation IS where ALL ERRORS ARISE. The way to UNDO them, therefore, is not OF you but FOR you.

The Atonement is a lesson in sharing, which is given you because YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO DO IT. The Holy Spirit merely reminds you of what is your NATURAL ability. By RE-INTERPRETING the ability to ATTACK, which you DID make, into the ability to SHARE, One TRANSLATES what you have made into what God created. If you would accomplish this THROUGH One, you cannot look on your abilities through the eyes of the ego, or you will judge them as IT does. All their harmfulness lies in ITS judgement. All their HELPFULNESS lies in the judgement of the Holy Spirit.

The ego, too, has a plan of forgiveness because you are ASKING for one, though not of the right teacher. The EGO’S plan, of course, MAKES NO SENSE and WILL NOT WORK. By following it you will merely place yourself in an impossible situation, to which the ego ALWAYS leads you. The ego’s plan is to have you SEE ERROR CLEARLY FIRST, and THEN overlook it. Yet how CAN you overlook what you have made real? By seeing it clearly you HAVE made it real and CANNOT overlook it.

This is where the ego is forced to appeal to “mysteries,” and begins to insist that you must accept the meaningless to save yourself. Many have tried to do this in my name, forgetting that my words make PERFECT sense because they come from GOD. They are as sensible now as they ever were because they speak of ideas which are eternal. Forgiveness that is learned of ME does not use fear to UNDO fear. Nor does it make real the UNreal and then destroy it.

Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus KEEPING it unreal for you. Do not let any belief in its realness enter your minds AT ALL, or you will also believe that you must UNDO what you have made in order to BE forgiven. What has no effect does not exist, and to the Holy Spirit the effects of error are TOTALLY non-existent. By steadily and consistently canceling out ALL its effects, EVERYWHERE AND IN ALL RESPECTS, One teaches that the ego does not exist, and PROVES it. Follow One’s teaching in forgiveness, then, because forgiveness IS One’s function, and One knows how to fulfill it perfectly. That is what we meant when we once said that miracles are NATURAL, and when they do NOT occur something has gone wrong. Miracles are merely the sign of your willingness to follow the Holy Spirit’s plan of salvation, in recognition of the FACT that you do NOT know what it is. One’s work is NOT your function, and unless you accept this, you CANNOT learn what your function IS.

The confusion of functions is so typical of the ego that you should be quite familiar with it by now. The ego believes that ALL functions belong to IT, even though it has no idea what they ARE. This is more than mere confusion. It is a particularly dangerous combination of grandiosity AND confusion which makes it likely that the ego will attack anyone and anything for no reason at all. This is exactly what the ego DOES. It is TOTALLY unpredictable in its responses because it has no idea of WHAT it perceives.

If one has no idea of what is happening, how appropriately can you EXPECT one to react? You might still ask yourself, regardless of how you can ACCOUNT for the reactions, whether they place the ego in a very sound position as the guide for YOURS. It seems absurd to have to emphasize repeatedly that the ego’s qualifications as a guide are singularly unfortunate, and that it is a remarkably poor choice as a teacher of salvation. Yet this question, ridiculous as it seems, is REALLY the crucial issue in the whole separation fantasy.

Anyone who elects a totally insane guide MUST be totally insane oneself. It is not true that you do not know the guide is insane. YOU know it because I know it, and you HAVE judged it by the same Standard as I have. The ego literally lives on borrowed time, and ITS days ARE numbered. Do not fear the Last Judgement, but welcome it and do not wait, for the ego’s time is borrowed from YOUR eternity. This IS the Second Coming, which was made FOR you as the First was created.

The Second Coming is merely the return of SENSE. Can this POSSIBLY be fearful? What can be fearful but fantasy, and no one turns to fantasy unless one despairs of finding satisfaction in reality. Yet it is CERTAIN that one will NEVER find satisfaction in fantasy, so that one’s ONLY hope is to CHANGE ONE’S MIND ABOUT REALITY. Only if the decision that reality is fearful is WRONG can GOD be right. And I ASSURE you that God IS right.

Be glad, then, that you HAVE been wrong, but this was only because you did not know who you WERE. Had you REMEMBERED, you could no more have been wrong than God can. The impossible can happen ONLY in fantasy. When you search for reality in fantasies you will not find it. The symbols of fantasy are of the ego, and of THESE you will find many. But do not look for meaning in them. They have no more meaning than the fantasies into which they are woven.

Fairy tales can be pleasant or fearful, pretty or ugly, but NO ONE calls them TRUE. Children may believe them, and so, for a while, the tales ARE true for them. Yet when Reality dawns the fantasies are gone. REALITY has NOT gone in the meanwhile. The Second Coming is the AWARENESS of reality, not its RETURN. Behold, my children, reality is here. It belongs to you and me and God, and is perfectly satisfying to all of us. Only THIS awareness heals, because it is the awareness of truth.

Text Chapter 9 - The Correction of Error

9.3 - The Unhealed Healer

The ego’s plan for forgiveness is far more widely used than God’s. This is because it is undertaken by unhealed healers, and IS therefore of the ego. Let us consider the unhealed healer more carefully now. By definition, one is trying to GIVE what one has NOT received. If one is a theologian, one may begin with the premise, “I am a miserable sinner and so are you.” If one is a psychotherapist, one is more likely to start with the equally incredible idea that ONE really believes in attack and so does the patient, but it does not matter in EITHER case.

We have repeatedly stated that beliefs of the ego CANNOT be shared, and THIS IS WHY THEY ARE UNREAL. How, then, can “UNCOVERING” them MAKE them real? Every healer who searches fantasies for truth MUST be unhealed because one DOES NOT KNOW WHERE TO LOOK FOR TRUTH, and therefore does not have the answer to the problem of healing. There IS an advantage to bringing nightmares into awareness, but ONLY to teach that they are NOT real, and that ANYTHING they contain is meaningless. The unhealed healer cannot DO this because one does not BELIEVE IT.

All unhealed healers follow the ego’s plan for forgiveness in one form or another. If they are theologians, they are likely to condemn THEMSELVES, TEACH condemnation, and advocate a very fearful solution. Projecting condemnation onto God, they make One appear retaliative and FEAR ONE’S RETRIBUTION. What they have done is merely to IDENTIFY with the ego, and by perceiving clearly what IT does, condemn THEMSELVES because of this profound confusion.

It is understandable that there has been a revolt against this concept, but to revolt AGAINST it is still to BELIEVE in it. The FORM of the revolt, then, is different, but NOT the content. The new form of the ego’s plan is as unhelpful as the older one, because form does not matter to the Holy Spirit, and therefore DOES NOT MATTER AT ALL. According to the newer forms of the ego’s plan, the therapist interprets the ego’s symbols IN the nightmare, and then uses them to PROVE THAT THE NIGHTMARE IS REAL. Having MADE it real, one then attempts to dispel its EFFECTS by DEPRECIATING THE IMPORTANCE OF THE DREAMER.

This WOULD be a healing approach IF THE DREAMER were properly identified as UNREAL. Yet if the dreamer is equated WITH the mind, the mind’s corrective power through the Holy Spirit is DENIED. It is noteworthy that this is a contradiction even in the ego’s terms, and one which it usually DOES note, even in its confusion. If the way to counteract fear is to REDUCE the importance of the FEARER, how can this build ego STRENGTH? These perfectly self-evident inconsistencies account for why, except in certain stylized verbal accounts, NOBODY can EXPLAIN what happens in psychotherapy. Nothing real DOES.

Nothing REAL has happened to the unhealed healer, and ONE LEARNS FROM ONE’S OWN TEACHING. BECAUSE one’s ego is involved, it ALWAYS attempts to gain some support from the situation. Seeking to GET something for ONESELF the unhealed healer does NOT know how to give, and consequently CANNOT SHARE. One CANNOT correct because one is not working CORRECTIVELY. One believes that it is up to one to teach the patient what is REAL, but one does not know it ONESELF.

What, then, SHOULD happen? When God said, “Let there be light” there WAS light. Can you find light by ANALYZING darkness as the psychotherapist does, or like the theologian by ACKNOWLEDGING darkness in yourself and looking for a distant light to remove it while emphasizing the distance?

Healing is NOT mysterious. Nothing will occur UNLESS you understand it since light IS understanding. A “miserable sinner” cannot be healed without magic, nor can an “unimportant mind” esteem itself without magic. Both forms of the ego’s approach, then, MUST arrive at an impasse, the characteristic “impossible situation” to which the ego ALWAYS leads.

It CAN be helpful to point out to a patient WHERE ONE IS HEADING, but the point is LOST unless one can change one’s direction. The therapist cannot do this for one, but one also CANNOT DO THIS FOR ONESELF. The only MEANINGFUL contribution the therapist can make is to present an example of one whose direction has been changed FOR one, and who NO LONGER BELIEVES IN NIGHTMARES OF ANY KIND. The light in ONE’S mind will therefore ANSWER the questioner, who MUST decide with God that there IS light BECAUSE ONE SEES IT. And by ONE’S acknowledgment THE THERAPIST KNOWS IT IS THERE.

That is how perception ultimately is translated into knowledge. The miracle worker begins by PERCEIVING light, and translates ONE’S perception into sureness by continually extending it and ACCEPTING ITS ACKNOWLEDGMENT. Its EFFECTS assure one IT IS THERE. The therapist does not heal; ONE LETS HEALING BE. ONE can point to darkness, but one CANNOT bring light OF ONESELF, for light is NOT of one. Yet, being FOR one, it MUST also be for one’s patient.

The Holy Spirit is the ONLY Therapist. One makes healing PERFECTLY clear in ANY situation in which One is the Guide. The human therapist can only LET ONE FULFILL ONE’S FUNCTION. One needs no help for this. One WILL tell you EXACTLY what to do to help ANYONE One sends to you FOR help, and will speak to one through you, IF YOU DO NOT INTERFERE. Remember that you ARE choosing a guide for helping, and the wrong choice will NOT help. But remember also that THE RIGHT ONE WILL. Trust One, for help is One’s function, and One is of God.

As you awaken other minds TO the Holy Spirit through ONE, and not yourself, you will understand that you are not obeying the laws of this world, but that the laws you ARE obeying WORK. “The good is what works” is a sound though insufficient statement. ONLY the good CAN work. Nothing else works at all. This course is a guide to behavior. Being a very direct and very simple learning situation, it provides the Guide Who tells you what to do. If you do it, you will SEE that it works. Its RESULTS are more convincing than its words. THEY will convince you that the words are true.

By following the right Guide you will learn the simplest of all lessons:

“By their fruits ye shall know them, and THEY shall know THEMSELVES.”

Text Chapter 9 - The Correction of Error

9.4 - The Awareness Of The Holy Spirit

How can you become increasingly aware of the Holy Spirit in you EXCEPT by One’s EFFECTS? You cannot see One with your eyes, nor hear One with your ears. How, then, can you perceive One at all? If you INSPIRE joy, and others react to you WITH joy, even though you are not experiencing joy yourself, there must be SOMETHING IN YOU that is CAPABLE OF PRODUCING IT. If it is in YOU and CAN produce joy, and if you see that it DOES produce joy in others, you MUST be dissociating it in yourself.

It seems to you that the Holy Spirit does NOT produce joy consistently in you ONLY because YOU DO NOT CONSISTENTLY AROUSE JOY IN OTHERS. Their reactions to you ARE your evaluations of One’s consistency. When you are inconsistent you will not always GIVE RISE to joy, and so you will not always recognize ONE’S consistency. What you offer to your sibling you offer to One, because One cannot GO BEYOND your offering in ONE’S giving. This is NOT because ONE limits One’s giving, but simply because YOU have limited your RECEIVING.

The will to receive is the will to accept. If your siblings ARE part of you, will you ACCEPT them? Only they can teach you what you are, and your learning is the result of what you taught THEM. What you call upon in them you call upon in YOURSELF. And as you call upon it IN THEM it becomes real to YOU. God has but one Child, knowing them all as One. Only God Oneself is more than they, but they are not less than One is. Would you know what this means? If what you do to my sibling you do to me, and if you do everything for yourself because we are PART of you, everything WE do belongs to you as well. Every Spirit God created IS part of you, and shares One’s glory WITH you.

One’s Glory belongs to One, but it is equally YOURS. You cannot, then, BE less glorious than One is. God is more than you ONLY because One CREATED you, but not even this would One keep from you. Therefore you CAN create as One did, and YOUR dissociation WILL NOT ALTER THIS. Neither God’s Light nor YOURS is dimmed because you do not see.

Because the Christhood MUST create as one, you remember creation whenever you recognize part of creation. Each part you remember adds to YOUR wholeness because each part IS whole. Wholeness is indivisible, but you cannot learn YOUR wholeness UNTIL YOU SEE IT EVERYWHERE. You can know yourself only as God knows One’s Child, for KNOWLEDGE is shared WITH God. When You awake in One you will know your magnitude by accepting ONE’S limitlessness as YOURS. But meanwhile you will judge it as you judge your siblings’ and will accept it as you accept theirs.

You are not yet awake, but you can learn HOW to awaken. Very simply the Holy Spirit teaches you to awaken others. As you see them waken you will learn WHAT WAKING MEANS. And because you have willed to wake them, their gratitude and their appreciation of what you have given them will TEACH YOU ITS VALUE. THEY will become the witnesses to your reality, as YOU were created witnesses to God’s. Yet when the Christhood COMES TOGETHER and accepts its oneness, it will be known by ITS creations, who witness to its reality as the Child does to the Creator.

Miracles have no place in eternity because they are reparative. Yet while you still need healing, your miracles are the only witnesses to your reality WHICH YOU CAN RECOGNIZE. You cannot perform a miracle FOR YOURSELF because miracles are a way of GIVING ACCEPTANCE AND receiving it. In TIME the giving comes FIRST, though they are simultaneous in eternity, where they cannot BE separated. When you have learned that they ARE the same, the need for time is over. Eternity is ONE time, its ONLY dimension being “always”.

This cannot mean anything to you, however, until you remember God’s open arms and finally know One’s open Mind. Like One, YOU are ALWAYS in One’s Mind and with a mind like One’s. In your open mind are YOUR creations, in perfect communication, born of perfect understanding. Could you but accept one of them, you would not want ANYTHING the world has to offer. Everything else would be totally meaningless. God’s meaning is incomplete without you, and you are incomplete without your creations.

Accept your sibling in this world and accept NOTHING ELSE, for in one you will find your creations because one created them WITH you. You will never know that you are co-creator with God until you learn that your sibling is a co-creator with YOU.

Text Chapter 9 - The Correction of Error

9.5 - Salvation And God’s Will

God’s Will is your salvation. Would One not have given you the means to find it? If One wills you to HAVE it, One MUST have made it possible and very easy to obtain it.

Your siblings are everywhere. You do not have to seek far for salvation. Every minute and every second gives you a chance to save YOURSELF. Do not lose these chances, NOT because they will not return, but because delay of joy is needless. God wills you perfect happiness NOW. Is it possible that this is not also YOUR will? And is it possible that this is not ALSO the will of your siblings? Consider, then, that in this joint will you ARE all united, and IN THIS ONLY. There WILL be disagreement on anything ELSE, but NOT on this. This, then, is where peace ABIDES. And YOU abide in peace when you so decide.

Yet you cannot abide in peace unless you accept the Atonement because the Atonement IS the way to peace. The reason is very simple, and so obvious that it is often overlooked. That is because the ego is AFRAID of the obvious, since obviousness is the essential characteristic of reality. You CANNOT overlook it unless you are NOT LOOKING. It is PERFECTLY obvious that, if the Holy Spirit looks with love on ALL One perceives, One looks with love on YOU. One’s EVALUATION of you is based on One’s knowledge of what you ARE, and so One evaluates you truly. And this evaluation MUST be in your mind because ONE is.

The ego is also in your mind because you have ACCEPTED it there. ITS evaluation of you, however, is the exact opposite of the Holy Spirit’s because the ego does NOT love you. It is unaware of what you are, and wholly mistrustful of EVERYTHING it perceives because its own perceptions are so shifting. The ego is therefore capable of suspiciousness at best and viciousness at worst. That is its range. It cannot exceed it because of its uncertainty. And it can never go BEYOND it because it can never BE certain.

You, then, have two conflicting evaluations of yourself in your minds, and they CANNOT BOTH BE TRUE. You do not yet realize how COMPLETELY different these evaluations are because you do not understand how lofty the Holy Spirit’s perception of you really is. One is not deceived by ANYTHING you do because One NEVER forgets what you ARE. The ego is deceived by EVERYTHING you do, even when you respond to the Holy Spirit, because at such times ITS CONFUSION INCREASES. The ego is, therefore, particularly likely to attack you when you react lovingly because it has evaluated you AS UNLOVING, and you are going AGAINST ITS JUDGEMENT.

The ego will begin to ATTACK your motives as soon as they become clearly out of accord with its perception of you. This is when it will shift abruptly from suspiciousness to viciousness, since its uncertainty is INCREASED. Yet it is surely pointless to attack in return. What can this mean except that you are AGREEING with the ego’s evaluation of what you are? If you are willing to see yourself as unloving, YOU WILL NOT BE HAPPY. You are condemning yourself, and MUST therefore regard yourself as inadequate.

Would you look to the ego to help you escape from a sense of inadequacy it has PRODUCED, and must MAINTAIN for its existence? Can you ESCAPE from its evaluation of you by using its methods for keeping this picture INTACT? You cannot evaluate an insane belief system from WITHIN it. Its own range precludes this. You can only GO BEYOND it, look back from a point where SANITY exists, AND SEE THE CONTRAST. Only BY this contrast can insanity be judged as insane.

With the grandeur of God in you, you have chosen to be little and to lament your littleness. Within the system which DICTATED this choice the lament IS inevitable. Your littleness is TAKEN FOR GRANTED there, and you do NOT ask, “Who granted it?” The question is meaningless WITHIN the ego’s thought system because it OPENS THE WHOLE THOUGHT SYSTEM TO QUESTION. We said before that the ego does not know what a real question is. Lack of knowledge of ANY kind is ALWAYS associated with UNWILLINGNESS to know, and produces a TOTAL lack of knowledge simply because KNOWLEDGE is total. NOT to question your littleness, therefore, is to deny ALL knowledge and keep the ego’s WHOLE thought system intact.

You cannot retain PART of a thought system because it can BE questioned only at its foundation. And this MUST be questioned from beyond it because WITHIN it, its foundation DOES stand. The Holy Spirit judges against the reality of the ego’s thought system merely because One knows its FOUNDATION is not true. Therefore, nothing that arises from it MEANS anything. The Holy Spirit judges every belief you hold in terms of where it comes from. If it comes from God, One knows it to be true. If it does not, One knows that it is meaningless.

Whenever you question your value, say:

“God Oneself is incomplete without me.”

Remember this when the ego speaks, and you will not hear it. The truth about YOU is so lofty that nothing unworthy of God is worthy of you. Choose, then, what you want in these terms, and accept nothing that you would not offer to God as wholly fitting for ONE, for YOU do not want anything else. Return your part of One, and One will give you all of Oneself in exchange for your return of what belongs to One and renders One complete.

Text Chapter 9 - The Correction of Error

9.6 - Grandeur Versus Grandiosity

Grandeur is of God, and ONLY of One. Therefore, it is in you. Whenever you become aware of it, however dimly, you abandon the ego automatically because, in the presence of the grandeur of God, the meaninglessness of the ego becomes perfectly apparent. Though it does not understand this, the ego believes that its “enemy” has struck, and attempts to offer gifts to induce you to return to its “protection.” SELF-inflation is the only offering it can make. The grandiosity of the ego is its alternative to the grandeur of God. Which will you choose?

Grandiosity is ALWAYS a cover for despair. It is without hope because it is not real. It is an attempt to COUNTERACT your littleness, based on the belief THAT THE LITTLENESS IS REAL. WITHOUT this belief grandiosity is meaningless, and you could not possibly WANT it. The essence of grandiosity is competitiveness, because it ALWAYS involves ATTACK. It is a delusional attempt to OUTDO, but NOT to UNdo. We said before that the ego vacillates between suspiciousness and viciousness. It remains suspicious as long as you DESPAIR of yourself. It shifts to viciousness whenever you will not tolerate self-abasement and seek relief. Then it offers you the illusion of ATTACK as a solution.

The ego does not know the difference between grandeur and grandiosity because it does not know the difference between miracle impulses and ego-alien beliefs of its own. We once said that the ego IS aware of threat, but does NOT make distinctions between two ENTIRELY different kinds of threat to its existence. Its own PROFOUND sense of vulnerability renders it incapable of judgement EXCEPT in terms of attack. When it experiences threat, its ONLY decision is whether to attack NOW, or to withdraw to attack later. If you ACCEPT its offer of grandiosity, it will attack immediately. If you do not, it will wait.

The ego is immobilized in the presence of God’s grandeur because ONE’S grandeur establishes YOUR freedom. Even the faintest hint of your reality literally drives the ego from your mind because of complete lack of investment in it. Grandeur is totally WITHOUT illusions, and because it is real, it is compellingly convincing. Yet the conviction of reality will not REMAIN with you UNLESS YOU DO NOT ALLOW THE EGO TO ATTACK IT.

The ego will make every effort to recover and mobilize its energies AGAINST your release. It will tell you that you are insane, and argue that grandeur CANNOT be a real part of you because of the littleness in which IT believes. Yet your grandeur is NOT delusional BECAUSE YOU DID NOT MAKE IT. YOU have made grandiosity and are afraid of it because it is a form of ATTACK. But your grandeur is of God, Who created it out of One’s Love. From your grandeur you can only bless because your grandeur is your ABUNDANCE. By blessing you hold it in your minds, protecting it from illusions and keeping yourself in the Mind of God.

Remember always that you cannot be anywhere EXCEPT in the Mind of God. When you FORGET this, you WILL despair and you WILL attack. The ego depends SOLELY on your willingness to tolerate it. If you are willing to look upon your grandeur you CANNOT despair, and therefore you CANNOT want the ego. Your grandeur is God’s ANSWER to the ego because it is true. Littleness and grandeur cannot co-exist, nor is it possible for them to alternate in your awareness. Littleness and grandiosity can and MUST alternate in your awareness since both are untrue, and are therefore on the same level. Being the level of shift it is experienced as shifting, and extremes are its essential characteristic.

Truth and littleness are DENIALS of each other because grandeur IS truth. Truth does not vacillate; it is ALWAYS true. When grandeur slips away from you, YOU HAVE REPLACED IT WITH SOMETHING YOU HAVE MADE. Perhaps it is the belief in littleness; perhaps it is the belief in grandiosity. Yet it MUST be insane because it is NOT TRUE. Your grandeur will NEVER deceive you, but your illusions ALWAYS will. Illusions ARE deceptions.

You CANNOT triumph, but you ARE exalted. And in your exalted state you seek others like you and rejoice with them. It is easy to distinguish grandeur from grandiosity simply because love is returned, but pride is not. Pride will not produce miracles, and therefore will deprive you of your true witnesses to your reality. Truth is not obscure nor hidden, but its obviousness to YOU lies in the joy you bring to its witnesses, WHO SHOW IT TO YOU. They attest to your grandeur, but they cannot attest to pride because pride is not shared.

God WANTS you to behold what One created because it is ONE’S joy. Can your grandeur be arrogant when God ONESELF witnesses to it? And what can be real that has NO witnesses? What good can come of it? And if no good can come of it, the Holy Spirit cannot use it. What One cannot TRANSFORM to the Will of God does not exist at all. Grandiosity is delusional because it is used to REPLACE your grandeur. Yet what God has created cannot BE replaced.

God is incomplete without you simply because One’s grandeur is total, and you cannot BE missing from it. You are altogether irreplaceable in the Mind of God. No one else can fill your part of It, and while you leave your part of It empty, your eternal place merely waits for your return. God, through One’s Voice, reminds you of It, and God Oneself keeps your extensions safe within It. Yet YOU do not know them until you return TO them.

You CANNOT replace the Realm, and you cannot replace yourself. God, Who KNOWS your value, would not have it so, and so it is NOT so. Your value is in GOD’S Mind, and therefore NOT in yours alone. To accept yourself as God created you CANNOT be arrogance because it is the DENIAL of arrogance. To accept your littleness IS arrogant because it means that you believe YOUR evaluation of yourself is TRUER THAN GOD’S. Yet if truth is indivisible YOUR evaluation of yourself MUST BE GOD’S.

You did not ESTABLISH your value, and it NEEDS no defense. NOTHING can attack it or prevail over it. It does not vary. It merely IS. Ask the Holy Spirit WHAT it is and One will tell you, but do not be afraid of One’s answer, for it comes from God. It IS an exalted answer because of its Source. But the Source is true and so is Its answer. Listen and do not question what you hear, for God does not deceive. One would have you replace the ego’s belief in littleness with One’s own exalted answer to the question of your being, so that you can cease to question it and KNOW it for what it IS.

Text Chapter 9 - The Correction of Error

9.7 - The Inclusiveness Of Creation

NOTHING beyond yourself can make you fearful or loving because nothing IS beyond you. Time and eternity are both in your minds, and WILL conflict until you perceive time SOLELY as a means to REGAIN eternity. You cannot do this as long as you believe that ANYTHING which happens to you is caused by factors OUTSIDE yourself. You must learn that time is solely at YOUR disposal, and that nothing in the world can take this responsibility FROM you. You can VIOLATE God’s laws in your imagination, but you cannot escape from them. They were established for your protection, and are as inviolate as your safety.

God created nothing beside you and nothing beside you exists, for you are part of One. What except One CAN exist? Nothing BEYOND One can happen because nothing EXCEPT One is real. YOUR creations add to One as YOU do, but nothing is added that is different because everything has always BEEN. What can upset you except the ephemeral, and how can the ephemeral be real if you are God’s ONLY creation and One created you eternal?

Your holy will establishes EVERYTHING that happens to you. Every response you make to everything you perceive is up to you because your will DETERMINES your perception of it. God does not change One’s Mind about YOU, for One is not uncertain of ONESELF. And what One knows CAN be known because One does not know only for Oneself. One CREATED you for Oneself, but One gave you the power to create for YOUR self so you could be LIKE One. That is WHY your will is holy.

Can anything EXCEED the Love of God? Can anything, then, exceed YOUR will? Nothing can reach you from BEYOND it because, being in God, YOU encompass everything. Believe this, and you will realize how much IS up to you. When ANYTHING threatens your peace of mind, ask yourself,

“Has God changed One’s Mind about me?”

Then ACCEPT One’s decision, for it is indeed changeless, and refuse to change your mind about YOURSELF. God will never decide AGAINST you, or One would be deciding against Oneself.

The reason you do not know YOUR creations is simply that you would decide against them as long as your minds are split, and to attack what you have created is impossible. But remember that IT IS AS IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD. The law of creation is that you love your creations as yourself BECAUSE THEY ARE PART OF YOU. Everything that was created is therefore PERFECTLY safe because the laws of God protect it by One’s Love. Any part of your mind that does not know this has banished itself from knowledge because it has NOT MET ITS CONDITIONS.

Who could have done this but you? Recognize this gladly, for in this recognition lies the realization that your banishment is not of God, and therefore does not exist. You are at home in God, dreaming of exile, but perfectly capable of awakening to Reality. Is it your will to do so? You know, from your own experience, that what you see in dreams you think is real as long as you are asleep. Yet the instant you waken you KNOW that everything that SEEMED to happen DID NOT HAPPEN AT ALL. You do not think this mysterious, even though ALL the laws of what you awakened to WERE violated while you slept.

Is it not possible that you merely shifted from one dream to another, without REALLY wakening? Would you bother to reconcile what happened in conflicting DREAMS, or would you dismiss BOTH TOGETHER if you discovered that REALITY is in accord with neither? You do not remember being awake. When you hear the Holy Spirit you merely feel BETTER because loving seems POSSIBLE to you, but you do NOT remember yet that it once was so. And it is in this remembering that you will know it can be so again.

What is possible has not yet been accomplished. Yet what has once been is so now, if it is eternal. When you remember, you will know what you remember IS eternal, and therefore is NOW.

You will remember everything the instant you DESIRE IT WHOLLY, for if to desire wholly is to create, you will have willed away the separation, returning your mind simultaneously to your Creator and your creations. Knowing them you will have no wish to sleep, but only the will to waken and be glad. Dreams will be impossible because you will WANT only truth, and being at last your will it will be yours.

Text Chapter 9 - The Correction of Error

9.8 - The Decision To Forget

Unless you KNOW something you CANNOT dissociate it. Knowledge therefore PRECEDES dissociation, and dissociation is nothing more than a DECISION TO FORGET. What has been FORGOTTEN then appears to be fearful, but ONLY because the dissociation was an ATTACK ON TRUTH. You are fearful BECAUSE you have forgotten. And you have REPLACED your knowledge by an awareness of dreams, BECAUSE YOU ARE AFRAID OF YOUR DISSOCIATION, NOT of what you have dissociated. Even in this world’s therapy, when dissociated material is ACCEPTED it ceases to be fearful, for the laws of mind always hold.

Yet to give up the dissociation of REALITY brings more than merely lack of fear. In THIS decision lie joy and peace and the glory of creation. Offer the Holy Spirit only your will to remember, for One retains the knowledge of God and of yourself FOR you, waiting for your acceptance. Give up gladly EVERYTHING that would stand in the way of your remembering, for God is in your memory, and One’s Voice will tell you that you are part of One when you are willing to remember One and know your own reality again. Let nothing in this world delay your remembering of One, for in this remembering is the knowledge of YOURSELF.

To remember is merely to restore to your mind WHAT IS ALREADY THERE. You do not make what you remember; you merely accept again what has BEEN made AND REJECTED. The ability to ACCEPT truth in this world is the perceptual counterpart of creating in the Realm. God WILL do One’s part if you will do yours, and ONE’S return in exchange for yours IS the exchange of knowledge for perception. NOTHING is beyond One’s Will for you. But signify your will to remember One, and behold! One will give you everything but for your asking.

When you attack you are denying YOURSELF. You are specifically teaching yourself that you are NOT what you are. YOUR denial of reality precludes the ACCEPTANCE of God’s gift BECAUSE YOU HAVE ACCEPTED SOMETHING ELSE IN ITS PLACE. If you understand that the misuse of defenses always constitutes an attack on truth, and truth is God, you will realize why this is ALWAYS fearful. If you further recognize that you are PART of God, you will understand why it is that YOU ALWAYS ATTACK YOURSELF FIRST.

ALL attack is self attack. It cannot BE anything else. Arising from your OWN decision NOT to be what you ARE, IT IS AN ATTACK ON YOUR IDENTIFICATION. Attack is thus the way in which your identification is lost, because, when you attack, you MUST have forgotten what you are. And if your reality is God's, when YOU attack, you are not remembering ONE. This is not because One is gone, but because you are ACTIVELY WILLING NOT TO REMEMBER ONE.

If you realized the complete havoc this makes of your peace of mind, you COULD not make such an insane decision. You make it only because you still believe that it can GET YOU SOMETHING YOU WANT. It follows, then, that you want something OTHER than peace of mind, but you have not considered what it must be. Yet the logical outcome of your decision is perfectly clear, if you will LOOK at it. By deciding AGAINST your reality, you have made yourself vigilant AGAINST God and One’s Realm. And it is THIS vigilance that makes you afraid to remember One.

You have NOT attacked God and you DO love One. Can you change your reality? No one can will to destroy oneself. When you think you are attacking your SELF, it is a sure sign that you hate what you think you are. And this, and ONLY this, can BE attacked by you. What you THINK you are CAN be hateful, and what this strange image makes you do can be very destructive. The destruction is no more real than the image, but those who make idols DO worship them. The idols are nothing, but their worshippers are the Children of God in sickness.

God would have them released from their sickness and returned to One’s Mind. One will not limit your power to help them because One has given it TO you. Do not be afraid of it because it is your salvation. What Comforter can there be for the sick children of God except One’s power through YOU? Remember that it does not matter where in the Christhood One is accepted. One is ALWAYS accepted for all, and when your mind receives One the remembrance of One awakens throughout the Christhood.

