Lesson 41 "God goes with me wherever I go."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lesson 183 "I will be still a moment and go home."

This world you seem to live in is not home to you. And somewhere in your mind you know that this is true. A memory of home keeps haunting you, as if there were a place which called you to return although you do not recognize the Voice, nor what it is the Voice reminds you of. Yet still you feel an alien here, from somewhere all unknown. Nothing so definite that you could say with certainty you are an exile here. Just a persistent feeling, sometimes not more than a tiny throb, at other times hardly remembered, actively dismissed, but surely to return to mind again.

No one but knows whereof we speak. Yet some try to put by their suffering in games they play to occupy their time, and keep their sadness from them. Others will deny that they are sad, and do not recognize their tears at all. Still others will maintain that what we speak of is illusion, not to be considered more than but a dream. Yet who in simple honesty, without defensiveness and self deception, would deny he understands the words we speak?

We speak today for everyone who walks this world, for he is not at home. He goes uncertainly about in endless search, seeking in darkness what he cannot find; not recognizing what it is he seeks. A thousand homes he makes, yet none contents his restless mind. He does not understand he builds in vain. The home he seeks can not be made by him. There is no substitute for Heaven. All he ever made was hell.

Perhaps you think it is your childhood home that you would find again. The childhood of your body and its place of shelter are a memory now so distorted that you merely hold a picture of a past that never happened. Yet there is a Child in you Who seeks His Father's house, and knows that He is alien here. This Childhood is eternal, with an innocence that will endure forever. Where this Child shall go is holy ground. It is His holiness that lights up Heaven, and that brings to earth the pure reflection of the light above, wherein are earth and Heaven joined as one.

This Child needs your protection. He is far from home. He is so little that He seems so easily shut out, His tiny Voice so readily obscured, His calls for help almost unheard amid the grating sounds and harsh and rasping noises of the world. Yet does He know that in you still abides His sure protection. You Will fail Him not. He will go home, and you along with Him.

This Child is your defenselessness, your strength. He trusts in you. He came because He knew you would not fail. He whispers of His home unceasingly to you. For He would bring you back with Him, that He Himself might stay, and not return again where He does not belong and where He lives an outcast in a world of alien thoughts. His patience has no limits. He will wait until you hear His gentle Voice within you, calling you to let Him go in peace, along with you, to where He is at home, and you with Him.

When you are still an instant, when the world recedes from you, when valueless ideas cease to have value in your restless mind, then will you hear His Voice. So poignantly He calls to you that you will not resist Him longer. In that instant, He will take you to His home, and you will stay with Him in perfect stillness, silent and at peace, beyond all words, untouched by fear and doubt, sublimely certain that you are at home.

Rest with Him frequently today. For He was willing to become a little Child that you might learn of Him how strong is he who comes without defenses, offering only love's messages to those who think He is their enemy. He holds the might of Heaven in His hand and calls them friend, and gives His strength to them that they may see He would be Friend to them. He asks but they protect Him, for His home is far away, and He will not return to it alone.

Christ is reborn as but a little Child each time a wanderer would leave his home. For he must learn that what he would protect is but this Child, Who comes defenseless and Who is protected by defenselessness. Go home with Him from time to time today. You are as much an alien here as He.

Take time today to lay aside your shield which profits nothing, and lay down the spear and sword you raised against an enemy without existence. Christ has called you friend and brother. He has even come to you to ask your help in letting Him go home completed and completely. He has come as does a little child who must beseech his father for protection and for love. He rules the universe, and yet He asks unceasingly that you return with Him, and take illusions as your gods no more.

You have not lost your innocence. It is for this you yearn. This is your heart's desire. This is the Voice you hear, and this the Call which cannot be denied. The holy Child remains with you. His home is yours. Today He gives you His defenselessness, and you accept it in exchange for all the toys of battle you have made. And now the way is open, and the journey has an end in sight at last. Be still a moment and go home with Him and be at peace awhile.

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.

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.

If you will think over your lives, you will see how carefully the preparations were made. I am in charge of the Second Coming as I have already told you, and my judgment, which is used only for its protection, cannot be wrong because it NEVER attacks. YOURS is so distorted that you believe that I was mistaken in choosing you. I assure you this is a mistake of your own egos. Do NOT mistake it for humility.

Your egos are trying to convince you that THEY are real, and I am not, because if I AM real, I am no more real than YOU are. That knowledge, and I assure you that it IS knowledge, means that Christ 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 - Judgment and the Authority Problem..

We have already discussed the Last Judgment in some though insufficient detail. After the Last Judgment, there isn't any more. This is symbolic only in the sense that everybody is much better off WITHOUT judgment. When the Bible says "Judge not that ye be not judged" it merely means that if you judge the reality of others at all, you will be unable to avoid judging your own. The choice to judge rather than know has been the cause of the loss of peace. Judgment is the process on which perception but not cognition rests. We covered this before in terms of selectivity. Evaluation was said at that time to be its obvious prerequisite.

Judgment ALWAYS involves rejection. It is not an ability which emphasizes ONLY the positive aspects of what is judged, whether it be in or out of the self. However, what has been perceived and rejected, (or judged and found wanting) remains in the unconscious because it HAS been perceived. Watson had a very relevant notion of the unconscious in this connection. In fact, it was so relevant that he dropped it as officially out of accord with Behaviorism. He was right on both counts.

One of the illusions from which human perception suffers is that what it perceives and judges against has no effect. This cannot be true, unless man also believes that what his judgment vetoes does not exist. He evidently does not believe this, or he would not have judged against it. It does not really matter, in the end, whether you judge right or wrong. Either way, you are placing your belief in the unreal. This cannot be avoided in any type of judgment, because it IMPLIES the belief that reality is yours to choose FROM.

Neither of you has any idea of the tremendous release and deep peace that comes from meeting yourselves and your brothers totally without judgment. If you will look back at the earlier notes about what you and your brothers ARE, you will realize that judging them in any way is really without meaning. In fact, their meaning is lost to you precisely BECAUSE you ARE judging them. All uncertainty comes from a totally fallacious belief that you are under the coercion of judgment. You do not need it to organize your life, and you certainly do not need it to organize yourselves.

When you look upon knowledge, all judgment is automatically suspended, and this is the process that enables recognition to REPLACE perception. Man is very fearful of everything he has perceived and refused to accept. He believes that because he has refused to accept it, he has lost control over it. This is why he sees it in nightmares, or in pleasant disguise in what seems to be happier dreams. Nothing that you have refused to accept can be brought into awareness. It does NOT follow that it is dangerous. But it DOES follow that you have made it dangerous.

