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.

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 His. He wants you to be healed, and so He 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 will 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. He does not want us to be sick. Neither do we. He 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 that this will be no idle fantasy.

Review 6 - Introduction

September 1, 1970

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 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.

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 in 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 is 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 His 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. His is the only plan that is certain in its outcome. His 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 His 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.

In the shorter practice periods tell yourself often that God's plan for salvation, and only His, 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 His 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.

Section 4 - Forgiveness for Salvation

Forgiveness-for-salvation has one form, and only one. It does not ask for proof of innocence, nor pay of any kind. It does not argue, nor evaluate the errors that it wants to overlook. It does not offer gifts in treachery, nor promise freedom while it asks for death. Would God deceive you? He but asks for trust and willingness to learn how to be free. He gives His Teacher to whoever asks, and seeks to understand the Will of God. His readiness to give lies far beyond your understanding and your simple grasp. Yet He has willed you learn the way to Him, and in His willing there is certainty.

You Child of God, the gifts of God are yours, not by your plans but by His holy Will. His Voice will teach you what forgiveness is, and how to give it as He wills it be. Do not, then, seek to understand what is beyond you yet, but let it be a way to draw you up to where the sight of Christ becomes the eyes you choose. Give up all else, for there IS nothing else. When someone calls for help in any form, He is the One to answer for you. All that you need do is to step back and not to interfere. Forgiveness-for-salvation is His task, and it is He Who will respond for you.

Are you not weary of imprisonment? God did not choose this sorry path for you. What you have chosen still can be undone, for prayer is merciful and God is just. His is a justice He can understand, but you cannot as yet. Yet will He give the means to you to learn of Him, and know at last that condemnation is not real and makes illusions in its evil name. And yet it matters not the form that dreams may seem to take. Illusions are untrue. God's Will is truth, and you are one with Him in Will and purpose. Here all dreams are done.

"What should I do for this, Your holy Son?" should be the only thing you ever ask when help is needed and forgiveness sought. The form the seeking takes you need not judge. But let it not be you who sets the form in which forgiveness comes to save God's Son. The light of Christ in him is his release, and it is this that answers to his call. Forgive him as the Christ decides you should, and be His eyes through which you look on him, and speak for Him as well. He knows the need; the question and the answer. He will say exactly what to do in words that you can understand and you can also use. Do not confuse His function with your own. He is the Answer; you the one who hears.

And what is it He speaks to you about? About salvation and the gift of peace. About the end of sin and guilt and death. About the role forgiveness has in Him. Do you but listen, for He will be heard by anyone who calls upon His Name, and places his forgiveness in His hands. Forgiveness has been given Him to teach, to save it from destruction and to make the means for separation, sin and death become again the holy gift of love. Prayer is His Own right hand, made free to save as true forgiveness is allowed to come from His eternal vigilance and Love.

Listen and learn, and do not judge. It is to God you turn to hear what you should do. His Answer will be clear as morning, nor is His forgiveness what you think it is. Still does He know, and that should be enough. Forgiveness has a Teacher Who will fail in nothing. Rest a while in this; do not attempt to judge forgiveness, nor to set it in an earthly frame. Let it arise to Christ, Who welcomes it as gift to Him. He will not leave you comfortless, nor fail to send His angels down to answer you in His Own Name. He stands beside the door to which forgiveness is the only key. Give it to Him to use instead of you, and you will see the door swing silently open upon the shining face of Christ. Behold your brother there beyond the door; the Son of God as He created him.

Review 4 - Introduction

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 Father is. It is this Thought by Which the Father gave creation to the Son, establishing the Son as co-creator with Himself. It is this Thought Which fully guarantees salvation to the Son, for in his mind no thoughts can dwell but those his Father shares. Lack of forgiveness blocks this Thought from his 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 at 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.

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 His Voice. Let each idea that you review that day give you the gift which He has laid in it for you to have of Him. 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 Father wills that we receive as the inheritance we have of Him.

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 His Word. And as you give your mind to the ideas for the day again before you sleep, His gratitude surrounds you in the peace wherein He wills you be forever, and are learning now to claim again as your inheritance.

Section 6 - The Happy Dream

Never approach the holy instant AFTER you have tried to remove all fear and hatred from your mind. That is ITS function. Never attempt to OVERLOOK your guilt BEFORE you ask the Holy Spirit's help. That is HIS function. Your part is only to offer Him a LITTLE willingness to LET Him remove all fear and hatred, and to BE forgiven. On your little faith, joined with HIS understanding, HE will build your part in the Atonement, and MAKE SURE that you fulfill it easily. And WITH Him, YOU will build a ladder planted in the solid rock of faith, and rising even to Heaven. Nor will you use it to ascend to Heaven alone.