Heal your siblings simply by accepting God FOR them. Your minds are not separate, and God has only one channel for healing because One has but one Child. One’s remaining communication link with all One’s Children joins them together, and them to One. To be aware of this is to heal them because it is the awareness that no one is separate, and so no one is sick. To believe that a Child of God can be sick is to believe that PART OF GOD CAN SUFFER.

Love CANNOT suffer because it can not attack. The remembrance of love therefore brings invulnerability with it. Do not side with sickness in the presence of a Child of God even if ONE believes in it, for YOUR acceptance of God in one ACKNOWLEDGES the Love of God which one has forgotten. Your recognition of one as PART OF GOD teaches one the truth about oneself, WHICH ONE IS DENYING. Would you STRENGTHEN one’s denial of God, and thus lose sight of YOURSELF? Or would you remind one of one’s wholeness, and remember your Creator WITH one?

To believe a Child of God is sick is to worship the same idol one does. God created love, NOT idolatry. ALL forms of idolatry are caricatures of creation, taught by sick minds which are too divided to know that creation SHARES power and NEVER usurps it. Sickness is idolatry because it is the belief that POWER CAN BE TAKEN FROM YOU. Yet this is impossible because you are part of God, Who IS all power. A sick god MUST be an idol, made in the image of what its maker thinks ONE is. And that is exactly what the ego DOES perceive in a Child of God—a sick god, self-created, self sufficient, very vicious, and very vulnerable.

Is THIS the idol you would worship? Is THIS the image you would be vigilant to SAVE? Are you REALLY afraid of losing THIS? Look calmly at the logical conclusion of the ego’s thought system, and judge whether its offering is really what you want, for this IS what it offers you. To obtain THIS you are willing to attack the Divinity of your siblings, and thus lose sight of YOURS. And you are willing to keep it hidden and to protect this idol, which you think will save you from the dangers WHICH THE IDOL ITSELF STANDS FOR, but which do not exist.

There are no idolaters in the Realm, but there is great appreciation for every Spirit which God created because of the calm knowledge that each one is part of One. God’s Child knows no idols, but one DOES know one’s Creator. Health in this world is the counterpart of value in Heaven. It is not my merit that I contribute to you but my love, for you do not value yourselves. When you do not value yourself you become sick, but MY value of you can heal you because the value of God’s Child is one.

When I said, “My peace I give unto you,” I meant it. Peace came from God through me to YOU. It was FOR you although you did not ask. When a sibling is sick it is because ONE IS NOT ASKING FOR PEACE, and therefore does not know one HAS it. The ACCEPTANCE of peace is the denial of illusion, and sickness IS an illusion. Yet every Child of God has the power to deny illusions ANYWHERE in the Realm merely by denying them completely in oneself.

I CAN heal you because I KNOW you. I know your value FOR you, and it is this value that makes you whole. A whole mind is not idolatrous, and does not know of conflicting laws. I will heal you merely because I have only ONE message, and it is true. Your faith in it will make you whole when you have faith in me. I do not bring God’s message with deception, and you will learn this as you learn that you ALWAYS receive as much as you ACCEPT. You could accept peace NOW for everyone you meet, and offer them perfect freedom from ALL illusions BECAUSE YOU HEARD. But have no other gods before One, or you will NOT hear.

God is not jealous of the gods you make, but YOU are. You would save them and serve them because you believe that THEY MADE YOU. You think they are your creator because you are projecting onto them the fearful fact that YOU MADE THEM TO REPLACE GOD. Yet when they seem to speak to you remember that NOTHING can replace God, and whatever replacements you have attempted ARE nothing. Very simply, then, you may BELIEVE you are afraid of nothingNESS, but you are REALLY afraid of NOTHING. And in THAT awareness you ARE healed.

You WILL hear the god you listen to. You MADE the god of sickness, and BY making one, you made yourself ABLE to hear one. Yet you did NOT create one because one is NOT the Will of the Creator. One is therefore not eternal, and will be UNMADE for you the instant you signify your willingness to accept ONLY the eternal. If God has but one Child, there is but one God. You share reality with One BECAUSE reality is not divided. To accept other gods before One is to place other images before YOURSELF. You do not realize how much you listen to your gods, and how vigilant you are on their behalf. Yet they exist only because you honor them.

Place honor where it is due, and peace WILL be yours. It is your inheritance from your REAL Creator. You cannot make your creator, and the creator you made did NOT make you. Honor is not due illusions, for to honor them is to honor nothing. Yet fear is not due them either, for nothing cannot be fearful. You have chosen to fear love BECAUSE of its perfect harmlessness. And because of this fear, you have been willing to give up your own perfect helpfulness and your own perfect Help. Only at the altar of God will you find peace. And this altar is in you because God put it there. One’s Voice still calls you to return, and One will be heard when you place no other gods before One.

You can give up the god of sickness for your siblings; in fact, you would HAVE to do so if you give it up for yourself. For if you see it anywhere, YOU are accepting it. And if you accept it, you WILL bow down and worship it, because IT WAS MADE AS GOD’S REPLACEMENT. It is the belief that YOU CAN CHOOSE WHICH GOD IS REAL. Although it is perfectly clear that this has nothing to do with REALITY, it is equally clear that it has EVERYTHING to do with REALITY AS YOU PERCEIVE IT.

Text Chapter 9 - The Correction of Error

9.9 - Magic Versus Miracles

ALL magic is a form of reconciling the irreconcilable. All religion is the recognition that the irreconcilable cannot BE reconciled.

Sickness and perfection ARE irreconcilable. If God created you perfect, you ARE perfect. If you believe you can be sick, you HAVE placed other gods before One. GOD is not at war with the god of sickness you made, but YOU are. It is the symbol of willing AGAINST God, and you are afraid of it BECAUSE it cannot be reconciled with God’s Will. If you ATTACK it, you will make it real to you. But if you refuse to worship it in whatever form it may appear to you and wherever you think you see it, it will disappear into the nothingness out of which it was made.

Reality can dawn only on an unclouded mind. It is always THERE to BE accepted, but its acceptance depends on your WILLINGNESS TO HAVE IT. To know reality MUST involve the willingness to judge UNreality FOR WHAT IT IS. This is the RIGHT use of selective perception. To overlook nothingness is merely to judge it correctly, and because of your ability to evaluate it truly, TO LET IT GO. Knowledge cannot dawn on a mind full of illusions, because truth and illusions are irreconcilable. Truth is whole, and CANNOT be known by PART of a mind.

The Christhood cannot be perceived as PARTLY sick because to perceive it that way is not to perceive it at all. If the Christhood is ONE, it is one in ALL respects. ONENESS CANNOT BE DIVIDED. If you perceive other gods YOUR mind is split, and you will not be able to LIMIT the split, because the split IS the sign that you have removed part of your mind from God’s Will, and this MEANS it is out of control. To be out of control is to be out of REASON, and the mind DOES become unreasonable without reason. This is merely a matter of DEFINITION. By DEFINING the mind wrongly, you perceive it as FUNCTIONING wrongly.

God’s laws will keep your minds at peace because peace IS One’s Will, and One’s laws are established to uphold it. One’s are the laws of freedom, but yours are the laws of bondage. Since freedom and bondage are irreconcilable, their laws CANNOT BE UNDERSTOOD TOGETHER. The laws of God work only for your good, and there ARE no other laws beside One’s. Everything else is merely lawLESS, and therefore chaotic. Yet God Oneself has protected EVERYTHING One created BY One’s laws. Therefore, everything that is not under them does not exist.

“Laws of chaos” are meaningless by definition. Creation is perfectly lawful, and the chaotic is without meaning BECAUSE IT IS WITHOUT GOD. You have given your peace to the gods you made, but they are not there to take it FROM you, and you are NOT able to give it TO them. You are NOT free to give up freedom, but only to DENY it. YOU CANNOT DO WHAT GOD DID NOT INTEND because what One did not intend DOES NOT HAPPEN. Your gods do not BRING chaos; you are ENDOWING them with chaos and accepting it OF them.

All this has never been. Nothing but the laws of God have ever operated, and nothing except One’s Will will ever be. You were created through One’s laws and by One’s Will, and the manner of your creation established you AS CREATORS. What you have made is so unworthy of you that you could hardly want it IF YOU WERE WILLING TO SEE IT AS IT IS. You will see nothing at all. And your vision will AUTOMATICALLY look beyond it to what is IN you and all AROUND you. Reality cannot BREAK THROUGH the obstructions you interpose, but it WILL envelop you completely WHEN YOU LET THEM GO.

When you have experienced the protection of God the making of idols becomes inconceivable. There are no strange images in the Mind of God, and what is not in One’s Mind CANNOT be in yours because you are of ONE Mind, and that Mind belongs to ONE. It is yours BECAUSE it belongs to One, for ownership is sharing to One. And if it is so for One, it is so for you. One’s definitions ARE One’s laws, for by them One established the universe as what it is. No false gods you attempt to interpose between yourself and your reality affect truth at all. Peace is yours because God created you. And One created nothing else.

The miracle is the act of a Child of God who has laid aside all false gods, and who calls on one’s siblings to do likewise. It is an act of faith because it is the recognition that one’s sibling CAN do it. It is a call to the Holy Spirit in one’s mind, a call to One which is strengthened by this joining. Because the miracle worker has heard One, one strengthens One’s Voice in a sick sibling by weakening one’s belief in sickness, which one does NOT share. The power of one mind CAN shine into another because all the lamps of God were lit by the same spark. It is everywhere and it is eternal.

In many only the spark remains, for the great rays are obscured. Yet God has kept the spark alive so that the rays can never be completely forgotten. If you but see the little spark you will learn of the greater light, for the rays are there unseen. Perceiving the spark will heal, but knowing the Light will create. Yet in the returning the little light must be acknowledged first, for the separation was a descent from magnitude to littleness. But the spark is still as pure as the Great Light because it is the remaining call of creation. Put all your faith in it, and God Oneself will answer you.

Text Chapter 9 - The Correction of Error

9.10 - The Denial Of God

The rituals of the god of sickness are strange and very demanding. Joy is never permitted, for depression is the sign of allegiance to it. Depression MEANS that you have foresworn God. People are afraid of blasphemy, but they do not know what it means. They do not realize that to deny God is to deny their own identity, and in this sense the wages of sin IS death. The sense is very literal—denial of Life perceives its opposite—as ALL forms of denial replace what IS with what is NOT. No one can really DO this, but that you can THINK you can and BELIEVE YOU HAVE is beyond dispute.

Do not forget, however, that to deny God will inevitably result in projection, and you will believe that others AND NOT YOURSELF have done this TO you. You will receive the message you give because it is the message you WANT. You may believe that you judge your siblings by the messages they give YOU, but you HAVE judged them by the message you give to THEM. Do not attribute your denial of joy to them, or you cannot see the spark in them that could bring joy to YOU. It is the DENIAL of the spark that brings depression, and whenever you see your siblings WITHOUT it, you ARE denying God.

Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego’s religion. The god of sickness obviously demands the denial of health, because health is in direct opposition to its own survival. But consider what this means to YOU. UNLESS you are sick you cannot keep the gods you made, for only in sickness could you possibly WANT them. Blasphemy, then, is SELF-destructive, NOT God-destructive. It means that you are willing NOT to know yourself IN ORDER to be sick. This IS the offering which your god demands because, having made it out of YOUR insanity, it IS an insane idea. It has many forms, but although it may seem like many different things it is but one idea—the denial of God.

Sickness and death entered the mind of God’s Child AGAINST One’s Will. The “attack on God” made One’s Child think one was creatorless, and out of one’s depression one made the god of depression. This was one’s alternative to joy because one would not accept the fact that, although one was a creator, one had been created. Yet the Child IS helpless without the Creator, Who alone IS one’s Help. We said before that OF yourself you can do nothing, but you are not OF yourself. If you were, what you have made would be true, and you could never escape.

It is BECAUSE you did not make yourself that you need be troubled by nothing. Your gods are nothing because your Creator did not create them. You cannot make creators who are unlike your Creator any more than One could have created a Child who was unlike One. If creation is sharing it cannot create what is unlike itself. It can share only what it IS. Depression is isolation, and so it could not have BEEN created.

Child of God, you have not sinned, but you have been much mistaken. Yet this can be corrected, and God will help you, knowing that you could not sin against One. You denied One BECAUSE you loved One, knowing that, if you RECOGNIZED your love for One you COULD not deny One. Your denial of One therefore MEANS that you love One, and THAT YOU KNOW ONE LOVES YOU. Remember that what you deny you MUST have known. And if you accept denial, YOU CAN ACCEPT ITS UNDOING.

Your Creator has not denied you. One does not retaliate, but One DOES call to you to return. When you think One has not answered your call, YOU HAVE NOT ANSWERED ONE’S. One calls to you from every part of the Christhood because of One’s Love for One’s Child. If you hear One’s message One HAS answered you, and you will learn of One, if you hear aright. The Love of God is in everything One created, for One’s Child is everywhere. Look with peace upon your siblings, and God will come rushing into your heart in gratitude for your gift to One.

Do not look to the god of sickness for healing but only to the God of love, for healing is the acknowledgment of One. When you acknowledge One you will KNOW that One has never ceased to acknowledge you, and that in One’s acknowledgment OF you lies your Being. You are not sick and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do. Remember, though, that to do this IS blasphemy, for it means that you are looking without love on God and One’s Creation, from which one cannot BE separated. Only the eternal can be loved, for love does not die. What is of God is One’s forever, and you ARE of God. Would One allow Oneself to suffer? And would One offer One’s Child anything that is not acceptable to One?

If you will accept yourself as God created you, you will be incapable of suffering. Yet to do this, you must acknowledge One as your Creator. This is not because you will be punished otherwise. It is merely because your acknowledgment of your Creator IS the acknowledgment of yourself as you ARE. Your Creator created you wholly without sin, wholly without pain, and wholly without suffering of any kind. If you deny One you bring sin, pain and suffering into your OWN mind because of the power One gave it. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also DENY what it creates because it is free.

You do not realize how much you have denied yourself, and how much God, in One’s Love, would not have it so. Yet One would not interfere with you because One would not know One’s Child if one were not free. To interfere with you would be to attack Oneself, and God is not insane. When you denied ONE, you WERE insane. Would you have One SHARE your insanity? God will never cease to love One’s Child, and One’s Child will never cease to love One. That was the condition of One’s Child’s creation, fixed forever in the Mind of God. To know that is sanity. To deny it is insanity. God gave ONESELF to you in your creation, and One’s gifts ARE eternal. Would you deny yourself to One?

Out of your gifts to One the Realm will be restored to One’s Child. One’s Child removed oneself FROM One’s gift by refusing to accept what had been created for one, and what oneself had created in the Name of one’s Creator. Heaven waits for one’s return, for it was created as the dwelling place of God’s Child. You are not at home anywhere else, or in any other condition. Do not deny yourself the joy which was created FOR you, for the misery you have made for yourself. God has given you the means for undoing what you have made. Listen, and you WILL learn what you are.

If God knows One’s children as wholly sinless, it is blasphemous to perceive them as guilty. If God knows One’s children as wholly without pain, it is blasphemous to perceive suffering anywhere. If God knows One’s children to be wholly joyous, it is blasphemous to feel depressed. All of these illusions, and the many other forms which blasphemy may take, are REFUSALS TO ACCEPT CREATION AS IT IS. If God created One’s Child perfect, that is how you must learn to see one to learn of one’s reality. And as part of the Christhood, THAT IS HOW YOU MUST SEE YOURSELF TO LEARN OF YOURS.

Do not perceive ANYTHING God did not create, or you ARE denying ONE. One’s is the ONLY Creatorship, and it is yours only because ONE has given it to you. Your gifts to YOURSELF are meaningless, but your gifts to YOUR creations are like One’s because they are given in One’s Name. That is why your creations are as real as One’s. Yet the real Creatorship must be acknowledged if the real Child is to be known. You believe that the sick things which you have made are your real creations because you believe that the sick images you perceive ARE the Children of God.

Only if you ACCEPT the Creatorship of God will you have anything because One’s Creatorship GAVE you everything. That is why to deny One IS to deny yourself. Arrogance is the denial of love because love shares and arrogance withholds. As long as both appear to you to be desirable, the concept of choice, which is NOT of God, will remain with you. While this is not true in Eternity, it IS true in time, so that, while time lasts in YOUR minds, there WILL be choices. Time itself WAS your choice. If you would remember Eternity, you must learn to look only on the Eternal. If you allow yourselves to become preoccupied with the temporal, you are LIVING IN TIME. As always, your choice is determined by what you value. Time and Eternity cannot both be real because they contradict each other. If you will accept only what is timeless as real, you will begin to understand Eternity, and make it yours.

Text Chapter 10 - God And The Ego

10.0 - God And The Ego

Either God or the ego is insane. If you will examine the evidence ON BOTH SIDES fairly, you will realize that this MUST be true. Neither God nor the ego proposes a partial thought system. Each is internally consistent, but they are diametrically opposed in all respects, so that partial allegiance is impossible. Remember, too, that their results are as different as their foundations, and their fundamentally irreconcilable natures CANNOT be reconciled by YOUR vacillations. Nothing alive is creatorless, for life is creation. Therefore, your decision is always an answer to the question, “Who is my creator?” And you WILL be faithful to the creator you choose.

Yet what would you say to someone who REALLY believed this question involves conflict? If YOU made the ego, how can the ego have made YOU? The authority problem remains the ONLY source of perceived conflict, because the ego was MADE out of the wish of God’s Child to create ONE. The ego, then, is nothing more than a delusional system, in which YOU MADE YOUR OWN CREATOR. Make no mistake about this. It sounds insane when it is stated with perfect honesty, but the ego never looks upon what it does with perfect honesty. Yet that IS its insane premise, which is carefully hidden in the dark cornerstone of its thought system. And either the ego, which you made, IS your creator, or its whole thought system will not stand.

Text Chapter 10 - God And The Ego

10.1 - Projection Versus Extension

You have made by projection, but God has created by extension. The cornerstone of God’s creation is YOU, for ONE’S thought system is light. Remember the rays that are there unseen. The more you approach the center of ONE’S thought system, the clearer the light becomes. The closer you come to the foundation of the ego’s thought system, the darker and more obscure becomes the way. Yet even the little spark in your mind is enough to lighten it. Bring this light fearlessly with you, and hold it up to the foundation of the ego’s thought system bravely. Be willing to judge it with perfect honesty. Open the dark cornerstone of terror on which it rests, and bring it out into the light. There you will see that it rests on meaninglessness, and that everything of which you have been afraid was based on nothing.

My sibling, you are part of God and part of me. When you have at last looked at the ego’s foundation without shrinking, you will also have looked upon ours. I come to you from our Creator to offer you everything again. Do not refuse it in order to keep a dark cornerstone hidden, for ITS protection will not save you. I GIVE you the lamp and I will go WITH you. You will not take this journey alone. I will lead you to your true Creator, Who hath need of you, as I have. Will you not answer the call of love with joy?

You HAVE learned your need of healing. Would you bring anything ELSE to the Christhood, KNOWING your need of healing for yourself? For in this lies the beginning of knowledge; the foundation on which God will help you build again the thought system which you share WITH One. Not one stone you place upon it but will be blessed by One, for you will be restoring the holy dwelling place of One’s Child, where One wills One’s Child to be and where one IS. In whatever part of the mind of God’s Child you restore this reality, you restore it to YOURSELF. For you dwell in the Mind of God WITH your sibling, for God Oneself did not will to be alone.

To be alone is to be separated from infinity, but how can this be if infinity has no end? No one can BE beyond the limitless because what has NO limits must be everywhere. There are no beginnings and no endings in God, Whose universe is Oneself. Can you exclude yourself from the universe, or from God Who IS the universe? I and my Creator are one with YOU, for you are part of us. Do you REALLY believe that part of God can be missing or lost to One?

If you were not part of God, One’s Will would not be unified. Is this conceivable? Can part of One’s Mind contain nothing? If your place in One’s Mind cannot be filled by anyone EXCEPT you, and your filling it WAS your creation, WITHOUT you there would be an empty place in God’s Mind. Extension cannot be blocked and it has no voids. It continues forever, however much it is denied. Your DENIAL of its reality arrests it in time, but NOT in Eternity. That is why your creations have not ceased to be extended, and why so much is waiting for your return.

Waiting is possible ONLY in time, but time has no meaning. You who made delay can leave time behind simply by recognizing that neither beginnings nor endings were created by the Eternal, Who placed no limits on One’s creation, nor upon those who create like One. You do not know this simply because you have tried to limit what ONE created, and so you believe that ALL creation is limited. How, then, could you know YOUR creations, having DENIED Infinity? The laws of the universe do not permit contradiction. What holds for God holds for YOU. If you believe YOU are absent from God, you WILL believe that One is absent from you.

Infinity is meaningless WITHOUT you, and YOU are meaningless without God. There IS no end to God and One’s Child, for we ARE the universe. God is not incomplete, and One is not childless. Because One did not will to be alone, One created a Child like Oneself. Do not deny One One’s Child, for your unwillingness to accept One’s Creatorship has denied you YOURS. See One’s creations as ONE’S Child, for yours were created in honor of One.

The universe of love does not stop because you do not see it, and your closed eyes have not lost the ability to see. Look upon the glory of One’s creation, and you will learn what God has KEPT for you. God had given you a place in One’s Mind which is yours forever. Yet you could keep it only by GIVING it, as it was given you. Could YOU be alone there, if it was given you because GOD did not will to be alone? God’s Mind cannot be lessened. It can ONLY be increased, and EVERYTHING One creates has the function of creating. LOVE DOES NOT LIMIT, and what it creates is not limited.

To give without limit is God’s Will for you because only this can bring you the joy which is One’s, and which One wills to share with YOU. Your love is as boundless as One’s because it IS One’s. Could any part of God be WITHOUT One’s Love, and could any part of One’s Love be contained? God is your heritage because One’s one gift is Oneself. How can you give except LIKE One, if you would know One’s gift to YOU? Give, then, without limit and without end, to learn how much ONE has given YOU. Your ability to ACCEPT One depends on your willingness to give as One gives. Your creatorship and your Creator ARE One.

God willed to create, and your will is One’s. It follows, then, that YOU will to create, since your will follows from One’s. And being an extension of One’s Will, yours MUST be the same. Yet what you will you do not know. This is not strange when you realize that to deny IS to “not know.” God’s Will is that you are One’s Child. By DENYING this you denied your OWN will, and therefore DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS. The reason you must ask what God’s Will is in everything is merely because It IS yours. YOU do not know what it is, but the Holy Spirit REMEMBERS IT FOR YOU.

Ask One, therefore, what God’s Will is for you, and One will tell you YOURS. It cannot be too often repeated that you do NOT KNOW it. Whenever what the Holy Spirit tells you appears to be coercive, it is only because YOU DO NOT RECOGNIZE YOUR OWN WILL. The projection of the ego makes it appear as if God’s Will is OUTSIDE yourself, and therefore NOT YOURS. In THIS interpretation, it IS possible for God’s Will and yours to conflict. God, then, may seem to demand of you what you do NOT want to give, and thus DEPRIVE you of what you want. Would God, Who wants ONLY your will, be capable of this? Your will is One’s Life, which One has GIVEN to you. Even in time you cannot live apart from One, for sleep is not death. What One created can sleep, but it CANNOT die. Immortality is One’s Will for One’s Child, and One’s Child’s will for ONESELF. God’s Child cannot will death for oneself because One’s Creator is Life, and ONE’S CHILD IS LIKE ONE.

Creation is your will BECAUSE it is One’s. You cannot be happy unless you do what you will truly, and you cannot change this because it is immutable. It is immutable by God’s Will AND YOURS, for otherwise One’s Will would not have been extended. You are afraid to know God’s Will because you believe it is NOT yours. This belief is your whole sickness and your whole fear. Every symptom of sickness and fear arises here because this is the belief that makes you WANT not to know. Believing this, you hide in darkness, denying that the Light is in YOU.

You are asked to trust the Holy Spirit only because One speaks for YOU. One is the Voice for God, but never forget that God did not will to be alone. One SHARES One’s Will with you; One does not thrust It UPON you. Always remember that what One gives One holds, so that nothing One gives CAN contradict One. You who share One’s Life must share it to KNOW it, for sharing IS knowing. Blessed are you who learn that to hear the Will of your Creator is to know your OWN. For it is YOUR will to be LIKE One, Whose Will it is that it be so.

God’s Will is that One’s Child be one, and united with One in One’s Oneness. That is why healing is the beginning of the recognition that YOUR WILL IS ONE’S.

Text Chapter 10 - God And The Ego

10.2 - The Willingness For Healing

If sickness is separation, the will to heal and BE HEALED is the first step toward RECOGNIZING WHAT YOU TRULY WANT. Every ATTACK is a step away from this, and every healing thought brings it closer. The Child of God HAS both Creator and Child because one IS both Creator and Child.

To unite having and being is only to unite your will with One’s, for One wills you ONESELF. And you will yourself to ONE because, in your perfect understanding of One, you KNOW there IS but One Will. Yet when you attack ANY part of God and One’s Realm, your understanding is NOT perfect, and what YOU will is therefore lost to you.

Healing thus becomes A LESSON IN UNDERSTANDING, and the more you practice it, the better teacher AND LEARNER you become. If you have DENIED truth, what better witnesses to its reality could you have than those who have been healed BY it? But be sure to count yourself among them, for in your willingness to JOIN them is YOUR healing accomplished.

Every miracle which you accomplish speaks to you of the Creatorship of God. Every healing thought which you ACCEPT, either FROM your sibling or in your OWN mind, teaches you that you are God’s Child. But in every hurtful thought you hold, wherever you perceive it, lies the denial of God’s Creatorship and your Christhood. And denial IS as total as love. You cannot deny PART of yourself, because the remainder will seem to be unintegrated, and therefore without meaning. And being without meaning TO YOU, you will not understand it. To deny meaning MUST be to fail to understand.

You can heal only yourself, for only God’s Child NEEDS healing. One needs it because one does not understand oneself, and therefore knows not what one does. Having forgotten one’s will, one does not know what one WANTS. Healing is a sign that ONE WANTS TO MAKE WHOLE. And this willingness opens one’s OWN ears to the Voice of the Holy Spirit, Whose message IS wholeness. One will enable you to go far beyond the healing YOU would undertake, for beside your small willingness to make whole, One will lay One’s Own COMPLETE Will and make YOURS whole. What can the Child of God NOT accomplish with the Creatorship of God in one?

And yet the invitation must come from you, for you have surely learned that whom you invite as your guest WILL abide with you. The Holy Spirit cannot speak to an unwelcoming host BECAUSE ONE WILL NOT BE HEARD. The Eternal Guest remains, but One’s Voice grows faint in alien company. One needs your protection, but only because your care is a sign that you WANT One. Think like One ever so slightly, and the little spark becomes a blazing light that fills your mind so that One becomes your only Guest.

Whenever you ask the ego to enter, you lessen One’s welcome. ONE will remain, but YOU have allied yourself AGAINST One. Whatever journey you choose to take, One will go with you, waiting. You can safely trust One’s patience, for One CANNOT leave a part of God. Yet you need far more than patience. You will never rest until you know your function AND FULFILL IT, for only in this can your will and your Creator’s be wholly joined. To HAVE One is to be LIKE One, and One has GIVEN Oneself to you.

You who have God MUST be as God, for ONE’S function became YOURS with One’s gift. Invite this knowledge back into your minds, and let nothing that will obscure it enter. The Guest Whom God sent you will teach you how to do this, if you but recognize the little spark and are WILLING TO LET IT GROW. YOUR willingness need not be perfect because One’s IS. If you will merely offer One a little place, One will lighten it so much that you will gladly extend it. And by THIS extending, you will begin to remember creation.

Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God? You will accept only whom YOU invite. You are free to determine who shall be your guest, and how long one shall remain with you. Yet this is not REAL freedom, for it still depends on how you see it. The Holy Spirit is THERE although One cannot help you without your invitation, and the ego is nothing whether you invite it in or not. Real freedom depends on welcoming REALITY, and of your guests only One is real. Know, then, Who abides with you merely by recognizing WHAT IS THERE ALREADY, and do not be satisfied with imaginary comforters, for the Comforter of God is in you.

Text Chapter 10 - God And The Ego

10.3 - From Darkness To Light

When you are weary, remember you have hurt yourself. Your Comforter will rest you, but YOU cannot. YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW, for if you did you could never have grown weary. Unless you have hurt yourselves you could never suffer in ANY way, for that is not God’s Will for One’s Child. Pain is not of One, for One knows no attack and One’s peace surrounds you silently. God is very quiet, for there is no conflict in One. Conflict is the root of all evil, for being blind it does not see whom it attacks. Yet it ALWAYS attacks the Child of God, and the Child of God is YOU.

God’s Child is indeed in need of comfort, for one knows not what one does, believing one’s will is not one’s own. The Realm is one’s, and yet one wanders homelessly. At home in God one is lonely, and amid all one’s siblings one is friendless. Would God let this be real if One did not will to be alone Oneself? And if your will is One’s, it CANNOT be true of you BECAUSE it is not true of One. Oh, my children, if you knew what God wills for you your joy would be complete! And what One wills HAS happened, for it was ALWAYS true.

When the light comes and you have said, “God’s Will is mine,” you will see such beauty that you will KNOW it is not of you. Out of your joy you will create beauty in One’s name, for YOUR joy could no more be contained than One’s. The bleak little world will vanish into nothingness, and your heart will be so filled with joy that it will leap into Heaven and into the Presence of God. I cannot tell you what this will be like, for your hearts are not ready. Yet I CAN tell you, and remind you often, that what God wills for Oneself One wills for YOU, and what One wills for you IS yours.

The way is not hard, but it IS very different. Yours is the way of pain, of which God knows nothing. THAT way is hard indeed, and very lonely. Fear and grief are your guests, and they go with you and abide with you on the way. But the dark journey is not the way of God’s Child. Walk in light and do not see the dark companions, for they are not fit companions for the Child of God, who was created OF Light and IN Light. The Great Light ALWAYS surrounds you and shines out FROM you. How can you see the dark companions in a Light such as this? If you see THEM it is only because you are denying the Light. But DENY THEM INSTEAD, for the Light is here and the way is clear.

God hides nothing from One’s Child, even though One’s Child would hide oneself. Yet the Child of God cannot hide one’s glory, for God wills one to be glorious, and GAVE one the Light that shines in one. You will never lose your way for God leads you. When you wander you but undertake a journey which is not real. The dark companions, the dark way, are all illusions. Turn toward the Light, for the little spark in you is part of a Light so great that It can sweep you out of all darkness forever. For your Creator IS your Source, and you ARE like One. The Children of Light cannot abide in darkness, for darkness is not in them.

Do not be deceived by the dark comforters, and never let them enter the mind of God’s Child, for they have no place in One’s temple. When you are tempted to deny One, remember that there ARE no other gods that you CAN place before One, and accept One’s Will for you in peace. For you CANNOT accept it otherwise. Only God’s Comforter CAN comfort you. In the quiet of One’s temple, One waits to give you the peace that is yours. GIVE One’s peace that you may enter the temple and find it waiting for you. But be holy in the Presence of God, or you will not know that you are there. For what is unlike God cannot enter One’s Mind because it was not One’s Thought, and therefore does not belong to One. And YOUR minds must be as pure as One’s, if you would know what belongs to YOU.

Guard carefully One’s temple, for God, Oneself dwells there, and abides in peace. You cannot enter God’s Presence with the dark companions beside you, but you also cannot enter alone. ALL your siblings must enter WITH you, for until you have accepted them, YOU cannot enter. For you cannot understand Wholeness unless YOU are whole, and no part of the Child can be excluded if one would know the wholeness of one’s Creator.

In your mind you can ACCEPT the whole Christhood, and bless it with the Light your Creator gave it. Then you will be worthy to dwell in the temple WITH One because it is YOUR will not to be alone. God blessed One’s Child forever. If you will bless one in TIME, you will BE in eternity. Time cannot separate you from God if you use it on BEHALF of the eternal.