When you feel tired, it is merely because you have judged yourself as capable of being tired. When you laugh at someone it is because you have judged him as debased. When you laugh at yourself, you are singularly likely to laugh at others, if only because you cannot tolerate being more debased THAN others. All of this does make you tired, because it is essentially disheartening. You are not really capable of being tired, but you are very capable of wearying yourselves.

If you wish to be the author of reality, which is totally impossible anyway, then you will insist on holding on to judgment. You will also use the term with considerable fear and believe that judgment will someday be used against you. To whatever extent it IS used against you, it is due ONLY to your belief in its efficacy as a weapon of defense for your own authority.

The issue of authority is really a question of authorship. When an individual has a "authority problem," it is ALWAYS because he believes he is the author of himself, and resents his own projection that you share his delusion in this respect. He then perceives the situation as one in which two people are literally fighting for his own authorship. This is the fundamental error of all those who believe they have usurped the power of God.

The belief is very frightening to them, but hardly troubles God at all. He is, however, eager to undo it, not to punish His children, but ONLY because He knows that it makes them unhappy. Souls were given their own true authorship, and men preferred to remain anonymous when they chose to separate themselves FROM their Author. The word "authority" has been one of their most fearful symbols ever since. Authority has been used for great cruelty, because, being uncertain of their true Authorship, men believe that their creation was anonymous. This has left them in a position where it SOUNDS meaningful to consider the possibility that they must have created themselves.

The dispute over authorship has left such uncertainty in the minds of man that some people have gone so far as to doubt whether they were ever created at all. Despite the apparent contradiction in this position, it is in one sense more tenable than the view that they created themselves. At least, it acknowledged the fact some TRUE authorship is necessary for existence.

Only those who give over all desire to reject can KNOW that their own rejection is impossible. You have not usurped the power of God, but you HAVE lost it. Fortunately, when you lose something, this does not mean that the something has gone. It merely means that YOU do not know where it is. Existence does not depend on your ability to identify it, or even to place it. It is perfectly possible to look on reality without judgment, and merely KNOW it is there. By knowing this, you are not doubting its reality at all.

Peace is a natural heritage of the Soul. Everyone is free to refuse to accept his inheritance, but he is NOT free to establish what his inheritance IS. The problem which everyone MUST decide is the fundamental question of his own authorship. All fear comes ultimately, and sometimes by way of very devious routes, from the denial of Authorship. The offense is never to God, but only to the denier himself. He has thrown away the reason for his own peace, and sees himself only in pieces. This strange perception IS an authority problem. It is also the basis for castration anxiety, since both forms of error are fundamentally the same.

Neither you nor Bill can find peace while this authority problem continues. But the truth is still that there IS no problem about this. There is no man who does not feel that he is imprisoned in some way. If this has been the result of his own free will, he must regard his will as if it were NOT free, or the obviously circular reasoning of his own position would be quite apparent.

Free will MUST lead to freedom. Judgment always imprisons, because it separates segments of reality according to highly unstable scales of desire. Wishes are not facts, by definition. To wish is to imply that willing is not sufficient. However, no one really believes that what is wished is as real as what is willed. Instead of "seek you first the Kingdom of Heaven" say "Will ye first the Kingdom of Heaven," and you have said "I know what I am, and I will to accept my own inheritance."

It is ESSENTIAL that this whole authority problem be voluntarily dismissed at once and for all before B's course. Neither of you understands how important this is for your sanity. You are both quite insane on this point. (This is not a judgment. It is merely a fact. (No, Helen, you SHOULD use the word "fact." This is just as much a fact as God is. A fact is literally a "making" or a starting point. You DO start from this point, and your thinking is inverted because of it.)

Section 8 - Commuting the Sentence

And, if the Holy Spirit can commute each sentence that you laid upon yourself into a blessing, then it CANNOT be a sin. Sin is ONE thing in all this world that CANNOT change. It is immutable. And ON its changelessness the world depends. The magic of the world can SEEM to hide the pain of sin from sinners, and deceive with glitter and with guile. Yet each one knows the cost of sin is death. And so it IS. For sin is a REQUEST for death, a wish to make this world's foundation sure as love, dependable as Heaven, and as strong as God Himself. The world IS safe from love to everyone who thinks sin possible. Nor WILL it change.

Yet IS it possible what God created NOT should SHARE the attributes of His creation, when it OPPOSES it in every way? It CANNOT be the "sinner's" wish for death is just as strong as is His Will for Life. Nor CAN the basis of a world He did NOT make be firm and sure as Heaven. How COULD it be that hell and Heaven are the same? And is it possible that what He did NOT will can NOT be changed? What is immutable BESIDES His Will? And what can share Its attributes EXCEPT Itself? What wish can rise AGAINST His Will, and BE immutable?

If you could realize NOTHING is changeless BUT the Will of God, this course would not be difficult for you. For it is this that you do not believe. Yet there is nothing ELSE you COULD believe, if you but looked at what it really IS. Let us go back to what we said before, and think of it more carefully. It MUST be so that either God is mad, or is this world a place of madness. Not ONE Thought of His makes ANY sense at all within this world. And NOTHING that the world believes as true has ANY meaning in His Mind at all.

To justify ONE value that the world upholds is to DENY your Father's sanity AND YOURS. For God and His beloved Son do NOT think differently. And it is the AGREEMENT of their Thought that makes the Son a co-creator with the Mind Whose Thought created him. And if he chooses to believe ONE thought OPPOSED to truth, he has decided he is NOT his Father's Son, because the Son is mad, and sanity must lie apart from both the Father AND the Son. THIS YOU BELIEVE. Think not that this belief depends upon the form it takes. Who thinks the world is sane in any way; is justified in ANYTHING it thinks, or is maintained by ANY form of reason, believes this to be true.

Sin is not real BECAUSE the Father and the Son are NOT insane. This world is meaningless BECAUSE it rests on sin. Who could create the changeless, if it does NOT rest on truth? The Holy Spirit HAS the power to change the whole foundation of the world you see to something else; a basis NOT insane, on which a sane perception can be based, another world perceived. And one in which is nothing contradicted that would lead the Son of God to sanity and joy. Nothing attests to death and cruelty; to separation and to differences. For here is everything perceived as one, and no-one loses, that each one may gain.