Through your holy relationship, reborn and blessed in every holy instant which you did NOT arrange, thousands will rise to Heaven WITH you. Can YOU plan for THIS? Or could you PREPARE yourselves for such a function? Yet it IS possible, because God wills it. Nor will He change His Mind about it. The means and purpose BOTH belong to Him. You have accepted one; the other will be provided. A purpose such as this, WITHOUT the means, IS inconceivable. HE will provide the means to ANYONE who SHARES His purpose.

HAPPY DREAMS COME TRUE. NOT because they are dreams, but only because they are HAPPY. And so they MUST be loving. Their message is, "Thy Will be done," and NOT, "I want it otherwise." The alignment of means and purpose is an undertaking IMPOSSIBLE for you to understand. You do not even realize you HAVE accepted the Holy Spirit's purpose as your own. And you would merely bring UNholy means to its accomplishment. The little faith it needed to change the purpose is all that is required to RECEIVE the means and USE them.

It is no dream to love your brother as yourself. Nor is your holy relationship a dream. All that remains of dreams within it is that it is still a SPECIAL relationship. Yet it is VERY useful to the Holy Spirit, Who has a special FUNCTION here. It will become the HAPPY dream through which He can spread joy to thousands on thousands who believe that love is fear, NOT happiness. Let Him fulfill the function that He GAVE to your relationship by ACCEPTING it FOR you. And NOTHING will be wanting that would make of it what HE would have it be.

When you feel the holiness of your relationship is threatened by ANYTHING, stop instantly and offer the Holy Spirit your willingness, IN SPITE of fear, to let Him exchange this instant for the holy one which YOU would rather have. He will NEVER fail in this. But forget not that your relationship IS ONE, and so it MUST be that whatever threatens the peace of one is an equal threat to the other. The power of joining, AND ITS BLESSING, lies in the fact that it is now impossible for either of you to experience fear alone, or to attempt to DEAL with it alone. Never believe that this is necessary, or even possible.

But, just as THIS is impossible, so is it equally impossible that the holy instant come to either of you WITHOUT the other. And it WILL come to both at the REQUEST of either. Whichever is saner at the time when threat is perceived, should remember how deep is his indebtedness to the other, and how much gratitude is due him. AND BE GLAD that he can pay his debt, by bringing happiness to both. Let him remember this, and say:

"I desire this holy instant for myself

That I may SHARE it with my brother, whom I love.

It is not possible that I can have it WITHOUT him, nor he

without me.

Yet it is WHOLLY possible for us to SHARE it NOW.

And so I choose THIS instant as the one to offer to the Holy

Spirit, that His blessing may descend on us, and

keep us BOTH in peace."

Section 2 - Substitution as a Defense

You who believe that God is fear made but ONE substitution. It has taken many forms, because it was the substitution of fragmentation for wholeness. It has become splintered and subdivided and divided again, over and over, that it is now almost impossible to perceive it once was one, and still IS what it was. That ONE error, which brought truth to illusion, infinity to time, and life to death, was all you ever made. Your whole world rests upon it. Everything you see reflects it. And every special relationship you ever made is PART of it.

You have expressed surprise at hearing how VERY different is reality from what YOU see. You do not realize the magnitude of that ONE error. It was so vast and so COMPLETELY incredible, that from it, a world of total unreality HAD to emerge. What else COULD come of it? Its fragmented ASPECTS are fearful enough, as you begin to LOOK at them. But nothing you have ever seen BEGINS to show you the enormity of the ORIGINAL error, which seemed to cast you out of Heaven, to shatter knowledge into meaningless bits of disunited perceptions, and TO FORCE YOU TO FURTHER SUBSTITUTIONS.

That was the first projection of error outward. The world arose to hide it, and became the screen on which it was projected, and drawn between you and truth. For truth extends INWARD, where the idea of loss is meaningless, and only INCREASE is conceivable. Do you REALLY think it strange that a world in which EVERYTHING is backward and upside down, arose from this? IT WAS INEVITABLE. For truth brought to THIS could only remain within in quiet, and take no part in all the mad projection by which this world was made.

Call it not sin, but madness, for such it was, and so it still remains. Invest it not with guilt, for guilt implies it was accomplished IN REALITY. And, above all, BE NOT AFRAID OF IT. When you seem to see some twisted form of the original error rise to frighten you, say only, 'God is NOT fear, but love,' and it will disappear. THE TRUTH WILL SAVE YOU. It has NOT left you, to go out into the mad world and so DEPART FROM YOU. Inward is sanity; INsanity is OUTSIDE you. You but BELIEVE it is the other way; that truth is OUTSIDE, and error and guilt within.

Your little, senseless substitutions, touched with insanity, and swirling lightly off on a mad course like a feather dancing insanely in the wind, HAVE no substance. They fuse and merge and separate in shifting and totally meaningless patterns, which need not be judged at all. To judge them INDIVIDUALLY is pointless. Their tiny differences in form are not REAL differences at all. NONE OF THEM MATTERS. THAT they have in common, and nothing else, but what else is NECESSARY to make them all the same? Let them go, dancing in the wind, dipping and turning 'til they disappear from sight, far, far OUTSIDE you. And turn you to the stately calm within, where, in holy stillness, dwells the living God you never left, and Who never left you.