Text Chapter 10 - God And The Ego

10.4 - The Inheritance Of God’s Child

Never forget that the Christhood is your salvation for the Christhood is your Spirit. As God’s Creation it is yours, and belonging to you, it is One’s. Your Spirit does not need salvation, but your mind needs to learn what salvation IS. You are not saved FROM anything, but you ARE saved FOR glory. Glory is your inheritance, given your Spirit by its Creator that you might EXTEND it. Yet if you hate part of your own Spirit ALL your understanding is lost, because you are looking on what God created AS YOURSELF without love. And since what One created IS part of One, you are denying One One’s place in One’s own altar.

Could you try to make God homeless and know that YOU are at home? Can the Child deny the Creator WITHOUT believing that the Creator has denied ONE? God’s laws hold ONLY for your protection, and they never hold in vain. What you experience when you deny your Creator is still for your protection, for the power of your will cannot be lessened without the intervention of God AGAINST it, and any limitation on YOUR power is NOT the Will of God. Therefore, look ONLY to the power that God gave to save you, remembering that it is yours BECAUSE it is One’s, and join with your siblings in One’s peace.

The peace of YOUR Spirit lies in its limitlessness. Limit the peace you share, and your own Spirit MUST be unknown to you. Every altar to God is part of your Spirit because the Light One created is One with One. Would you cut a sibling off from the Light that is yours? You would not do so if you realized that YOU CAN ONLY DARKEN YOUR OWN MIND. As you bring ONE back, so will YOUR mind return. That is the law of God, for the protection of the wholeness of One’s Child.

ONLY YOU CAN DEPRIVE YOURSELF OF ANYTHING. Do not oppose this realization, for it is truly the beginning of the dawn of light. Remember also that the denial of this simple fact takes many forms, and these you must learn to recognize, and to oppose steadfastly and WITHOUT EXCEPTION. This is a crucial step in the re-awakening. The beginning phases of this reversal are often quite painful, for as blame is withdrawn from without there is a strong tendency to harbor it within.

It is difficult, at first, to realize that this is EXACTLY the same thing, for there IS no distinction between within and without. If your siblings are part of you and you blame THEM for your deprivation, you ARE blaming yourself. And you cannot blame yourself WITHOUT blaming them.

That is why blame must be UNDONE, NOT re-allocated. Lay it to yourself and you cannot KNOW yourself, for ONLY THE EGO BLAMES AT ALL. Self-blame is therefore ego identification, and as strong an ego defense as blaming others. YOU CANNOT ENTER GOD’S PRESENCE IF YOU ATTACK ONE’S CHILD. When One’s Child lifts one’s voice in praise of one’s Creator, one WILL hear the Voice of one’s Creator. Yet the Creator cannot be praised WITHOUT One’s Child, for their glory is shared, and they are glorified together. Christ is at God’s altar, waiting to welcome One’s Child. But come wholly without condemnation, for otherwise you will believe that the door is barred and you cannot enter.

The door is NOT barred, and it is impossible for you to be unable to enter the place where God would have you be. But love yourself with the Love of Christ, for so does your Creator love you. You CAN refuse to enter, but you CANNOT bar the door which Christ holds open. Come unto me who holds it open FOR you, for while I live it cannot be shut, and I live forever. God is my life and YOURS, and NOTHING is denied by God to One’s Child. At God’s altar Christ waits for the restoration of Oneself in YOU.

God knows One’s Child as wholly blameless as Oneself, and One is approached through the appreciation of One’s Child. Christ waits for your acceptance of One as YOURSELF, and of One’s Wholeness as YOURS. For Christ is the Child of God who lives in one’s Creator and shines with One’s glory. Christ is the extension of the love and the loveliness of God, as perfect as one’s Creator, and at peace with One. Blessed is the Child of God, whose radiance is of One’s Creator, and whose glory One wills to share as One’s Creator shares it with One.

There is no condemnation in the Child for there is no condemnation in the Creator. Sharing the perfect Love of the Creator the Child must share what belongs to one, for otherwise one will not know the Creator OR the Child. Peace be unto you who rest in God and in whom the whole Christhood rests.

Text Chapter 10 - God And The Ego

10.5 - The “Dynamics” Of The Ego

No one can escape from illusions unless one looks at them, for not looking is the way they are PROTECTED. There is no need to shrink from illusions, for they cannot be dangerous. We are ready to look more closely at the ego’s thought system because, together, we have the lamp that will dispel it, and since you realize you do not WANT it you MUST be ready. Let us be very calm in doing this, for we are merely looking honestly for truth. The “dynamics” of the ego will be our lesson for a while, for we must look first at this to look beyond it since you HAVE made it real. We will UNDO this error quietly together, and then look beyond it to truth.

What is healing but the removal of all that STANDS IN THE WAY of knowledge? And how else can one dispel illusions EXCEPT by looking at them directly, WITHOUT protecting them? Be not afraid, therefore, for what you will be looking at IS the source of fear, but you have surely learned by now that FEAR IS NOT REAL. We have accepted the fact already that its EFFECTS can be dispelled merely by denying THEIR reality. The next step is obviously to recognize that WHAT HAS NO EFFECTS DOES NOT EXIST.

Laws do not operate in a vacuum, and what leads to nothing HAS NOT HAPPENED. If reality is recognized BY ITS EXTENSION, what extends to nothing CANNOT be real. Do not be afraid, then, to look upon fear, for it cannot BE seen. Clarity undoes confusion by definition, and to look upon darkness through light MUST dispel it. Let us begin this lesson in “ego dynamics” by understanding that the term itself does not mean anything. In fact, it contains exactly the contradiction in terms which MAKES it meaningless. “Dynamics” implies the power to DO something, and the whole separation fallacy lies in the belief that the ego HAS the power to do ANYTHING.

The ego is fearful to you BECAUSE you believe this. Yet the truth is very simple; ALL POWER IS OF GOD. What is NOT of One has no power to do ANYTHING. When we look at the ego, then, we are NOT considering dynamics, but delusions. We can surely regard a delusional system without fear, for it cannot have any effects if its source is not true. Fear becomes more obviously inappropriate if one recognizes the ego’s GOAL, which is so clearly senseless that any effort exerted on its behalf is NECESSARILY expended on nothing.

The ego’s goal is quite explicitly EGO AUTONOMY. From the beginning, then, its PURPOSE is to be separate, sufficient unto itself, and independent of any power EXCEPT ITS OWN. This is WHY it is the symbol of separation. Every idea has a purpose, and its purpose is always the natural extension of what it IS. Everything that stems from the ego is the natural outcome of its central belief, and the way to undo its RESULTS is merely to recognize that their SOURCE is NOT natural, being out of accord with your TRUE nature.

We once said that to will contrary to God is wishful thinking, and not real willing. One’s Will is One because the extension of One’s Will CANNOT be unlike ITSELF. The real conflict you experience, then, is between the ego’s idle wishes and the Will of God, WHICH YOU SHARE. Can this BE a real conflict? Yours is the independence of creation, NOT of autonomy. Your whole creative function lies in your complete dependence on God, Whose function One shares WITH you. By ONE’S willingness to share it, One became as dependent on you as you are on ONE. Do not ascribe the ego’s arrogance to One Who wills NOT to be independent of YOU. One has included YOU in ONE’S Autonomy. Can YOU believe that autonomy is meaningful APART from One?

The belief in EGO autonomy is costing you the knowledge of your dependence on God IN WHICH YOUR FREEDOM LIES. The ego sees ALL dependency as threatening, and has twisted even your longing for God into a means of establishing ITSELF. But do not be deceived by ITS interpretation of your conflict. The ego ALWAYS attacks on behalf of separation. Believing it HAS the power to do this it does nothing else, because its goal of autonomy IS nothing else. The ego is totally confused about reality, BUT IT DOES NOT LOSE SIGHT OF ITS GOAL. It is much more vigilant than YOU are BECAUSE it is perfectly certain of its purpose. YOU are confused because you do NOT know YOURS.

What you must learn to recognize is that the LAST thing the ego wishes you to realize is THAT YOU ARE AFRAID OF IT. For if the ego gives rise to fear it is DIMINISHING your independence and WEAKENING your power. Yet it’s one claim to your allegiance is that it can GIVE power to you. Without THIS belief you would not listen to it at all. How, then, can its existence continue if you realize that, by accepting it, you ARE belittling yourself and DEPRIVING yourself of power?

The ego can and does allow you to regard yourself as supercilious, unbelieving, “light-hearted,” distant, emotionally shallow, callous, uninvolved, and even desperate, BUT NOT REALLY AFRAID. MINIMIZING fear, but NOT its undoing, is the ego’s constant effort, and is indeed the skill at which it is VERY ingenious. How can it preach separation WITHOUT upholding it through fear, and would you listen to it if you recognized this IS what it is doing?

YOUR recognition that whatever seems to separate you from God is ONLY fear, regardless of the form it takes and quite apart from HOW THE EGO WANTS YOU TO EXPERIENCE IT, is therefore the basic ego threat. Its dream of autonomy is shaken to its foundation by this awareness. For though you may countenance a false idea of independence, you will NOT accept the cost of fear IF YOU RECOGNIZE IT. Yet this IS the cost, and the ego CANNOT minimize it. For if you overlook love you are overlooking YOURSELF, and you MUST fear UNreality BECAUSE YOU HAVE DENIED YOURSELF. By believing that you have successfully ATTACKED truth, YOU ARE BELIEVING THAT ATTACK HAS POWER. Very simply, then, YOU HAVE BECOME AFRAID OF YOURSELF. And no one wills to learn what one believes would DESTROY one.

If the ego’s goal of autonomy COULD be accomplished GOD’S purpose could be DEFEATED, and this IS impossible. Only by learning what fear IS can you finally learn to distinguish the possible from the impossible and the false from the true. According to the ego’s teaching, ITS goal CAN be accomplished, and GOD’S purpose can NOT. According to the Holy Spirit’s teaching, ONLY God’s purpose IS accomplishment, and it is ALREADY accomplished.

God is as dependent on you as you are on One because ONE’S autonomy ENCOMPASSES yours, and is therefore incomplete WITHOUT it. You can only ESTABLISH your autonomy by identifying WITH One, and FULFILLING YOUR FUNCTION AS IT EXISTS IN TRUTH. The ego believes that to accomplish ITS goal IS happiness. But it is given YOU to know that GOD’S function IS yours, and happiness CANNOT be found apart from your joint will. Recognize only that the ego’s goal, which you have pursued quite diligently, has merely brought you FEAR, and it becomes difficult to maintain that FEAR IS happiness.

UPHELD by fear, this IS what the ego would have you believe. Yet God’s Child is not insane, and CANNOT believe it. Let one but RECOGNIZE it, and one will NOT accept it. For only the insane would choose fear IN PLACE of love, and only the insane could believe that love can be gained by ATTACK. But the sane KNOW that only attack COULD produce FEAR, from which the Love of God COMPLETELY protects them.

The ego analyzes; the Holy Spirit ACCEPTS. The appreciation of wholeness comes ONLY through acceptance, for to analyze MEANS to separate out. The attempt to understand totality by BREAKING IT UP is clearly the characteristically contradictory approach of the ego to everything. Never forget that the ego believes that power, understanding AND TRUTH lie in separation. And to ESTABLISH this belief it MUST attack. Unaware that the belief cannot BE established, and obsessed with the conviction that separation IS salvation, the ego attacks everything it perceives by breaking it up into small and disconnected parts, without meaningful relationships, and thus without meaning. The ego will ALWAYS substitute chaos for meaning, for if separation is salvation, harmony is threat.

The ego’s interpretation of the laws of perception are, and would HAVE to be, the exact opposite of the Holy Spirit’s. The ego FOCUSES ON ERROR, and OVERLOOKS TRUTH. It makes real every mistake it perceives, and with characteristically circular reasoning concludes that BECAUSE of the mistake, consistent truth must be meaningless. The next step, then, is obvious. If consistent truth is meaningless, INCONSISTENCY must be true if truth has meaning. Holding error clearly in mind, and protecting what it has made real, the ego proceeds to the next step in its thought system; that error is real and TRUTH IS ERROR.

The ego makes no attempt to UNDERSTAND this, and it is clearly NOT understandable, but the ego does make EVERY attempt to DEMONSTRATE IT, and THIS it does constantly. Analyzing to ATTACK meaning, the ego DOES succeed in overlooking it, and is left with a series of fragmented perceptions WHICH IT UNIFIES ON BEHALF OF ITSELF. This, then, becomes the universe it perceives. And it is this universe which, in turn, becomes its demonstration of its own reality.

Do not underestimate the appeal of the ego’s demonstrations to those who would listen. Selective perception chooses its witnesses carefully, and its witnesses ARE consistent. The case for insanity IS strong to the insane. For reasoning ends at its beginning, and no thought system transcends its source. Yet reasoning without meaning CANNOT demonstrate anything, and those who are convinced by it MUST be deluded. Can the ego teach truly when it OVERLOOKS truth? Can it perceive what it has DENIED? Its witnesses DO attest to its DENIAL, but hardly to WHAT it has denied! The ego looks straight at the Creator and does not see One, for it has denied One’s Child.

Would YOU remember the Creator? Accept One’s Child and you WILL remember One. Nothing can demonstrate that One’s Child is unworthy, for nothing can prove that a lie is true. What you see of One’s Child through the eyes of the ego is a demonstration that One’s Child does not exist, yet where the Child is the Creator MUST be. Accept what God does NOT deny, and ONE will demonstrate its truth. The witnesses for God stand in One’s Light and behold what ONE created. Their silence is the sign that they have beheld God’s Child, and in the Presence of Christ THEY need demonstrate nothing, for Christ speaks to them of Oneself and of One’s Creator. They are silent because Christ speaks to them, and it is One’s words that THEY speak.

Every sibling you meet becomes a witness for Christ or for the ego, depending on what you perceive in one. Everyone convinces you of WHAT YOU WANT TO PERCEIVE, and of the reality of the realm you have chosen for your vigilance. Everything you perceive is a witness to the thought system YOU WANT TO BE TRUE. Every sibling has the power to release you IF YOU WILL TO BE FREE. You cannot accept false witness of one unless you have evoked false witnesses AGAINST one. If ONE speaks not of Christ to YOU, YOU spoke not of Christ to one. You hear but your OWN voice, and if Christ speaks through you, YOU will hear One.

Text Chapter 10 - God And The Ego

10.6 - Experience And Perception

It is impossible not to believe what you see, but it is equally impossible to see what you do NOT believe. Perceptions are built up on the basis of experience, and experience leads to beliefs. It is not until BELIEFS are fixed that perceptions stabilize. In effect, then, what you believe you DO see. That is what I meant when I said, “Blessed are ye who have not seen and still believe,” for those who believe in the resurrection WILL see it. The resurrection is the complete triumph of Christ over the ego, not by attack, but by transcendence. For Christ DOES rise above the ego and all its works, and ascends to the Creator and ONE’S Realm.

Would you join in the resurrection or the crucifixion? Would you condemn your siblings or free them? Would you transcend YOUR prison and ascend to the Creator? For these questions are all the same, and are answered together. There has been much confusion about what perception means, because the same word is used both for awareness and for the INTERPRETATION of awareness. Yet you cannot BE aware without interpretation, and what you perceive IS your interpretation. This course is perfectly clear. You do not see it clearly because you are interpreting AGAINST it, and therefore do not BELIEVE it. And if belief determines perception, you do NOT perceive what it means and therefore do not ACCEPT it.

Yet different experiences lead to different beliefs, and with them different perceptions. For perceptions are learned beliefs, and experience does teach. I am leading you to a new kind of experience which you will become less and less willing to deny. Learning of Christ is easy, for to perceive with One involves no strain at all. ONE’S perceptions are your NATURAL awareness, and it is only distortions which YOU introduce that tire you. Let the Christ in you interpret FOR you, and do not try to limit what you see by narrow little beliefs which are unworthy of God’s Child. For until Christ comes into One’s Own, the Child of God WILL see oneself as creatorless.

I am YOUR resurrection and YOUR life. You live in me because you live in God. And everyone lives in YOU, as YOU live in everyone. Can you, then, perceive unworthiness in a sibling and NOT perceive it in yourself? And can you perceive it in yourself and NOT perceive it in God? Believe in the resurrection because it has BEEN accomplished, and it has been accomplished IN YOU. This is as true now as it will ever be, for the resurrection is the Will of God, Which knows no time and no exceptions. But make no exceptions yourself, or you will not perceive what has been accomplished FOR you. For we ascend unto the Creator together, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, for such is the nature of God’s Child as One’s Creator created one.

Do not underestimate the power of the devotion of God’s Child, nor the power of the god one worships over one. For one places ONESELF at the altar of one’s god, whether it be the god one made or the God Who created one. That is why one’s slavery is as complete as one’s freedom, for one will obey ONLY the god one accepts. The god of the crucifixion demands that one crucify, and one’s worshippers obey. In one’s name they crucify THEMSELVES, believing that the power of the Child of God is born of sacrifice and pain. The God of the resurrection demands NOTHING, for One does not will to TAKE AWAY. One does not require obedience, for obedience implies submission. One would only have you learn your OWN will and follow it, not in the spirit of sacrifice and submission, but in the gladness of freedom.

Resurrection must compel your allegiance gladly because it is the symbol of joy. Its whole compelling power lies in the fact that it represents what YOU want to be. The freedom to leave behind everything that hurts you and humbles you and frightens you cannot be thrust upon you, but it CAN be offered you through the grace of God. And you can ACCEPT it by One’s grace, for God IS gracious to One’s Child, accepting one without question as One’s Own. Who, then, is YOUR own? The Creator has given you all that is One’s, and Oneself is yours WITH them. Guard them in their resurrection, for otherwise you will not awake in God, safely surrounded by what is yours forever.

You will not find peace until you have removed the nails from the hands of God’s Child and taken the last thorn from one’s forehead. The Love of God surrounds One’s Child whom the god of the crucifixion condemns. Teach not that I died in vain. Teach rather THAT I DID NOT DIE by demonstrating that I LIVE IN YOU. For the UNDOING of the crucifixion of God’s Child is the work of the redemption, in which everyone has a part of equal value. God does not judge One’s blameless Child. Having given ONESELF to one, how could it be otherwise?

You have nailed YOURSELF to a cross and placed a crown of thorns upon your own head. Yet you CANNOT crucify God’s Child, for the Will of God cannot die. One’s Child HAS BEEN redeemed from one’s own crucifixion, and you cannot assign to death whom God has given eternal life. The dream of crucifixion still lies heavy on your eyes, but what you see in dreams is not reality. While you perceive the Child of God as crucified you are asleep. And as long as you believe that YOU can crucify one you are only having nightmares. You who are beginning to wake are still aware of dreams and have not yet forgotten them.

The forgetting of dreams and the awareness of Christ comes with the awakening of others to SHARE your redemption. You will awaken to your own call, for the Call to awake is WITHIN you. If I live in you, you ARE awake. Yet YOU must see the works I do through you, or you will not perceive that I have done them unto YOU. Do not set limits on what you believe I can do THROUGH YOU, or you will not accept what I can do FOR you. For it is done ALREADY, and unless you give ALL that you have received, you will not know that your Redeemer liveth and that YOU have awakened WITH One. Redemption is recognized ONLY by sharing it.

God’s Child IS saved. Bring only THIS awareness to the Christhood, and you will have a part in the redemption as valuable as mine. For your part must be LIKE mine if you learn it of me. If you believe that YOURS is limited, YOU are limiting MINE. There is no order of difficulty in miracles because all of God’s Children are of equal value, and their equality is their Oneness. The whole power of God is in every part of One, and nothing contradictory to One’s Will is either great or small. What does not exist HAS no size and no measure. To God ALL things are possible. And to Christ it is given to be LIKE the Creator.

Text Chapter 10 - God And The Ego

10.7 - The Problem And The Answer

The world as YOU perceive it cannot have been created by the Creator, for the world is NOT as you see it. God created ONLY the eternal, and everything you see is perishable. Therefore, there must be another world which you do NOT see. The Bible speaks of a NEW Heaven and a NEW earth, yet this cannot be literally true, for the eternal are not RE-created. To perceive ANEW is merely to perceive AGAIN, implying that before, or in the interval, you were not perceiving AT ALL. What, then, is the world that awaits your perception when you SEE it?

Every loving thought that the Creation of God ever had is eternal. Those which one’s mind perceived in this world are the world’s ONLY reality. They are still perceptions because one still believes that one is separate. Yet they are eternal because they are loving. And being loving, they are like the Creator, and therefore cannot die. The real world can ACTUALLY BE PERCEIVED. All that is necessary is a willingness to perceive nothing ELSE. For if you perceive both good AND evil, you are accepting both the false AND the true AND MAKING NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN THEM.

The ego sees SOME good, but never ONLY good. That is why its perceptions are so variable. It does not reject goodness entirely for that you could not accept, but it always adds something that is NOT real to the real, THUS CONFUSING ILLUSION AND REALITY. For perceptions cannot be partly true. If you believe in truth AND illusion you cannot tell WHICH is true. To establish your PERSONAL autonomy you tried to create unlike your Creator, believing what you made to be capable of BEING unlike One. Yet everything in what you have made that IS true IS like One. Only this is the real world, and perceiving ONLY this will lead you to the real Heaven because it will make you capable of UNDERSTANDING it.

The perception of goodness is not knowledge, but the denial of the OPPOSITE of goodness enables you to perceive a condition in which opposites do not exist. And this IS the condition of knowledge. WITHOUT this awareness you have not met its conditions, and until you do you will not know that it is yours already. You have made many ideas which you have placed between yourselves and your Creator, and these beliefs are the world as you perceive it. Truth is not absent here, but it IS obscure. You do not know the difference between what you have made and what God created, and so you do not know the difference between what you have made and what YOU have created.

To believe that you can perceive the real world is to believe that you can know yourself. You can know God because it is One’s Will to BE known. The real world is all that the Holy Spirit has saved for you out of what you have made, and to perceive only this is salvation because it is the recognition that reality is ONLY what is true. This is a very simple course. Perhaps you do not feel that a course which, in the end, teaches nothing more than that only reality is true is necessary. BUT DO YOU BELIEVE IT? When you have perceived the real world, you will recognize that you did NOT believe it. Yet the swiftness with which your new and ONLY real perception will be translated into knowledge will leave you only an instant to realize that this judgement is true.

And then everything you made will be forgotten, the good and bad, the false and the true. For as Heaven and earth become one, even the real world will vanish from your sight. The end of the world is not its destruction but its TRANSLATION into Heaven. The re-interpretation of the world is the transfer of ALL perception to knowledge. The Bible tells you to become as little children. Little children recognize that they do not understand what they perceive, and so they ASK what it means. Do not make the mistake of believing that YOU understand what you perceive, for its meaning is lost to you. Yet the Holy Spirit has saved its meaning FOR you, and if you will LET One interpret it for you, One will restore what you have thrown away. As long as you think YOU know its meaning, you will see no need to ask it of One.

You do not know the meaning of ANYTHING you perceive. NOT ONE THOUGHT YOU HOLD IS WHOLLY TRUE. The recognition of this is your firm beginning. You are not misguided; you have accepted no guide at all. Instruction in perception is your great need, for you understand nothing. Recognize this but do not ACCEPT it, for understanding is your inheritance. Perceptions are learned, and you are not without a Teacher. Yet your willingness to learn of One depends on your willingness to question EVERYTHING you have learned of yourself, for you who have learned amiss should not be your own teacher.

No one can withhold truth except from oneself. Yet God will not refuse the answer One GAVE you. Ask, then, for what is yours but which you did not make, and do not defend yourself AGAINST truth. YOU made the problem which God has answered. Ask yourselves, therefore, but one simple question:

“Do I want the problem or do I want the answer?”

Decide for the answer and you will have it, for you will see it as it is, and it is yours already.

You complain that this course is not sufficiently specific for you to understand it and USE it. Yet it has been VERY specific, and you have NOT done what it specifically advocates. This is not a course in the play of ideas, but in their PRACTICAL APPLICATION. Nothing could be more specific than to be told very clearly that if you ask you WILL receive. The Holy Spirit will answer EVERY specific problem as long as you believe that problems ARE specific. One’s answer is both many and one, as long as you believe that the One IS many. Realize that you are AFRAID of One’s specificity, for fear of what you think it will DEMAND of you. Yet only by asking will you learn that nothing that is of God demands ANYTHING of you. God GIVES; One does NOT take.

You are refusing to ask because you believe that asking is TAKING, and you do NOT perceive it as sharing. The Holy Spirit will give you only what is yours, and will take NOTHING in return. For what is yours IS everything, and you share it with God. This IS its reality. Would the Holy Spirit, Who wills only to RESTORE, be capable of misinterpreting the question you must ask to learn One’s answer?

You HAVE heard the answer, but you have misunderstood the QUESTION. You have believed that to ask for guidance of the Holy Spirit is to ask for DEPRIVATION. Little children of God, you do not understand your Creator. You believe in a world that takes because you believe that you can GET by taking. And BY that perception you have lost sight of the real world. You are afraid of the world as YOU see it, but the real world is still yours for the asking. Do not deny it to yourself, for it can ONLY free you. Nothing of God will enslave One’s Creation, whom One created free and whose freedom is protected by One’s Being.

Blessed are you who will ask the truth of God without fear, for only thus can you learn that One’s answer IS the release from fear. Beautiful Child of God, you are asking only for what I promised you. Do you believe I would deceive you? The Realm of Heaven IS within you. Believe that the truth is in me, for I KNOW that it is in YOU. God’s Creations have nothing which they do not share. Ask for truth of any Creation of God, and you have asked it of me. No one of us but has the answer in one, to give to anyone who asks it of one. Ask anything of God’s Creation and One’s Creator will answer you, for Christ is not deceived in One’s Creator and One’s Creator is not deceived in One.

Do not, then, be deceived in your sibling, and see only one’s loving thoughts as one’s reality, for by denying that ONE’S mind is split you will heal YOURS. Accept one as one’s Creator accepts one and heal one unto Christ, for Christ is one’s healing AND yours. Christ is the Creation of God Who is in no way separate from One’s Creator, Whose EVERY thought is as loving as the Thought of One’s Creator by which One was created. Be not deceived in God’s Creation, for thereby you MUST be deceived in yourself. And being deceived in yourself you ARE deceived in your Creator, in Whom no deceit is possible.

In the real world there is no sickness, for there is no separation and no division. Only loving thoughts are recognized, and because no one is WITHOUT your help the Help of God goes with YOU everywhere. As you become willing to ACCEPT this Help by ASKING for it, you will give it because you WANT it. Nothing will be beyond your healing power because nothing will be denied your simple request. What problems will not disappear in the presence of God’s answer? Ask, then, to learn of the reality of your sibling because this is what you WILL perceive in one, and you will see YOUR beauty reflected in one.

Do not accept your sibling’s variable perception of oneself, for one’s split mind is yours, and you will not accept YOUR healing without one’s. For you share the real world as you share Heaven, and one’s healing IS yours. To love yourself is to HEAL yourself, and you cannot perceive part of you as sick and achieve your OWN goal. Sibling, we heal together as we live together and love together. Be not deceived in God’s Creation, for one is one with oneself and One with one’s Creator. Love one who is beloved of One’s Creator, and you will learn of the Creator’s Love for YOU.

If you perceive offense in a sibling pluck the offense from your mind, for you are offended by Christ, and are deceived in One.

HEAL in Christ and be not offended by One, for there IS no offense in One. If what you perceive offends you, you are offended in YOURSELF and are condemning God’s Creation whom God condemneth not. Let the Holy Spirit remove ALL offense of God’s Creation against oneself and perceive no one but through One’s guidance, for One would save you from ALL condemnation. Accept One’s healing power and use it for all One sends you, for One wills to heal the Creation of God in whom One is not deceived.

Children perceive terrifying ghosts and monsters and dragons and they are terrified. Yet if they ask someone they trust for the REAL meaning of what they perceive, and are willing to let their interpretations go in FAVOR of reality, their fear goes with them. When a child is helped to translate one’s “ghost” into a curtain, one’s “monster” into a shadow and one’s “dragon” into a dream one is no longer afraid, and laughs happily at one’s own fear. You, my children, are afraid of your siblings and of your Creator and of YOURSELVES. But you are merely DECEIVED in them.

Ask what they ARE of the Teacher of Reality, and hearing One’s answer, you too will laugh at your fears and replace them with peace. For fear lies not in reality, but in the minds of children who do not understand reality. It is only their LACK of understanding which frightens them, and when they learn to perceive truly they are not afraid. And because of this they will ask for truth again when they are frightened. It is not the REALITY of your siblings or your Creator or yourself which frightens you. You do not know what they ARE, and so you perceive them as ghosts and monsters and dragons. ASK of their reality from the One Who knows it, and One will TELL you what they are. For you do not understand them, and because you are deceived by what you see, you NEED reality to dispel your fears.

Would you not exchange your fears for truth if the exchange is yours for the asking? For if God is not deceived in you, you can be deceived only in YOURSELF. Yet you can learn the truth of yourself of the Holy Spirit, Who will teach you that, as part of God, deceit in YOU is impossible. When you perceive yourself without deceit, you will accept the real world in place of the false one you have made. And then your Creator will lean down to you and take the last step for you by raising you unto Oneself.

Text Chapter 11 - God’s Plan For Salvation

11.0 - God’s Plan For Salvation

You have been told not to make error real, and the way to do this is very simple. If you WANT to believe in error, you would HAVE to make it real, because it is not true. But TRUTH is real in its OWN right, and to believe in truth, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DO ANYTHING. Understand that you do not respond to stimuli, but to STIMULI AS YOU INTERPRET THEM. Your interpretation thus becomes the JUSTIFICATION for the response. That is why analyzing the motives of others is hazardous to YOU. If you decide that someone is REALLY trying to attack you or desert you or enslave you, you will respond AS IF one had actually DONE so, because you have made one’s error REAL to you. To interpret error is to GIVE IT POWER, and having done this, you WILL overlook truth.

The analysis of ego-motivation is very complicated, very obscuring, and NEVER without the risk of your own ego-involvement. The whole process represents a clear cut attempt to demonstrate YOUR OWN ability to understand what you perceive. This is shown by the fact that you REACT to your interpretations AS IF they WERE correct, and control your reactions behaviorally, BUT NOT EMOTIONALLY. This is quite evidently a mental split, in which you have attacked the integrity of your mind, and pitted one level within it against another.

Text Chapter 11 - God’s Plan For Salvation

11.1 - The Judgement Of The Holy Spirit

There is but one interpretation of ALL motivation that makes any sense. And because it is the Holy Spirit’s judgement, it requires no effort at all on your part. Every loving thought is true. EVERYTHING ELSE is an appeal for healing and help. That is what it IS, regardless of the form it takes. Can anyone be justified in responding with anger to a plea for help? No response can BE appropriate EXCEPT the willingness to give it TO one, for this and ONLY this is what one is ASKING for. Offer one anything ELSE, and YOU are assuming the right to attack one’s reality by interpreting it AS YOU SEE FIT.

Perhaps the danger of this to your OWN mind is not yet fully apparent to you. But this by no means signifies that it is not perfectly clear. If you maintain that an appeal for help is something ELSE you will REACT to something else, and your response will be inappropriate to reality as IT is, but NOT to your perception OF it. This is poor reality testing by definition. There is nothing to prevent you from recognizing ALL calls for help as exactly what they are EXCEPT YOUR OWN PERCEIVED NEED TO ATTACK. It is only THIS that makes you willing to engage in endless “battles” with reality, in which you DENY the reality of the need for healing by making IT unreal.

You would not do this except for your UNWILLINGNESS to perceive reality, WHICH YOU WITHHOLD FROM YOURSELF. It is surely good advice to tell you not to judge what you do not understand. No one with a personal investment is a reliable witness, for truth to one has become what one WANTS it to be. If you are unwilling to perceive an appeal for help AS WHAT IT IS, it is because YOU are unwilling to give help AND TO RECEIVE IT. The analysis of the ego’s “real” motivation is the modern equivalent of the inquisition. For in both a sibling’s errors are “uncovered” and one is then attacked FOR ONE’S OWN GOOD. What can this be BUT projection? For ONE’S errors lay in the minds of one’s INTERPRETERS, for which they punished ONE.

