Judgment was made to be a weapon used against the truth. It separates what it is being used against, and sets it off as if it were a thing apart. And then it makes of it what you would have it be. It judges what it cannot understand, because it cannot see totality and therefore judges falsely. Let us not use it today, but make a gift of it to Him Who has a different use for it. He will relieve you of the agony of all the judgments you have made against yourself, and re-establish peace of mind by giving you God's Judgment of His Son.

"Father, we wait with open mind today, to hear Your Judgment of the Son You love. We do not know him, and we cannot judge. And so we let Your Love decide what he whom You created as Your Son must be."

"Father, You stand before me and behind, beside me, in the place I see myself, and everywhere I go. You are in all the things I look upon, the sounds I hear, and every hand that reaches for my own. In You time disappears, and place becomes a meaningless belief. For what surrounds Your Son and keeps him safe is Love Itself. There is no Source but This, and nothing is that does not share Its holiness; that stands beyond Your one creation, or without the Love Which holds all things within Itself. Father, Your Son is like Yourself. We come to You in Your own Name today, to be at peace within Your everlasting Love."

It does not seem to me that I can choose to have but peace today. And yet my God assures me that His Son is like Himself. Let me this day have faith in Him Who says I am God's Son. And let the peace I choose be mine today bear witness to the truth of what He says. God's Son can have no cares, and must remain forever in the peace of Heaven. In His Name I give today to finding what my Father wills for me, accepting it as mine, and giving it to all my Father's Sons, along with me.

"And so, my Father, would I pass this day with You. Your Son has not forgotten You. The peace You gave him still is in his mind, and it is there I choose to spend today."

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 that 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 Him. What except Him CAN exist? Nothing BEYOND Him can happen, because nothing EXCEPT Him is real. YOUR creations add to Him, 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 He 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 His Mind about YOU, for He is not uncertain of HIMSELF. And what He knows CAN be known, because He does not know only for Himself. He CREATED you for Himself, but He gave you the power to create for YOUR self, so you would be LIKE Him. 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 His Mind about me?" Then ACCEPT His decision, for it is indeed changeless, and refuse to change your mind about YOURSELF.- God will never decide AGAINST you, or He would be deciding against Himself.

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 His 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. But 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 awake 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. But 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.

It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept. For thus am I led past this world to my creations, children of my Will, in Heaven where my holy Self abides with them, and Him Who has created me.

"You are the Self Whom You created Son, creating like Yourself and one with You. My Self, Which rules the universe, is but Your Will in perfect union with my own, Which can but offer glad assent to Yours, that It may be extended to Itself."

The Holy Spirit mediates between illusions and the truth. As He must bridge the gap between reality and dreams, perception leads to knowledge through the grace that God has given Him, to be His gift to everyone who turns to Him for truth. Across the bridge that He provides are dreams all carried to the truth, to be dispelled before the light of knowledge. There are sights and sounds forever laid aside. And where they were perceived before, forgiveness has made possible perception's tranquil end.

The goal the Holy Spirit's teaching sets is just this end of dreams. For sights and sounds must be translated from the witnesses of fear to those of love. And when this is entirely accomplished, learning has achieved the only goal it has in truth. For learning, as the Holy Spirit guides it to the outcome He perceives for it, becomes the means to go beyond itself, to be replaced by the Eternal Truth.

If you but knew how much your Father yearns to have you recognize your sinlessness, you would not let His Voice appeal in vain, nor turn away from His replacement for the fearful images and dreams you made. The Holy Spirit understands the means you made, by which you would attain what is forever unattainable. And if you offer them to Him, He will employ the means you made for exile, to restore your mind to where it truly is at home.

From knowledge, where He has been placed by God, the Holy Spirit calls to you, to let forgiveness rest upon your dreams, and be restored to sanity and peace of mind. Without forgiveness will your dreams remain to terrify you. And the memory of all your Father's Love will not return to signify the end of dreams has come.

The first obstacle that peace must flow across is YOUR desire to get RID of it. For it cannot extend, UNLESS you keep it. YOU are the center from which it radiates outward, to call the others IN. You are its home; its tranquil dwelling-place, from which it gently reaches out, but NEVER leaving YOU. If YOU would make it homeless, how can it abide within the Son of God? If it would spread across the whole creation, it MUST begin with you. And, FROM you, reach to everyone who calls, and bring him rest by JOINING you.

Why would you want peace homeless? What do you think that it must DISPOSSESS, to dwell in you? What SEEMS to be the cost you are so unwilling to pay? The little barriers of sand still stand between you. Would you reinforce them NOW? You are NOT asked to let them go for yourselves alone. Christ asks it of you, for HIMSELF. He would bring peace to everyone. And how can He do this, EXCEPT through you? Would you let a little bank of sand, a wall of dust, a tiny seeming barrier stand between your brothers and salvation?

And yet it IS this little remnant of attack you cherish still against each other, that is the first obstacle the peace in you encounters, in its going forth. This little wall of hatred would STILL oppose the Will of God, and keep It limited. The Holy Spirit's purpose rests in peace within you. Yet you are STILL unwilling to let it JOIN you wholly. You still oppose the Will of God, just by a little. But that little IS a limit you would place upon the whole. God's Will is One, NOT many. It HAS no opposition, for there is none BESIDE It.

What you would still contain behind your little barrier, and keep SEPARATE from each other, is mightier than the universe. For it would HOLD BACK the universe AND ITS CREATOR. This little wall would hide the purpose of Heaven, and keep it FROM Heaven. Would you thrust salvation AWAY from the GIVER of salvation? For such have YOU become. Peace could no more DEPART from you than from God. Fear not this little obstacle. It can NOT contain the Will of God. Peace WILL flow across it, and join you WITHOUT hindrance.