Test EVERYTHING that you believe against this ONE requirement. And understand that everything that meets this ONE demand is worthy of your faith. But nothing else. What is not love is sin, and either one perceives the other as insane and meaningless. Love is the basis for a world perceived as wholly mad to sinners, who believe theirs is the way to sanity. But sin is equally insane within the sight of love, whose gentle eyes would look BEYOND the madness, and rest peacefully on truth. Each sees a world immutable, as each defines the changeless and eternal truth of what YOU are. And each reflects a view of what the Father and the Son MUST be, to make that viewpoint meaningful and sane.

Your special function is the special form in which the fact that God is NOT insane appears most sensible and meaningful to you. The CONTENT is the same. The FORM is suited to your special needs, and to the special time and place in which you think you find yourself, and where you can be free of place and time, and ALL that you believe must limit you. The Son of God can NOT be bound by time or place, or anything God did NOT will. Yet, if His Will is seen as madness, then the FORM of sanity which makes it most acceptable to those who ARE insane requires special choice. Nor CAN this choice be made BY the insane, whose problem IS their choices are NOT free, and made with reason in the light of sense.

It WOULD be madness to entrust salvation to the insane. BECAUSE He is not mad, has God appointed One as sane as He to raise a saner world to meet the sight of everyone who chose insanity as his salvation. To this One is given the choice of form most suitable to him; one which will NOT attack the world he sees, but enter into it in quietness, and SHOW him it is mad. This One but points to an ALTERNATIVE, ANOTHER way of looking at what he has seen before, and recognizes as the world in which he lives, and THOUGHT he understood before. Now MUST he question this, because the form of the alternative is one which he can NOT deny, nor overlook, nor fail completely to perceive and see at all.

To each his special function is designed to be perceived as possible, and more and more desired, as it PROVES to him that it is an alternative he WANTS. From this position does his sinfulness, and ALL the sin he sees within the world, offer him less and less. Until he comes to understand it COST him sanity, and stands BETWEEN him and whatever hope he has of BEING sane. Nor is he left without ESCAPE from madness, for he has a special part in EVERYONE's escape. He can no more be left outside, WITHOUT a special function in the hope of peace, than could the Father overlook His Son, and pass him by in careless thoughtlessness.

What is dependable EXCEPT His Love? And where does sanity abide EXCEPT in Him? The One Who speaks for Him can show you this, in the alternative He chose especially for you. It is God's Will that you remember this, and so emerge from deepest mourning into perfect joy. Accept the function that has been assigned to you in God's Own plan to show His Son that hell and Heaven are different; NOT the same. But that, in Heaven THEY are all the same, WITHOUT the differences that WOULD have made a hell of Heaven, and a heaven of hell, had such insanity been possible.

The whole belief that someone loses but reflects the underlying tenet God must be insane. For in this world it seems that one must gain BECAUSE another loses. If THIS were true, then God is mad indeed. But what IS this belief, except a form of the more basic tenet, "Sin is real, and rules the world?" For every little gain, must someone lose, and pay exact amount in blood and suffering. For otherwise would evil triumph, and destruction be the total cost of any gain at all. You who believe that God is mad, look carefully at this, and understand that it MUST be that EITHER God OR this must be insane, but hardly both.

Salvation is rebirth of the idea no-one CAN lose for ANYONE to gain. And everyone MUST gain, if anyone WOULD BE a gainer. Here is sanity restored. And on this single rock of truth can faith in God's eternal saneness rest, in perfect confidence and perfect peace. Reason is satisfied, for ALL insane beliefs can be corrected here. And sin MUST be impossible, if THIS is true. This is the rock on which salvation rests; the vantage point from which the Holy Spirit gives meaning and direction to the plan in which your special function has a part. For here your special function is made whole, because it shares the FUNCTION of the whole.

Remember ALL temptation is but this; a mad belief that God's insanity would make YOU sane, and GIVE you what you want. That either God OR you must LOSE to madness, because your aims can NOT be reconciled. Death demands life, but life is NOT maintained at ANY cost. No-one CAN suffer for the Will of God to be fulfilled. Salvation IS His Will BECAUSE you share it. NOT for you alone, but for the Self which IS the Son of God. He CANNOT lose, for if he could, the loss would be his Father's, and in Him NO loss is possible. And this is sane BECAUSE it is the truth.

Section 4 - Love without Conflict

When Helen reads this to you, Bill, try to listen very carefully. You have never understood what "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you" means. The reason you cannot understand it is because it is NOT understandable to the ego, which interprets it as if something outside is inside, which does not mean anything. The word "within" does not belong. The Kingdom of Heaven IS you.

What else BUT you did the Creator create, and what else but you IS His Kingdom? This is the whole message of the Atonement, a message which in its totality transcends the sum of its parts which we have covered before. Christmas is not a time; it is a state of mind. The Christ Mind wills from the Soul, not from the Ego, and the Christ Mind IS yours.

You, too, have a Kingdom which your Soul has created. It has not ceased to create because your ego has set you on the road of perception. Your Soul's creations are no more fatherless than you are. Your ego and your Soul will never be co-creators, but your Soul and YOUR Creator will ALWAYS be. Be confident that your creations are as safe as you are. The Kingdom is perfectly united and perfectly protected, and the ego will not prevail against it. Amen.

That was written in that form because it is a good thing to use as a kind of prayer in moments of temptation. It is a declaration of independence. You will both find it very helpful if you understand it fully.

In its characteristic upside down way, the ego has taken the impulses from the superconscious and perceives them as if they arise in the unconscious. The ego judges what is to be accepted, and the impulses from the superconscious are unacceptable to it, because they clearly point to the unexistence of the ego itself. The ego therefore experiences threat, and not only censors but also re-interprets the data. However, as Freud very correctly pointed out what you do not perceive you still know, and it can retain a very active life BEYOND your awareness.

Repression thus operates to conceal not only the baser impulses, but also the most lofty ones from the ego's awareness, because BOTH are threatening to the ego and, being concerned primarily with its preservation in the face of threat, it perceives them as the same. The threat value of the lofty is really much greater to the ego, because the pull of God Himself can hardly be equated with the pull of human appetites.

By perceiving them as the same, the ego attempts to save itself from being swept away, as it would surely be in the presence of knowledge. The upper level of the unconscious thus contains the call of God as well as the call of the body. That is why the basic conflict between love and fear is unconscious. The ego cannot tolerate either and represses both by resorting to inhibition. Society depends on inhibiting the former, but SALVATION depends on disinhibiting the latter.

