God's MEANING waits in the Kingdom because that is where He placed it. It does NOT wait in time. It merely RESTS there (in the Kingdom) 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. But you ARE always teaching. You MUST, then, 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. But 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 but that is because the ego perceives itself as at war and therefore in need of allies. YOU, who are NOT at war, must look for brothers and RECOGNIZE all you see AS brothers, because ONLY EQUALS ARE AT PEACE.
Because God's equal Sons have everything, they CANNOT compete. But if they perceive ANY of their brothers 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 Kingdom 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 Kingdom are not concerned with seeming. Reality is yours because you ARE reality. This is how having and being are ultimately reconciled, NOT in the Kingdom, but IN YOUR MINDS. The altar there is the ONLY reality. It is PERFECTLY clear in its thought, because it is a reflection of PERFECT Thought. It SEES only brothers because it sees ONLY in its own Light.
God has lit your minds Himself, and keeps your mind lit BY His light because His 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. Its 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.
Healing is both an art and a science, as has so often been said. 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 joyful. 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. But you DO 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 His laws. Both therefore come from the same Source, because inspiration comes from the voice FOR God and certainty comes from the laws OF God. Healing does not come DIRECTLY from God, who knows His Creations as perfectly whole. But healing is nevertheless OF God, because it proceeds from His Voice and from His laws. It is their RESULT in a state of mind which does not know Him. The STATE is unknown to Him, 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 He is IN you. This is an intermediary step toward the knowledge that YOU are in God BECAUSE YOU ARE PART OF HIM. The miracles which the Holy Spirit inspires CAN have no order, 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 conceived. 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. He can use them ONLY for healing, because He knows you ONLY as whole. BY healing you learn of wholeness, and by learning of wholeness you learn to remember God. You HAVE forgotten Him, 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. This is the way in which the ego tries to use ALL abilities, because 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, because it is the ONLY way of perceiving the Sonship 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 His. But the strength of right perception is so great that it brings the mind INTO accord with His, because it yields to His 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 this ability 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. But the LAWS are not meaningless, because all meaning is contained BY them, and IN them.
Seek ye FIRST the Kingdom of Heaven, because that is where the laws of God operate truly, and they can operate ONLY truly, because 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 Him because He IS all Being. YOU are therefore in Him because YOUR being IS His. Healing is a way of FORGETTING the sense of danger that the ego has induced in YOU by not recognizing its existence in your brothers. 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 Sonship, because it is what the Sonship IS. By their awakening TO it, they merely forget what they are NOT. This enables them to remember what they ARE.
But the essential thing is learning that YOU DO NOT KNOW. Knowledge is power, and all power is of God. You who have tried to keep power for yourselves, have lost it. You still HAVE the power, but you have interposed so much between it and your AWARENESS of it, that you cannot use it. EVERYTHING you have taught yourselves has made your power more and more obscure to you. You know not WHAT it is, nor WHERE. You have made a SEMBLANCE of power, and a SHOW of strength, so pitiful that it MUST fail you. For power is not seeming strength, and truth is beyond a semblance of any kind.
Yet all that stands between you, and the power of God in you, is but your learning of the false, and your attempts to UNDO THE TRUE. Be willing, then, for ALL of it to be undone, and be glad that you are not bound to it forever. For you have taught yourselves HOW TO IMPRISON THE SON OF GOD, a lesson so unthinkable that only the insane, in deepest sleep, could even DREAM of it. Can God learn how NOT to be God? And can His Son, GIVEN all power BY Him, learn to be powerLESS? What have you taught yourselves that you can possibly prefer to keep, in place of what you HAVE, and what you ARE?
Atonement teaches you how to escape forever from everything that you have taught yourselves in the past, by showing you ONLY what you ARE NOW. Learning HAS BEEN accomplished, BEFORE its effects are manifest. Learning is therefore IN THE PAST, but its influence DETERMINES the present, by giving it whatever meaning it holds for you. Your learning gives the present NO MEANING AT ALL. Nothing you have ever learned can help you understand the present, or teach you how to undo the past. Your past IS what you have taught yourselves.