Whenever you fail to recognize a call for help you are REFUSING help. Would you maintain that you do not NEED it? Yet this IS what you are maintaining when you refuse to recognize a sibling’s appeal, for only by ANSWERING one’s appeal can YOU be helped. Deny one YOUR help and you will NOT perceive God’s answer to YOU. The Holy Spirit does NOT need your help in interpreting motivation, but you DO need ONE’S. ONLY appreciation is an appropriate response to your sibling. Gratitude is due one for both one’s loving thoughts and one’s appeals for help, for both are capable of bringing love into YOUR awareness IF YOU PERCEIVE THEM TRULY. And ALL your sense of strain comes from your attempts NOT to do just this.

How simple, then, is God’s plan for salvation. There is but ONE response to reality, for reality evokes no conflict at all. There is but ONE Teacher of reality, Who understands what it IS. One does NOT change One’s Mind about reality because REALITY does not change. Although YOUR interpretations of reality are meaningless in your divided state, One’s remain consistently true. One GIVES them to you because they are FOR you.

Do not attempt to “help” a sibling in YOUR way, for you cannot help YOURSELVES. But hear one’s call for the help of God, and you will recognize your OWN need for the Creator. Your interpretations of your sibling’s need is your interpretation of YOURS. By giving help you are ASKING FOR IT. And if you perceive but one need in yourself you WILL be healed. For you will recognize God’s answer as you want it to be, and if you want it in truth it will be truly yours. Every appeal you answer in the Name of Christ brings the remembrance of your Creator closer to YOUR awareness. For the sake of YOUR need, then, hear every call for help as what it is, so God can answer YOU.

By applying the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the reactions of others more and more consistently, you will gain an increasing awareness that ONE’S criteria are equally applicable to YOU. For to RECOGNIZE fear is not enough to escape FROM it, although the recognition IS necessary to demonstrate the NEED for escape. The Holy Spirit must still TRANSLATE it into truth. If you were LEFT with the fear, having RECOGNIZED it, you would have taken a step AWAY from reality, not TOWARDS it. Yet we have repeatedly emphasized the need to recognize fear and face it WITHOUT DISGUISE as a crucial step in the undoing of the ego. Consider how well the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the motives of others will serve you then.

Having taught you to accept only loving thoughts in others and to regard everything else as an appeal for help, One has taught you that FEAR is an appeal for help. This is what RECOGNIZING it really means. If you do NOT PROTECT it, ONE will re-interpret it. That is the ultimate value TO YOU in learning to perceive attack as a call for love. We have learned surely that fear and attack are inevitably associated. If ONLY attack produces fear, and if you see attack as the call for help that it IS, the UNREALITY of fear MUST dawn upon you. For fear IS a call for love, in unconscious recognition of what has been denied.

Text Chapter 11 - God’s Plan For Salvation

11.2 - The Mechanism of Miracles

Fear is a symptom of your deep sense of loss. If when you perceive it in others you learn to SUPPLY the loss, the basic CAUSE of fear is removed. Thereby you teach yourself that fear does not exist IN YOU, for you have IN YOURSELF the means for removing it, and have DEMONSTRATED this by GIVING it. Fear and love are the only emotions of which you are capable. One is false for it was made out of denial, and denial DEPENDS on the real belief in what is denied for its OWN existence.

By interpreting fear correctly AS A POSITIVE AFFIRMATION OF THE UNDERLYING BELIEF IT MASKS, you are undermining its perceived usefulness by rendering it useless. Defenses which do not work AT ALL are AUTOMATICALLY discarded. If you raise what fear conceals to CLEAR-CUT, UNEQUIVOCAL PREDOMINANCE, fear becomes meaningless. You have denied its power to conceal love, which was its only purpose. The mask which YOU have drawn across the Face of Love has disappeared.

If you would look upon love, which IS the world’s reality, how could you do better than to recognize, in every defense AGAINST it, the underlying appeal FOR it? And how could you better learn of its reality than by answering the appeal for it by GIVING it? The Holy Spirit’s interpretation of fear DOES dispel it, for the AWARENESS of truth cannot BE denied. Thus does the Holy Spirit replace fear with love and translate error into truth. And thus will YOU learn of One how to replace your dream of separation with the fact of unity. For the separation is only the DENIAL of union, and correctly interpreted, attests to your eternal knowledge that union is true.

Miracles are merely the translation of denial into truth. If to love oneself is to HEAL oneself, those who are sick do NOT love themselves. Therefore, they are asking for the love that would heal them, but which they are DENYING TO THEMSELVES. If they knew the truth about themselves they could not BE sick. The task of the miracle-worker thus becomes TO DENY THE DENIAL OF TRUTH. The sick must heal THEMSELVES, for the truth is in them. Yet, having OBSCURED it, the light in ANOTHER mind must shine into theirs because that light IS theirs.

The light in them shines as brightly REGARDLESS of the density of the fog that obscures it. If YOU give no power to the fog to obscure the light it HAS none, for it has power ONLY because the Child of God gave power TO it. One must ONESELF withdraw that power, remembering that ALL power is of God. YOU CAN REMEMBER THIS FOR ALL THE CHRISTHOOD. Do not allow your sibling not to remember, for one’s forgetfulness is YOURS. But YOUR remembering is ONE’S, for God cannot be remembered alone. THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN. To perceive the healing of your sibling as the healing of yourself is thus the way to remember God. For you forgot your siblings WITH One, and God’s answer to your forgetting is but the way to remember.

Perceive in sickness but another call for love, and offer your sibling what one believes one cannot offer ONESELF. Whatever the sickness, there is but ONE remedy. You will be made whole as you MAKE whole, for to perceive in sickness the appeal for health is to recognize in hatred the call for love. And to give a sibling what one REALLY wants is to offer it unto yourself, for your Creator wills you to know your sibling AS yourself. Answer ONE’S call for love and YOURS is answered. Healing is the love of Christ for One’s Creator and for ONESELF.

You have no idea of the intensity of your wish to get rid of each other. This does NOT mean that you are not strongly impelled TOWARD each other, but it DOES mean that LOVE IS NOT THE ONLY EMOTION. Because your love has become more in awareness, the conflict can no longer be “settled” by your previous attempts to MINIMIZE the fear. The love makes attack untenable, BUT YOU STILL FEEL THE FEAR. Instead of trying to resolve it directly, you have a strong tendency to TRY TO ESCAPE FROM THE LOVE. Yet this is the LAST thing you would want to ESCAPE from. And even if you did, you can escape from everything ELSE, but not from this. Be glad indeed that there IS no escape from salvation.

You do not realize how much you hate each other. You will not get rid of this until you DO realize it, for UNTIL then, you will think you want to get rid of EACH OTHER and KEEP THE HATRED. Yet if you are each other’s salvation, what can this mean except that you PREFER attack to salvation? Be glad that neither your reality nor your salvation is a matter of your preference, for you HAVE much cause for joy. But that the cause is NOT of your making is surely obvious. You DO hate and fear each other, and your love, which is very real, is TOTALLY obscured by it. How can you know the meaning of love UNLESS it is total?

This will be a very difficult period for you, but it will not be so for long. You are in danger, but you WILL be helped, and nothing will happen. But you cannot remain in darkness, and this will BE the way out. Look as calmly as you can upon hatred, for if we are to deny the denial of truth, we must first RECOGNIZE what we are denying. Remember that knowledge PRECEDES denial, and that the separation was a descent from magnitude to littleness. And so the way back is to retrace the way to magnitude.

Your hatred is not real. But it is real to you. IT HIDES WHAT YOU REALLY WANT. Surely you are willing to look upon what you do NOT want without fear, EVEN IF IT FRIGHTENS YOU, if you can thereby get rid of it? For you CANNOT escape salvation, and you WILL not escape fear until you WANT salvation. Be not afraid of this journey into fear, for it is not your destination. And we will walk through it in safety, for peace is not far, and you will be led in its light.

Remember what we said about the frightening perceptions of little children, which terrify them because they do not understand them. If they ASK for enlightenment AND ACCEPT IT their fears vanish, but if they HIDE their nightmares they will KEEP them. It is easy to help an uncertain child, for one recognizes that one does not know what one’s perceptions mean. Yet you believe that you DO know. Little children, you are hiding your heads under the covers of the heavy blankets you have laid upon yourselves. You are hiding your nightmares in the darkness of your own certainty, and refusing to open your eyes and LOOK AT THEM.

Let us not save nightmares, for they are not fitting offerings for Christ, and so they are not fit gifts for YOU. Take off the covers and look at what you are afraid of. Only the ANTICIPATION will frighten you, for the reality of nothingness cannot BE frightening. Let us not delay this, for your dream of hatred will not leave you without help, and help is here. Learn to be quiet in the midst of turmoil, for quietness is the END of strife, and this is the journey to peace. Look straight at every image that rises to delay you, for the goal is inevitable because it is eternal.

The goal of love is but your right, and it belongs to you DESPITE your preference. YOU STILL WANT WHAT GOD WILLS, and no nightmare can defeat a Child of God in one’s purpose. For your purpose was given you by God, and you must accomplish it BECAUSE it is One’s Will. Awake and remember your purpose, for it is YOUR will to do so. What has been accomplished FOR you MUST be yours. Do not let your hatred stand in the way of love, for NOTHING can withstand the love of Christ for One’s Creator, or One’s Creator’s Love for One.

A little while and you WILL see me, for I am not hidden because YOU are hiding. I will awaken you as surely as I awakened myself, for I awoke FOR you. In MY resurrection is YOUR release. Our mission is to ESCAPE CRUCIFIXION—not redemption. Trust in my help for I did not walk alone, and I will walk with you as our Creator walked with me. Did you not know that I walked with One in peace? And does not that mean that peace goes with US on the journey?

There is no fear in perfect love. We will but be making perfect TO you what is ALREADY perfect IN you. You do not fear the UNKNOWN but the KNOWN. You will not fail in your mission because I failed not in mine. Give me but a little trust in the name of the COMPLETE trust I have in you, and we will easily accomplish the goal of perfection together. For perfection IS, and cannot be denied. To deny the denial of perfection is not so difficult as the denial of truth, and what we can accomplish together MUST be believed when you SEE it as accomplished. You who have tried to banish love have not succeeded. But you who choose to banish fear WILL succeed.

The Lord is with you, but you know it not. Yet your Redeemer liveth, and abideth in you in the peace out of which One was created. Would you not exchange THIS awareness for the awareness of your fear? When we have OVERCOME fear, not by hiding it, not by minimizing it, not by denying its full import in ANY way, THIS IS WHAT YOU WILL REALLY SEE. You cannot lay aside the obstacle to real vision without looking upon it, for to lay aside means to judge AGAINST. If YOU will look the Holy Spirit will judge, AND WILL JUDGE TRULY. One cannot shine away what YOU keep hidden, for you have not offered it TO One, and One CANNOT take it FROM you.

We are therefore embarking on an organized, well-structured and carefully planned program aimed at learning how to offer to the Holy Spirit everything you do NOT want. ONE knows what to DO with it. You do NOT know how to use what One knows. Whatever is revealed to One that is not of God is gone. Yet you must reveal it to YOURSELF in perfect willingness, for otherwise One’s knowledge remains useless to you. Surely One will not fail to help you, since help is One’s ONLY purpose. Do you not have greater reason for fearing the world as you perceive it than for looking at the cause of fear, and letting it go forever?

Text Chapter 11 - God’s Plan For Salvation

11.3 - The Investment In Reality

I once asked if you were willing to sell all you have and give to the poor and follow me. This is what I meant: If you had no investment in anything in this world, you could teach the poor where THEIR treasure IS. The poor are merely those who have invested wrongly, and they are poor indeed! And because they are in need it is given you to help them, since YOU are among them. Consider how perfectly your lesson would be learned IF YOU WERE UNWILLING TO SHARE THEIR POVERTY. For poverty is lack, and there is but ONE lack since there is but ONE need.

Suppose a sibling insists on having you do something you think you do not want to do. The very fact of one’s insistence should tell you that ONE BELIEVES SALVATION LIES IN IT. If you insist on refusing and experience a quick response of opposition, YOU are believing that YOUR salvation lies in NOT doing it. You, then, are making the same mistake that ONE is, and are making one’s error real to BOTH of you. Insistence means INVESTMENT, and what you invest in is ALWAYS related to your notion of salvation. The question is always two-fold: first, WHAT is to be saved, and second, how can it BE saved?

Whenever you become angry with a sibling, for WHATEVER reason, you are believing that the EGO is to be saved, AND TO BE SAVED BY ATTACK. If ONE attacks you are agreeing with this belief, and if YOU attack you are reinforcing it. REMEMBER THAT THOSE WHO ATTACK ARE POOR. Their poverty asks for gifts, NOT for further impoverishment. You who could help them are surely acting destructively if you accept their poverty AS YOURS. If you had not invested AS THEY HAD, it would never occur to you to overlook their need.

RECOGNIZE WHAT DOES NOT MATTER, and if your siblings ask you for something “outrageous”, do it BECAUSE it does not matter. Refuse, and your OPPOSITION establishes that it DOES matter to you. It is only YOU, therefore, who have MADE the request outrageous, for nothing can BE asked OF you, and every request of a sibling is FOR you. Why would you insist in DENYING one? For to do so is to deny yourself and impoverish both. ONE is asking for salvation, as YOU are. Poverty is of the ego, and NEVER of God. No “outrageous” request can be made of one who recognizes what is valuable and wants to accept nothing else.

Salvation is for the mind, and it is attained through peace. This is the only thing that CAN be saved and the ONLY way to save it. Any response OTHER than love arises from a confusion about the “what” and the “how” of salvation, and this is the ONLY answer. Never lose sight of this, and never allow yourself to believe, even for an instant, that there is another answer. For you will surely place yourself among the poor, who do not understand that they dwell in abundance and that salvation is come.

To identify with the ego is to attack yourself and MAKE YOURSELF POOR. That is why everyone who identifies with the ego FEELS DEPRIVED. What one EXPERIENCES then is depression or anger, but what one DID is to exchange one’s self-love for self-hate, MAKING ONE AFRAID OF ONESELF. One does NOT realize this. Even if one is fully aware of ANXIETY one does NOT perceive its source AS ONE’S OWN EGO IDENTIFICATION, and one ALWAYS tries to handle it by making some sort of insane “arrangement” with the world. One always perceives this world as OUTSIDE ONESELF, for this is crucial to one’s adjustment. One does NOT realize that ONE MAKES THIS WORLD, for there IS no world outside of one.

If only the loving thoughts of God’s Child ARE the world’s reality, the real world MUST be IN ONE’S MIND. One’s insane thoughts, too, must be in one’s mind, but an INTERNAL conflict of this magnitude one cannot tolerate. A split mind IS endangered, and the recognition that it encompasses completely opposed thoughts within itself IS intolerable. Therefore the mind projects the split, NOT the reality. EVERYTHING you perceive as the outside world is merely your attempt to maintain your ego identification, for everyone believes that identification is salvation.

Yet consider what has happened, for thoughts DO have consequences to the thinker. You are AT ODDS with the world as you perceive it because you think IT is antagonistic to you. THIS IS A NECESSARY CONSEQUENCE OF WHAT YOU HAVE DONE. You have projected outward what IS antagonistic to what is inward, and therefore you would HAVE to perceive it this way. That is why you MUST realize that your hatred IS in your mind and NOT OUTSIDE IT before you can get rid of it; and why you MUST get rid of it BEFORE you can perceive the world as it really is.

We once said that God so loved the world that One gave it TO One’s only-begotten Child. God DOES love the real world, and those who perceive ITS reality CANNOT see the world of death. For death is not OF the real world, in which everything is eternal. God gave you the real world in exchange for the one you made out of your split mind, and which IS the symbol of death. For if you could REALLY separate yourselves from the Mind of God you WOULD die, and the world you perceive IS a world of separation.

You were willing to accept even death to deny your Creator. Yet One would not have it so, and so it is NOT so. You still could not will against One, and that is why you have no control over the world you made. It is NOT a world of will because it is governed by the desire to be unlike One, and this desire IS NOT WILL. The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless “laws”, and without meaning of ANY kind. For it was made out of what you do NOT want, projected FROM your mind because you were AFRAID of it.

Yet this world is ONLY in the mind of its maker, along with one’s REAL salvation. Do not believe it is outside of yourself, for only by recognizing WHERE it is will you gain control over it. For you DO have control over your mind, since the mind is the mechanism of decision. If you will recognize that ALL attack which you perceive is in your own mind and NOWHERE ELSE, you will at last have placed its source, and where it began it must end. For in this same place also lies salvation. The altar of God where Christ abideth is there.

You have defiled the altar but NOT the world. Yet Christ has placed the Atonement on the altar FOR you. Bring your perceptions of the world to this altar, for it is the altar to truth. There you will see your vision changed, and there you will learn to see truly. From this place, where God and One’s Child dwell in peace and where you are welcome, you will look out in peace and behold the world truly. Yet to find the place, you must relinquish your investment in the world as YOU have projected it, allowing the Holy Spirit to project the real world TO you from the altar of God.

Text Chapter 11 - God’s Plan For Salvation

11.4 - Seeking And Finding

The ego is certain that love is dangerous, and this is ALWAYS its central teaching. It never PUTS it this way; on the contrary, everyone who believes that the ego is salvation is intensely engaged in the SEARCH for love. Yet the ego, though encouraging the search very actively, makes one proviso—do not FIND it. Its dictates, then, can be summed up simply as: “Seek and do NOT find.” This is the ONE promise the ego holds out to you, and the one promise IT WILL KEEP. For the ego pursues its goal with fanatic insistence, and its reality testing, though severely impaired, is completely consistent.

The search which the ego undertakes is therefore bound to be defeated. And since it also teaches that IT is your identification, its guidance leads you to a journey which MUST end in perceived SELF-defeat. For the ego CANNOT love, and in its frantic search FOR love, it is seeking WHAT IT IS AFRAID TO FIND. The SEARCH is inevitable because the ego is part of your mind, and because of its source, the ego is not wholly split off, or it could not be believed at all. For it is your mind that BELIEVES in it, and gives existence TO it. Yet it is ALSO your mind that has the power to DENY the ego’s existence, and you will surely do so when you realize exactly what the journey on which the ego sets you IS.

It is surely obvious that no one WANTS to find WHAT WOULD UTTERLY DEFEAT ONE. Being UNABLE to love, the ego would be totally inadequate in love’s presence, for it could not respond at all. YOU would HAVE to abandon the ego’s guidance, for it would be quite apparent that it had NOT taught you the response pattern you NEED. The ego will therefore DISTORT love, and teach you that LOVE calls forth the responses which the ego CAN teach. Follow its teaching, then, and you will SEARCH for love, BUT WILL NOT RECOGNIZE IT.

But DO you realize that the ego MUST set you on a journey which cannot BUT lead to a sense of futility and depression? To seek and NOT to find is hardly joyous. Is this the promise YOU would keep? The Holy Spirit offers you another promise, and one that will lead to joy. For ONE’S promise is always, “Seek and you WILL FIND,” and under ONE’S guidance you cannot BE defeated. One’s is the journey to ACCOMPLISHMENT, and the goal One sets before you One WILL GIVE YOU. For One will never deceive God’s Child, whom One loves with the Love of the Creator.

You WILL undertake a journey because you are NOT at home in this world. And you WILL search for your home whether you know where it is or not. If you believe it is OUTSIDE yourself the search will be futile, for you will be seeking it where it is NOT. You do not know how to look within yourself, for you DO NOT BELIEVE YOUR HOME IS THERE. Yet the Holy Spirit knows it FOR you, and One will guide you TO your home because that is One’s mission. As One fulfills ONE’S mission One will teach you YOURS. For your mission is the same as One’s. By guiding your SIBLINGS home you are but following ONE.

Behold the Guide your Creator gave you that you might learn you have eternal life. For death is not your Creator’s Will nor yours, and whatever is true IS the Will of the Creator. You pay no price for life for that was given you, but you DO pay a price for death, and a very heavy one. If death is your treasure, you will sell everything else to purchase it. And you will believe that you HAVE purchased it BECAUSE you have sold everything else. YET YOU CANNOT SELL THE REALM OF HEAVEN. Your inheritance can neither be bought NOR sold. There can BE no disinherited parts of the Christhood, for God is whole, and all one’s extensions are like One.

The Atonement was not the price of our wholeness, but it WAS the price of your AWARENESS of your wholeness. For what you chose to “sell” had to be kept FOR you, since you COULD not “buy” it back. Yet YOU must invest in it, not with money, but WITH YOUR SPIRIT. For Spirit is will, and will IS the “price” of the Realm. Your inheritance awaits only the recognition that you have BEEN redeemed. The Holy Spirit guides you into Life Eternal, but YOU must relinquish your investment in death, or you will not SEE life though it is all around you.

Text Chapter 11 - God’s Plan For Salvation

11.5 - The Sane Curriculum

Only love is strong because it is UNDIVIDED. The strong do not attack because they see no need to do so. BEFORE the idea of attack can enter your mind YOU MUST HAVE PERCEIVED YOURSELF AS WEAK. Because you had attacked yourself and BELIEVED THAT THE ATTACK WAS EFFECTIVE, you behold yourself as weakened. No longer perceiving yourself and all your siblings as equal, AND REGARDING YOURSELF AS WEAKER, you attempt to “equalize” the situation YOU HAVE MADE. You use attack to do so because you believe that ATTACK WAS SUCCESSFUL IN WEAKENING YOU.

That is why the recognition of your OWN invulnerability is so important in the restoration of your sanity. For if you accept your invulnerability, you are recognizing that ATTACK HAS NO EFFECT. Although you have attacked yourself, and very brutally, you will demonstrate that NOTHING HAPPENED. Therefore, by attacking you have NOT DONE ANYTHING. Once you realize this there is no longer any SENSE in attack, for it manifestly DOES NOT WORK, and cannot PROTECT you. Yet the recognition of your invulnerability has more than negative value.

If your attacks on yourself have FAILED to weaken you YOU ARE STILL STRONG. You therefore HAVE no need to “equalize” the situation to ESTABLISH your strength. You will never realize the utter uselessness of attack EXCEPT by recognizing that your attack on YOURSELF had no effects. For others DO react to attack if they perceive it, and if you ARE trying to attack them you will be unable to avoid interpreting this as reinforcement. The ONLY place where you can cancel out ALL reinforcement is IN YOURSELF. For YOU are always the first point of your attack, and if THIS has never been it HAS no consequences.

The Holy Spirit’s love is your strength, for yours is divided and therefore not real. You could not trust your own love when you have ATTACKED it. You cannot learn of PERFECT love with a split mind because a split mind HAS MADE ITSELF A POOR LEARNER. You tried to make the separation eternal because you wanted to RETAIN the characteristics of creation WITH YOUR OWN CONTENT.

Yet creation is NOT of you, and poor learners need special teaching. You have learning handicaps in a very literal sense. There are areas in your learning skills which are so impaired that you can progress only under constant, clear-cut direction, provided by a Teacher Who can TRANSCEND your limited resources. One BECOMES your Resource, because OF YOURSELF you CANNOT learn. The learning situation in which you placed yourself IS impossible, and IN this situation you clearly require a special Teacher and a special curriculum.

Poor learners are not good choices for teachers, either for themselves or for anyone else. You would hardly turn to THEM to establish the curriculum by which they can ESCAPE from their limitations. If they understood what is BEYOND them they would not BE handicapped. You do NOT know the meaning of love, and that IS your handicap. Do not attempt to teach YOURSELVES what you do not understand, and do not try to set up curriculum goals where yours have clearly failed. For YOUR learning goal has been NOT TO LEARN, and this CANNOT lead to successful learning.

You cannot transfer what you have not learned, and the impairment of the ability to generalize is a crucial learning failure. Would you ask those who have FAILED to learn what learning aids are FOR? THEY DO NOT KNOW. For if they could INTERPRET the aids correctly they would have LEARNED from them. We have said that the ego’s rule is, “Seek and do NOT find.” Translated into curricular terms, this is the same as saying, “TRY to learn but DO NOT SUCCEED.”

The result of this curriculum goal is obvious. Every legitimate teaching aid, every real instruction, and every sensible guide to learning WILL BE MISINTERPRETED. For they are all for learning FACILITATION, which this strange curriculum goal is AGAINST. If you are trying to learn how NOT to learn, and are using the AIM of teaching TO DEFEAT ITSELF, what can you expect BUT confusion? The CURRICULUM does not make any sense.

This kind of “learning” has so weakened your mind that you CANNOT love. For the curriculum you have chosen is AGAINST love, and amounts to a course in HOW TO ATTACK YOURSELF. A necessary minor, supplementing this major curriculum goal, is learning how NOT to overcome the split which made this goal believable. And YOU can NOT overcome it, for all YOUR learning is on its BEHALF.

Yet your will speaks against your learning as your learning speaks against your will. And so you fight AGAINST learning and SUCCEED, for that IS your will. But you do NOT realize, even yet, that there IS something you DO will to learn, and that you CAN learn it because it IS your will to do so. You who have tried to learn what you do NOT will should take heart. For although the curriculum you set yourself is depressing indeed, it is merely ridiculous, IF YOU LOOK AT IT. Is it POSSIBLE that the way to achieve a goal is NOT TO ATTAIN IT?

Resign NOW as your own teachers. THIS resignation will NOT lead to depression. It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have taught yourselves, and of the learning outcomes which have resulted. Under the proper learning conditions, which you can neither provide nor understand, you will become excellent learners AND teachers. But it is not so yet, and will not BE so until the whole learning situation, as YOU have set it up, is reversed.

Your learning POTENTIAL, properly understood, is limitless BECAUSE IT WILL LEAD YOU TO GOD. You can TEACH the way to One AND learn it, if you follow the Teacher Who knows it, and One’s curriculum for learning it. The curriculum is totally unambiguous because the goal is NOT divided, and the means and the end are in COMPLETE accord. You need offer only UNDIVIDED ATTENTION. Everything else will be GIVEN you. For it is YOUR will to learn aright, and nothing can oppose the will of God’s Child. One’s learning is as unlimited as ONE is.

Text Chapter 11 - God’s Plan For Salvation

11.6 - The Vision Of Christ

The ego is trying to teach you how to gain the whole world and lose your own Spirit. The Holy Spirit teaches that you CANNOT lose your Spirit and there IS no gain in the world, for OF ITSELF it profits nothing. To invest in something WITHOUT profit is surely to impoverish yourself, and the overhead is high. Not only is there no profit in the investment, but the cost TO YOU is enormous. For this investment costs you the world’s reality by DENYING YOURS, and gives you nothing in return. You CANNOT sell your Spirit, but you CAN sell your AWARENESS of it.

You cannot perceive your Spirit, but you will not KNOW it while you perceive anything ELSE as more valuable. The Holy Spirit is your strength because One perceives nothing BUT your Spirit AS YOU. One is perfectly aware that you do NOT know yourselves, and perfectly aware of how to teach you what you are. BECAUSE One loves you, One will gladly teach you what One loves, for One wills to share it. Remembering you always, One cannot let you forget your worth. For the Creator never ceases to remind One of One’s Child, and One never ceases to remind One’s Child of the Creator. God is in your memory BECAUSE of One.

You CHOSE to forget your Creator but you did NOT will to do so. And THEREFORE you CAN decide otherwise. As it was MY decision, so is it YOURS. YOU DO NOT WANT THE WORLD. The only thing of value in it is whatever part of it YOU look upon with love. This GIVES it the only reality it will ever have. ITS value is NOT in itself, but yours IS in you. As self-value comes from self-EXTENSION, so does the PERCEPTION of self-value come from the projection of loving thoughts outward.

Make the world real unto YOURSELF, for the real world is the gift of the Holy Spirit, and so it BELONGS to you. Correction is for all who cannot see. To open the eyes of the blind is the Holy Spirit’s mission, for One knows that they have not LOST their vision, but merely sleep. One would awaken them from the sleep of forgetting to the remembering of God. Christ’s eyes are open, and One will look upon whatever you see with love if you accept One’s vision as yours.

The Holy Spirit keeps the vision of Christ for every Child of God who sleeps. In One’s sight the Child of God is perfect, and One longs to share One’s vision WITH you. One will SHOW you the real world because God GAVE you Heaven. Through One your Creator calls One’s Child to remember. The awakening of One’s Child begins with one’s investment in the REAL world, and by this one will learn to RE-invest in ONESELF. For reality is one with the Creator AND the Child, and the Holy Spirit blesses the real world in Their Name.

When you have seen this real world, as you will surely do, you WILL remember us. Yet you must learn the cost of sleeping, AND REFUSE TO PAY IT. Only then will you decide to awake. And then the real world will spring to your sight, for Christ has never slept. One is waiting to be seen, for One has never lost sight of YOU. One looks quietly on the real world, which One would SHARE with you because One knows of the Creator’s Love for One. And knowing this, One would give you what is yours.

In perfect peace One waits for you at One’s Creator’s altar, holding out the Creator’s Love to you in the quiet light of the Holy Spirit’s blessing. For the Holy Spirit will lead everyone home to one’s Creator, where Christ waits as one’s Self. Every Child of God is one in Christ, for one’s Being is in Christ as Christ’s is in God. Christ’s love for you is One’s love for One’s Creator, which One knows because One knows One’s Creator’s Love for One. When the Holy Spirit has at last led you to Christ at the altar to One’s Creator, perception fuses into knowledge because perception has become so holy that its transfer to holiness is merely its natural extension.

Love transfers to love without ANY interference, for the situations are identical. Only the ABILITY to make this transfer is the product of learning. As you perceive more and more common elements in ALL situations, the transfer of your training under the Holy Spirit’s guidance increases and becomes generalized. Gradually you learn to apply it to everyone and everything, for its applicability IS universal. When this has been accomplished, perception and knowledge have become so similar that they share the unification of the laws of God. What is one cannot be perceived as separate, and the denial of the separation IS the re-instatement of knowledge.

At the altar of God, the holy perception of God’s Child becomes so enlightened that light streams into it, and the Spirit of God’s Child shines in the Mind of the Creator and becomes One with It. Very gently does God shine upon Oneself, loving the extension of Oneself which is One’s Child. The world has no purpose as it blends into the Purpose of God. For the real world has slipped quietly into Heaven, where everything eternal in it has always been. There the Redeemer and the redeemed join in perfect love of God and of each other. Heaven is your home, and being in God it must ALSO be in you.

Text Chapter 11 - God’s Plan For Salvation

11.7 - The Guide For Miracles

Miracles demonstrate that learning has occurred under the right guidance, for learning is invisible, and what has been learned can be recognized ONLY by its RESULTS. Its GENERALIZATION is demonstrated as you use it in more and more situations. You will recognize that you have learned there is no order of difficulty in miracles when you have applied them to ALL situations. There IS no situation to which miracles do not apply, and by applying them TO all situations you will gain the REAL world. For in this holy perception you will be made whole, and the Atonement will radiate from YOUR acceptance of it FOR YOURSELF to everyone the Holy Spirit sends you for your blessing.

In every Child of God One’s blessing lies, and in your blessing of the Children of God is One’s blessing to YOU. Everyone in the world must play one’s part in the redemption of the world, to recognize that the world HAS BEEN redeemed. You cannot see the invisible. Yet if you see its effects YOU KNOW IT MUST BE THERE. By perceiving what it DOES, you recognize its being. And by WHAT it does, you learn what it IS. You cannot SEE your abilities, but you gain confidence in their existence as they enable you to ACT. And the results of your actions you CAN see.

The Holy Spirit is invisible, but you CAN see the results of One’s Presence, and through them you will learn that One is there. What One enables you to do is clearly NOT of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them. Perceiving One’s RESULTS, you will understand where One MUST be, and finally KNOW what One is.