Within yourselves, you love each other with perfect love. Here is holy ground, in which no substitutes can enter, and where only the TRUTH about each other can abide. Here you are joined in God, as much together as you are with Him. The original error has not entered here, nor ever will. Here is the radiant truth, to which the Holy Spirit submitted your relationship. Let Him bring it here, where YOU would have it be. Give Him but a little faith in each other, to help Him show you that no substitute you made for Heaven can keep you from it.

In you there is no separation, and no substitute can keep you from each other. Your reality was GOD's creation, and HAS no substitute. You are so firmly joined in truth, that only God is there. And He could NEVER accept something else INSTEAD of you. He loves you both, equally and as one. And as He loves you, so you ARE. You are NOT joined together by illusions, but in the Thought so holy and so perfect that illusions cannot remain to darken the holy place in which you stand together. God is with you, my brothers. Let us join in Him in peace and gratitude, and accept His gift of our most holy and perfect reality, that we share in Him.

Heaven is restored to all the Sonship through your relationship. For in it lies the Sonship, whole and beautiful, safe in your love. Heaven has answered quietly, for all illusions have been gently brought unto the truth in you, and Love has shined upon you, blessing your relationship with truth. God and His whole Creation has entered it together. How lovely and how holy is your relationship, with the truth shining upon it! Heaven beholds it, and rejoices that you have let it come to you. And God Himself is glad that your relationship is as it was created. The universe within you stands with you together. And Heaven looks with love on what is joined in it, along with its Creator.

Whom God hath called should hear no substitutes. Their call is but an echo of the original error which shattered Heaven. For what became of peace, in those who heard? Return with me to Heaven, walking together out of this world, and through another to the loveliness and joy the other holds within it. Would you still further weaken and break apart what is already broken and hopeless? Is it HERE that you would look for happiness? Or would you not prefer to HEAL what has been broken, and join in making whole what has been ravaged by separation and disease?

You have been called, together, to the most holy function that this world contains. It is the ONLY one that has no limits, and that reaches out to every broken fragment of the Sonship, with healing and uniting comfort. This is offered YOU, in your holy relationship. Accept it HERE, and you WILL give as you have accepted and received. The peace of God is given you, with the glowing purpose in which you join. The holy light that brought you together MUST extend, as YOU accept it.

Section 8 - The Ideal Patient-Therapist Relationship

Who, then, is the therapist, and who is the patient? In the end, everyone is both. He who needs healing must heal. "Physician, heal thyself." Who else is there to heal? And who else is in need of healing? Each patient who comes to a therapist offers him a chance to heal himself. He is therefore his therapist. And every therapist must learn to heal from each patient who comes to him. He thus becomes his patient. God does not know of separation. What He knows is only that He has one Son. His knowledge is reflected in the ideal patient-therapist relationship. God comes to him who calls, and in Him he recognizes Himself.

Think carefully, teacher and therapist, for whom you pray, and who is in need of healing. For therapy is prayer, and healing is its aim and its result. What is prayer except the joining of minds in a relationship which Christ can enter? This is His home, into which psychotherapy invites Him. What is symptom cure, when another is always there to choose? But once Christ enters in, what choice is there except to have Him stay? There is no need for more than this, for it is everything. Healing is here, and happiness and peace. These are the "symptoms" of the ideal patient-therapist relationship, replacing those with which the patient came to ask for help.

The process that takes place in this relationship is actually one in which the therapist in his heart tells the patient that all his sins have been forgiven him, along with his own. What could be the difference between healing and forgiveness? Only Christ forgives, knowing His sinlessness. His vision heals perception and sickness disappears. Nor will it return again, once its cause has been removed. This, however, needs the help of a very advanced therapist, capable of joining with the patient in a holy relationship in which all sense of separation finally is overcome.

The passing of guilt is the true aim of therapy and the obvious aim of forgiveness. In this their oneness can be clearly seen. Yet who could experience the end of guilt who feels responsible for his brother in the role of guide for him? Such a function presupposes a knowledge that no-one here can have; a certainty of past, present and future, and of all the effects that may occur in them. Only from this omniscient point of view would such a role be possible. Yet no perception is omniscient, nor is the tiny self of one alone against the universe able to assume he has such wisdom except in madness. That many therapists are mad is obvious. No unhealed healer can be wholly sane.

Yet it is as insane not to accept a function God has given you as to invent one He has not. The advanced therapist in no way can ever doubt the power that is in him. Nor does he doubt its Source. He understands all power in earth and Heaven belongs to him because of who he is. And he is this because of his Creator, Whose Love is in him and Who cannot fail. Think what this means; he has the gifts of God Himself to give away. His patients are God's saints, who call upon his sanctity to make it theirs. And as he gives it to them, they behold Christ's shining face as it looks back at them.