The reason you need my help is because you have repressed your own guide, and therefore need guidance. My role is to separate the true from the false in your own unconscious, so it can break through the barriers the ego has set up and shine into your minds. Against our united strength, the ego CANNOT prevail.

It should be quite apparent to you by now why the ego regards the Soul as its "enemy." The ego arose from the Separation, and its continued existence depends on your continuing belief in the Separation. Reducing the Soul impulses to the unconscious, the ego has to offer you some sort of reward for maintaining this belief. All it CAN offer is a sense of temporary existence, which begins with its own beginning and ends with its own ending. It tells you that this life is YOUR existence because it IS its own.

Against this sense of temporary existence, the Soul offers the knowledge of permanence and unshakeable BEING. No one who has experienced the revelation of this can ever fully believe in the ego again. How can its meager offering to you prevail against the glorious gift of God?

You who identify with your egos cannot believe that God loves you. YOU do not love what you have made, and what you have made does not love you. Being made out of the denial of the Father, the ego has no allegiance to its own Maker. You cannot conceive of the real relationship that exists between God and His Souls, because of the hatred you have for the Self you have made. You project onto your own idea of yourself the will to separate, which conflicts with the love you also feel for what you have made because you made it.

No human love is without this ambivalence, and since no ego has experienced love WITHOUT ambivalence, the concept is beyond its understanding. Love will enter immediately into any mind which truly wants it, but it MUST want it truly. This means that it wants it WITHOUT ambivalence, and this kind of wanting is wholly without the ego's "drive to get."

There is a kind of experience that is so different from anything the ego can offer that you will never recover. The word is used quite literally here, - you will never be able to hide again. It is necessary to repeat that your belief in darkness and in hiding IS why the light cannot enter.

The Bible has many references to the immeasurable gifts which are for you, but for which YOU must ask. This is not the condition as the ego sets conditions. It is the glorious condition of what you ARE. No force except your own will is strong enough or worthy enough to guide you. In this you are as free as God, and must remain so forever.

You can never be bound except in honor, and that is always voluntary. Let us ask the Father in my name to keep you mindful of His love for you and yours for Him. He has never failed to answer this request, because it asks only for what He has already willed. Those who call truly are ALWAYS answered.

Note: Helen Schucman became very fearful here, and rather vaguely thought the answer was: "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me, because there ARE none. You still think there are."

It has never really entered your minds to give up every idea you have ever had that OPPOSES knowledge. You retain thousands of little scraps of meanness which prevent the Holy One from entering. Light cannot penetrate through the walls you make to block it, and it is forever UNwilling to destroy what you have made. No one can see THROUGH a wall, but I can step around it.

Watch your minds for the scraps of meanness, or you will be unable to ask me to do so. I can help you only as our Father Created us. I will love you and honor you and maintain complete respect for what you have made. But I will neither love nor honor it unless it is true. I will never forsake you, any more than God will. But I MUST wait as long as you will to forsake yourselves.

Because I wait in love and not in impatience, you will surely ask me truly. I will come gladly in response to a single unequivocal call. Watch carefully, and see what it is you are truly asking for. Be very honest with yourselves about this, for we must hide nothing from each other.

If you will REALLY try to do this, you have taken the first step toward preparing your minds for the Holy One to enter. We will prepare for this together, and once He has come, you will be ready to help me make other minds ready for Him. How long will you deny Him His Kingdom?

The calm being of God's Kingdom, which in your sane mind is perfectly conscious, is ruthlessly banished from the part of the mind which the ego rules. The ego is desperate because it opposes literally invincible odds whether you are asleep or awake. Consider how much vigilance you have been willing to exert to protect your ego, and how little you have been willing to exert to protect your higher mind. Who but the insane would undertake to believe what is not true, and then protect this belief at the cost of Truth?

Section 5 - Perception and the Two Worlds

God established His relationship with you TO MAKE YOU HAPPY, and nothing YOU do which does NOT share His purpose CAN be real. The purpose GOD ascribed to anything IS its only function. Because of HIS reason for creating HIS relationship with you, the function of relationships became forever "to make happy." AND NOTHING ELSE. To fulfill this function, you relate to your creations as GOD to HIS. For nothing God created is APART from happiness, and nothing God created but would EXTEND happiness, as its Creator did. Whatever fulfills this function NOT, CANNOT BE REAL.

In this world, it is impossible to create. Yet it IS possible to make happy. We have said repeatedly that the Holy Spirit would not DEPRIVE you of your special relationships, but would TRANSFORM them. And by that, all that is meant is that He will RESTORE to them the function that was GIVEN them, by God. The function YOU have given them is clearly NOT to make happy. But the holy relationship SHARES God's purpose, rather than aiming to make a SUBSTITUTE for it. Every special relationship that YOU have made IS a substitute for God's Will, and glorifies yours instead of His, BECAUSE OF THE DELUSION THEY ARE DIFFERENT.

You have VERY REAL relationships, even in this world, which you do not recognize, simply because you have raised their SUBSTITUTES to such predominance that, when truth calls to you, as it does constantly, YOU ANSWER WITH A SUBSTITUTE. Every special relationship which you have ever undertaken has, as its fundamental purpose, the aim of occupying your minds so completely that YOU WILL NOT HEAR the call of truth. In a sense, the special relationship was the EGO's answer to the creation of the Holy Spirit, Who was God's Answer to the separation. For, although the ego did not understand WHAT had been created, it WAS aware of threat.

The whole defense system that the ego evolved, to PROTECT the separation from the Holy Spirit, was in response to the Gift with which God blessed it, and BY His blessing enabled it to be HEALED. This Blessing holds, WITHIN ITSELF, the truth about everything. And the truth is that the Holy Spirit IS in close relationship with you, because, in Him, is your relationship with God restored to you. The relationship with Him has never been broken, because the Holy Spirit has not been separate from anyone SINCE the separation. And through Him, have all your holy relationships been carefully preserved, to serve God's purpose FOR you.

The ego IS hyper alert to threat, and the part of your mind into which the ego was accepted is VERY anxious to preserve its reason, AS IT SEES IT. It does NOT realize that it is totally insane. And YOU must realize JUST WHAT THIS MEANS, if YOU would be restored to sanity. The insane PROTECT their thought systems, BUT THEY DO IT INSANELY. And ALL their defenses are AS INSANE AS WHAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT. The separation has NOTHING in it, no PART, NO 'reason,' and NO attribute, that is NOT insane. And its 'protection' IS part of it, as insane as the whole.