LET IT ALL GO. Do NOT attempt to understand ANY event, or ANYTHING, or ANYONE in its light, for the light of darkness, by which you TRY to see, can ONLY obscure. Put no confidence at all in darkness to illuminate your understanding, for if you do, you CONTRADICT the light, and thereby THINK you see the darkness. Yet darkness cannot BE seen, for it is nothing more than a condition in which seeing becomes impossible. You who have not yet brought ALL of the darkness you have taught yourselves unto the light in you, can hardly judge the truth and value of this course. Yet God did not abandon you. And so you have another lesson, sent from Him, ALREADY learned for every Child of Light, by Him to Whom God gave it.
This lesson shines with God's glory, for in it lies His power, which He shares so gladly with His Son. Learn of His happiness, which is yours. But to accomplish this, all your dark lessons MUST be brought willingly to truth, and joyously laid down, by hands open to receive, not closed to take. Every dark lesson that you bring to Him Who teaches light, He will accept FROM you, BECAUSE YOU DO NOT WANT IT. And He will gladly EXCHANGE each one for the bright lesson He has learned FOR you. Never believe that ANY lesson you have learned, APART from Him, means ANYTHING.
You have one test, as sure as God, by which to recognize if what you learned is true. If you are WHOLLY free of fear of any kind, and if all those who meet, or even THINK of you, SHARE in your perfect peace, then you can be sure that you have learned GOD's lesson, and NOT yours. Unless all this is true, there ARE dark lessons in your minds, which hurt and hinder you, AND EVERYONE AROUND YOU. The ABSENCE of PERFECT peace means but ONE thing; you THINK you do not will for God's Son what His Father wills for him. Every dark lesson teaches this, on one form or another. And each bright lesson, with which the Holy Spirit will REPLACE the dark ones you do NOT accept and hide, teaches you that you will WITH the Father unto His Son.
Do not be concerned how you can learn a lesson so COMPLETELY different from everything you have taught yourselves. How would you know? Your part is very simple. You need only recognize that everything YOU learned you DO NOT WANT. Ask to BE taught, and do NOT use your experiences to confirm what YOU have learned. When your peace is threatened, or disturbed in ANY way, say to yourself, "I do not know what anything, INCLUDING THIS, means. And so I do NOT know HOW TO RESPOND TO IT. And I will not use my own past learning as the light to guide me now." By this refusal to attempt to teach yourself what you do not know, the Guide Whom God has given you, will speak to you. HE will take His rightful place in your awareness, the instant YOU abandon it, and offer it to Him.
YOU cannot be your guide to miracles, for it is you who made them necessary. And, because you did, the means on which you can DEPEND for miracles, has been provided FOR you. God's Son can make no needs His Father will not meet, if he but turn to Him ever so little. Yet He cannot COMPEL His Son to turn to Him, and remain Himself. It is impossible that God lose His identity, for if He did, YOU WOULD LOSE YOURS. And BEING yours, He cannot change Himself, for your identity IS changeless. The miracle ACKNOWLEDGES His changelessness, by seeing His Son as he always was, and NOT as he would make himself. The miracle brings the effect which ONLY guiltlessness CAN bring, and thus establishes the fact that guiltlessness MUST BE.
How can you, so firmly bound to guilt and committed so to remain, establish FOR YOURSELF your guiltlessness? This is impossible. But be sure that you are willing to acknowledge that it IS impossible. It is only because you think that you can run some little part, or deal with certain aspects of your lives alone, that the guidance of the Holy Spirit is limited. Thus would you make HIM undependable, and USE this fancied undependability as an excuse for keeping certain dark lessons FROM Him. And, by so limiting the guidance that you would ACCEPT, YOU are unable to DEPEND on miracles, to answer ALL your problems FOR you.
Do you think that what the Holy Spirit would have you GIVE, He would withhold from YOU? You have NO problems which He cannot solve, by offering YOU a miracle. Miracles are for YOU. And EVERY fear or pain or trial you have HAS BEEN undone. HE has brought ALL of them to light, having ACCEPTED them INSTEAD of you, and recognized that they never were. There ARE no dark lessons He has not ALREADY lightened FOR you. The lessons you would teach yourselves, He has corrected already. They do not exist in His Mind at all. For the past binds HIM not, and therefore binds not you.
He does not see time as you do. And each miracle He offers you, CORRECTS your use of time, and makes it His. He Who has freed you from the past, would teach you, you ARE free of it. He would but have you accept His accomplishments AS YOURS, because He did them FOR you. And because He did, they ARE yours. He has MADE you free of what you made. You can deny Him, but you CANNOT call upon Him in vain. He ALWAYS gives what HE has made, IN PLACE of you. He would establish His bright teaching so firmly in your mind, that no dark lessons of guilt can abide in what He has established as holy by His Presence.