The insane, thinking they are God, are not afraid to offer weakness to the Son of God. But what they see in him because of this they fear indeed. The unhealed healer cannot but be fearful of his patients, and suspect them of the treachery he sees in him. He tries to heal, and thus at times he may. But he will not succeed except to some extent and for a little while. He does not see the Christ in him who calls. What answer can he give to one who seems to be a stranger; alien to the truth and poor in wisdom, without the god who must be given him? Behold your God in him, for what you see will be your Answer.

Think what the joining of two brothers really means. And then forget the world and all its little triumphs and its dreams of death. The same are one, and nothing now can be remembered of the world of guilt. The room becomes a temple, and the street a stream of stardust brushing lightly past all sickly dreams. Healing is done, for what is perfect needs no healing, and what remains to be forgiven where there is no sin?

Be thankful, therapist, that you can see such things as this, if you but understand your proper role. But if you fail in that, you have denied that God created you, and so you will not know you are His Son. Who is your brother now? What saint can come to take you home with him? You lost the way. And can you now expect to see in him an answer that you have refused to give? Heal and be healed. There is no other choice of pathways that can ever lead to peace. Oh let your patient in, for he has come to you from God. Is not his holiness enough to wake your memory of Him?

Section 6 - "To Have, Give All to All"

Like any good teacher, He DOES know more than you know NOW, but He teaches only to make you equals. This is because you had ALREADY taught wrong, 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 He knows your mind only as whole?

What God DOES know is that His communication channels are not open to Him, so that He cannot impart His joy and know that His Children are wholly joyous. This is an ongoing process, not in time, but in eternity. God's extending outward, though not His completeness, was blocked when the Sonship does not communicate with Him as one. So He thought, "My Children sleep, and must be awakened."

How can you wake children better and more kindly than with 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. He does not emphasize what you must avoid to escape from harm as much as what you need to learn to have joy. This is true even of the world's teachers. Consider the confusion that a child would experience if he 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." That simple statement is perfectly clear, easily understood, and very easily remembered.

The Holy Spirit NEVER itemizes errors, because He does not frighten children, and those who lack wisdom ARE children. But He ALWAYS answers their call, and His 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. He merely shines them away. His light is ALWAYS the call to awake, WHATEVER you may have been dreaming. Nothing lasting lies in dreams, and the Holy Spirit, shining with the light from God Himself, 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 that 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 Kingdom. 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, it re-interprets what the ego uses as an argument FOR separation into an argument 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 He ALWAYS tells you that ONLY the mind is real, because 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 Kingdom 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 Sons of God, and that is FULL APPRECIATION. Nothing more and nothing less. Without a range, order of difficulty IS meaningless, and there must BE no range in what you offer to each other. The Holy Spirit, which leads to God, translates communication into being, just as He 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. The Holy Spirit sees it 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. But 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. He never takes ANYTHING back, because He wants YOU to keep it. Therefore, His teaching begins with the lesson: To HAVE, GIVE all TO all.

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. Many try to accept the CONFLICT, rather than to take the next step toward its resolution. But having taken the first step, they WILL be helped. Having willed 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, H., 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.

Section 5 - 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 willed 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 Soul 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 brother, 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 Father.

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 your ego has indeed violated the laws of God, but YOU have not. Leave the sins of the ego to me. That is what the 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 that 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, B, 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 H., (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 His 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, as we have sided against it briefly already. 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 Son of God, but he himself can limit the expression of his power as much as he wills. 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 judgment. Judgment, like any other defense, can be used to attack or protect, to hurt or to heal. The ego SHOULD be brought to your own judgment 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 Himself 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 me the Holy One shine upon you in peace, knowing that this and only this MUST be! His Mind shone on you in your creation, and brought YOUR mind into being. His Mind still shines on you and MUST shine THROUGH you. Your ego cannot prevent HIM from shining on you, but it CAN prevent you from letting Him shine THROUGH you.

The first coming of Christ is just another name for the Creation, for Christ is the Son of God. The SECOND coming of Christ means nothing more than the end of the ego's rule over part of the minds of men, 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.

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 must come into your minds and heal them.

While 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 two 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 that it is harder for me to inspire the dis-spirited 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.

Section 8 - Choose Once Again

Temptation has ONE lesson it would teach, in ALL its forms, WHEREVER it occurs. It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel. It sets the limits on what he can do; its power is the only strength he has; his grasp cannot exceed its tiny reach. Would you BE this, if Christ appeared to you in all His glory, asking you but this, "Choose once again if you would take your place among the Saviors of the world, or would remain in hell, and hold your brothers there." For He HAS come, and He IS asking this.