The special relationship, which is its chief defense, MUST therefore be insane. You have but little difficulty now in realizing that the thought-system it protects, is but a system of delusions. You recognize, at least in general terms, that the ego is insane. But the special relationship still seems to you somehow TO BE DIFFERENT. Yet we have looked at it far closer than at many other ASPECTS of the ego's thought-system which you have been more willing to let go. While this ONE remains, you will not LET the others go. FOR THIS ONE IS NOT DIFFERENT. RETAIN this one, and you HAVE retained the whole.

The special relationship has the most imposing and deceptive frame of all the defenses the ego uses. Its thought-system is offered here, surrounded by a frame so heavy and so elaborate, that the picture is almost obliterated by its imposing structure. Into the frame are woven all sorts of fanciful and fragmented illusions of love, set with dreams of sacrifice and self-aggrandizement, and interlaced with gilded threads of self-destruction. The glitter of blood shines like rubies, and the tears are faceted like diamonds, and gleam in the dim light in which the offering is made.

LOOK AT THE PICTURE. Do NOT let the frame distract you. This gift is given you for your damnation, and if you TAKE it, you WILL believe that you are damned. YOU CANNOT HAVE THE FRAME WITHOUT THE PICTURE. What you VALUE is the FRAME, for THERE you see no conflict. But the frame is only the wrapping for the GIFT of conflict. THE FRAME IS NOT THE GIFT. Be not deceived by the most superficial ASPECTS of this thought-system, for these aspects enclose the whole, complete with EVERY aspect. Death lies in this glittering gift. Let not your gaze dwell on the hypnotic gleaming of the frame. LOOK AT THE PICTURE, and realize that DEATH is offered you.

That is why the holy instant is so important in the defense of truth. The truth itself NEEDS no defense, but YOU DO need defense against your own ACCEPTANCE of the gift of death. When you who ARE truth, accept an idea so DANGEROUS to truth, YOU THREATEN TRUTH WITH DESTRUCTION. And YOUR defense must now be undertaken, TO KEEP TRUTH WHOLE. The power of Heaven, the Love of God, the tears of Christ and the joy of His Eternal Spirit are marshalled to defend you from your own attack. For you attack THEM, being PART of them, and they must SAVE you, for they love themselves.

The Holy instant is a miniature of Heaven, sent you FROM Heaven. It is a picture, too, set in a frame. But if you accept THIS gift, you will NOT see the frame at all, because the gift can only BE accepted through your willingness to focus ALL your attention ON THE PICTURE. The holy instant is a miniature of eternity. It is a picture of timelessness, set in a frame of time. If you focus on the picture, you will realize that it was only the frame that made you THINK it was a picture. WITHOUT the frame, the picture IS SEEN AS WHAT IT REPRESENTS. For, as the whole thought-system of the ego lies in ITS gifts, so the whole of Heaven lies in this instant, borrowed from eternity, and set in time for YOU.

Two gifts are offered you. Each is complete, and cannot be partially accepted. Each is a picture of all that you can have, SEEN VERY DIFFERENTLY. You CANNOT compare their value by comparing a picture to a frame. It MUST be the PICTURES ONLY that you compare, or the comparison is wholly without meaning. Remember that it is the picture that is the gift. And ONLY on this basis are you REALLY free to choose. LOOK AT THE PICTURES. BOTH of them. One is a tiny picture, hard to see at all beneath the heavy shadows of its enormous and disproportionate enclosure. The other is lightly framed, and hung in light, lovely to look upon for what it IS.

You who have tried so hard, and are STILL trying, to fit the better picture into the wrong frame, and so combine what cannot BE combined, accept this and be glad; These pictures are each framed perfectly, for what they represent. One is FRAMED to be out of focus, and NOT seen. The other is framed for perfect clarity. The picture of darkness and of death grows less convincing as you search it out amid its wrappings. As each senseless stone that SEEMS to shine in darkness from the frame is EXPOSED TO LIGHT, it becomes dull and lifeless, and ceases to distract you from the picture. And finally, you look upon the PICTURE ITSELF, seeing at last that, unprotected by its FRAME, it HAS no meaning.

The other picture is lightly framed, for time cannot contain eternity. There is NO distraction here. The picture of Heaven and eternity grows MORE convincing, as you look at it. And now, by REAL comparison, a TRANSFORMATION of both pictures can at last occur. And each is given its RIGHTFUL place, when both are seen IN RELATION TO EACH OTHER. The dark picture, BROUGHT TO LIGHT, is NOT perceived as fearful. But the fact that IT IS JUST A PICTURE is brought home at last. And what you SEE there, YOU will recognize as what it is; a picture of what YOU THOUGHT WAS REAL, and nothing more. For, BEHIND this picture, YOU WILL SEE NOTHING.

The picture of light, in clear-cut and unmistakable contrast, is transformed into what lies BEYOND the picture. As you look on THIS, you realize that IT IS NOT A PICTURE, but a reality. This is no figured REPRESENTATION of a thought-system, but the Thought Itself. What IT represents is THERE. The frame fades gently, and God rises to your remembrance, offering you the whole of creation, in exchange for your little picture, wholly without value, and entirely deprived of meaning. As God ascends into HIS rightful place and you to yours, you will experience again the MEANING of relationship, and know it to be true.

Let us ascend, in peace together, to the Father, by giving HIM ascendance in our minds. We will gain EVERYTHING by giving HIM the power and the glory, and keeping NO illusions of where they are. They ARE in us, through HIS ascendance. What He has given is HIS. It shines in every part of Him, as in the Whole. The whole reality of your relationship with Him lies in OUR relationship to one another. The holy instant shines alike on ALL relationships, for in it, they ARE one. For here is only healing, ALREADY complete and perfect. For here is God, and where HE is, only the perfect and complete CAN be.

Section 4 - The Unreality of Sin

The attraction of guilt is found in sin, NOT error. Sin will be repeated, BECAUSE of this attraction. Fear can become so acute that the sin is denied the acting out, but, while the guilt REMAINS attractive, the mind will suffer, and not let go the IDEA of the sin. For guilt still calls to it, and the mind hears it and yearns for it, making it a willing captive to its sick appeal. Sin is an idea of evil that can not BE corrected, and will be forever DESIRABLE. As an ESSENTIAL part of what the ego thinks you ARE, you will ALWAYS want it. And only an AVENGER, with a mind UNLIKE your own, could stamp it out through FEAR.