Thank God that He is there, and works through you. And all His works are yours. He offers YOU a miracle, with every one you LET Him do through you. God's Son will ALWAYS be indivisible. As we are held as one in God, so do we learn as one in Him. God's Teacher is as like to His Creator as is His Son, and through His Teacher does God proclaim His Oneness AND His Son's. Listen in silence, and do NOT raise your voice against Him. For He teaches the miracle of Oneness, and before HIS lesson, division disappears. Teach LIKE Him here, and you WILL remember that you have ALWAYS created like your Father. The miracle of creation has never ceased, having the holy stamp of immortality upon it. This is the Will of God for all creation, and all creation joins in willing this.
Those who remember always that THEY know nothing, but who have become willing to learn EVERYTHING, will learn it. But whenever they trust THEMSELVES, they will NOT learn. They have destroyed their motivation for learning, BY THINKING THEY ALREADY KNOW. Think not you understand ANYTHING, until you pass the test of perfect peace, for peace and understanding GO TOGETHER, and never can be found alone. Each brings the other WITH it, for it is the law of God that they be not separate. They are cause and effect, each to the other, so, where one is absent, the other CANNOT be.
Only those who see they CANNOT know, UNLESS the effects of understanding are with them, can really learn at all. And for this, IT MUST BE PEACE THEY WANT, and nothing else. Whenever you think YOU know, peace will depart from you, because you have abandoned the Teacher of Peace. Whenever you fully realize that YOU KNOW NOT, peace will return, for you will have invited Him to do so, by abandoning the ego on behalf of Him. Call not upon the ego for ANYTHING. It is only that, that you need do. The Holy Spirit will, OF HIMSELF, fill every mind that so makes room for Him. If you want peace, you MUST abandon the teacher of attack.
The Teacher of Peace can NEVER abandon YOU. YOU can desert HIM, but He will never reciprocate. For His faith in you IS His understanding. It is as firm as is His faith in His Creator, and He knows that faith in His Creator MUST encompass faith in creation. In this consistency, lies His holiness, which He CANNOT abandon, for it is not His Will to do so. With your perfection ever in His sight, He gives the gift of peace to everyone who perceives the NEED for peace, and who would have it. Make way for peace, and it will come. For understanding IS in you, and from it, peace MUST come.
The power of God, from which they both arise, is yours as surely as it is His. You think you know Him not, only because, alone, it is impossible to know Him. But see the mighty works that He will do through you, and you MUST be convinced you did them through Him. It is impossible to deny the Source of effects so powerful, they COULD not be of you. Leave room for Him, and you will find yourself so filled with power, that NOTHING will prevail against your peace. And this will be the test by which you recognize that you HAVE understood.
The world as YOU perceive it cannot have been created by the Father, 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 YOU WERE NOT PERCEIVING AT ALL. What, then, is the world that awaits your perception WHEN YOU SEE IT? Every loving thought that the Son of God ever had is eternal. Those which his mind perceived in this world are the world's only reality. They are still perceptions, because he still believes that he is separate, yet they are eternal, because they are loving. And BEING loving, they are like the Father, 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 this 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 Father, BELIEVING what you made to be capable of BEING unlike Him. Yet everything in what you have made that IS true, IS like Him. 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 His 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. But 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 judgment is true. And then everything you made will be forgotten, the good and the 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. But the Holy Spirit has saved its meaning FOR you, and if you will LET Him interpret it FOR you, He 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 Him. 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. But your willingness to learn of Him depends on your willingness to question EVERYTHING you have learned OF YOURSELF, for you who have learned amiss should not be your own teachers. No-one can withhold truth, except from himself. Yet God will not refuse the answer He 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. His answer is both many and one, as long as you believe that the One IS many. Realize that YOU ARE AFRAID OF HIS 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; He 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 His 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 Father. You believe in a world that takes because you believe that you can get by taking. But 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 His Son, whom He created free and whose freedom is protected by HIS Being.
Blessed are you who will ask the truth of God without fear, for only thus can you learn that His 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 Kingdom of Heaven IS within you. Believe that the truth is in me, for I KNOW that it is in YOU. God's Sons have nothing which they do not share. Ask for truth of any Son of God, and you have asked it of me. No one of us but has the answer in him, to give to anyone who asks it OF him. Ask anything of God's Son, and His Father will answer you, for Christ is not deceived in His Father and His Father is not deceived in Him.