You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you CAN see One’s MANIFESTATIONS. And UNLESS YOU DO, you will not realize One is there. Miracles are One’s witnesses, and speak for One’s Presence. What you cannot see becomes real to you only through the witnesses who speak FOR it. For you can be AWARE of what you cannot see, and it can become compellingly real to you as its presence becomes manifest THROUGH you. Do the Holy Spirit’s work, for you SHARE in One’s function. As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares One’s function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares ONE’S with you on earth.

As long as you believe you have two functions, so long will you need correction. For this belief is the DESTRUCTION of peace, a goal in direct opposition to the Holy Spirit’s purpose. You see what you EXPECT, and you expect what you invite. Your perception is the result of your invitation, coming to you as you sent for it. Whose manifestations would you see? Of whose presence would you be convinced? For you will believe in what you MANIFEST, and as you look out so will you see in. Two ways of looking at the world are in your mind, and your perception will reflect the guidance you chose.

I am the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, and when you see me it will be because you have invited One. For One WILL send you One’s witnesses if you will but look upon them. Remember always that you see what you seek, for what you seek you WILL find. The ego finds what IT seeks, and ONLY that. It does not find love, for that is NOT what it is seeking. Yet seeking and finding are the same, and if you seek for two goals you will find them, but you will RECOGNIZE NEITHER. For you will think they are the same BECAUSE YOU WANT THEM BOTH. The mind always strives for integration, and if it is split and WANTS TO KEEP THE SPLIT, it will believe it has ONE goal by MAKING IT ONE.

We said before that WHAT you project is up to you, but it is NOT up to you WHETHER to project, for projection is a law of mind. Perception IS projection, and you look in BEFORE you look out. As you look IN you choose the guide for seeing, and THEN you look out and behold one’s witnesses. This is WHY you find what you seek. What you want IN YOURSELF you will make manifest by PROJECTION, and you will accept it FROM the world because you put it there BY wanting it.

When you think you are projecting what you do NOT want, it is still because you DO want it. This leads DIRECTLY to dissociation, for it represents the acceptance of two goals, each perceived IN A DIFFERENT PLACE, separated from each other BECAUSE YOU MADE THEM DIFFERENT. The mind then sees a divided world OUTSIDE ITSELF, but NOT within. This gives it an illusion of integrity, and enables it to believe that IT is pursuing one goal. As long as you perceive the world as split, YOU are not healed. For to be healed is to pursue one goal because you have ACCEPTED only one, and WANT but one.

When you want ONLY love you will see nothing else. The contradictory nature of the witnesses you perceive is merely the reflection of your conflicting invitations. You have looked upon your minds and accepted opposition there, having SOUGHT it there. But do not then believe that the witnesses FOR opposition are true, for they attest only to your DECISION about reality, returning to you the message you GAVE them. Love is recognized by its messengers. If you make love manifest, its messengers will come to you because you INVITED them.

The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world. YOU CAN DECIDE TO SEE IT RIGHT. What you MADE of it is NOT its reality, for its reality is only what you GAVE it. You cannot REALLY give anything BUT love to anyone or anything, nor can you really receive anything else FROM them. If you think you have received anything ELSE, it is because you have looked within and thought you saw the power to GIVE something else WITHIN YOURSELF. It was only THIS decision that determined what you found, for it was the decision OF WHAT YOU SOUGHT.

You are afraid of me because you looked within and are afraid of what you saw. Yet you COULD not have seen reality, for the reality of your mind is the loveliest of God’s creations. Coming only from God, its power and grandeur could only bring you peace IF YOU REALLY LOOKED UPON IT. If you are afraid, it is because you saw something THAT IS NOT THERE. Yet in that same place you could have looked upon me and all your siblings, in the perfect safety of the Mind Which created us. For we are there in the peace of the Creator, who wills to PROJECT One’s peace through YOU.

When you have accepted your mission to PROJECT peace you will FIND it. For by MAKING IT MANIFEST you will SEE it. Its holy witnesses will surround you because you CALLED UPON THEM and they will come to you. I HAVE heard your call and I have answered it, but you will not look upon me nor hear the answer which you sought. That is because you do not yet want ONLY that. Yet as I become more real to you, you will learn that you DO want only that. And you will see me as you look within, and we will look upon the world as God created it together. Through the eyes of Christ ONLY the real world exists and can BE seen.

As you decide so will you see. And all that you see but witnesses to your decision. When you look within and see me, it will be because you have decided to manifest truth. And as you manifest it you will see it both without AND within, for you will see it without BECAUSE you saw it first within. Everything you behold without is a JUDGEMENT of what you beheld within. If it is YOUR judgement it will be wrong, for judgement is not your function. If it is the judgement of the Holy Spirit it will be right, for judgement IS One’s function. You share One’s function only by judging AS ONE DOES, reserving no judgement at all unto yourselves. For you will judge AGAINST yourselves, but ONE will judge FOR you.

Remember, then, that whenever you look without and react unfavorably to what you see, you have judged yourself unworthy and have condemned yourself to death. The death penalty is the ego’s ultimate goal, for it fully believes that you are a criminal, as deserving of death as God knows you are deserving of life. The death penalty never leaves the ego’s mind, for that is what it always reserves for you in the end. Wanting to kill you as the final expression of its feeling for you, it lets you live but to await death. It will torment you while you live, but its hatred is not satisfied until you die. For your destruction is the one end toward which it works, and the only end with which it will be satisfied.

The ego is not a traitor to God to Whom treachery is impossible, but it IS a traitor TO YOU who believe YOU have been treacherous to your Creator. That is why the undoing of GUILT is an essential part of the Holy Spirit’s teaching. For as long as you feel guilty you are listening to the voice of the ego, which tells you that you HAVE been treacherous to God AND THEREFORE DESERVE DEATH. You will think that death comes from God AND NOT FROM THE EGO because, by confusing yourself WITH the ego, you believe that YOU want death. And from what you want God does NOT save you.

When you are tempted to yield to the desire for death remember that I DID NOT DIE. You will realize that this is true when you look within and SEE me. Would I have overcome death for myself alone? And would eternal life have been given me of the Creator UNLESS One had also given it to YOU? When you learn to make ME manifest YOU will never see death. For you will have looked upon the deathless IN YOURSELF, and you will see only the eternal as you look out upon a world that cannot die.

Text Chapter 11 - God’s Plan For Salvation

11.8 - Reality And Redemption

Do you REALLY believe that you can kill the Child of God? The Creator has hidden One’s Child safely within Oneself and kept one far away from your destructive thoughts, but YOU know neither the Creator nor the Child because of them. You ATTACK the real world every day and every hour and every minute, and yet you are surprised that you cannot SEE it. If you seek love in order to attack it YOU WILL NEVER FIND IT. For if love is SHARING, how can you find it except through ITSELF? Offer it and it will come to you because it is drawn to itself. But offer attack and it will remain hidden, for it can live only in peace.

God’s Child is as safe as one’s Creator, for the Child knows one’s Creator’s protection and CANNOT fear. One’s Creator’s Love holds one in perfect peace, and needing nothing, one asks for nothing. Yet one is far from you whose Self one is, for you chose to attack one, and one disappeared from your sight into one’s Creator. ONE did not change, but YOU did. For a split mind and all its works were not created by the Creator, and could not live in the knowledge OF One.

When you made what is NOT true visible, what is true became INVISIBLE. Yet it cannot be invisible in ITSELF, for the Holy Spirit sees it with perfect clarity. It IS invisible to you because you are looking at SOMETHING ELSE. Yet it is no more up to you to decide what is visible and what is invisible than it is up to you to decide what reality is. What can be seen is WHAT THE HOLY SPIRIT SEES. The definition of reality is God’s, not yours. ONE created it, and ONE knows what it is. You who knew have forgotten, and unless One had given you a way to remember you would have condemned yourselves to oblivion.

Because of your Creator’s Love you can NEVER forget One, for no one can forget what God Oneself placed in one’s memory. You can DENY it, but you CANNOT LOSE IT. A Voice will answer every question you ask, and a Vision will correct the perception of everything you see. For what you have made invisible is the ONLY truth, and what you have not heard is the ONLY answer. God would reunite you with yourself, and did not abandon you in your seeming distress. You are waiting only for One and do not know it. Yet One’s memory shines in your minds and cannot BE obliterated. It is no more past than future, being forever always.

You have but to ask for this memory and you WILL remember. Yet the memory of God cannot shine in a mind which has MADE it invisible and WANTS TO KEEP IT SO. For the memory of God can dawn only in a mind that wills to remember, and that has relinquished the insane desire to control reality. You who cannot even control yourselves should hardly aspire to control the universe. But look upon what you have made of it, and rejoice that it is not so.

Child of God, be not content with nothing! What is not real cannot BE seen and has NO value. God could not offer One’s Child what has no value, nor could One’s Child receive it. You were redeemed the instant you thought you had deserted One. Everything you made has never been, and is invisible because the Holy Spirit does not see it. Yet what One DOES see is yours to behold, and through ONE’S vision YOUR perception is healed. You have made the INvisible the only truth that this world holds. Valuing nothing, you have sought nothing and FOUND nothing. By making nothing REAL to you, you have SEEN it.

BUT IT IS NOT THERE. And Christ is invisible to you BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU HAVE MADE VISIBLE TO YOURSELVES. Yet it does not matter how much distance you have tried to interpose between your awareness and truth. God’s Child CAN be seen because One’s vision is shared. The Holy Spirit looks upon one, and sees nothing else in you. What is invisible to you is perfect in One’s sight, and encompasses ALL of it. One has remembered YOU because One forgot not the Creator.

You looked upon the unreal and found despair. Yet by SEEKING the unreal, what else COULD you find? The UNreal world IS a thing of despair, for it can never be. And you who share God’s Being with One could never be content WITHOUT reality. What God did not give you has no power over you, and the attraction of love for love remains irresistible. For it is the function of love to unite all things unto itself, and to hold all things together by extending its wholeness.

The real world was given you by God in loving exchange for the world YOU made and which you SEE. But take it from the hand of Christ and look upon it. ITS reality will make everything ELSE invisible, for beholding it is TOTAL perception. And as you look upon it, you will remember that it was always so. Nothingness will become invisible, for you will at last have seen truly. Redeemed perception is easily translated into knowledge, for ONLY perception is capable of error. And perception has never been. Being corrected it gives place to knowledge, which is forever the ONLY reality. The Atonement is but the way back to what was never lost. Your Creator could not cease to love One’s Child.

Text Chapter 11 - God’s Plan For Salvation

11.9 Guiltlessness And Invulnerability

If you did not feel guilty you could not attack, for condemnation is the root of attack. It is the judgement of one mind by another as UNWORTHY of love and DESERVING of punishment. But herein lies the split. For the mind that judges perceives itself as SEPARATE from the mind being judged, believing that by punishing ANOTHER IT will escape punishment. All this is but the delusional attempt of the mind to deny itself and ESCAPE THE PENALTY OF DENIAL. It is NOT an attempt to RELINQUISH denial, but to HOLD ON TO IT. For it is guilt that has obscured the Creator to you, and it is guilt that has driven you insane. The acceptance of guilt into the mind of God’s Child was the beginning of the separation, as the acceptance of the Atonement is its end.

The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death. Children are born into it through pain and in pain. Their growth is attended by suffering, and they learn of sorrow and separation and death. Their minds are trapped in their brain, and its powers decline if their bodies are hurt. They seem to love, yet they desert and are deserted. They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground and seem to be no more. Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel.

If this WERE the real world God WOULD be cruel. For no parent could subject one’s children to this as the price of salvation and be loving. LOVE DOES NOT KILL TO SAVE. If it did, attack WOULD be salvation, and this is the ego’s interpretation, NOT God’s. Only the world of guilt could demand this, for only the guilty could CONCEIVE of it. Adam’s “sin” could have touched none of you had you not believed that it was the CREATOR Who drove you out of Paradise. For in THAT belief the knowledge of the Creator was lost, since only those who do NOT understand One COULD believe it.

This world IS a picture of the crucifixion of God’s Child. And until you realize that God’s Child CANNOT be crucified, this is the world you will see. Yet you will NOT realize this until you accept the eternal fact that GOD’S CHILD IS NOT GUILTY. One DESERVES only love because one has GIVEN only love. One cannot BE condemned because one has never condemned. The Atonement is the final lesson one need learn, for it teaches one that, never having sinned, ONE HAS NO NEED OF SALVATION.

Long ago we said that the Holy Spirit shares the goal of all good teachers, whose ultimate aim is to make themselves unnecessary by teaching their pupils all they know. The Holy Spirit wills ONLY this, for sharing the Creator’s Love for One’s Child, One wills to remove all guilt from one’s mind that one may remember one’s Creator in peace. For peace and guilt are antithetical, and the Creator can be remembered ONLY in peace. Love and guilt cannot coexist, and to accept one is to DENY the other.

Guilt hides Christ from your sight, for it is the denial of the blamelessness of God’s Child. In this strange world which you have made, the Child of God HAS sinned. How could you SEE one, then? By making ONE invisible, the world of retribution rose in the black cloud of guilt which you accepted, and you hold it dear. For the blamelessness of Christ is the proof that the ego never was and can never be. Without guilt the ego HAS no life, and God’s Child IS without guilt.

As you look upon yourselves and judge what you do honestly, as you have been asked to do, you may be tempted to wonder how you can be guiltless. Yet consider this: You are NOT guiltless in time, but IN ETERNITY. You HAVE “sinned” IN THE PAST, but there IS no past. Always has NO direction. Time seems to go in one direction, but when you reach its end it will roll up like a long carpet which has spread along the past behind you and will disappear. As long as you believe the Child of God is guilty you will walk along this carpet, believing that it leads to death. And the journey will seem long and cruel and senseless, for so it IS.

The journey which the Child of God has set ONESELF is foolish indeed, but the journey on which one’s Creator sets one is one of release and joy. The Creator is not cruel, and One’s Child CANNOT hurt oneself. The retaliation one fears AND WHICH ONE SEES will never touch one, for although one BELIEVES in it the Holy Spirit KNOWS it is not true. The Holy Spirit stands at the END of time, where YOU must be because One is WITH you. One has ALWAYS undone everything unworthy of the Child of God, for such was One’s mission, given One by God. And what God gives HAS ALWAYS BEEN.

You will see me as you learn the Child of God is guiltless. One has always sought one’s guiltlessness, and one has FOUND it. For everyone is seeking to escape from the prison one has made, and the way to find release is not denied one. Being IN one, one has found it. WHEN one finds it is only a matter of time, and time is but an illusion. For the Child of God is guiltless NOW, and the brightness of one’s purity shines untouched forever in God’s Mind. God’s Child will ALWAYS be as one was created. Deny YOUR world and judge one not, for one’s eternal guiltlessness is in the Mind of one’s Creator, and protects one forever.

When you have accepted the Atonement for yourselves, you will realize that THERE IS NO GUILT IN GOD’S CHILD. And ONLY as you look upon one as guiltless can you understand one’s oneness. For the IDEA of guilt brings a belief in condemnation of one by another, projecting separation in place of unity. You can condemn only YOURSELF, and by so doing you cannot know that you are God’s Child. You have denied the condition of one’s Being, which is one’s perfect blamelessness. Out of Love one was created, and in Love one abides. Goodness and mercy have always followed one, for one has always extended the Love of one’s Creator.

As you perceive the holy companions who travel with you, you will realize that there IS no journey, but only an awakening. The Child of God, who sleepeth not, has kept faith with one’s Creator FOR you. There is no road to travel ON, and no time to travel THROUGH. For God waits not for One’s Child in time, being forever unwilling to be without one. And so it has always been. Let the holiness of God’s Child shine away the cloud of guilt that darkens your mind, and by accepting one’s purity as yours, learn of one that it IS yours.

You are invulnerable BECAUSE you are guiltless. You can hold on to the past ONLY through guilt. For guilt establishes that you WILL BE punished for what you have done, and thus depends on one-dimensional time, proceeding from past to future. No one who believes this can understand what ALWAYS means. And therefore guilt MUST deprive you of the appreciation of eternity. You are immortal BECAUSE you are eternal, and always MUST be now. Guilt, then, is a way of holding past and future in your minds to ensure the ego’s continuity. For if what HAS BEEN WILL BE punished, the ego’s continuity WOULD be guaranteed.

Yet the guarantee of your continuity is God’s, not the ego’s. And immortality is the opposite of time, for time passes away, while immortality is constant. Accepting the Atonement teaches you WHAT IMMORTALITY IS, for by accepting your guiltlessness you learn that the past has never been, and so the future is needless. The future, IN TIME, is ALWAYS associated with expiation, and ONLY guilt could induce a sense of NEED for expiation. Accepting the guiltlessness of the Child of God AS YOURS is therefore God’s way of reminding you of One’s Child, and what one is in truth. For God has never condemned One’s Child, and being guiltless one IS eternal.

You cannot dispel guilt by making it real and THEN atoning for it. This is the ego’s plan, which it offers INSTEAD of dispelling it. The ego believes in ATONEMENT THROUGH ATTACK, being fully committed to the insane notion that attack IS salvation. And YOU who cherish guilt must ALSO believe it, for how else but by identifying WITH the ego could you hold dear what you do not want?

The ego teaches you to attack yourself BECAUSE you are guilty, and this MUST INCREASE the guilt, for guilt is the RESULT of attack. In the ego’s teaching, then, there IS no escape from guilt. For attack MAKES GUILT REAL, and if it is real there IS no way to overcome it. The Holy Spirit dispels it simply through the calm recognition that it has never been. As One looks upon the guiltless Child of God, One KNOWS this is true. And being true for you, you CANNOT attack yourself, for WITHOUT guilt attack is impossible. You, then, ARE saved BECAUSE God’s Child is guiltless. And being wholly pure, you ARE invulnerable.

Text Chapter 12 - The Problem of Guilt

12.0 - The Problem Of Guilt

The ultimate purpose of projection as the ego uses it is ALWAYS to get rid of guilt. Yet, characteristically, the ego attempts to get rid of guilt FROM ITS VIEWPOINT ONLY. For much as the ego wants to RETAIN guilt, YOU find it intolerable, since guilt stands in the way of your remembering God, Whose pull is so strong that YOU cannot resist it. On this issue, then, the deepest split of all occurs, for if you are to RETAIN guilt, as the ego insists, YOU CANNOT BE YOU. Only by persuading you that IT is you could the ego possibly induce you to PROJECT guilt, and thereby KEEP it in your mind.

Yet consider how strange a solution the ego’s arrangement is. You PROJECT guilt to get rid of it, but you actually merely CONCEAL it. You DO experience guilt FEELINGS, but you have NO IDEA WHY. On the contrary, you associate them with a weird assortment of EGO ideals, which the ego claims you have failed. Yet you have no idea that you are failing the Child of God by seeing ONE as guilty. Believing you are no longer YOU, you do not realize that you are failing YOURSELF.

Text Chapter 12 - The Problem of Guilt

12.1 - Crucifixion By Guilt

The darkest of your hidden cornerstones holds your belief in guilt from your awareness. For in that dark and secret place is the realization that you have betrayed God’s Child by condemning one to death. You do not even SUSPECT this murderous but insane idea lies hidden there. For the ego’s destructive urge is so intense that nothing short of the crucifixion of God’s Child can ultimately satisfy it. It does not know who the Child of God IS, because it is blind. Yet let it perceive guiltlessness ANYWHERE, and it will try to destroy it, because it is afraid.

Much of the ego’s strange behavior is directly attributable to its definition of guilt. To the ego, THE GUILTLESS ARE GUILTY. Those who do NOT attack are its “enemies”, because, by NOT VALUING its interpretation of salvation, they are in an excellent position TO LET IT GO. They have approached the darkest and deepest cornerstone in the ego’s foundation, and while the ego can withstand your raising all else to question, it guards this one secret with its life, for its existence DOES depend on keeping this secret. So it is this secret that we must look upon calmly, for the ego cannot protect you AGAINST truth, and in ITS presence the ego is dispelled.

In the calm light of truth, let us recognize that YOU BELIEVE YOU HAVE CRUCIFIED GOD’S CHILD. You have not admitted to this “terrible” secret because you still wish to crucify one IF YOU COULD FIND ONE. Yet the wish has hidden one from you because it is very fearful, AND YOU ARE AFRAID TO FIND ONE. You have handled this wish TO KILL YOURSELF by NOT KNOWING WHO YOU ARE, and identifying with something ELSE. You have projected guilt blindly and indiscriminately, but you have NOT uncovered its source. For the ego DOES want to kill you, and if you identify WITH it you MUST believe ITS GOAL IS YOURS.

We once said that the crucifixion is the symbol of the ego. When it was confronted with the REAL guiltlessness of God’s Child it DID attempt to kill one, and the reason it gave was that guiltlessness is blasphemous to God. To the ego THE EGO IS GOD, and guiltlessness MUST be interpreted AS THE FINAL GUILT WHICH FULLY JUSTIFIES MURDER. You do not yet understand that ALL your fear of this course stems ultimately from this interpretation, but if you will consider your reactions TO it, you will become increasingly convinced that this is so.

This course has explicitly stated that its goal FOR YOU is happiness and peace. Yet you are AFRAID of it. You have been told again and again that it will make you free, yet you react as if it is trying to IMPRISON you. Most of the time you DISMISS it, BUT YOU DO NOT DISMISS THE EGO’S THOUGHT SYSTEM. You HAVE seen its results and you STILL lack faith in it. You MUST, then, believe that by NOT learning the course YOU ARE PROTECTING YOURSELF. And you do NOT realize that it is only your guiltlessness which CAN protect you.

The Atonement has always been interpreted as the release from guilt, and this is correct if it is understood. Yet even when I have interpreted it FOR you you have rejected it and have NOT accepted it FOR YOURSELF. You have recognized the futility of the ego and its offerings, but though you do not want the ego you do not look upon the alternative with gladness. YOU ARE AFRAID OF REDEMPTION, and YOU BELIEVE IT WILL KILL YOU. Make no mistake about the depth of your fear. For you believe that, in the presence of truth, you will turn on yourself and DESTROY yourself.

Little children, this is not so. Your “guilty secret” is nothing, and if you will but bring it to the light the Light WILL dispel it. And then no dark cloud will remain between you and the remembrance of your Creator, for you will remember One’s guiltless Child, who did not die because one is immortal. And you will see that you were redeemed WITH one, and have never been separated FROM one. In THIS understanding lies your remembering, for it is the recognition of love WITHOUT fear. There will be great joy in Heaven on your homecoming, and the joy will be YOURS. For the redeemed child of humans IS the guiltless Child of God, and to recognize ONE IS your redemption.

Text Chapter 12 - The Problem of Guilt

12.2 The Fear Of Redemption

You may wonder why it is so crucial that you look upon your hatred and realize its full extent. You may also think that it would be easy enough for the Holy Spirit to show it to you and dispel it WITHOUT the need for you to raise it to awareness yourself. Yet there is one more complication which you have interposed between yourself and the Atonement which you do not yet realize. We have said that no one will countenance fear IF ONE RECOGNIZES IT. Yet in your disordered state, YOU ARE NOT AFRAID OF FEAR. You do not LIKE it, but it is not your desire to attack which REALLY frightens you. You are not seriously disturbed by your hostility. You keep it hidden because you are MORE afraid of what it covers.

You could look even upon the ego’s darkest cornerstone WITHOUT fear if you did not believe that, WITHOUT THE EGO, you would find within yourself something you fear even more. YOU ARE NOT AFRAID OF CRUCIFIXION. Your real terror is of REDEMPTION. Under the ego’s dark foundation is the memory of God, and it is of THIS that you are really afraid. For this memory would INSTANTLY restore you to your proper place, and it is THIS place that you have sought to LEAVE.

Your fear of attack is nothing compared to your fear of love. You would be willing to look even upon your savage wish to kill God’s Child IF YOU DID NOT BELIEVE THAT IT SAVES YOU FROM LOVE. For this wish CAUSED the separation. You have protected it because you do not WANT the separation healed, and you realize that, by REMOVING the dark cloud that obscures it, your love for your Creator would IMPEL you to answer one’s call and leap into Heaven. You believe that attack is salvation to PREVENT you from this. For still deeper than the ego’s foundation, and MUCH stronger than IT will ever be, is your intense and burning love of God, AND ONE’S FOR YOU.

THIS IS WHAT YOU REALLY WANT TO HIDE. In honesty, is it not harder for you to say “I love” than “I hate”? You associate love with weakness and hatred with strength, and your own REAL power seems to you as your real weakness. For you could NOT control your joyous response to the call of love if you heard it, and the whole world you THINK you control WOULD vanish. The Holy Spirit, then, seems to be ATTACKING YOUR FORTRESS, for you would SHUT OUT GOD, and One does not will to BE excluded.

You have built your whole insane belief system because you think you would be HELPLESS in God’s Presence, and you would SAVE yourself from One’s Love because you think It would crush you into nothingness. You are afraid It would sweep you AWAY from yourself, AND MAKE YOU LITTLE. For you believe that magnitude lies in defiance, and that attack is grandeur. YOU THINK YOU HAVE MADE A WORLD WHICH GOD WOULD DESTROY. And by loving One, WHICH YOU DO, you would throw this world away, WHICH YOU WOULD.

Therefore, you have used the world to COVER YOUR LOVE, and the deeper you go into the blackness of the ego’s foundation, the CLOSER you come to the Love that is hidden beneath it. AND IT IS THIS THAT FRIGHTENS YOU. You can accept insanity BECAUSE YOU MADE IT, but you cannot accept love BECAUSE YOU DID NOT. You would rather be slaves of the crucifixion than Children of God in redemption. For your INDIVIDUAL death is more valued than your living oneness, and what is GIVEN you is not so dear as what you MADE. You are more afraid of God than of the ego, and love cannot enter where it is not welcome. But hatred CAN, for it enters of ITS will and cares not for YOURS.

The reason you must look upon your delusions and not keep them hidden is that THEY DO NOT REST ON THEIR OWN FOUNDATION. In concealment they APPEAR to do so, and thus they seem to be SELF-SUSTAINED. THIS is the fundamental illusion on which they rest. For BENEATH them, and concealed as long as THEY are hidden, is the loving mind that THOUGHT it made them in anger. And the pain in this mind is so apparent, when it is uncovered, that its need of healing cannot BE denied. Not all the tricks and games you offer it can heal it, for HERE is the REAL crucifixion of God’s Child.

And yet one is NOT crucified. Here is both one’s pain AND one’s healing, for the Holy Spirit’s vision is merciful and One’s remedy is quick. Do not HIDE suffering from One’s sight, but bring it gladly TO One. Lay before One’s eternal sanity ALL your hurt, and LET One heal you. Do not leave any spot of pain hidden from One’s Light, and search your minds carefully for any thoughts which you may fear to uncover. For One will heal every little thought which you have kept to hurt you, and cleanse it of its littleness, restoring it to the magnitude of God.

Beneath all your grandiosity, which you hold so dear, is your real call for help. For you call for love to your Creator as your Creator calls you to Oneself. In that place which you have hidden you will only to unite with the Creator, in loving remembrance of One. You will find this place of truth as you see it in your siblings, for though they may deceive themselves, like you they long for the grandeur that is in them. And perceiving it you will WELCOME it, and it will be yours. For grandeur is the RIGHT of God’s Child, and NO illusions can satisfy one or save one from what one IS.

Only one’s love is real, and one will be content ONLY with one’s reality. Save one from one’s illusions that you may accept the magnitude of your Creator in peace and joy. But exempt no one from your love, or you will be hiding a dark place in your mind where the Holy Spirit is not welcome. And you will exempt YOURSELF from One’s healing power, for by not offering total love YOU will not be healed completely. Healing must be as complete as fear, for love cannot enter where there is one spot of fear to mar its welcome.

You who prefer specialness to sanity could not obtain it in your right minds. You were at peace until you asked for special favor. And God did not give it, for the request was alien to One, and you could not ask this of a Creator Who truly loved One’s Child. Therefore you made of One an UNloving creator, demanding of One what only such a creator COULD give. And the peace of God’s Child was shattered, for one no longer understood one’s Creator. One feared what one had made, but still more did one fear one’s REAL creator, having attacked one’s own glorious equality WITH One.

In peace one needed nothing and asked for nothing. In war one DEMANDED everything and FOUND nothing. For how could the gentleness of love respond to one’s demands EXCEPT by departing in peace and returning to the Creator? If the Child did not wish to REMAIN in peace, one could not remain at all. For a darkened mind cannot live in the light, and it must seek a place of darkness where it can believe it is where it is NOT. God did not ALLOW this to happen. Yet you DEMANDED that it happen, and therefore believed that it was so.

To “SINGLE OUT” is to “MAKE ALONE,” and thus MAKE LONELY. God did not do this to you. Could One SET YOU APART, KNOWING that your peace lies in One’s oneness? One denied you only your request for pain, for suffering is not of One’s creation. Having GIVEN you creation, One could not take it FROM you. One could but answer your insane request with a sane answer which would abide with you in your insanity. AND THIS ONE DID. No one who hears One’s answer but will give up insanity. For One’s answer is the reference point BEYOND delusions, from which you can look back on them and see them as insane. But seek this place and you WILL find it, for love is in you and will lead you there.

Text Chapter 12 - The Problem of Guilt

12.3 - Healing And Time

And now the reason why you are afraid of this course should be apparent. For this is a course on love because it is about YOU. You have been told that your function in this world is healing, and your function in Heaven is creating. The ego teaches that your function on earth is destruction, and that you have no function AT ALL in Heaven. It would thus destroy you here and bury you here, leaving you no inheritance except the dust out of which it thinks you were made. As long as it is reasonably satisfied with you, as its reasoning goes, it offers you oblivion. When it becomes overtly savage, it offers you hell.

Yet neither oblivion nor hell is as unacceptable to you as Heaven. For your definition of Heaven IS hell and oblivion, and the REAL Heaven is the greatest threat you think you COULD experience. For hell and oblivion are ideas which YOU made up, and you are bent on DEMONSTRATING their reality TO ESTABLISH YOURS. If THEIR reality is questioned, you believe that YOURS is. For you believe that ATTACK established your reality, and that your DESTRUCTION is the final proof THAT YOU WERE RIGHT.

Under the circumstances, would it not be MORE DESIRABLE to have been wrong, even apart from the fact that you WERE wrong? While it could perhaps be argued that death suggests there WAS life, no one would claim that it proves there IS life. Even the PAST life which death might indicate could only have been futile if it must come to this, and NEEDS this to prove that it WAS. You question Heaven, but you do NOT question this. You could heal and be healed if you DID question it. And even though you know not Heaven, might it not be more desirable than death? You have been as selective in your questioning as in your perception. An open mind is more honest than this.

The ego has a very strange notion of time, and it is with this notion that your questioning might well begin. The ego invests heavily in the past, and in the end believes that the past is the ONLY aspect of time that is meaningful. You will remember that we said its emphasis on guilt enables it to ensure its continuity BY MAKING THE FUTURE LIKE THE PAST, and thus AVOIDING the present. By the notion of PAYING FOR the past in the future, the past becomes the DETERMINER of the future, making THEM continuous WITHOUT an intervening present. For the ego uses the present ONLY as a brief transition TO the future, in which it brings the past TO the future BY INTERPRETING THE PRESENT IN PAST TERMS.

NOW has no meaning to the ego. The present merely reminds it of PAST hurts, and it reacts to the present AS IF it were the past. For the ego cannot tolerate RELEASE from the past, and although the past is no more, the ego tries to preserve its IMAGE by responding as if it were present. Thus it dictates reactions to those you meet NOW from a PAST reference point, obscuring their PRESENT reality. In effect, if you FOLLOW the ego’s dictates, you will react to your siblings as though they were SOMEONE ELSE, and this will surely prevent you from perceiving them AS THEY ARE. And you will receive messages from them out of your OWN past because, by making it real in the present, you are forbidding yourself to LET IT GO. You thus DENY yourself the message of release that every sibling offers you NOW.

The shadowy figures from the past are precisely what you must ESCAPE. For they are not real, and have no hold over you unless YOU bring them WITH you. They carry the spots of pain in your minds, directing you to attack in the present in retaliation for a past that is no more. AND THIS DECISION IS ONE OF FUTURE PAIN. Unless you learn that PAST pain is delusional, you are choosing a future of delusions and losing the endless opportunities which you COULD find for release in the present. The ego would PRESERVE your nightmares, and PREVENT you from awakening and understanding that THEY are past.