In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity you face Christ calls to you, and gently says, "My brother, choose again." He would not leave one source of pain unhealed, nor any image left to veil the truth. He would remove all misery from you whom God created altars unto joy. He would not leave you comfortless, alone in dreams of hell, but would release your minds from everything that hides His Face from you. His holiness is yours because He is the ONLY power that is real in you. His strength is yours because He is the Self that God created as His ONLY Son. The images you make can not prevail against what God Himself would have you be.

Be never fearful of temptation then, but see it as it is; another chance to choose again, and let Christ's strength prevail in every circumstance and every place you raised an image of yourself before. For what appears to hide the Face of Christ is powerless before His Majesty, and disappears before His holy sight. The Saviors of the world, who see like Him, are merely those who chose His strength instead of their own weakness, seen APART from Him. They will redeem the world, for they are joined to all the power of the Will of God. And what they will is ONLY what He wills.

Learn, then, the happy habit of response to ALL temptation to perceive yourself as weak and miserable with these words:

"I am as God created me. His Son

can suffer nothing. And I AM His Son."

Thus is Christ's strength INVITED to prevail, replacing all your weakness with the strength that comes from God, and that can NEVER fail. And thus are miracles as natural as fear and agony APPEARED to be before the choice for holiness was made. For IN that choice are false distinctions gone, illusory alternatives laid by, and nothing left to INTERFERE with truth.

You ARE as God created you, and so is every living thing you look upon, REGARDLESS of the images you see. What you behold as sickness and as pain, as weakness and as suffering and loss, is but temptation to perceive YOURSELF defenseless and in hell. Yield NOT to this, and you will see ALL pain in EVERY form WHEREVER it occurs but disappear as mists before the sun. A miracle has come to heal God's Son, and close the door upon his dreams of weakness, opening the way to his salvation and release. Choose once again what you would have him be, remembering that every choice you make establishes your own identity as you will see it, and believe it IS.

Deny me not the little gift I ask, when in exchange I lay before your feet the peace of God, and power to bring this peace to everyone who wanders in the world, uncertain, lonely, and in constant fear. For it is given you to JOIN with him, and through the Christ in you unveil his eyes, and let him look upon the Christ in him. My brothers in salvation, do not fail to hear my voice and listen to my words. I ask for nothing but your OWN release. There is no place for hell within a world whose loveliness can yet be so intense and so inclusive it is but a step from there to Heaven. To your tired eyes I bring a vision of a different world, so new and clean and fresh you will forget the pain and sorrow that you saw before.

But this a vision is which you must SHARE with everyone you see. For otherwise you will behold it not. To GIVE this gift is how to make it yours. And God ordained, in loving kindness, that it BE for you. Let us be glad that we can walk the world, and find so many chances to perceive another situation where His gift can once again be recognized as ours. And thus will all the vestiges of hell, the secret sins and hidden hates be gone, and all the loveliness which they concealed appear like lawns of Heaven to our sight, to lift us high above the thorny roads we travelled on before the Christ appeared.

Hear me, my brothers, hear and join with me. God has ordained I cannot call in vain. And in His certainty I rest content. For you WILL hear, and you WILL choose again. And in this choice is everyone made free. I thank You, Father, for these holy ones who are my brothers as they are Your Sons. My faith in them is Yours. I am as sure that they will come to me as You are sure of what they are, and will forever be. They will accept the gift I offer them because You gave it me on their behalf. And as I would but do Your holy Will, so will they choose. And I give thanks for them.

Salvation's song will echo through the world with every choice they make. For we are one in purpose, and the end of hell is near. In joyous welcome is my hand outstretched to every brother who would join with me in reaching past temptation, and who looks with fixed determination toward the light that shines beyond in perfect constancy. Give me my own, for they belong to You. And can You fail in what is but Your Will? I give You thanks for what my brothers are, and as each one elects to join with me, the song of thanks from earth to Heaven grows from tiny, scattered threads of melody to one inclusive chorus from a world redeemed from hell, and giving thanks to You.

And now we say "Amen." For Christ has come to dwell in the abode You set for Him before time was, in calm Eternity. The journey closes, ending at the place where it began. No trace of it remains. Not one illusion is accorded faith, and not one spot of darkness still remains to hide the Face of Christ from anyone. Thy Will is done, complete and perfectly, and all creation recognizes You and knows You as the only Source it has. Clear in Your Likeness does the Light shine forth from everything that lives and moves in You. For we have reached where all of us are One, and we ARE home where You would have us be.

Section 5 - 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. This is because it believes, and correctly, that its maker may withdraw his support from it at any moment. If it meant you well, it would be glad, as the Holy Spirit will be glad when He has brought you home and you no longer need His 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, He made you part of Him. That is why attack WITHIN the Kingdom is impossible. But YOU made the ego without love, and so it does not love YOU. You could not remain WITHIN the Kingdom without love, and since the Kingdom IS love, you believe 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 it can never answer it. That question, which was "What are you?" was the beginning of doubt. The ego has never answered ANY questions since, though 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 really understand conflict until YOU fully understand one basic fact that the ego does not know. The Holy Spirit does not speak first, but He ALWAYS answers. EVERYONE has called upon Him for help at one time or another, and in one way or another, AND HAS BEEN ANSWERED. Since the Holy Spirit answers truly, He answers FOR ALL TIME, and that means that EVERYONE HAS THE ANSWER NOW.