Do not, then, be deceived in your brother, and see only his loving thoughts as his reality, for by denying that his mind is split, YOU WILL HEAL YOURS. Accept him as his Father accepts him, and heal him unto Christ, for Christ is his healing AND YOURS. Christ is the Son of God Who is in no way separate from His Father, Whose EVERY thought is as loving as the Thought of His Father, by which He was created. Be not deceived in God's Son, for thereby you MUST be deceived in yourself. And being deceived in yourself you ARE deceived in your Father, 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 brother BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT YOU WILL PERCEIVE IN HIM, and you will see YOUR beauty reflected in HIM.
Do not accept your brother's variable perception of himself, for his split mind is yours, and you will not accept YOUR healing without his. For you share the real world as you share Heaven, and his healing IS yours. To love yourself is to HEAL yourself, and you cannot perceive part of you as sick and achieve your OWN goal. Brother, we heal together as we live together, and love together. Be not deceived in God's Son, for he is one with himself, and One with his Father. Love him who is beloved of His Father, and you will learn of the Father's Love for YOU.
If you perceive offense in a brother, pluck the offense from your mind, for you are offended by Christ, and are deceived in Him. HEAL in Christ and be not offended by Him, for there is no offense IN Him. If what you perceive offends you, you are offended in YOURSELF, and are condemning God's Son, whom God condemneth not. Let the Holy Spirit remove ALL offense of God's Son against himself and perceive no-one but through HIS guidance, for He would save you from ALL condemnation. Accept His healing power, and use it for all He sends you, for He wills to heal the Son of God in whom He is not deceived.
Children perceive terrifying ghosts and monsters and dragons, and they are terrified. But 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 his "ghost" into a curtain, his "monster" into a shadow and his "dragon" into a dream, he is no longer afraid, and laughs happily at his own fear. You, my children, are afraid of your brothers, and of your Father and of YOURSELVES. But you are merely DECEIVED in them.
Ask what they ARE of the Teacher of Reality, and hearing His 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 it. It is only their LACK OF UNDERSTANDING that 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 brothers, or your Father, 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 He 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. But 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 Father will lean down to you, and take the last step for you, by raising you unto Himself.
Miracles are a blessing from parents to children. This is just another way of phrasing the previous point about "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, or the Sonship, is impaired in its relationships.
Ultimately, every member of the family of God must return. The miracle calls to him to return, because it blesses and honors him even though he may be absent in spirit.
The miracle acknowledges all men as your brothers and Mine. It is a way of perceiving the Universal Mark of God in them.
(Tell Bill that this is the true "strawberry mark" of Brotherhood. This is just a sign of special concern for him, because he keeps worrying about this.)
You might add that his false idea about his own exclusion from Universal Love is fallacious in your terms, and arrogant in his. HIS real specialness does NOT stem from exclusion, but from inclusion. ALL My Brothers are special. He should stop interpreting this as "all except Bill " This is ridiculous!
Tell him that the implied lack of love that his version contains is WAY off the Mark, and misses the level of right thinking entirely. He MUST heal his perception in this respect. He MUST work a miracle on behalf of himself here (See the point about miracles as a perception corrector) before he can effect miracles as creative energizers, which they are.
(Tell B. that 50,000,000 Frenchmen CAN be wrong, because the notion is too fragmented. What CAN'T be wrong is the Universal Sonship of which he is a part.)
God WOULD be mocked if ANY of his creations lacked holiness. The Creation IS whole. The mark of Wholeness is Holiness, not holes. THE SONSHIP HAS NO HOLES ANYWHERE.
Wholeness is the perceptual content of the miracle. It thus corrects (or atones for) the faulty perception of lack.
We now turn to the fundamental distinction between miracles and projection. The stimulus MUST precede the response, and must also (determine) (influence) the kind of response that is evoked. The relationships of S and R are EXTREMELY intimate. (The behavioristic terminology is because this part deals with behavior.)
Behavior IS response, so that the question "response to what?" becomes crucial.
Stimuli of all kinds are identified through perception. You perceive the stimulus and behave accordingly. It follows, then, that:
As ye perceive
So will ye behave
(Helen Schucman raises point that Biblical language is hardly behavioristic terminology. Answer: No, but they needn't be OUT of accord with each other, either.)