Would you RECOGNIZE a holy encounter if you are merely perceiving it as a meeting with your OWN past? For you are meeting no one, and the SHARING of salvation, WHICH MAKES THE ENCOUNTER HOLY, is excluded from your sight. The Holy Spirit teaches that you always meet YOURSELF, and the encounter is holy because YOU are. The ego teaches that you always encounter your PAST, and because your dreams WERE not holy the future CANNOT be, and the present is without meaning. It is evident that the Holy Spirit’s perception of time is the exact opposite of the ego’s. The reason is equally clear, for they perceive the GOAL of time as diametrically opposed.

The Holy Spirit interprets time’s PURPOSE as rendering the need for it UNNECESSARY. Thus does One regard the function of time as temporary, serving only One’s teaching function, which is temporary by definition. ONE’S emphasis is therefore on the ONLY aspect of time which CAN extend to the infinite, for NOW is the closest approximation of eternity which this world offers. It is in the REALITY of now, without past OR future, that the beginning of the appreciation of eternity lies. For only now is HERE, and IT presents the opportunities for the holy encounters in which salvation can be found.

The ego, on the other hand, regards the function of time as one of extending itself IN PLACE of eternity, for, like the Holy Spirit, the ego interprets the goal of time as its own. The continuity of past and future, UNDER ITS DIRECTION, is the only purpose the ego perceives in time, and it closes over the present so that no gap in its OWN continuity can occur. ITS continuity, then, would KEEP you in time, while the Holy Spirit would release you FROM it. It is ONE’S interpretation of the means of salvation which you must learn to accept, if you would share One’s goal of salvation FOR you.

You, too, will interpret the function of time as you interpret yours. If you accept your function in the world of time AS HEALING, you will emphasize ONLY the aspect of time in which healing can occur. For healing CANNOT be accomplished in the past, and MUST be accomplished in the present to RELEASE the future. This interpretation ties the future to the present, and EXTENDS THE PRESENT rather than the past. But if you interpret your function as DESTRUCTION, you will lose sight of the present and hold on to the past TO ENSURE A DESTRUCTIVE FUTURE. And time WILL be as you interpret it, for OF ITSELF it IS nothing.

Text Chapter 12 - The Problem of Guilt

12.4 - The Two Emotions

We have said that you have but two emotions, love and fear. One is changeless but continually exchanged, being offered BY the eternal TO the eternal. In this exchange it is extended, for it INCREASES as it is given. The other has many forms, for the content of INDIVIDUAL illusions differs greatly. Yet they have one thing in common: they are all insane. They are made of sights which are NOT seen and sounds which are NOT heard. They make up a PRIVATE world which CANNOT be shared. For they are meaningful ONLY to their maker, and so they have no meaning at all. In this world their maker moves alone, for only ONE perceives them.

Each one peoples one’s world with figures from one’s INDIVIDUAL past, and it is because of this that private worlds DO differ. Yet the figures that one sees were NEVER real, for they are made up ONLY of one’s REACTIONS to one’s siblings, and do NOT include their reactions to ONE. Therefore one does not see that one made them, and that they ARE NOT WHOLE. For these figures HAVE NO WITNESSES, being perceived in one SEPARATE mind only.

It is THROUGH these strange and shadowy figures that the insane relate to their insane world. For they SEE only those who remind them of these images, and it is to THEM that they relate. Thus do they communicate with those who ARE NOT THERE, and it is THEY who answer them. And no one hears their answer save one who called upon them, and one ALONE believes they answered one. Projection MAKES perception and you CANNOT see beyond it. Again and again have people attacked each other because they saw IN THE OTHER a shadow figure in their own private world.

And thus it is that you MUST attack yourself first, for what you attack is NOT in others. Its ONLY reality is in your OWN mind, and by attacking others you are literally attacking WHAT IS NOT THERE. The delusional can be very destructive, for they do not recognize that they have condemned THEMSELVES. They do not wish to die, YET THEY WILL NOT LET CONDEMNATION GO. And so they SEPARATE into their private worlds, where everything is disordered, and where what is within appears to be without. Yet what IS within they do NOT see, for the REALITY of their siblings they CANNOT see.

You have but two emotions, yet in your private world you react to each of them AS THOUGH IT WERE THE OTHER. For love cannot abide in a world apart, where, when it comes, it is not recognized. If you see your own hatred AS your sibling, you are not seeing ONE. Everyone draws nigh unto what one loves, and recoils from what one fears. And you react with fear to love, and draw AWAY from it. Yet fear ATTRACTS you, and believing it is love, you call it to yourself. Your private world is filled with the figures of fear you have invited into it, and all the love your siblings offer you YOU DO NOT SEE.

As you look with open eyes upon your world, it MUST occur to you that you have withdrawn into insanity. For you see what is not there, and you hear what is soundless. Your behavioral MANIFESTATIONS of emotions are the OPPOSITE of what the emotions ARE. You communicate with no one, and you are as isolated from reality as if you were ALONE in all the universe. In your madness you OVERLOOK REALITY COMPLETELY, and you see ONLY YOUR OWN SPLIT MIND everywhere you look. God calls you and you do not hear, for you are preoccupied with your own voice. And the vision of Christ is not in your sight, for you look upon yourself ALONE.

Little children, would you offer THIS to your Creator? For if you offer it to yourself you ARE offering it to One. And One will NOT return it, for it is unworthy of you BECAUSE it is unworthy of One. Yet One WOULD release you from it and set you free. One’s sane answer tells you that what you have offered YOURSELF is NOT true, but ONE’S offering TO you has never changed. You who know not what you do CAN learn what insanity IS, and look beyond it. It is GIVEN you to learn how to DENY insanity, and come forth from your private world in peace.

And you will see all that you denied in your siblings BECAUSE you denied it in yourself. For you will love them, and by drawing nigh unto them you will draw them to YOURSELF, perceiving them as witnesses to your reality which you share with GOD. For I am WITH them as I am with YOU. And we will draw them from their private worlds, for as we are united, so would we unite with them. The Creator welcomes all of us in gladness, and gladness is what WE should offer One. For every Child of God is given you to whom God gave ONESELF. And it is God whom you must offer them, to recognize One’s gift to YOU.

Vision depends on light, and you CANNOT see in darkness. Yet in the darkness, in the private world of sleep, you SEE in dreams although your eyes are closed. And it is here that WHAT you see YOU MADE. But let the DARKNESS go and ALL you made YOU WILL NO LONGER SEE, for sight of IT depends upon DENYING vision. Yet from denying vision IT DOES NOT FOLLOW THAT YOU CANNOT SEE. But this is what denial DOES, for BY it you ACCEPT insanity, believing you can make a private world AND RULE YOUR OWN PERCEPTIONS. Yet FOR this, light MUST be excluded. Dreams disappear when light has come, AND YOU CAN SEE.

Do not seek vision through YOUR eyes. For you MADE your way of seeing that you might see in darkness, and in this you ARE deceived. BEYOND this darkness, and yet still WITHIN you, is the vision of Christ, Who looks on all in light. YOUR vision comes from fear, as One’s from love. And One sees FOR you as your witness to the real world. One is the Holy Spirit’s MANIFESTATION, looking always on the real world, and calling forth its witnesses and drawing them unto YOU. For One loves what One sees within you, and One would EXTEND it. And One will not return unto the Creator until One has extended your perception even unto One. And there perception is no more, for One has RETURNED you to the Creator WITH One.

You have but two emotions, and one you made and one was GIVEN you. Each is a WAY OF SEEING, and different worlds arise from their different visions. See through the vision that is GIVEN you, for through Christ’s vision One beholds Oneself. And seeing what One is, One knows One’s Creator. Beyond your darkest dreams One sees God’s guiltless Child within you, shining in perfect radiance which is undimmed by your dreams. And this YOU will see as you look with One, for One’s vision is One’s gift of love to you, given One of the Creator FOR you.

The Holy Spirit is the light in which Christ stands revealed. And all who would behold One can see One, for they have ASKED for light. Nor will they see One ALONE, for One is no more alone than THEY are. Because they SAW the Child they have risen IN One to the Creator. And all this will they understand because they looked within and saw beyond the darkness, the Christ in them, and RECOGNIZED One. In the sanity of One’s vision they looked upon themselves with love, seeing themselves as the Holy Spirit sees them. And WITH this vision of the truth in THEM came all the beauty of the world to shine upon them.

Text Chapter 12 - The Problem of Guilt

12.5 - Finding The Present

To perceive truly is to be aware of ALL reality through the awareness of your own. But for this NO illusions can rise to meet your sight, for ALL reality leaves no room for ANY error. This means that you perceive a sibling only AS YOU SEE ONE NOW. One’s past has NO reality in the present, and you CANNOT see it. Your past reactions TO one are also NOT THERE, and if it is to them that you react NOW, you see but an image of one which you made and cherish INSTEAD of one. In your questioning of delusions, ask yourself if it is REALLY sane to perceive WHAT WAS, NOW. If you remember the PAST as you look upon your sibling, you will be unable to perceive the reality that is NOW.

You consider it “natural” to use your PAST experience as the reference point from which to JUDGE the present. Yet this is UNnatural because it is delusional. When you have learned to look upon everyone with NO REFERENCE AT ALL to the past, either one’s OR yours as you perceived it, you will be able to learn FROM WHAT YOU SEE NOW. For the past can cast no shadow to darken the present UNLESS YOU ARE AFRAID OF LIGHT. And ONLY if you are would you choose to bring this darkness WITH you, and by holding it in your minds, see it as a dark cloud that shrouds your siblings and conceals their reality from your sight.

THIS DARKNESS IS IN YOU. The Christ revealed to you NOW has no past for One is changeless. AND IN ONE’S CHANGELESSNESS LIES YOUR RELEASE. For if One is as One was created, there IS no guilt in One. No cloud of guilt has risen to obscure One, and One stands revealed in everyone you meet because you see One through ONESELF. To be born again is to let the PAST go and LOOK WITHOUT CONDEMNATION UPON THE PRESENT. For the cloud which obscures God’s Child to you IS the past, and if you would have it past AND GONE, you must NOT SEE IT NOW. If you see it now in your delusions it has NOT gone from you, although it is not there.

Time can release as well as imprison, depending on whose interpretation of it you use. Past, present and future are not continuous UNLESS YOU FORCE CONTINUITY ON THEM. You can PERCEIVE them as continuous, and make them so FOR YOU. But do not be deceived and then believe that this is how it IS, for to believe that reality is what you would HAVE it be according to YOUR use for it IS delusional. You would DESTROY time’s continuity by breaking it into past, present and future FOR YOUR OWN PURPOSES. You would anticipate the future on the basis of your PAST experience and plan for it accordingly. And by doing so you are ALIGNING past and future, and not allowing the miracle, which could intervene BETWEEN them, to free you to be born again.

The miracle enables you to see your sibling WITHOUT one’s past, and so perceive ONE as born again. One’s errors ARE all past, and by perceiving one WITHOUT them you are RELEASING one. And since one’s past is yours, you SHARE in this release. Let no dark cloud out of YOUR past obscure one from you, for truth lies ONLY in the present, and you WILL find it if you seek it there. You have looked for it where it is NOT, and therefore have not found it. Learn, then, to seek it where it IS, and it WILL dawn on eyes that see. Your past was made in anger, and if you use it to ATTACK the present you will NOT SEE the freedom that the present holds. Judgement and condemnation are BEHIND you, and unless you bring them WITH you, you WILL see that you are free of them.

Look lovingly upon the present, for it holds the ONLY things that are forever true. All healing lies within it because ITS continuity is real. It extends to ALL aspects of consciousness AT THE SAME TIME, and thus enables them to REACH EACH OTHER. The present is before time WAS, and WILL BE when time is no more. In it is everything that is eternal, and they ARE one. THEIR continuity is timeless and their communication is unbroken, for they are NOT SEPARATED by the past. Only the past CAN separate, and IT is nowhere.

The present offers you your siblings in the light that would unite you WITH them and free YOU from the past. Would you, then, hold the past AGAINST them? For if you do, you are choosing to remain in the darkness THAT IS NOT THERE, and refusing to accept the light that is offered you. For the light of perfect vision is freely given as it is freely received, and can be accepted only WITHOUT LIMIT. In this one, still dimension of time, which does not change and where there is no sight of what you were, you look at Christ and call One’s witnesses to shine on you BECAUSE YOU CALLED THEM FORTH. And THEY will not deny the truth in you because you looked for it in them and FOUND it there.

Now is the time of salvation, for NOW is the RELEASE from time. Reach out to all your siblings, and touch them with the touch of Christ. In timeless union WITH them is YOUR continuity, unbroken because it is wholly shared. God’s guiltless Child is ONLY light. There is no darkness in one ANYWHERE, for one is whole. Call all your siblings to witness to one’s wholeness, as I am calling you to join with me. Every voice has a part in the song of redemption, the hymn of gladness and thanksgiving for the light to the Creator of light. The holy light that shines forth from God’s Child is the witness that one’s light is of one’s Creator.

Shine on your siblings in remembrance of your Creator, for you WILL remember One as you call forth the witnesses to One’s creation. Those whom you heal bear witness to YOUR healing, for in THEIR wholeness you will see your own. And as your hymns of praise and gladness rise to your Creator, One will return your thanks in One’s clear answer to your call. For it can never be that One’s Child called upon One and remained unanswered. One’s call to you is but your call to One. And IN One you are answered by One’s peace.

Children of Light, you know not that the Light is in you. And you will find it through its witnesses, for having GIVEN light to them THEY WILL RETURN IT. Everyone you see IN light brings YOUR light closer to your OWN awareness. Love always leads to love. The sick, who ASK for love, are grateful for it, and in their joy they shine with holy thanks. And this they offer you who GAVE them joy. They are your guides to joy, for having received it OF you they would keep it. You have established them as guides to peace, for you have made it manifest in them. And SEEING it, its beauty calls you home.

There is a light which this world cannot give. Yet YOU can give it, as it was given YOU. And AS you give it, it shines forth to call you FROM the world and follow it. For this light will attract you as nothing in this world can do. And you will lay aside the world and find another. This other world is bright with love WHICH YOU HAVE GIVEN IT. And here will everything remind you of your Creator and one’s Holy Child. Light is unlimited, and spreads across this world in quiet joy. All those you brought WITH you will shine on you, and you will shine on them in gratitude because they brought you here. Your light will join with theirs in power so compelling that it will draw the others out of darkness as you look on them.

Awakening unto Christ is following the laws of love OF YOUR FREE WILL, and out of quiet recognition of the truth in them. The attraction of light must draw you willingly, and willingness is signified by GIVING. Those who accept love OF you become your willing witnesses to the love you gave them, and it is THEY who hold it out to YOU. In sleep you are alone, and your awareness is narrowed to yourself. And that is why the nightmares come. You dream of isolation BECAUSE your eyes are closed. You do not SEE your siblings, and in the darkness you cannot look upon the light you GAVE to them.

And yet the laws of love are not suspended because you sleep. And you have followed them through all your nightmares, and have been faithful in your giving, for you were NOT alone. Even in sleep has Christ protected you, ensuring the real world FOR you when you wake. In YOUR name One has given FOR you, and given YOU the gifts One gave. God’s Child is still as loving as one’s Creator. Continuous WITH one’s Creator, one has no past APART from One. So one has never ceased to be one’s Creator’s witness AND ONE’S OWN. Although one slept, CHRIST’S VISION DID NOT LEAVE ONE. And so it is that one can call unto oneself the witnesses that teach one that one never slept.

Text Chapter 12 - The Problem of Guilt

12.6 - Attainment Of The Real World

Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself,

“The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separate. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever.”

The world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible BECAUSE you have denied the other.

Both are not true, yet either one will seem as real to you as the amount to which you hold it dear. And yet their power is NOT the same because their real attraction to you is unequal. You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust even as you made it.

This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all. You could not give it that, and so although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in it the road that leads AWAY from it into another world. Yet the REAL world HAS the power to touch you even here BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT. And what you call with love WILL come to you. LOVE ALWAYS ANSWERS, being unable to deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it from every part of this strange world you made but do not want. The only effort you need make to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE.

You HAVE been wrong about the world because you have misjudged YOURSELF. From such a twisted reference point what COULD you see? All vision starts WITH THE PERCEIVER, who judges what is true and what is false. And what one judges false ONE DOES NOT SEE. You who would judge reality CANNOT see it, for whenever judgement enters reality has slipped away. The out of mind is out of sight because what is denied is THERE, but is not recognized. Christ is still there, although you know One not. One’s Being does NOT depend upon your recognition. One lives within you in the quiet present, and waits for you to leave the past behind and enter into the world One holds out to you in love.

No one in this distracted world but has seen some glimpses of the other world about one. Yet while one still lays value on one’s own, one will DENY the vision of the other world, maintaining that one loves WHAT ONE LOVES NOT, and following not the road that love points out. Love leads so gladly! And as you follow One, YOU will rejoice that you have found One’s company, and learned of One the joyful journey home. You wait but for YOURSELF. To give this sad world over and exchange your errors for the peace of God is but YOUR will. And Christ will ALWAYS offer you the Will of God, in recognition that you share it WITH One.

It is God’s Will that nothing touch One’s Child except Oneself, and nothing else comes nigh unto one. One is as safe from pain as God Oneself, Who watches over one in everything. The world about one shines with love because God placed one in Oneself where pain is not, and love surrounds one without end or flaw. Disturbance of one’s peace can never be. In perfect sanity one looks on love, for it is all about one and within one. One MUST deny the world of pain the instant one perceives the arms of love around one. And from this point of safety one looks quietly about one, and recognizes that the world is one with one.

The peace of God passeth your understanding ONLY in the past. Yet here it IS, and you CAN understand it NOW. God loves One’s Child forever, and One’s Child RETURNS one’s Creator’s Love forever. The real world is the way that leads you to remembrance of this one thing that is wholly true and wholly YOURS. For all else you have LENT yourself in time, and it WILL fade. But this one thing is ALWAYS yours, being the gift of God unto One’s Child. Your ONE reality was GIVEN you, and BY it God created you as one with One.

You will first DREAM of peace, and THEN awaken to it. Your first exchange of what you made for what you want is the exchange of nightmares for the happy dreams of love. In these lie your true perceptions, for the Holy Spirit corrects the world of dreams where ALL perception is. Knowledge needs NO correction. Yet the dreams of love lead UNTO knowledge. In them you see nothing fearful, and BECAUSE of this they are the welcome that you OFFER knowledge. Love waits on welcome, NOT on time, and the real world is but your welcome of what always was. Therefore the call of joy is in it, and your glad response is your awakening to what you have NOT lost. Praise, then, the Creator for the perfect sanity of One’s most holy Child.

Your Creator knoweth that you have need of nothing. In Heaven this is so, for what could you need in eternity? In YOUR world you DO need things because it is a world of scarcity in which you find yourself BECAUSE you are lacking. Yet CAN you find yourself in such a world? Without the Holy Spirit the answer would be no. Yet BECAUSE of One the answer is a joyous YES! As Mediator between the two worlds, One knows what you have need of and WHAT WILL NOT HURT YOU. Ownership is a dangerous concept if it is left to you. The ego wants to HAVE things for salvation, for possession is its law. Possession for its OWN sake is the ego’s fundamental creed, a basic cornerstone in the churches that it builds unto itself. And at ITS altar it demands you lay ALL of the things it bids you get, leaving you no joy in them.

EVERYTHING that the ego tells you that you need will hurt you. For although the ego urges you again and again to GET, it LEAVES you nothing, for what you get it will DEMAND of you. And even from the very hands that grasped it, it will be wrenched and hurled into the dust. For where the ego sees salvation IT SEES SEPARATION, and so you lose whatever you have gotten in its name. Therefore ask not of yourselves what you need, FOR YOU DO NOT KNOW, and your advice unto yourself WILL hurt you. For what YOU think you need will merely serve to tighten up your world AGAINST the light, and render you unwilling to question the value that this world can REALLY hold for you.

Only the Holy Spirit KNOWS what you need. For ONE will give you all things that do NOT block the way to light. And what else COULD you need? In time, One gives you all the things that you need have, and will renew them as long as you have need of them. One will take nothing FROM you as long as you have ANY need of it. And yet One knows that EVERYTHING you need is temporary, and will but last until you step aside from ALL your needs, and learn that all of them HAVE BEEN fulfilled. Therefore One has no investment in the things that One supplies except to make certain that you will NOT use them on behalf of lingering in time. One knows that you are not at home there, and One wills no delay to wait upon your joyous homecoming.

Leave, then, your needs to One. One will supply them with no emphasis at all upon them. What comes to you of One comes safely, for One will ensure it never can become a dark spot, hidden in your mind, and kept to hurt you. Under One’s guidance you will travel light and journey lightly, for One’s sight is ever on the journey’s end, which is One’s goal. God’s Child is not a traveller through OUTER worlds. However holy one’s perception may become, no world OUTSIDE oneself holds one’s inheritance. Within ONESELF one HAS no needs, for light needs nothing but to shine in peace, and from ITSELF to let the rays extend in quiet to infinity.

Whenever you are tempted to undertake a foolish journey that would lead AWAY from light, remember what you really want, and say,

“The Holy Spirit leads me unto Christ, and where else would I go? What need have I but to awake in One?”

Then follow One in joy, with faith that One will lead you safely through all dangers to your peace of mind that this world sets before you. Kneel not before the altars to sacrifice, and seek not what you will surely lose. Content yourselves with what you will as surely KEEP, and be not restless, for you undertake a quiet journey to the peace of God, where One would have you be in quietness.

In me you have ALREADY overcome EVERY temptation that would hold you back. We walk together on the way to quietness that is the gift of God. Hold me dear, for what EXCEPT your siblings CAN you need? We will restore to you the peace of mind that we MUST find together. The Holy Spirit will teach you to awaken unto us and to yourself. THIS is the only REAL need to be fulfilled in time. Salvation FROM the world lies ONLY here. My peace I GIVE you. TAKE it of me in glad exchange for all the world has offered but to TAKE AWAY. And we will spread it like a veil of light across the world’s sad face, in which we hide our siblings FROM the world, and it from them.

We cannot sing redemption’s hymn alone. My task is not completed until I have lifted every voice with mine. And yet it is NOT mine, for as it is my gift to you, so was it the Creator’s gift to me, given me through One’s Spirit. The sound of it will banish sorrow from the mind of God’s most holy Child, where it cannot abide. Healing in time IS needed, for joy cannot establish its eternal reign where sorrow dwells. You dwell not here, but in eternity. You travel but in dreams while safe at home. Give thanks to every part of you that you have taught how to REMEMBER you. Thus does the Child of God give thanks unto one’s Creator for one’s purity.

Text Chapter 13 - From Perception to Knowledge

13.0 From Perception To Knowledge

All therapy is release from the past. That is why the Holy Spirit IS the only therapist. ONE TEACHES THAT THE PAST DOES NOT EXIST, a fact which belongs to the sphere of knowledge, and which therefore NO ONE IN THE WORLD KNOWS. It would indeed be impossible to BE in the world with this knowledge. For the mind that knows this unequivocally knows also that it dwells in eternity, and utilizes no perception at all. It therefore does not consider WHERE it is, because the concept “where” does not mean anything to it. It knows that it is EVERYWHERE, just as it HAS EVERYTHING, and FOREVER.

The very real difference between perception and knowledge becomes quite apparent if you consider this: there is NOTHING partial about knowledge. Every aspect is whole, and therefore NO ASPECT IS SEPARATE. YOU are an aspect of knowledge, being in the Mind of God, Who KNOWS you. All knowledge MUST be yours, for in you IS all knowledge. Perception, at its loftiest, is NEVER complete. Even the perception of the Holy Spirit, as perfect as perception CAN be, is without meaning in Heaven. Perception can reach EVERYWHERE under One’s guidance, for the vision of Christ beholds EVERYTHING in light. Yet no perception, however holy, will last FOREVER.

Text Chapter 13 - From Perception to Knowledge

13.1 The Role Of Healing

Perfect perception, then, has many elements IN COMMON with knowledge, making transfer TO it possible. Yet the last step must be taken by God, because the last step in your redemption, which SEEMS to be in the future, WAS accomplished by God in your creation. The separation has NOT interrupted it. Creation cannot BE interrupted. The separation is merely a faulty formulation of reality, WITH NO EFFECT AT ALL. The miracle, without a function in Heaven, IS needful here. ASPECTS of reality can still be seen, and they will replace aspects of UNREALITY. Aspects of reality can be seen IN EVERYTHING and EVERYWHERE. Yet only God can gather them together by crowning them AS ONE with the final gift of eternity.

Apart from the Creator and the Child, the Holy Spirit has no function. One is not separate from either, being in the mind of both and knowing that Mind is one. One is a Thought of God, and God has GIVEN One to you because One has NO Thoughts One does not share. One’s message speaks of timelessness in time, and that is why Christ’s vision looks on everything with love. Yet even Christ’s vision is not One’s reality. The golden ASPECTS of reality which spring to light under One’s loving gaze are partial glimpses of the Heaven that lies beyond them.

This is the miracle of creation; THAT IT IS ONE FOREVER. Every miracle you offer to the Child of God is but the true perception of one ASPECT of the whole. Though every aspect IS the whole, you cannot KNOW this until you SEE that every aspect IS THE SAME, perceived in the SAME LIGHT and THEREFORE one. Everyone seen WITHOUT the past thus brings you nearer to the end of time by bringing healed and healing sight into the darkness, and ENABLING THE WORLD TO SEE. For light must come into the darkened world to make Christ’s vision possible even here. Help One to give One’s gift of light to all who think they wander in the darkness, and let One gather them into One’s quiet sight that makes them one.

They are all the same; all beautiful and equal in their holiness. And One will offer them unto One’s Creator as they were offered unto One. There is ONE miracle, as there is ONE reality. And every miracle you do contains them all, as every aspect of reality you see blends quietly into the One Reality of God. The only miracle that ever was is God’s most holy Child, created in the One Reality that is one’s Creator. Christ’s vision is One’s gift to you. One’s Being is One’s Creator’s gift to One.

Be you content with healing, for Christ’s gift you CAN bestow, and your Creator’s gift you CANNOT lose. Offer Christ’s gift to everyone and everywhere, for miracles, offered the Child of God through the Holy Spirit, attune YOU to reality. The Holy Spirit knows your part in the redemption, and who are seeking you and where to find them. Knowledge is far beyond your individual concern. You who are part of it and all of it need only realize that it is of the Creator, NOT of you. Your role in the redemption LEADS you to it by re-establishing its oneness in your minds.

When you have seen your siblings as yourself you will be RELEASED to knowledge, having learned to FREE yourself of One Who knows of freedom. Unite with me under the holy banner of One’s teaching, and as we grow in strength the power of God’s Child will move in us, and we will leave no one untouched and no one left alone. And suddenly time will be over, and we will all unite in the eternity of God the Creator. The holy light you saw OUTSIDE yourself, in every miracle you offered to your siblings, will be RETURNED to you. And KNOWING that the light is IN you, YOUR creations will be there WITH you, as you are in your Creator.

As miracles in this world join you to your siblings, so do your creations establish your creatorship in Heaven. YOU are the witnesses to the Creatorship of God, and One has given you the power to create the witnesses to YOUR creatorship in Heaven. Deny a sibling here, and you have denied the witnesses to your creatorship in heaven. The miracle which God created is perfect, as are the miracles which YOU created in One’s Name. They need no healing, nor do you, when you know THEM.

Yet in this world your perfection is unwitnessed. God knows it but YOU do not, and so you do not SHARE One’s witness to it. Nor do you witness unto One, for reality is witnessed to as one. God waits your witness to One’s Child and to Oneself. The miracles you do on earth are lifted up to Heaven and to One. They witness to what you do not know, and as they reach the gates of Heaven God will open them. For never would One leave One’s own beloved Child outside them and beyond Oneself.

Text Chapter 13 - From Perception to Knowledge

13.2 The Shadow Of Guilt

Guilt remains the only thing that hides the Creator, FOR GUILT IS THE ATTACK UPON ONE’S CHILD. The guilty ALWAYS condemn, and HAVING done so they WILL condemn, linking the future to the past as is the ego’s law. Fidelity unto this law lets no light in, for it DEMANDS fidelity to darkness and FORBIDS awakening. The ego’s laws are strict, and breaches are severely punished. Therefore give no obedience to its laws, for they ARE laws of punishment. And those who follow them believe that THEY are guilty and so they MUST condemn. Between the future and the past the laws of God must intervene, if you would free yourselves. Atonement stands between them, like a lamp that shines so brightly that the chain of darkness in which you bound yourselves will disappear.

Release from guilt is the ego’s whole undoing. MAKE NO ONE FEARFUL, for one’s guilt is yours, and by obeying the ego’s harsh commandments you bring its condemnation of yourself, and you will not escape the punishment it offers those who obey it. The ego rewards fidelity to it with pain, for faith in it IS pain. And faith can be rewarded only in terms of the belief in which the faith was placed. Faith MAKES the power of belief, and WHERE it is invested determines its reward. For faith is ALWAYS given what is treasured, and what is treasured IS returned to you.

The world can give you ONLY what you gave it, for being nothing but your own projection, it HAS no meaning apart from what you found in it and placed your faith in. Be faithful unto darkness and you will NOT see, because your faith WILL be rewarded as you GAVE it. You WILL accept your treasure, and if you place your faith in the past the future WILL be like it. Whatever you hold as dear YOU THINK IS YOURS. The power of your VALUING will make it so.

Atonement brings a re-evaluation of EVERYTHING you cherish, for it is the means by which the Holy Spirit can SEPARATE the false and the true, which you have accepted into your minds WITHOUT DISTINCTION. Therefore, you cannot value one without the other, and guilt has become AS TRUE FOR YOU AS INNOCENCE. You do NOT believe the Child of God is guiltless because you see the past and see ONE not. When you condemn a sibling, you are saying,

“I who WAS guilty choose to REMAIN so.”

You have denied ONE’S freedom, and by so doing you have denied the witness unto YOURS. You could as easily have FREED one from the past, and lifted from one’s mind the cloud of guilt that binds one TO it. And in ONE’S freedom would have been your OWN.

Lay not one’s guilt upon one, for ONE’S guilt lies in one’s secret that ONE thinks that ONE has done this unto YOU. Would you, then, teach one that one is RIGHT in one’s delusion? The idea that the guiltless Child of God can attack oneself and MAKE oneself guilty IS insane. In ANY form, in ANYONE, BELIEVE THIS NOT. For sin and condemnation are the same, and the belief in one is faith in the other, calling for punishment INSTEAD of love. NOTHING can justify insanity, and to call for punishment UPON YOURSELF, MUST be insane.

See no one, then, as guilty, and you will affirm the truth of guiltlessness UNTO YOURSELF. In every condemnation that you offer the Child of God lies the conviction of your OWN guilt. If you would have the Holy Spirit make YOU free of it, accept One’s offer of Atonement for ALL your siblings. For so you learn that IT IS TRUE FOR YOU. Remember always that it is impossible to condemn the Child of God IN PART. Those whom you see as guilty become the witnesses to guilt IN YOU, and you WILL see it there, for it IS there until it is undone. Guilt is ALWAYS in your OWN mind, WHICH HAS CONDEMNED ITSELF. Project it not, for while you do it cannot BE undone. With everyone whom you release from guilt great is the joy in Heaven, where the witnesses to your creatorship rejoice.

GUILT MAKES YOU BLIND, for while you see one spot of guilt within you, YOU WILL NOT SEE THE LIGHT. And by projecting it the WORLD seems dark, and shrouded in your guilt. You throw a dark veil over it, and cannot see it BECAUSE YOU CANNOT LOOK WITHIN. You are afraid of what you would see there, but it is NOT there. THE THING YOU FEAR IS GONE. If you would look within you would see only the Atonement, shining in quiet and in peace upon the altar to your Creator. Do not be afraid to look within. The ego tells you all is black with guilt within you, and bids you NOT TO LOOK. Instead, it bids you look upon your siblings AND SEE THE GUILT IN THEM.