The ego cannot hear the Holy Spirit, but it DOES feel that part of the same mind that made it is AGAINST it. It interprets this wholly as a justification for ATTACKING its maker. The ego 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 brothers.

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. But 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 they realize that their "enemy" CAN end them both merely by knowing they are not part of him, 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 it IS its own learning device, and that the learning device is more real than IT is. No-one in his right mind could POSSIBLY believe this, and no-one in his 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 His Kingdom, which He created as part of Him. 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 Him, because you WILL be awake. Your dreams have contained many of the ego's symbols, and they have confused you. But 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. But the Kingdom and all that you have created there will have great reality for you, because they are beautiful and true. In the Kingdom, 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 Kingdom, where everything lives in God without question. The time that was spent on questioning in the dream has given way to the Creation and to its Eternity.

YOU are as certain as God, because you are as true as He 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. But you must remember that when you put yourselves in an impossible situation, you believed that the impossible WAS possible.

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 that the ego engages in, but God, who KNOWS that His creations are perfect does NOT insult them. This would be as impossible as the ego's notion that it has insulted Him. 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 the mind, and everything God created is faithful to His laws. But fidelity to other laws is also possible, 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 His own certainty? We have frequently stated that what you teach you ARE. Would you have God teach you that you have sinned? If He confronted the self you have made with the Truth He 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 He 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, He did not question. He merely gave the Answer.

God's answer IS your teacher.

Miracle Principle 21

Miracles are an industrial necessity. Industry depends on cooperation, and cooperation depends on miracles. (see page 8)

Miracle Principle 22

1 Miracles are cobwebs of iron. They unite human frailty to the strength of God. (see page 7)

(add for 21. Helen Schucman considered changing "iron" to "steel." Correction: No. Steel would NOT be a better word. Steel is very useful but it would have to be tempered by fire. Iron is the raw material. The point of miracles is that they replace fire, thus making it unnecessary.)

Miracle Principle 23

Miracles are natural expressions of total forgiveness. Through miracles, man accepts God's forgiveness by extending it to others. The second step is inherent in the first, because light cannot tolerate darkness. Light dispels darkness automatically, by definition.

EXPLANATORY INSTRUCTIONS: Miracles are associated with fear only because of the fallacy that darkness can hide. Man believes that what he cannot see does not exist, and his physical eyes cannot see in the dark. This is a very primitive solution, and has led to a denial of the spiritual eye, which always depends on light. Remember the Biblical injunction: "May I never forget that THINE eye is ever upon me, beholding the evil and the good."

There are two stages, one lower and one higher, which are involved in the escape from darkness: 1) the recognition that darkness CANNOT hide. This usually does entail fear.

2) The recognition that there is nothing you WANT to hide, even if you could. This brings escape from fear.

Corrections Re Pt. 21 cobwebs of iron. "This is upside down as stated. The part about 'uniting human frailty with the strength of God' is all right, but the explanation stops too soon. If iron is the 'raw material', cobwebs can't become the iron. That is only the way it seems, because cobwebs are associated with the frailty and iron with strength. If you look carefully at the phrasing, you will see it is reversed (one point already tells you that miracles reverse the physical or lower order laws.)

The raw material, or iron, is heavy but crude, and stands for the body, which is a crude creation. The cobweb concept is closer to how the body SHOULD be regarded, i.e., as an airy and temporary home, which can just be blown away with a slight breeze.

(21. 2) The point should read "A miracle reawakens the awareness that the spirit, and not the body, is the altar of Truth. This is the recognition that leads to the healing power of the miracle."

Miracle Principle 24

(22a) A miracle rearranges 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.

(Tell Bill about the idea (which is still dim to Helen Schucman) that the reason is not that you (plural) distantiate, doubt, or cannot believe. It is more of a reaction formation against a pull which you both recognize is so intense that you are afraid that you will be uprooted. But remember that a cobweb is really stronger than the iron, if you see it properly. This fear is also why you couldn't get the point straight.)

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. (Helen Schucman aside about liking the first about assumption failure more.) Answer: It was cuter, but this one MEANS more. The REAL reason you don't like it is because it refers to you in a VERY lofty position. This makes you nervous.)

Correction: And don't lose sight of the emphasis on cooperation, or the NOT SINGULAR. That point about "industrial necessity" should read "corporate", referring to the body of Christ which is a way of referring to the Church. But the Church of God is only the sum of the souls he created, which IS the corporate body of Christ. Correct to read: "A Miracle makes souls one in God," and leave in the next part about cooperation.