Consider the Golden Rule again. You are asked to behave toward others as you would have them behave toward you. This means that the perception of both must be accurate, since the Golden Rule is the Order for appropriate behavior. You can't 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 hence 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 will you 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.
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 expression 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 RE-INTERPRETING it. The law itself, if properly understood, offers only protection to man. 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 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 SCT item is: WHEN THEY TOLD ME WHAT TO DO, I "referred the question to the only REAL authority."
(Helen Schucman note: If you ask somebody what he believes before you tell him what you believe, then you are implying that you will say what he approves. This is not "the 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 he himself permits it.
Those who witness for me are expressing, through their miracles, that they have abandoned deprivation in favor of the abundance they have learned BELONGS to them.
A MAJOR contribution of miracles is their strength in releasing man from his misplaced sense of isolation, deprivation, and lack. They are affirmations of Sonship, which is a state of completion and abundance.
B's very proper emphasis on "changing your mind" needs clarification.
Whatever is true and real is eternal, and CANNOT change or be changed. The Soul 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, for the same position, the machine cancels the ballot automatically.
This is necessary, because a split vote does not represent ANY REAL allegiance.
Free will is the attribute of the mind, NOT the Soul. The Soul always remains changeless, because it never leaves the sight of God.
The Creation of the Soul is already fully accomplished. The mind, if it votes to do so, becomes a medium by which the Soul can create along the line of its own creation. If it does not freely elect to do so, it retains this creative ability, but places itself under tyrannous rather than authoritative control. As a result, what it creates is imprisonment, 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 elected to be guided by Christ in HIS service. The abundance of Christ is the natural result of choosing to follow him.
P.S. The reason you have been late recently (for work) because you were taking dictation is merely because you didn't remember to ask me when to stop. This is an example of the "indiscriminate or uncontrolled" miracle-working we already spoke of. It is well-meant but ill-advised.
I prompted that call from Jack (taxi man - couldn't pick Helen Schucman up, etc.) to show you that this is not necessary. Also, the other man needed the money more today.
NOTE that you managed to fill your scribal role with no interruptions, and were also on time.
NOTE also that you closed the book and put it aside WITHOUT consulting me. ASK "Is that all?" ANSWER: No: add the following: These notes are serving, among other things, to replace the "handwriting on the wall" which you once saw next to your own altar, which read "You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting."
Scribes MUST learn Christ-control, to replace their former habits, which DID produce scarcity rather than abundance. From errors of this kind, the sense of deprivation IS inevitable, but very easily corrected.
The following is in relation to question about sex. Tell Bill "the one more river" is related to sex. You might even explain it to him as a "tidal wave", a term which he will understand. YOU won't.
Both of you are involved with unconscious distortions (above the miracle level), which are producing a dense cover over miracle-impulses which makes 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 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 (a word you both should understand well enough by now not to regard it as frightening).
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 to hold misperceptions rigidly in place. This is why rigidity is regarded AS stability by those who are off the mark.
NOTE The only final solution - (no, Helen, this has nothing to do with the Nazi use of the term.) You just got frightened again. One of the more horrible examples of inverted or upside down thinking (and history is full of horrible examples of this) is the fact that the Nazis spelled their appalling error with capital letters. I shed many tears over this, but it is by no means the only time I said "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
All actions which stem from reverse thinking are literally the behavioral expressions of those who know not what they do. Actually, Jean Dixon was right in her emphasis on "Feet on the ground and fingertips in the Heaven," though she was a bit too literal for your kind of understanding. Many people knew exactly what she meant, so her statement was the right miracle for them.
For you and Bill, it would be better to consider the concept in terms of reliability and validity. 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, because consistency always held up better mathematically than test-re-test comparisons, which were ALWAYS on shaky ground. You can check this against Jack's notes if you wish, but I assure you its true. Split-half reliability is statistically a MUCH stronger approach. The reason for this is that correlation which is the technique applied to test-re-test comparisons, measures only the EXTENT OF association, and does not consider the Direction at all.
But two halves of the same thing MUST go in the same direction, if there is to be accuracy of measurement. This simple statement is really the principle on which split half reliability, a means of estimating INTERNAL consistency, rests.
Note, however, that both approaches leave out a very important dimension. Internal consistency criteria disregard time, because the focus is on one-time measurements. Test-retest comparisons are BASED on time intervals, but they disregard direction.