Yet this you cannot do WITHOUT REMAINING BLIND. For those who see their siblings dark, and guilty in the dark in which they shroud them, are too afraid to look upon the light within. Within you is NOT what you believe is there, and what YOU put your faith in. Within you is the holy sign of perfect faith YOUR CREATOR has in you. ONE does not value you as you do. One knows Oneself, and knows the truth IN YOU. One knows THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE, for One knows not of differences. Can YOU see guilt where God KNOWS there is perfect innocence? You can DENY One’s knowledge, but you CANNOT change it. Look, then, upon the light One placed within you, and learn that what you feared was there HAS BEEN replaced with love.

Text Chapter 13 - From Perception to Knowledge

13.3 Release And Restoration

You are accustomed to the notion that the mind can see the source of pain where it is not. The doubtful service of displacement is to hide the REAL source of your guilt, and KEEP from your awareness the full perception THAT IT IS INSANE. Displacement ALWAYS is maintained by the illusion that the source, from which attention is diverted, MUST BE TRUE. And MUST BE FEARFUL, or you would not have displaced the guilt onto what you believed to be LESS fearful. You are therefore willing, with little opposition, to look upon all sorts of “sources” underneath awareness, provided that they are not the deeper source to which they bear no real relationship at all. Insane ideas HAVE no real relationships, for that is why they ARE insane.

No real relationship can rest on guilt, or even hold one spot of it to mar its purity. For all relationships which guilt has touched are used but to avoid the person AND the guilt. What strange relationships you have made for this strange purpose! And you forgot that real relationships are holy, and cannot be used by YOU at all. They are used ONLY by the Holy Spirit, and it is that which MAKES them pure. If you displace YOUR guilt upon them, the Holy Spirit cannot use them. For by pre-empting FOR YOUR OWN ends what you should have given to ONE, one cannot use them unto YOUR release. No one who would unite in ANY way with ANYONE for one’s OWN salvation will find it in that strange relationship. It is not shared, and so it is not real.

In any union with a sibling in which you seek to lay YOUR guilt upon one, or share it WITH one, or perceive one’s own, YOU WILL FEEL GUILTY. Nor will you find satisfaction and peace with one because your union with one IS NOT REAL. You will see guilt in that relationship BECAUSE YOU PUT IT THERE. It is inevitable that those who suffer guilt WILL attempt to displace it because they DO believe in it. Yet, though they suffer, they will not look within AND LET IT GO. They cannot know they love, and cannot understand WHAT LOVING IS. Their main concern is to perceive the source of guilt OUTSIDE themselves, BEYOND their own control.

When you maintain that YOU are guilty but the source LIES IN THE PAST, you are NOT looking inward. The past is NOT in you. Your weird associations to it HAVE no meaning in the present. Yet you let them stand BETWEEN you and your siblings, with whom you find no REAL relationships at all. Can you EXPECT to use your siblings as a means to “solve” the past, and still to see them as they really ARE? Salvation is not found by those who use their siblings to resolve problems WHICH ARE NOT THERE. You wanted not salvation in the past. Would you impose your idle wishes on the present, and hope to find salvation NOW?

Determine, then, to be NOT as you were. Use no relationship to hold you to the past, but with each one each day be born again. A minute, even less, will be enough to free you from the past, and give your mind in peace over to the Atonement. When everyone is welcome to you as you would have YOURSELF be welcome to your Creator, you will see no guilt in you. For you will have ACCEPTED the Atonement, which shone within you all the while you dreamed of guilt, and would not look within and SEE it.

As long as you believe that guilt is justified in ANY way, in ANYONE, WHATEVER one may do, you will not look within, where you would ALWAYS find Atonement. The end of guilt will never come as long as you believe THERE IS A REASON FOR IT. For you must learn that guilt is ALWAYS totally insane, and HAS no reason. The Holy Spirit seeks not to dispel REALITY. If GUILT were real ATONEMENT would not be. The purpose of Atonement is to dispel illusions, NOT to establish them as real and THEN forgive them. The Holy Spirit does not KEEP illusions in your mind to frighten you, and show them to you fearfully to demonstrate what One has saved you FROM.

WHAT ONE HAS SAVED YOU FROM IS GONE. Give NO reality to guilt, and see NO reason for it. The Holy Spirit does what God would have One do, and has ALWAYS done so. One has SEEN separation, but KNOWS of union. One TEACHES healing but One also KNOWS of creation. One would have you see and teach as One does, and through One. Yet what One knows you do NOT know, though it is yours. NOW it is given you to heal and teach, to make what WILL BE now. As yet it is NOT now. The Child of God believes that one is lost in guilt, alone in a dark world where pain is pressing everywhere upon one FROM WITHOUT. When one has looked within and seen the radiance there, one will remember how much one’s Creator loves one. And it will seem incredible that one has ever thought one’s Creator loved one not, and looked upon one as condemned.

The moment that you realize GUILT IS INSANE, WHOLLY unjustified and WHOLLY without reason, you will NOT fear to look upon the Atonement and ACCEPT IT WHOLLY. You who have been unmerciful unto yourselves do not remember your Creator’s Love. And looking without mercy upon your siblings, you do not remember how much YOU love ONE. Yet it is forever true. In shining peace within you is the perfect purity in which you were created. Fear not to look upon the lovely truth in you. Look THROUGH the cloud of guilt that dims your vision, and look PAST darkness to the holy place where you will see the light.

The altar to your Creator is as pure as One Who raised it to Oneself. Nothing can keep FROM you what Christ would have you see. One’s will is like One’s Creator’s, and One offers mercy to every Child of God, as One would have YOU do. RELEASE from guilt as you would BE released. There is no other way to look within, and see the light of love shining as steadily and as surely as God Oneself has always loved One’s Child. AND AS ONE’S CHILD LOVES ONE. There is no fear in love, for love is guiltless. You who have ALWAYS loved your Creator can have no fear, for ANY reason, to look within and see your holiness.

You CANNOT be as you believed you WERE. Your guilt is without reason because it is not in the Mind of God, where YOU are. And this IS reason, which the Holy Spirit would RESTORE to you. One would remove ONLY illusions. All else One would have you see. And in Christ’s vision One would show you the perfect purity that is forever within God’s Child. You cannot enter into REAL relationships with any of God’s Children unless you love them all and EQUALLY. Love is not special. If you single out PART of the Christhood for your love, you are imposing guilt on ALL your relationships, and MAKING them unreal.

You can love ONLY as God loves. Seek not to love UNLIKE One, for there IS no love apart from One’s. Until you recognize that this is true you will have no idea WHAT LOVE IS LIKE. No one who condemns a sibling can see ONESELF as guiltless in the peace of God. If one IS guiltless and in peace AND SEES IT NOT, one IS delusional, and has NOT looked upon oneself. To one I say,

“Behold the Child of God

and look upon one’s purity and be still.

In quiet look upon one’s holiness,

and offer thanks unto one’s Creator

that no guilt has ever touched one.”

No illusion that you have ever held against one has touched one’s innocence in any way. One’s shining purity, wholly untouched by guilt and wholly loving, is bright within you. Let us look upon one together and love one. For in our love of one IS your guiltlessness. But look upon yourself, and gladness and appreciation for what you see will banish guilt forever. I thank You, Creator, for the purity of Your most holy Child, whom You have created guiltless forever.

Like you my faith and my belief are centered on what I treasure. The difference is that I love ONLY what God loves WITH me, and because of this, I treasure you beyond the value that you set on yourselves, even unto the worth that God has placed upon you. I love all that One created, and all my faith and my belief I offer unto it. My faith in you is strong as all the love I give my Creator. My trust in you is without limit, and without the fear that you will hear me not. I thank the Creator for your loveliness, and for the many gifts that you will let me offer to the Realm in honor of its wholeness which is of God.

Praise be unto you who make the Creator One with One’s Own Child. Alone we are all lowly, but together we shine with brightness so intense that none of us alone can even think on it. Before the glorious radiance of the Realm guilt melts away, and transformed into kindness, will never more be what it was. Every reaction that you experience will be so purified that it is fitting as a hymn of praise unto your Creator. See only praise of One in what One has created, for One will never cease One’s praise of YOU. United in this praise we stand before the gates of Heaven, where we will surely enter in our blamelessness. God loves you. Could I, then, lack faith in you and love One perfectly?

Forgetfulness and sleep and even death become the ego’s best advice for how to deal with the perceived and harsh intrusion of guilt on peace. Yet no one sees oneself in conflict, and ravaged by a cruel war, unless one believes that BOTH “opponents” in the war are real. Believing this one must escape, for such a war would surely end one’s peace of mind, and so destroy one. Yet if one could but realize the war is between forces that are real and UNREAL powers, one could look upon oneself and SEE one’s freedom. No one finds oneself ravaged and torn in endless battles which ONESELF perceives as wholly without meaning.

God would not have One’s Child embattled, and so One’s Child’s imagined “enemy,” which one made, is TOTALLY unreal. You are but trying to escape a bitter war from which you HAVE escaped. The war is gone. For you have heard the hymn of freedom rising unto Heaven. Gladness and joy belong to God for your release because YOU made it not. Yet as you made not freedom, so you made not a war that could ENDANGER freedom. Nothing destructive ever was or will be. The war, the guilt, the past are gone as one into the unreality from which they came.

Text Chapter 13 - From Perception to Knowledge

13.4 The Guarantee Of Heaven

When we are all united in Heaven, you will value NOTHING that you value here. For nothing that you value here you value wholly, and so you do not value it at all. Value is where God placed it, and the value of what God esteems CANNOT BE JUDGED, for it HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED. It is WHOLLY of value. It can merely be appreciated OR NOT. To value it partially is NOT TO KNOW ITS VALUE. In Heaven is everything God values, and nothing else. Heaven is perfectly unambiguous. Everything is clear and bright, and calls forth ONE response. There is no darkness, and there is no contrast. There is no variation. There is no interruption. There is a sense of peace so deep that no dream in this world has ever brought even a dim imagining of what it is.

Nothing in this world can give this peace, for nothing in this world is wholly shared. Perfect perception can merely show you what is CAPABLE of being wholly shared. It can also show you the RESULTS of sharing, while you still remember the results of NOT sharing. The Holy Spirit points quietly to the contrast, knowing that you will finally let One judge the difference FOR you, allowing One to demonstrate which MUST be true. One has perfect faith in your final judgement because One knows that ONE WILL MAKE IT FOR YOU. To doubt this would be to doubt that One’s mission will be fulfilled. How is this possible, when One’s mission is of God?

You whose minds are darkened by doubt and guilt, remember this; God gave the Holy Spirit TO you, and gave ONE the mission to remove all doubt and every trace of guilt that One’s dear Child has laid upon oneself. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE THAT THIS MISSION FAIL. Nothing can prevent what God would HAVE accomplished from accomplishment. Whatever your reactions to the Holy Spirit’s Voice may be, whatever voice you choose to listen to, whatever strange thoughts may occur to you, God’s Will IS done. You WILL find the peace in which One has established you because ONE does NOT change One’s Mind. One is invariable as the peace in which you dwell, and of which the Holy Spirit reminds you.

You will not remember change and shift in Heaven. You have need of contrast only here. Contrast and differences are necessary teaching aids, for by them you learn what to avoid and what to seek. When you have LEARNED this you will find the answer that makes the need for ANY differences disappear. Truth comes of its OWN will unto its own. When you have learned that you BELONG to truth, it will flow lightly over you without a difference of ANY kind. For you will NEED no contrast to help you realize that THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT, and ONLY this.

Fear not the Holy Spirit will fail in what your Creator has given One to do. THE WILL OF GOD CAN FAIL IN NOTHING. Have faith in only this one thing, and it will be sufficient; God wills you be in Heaven, and nothing can keep you FROM it or IT from you. Your wildest misperceptions, your weird imaginings, your blackest nightmares all mean nothing. They will not prevail against the peace God wills for you. The Holy Spirit WILL restore your sanity because insanity is NOT the Will of God. If that suffices One, it is enough for you. You will NOT keep what God would have removed, because it breaks communication with you, with whom One would communicate. One’s voice WILL be heard.

The communication link which God Oneself placed within you, joining your minds with One’s, CANNOT be broken. You may believe you WANT it broken, and this belief DOES interfere with the deep peace in which the sweet and constant communication which God would share with you is known. Yet One’s channels of reaching out CANNOT be wholly closed and separated FROM One. Peace will be yours because One’s peace still flows to you from One Whose Will IS peace. YOU HAVE IT NOW. The Holy Spirit will teach you how to USE it, and by PROJECTING it to learn that it IS in you.

God willed you Heaven, and will ALWAYS will you nothing else. The Holy Spirit knows ONLY of One’s Will. There is no chance that Heaven will not be yours, for God is sure, and what One wills is sure as One is. You will learn salvation because you will learn HOW TO SAVE. It will not be possible to exempt yourself from what the Holy Spirit wills to teach you. Salvation is as sure as God. One’s certainty suffices. Learn that even the darkest nightmare that disturbed the mind of God’s sleeping Child holds no power over one. One WILL learn the lesson of awaking. God watches over one and light surrounds one.

Can God’s Child lose oneself in dreams when God has placed WITHIN one the glad call to waken and be glad? One cannot separate ONESELF from what is IN one. One’s sleep will not withstand the call to wake. The mission of redemption will be fulfilled as surely as the Creation will remain unchanged throughout Eternity. You do NOT have to know that Heaven is yours to MAKE it so. It IS so. Yet the Will of God must be accepted AS your will, to KNOW it. The Holy Spirit CANNOT fail to undo FOR you everything you have learned that teaches you what is NOT true must be RECONCILED with truth. This is the reconciliation which the ego would substitute for your reconciliation unto sanity and unto peace.

The Holy Spirit has a very different kind of reconciliation in One’s Mind for you, and one which ONE WILL EFFECT as surely as the ego will NOT effect what it attempts. Failure is of the ego, NOT of God. From One you CANNOT wander, and there is no possibility that the plan the Holy Spirit offers to everyone, for the salvation OF everyone, will not be perfectly accomplished. You WILL be released, and you will NOT remember anything you made that was not created FOR you and BY you in return. For how can you remember what was never true, or NOT remember what has always been? It is this reconciliation with truth, and ONLY truth, in which the peace of Heaven lies.

Text Chapter 13 - From Perception to Knowledge

13.5 The Testimony of Miracles

Yes, you are blessed indeed. Yet in this world you do not know it. But you have the means for LEARNING it and SEEING it quite clearly. The Holy Spirit uses logic as easily and as well as does the ego, except that ONE’S conclusions are NOT insane. They take a direction EXACTLY opposite, pointing as clearly to Heaven as the ego points to darkness and to death. We have followed much of the ego's logic, and have seen its logical conclusions. And HAVING seen them, we have realized that they can NOT be seen except in delusions. For there alone their SEEMING clearness SEEMS TO BE CLEARLY SEEN. Let us now turn AWAY from them, and follow the simple logic by which the Holy Spirit teaches the simple conclusions that speak for truth, and ONLY truth.

If you are blessed and do not know it, you need to learn it MUST be so. The KNOWLEDGE is not taught, but its conditions MUST be acquired for it is THEY that have been thrown away. You CAN LEARN to bless, and CANNOT give WHAT YOU HAVE NOT. If, then, you OFFER blessing, it MUST have come FIRST TO YOURSELF. And you must also have ACCEPTED IT AS YOURS, for how else could you GIVE IT AWAY? That is WHY your miracles offer YOU the testimony that YOU are blessed. If what you offer IS complete forgiveness you MUST have LET GUILT GO, accepting the Atonement for yourself and learning you ARE guiltless. How could you learn what has been done for you, UNKNOWN TO YOU, unless you do what you would HAVE TO do if it HAD BEEN done for you?

INdirect proof of truth is needed in a world made of denial and without direction. You will perceive the need for this if you realize that to DENY is the decision NOT to know. The logic of the world MUST therefore lead to nothing, for its GOAL is nothing. If you decide to have and give and BE nothing except a dream, you MUST direct your thoughts unto oblivion. And if you have and give and are EVERYTHING, and ALL THIS HAS BEEN DENIED, your thought system is closed off, and wholly separated from the truth. This IS an insane world, and do not underestimate the actual extent of its insanity. There is no area of your perception that it has not touched, and your dream IS sacred to you.

That is why God placed the Holy Spirit IN you, where YOU placed the dream. Seeing is ALWAYS outward. Were your thoughts wholly of YOU, the thought system YOU have made WOULD be forever dark. The thoughts the mind of God's Child projects HAVE all the power that one gives to them. The thoughts one shares with God are BEYOND one’s belief, but those ONE made ARE one’s beliefs. And it is THESE, and NOT the truth, that one has chosen to defend and love. They will not be taken from one. But they CAN be given up BY one, for the Source of their undoing is IN one. There is NOTHING in the world to teach one that the logic of the world is totally insane and leads to nothing. Yet in one who MADE this insane logic there is One Who KNOWS it leads to nothing, for One knows EVERYTHING.

Any direction that would lead you where the Holy Spirit leads you NOT, goes nowhere. Anything you deny which One knows to be true you have denied YOURSELF, and One must therefore teach you NOT to deny it. Undoing IS indirect, as DOING is. You were created ONLY to CREATE, neither to see NOR do. These are but INDIRECT expressions of the will to live, which has been blocked by the capricious and unholy whim of death and murder that your Creator shared not WITH you. You have set yourself the task of sharing what can NOT be shared. And while you think it possible to LEARN to do this, you will NOT believe all that IS possible to learn to do.

The Holy Spirit, therefore, must begin One’s teaching by showing you what you can NEVER learn. One’s MESSAGE is not indirect, but One must introduce the simple truth into a thought system which has become so twisted and so complex you CANNOT SEE that it means nothing. ONE merely looks at its foundation and DISMISSES it. But YOU who CANNOT undo what you have made, nor escape the heavy burden of it’s dullness that lies upon your minds, cannot see THROUGH it. It DECEIVES you, because you chose to deceive YOURSELF. Those who choose to BE deceived will merely ATTACK direct approaches, which would seem to ENCROACH upon deception and strike at it.

Text Chapter 13 - From Perception to Knowledge

13.6 The Happy Learner

The Holy Spirit needs a happy learner, in whom one’s mission can be happily accomplished. You who are steadfastly devoted to misery MUST first recognize that you ARE miserable and NOT happy. The Holy Spirit cannot teach WITHOUT this contrast, for you believe that misery IS happiness. This has so confused you that you have undertaken to learn to do what you can NEVER do, believing that UNLESS you learn it you will NOT be happy. You do NOT realize that the foundation on which this most peculiar learning goal depends means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Yet it DOES make sense to you.

Have faith in nothing and you will FIND the "treasure" that you seek. Yet you will add another burden to your mind—ALREADY burdened—or you would NOT have sought another. You will believe that NOTHING IS OF VALUE, and will VALUE it. A little piece of glass, a speck of dust, a body or a war are one to you. For if you value ONE thing made of nothing, you HAVE believed that nothing CAN be precious, and that you CAN learn how to make the UNtrue true. The Holy Spirit, SEEING where you are but KNOWING you are elsewhere, begins One’s lesson in simplicity with the fundamental teaching that TRUTH IS TRUE. This is the hardest lesson you will ever learn, and in the end the ONLY one.

Simplicity is very difficult for twisted minds. Consider all the distortions you have made of nothing; all the strange forms and feelings and actions and reactions that you have woven out of it. Nothing is so alien to you as the simple truth, and nothing are you LESS inclined to listen to. The contrast between what is true and what is not is PERFECTLY apparent, yet you do NOT see it. The simple and the obvious are NOT apparent to those who would make palaces and royal robes of nothing, believing they are kings with golden crowns BECAUSE of them. All this the Holy Spirit sees, and teaches, simply, that ALL THIS IS NOT TRUE.

To those unhappy learners who would teach themselves nothing, and delude themselves into believing that it is NOT nothing, the Holy Spirit says, with steadfast quietness:

“The truth is true. Nothing else matters, nothing else is real, and EVERYTHING beside it is not there. Let Me make the one distinction FOR you which you CANNOT make, but NEED to learn. Your faith in nothing IS deceiving you. Offer your faith to Me, and I will place it gently in the holy place where it belongs. You will find NO deception there, but only the simple Truth. And you will love It because you will UNDERSTAND It.”

Like you, the Holy Spirit did NOT make truth. Like God, One KNOWS it to be true. One brings the LIGHT of truth into the darkness, and LETS it shine on you. And as it shines YOUR SIBLINGS see it, and realizing that this light is NOT what you have made, they see in you MORE than YOU see. They will be happy learners of the lesson this light brings to them, because it teaches them RELEASE from nothing and from all the works of nothing. The heavy chains which SEEM to bind them to despair they do NOT see as nothing, until YOU bring the light TO them. And THEN they see the chains have disappeared, and so they MUST have been nothing.

And YOU will see it WITH them. BECAUSE you taught them gladness and release, they will become YOUR teachers in release and gladness. When you teach ANYONE that truth is true, YOU LEARN IT WITH ONE. And so you learn that what seemed hardest was the easiest. Learn to be a happy learner. You will NEVER learn how to make nothing everything. Yet see that this HAS BEEN your goal, and RECOGNIZE how foolish it has been. Be glad it is undone, for when you look at it in simple honesty, it IS undone. We said before,

"Be not content with nothing," for you HAVE believed that nothing COULD content you. IT IS NOT SO.

If you would be a happy learner, you must give EVERYTHING YOU have learned to the Holy Spirit, to be UNlearned FOR you. And THEN begin to learn the joyous lessons that come quickly on the firm foundation that truth is true. For what is built there IS true, and BUILT on truth. The universe of learning will open up before you in all its gracious simplicity. With truth before you, you will not look back. The happy learner meets the conditions of learning here, as one meets the conditions of knowledge in the Realm.

All this lies in the Holy Spirit's plan to free you from the past, and open up the way to freedom FOR you. For truth IS true. What else could ever be, or ever was? This simple lesson holds the key to the dark door that you believe is locked forever. You MADE this door OF nothing, and behind it IS nothing. The key is only the light that shines away the shapes and forms and fears of nothing. Accept this key to freedom from the hands of Christ, Who gives it to you, that you may join one in the holy task of bringing light to darkness. For, like your siblings, YOU do not realize the light has come and freed you from the sleep of darkness.

Behold your siblings in their freedom, and learn of them how to be FREE of darkness. The light in you will waken them, and they will not leave YOU asleep. The vision of Christ is GIVEN the very instant that it is perceived. Where everything is clear, it is ALL holy. The quietness of its simplicity is so compelling that you will realize IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DENY THE SIMPLE TRUTH. For there IS nothing else. God is everywhere, and One’s Child is IN One WITH everything. Can one sing the dirge of sorrow when THIS is true?

Text Chapter 13 - From Perception to Knowledge

13.7 The Decision for Guiltlessness

Learning will be commensurate with motivation, and the interference in your motivation for learning, is EXACTLY the same as that which interferes with ALL your thinking. The happy learner CANNOT FEEL GUILTY ABOUT LEARNING. This is so ESSENTIAL to learning that it should never be forgotten. The guiltless learner learns easily BECAUSE ONE’S THOUGHTS ARE FREE. Yet this entails the recognition that GUILT IS INTERFERENCE, NOT SALVATION, and serves NO useful function at all.

You are accustomed to using guiltlessness merely to offset the pain of guilt, and do not look upon it as having value IN ITSELF. You believe that guilt AND guiltlessness are BOTH of value, each representing an ESCAPE from what the other does NOT offer you. You do NOT want either alone, for without both you do not see YOURSELF as whole and therefore happy. Yet you are whole ONLY in your guiltlessness, and only in your guiltlessness CAN you be happy. There IS no conflict here.

To wish for guilt in ANY way, in ANY form, will lose appreciation of the value of your guiltlessness, and push it from your sight. There is NO compromise that you can make with guilt, and escape the pain which ONLY guiltlessness allays. Learning is living here, as creating is Being in Heaven. Whenever the pain of guilt seems to ATTRACT you, remember that if you yield to it, you are deciding AGAINST your happiness, and will NOT learn how to be happy. Say therefore, to yourself, gently, but with the conviction born of the Love of God and of One’s Child:

“What I experience I will make manifest.

If I am guiltless, I have nothing to fear.

I choose to testify to my ACCEPTANCE of the Atonement,

NOT FOR ITS REJECTION.

I would accept my guiltlessness by making it manifest

and SHARING it.

Let me bring peace to God's Child from one’s Creator.”

Each day, each hour and minute—even each second—you are deciding between the crucifixion and the resurrection; between the ego and the Holy Spirit. The ego is the choice for guilt; the Holy Spirit the decision for blamelessness. The power of decision is all that is yours. What you can decide BETWEEN is fixed, because there are no alternatives EXCEPT truth and illusion. And there is no overlap between them, because they are opposites which CANNOT be reconciled and CANNOT both be true. You are guilty OR guiltless, bound OR free, unhappy OR happy.

The miracle teaches you that you have chosen guiltlessness, freedom and joy. It is not a cause, but an EFFECT. It is the natural result of CHOOSING RIGHT, attesting to your happiness that comes from choosing to be FREE of guilt. Everyone you offer healing TO returns it. Everyone you attack KEEPS it and cherishes it by holding it AGAINST you. Whether one DOES this, or does it not, will make no difference. YOU WILL THINK ONE DOES. It is impossible to offer WHAT YOU DO NOT WANT without this penalty. The cost of giving IS receiving. Either it is a penalty from which you suffer, or the happy purchase of a treasure to hold dear.

No penalty is ever asked of God's Child except BY oneself and OF oneself. Every chance given one to heal is another opportunity to replace darkness with light and fear with love. If one refuses it one binds oneself TO darkness, because one did not choose to free one’s sibling and enter light WITH one. By GIVING power to nothing, one throws away the joyous opportunity to learn that nothing HAS no power. And by NOT DISPELLING darkness, ONE became afraid of darkness AND of light. The joy of learning that darkness has no power over the Child of God is the happy lesson the Holy Spirit teaches, and would have YOU teach WITH One. It is ONE’S joy to teach it, as it will be YOURS.

The way to teach this simple lesson is merely this; guiltlessness IS invulnerability. Therefore, make your INVULNERABILITY manifest to everyone, and teach one that, WHATEVER one may try to do to you, your perfect freedom from the belief that you can BE harmed shows one that ONE is guiltless. One can do NOTHING that can hurt you, and by refusing to allow one to THINK ONE CAN, you teach one that the Atonement, which you have accepted for yourself, IS ALSO ONE’S. THERE IS NOTHING TO FORGIVE. No one can hurt the Child of God. One’s guilt is WHOLLY without cause, and being without cause, CANNOT exist.

God is the ONLY Cause, and guilt is NOT of One. Teach no one one has hurt you, for if you do, you teach YOURSELF that what is NOT of God HAS POWER OVER YOU. THE CAUSELESS CANNOT BE. Do not attest to it, and do not foster belief in it in any mind. Remember always MIND IS ONE, and CAUSE IS ONE. You will learn communication with this oneness ONLY when you learn to DENY the causeless, and accept the Cause of God as YOURS. The power that God has given to One’s Child IS one’s, and nothing else can One’s Child see or choose to look upon without imposing on ONESELF the penalty of guilt, IN PLACE of all the happy teaching the Holy Spirit would gladly offer one.

Whenever you decide to make decisions FOR YOURSELF, you are thinking self-destructively, and the decision WILL BE WRONG. It will hurt you because of the CONCEPT of decision that led to it. It is not true that you can make decisions BY yourself or FOR yourself alone. No thought of God's Child CAN be separate or isolated in its effects. Every decision is made for the WHOLE CHRISTHOOD, directed in and out, and influencing a constellation larger than anything you ever dreamed of. Those who accept the Atonement ARE invulnerable. But those who believe they are guilty WILL respond to guilt, because THEY THINK IT IS SALVATION, and will NOT refuse to see it, and side WITH it. And they will fail to understand the simple fact that what they do NOT want MUST hurt them.

All this arises because they do NOT believe that WHAT THEY WANT IS GOOD. Yet will was given them BECAUSE it is holy, and will bring TO them ALL that they need, coming as naturally as peace that knows no limits. There is NOTHING their will will not provide that offers them ANYTHING of value. Yet because they do NOT understand their will, the Holy Spirit quietly understands it FOR them, and gives them what THEY will without effort, strain, or the impossible burden of deciding WHAT THEY WANT AND NEED ALONE. It will never happen that you must make decisions FOR YOURSELF. You are NOT bereft of help, and HELP THAT KNOWS THE ANSWER. Would you be content with little, which is all that YOU ALONE can offer yourself, when One Who GIVES YOU EVERYTHING will simply OFFER it TO you?

One will never ask what you have done to make you worthy of the gift of God. Ask it not therefore of yourself. Instead, accept One’s answer, for One KNOWS that you are worthy of everything God wills FOR you. Do not try to escape the gift of God One so freely and so gladly offers you. One offers you but what God gave One FOR you. You need NOT decide whether or not you are DESERVING of it. GOD KNOWS THAT YOU ARE. Would you deny the truth of GOD'S decision, and place your pitiful appraisal of yourself in place of One’s calm and unswerving value of One’s Child? NOTHING can shake God's conviction of the perfect purity of everything that One created, for it IS wholly pure. Do not decide AGAINST it, for being of One it MUST be true.

Peace abides in every mind that quietly accepts the plan GOD set for one’s Atonement, RELINQUISHING ONE’S OWN. You know NOT of salvation, for you do NOT understand it. Make no decisions about what it is or where it lies, but ask the Holy Spirit EVERYTHING, and leave ALL decisions to One’s gentle counsel. The One Who knows the plan of God that God would have you follow can teach you what it IS. Only One’s wisdom is capable of guiding you to follow it. Every decision you undertake alone but signifies that you would define what salvation IS, and what you would be saved FROM. The Holy Spirit KNOWS that ALL salvation is escape from guilt. You have no other "enemy," and against this strange distortion of the purity of the Child of God the Holy Spirit is your ONLY Friend.

One is the strong protector of the innocence which sets you free. And it is ONE’S decision to undo EVERYTHING that would obscure your innocence from your unclouded mind. Let One, therefore, be the ONLY guide that you would follow to Salvation. One knows the way, and leads you gladly on it. WITH One you will not fail to learn that what God wills FOR you IS your will. WITHOUT One’s guidance you will think you know alone, and will decide AGAINST your peace as surely as you made the wrong decision in ever thinking that salvation lay in you alone. Salvation is of One to Whom God GAVE it FOR you. One has not forgotten it. Forget ONE not and One will make EVERY decision for you, for YOUR salvation and the peace of God in you.

Seek not to appraise the worth of God's Child whom One created holy, for to do so is TO EVALUATE ONE’S CREATOR and judge AGAINST One. And you WILL feel guilty for this imagined “crime,” which no one in this world or Heaven CAN POSSIBLY commit. The Holy Spirit teaches only that the “sin” of SELF-replacement on the throne of God is NOT a source of guilt. What CANNOT happen can have no effects to fear. Be quiet in your faith in One Who loves you, and would lead you out of insanity. Madness may be your CHOICE, but NOT your reality. Never forget the Love of God, Who HAS remembered you. For it is quite impossible that One could ever let One’s Child drop from One’s loving Mind wherein one was created, and where one’s abode was fixed in perfect peace forever.

Say to the Holy Spirit only,

"Decide for me,"

and it is done. For One’s decisions are reflections of WHAT GOD KNOWS ABOUT YOU, and in this light, error of ANY kind becomes impossible. Why would you struggle so frantically to anticipate all you CANNOT know, when ALL knowledge lies behind EVERY decision the Holy Spirit makes FOR YOU? Learn of One’s wisdom and One’s love, and teach One’s answer to everyone who struggles in the dark. For you decide for THEM AND for yourself. How gracious it is to decide all things through One whose equal love is given equally to all alike! One leaves you no one OUTSIDE yourself, alone WITHOUT you. And so One gives you what is yours, because your Creator would have you share it WITH One.