Further correction: "God" should read "Christ." The Father and the Son are not identical, but you CAN say "Like Father, LIKE Son."

(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.)

"Lord heal me" is the only legitimate prayer. This also means "Lord atone for me," because the only thing man should pray for is forgiveness. He HAS everything else.

Now take this personally, and listen to Divine logic: If, when you have been forgiven, you have everything else, and

If 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

The 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. You haven't read the Bible in years.

Special Explanatory Note: As soon as you (H and B) have entered the second phase, you will be not only willing to enter into communion, but will also understand peace and joy. Your commitment is not yet total. That is why you still have more to learn than to teach. When your equilibrium stabilizes, you can teach AS MUCH as you learn. This will give you the proper sense of balance. Meanwhile, remember that NO EFFORT IS WASTED. Unless you remember this, you cannot avail yourself of MY efforts, which are limitless.

(Have a good day.) Since only eternity is real, why not use the illusion of time constructively? You might remember that "underneath are the Everlasting Arms."

BIBLICAL QUOTATION: "If you are ashamed of me before men, I will be ashamed of you before God," (Helen Schucman ? of misquote.) is interpreted as a threat ONLY as long you remain in the first step. (see bottom of p. 6 for steps.)

What it REALLY means is that if you are ashamed of me (or embarrassed by love), you will project and therefore make it impossible for me to reach you. Make every effort you can NOT to do this. I will help you as much as you will let me.

Miracle Principle 25

Miracles make time and tide wait for all men. They can heal the sick and raise the dead because man himself made both death and taxes, and can abolish both. Note: Tax also means "strain." (One definition for miracles is: "That which, or one who, is of surpassing excellence or merit.") (from Dictionary, third definition)

YOU are a miracle. God creates only "that which, or one who, is of surpassing excellence or merit." Man is capable of this kind of creation, too, being in the image and likeness of his own Creator. Anything else is only his own nightmare, and does not exist. Only the Creations of Light are real.

Miracle Principle 26

Miracles are a part of an interlocking chain of forgiveness which, when completed, is the Atonement. This process works all the time and in all dimensions of time. (e.g. given of Helen Schucman 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 brother'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.

Miracle Principle 27

SPECIAL EXPLANATION: (In response to Helen Schucman request re possible corrections.) Change the word "sin" to "absence of love." Sin is a manmade word with threat connotations which he made up himself. No REAL threat is involved anywhere. Just because "nature abhors a vacuum," which is true enough, it does NOT follow that "a vacuum is filled with hellfire." Nothing is gained by frightening yourself, and it is very destructive. Miracles need freedom from fear. Part of their Atonement value involves just that. Note that the word "atone" really means "undo."

The purpose of the Atonement is to restore everything TO you. (That is, to restore the awareness. Later clarification.) You had everything when you were created, just as everyone did.

Having been restored to your original state, you naturally become part of the Atonement yourself. You now share MY inability to tolerate the lack of love in yourself and in everyone else, and MUST join the GREAT CRUSADE to correct it. The slogan for this Crusade is "Listen, Learn, and DO."

This means Listen to My Voice, Learn to undo the error, and DO something to correct it.

The first two are not enough. The real members of MY party are ACTIVE workers.

The power to work Miracles BELONGS to you. I will create the right opportunities for you to do them. But you must be ready and willing to do them, since you are already able to. Doing them will bring conviction in the ability. I repeat that 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.

Miracle Principle 28

24 A miracle is a Universal Blessing from God through Me to all My Brothers. Explanation: You once said that souls cannot rest until everyone has found salvation. This happens to be true. 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.

(ASIDE. Tell B that that is what Professor really means. As an Assoc. Prof., he must become associated with My strength. As an Asst. Prof., you must assist both him and 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" means that they will not always exist as separate states. My Word, which is the Resurrection and the Light, shall not pass away, because Life is Eternal. YOU are the work of God, and His Work is wholly loveable and wholly loving. This is how a man MUST think of himself in his heart, because this is what he IS.

Add: "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."

Miracle Principle 29

Remember the point about Miracles as a means of organizing different levels of consciousness. Miracles come from the (below conscious) (subconscious) level. Revelations come from the above conscious level. The conscious level is in between and reacts to either sub- or super-conscious impulses in varying ratios. Freud was right about the classification, but not the names. He was also right that the content of consciousness is fleeting. Consciousness is the level which engages in the world, and is capable of responding to both external and internal impulses. 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 the "mistaken identity" confusion.

If you will look back at the description of the EFFECTS of Revelation you will see that there ARE some similarities in the experiential results but hardly in the content.

(This and preceding paragraph go later)

Revelations induce complete but temporary suspension of doubt and fear. They represent the original form of communication between God and His Souls, before the intrusion of fire and ice made this impossible. It should be noted that they involve an extremely personal sense of closeness to Creation, which man tries to find in sexual relationships. This confusion is responsible for the depression and fear which are often associated with sex.