It is possible, of course, to use both, by establishing internal consistency AND stability over time. You will remember that Jack once told his class that the more sophisticated statisticians are concentrating more and more on reliability, rather than validity. The rationale for this, as he said, was that a reliable instrument DOES measure something. He also said, however, that validity is still the ultimate goal, which reliability can only serve.
I submit (I'm using Jack's language in this section, because it always had a special meaning for you. So did Jack.) Your confusion of sex and statistics is an interesting example of this whole issue. Note that night you spent in the scent of roses doing a complex factorial analysis of covariance. It's a funny story to others, because they see a different kind of level confusion than the one you yourself were making. You might recall that YOU wanted that design, and Jack opposed it. One of the real reasons why that evening was so exhilarating was because it represented a "battle of intellects", (both good ones, by the way), each communicating exceptionally clearly but on opposite sides. The sexual aspects were naturally touched off in both of you, because of the sex and aggression confusion.
(It is especially interesting that after the battle ended on a note of compromise with your agreeing with Jack, he wrote in the margin of your notes "virtue is triumphant." (Helen Schucman note re submission-dominance, feminine-masculine roles, entered into this.) While this (remark) was funny to both of you at the time, you might consider its truer side. The virtue lay in the complete respect each of you offered to the other's intellect. Your mutual sexual attraction was also shared. The error lay in the word "triumphant." This had the "battle" connotation, because neither of you was respecting ALL of the other. There is a great deal more to a person than intellect and genitals. The omission was the Soul.)
I submit (after a long interruption) that if a mind (Soul) is in valid relationship with God, it CAN'T be upside down. Jack and the other very eminent methodologists have abandoned validity in favor of reliability because they have lost sight of the end and are concentrating on the means.
Remember the story about the 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 sort of expressions of the lack of love are often VERY clearly seen in the accompanying fantasies. 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 test DOES measure something, what USE is the test unless you discover what the "something" is? And if validity is more important than reliability, and is also necessarily implied BY it, why not concentrate on VALIDITY and let reliability fall naturally into place.
Intellect may be a "displacement upward", but sex can be a "displacement outward." How can man "come close" to others through the parts of him which are really invisible? The word "invisible" means "cannot be seen or perceived."What cannot be perceived is hardly the right means for improving perception.
The confusion of miracle impulse with sexual impulse is a major source of perceptual distortion, because it INDUCES rather than straightening out the basic level-confusion which underlies all those who seek happiness with the instruments of the 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 (Bring up that dream about the Bluebird. While Helen Schucman was looking for this dream, she came across another. The message was to bring both, as an excellent example of how extremely good Helen Schucman had become over the intervening 25 years at sharpening pencils. Note that the essential content hasn't changed; it's just better written.) The thing to do with a desert is to LEAVE.
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 himself. The impersonal nature of miracles is because Atonement itself is one, uniting all creations with their Creator.
The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ and acceptance of his 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, he becomes your brother.
The miracles you are told NOT 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 His complete Awareness of the Whole Plan. The impersonal nature of miracle-mindedness ensures YOUR own Grace, but only Christ is in a position to know where Grace can be BESTOWED.
A miracle is never lost. It touches many people you may not even know, and sometimes produces undreamed of changes in forces of which you are not even aware. This is not your concern. It will also always bless YOU. This is not your concern, either. But it IS the concern of the Record. The Record is completely unconcerned with reliability, being perfectly valid because of the way it was set up. It ALWAYS measures what it was supposed to measure.
I want to finish the instructions about sex, because this is an area the miracle worker MUST understand.
Inappropriate sex drives (or misdirected miracle-impulses) result in guilt if expressed, and depression if denied. We said before that 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 Souls to embark on new chapters in their experience, and thus improve their record. The pencil was NOT an end in itself. (See earlier section.) It was an aid to the artist in his own creative endeavors. As he made new homes for Souls and guided them through the period of their own developmental readiness, he learned the role of the father himself. 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 men shared. AWARENESS of the error produces the 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 our brothers 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.
To repeat an earlier instruction, the concept of either the self or another as a "sex-OBJECT" epitomizes this strange reversal. As Bill put it, and very correctly, too, it IS objectionable, but 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. You were right in telling Bill to invite Me to enter anywhere temptation arises. I will change the situation from one of inappropriate sexual attraction to one of impersonal miracle-working. The concept of changing the channel for libidinal expression is Freud's greatest contribution, except that he did not understand what "channel" really means.