In everything be led by One, and do not reconsider. Trust One to answer quickly, surely, and with love for everyone who will be touched in any way by the decision. And EVERYONE will be. Would you take unto yourself the sole responsibility for deciding what can bring ONLY good to everyone? Would you KNOW this? You taught YOURSELF the most unnatural habit of NOT communicating with your Creator. Yet you remain in close communication with One, and with everything that is within One, as it is within YOURSELF. UNlearn isolation through One’s loving guidance, and learn of all the happy communication that you have thrown away but could NOT lose.

Whenever you are in doubt what you should do, think of One’s Presence in you, and tell yourself this, and ONLY this:

“One leadeth me and knows the way,

which I know not.

Yet One will never KEEP from me

what One would have me LEARN.

And so I trust One to communicate to me

all that One knows FOR me.”

Then let One teach you quietly how to perceive your guiltlessness, which is ALREADY there.

Text Chapter 13 - From Perception to Knowledge

13.8 The Way of Salvation

When you accept a sibling's guiltlessness you will SEE the Atonement in one. For by proclaiming it in ONE you make it YOURS, and you WILL see what you sought. You will not see the symbol of your sibling's guiltlessness shining within one while you still believe IT IS NOT THERE. ONE’S guiltlessness is YOUR Atonement. Grant it to one, and you will see the truth of what you have acknowledged. Yet truth is offered FIRST to be received, even as God gave it first to One’s Child. The first in time means nothing, but the First in eternity is God the Creator, Who is both First and One. Beyond the First there is no other, for there is no order, no second or third, and nothing BUT the First.

You who belong to the First Cause, created by One like unto Oneself and part of One, are more than merely guiltless. The state of guiltlessness is only the condition in which what is NOT there has been REMOVED from the disordered mind that THOUGHT it WAS. This state, and only this, must YOU attain, with God beside you. For until you do, you will still think that you are separate FROM One. You can perhaps feel One’s Presence NEXT TO you, but CANNOT know that you are one with One. This cannot be taught. Learning applies ONLY to the condition IN WHICH IT HAPPENS of itself.

When you have let all that obscured the truth in your most holy mind be undone for you, and stand in grace before your Creator, One will give Oneself to you as One has ALWAYS done. Giving Oneself is all One knows, and so it is ALL knowledge. For what One knows NOT cannot be, and therefore CANNOT BE GIVEN. Ask not to BE forgiven, for this has already been accomplished. Ask, rather, to LEARN how to forgive, and restore WHAT ALWAYS WAS to your unforgiving mind. Atonement becomes real and visible to those who USE it. On earth this is your ONLY function, and you must learn that it is all you WANT to learn.

You WILL feel guilty till you learn this. For in the end, whatever form it takes, your guilt arises from your failure to fulfill your function in God's Mind with ALL OF YOURS. Can you ESCAPE this guilt by failing to fulfill your function HERE? You need not understand creation to do what must be done BEFORE that knowledge would be meaningful to you. God breaks no barriers; neither did One MAKE them. When YOU release them they are gone. God will not fail, nor ever has, in anything.

Decide that God is right and YOU are wrong about yourself. One created you out of Oneself, but still WITHIN One. One knows what you are. Remember that there is no second to One. There cannot, therefore, be anyone WITHOUT One’s Holiness, nor anyone unworthy of One’s perfect love. Fail not in your function of loving in a loveless place made out of darkness and deceit, for thus are darkness and deceit UNdone. FAIL NOT YOURSELF, but instead offer to God AND YOU One’s blameless Child. For this small gift of appreciation FOR One’s love, God will Oneself exchange your gift for ONE’S.

Before you make ANY decisions for yourself, remember that YOU HAVE DECIDED AGAINST YOUR FUNCTION IN HEAVEN, and then consider carefully whether you WANT to make decisions here. Your function here is only to decide AGAINST deciding what you want, in recognition that YOU DO NOT KNOW. How, then, CAN you decide what you should do? Leave ALL decisions to the One Who speaks for God, and for your function as One KNOWS it. So will One teach you to remove the awful burden you have laid upon yourself by loving not the Child of God, and trying to teach one guilt INSTEAD of love. Give up this frantic and insane attempt that cheats you of the joy of living with your God and Creator, and of waking gladly to One’s Love and Holiness that join together as the truth in YOU, making you One with One.

When you have learned how to decide WITH God, ALL decisions become as easy and as right as breathing. There is no effort, and you will be led as gently as if you were being carried along a quiet path in summer. Only your own volition seems to make deciding hard. The Holy Spirit will not delay in answering your EVERY question what to do. One KNOWS. And One will TELL you, and then do it FOR you. You who are tired will find this is more restful than sleep. For you can bring your guilt into sleeping, but NOT into this.

Workbook Part 2 - All Encompassing Course in Miracles

“Orientation to the Lessons of Part 2”

Words will mean little now. We use them but as guides on which we do not now depend. For now we seek direct experience of truth alone. The lessons which remain are merely introductions to the times in which we leave the world of pain, and go to enter peace. Now we begin to reach the goal this course has set, and find the end toward which our practicing is geared.

Now we attempt to let the exercise be merely a beginning. For we wait in quiet expectation for our God and Creator. One has promised One will take the final step Oneself. And we are sure One’s promises are kept. We have come far along the road, and now we wait for One.

We will continue spending time with One each morning and at night, as long as makes us happy. We will not consider time a matter of duration now. We use as much as we will need for the result that we desire. Nor will we forget our hourly remembrance, in between calling to God when we have need of One as we are tempted to forget our goal.

We will continue with a central thought for all the days to come. And we will use that thought to introduce our times of rest, and calm our minds at need. Yet we will not content ourselves with simple practicing in the remaining holy instants which conclude the year that we have given God. We say some simple words of welcome, and expect our Creator to reveal Oneself as One has promised. We have called on One, and One has promised that One’s Child will not remain unanswered when one calls One’s Name.

Now do we come to One with but One’s Word upon our minds and hearts. And wait for One to take the step to us that One has told us, through One’s Voice, One would not fail to take when we invited one. One has not left One’s Child in all one’s madness, nor betrayed One’s trust in one. Has not One’s faithfulness earned One the invitation that One seeks to make us happy? We will offer it, and it will be accepted. So our times with One will now be spent. We say the words of invitation that One’s Voice suggests, then we wait for One to come to us.

Now is the time of prophecy fulfilled. Now are all ancient promises upheld and fully kept. No step remains for time to separate from its accomplishment. For now we cannot fail. Sit silently and wait upon your Creator. One has willed to come to you when you have recognized it is your will One do so. And you could have never come this far unless you saw, however dimly, that it is your will.

I am so close to you we cannot fail. Creator, we give these holy times to You in gratitude to One Who taught us how to leave the world of sorrow, in exchange for its replacement given us by You. We look not backward now. We look ahead, and fix our eyes upon the journey’s end. Accept these little gifts of thanks from us, as through Christ’s vision we behold a world beyond the one we made, and take that world to be the full replacement of our own.

And now we wait in silence, unafraid, and certain of Your coming. We have sought to find our way by following the Guide You sent to us. We did not know the way, but You did not forget us. And we know that You will not forget us now. We ask but that Your ancient promises be kept which are Your Will to keep. We will with You in asking this. The Creator and the Child, Whose holy Will created all that is, can fail in nothing. In this certainty, we undertake these last few steps to You, and rest in confidence upon Your Love, Which will not fail the Child who calls to You.

And so we start upon the final part of this one holy year, which we have spent together in the search for truth and God, Who is its one Creator. We have found the way One chose for us, and made the choice to follow it as One would have us go. One’s Hand has held us up. One’s thoughts have lit the darkness of our minds. One’s Love has called to us unceasingly since time began.

We had a wish that God would fail to have the Child whom One created for Oneself. We wanted God to change Oneself, and be what we would make of One. And we believed that our insane desires were the truth. Now we are glad that this is all undone, and we no longer think illusions true. The memory of God is shimmering across the wide horizons of our minds. A moment more, and It will rise again. A moment more, and we who are God’s Child are safely home, where One would have us be.

Now is the need for practice almost done. For in this final section we will come to understand that we need only call to God, and all temptations disappear. Instead of words, we need but feel One’s Love. Instead of prayer, we need but call One’s Name. Instead of judging, we need but be still and let all things be healed. We will accept the way God’s plan will end, as we received the way it started. Now is it complete. This year has brought us to eternity.

One further use for words we still retain. From time to time, instructions on a theme of special relevance will intersperse our daily lessons and the periods of wordless, deep experience which should come afterwards. These special thoughts should be reviewed each day, each one of them to be continued till the next is given you. They should be slowly read and thought about a little while, preceding one of the holy and blessed instants in the day. We give the first of these instructions now.

Lessons 221-230

What Is Forgiveness?

Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your sibling did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in this view are all your sins forgiven. What is sin except a false idea about God’s Child? Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. What then is free to take its place is now the Will of God.

An unforgiving thought is one which makes a judgement that it will not raise to doubt, although it is not true. The mind is closed, and will not be released. The thought protects projection, tightening its chains, so that distortions are more veiled and more obscure; less easily accessible to doubt, and further kept from reason. What can come between a fixed projection and the aim that it has chosen as its needed goal?

An unforgiving thought does many things. In frantic action it pursues its goal, twisting and overturning what it sees as interfering with its chosen path. Distortion is its purpose and the means by which it would accomplish it as well. It sets about its furious attempts to smash reality, without concern for anything that would appear to pose a contradiction to its point of view.

Forgiveness, on the other hand, is still, and quietly does nothing. It offends no aspect of reality, nor seeks to twist it to appearance that it likes. It merely looks and waits and judges not. One who would not forgive must judge, for one must justify one’s failure to forgive. But one who would forgive oneself must learn to welcome truth exactly as it is.

Do nothing, then, and let forgiveness show you what to do through One Who is your Guide, your Savior and Defender, strong in hope, and certain of your ultimate success. One has forgiven you already, for such is One’s function, given One by God. Now must you share One’s function, and forgive whom One has saved, whose sinlessness One sees, and whom One honors as the Child of God.

Lesson 221

“Peace to my mind. Let all my thoughts be still.”

“Creator, I come to You today to seek the peace that You alone can give. I come in silence. In the quiet of my heart, the deep recesses of my mind, I wait and listen for Your Voice. My Creator, speak to me today. I come to hear Your Voice in silence and in certainty and love, sure You will hear my call and answer me.”

Now do we wait in quiet. God is here because we wait together. I am sure that One will speak to you, and you will hear. Accept my confidence, for it is yours. Our minds are joined. We wait with one intent: to hear our Creator’s answer to our call, to let our thoughts be still and find One’s peace, to hear One speak to us of what we are, and to reveal Oneself unto One’s Child.

Lessons 222

“God is with me. I live and breathe in One.”

God is with me. One is my Source of life, the life within, the air I breathe, the food by which I am sustained, the water which renews and cleanses me. One is my home, wherein I live and move; the Spirit Which directs my actions, offers me Its Thoughts, and guarantees my safety from all pain. One covers me with kindness and with care, and holds in love the Child One shines upon, who also shines on One. How still is one who knows the truth of what One speaks today!

“Creator, we have no words except Your Name upon our lips and in our minds, as we come quietly into Your Presence now, and ask to rest with You in peace a while.”

Lessons 223

“God is my life. I have no life but One’s.”

I was mistaken when I thought I lived apart from God, a separate entity which moved in isolation, unattached, and housed within a body. Now I know my life is God’s, I have no other home, and I do not exist apart from One. One has no Thoughts that are not part of me, and I have none but Those which are of One.

“Our Creator, let us see the Face of Christ instead of our mistakes. For we who are Your holy Child are sinless. We would look upon our sinlessness, for guilt proclaims that we are not Your Child. And we would not forget You longer. We are lonely here, and long for Heaven, where we are at home. Today we would return. Our Name is Yours, and we acknowledge that we are Your Child.”

Lessons 224

“God is my Creator, and One loves One’s Child.”

My true Identity is so secure, so lofty, sinless, glorious and great, wholly beneficent and free from guilt, that Heaven looks to It to give it light. It lights the world as well. It is the gift my Creator gave me, the one as well I give the world. There is no gift but This that can be either given or received. This is reality, and only This. This is illusion’s end. It is the Truth.

“My Name, oh Creator, still is known to You. I have forgotten it, and do not know where I am going, who I am, or what it is I do. Remind me, Creator, now, for I am weary of the world I see. Reveal what You would have me see instead.”

Lessons 225

“God is my Creator, and One’s Child loves One.”

“Creator, I must return Your Love for me. For giving and receiving are the same, and You have given all Your Love to me. I must return It, for I want It mine in full awareness, blazing in my mind, and keeping it within Its kindly light, inviolate, beloved, with fear behind and only peace ahead. How still the way Your loving Child is led along to You!”

Sibling, we find that stillness now. The way is open. Now we follow it in peace together. You have reached your hand to me, and I will never leave you. We are one, and it is but this oneness that we seek as we accomplish these few final steps which end a journey that was not begun.

Lessons 226

“My home awaits me. I will hasten there.”

If I so choose, I can depart this world entirely. It is not death which makes this possible, but it is change of mind about the purpose of the world. If I believe it has a value as I see it now, so will it still remain for me. But if I see no value in the world as I behold it, nothing that I want to keep as mine or search for as a goal, it will depart from me. For I have not sought for illusions to replace the truth.

“Creator, my home awaits my glad return. Your arms are open, and I hear Your Voice. What need have I to linger in a place of vain desires and of broken dreams when Heaven can so easily be mine?”

Lessons 227

“This is my holy instant of release.”

“Creator, it is today that I am free, because my will is Yours. I thought to make another will. Yet nothing that I thought apart from You exists. And I am free because I was mistaken, and did not affect my own reality at all by my illusions. Now I give them up, and lay them down before the feet of truth, to be removed forever from my mind. This is my holy instant of release. Creator, I know my will is one with Yours.”

And so today we find our glad return to Heaven, which we never really left. The Child of God this day lays down one’s dreams. The Child of God this day comes home again, released from sin and clad in holiness, with one’s right mind restored to one at last.

Lesson 228

“God has condemned me not. No more do I.”

My Creator knows my holiness. Shall I deny One’s knowledge, and believe in what One’s knowledge makes impossible? Shall I accept as true what One proclaims as false? Or shall I take One’s Word for what I am since One is my Creator, and the One Who knows the true condition of One’s Child?

“Creator, I was mistaken in myself, because I failed to realize the Source from Which I came. I have not left that Source to enter in a body and to die. My holiness remains a part of me, as I am part of You. And my mistakes about myself are dreams. I let them go today. And I stand ready to receive Your Word alone for what I really am.”

Lesson 229

“Love, Which created me, is what I am.”

I seek my own identity, and find It in these words:

“Love, Which created me, is what I am.”

Now need I seek no more. Love has prevailed. So still it waited for my coming home, that I will turn away no longer from the holy Face of Christ. And what I look upon attests the truth of the identity I sought to lose, but which my Creator has kept safe for me.

“Creator, my thanks to You for what I am; for keeping my identity untouched and sinless in the midst of all the thoughts of sin my foolish mind made up. And thanks to You for saving me from them. Amen.”

Lesson 230

“Now will I seek and find the peace of God.”

In peace I was created. And in peace do I remain. It is not given me to change my Self. How merciful is God my Creator, that when One created me One gave me peace forever. Now I ask but to be what I am. And can this be denied me, when it is forever so?

“Creator, I seek the peace You gave as mine in my creation. What was given then must be here now, for my creation was apart from time, and still remains beyond all change. The peace in which Your Child was born into Your Mind is shining there unchanged. I am as You created me. I need but call on You to find the peace You gave. It is Your Will that gave it to Your Child.”

Lessons 231-240

What Is Salvation?

Salvation is a promise, made by God, that you would find your way to One at last. It cannot not be kept. It guarantees that time will have an end, and all the thoughts that have been born in time will end as well. God’s Word is given every mind which thinks that it has separate thoughts, and will replace these thoughts of conflict with the Thought of peace.

The Thought of peace was given to God’s Child the instant that one’s mind had thought of war. There was no need for such a Thought before, for peace was given without opposite, and merely was. But when the mind is split there is a need of healing. So the Thought Which has the power to heal the split became a part of every fragment of the mind that still was one, but failed to recognize its oneness. Now it did not know itself, and thought its own identity was lost.

Salvation is undoing in the sense that it does nothing, failing to support the world of dreams and malice. Thus it lets illusions go. By not supporting them, it merely lets them quietly go down to dust. And what they hid is now revealed; an altar to the holy Name of God whereon One’s Word is written, with the gifts of your forgiveness laid before It, and the memory of God not far behind.

Let us come daily to this holy place, and spend a while together. Here we share our final dream. It is a dream in which there is no sorrow, for it holds a hint of all the glory given us by God. The grass is pushing through the soil, the trees are budding now, and birds have come to live within their branches. Earth is being born again in new perception. Night has gone, and we have come together in the light.

From here we give salvation to the world, for it is here salvation was received. The song of our rejoicing is the call to all the world that freedom is returned, that time is almost over, and God’s Child has but an instant more to wait until one’s Creator is remembered, dreams are done, eternity has shined away the world, and only Heaven now exists at all.

Lesson 231

“Creator, I will but to remember You.”

“What can I seek for, Creator, but Your Love? Perhaps I think I seek for something else; a something I have called by many names. Yet is Your Love the only thing I seek, or ever sought. For there is nothing else that I could ever really want to find. Let me remember You. What else could I desire but the truth about myself?”

This is your will, my sibling. And you share this will with me, and with the One as well Who is our Creator. To remember One is Heaven. This we seek. And only this is what it will be given us to find.

Lesson 232

“Be in my mind, my Creator, through the day.”

“Be in my mind, my Creator, when I wake, and shine on me throughout the day today. Let every minute be a time in which I dwell with You. And let me not forget my hourly thanksgiving that You have remained with me, and always will be there to hear my call to You and answer me. As evening comes, let all my thoughts be still of You and of Your Love, and let me sleep sure of my safety, certain of Your care, and happily aware I am Your Child.”

This is as every day should be. Today practice the end of fear. Have faith in One Who is your Creator. Trust all things to One. Let One reveal all things to you, and be you undismayed because you are One’s Child.

Lesson 233

“I give my life to God to run today.”

“Creator, I give You all my thoughts today. I would have none of mine. In place of them give me Your Own. I give You all my acts as well, that I may do Your Will instead of seeking goals which cannot be obtained, and wasting time in vain imaginings. Today I come to You. I will step back and merely follow You. Be You the Guide, and I the follower who questions not the wisdom of the Infinite, nor Love Whose tenderness I cannot comprehend, but which is yet Your perfect gift to me.”

Today we have one Guide to lead us on. And as we walk together, we will give this day to One with no reserve at all. This is One’s day. And so it is a day of countless gifts and mercies unto us.

Lesson 234

“Creator, today I am Your Child again.”

Today we will anticipate the time when dreams of sin and guilt are gone, and we have reached the holy peace we never left. Merely a tiny instant has elapsed between eternity and timelessness. So brief the interval there was no lapse in continuity, nor break in thoughts which are forever unified as one. Nothing has ever happened to disturb the peace of God the Creator and the Child. This we accept as wholly true today.

“We thank You, Creator, that we cannot lose the memory of You and of Your Love. We recognize our safety, and give thanks for all the gifts You have bestowed on us, for all the loving help we have received, for Your eternal patience, and the Word which You have given us that we are saved.”

Lesson 235

“God in One’s mercy wills that I be saved.”

I need but look upon all things that seem to hurt me, and with perfect certainty assure myself,

“God wills that I be saved from this,”

and merely watch them disappear. I need but keep in mind my Creator’s Will for me is only happiness, to find that only happiness has come to me. And I need but remember that One’s Love surrounds One’s Child and keeps one’s sinlessness forever perfect, to be sure that I am saved and safe forever in One’s arms. I am the Child One loves. And I am saved because God in One’s mercy wills it so.

“Creator, Your holiness is mine. Your Love created me, and made my sinlessness forever part of You. I have no guilt or sin in me, for there is none in You.”

Lesson 236

“I rule my mind, which I alone must rule.”

I have a realm I must rule. At times, it does not seem I am its ruler at all. It seems to triumph over me, and tell me what to think, and what to do and feel. And yet it has been given me to serve whatever purpose I perceive in it. My mind can only serve. Today I give its service to the Holy Spirit, to employ as One sees fit. I thus direct my mind, which I alone can rule. And thus I set it free, to do the Will of God.

“Creator, my mind is open to Your Thoughts, and closed today to every thought but Yours. I rule my mind, and offer it to You. Accept my gift, for it is Yours to me.”

Lesson 237

“Now would I be as God created me.”

Today I will accept the truth about myself. I will arise in glory, and allow the light in me to shine upon the world throughout the day. I bring the world the tidings of salvation that I hear as God my Creator speaks to me. And I behold the world that Christ would have me see, aware it ends the bitter dream of death; aware it is my Creator’s call to me.

“Christ is my eyes today, and One’s the ears which listen to the Voice of God today. Creator, I come to You through One Who is Your Child and my true Self as well. Amen.”

Lesson 238

“On my decision all salvation rests.”

“Creator, Your trust in me has been so great I must be worthy. You created me, and know me as I am. And yet You placed Your Child’s salvation in my hands, and let it rest on my decision. I must be beloved of You indeed. And I must be steadfast in holiness as well, that You would give Your Child to me in certainty that One is safe Who still is part of You, and yet is mine because One is my Self.”

And so again today we pause to think how much our Creator loves us. And how dear One’s Child, created by One’s Love, remains to One Whose Love is made complete in one.

Lesson 239

“The glory of my Creator is my own.”

Let not the truth about ourselves today be hidden by a false humility. Let us instead be thankful for the gifts our Creator gave us. Can we see in those with whom One shares One’s glory any trace of sin and guilt? And can it be that we are not among them, when One loves One’s Child forever and with perfect constancy, knowing one is as One created one?

“We thank You, Creator, for the light that shines forever in us. And we honor it, because You share it with us. We are one, united in this light and one with You, at peace with all creation and ourselves.”

Lesson 240

“Fear is not justified in any form.”

Fear is deception. It attests that you have seen yourself as you could never be, and therefore look upon a world which is impossible. Not one thing in this world is true. It does not matter what the form in which it may appear. It witnesses but to your own illusions of yourself. Let us not be deceived today. We are the Child of God. There is no fear in us, for we are each a part of Love Itself.

“How foolish are our fears! Would You allow Your Child to suffer? Give us faith today to recognize Your Child and set one free. Let us forgive one in Your Name, that we may understand one’s holiness, and feel the love for one that is Your Own as well.”

Lessons 241-250

What is the World?

The world is false perception. It is born of error, and it has not left its source. It will remain no longer than the thought which gave it birth is cherished. When the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, where all the world must disappear and all its errors vanish. Now its source has gone, and its effects are gone as well.

The world was made as an attack on God. It symbolizes fear. And what is fear except love’s absence? Thus the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where One’s Creation could be apart from One. Here was perception born, for knowledge could not cause such insane thoughts. But eyes deceive, and ears hear falsely. Now mistakes become quite possible, for certainty has gone.

The mechanisms of illusion have been born instead. And now they go to find what has been given them to seek. Their aim is to fulfill the purpose which the world was made to witness and make real. They see in its illusions but a solid base where truth exists, upheld apart from lies. Yet everything that they report is but illusion which is kept apart from truth.

As sight was made to lead away from truth, it can be redirected. Sounds become the call of God. And all perception can be given a new purpose by the One Whom God appointed Savior to the world. Follow One’s light and see the world as One beholds it. Hear One’s Voice alone in all that speaks to you. And let One give you peace and certainty, which you have thrown away, but Heaven has preserved for you in One.

Let us not rest content until the world has joined our changed perception. Let us not be satisfied until forgiveness has been made complete. And let us not attempt to change our function. We must save the world. For we who made it must behold it through the eyes of Christ, that what was made to die can be restored to Everlasting Life.

Lesson 241

“This holy instant is salvation come.”

What joy there is today! It is a time of special celebration. For today holds out the instant to the darkened world where its release is set. The day has come when sorrows pass away, and pain is gone. The glory of salvation dawns today upon a world set free. This is the time of hope for countless millions. They will be united now, as you forgive them all. For I will be forgiven by you today.

“We have forgiven one another now, and so we come at last to You again. Creator, Your Creation, who never left, returns to Heaven and one’s home. How glad are we to have our sanity restored to us, and to remember that we all are one.”

Lesson 242

“This day is God’s. It is my gift to One.”

I will not lead my life alone today. I do not understand the world. And so to try to lead my life alone must be but foolishness. For there is One Who knows all that is best for me. And One is glad to make no choices for me but the ones that lead to God. This day I give to One, for I would not delay my coming home, and it is One Who knows the way to One.

“And so we give today to You. We come with wholly open minds. We do not ask for anything that we may think we want. Give us what You would have received by us. You know all our desires and our needs. And You will give us everything we want and that will help us find the way to You.”

Lesson 243

“Today I will judge nothing that occurs.”

I will be honest with myself today. I will not think that I already know what must remain beyond my present grasp. I will not think I understand the whole from bits of my perception, which are all that I can see. Today I recognize that this is so. And so I am relieved of judgement which I cannot make. Thus do I free myself and what I look upon, to be in peace as God created us.

“Creator, today I leave creation free to be itself. I honor all the parts, in which I am included. We are one because each part contains Your memory, and truth must shine in all of us as one.”

Lesson 244

“I am in danger nowhere in the world.”

“Your Creation is safe wherever one may be, for You are there with one. One need but call upon Your Name, and one will recollect one’s safety and Your Love, for they are one. How can one fear or doubt or fail to know one cannot suffer, be endangered, or experience unhappiness, when one belongs to You, beloved and loving, in the safety of Your Heavenly embrace?”

And there we are in truth. No storms can come into the hallowed haven of our home. In God we are secure. For what can come to threaten God Oneself, or make afraid what will forever be a part of One?

Lesson 245

“Your peace is with me, Creator. I am safe.”

“Your peace surrounds me, Creator. Where I go, Your peace goes there with me. It sheds its light on everyone I meet. I bring it to the desolate and lonely and afraid. I give Your peace to those who suffer pain, or grieve for loss, or think they are bereft of hope and happiness. Send them to me, my Creator. Let me bring Your peace with me. For I would save Your Child, as is Your Will, that I may come to recognize my Self.”

And so we go in peace. To all the world we give the message that we have received. And thus we come to hear the Voice of God, Who speaks to us as we relate One’s Word; Whose Love we recognize because we share the Word that One has given unto us.

Lesson 246

“To love my Creator is to love One’s Child.”

Let me not think that I can find the way to God if I have hatred in my heart. Let me not try to hurt God’s Child, and think that I can know one’s Creator or my Self. Let me not fail to recognize myself, and still believe that my awareness can contain my Creator; or my mind conceive of all the love my Creator has for me, and all the love which I return to One.

“I will accept the way You choose for me to come to You, my Creator. For in that will I succeed, because it is Your Will. And I would recognize that what You will is what I will as well, and only that. And so I choose to love Your Child. Amen.”

Lesson 247

“Without forgiveness I will still be blind.”

Sin is the symbol of attack. Behold it anywhere, and I will suffer. For forgiveness is the only means whereby Christ’s vision comes to me. Let me accept what One’s sight shows me as the simple truth, and I am healed completely. Sibling, come and let me look on you. Your loveliness reflects my own. Your sinlessness is mine. You stand forgiven, and I stand with you.

“So would I look on everyone today. My siblings are Your Children. Your Creatorship created them, and gave them all to me as part of You and my own Self as well. Today I honor You through them, and thus I hope this day to recognize my Self.”

Lesson 248

“Whatever suffers is not part of me.”

I have disowned the truth. Now let me be as faithful in disowning falsity. Whatever suffers is not part of me. What grieves is not myself. What is in pain is but illusion in my mind. What dies was never living in reality, and did but mock the truth about myself. Now I disown self-concepts and deceits and lies about the holy Child of God. Now am I ready to accept one back as God created one, and as one is.

“Creator, my ancient love for You returns, and lets me love Your Child again as well. Creator, I am as You created me. Now is Your Love remembered, and my own. Now do I understand that they are one.”

Lesson 249

“Forgiveness ends all suffering and loss.”

Forgiveness paints a picture of a world where suffering is over, loss becomes impossible and anger makes no sense. Attack is gone, and madness has an end. What suffering is now conceivable? What loss can be sustained? The world becomes a place of joy, abundance, charity and endless giving. It is now so like to Heaven that it quickly is transformed into the Light that it reflects. And so the journey which the Child of God began has ended in the Light from Which one came.

“Creator, we would return our minds to You. We have betrayed them; held them in a vise of bitterness, and frightened them with thoughts of violence and death. Now would we rest again in You, as You created us.”

Lesson 250

“Let me not see myself as limited.”

Let me behold the Child of God today, and witness to one’s glory. Let me not try to obscure the holy light in one, and see one’s strength diminished and reduced to frailty; nor perceive the lacks in one with which I would attack one’s sovereignty.

“One is Your Child, my Creator. And today I would behold one’s gentleness instead of my illusions. One is what I am, and as I see one so I see myself. Today I would see truly, that this day I may at last identify with one.”

Lessons 251-260

What Is Sin?

Sin is insanity. It is the means by which the mind is driven mad, and seeks to let illusions take the place of truth. And being mad, it sees illusions where truth should be, and where it really is. Sin gave the body eyes, for what is there the sinless would behold? What need have they of sights or sounds or touch? What would they hear or reach to grasp? What would they sense at all? To sense is not to know. And truth can be but filled with knowledge, and with nothing else.

The body is the instrument the mind made in its striving to deceive itself. Its purpose is to strive. Yet can the goal of striving change. And now the body serves a different aim for striving. What it seeks for now is chosen by the aim the mind has taken as replacement for the goal of self-deception. Truth can be its aim as well as lies. The senses then will seek instead for witnesses to what is true.

Sin is the home of all illusions, which but stand for things imagined, issuing from thoughts which are untrue. They are the “proof” that what has no reality is real. Sin “proves” God’s Child is evil; timelessness must have an end; Eternal life must die. And God Oneself has lost the Child One loves, with but corruption to complete Oneself, One’s Will forever overcome by death, love slain by hate, and peace to be no more.

A lunatic’s dreams are frightening, and sin appears indeed to terrify. And yet what sin perceives is but a childish game. The Child of God may play one has become a body, prey to evil and to guilt, with but a little life that ends in death. But all the while one’s Creator shines on one, and loves one with an everlasting Love which one’s pretenses cannot change at all.

How long, oh Child of God, will you maintain the game of sin? Shall we not put away these sharp-edged children’s toys? How soon will you be ready to come home? Perhaps today? There is no sin. Creation is unchanged. Would you still hold return to Heaven back? How long, oh holy Child of God, how long?

Lesson 251

“I am in need of nothing but the truth.”

I sought for many things, and found despair. Now do I seek but one, for in that one is all I need, and only what I need. All that I sought before I needed not, and did not even want. My only need I did not recognize. But now I see that I need only truth. In that, all needs are satisfied, all cravings end, all hopes are finally fulfilled and dreams are gone. Now have I everything that I could need. Now have I everything that I could want. And now at last I find myself at peace.

“And for that peace, our Creator, we give thanks. What we denied ourselves You have restored, and only that is what we really want.”

Lesson 252

“The Child of God is my identity.”

My Self is holy beyond all the thoughts of holiness of which I now conceive. Its shimmering and perfect purity is far more brilliant than is any light that I have ever looked upon. Its love is limitless, with an intensity that holds all things within it in the calm of quiet certainty. Its strength comes not from burning impulses which move the world, but from the boundless Love of God Oneself. How far beyond this world my Self must be, and yet how near to me and close to God!

“Creator, You know my true identity. Reveal it now to me who am Your Child, that I may waken to the truth in You, and know that Heaven is restored to me.”

Lesson 253