Sex is often associated with lack of love, but Revelation is PURELY a love experience. Physical closeness CANNOT achieve this. As was said before, the subconscious impulses properly induce Miracles, which ARE interpersonal, and result in closeness to others. This can be misunderstood by a personally willful consciousness as an impulse toward sexual gratification.

The Revelation unites Souls directly with God.

The Miracle unites Souls directly with each other. Neither emanates from consciousness, but both are EXPERIENCED there. This is essential, because consciousness is the state which PRODUCES action, though it DOES NOT Inspire it.

Man is free to believe what he chooses. What he DOES attests to what he believes.

The deeper levels of his subconscious always contain the impulse to Miracles, but he is free to fill its superficial levels, which are closer to consciousness, with the impulses of this world and to identify himself with them. This results in denying himself access to the miracle level underneath. In conscious actions, then, his interpersonal relationships also become superficial, and miracle-inspired relating becomes impossible.

Miracle Principle 30

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 Revelations are an end. In this sense, they work together.

(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 that YOUR (Helen Schucman) Revelation occurred specifically after you had engaged at the visionary level in a process of DENYING fear.

Revelation is intensely personal, and is actually not translatable into conscious content at all. That is why any attempt to describe it in words is usually incomprehensible, even to the writer himself at another time. This is why the Book of Revelations is essentially incomprehensible. Revelation induces ONLY experience. Miracles, on the other hand, induce interpersonal ACTION. In the end, these are more useful, because of their IMPERSONAL nature.

In this phase of learning, working miracles is more valuable because freedom from fear cannot be thrust upon you. The experience cannot last.

(Tell Bill that your propensity for Revelations, 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.

(Tell Bill he should try to understand the VERY important difference between Christ-control and Christ-guidance. This is what made him fearful yesterday.)

Section 7 - The Constant State

It cannot be emphasized too often that CORRECTING perception is merely a temporary expedient. It is necessary 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 judgment which it necessarily 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. But you must be careful that you really understand the question. What IS the you who are living in this world? Bill will probably have more trouble with this than you, 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 will be, because it implies NO CHANGE AT ALL. It is not a continuum, and it is NOT understood by comparing it with any 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 because "all" and "a little" in this context are the same, decides that since "all" is impossible, the fear does not lie in this. "A little," however, is a scarcity concept, and this the ego understands well. Regarding "all" as impossible, "a little" is perceived as the real threat.

The essential thing to remember always 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 really 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. But we cannot safely leave it at that, or you will regard yourselves as necessarily conflicted as long as you are here, or more properly, 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 dissociate. The ratio of repression and dissociation of truth varies with the individual ego-illusion (tell Bill that phrase is VERY good), 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 symbolically. Remember that HE understood it before you did, because you are more dissociative and less repressed.

Your great debt to each other is something you should never forget. It is exactly the same debt that you owe to me. Whenever you react egotistically toward 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 that, as you learn how much you ARE indebted to the whole Sonship which includes me, you come as close to knowledge as perception ever can. This gap is so small 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 to 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.

The classic conditioning by rewards model has always been most effective. Howard Hunt made a very good point in this connection, even though he did not understand that the real reason why conditioning through pain is not the most efficient method is because pain itself is an ego-illusion, and can never induce more than a temporary effect.

The rewards of God are immediately recognized as eternal. Since this recognition is made by YOU and NOT by your 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. The ego and the Soul 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 His.

A little knowledge is an all-encompassing thing. If you are grateful to each other you are grateful to God for what He created. Through your gratitude you can come to know each other, and one moment of real recognition makes all men your brothers because they are all of your Father. Love does not conquer all things, but it DOES set all things right.

Because you are all the Kingdom of God, I can lead you back to your own creations, which you do not yet know. God has kept them very safe in HIS 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 brothers. 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 brother, you DO approach me, and as you withdraw from him 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 Sonship, because they are disengaging themselves from me. God will come to you only as you will give Him to your brothers. 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.

How can you teach someone the value of something he has thrown away deliberately? He must have thrown it away because he did NOT value it. You can only show him how miserable he is WITHOUT it, and bring it near very slowly, so he can learn how his misery lessens as he approaches it. This conditions him to associate his misery with its ABSENCE, and to associate the OPPOSITE of misery with its presence. It gradually becomes desirable, as he changes his mind about its worth.

I am conditioning you to associate misery with the ego, and joy with your Soul. You have conditioned yourself the other way around. But a far greater reward will break through any conditioning, if it is repeatedly offered when the old habit 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?

Miracle Principle 41

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.

Miracle Principle 42

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.

Miracle Principle 43

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.

Miracle Principle 44

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.

Miracle Principle 45

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.

Miracle Principle 46

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.

Miracle Principle 47

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.

Miracle Principle 48

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.

Miracle Principle 49

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.

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.

Miracle Principle 50

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.