The ego does not think it possible that love, NOT fear, is really called upon by sin, AND ALWAYS ANSWERS. For the ego brings sin to FEAR, demanding punishment. But punishment is but another form of guilt's protection. For what is deserving punishment, must have been REALLY DONE. Punishment is always the great preserver of sin; treating it with respect, and honoring its enormity. What must be punished, MUST BE TRUE. And what is true MUST be eternal, and WILL be repeated endlessly. For what you think is real YOU WANT, and will NOT let it go.

An ERROR, on the other hand, is NOT attractive. What you see clearly AS A MISTAKE, you WANT corrected. Sometimes a sin can be repeated over and over, with OBVIOUSLY distressing results, but WITHOUT the loss of its appeal. And suddenly you change its status from a sin to a MISTAKE. Now you will NOT repeat it; you will merely stop, and let it go. UNLESS THE GUILT REMAINS. For then, you will but change the FORM of sin, granting that it was an error, but KEEPING IT UNCORRECTABLE. This is not really a change in your perception, for it is SIN that calls for punishment, NOT error.

The Holy Spirit CANNOT punish sin. Mistakes He recognizes, and would correct them all, as God entrusted Him to do. But SIN He knows not, nor can He RECOGNIZE mistakes that cannot be corrected. For a mistake that cannot be corrected is MEANINGLESS to Him. Mistakes are FOR correction. They call for NOTHING ELSE. What calls for punishment, must call for NOTHING. Yet every mistake MUST be a call for love. What, then, is sin? What COULD it be but a mistake you would keep hidden; a call for help that you would keep UNHEARD, and thus UNANSWERED?

In time, the Holy Spirit CLEARLY sees the Son of God can make mistakes. On this, you SHARE His vision. Yet you do NOT share His recognition of the difference between time and eternity. And when correction is completed, time IS eternity. Time is like a downward spiral, that seems to travel down from a long, unbroken line, along another plane, but which in no way BREAKS the line, or interferes with its smooth continuousness. Along the spiral, it SEEMS as if the line MUST have been broken, but, at the LINE, its wholeness is apparent.

Everything seen from the spiral is misperceived. But, as you approach the line, you realize that IT was not affected by the drop into another plane at all. But, FROM this plane, the LINE seems discontinuous. And this is but an error in perception, which can be easily corrected IN THE MIND, although the body's eyes will see no change. The eyes see many things the mind corrects, and YOU respond, NOT to the eyes' illusions, BUT TO THE MIND's CORRECTIONS. You SEE the line as broken, and as you shift to different aspects of the spiral, the line looks different. Yet in your mind is One Who KNOWS it is unbroken, and forever changeless.

This One can teach you how to look on time differently, and to see BEYOND it. But NOT while you believe in sin. In error, yes, for this CAN be corrected by the mind. But sin is the belief that YOUR perception is UNCHANGEABLE, and that the MIND must ACCEPT AS TRUE what it is told THROUGH it. If it does not obey, the MIND is judged insane. The ONLY power that could CHANGE perception is thus kept impotent, held to the body by the FEAR of changed perception, which its Teacher, Who is One with it, would bring.

When you are tempted to believe that sin is real, remember this: If sin is real, both God AND YOU are not. If creation is EXTENSION, the Creator MUST have extended HIMSELF, and it is impossible that what is PART of Him is totally unlike the rest. If sin is real, God must be at war WITHIN HIMSELF. HE must be split, and torn between good and evil; partly sane and partially insane. For He must have created what wills to destroy Him, and HAS THE POWER TO DO SO. Is it not EASIER to believe that YOU have been mistaken, than to believe in this?

While you believe that YOUR reality, OR YOUR BROTHER's, is bounded by a body, you will believe in sin. While you believe that BODIES can unite, you will find guilt attractive, and believe that sin is precious. For the belief that bodies LIMIT the mind leads to a perception of the world in which the PROOF of separation seems to be everywhere. And God and His creation seem to be split apart, and overthrown. For sin would PROVE what God created holy could not prevail against it, nor remain ITSELF before the power of sin.

Sin is perceived as mightier than God, before which God HIMSELF must bow, and offer His creation to its conqueror. Is this humility, or madness? If sin were real it would forever be beyond the hope of healing. For there would be a power BEYOND God's, capable of making another will, which could attack His Will, and OVERCOME it. And give His Son a will APART from His, and STRONGER. And each part of His fragmented creation would have a DIFFERENT will OPPOSED to His, and in eternal opposition to Him AND TO EACH OTHER.

Your holy relationship has, as its purpose now, the goal of proving THIS is impossible. Heaven has smiled upon it, and the belief in sin has been uprooted in its smile of love. You SEE it still, because you do not realize that its FOUNDATION has gone. Its SOURCE has been removed, and so it can be cherished but a little while, before it vanishes. Only the habit of LOOKING for it still remains. And yet you look with Heaven's smile upon YOUR lips, and Heaven's blessing on your sight.

You will NOT see it long. For, in the NEW perception, the mind CORRECTS it when it SEEMS to be seen, and it becomes invisible. But ERRORS are quickly recognized, and quickly given to correction, to be healed, NOT hidden. YOU will be healed of sin and all its ravages, the INSTANT that you give it no power over EACH OTHER. And you will HELP each other overcome MISTAKES, by joyously RELEASING one another from the belief in sin. In the holy instant, you will see the smile of Heaven shining on BOTH of you. And you will shine upon each other, in glad acknowledgment of the grace that has been GIVEN you.

For sin will NOT prevail against a union Heaven has smiled upon. Your perception was HEALED in the holy instant Heaven gave you. Forget what you HAVE seen, and raise your eyes, in faith, to what you now CAN see. The barriers to Heaven will disappear before your holy sight. For you who were sightless have been GIVEN vision, and you CAN see. Look not for what has been REMOVED, but for the glory that has been RESTORED, for you to see. Look upon your Redeemer, and behold what He would show you in each other. And let not sin arise again, to blind your eyes. For sin would keep you separate, but your Redeemer would have you look upon each other as yourself.