Salvation cannot BE withheld from you. It IS your purpose. You CANNOT will APART from this. You HAVE no purpose apart from each other, nor apart from the one you asked the Holy Spirit to SHARE with you. The little wall will fall away so quietly, beneath the wings of peace! For it will send its messengers from you to all the world. And barriers will fall away before their coming, as easily as those which YOU would interpose will be surmounted. To overcome the world is no more difficult than to surmount your little wall. For in the miracle of YOUR relationship, WITHOUT this barrier, is EVERY miracle contained.

There is no order of difficulty in miracles, for they ARE all the same. Each is a gentle WINNING OVER, from the appeal of guilt to the appeal of love. How can this FAIL to be accomplished, WHEREVER it is undertaken? Guilt can raise no REAL barriers against it. And all that seems to stand between you MUST fall away, because of the appeal YOU answered. And from you who answered, He Who answered you would call. His home is in your holy relationship. Do not attempt to stand BETWEEN Him and His holy purpose, for it IS yours. But let Him quietly EXTEND the miracle of your relationship to everyone CONTAINED in it, as it was given.

There is a hush in Heaven, a happy expectancy, a little pause of gladness, in acknowledgment of the journey's end. For Heaven knows you well, as you know Heaven. No illusions stand between you. Look not upon the little wall of shadows. The sun has risen OVER it. How can a shadow KEEP you from the sun? No more can YOU be kept by shadows from the light in which illusions end. EVERY miracle is but the end of an illusion. Such was the journey; such its ending. And in the goal of truth, which YOU ACCEPTED, must ALL illusions end.

The little, insane wish to get rid of Him Whom you invited IN, and push Him OUT, MUST produce conflict. As you look upon the world, this little wish, uprooted and floating aimlessly, can land and settle briefly upon ANYTHING. For it HAS no purpose now. BEFORE the Holy Spirit entered to abide with you, it SEEMED to have a MIGHTY purpose; the fixed and unchangeable dedication to sin and its results. Now it is aimless, wandering pointlessly, causing no more than tiny interruptions in love's appeal.

This feather of a wish, this tiny illusion, this microscopic remnant of the belief in sin, is all that remains of what once SEEMED to be the world. It is no longer an unrelenting barrier to peace. Its pointless wandering makes its results APPEAR to be more erratic and unpredictable than before. Yet what COULD be more unstable than a tightly-organized delusional system? Its SEEMING stability is its pervasive WEAKNESS, which extends to EVERYTHING. The VARIABILITY which the little remnant induces, merely indicates its LIMITED results.

How mighty can a little feather be, before the great wings of truth? Can it oppose an eagle's flight, or hinder the advance of summer? Can it interfere with the EFFECTS of summer's sun upon a garden covered by the snow? See but how easily this little wisp is lifted up and carried away, never to return. And part with it in gladness, not regret. For it is nothing in itself, and STOOD FOR nothing when you had greater faith in its protection. Would you not rather greet the summer sun, than fix your gaze upon a disappearing snowflake, and shiver in remembrance of the winter's cold?

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 Kingdom 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 minds.

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 the INEVITABLE association between projection and anger can be finally UNmade.

The ego ALWAYS tries to preserve conflict. It is very ingenious in devising ways which SEEM to diminish conflict only because it does NOT want you to find it so intolerable that you will INSIST on giving it up. Therefore, it tries to persuade you that IT can free you OF conflict, lest you give IT up and free YOURSELF. The ego, using its own warped version of the laws of God, uses 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 a number of 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. His lessons are confused, and their transfer value severely limited BY his confusion.

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 them out of their OWN minds, but they also believe they are trying to creep back INTO them. This is because their 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. The belief that it CAN, a fallacy which the ego ALWAYS makes, underlies its whole use of projection. This is because it does not understand what the mind IS, and therefore does not understand what YOU are. Yet ITS existence IS dependent on your mind, because it is a 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 an attempt to PROJECT RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN ERRORS. But having ACCEPTED the error 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 Sonship AS A WHOLE. He will teach you to perceive BEYOND belief, because truth IS beyond belief and His perception IS true.

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 judgment 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 Kingdom as literally PART OF YOU. This identification is as beyond doubt as it is beyond belief. Your wholeness HAS no limits, because its being is in Infinity.

Perception is not an attribute of God. His is the realm of knowledge. Yet He 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 Son of God for an unholy purpose, it must become the means for the restoration of his holiness to his 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 Son of God forgives his brother and thus forgives himself.

You cannot see apart from God because you cannot be apart from God. Whatever you do you do in Him, because whatever you think you think with His 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 the practice period, repeat the idea to yourself with your eyes open. Then glance around you for a short time, applying today's idea specifically to what you see. Four or five subjects for this phase of the exercise are sufficient. You might say, for example:

"God is my Source. I cannot see this desk apart from Him."

"God is my Source. I cannot see that picture apart from Him."

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 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 him silently:

"God is my Source. I cannot see you apart from Him."

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 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 Him."

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.

"Father, it is Your peace that I would give, receiving it of You. I am Your Son, forever just as You created me, for the Great Rays remain forever still and undisturbed within me. I would reach to them in silence and in certainty, for nowhere else can certainty be found. Peace be to me, and peace to all the world. In holiness were we created, and in holiness do we remain. Your Son is like to You in perfect sinlessness, and with this thought we gladly say 'Amen'."