The love of God, for a little while, must still be expressed through one body to another. That is because the real vision is still so dim. Everyone can use his body best by enlarging man's perception, so he 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.
NOTE Scribes have a particular role in the Plan of Atonement, because they have the ability to EXPERIENCE revelations themselves, and also to put into words enough of the experience to serve as a basis for miracles.
(This refers to experiences at the visionary level, after which Helen Schucman wrote "If you will tell me what to do, I will to do it." She had not known that the word "to" was inserted, and had merely intended to write "I will do it." This recognition had a terrific impact on Helen Schucman.)
This is why you EXPERIENCED that revelation about "I will to do" VERY personally, but also WROTE IT: What you wrote CAN be useful to miracle workers other than yourself. We said before that prayer is the medium of miracles. The miracle prayer IS what you wrote, i.e. "If you will tell me what to do, I will to do it." *
This prayer is the door that leads out of the desert forever.
*(Correction next day. This is not a complete statement, because it does not exclude the negative. We have already told you to add "and NOT to do what you would not have me do." in connection with miracles. The distinction has also been made here between "miracle-mindedness" as a STATE, and "miracle-doing" as its expression.
The former needs YOUR careful protection, because it is a state of miracle-READINESS. This is what the Bible means in the many references to "Hold yourself ready" and other similar injunctions.
Readiness here means keep your perception right side up, (or valid), so 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. But the other two, which are the voluntary aspects of miracle-mindedness, ARE up to you.
To channelize DOES have a "narrowing down" connotation, though NOT in the sense of lack. The underlying state of mind, or Grace is a total commitment. Only the DOING aspect involves the channel at all. This is because doing is always specific.
As Jack said, "A reliable instrument must measure something," but a channel is also valid. It must learn to do ONLY what it is supposed to do. Change the prayer to read:
If you will tell me what to do,
ONLY THAT I will to do.
NOTE Helen Schucman objects to doggerel sound of this, and regards it as very inferior poetry. ANSWER: It's hard to forget, though.
The Revelation is literally unspeakable, because it is an experience of unspeakable love. The word "Awe" should be reserved only for revelations, to which it is perfectly and correctly applicable. It is NOT appropriately applied to miracles, because a state of true awe is worshipful. It implies that one of a lesser order stands before the Greater One. This is the case only when a Soul stands before his Creator. Souls are perfect creations, and should be struck with 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 each other, because awe ALWAYS implies inequality. Awe is not properly experienced even to me. That is why in that short introductory vision, I knelt beside you, FACING the light.
An Elder Brother is entitled to respect for his greater experience, and a reasonable amount of obedience for his greater wisdom. He is also entitled to love, because he is a brother, and also to devotion, if he is devoted. It is only my own devotion that entitles me to yours. But you will notice that I have knelt at your altar as readily as I would ever have you kneel at mine.
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 man cometh to the Father 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. Now, we know that time does not exist. Actually, the statement is much more meaningful if it is considered on a vertical rather than a horizontal axis. Regarded along the vertical, man 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 man is too great for man to encompass. I bridge the distance as an Elder Brother to man, on the one hand, and a Son of God on the other. My devotion to my brothers has placed me in charge of the Sonship, which I can render complete only to the extent I can SHARE it.
This appears to contradict another statement: "I and my Father are one." It doesn't. There are still separate parts in the statement, in recognition of the fact that the Father is GREATER. Actually, the original statement was "are of one KIND."
The Holy Spirit is the Bringer of Revelations, not miracles. Revelations are INDIRECTLY inspired by me, because I am close to the Holy Spirit, and alert to revelation-readiness in my brothers. I can thus BRING DOWN to them more than they can DRAW down to themselves. Jean Dixon's description is perhaps a better statement of my position. Because my feet are on the ground and my hands are in heaven, I can bring down the glories of Heaven to my brothers on earth.
The Holy Spirit is the Highest Communication Medium. Miracles do not involve this type of communication, because they are TEMPORARY communicative devices. When man can return to his original form of communication with God by direct REVELATION, the need for miracles is over. The Holy Spirit mediates higher to lower order communication, keeping the direct channel from God to man open for revelation. Revelation is NOT reciprocal. It is always FROM God TO man. This is because God and man are NOT equal. The miracle is reciprocal because it ALWAYS involves equality.
In the longitudinal (or horizontal) plane, the true equality of all men in the Sonship appears to involve almost endless time. But we know that time is only an artifact introduced as a learning aid.