Your relationship is now a temple of healing, a place where all the weary ones can come and find rest. Here is the rest that waits for all, after the journey. And it is brought NEARER to all, by your relationship. As this peace expands, from deep inside yourselves, to embrace ALL the Sonship and give it rest, it will encounter many obstacles. Some of them, YOU will try to impose. Others will seem to arise from elsewhere; from your brothers, and from various aspects of the world OUTSIDE. But peace will gently cover them, extending past, COMPLETELY unhindered.

The extension of the Holy Spirit's purpose, from YOUR relationship to others, to bring them gently IN, has already begun. This is the way in which He will bring means and goal in line. The peace He laid, deep within BOTH of you, will quietly extend to EVERY aspect of your lives, surrounding both of you with glowing happiness, and the calm awareness of COMPLETE protection. And you will carry its message of love and safety and freedom to everyone who draws nigh unto your temple, where healing waits for him.

The Holy Spirit asks that you offer Him a resting-place, where YOU will rest in Him. He answered you, and entered your relationship. Would you not now RETURN His graciousness, and enter into a relationship with Him? For it is HE Who offered YOUR relationship the gift of holiness, without which it would have been forever impossible to appreciate each other. The gratitude you owe to Him, He asks but that YOU receive, FOR Him. And, when you look with gentle graciousness upon each other, you ARE beholding Him. For you are looking where He IS, and NOT apart from you.

You CANNOT see the Holy Spirit, but you CAN see your brothers truly. And the light in them will show you all that you NEED to see. When the peace in you has been extended to encompass EVERYONE, the Holy Spirit's function here will be accomplished. What NEED is there for SEEING, then? When God has taken the last step Himself, the Holy Spirit will gather ALL your thanks and gratitude that you have offered Him, and lay them gently before His Creator, in the Name of His most holy Son. And the Father will ACCEPT them, in HIS Name. What need is there of seeing, in the presence of HIS gratitude?

Lesson 135 "If I defend myself I am attacked."

Who would defend himself unless he thought he was attacked, that the attack is real, and that his own defense can save himself? And herein lies the folly of defense; it gives illusions full reality, and then attempts to handle them as real. It adds illusions to illusions, thus making correction doubly difficult. And it is this you do when you attempt to plan the future, activate the past, or organize the present as you wish.

You operate from the belief you must protect yourself from what is happening, because it must contain what threatens you. A sense of threat is an acknowledgment of an inherent weakness; a belief that there is danger which has power to call on you to make appropriate defense.

The world is based on this insane belief. And all its structures, all its thoughts and doubts, its penalties and heavy armaments, its legal definitions and its codes, its ethics and its leaders and its gods, all serve but to preserve its sense of threat. For no one walks the world in armature but must have terror striking at his heart.

Defense is frightening. It stems from fear, increasing fear as each defense is made. You think it offers safety. Yet it speaks of fear made real and terror justified. Is it not strange you do not pause to ask, as you elaborate your plans and make your armor thicker and your locks more tight, what you defend, and how, and against what?

Let us consider first what you defend. It must be something that is very weak and easily assaulted. It must be something made easy prey, unable to protect itself, and needing your defense. What but the body has such frailty that constant care and watchful, deep concern are needful to protect its little life? What but the body falters and must fail to serve the Son of God as worthy host?

Yet it is not the body that can fear, nor be a thing to fear. It has no needs but those which you assign to it. It needs no complicated structures of defense, no health-inducing medicine, no care and no concern at all. Defend its life, or give it gifts to make it beautiful or walls to make it safe, and you but say your home is open to the thief of time, corruptible and crumbling, so unsafe it must be guarded with your very life.

Is not this picture fearful? Can you be at peace with such a concept of your home? Yet what endowed the body with the right to serve you thus except your own belief? It is your mind which gave the body all the functions that you see in it, and set its value far beyond a little pile of dust and water. Who would make defense of something that he recognized as this?

The "self" that needs protection is not real. The body, valueless and hardly worth the least defense, need merely be perceived as quite apart from you, and it becomes a healthy, serviceable instrument through which the mind can operate until its usefulness is over. Who would want to keep it when its usefulness is done?

Defend the body and you have attacked your mind. For you have seen in it the faults, the weaknesses, the limits and the lacks from which you think the body must be saved. You will not see the mind as separate from bodily conditions. And you will impose upon the body all the pain that comes from the conception of the mind as limited and fragile, and apart from other minds and separate from its Source.

These are the thoughts in need of healing, and the body will respond with health when they have been corrected and replaced with truth. This is the body's only real defense. Yet is this where you look for its defense? You offer it protection of a kind from which it gains no benefit at all, but merely adds to your distress of mind. You do not heal, but merely take away the hope of healing, for you fail to see where hope must lie if it be meaningful.

A healed mind does not plan. It carries out the plans which it receives through listening to Wisdom that is not its own. It waits until it has been taught what should be done, and then proceeds to do it. It does not depend upon itself for anything except its adequacy to fulfill the plans assigned to it. It is secure in certainty that obstacles can not impede its progress to accomplishment of any goal which serves the greater plan established for the good of everyone.

A healed mind is relieved from the belief that it must plan, although it cannot know the outcome which is best, the means by which it is achieved, nor how to recognize the problem that the plan is made to solve. It must misuse the body in its plans until it recognizes this is so. But when it has accepted this as true, then is it healed, and lets the body go.

Enslavement of the body to the plans the unhealed mind sets up to save itself must make the body sick. It is not free to be a means of helping in a plan which far exceeds its own protection and which needs its service for a little while. In this capacity is health assured. For everything the mind employs for this will function flawlessly, and with the strength that has been given it and cannot fail.

It is, perhaps, not easy to perceive that self-initiated plans are but defenses, with the purpose all of them were made to realize. They are the means by which a frightened mind would undertake its own protection at the cost of truth. This is not difficult to realize in some forms which these self-deceptions take, for the denial of reality is very obvious. Yet planning is not often recognized as a defense.

The mind engaged in planning for itself is occupied in setting up control of future happenings. It does not think that it will be provided for unless it makes its own provisions. Time becomes a future emphasis, to be controlled by learning and experience obtained from past events and previous beliefs. It overlooks the present, for it rests on the idea the past has taught enough to let the mind direct its future course.

The mind that plans is thus refusing to allow for change. What it has learned before becomes the basis for its future goals. Its past experience directs its choice of what will happen. And it does not see that here and now is everything it needs to guarantee a future quite unlike the past, without a continuity of any old ideas and sick beliefs. Anticipation plays no part at all, for present confidence directs the way.

Defenses are the plans you undertake to make against the truth. Their aim is to select what you approve, and disregard what you consider incompatible with your beliefs of your reality. Yet what remains is meaningless indeed. For it is your reality which is the "threat" that your defenses would attack, obscure, and take apart and crucify.

What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything which happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life.

Your present trust in Him is the defense which promises a future undisturbed, without a trace of sorrow, and with joy which constantly increases as this life becomes a holy instant, set in time, but heeding only immortality. Let no defenses but your present trust direct the future, and this life becomes a meaningful encounter with the truth that only your defenses would conceal.

Without defenses, you become a light which Heaven gratefully acknowledges to be its own. And it will lead you on in ways appointed for your happiness according to the ancient plan, begun when time was born. Your followers will join their light with yours, and it will be increased until the world is lighted up with joy. And gladly will our brothers lay aside their cumbersome defenses which availed them nothing, and could only terrify.

We will anticipate that time today with present confidence, for this is part of what was planned for us. We will be sure that everything we need is given us for our accomplishment of this today. We make no plans for how it will be done, but realize that our defenselessness is all that is required for the truth to dawn upon our minds with certainty.

For fifteen minutes twice today we rest from senseless planning, and from every thought which blocks the truth from entering our minds. Today we will receive instead of plan, that we may give instead of organize. And we are given truly, as we say:

"If I defend myself I am attacked.

But in defenselessness I will be strong,

And I will learn what my defenses hide."

Nothing but that. If there are plans to make, you will be told of them. They may not be the plans you thought were needed, nor indeed the answers to the problems which you thought confronted you. But they are answers to another kind of question, which remains unanswered, yet in need of answering until the Answer comes to you at last.

All your defenses have been aimed at not receiving what you will receive today. And in the light and joy of simple truth, you will but wonder why you ever thought that you must be defended from release. Heaven asks nothing. It is hell that makes extravagant demands for sacrifice. You give up nothing in these times today when, undefended you present yourself to your Creator as you really are.

He has remembered you. Today we will remember Him. For this is Easter time in your salvation. And you rise again from what was seeming death and hopelessness. Now is the light of hope reborn in you, for now you come without defense to learn the part for you within the plan of God. What little plans or magical beliefs can still have value, when you have received your function from the Voice of God Himself?

Try not to shape this day as you believe would benefit you most. For you can not conceive of all the happiness that comes to you without your planning. Learn today. And all the world will take this giant stride, and celebrate your Easter time with you. Throughout the day, as foolish little things appear to raise defensiveness in you and tempt you to engage in weaving plans, remind yourself this is a special day for learning, and acknowledge it with this:

"This is Easter time. And I would keep

It holy. I will not defend myself,

Because the Son of God needs no defense

Against the truth of his Reality."

Section 3 - The Ego and False Autonomy

Bill has asked lately how the mind could ever have made the ego. This is a perfectly reasonable question; in fact, the best question either of you could ask. There is no point in giving an historical answer, because the past does not matter in human terms, and history would not exist if the same errors were not being repeated in the present. Bill has often told you that your thinking is too abstract at times, and he is right. Abstraction DOES apply to knowledge, because knowledge is completely impersonal, and examples are irrelevant to its understanding. Perception, however, is always specific, and therefore quite concrete.

Perceptual distortions are not abstractions. They are merely confusions. Each man makes one ego for himself, although it is subject to enormous variation because of its instability, and one for everyone he perceives, which is equally variable. Their interaction IS a process which literally alters both, because they were not made either BY or WITH the unalterable.

It is particularly important to realize that this alteration can and does occur as readily when the interaction takes place IN THE MIND as when it involves physical presence. THINKING about another ego is as effective in changing relative perception as is their physical interaction. There could be no better example of the fact that the ego is an idea, though not a reality-based thought. Your own present state is the best concrete example Bill could have of how the mind could have made the ego. You DO have real knowledge at times, but when you throw it away it is as if you never had it. This willfulness is so apparent that Bill need only perceive it to see that is DOES happen. If it can occur that way in the present, why should he be surprised that it occurred that way in the past? All psychology rests on the principle of continuity of behavior. Surprise is a reasonable response to the unfamiliar, but hardly to something that has occurred with such persistence.

An extreme example is a good teaching aid, not because it is typical, but because it is clear. The more complex the material, the clearer the examples should be for teaching purposes. (Bill, remember that for your own course, and do not avoid the dramatic. It holds the student's interest precisely because it is so apparent that it CAN be readily perceived.) But, as we have said before, all teaching devices in the hands of good teachers are aimed at rendering themselves unnecessary. I would therefore like to use your present state as an example of how the mind can work, provided you both fully recognize that it need not work that way. I NEVER forget this myself, and a good teacher shares his own ideas, which he himself believes. Otherwise, he cannot really "profess" them, as we used the term before.

With full recognition of its transitory nature, (a recognition which I hope you both share), Helen offers a very good teaching example of alternations between Soul and ego, with concomitant variation between peace and frenzy. In answer to Bill's question, it is perfectly apparent that when she is ego-dominated, she DOES NOT KNOW her Soul. Her abstract ability, which is perfectly genuine and does stem from knowledge, cannot help her because she has turned to the concrete which she cannot handle abstractly. Being incapable of appropriate concreteness perceptually, because her ego is not her natural home, she suffers from its intrusions, but NOT from complete lack of knowledge.

The result is a kind of "double vision", which would have produced an actual diplopia, if she had not settled for nearsightedness. This was an attempt to see the concrete more clearly through the ego's eyes, without the "interference" of the longer range. Her virtual lack of astigmatism is due to her real efforts at objectivity and fairness. She has not attained them, or she would not be nearsighted. But she HAS tried to be fair with what she permitted herself to see.

Why are you surprised that something happened in the dim past, when it is so clearly happening right now? You forget the love that even animals have for their own offspring, and the need they feel to protect them. This is because they regard them as part of themselves. No one disowns something he regards as a very real part of himself. Man reacts to his ego much as God does to His Souls, -- with love, protection, and great charity. The reaction of man to the self he made is not at all surprising. In fact, it duplicates in many ways the way he will one day react to his real creations, which are as timeless as he is.

The question is not HOW man responds toward his ego, but only what he believes he IS. Again, belief is an ego-function, and as long as your origin is open to belief at all, you ARE regarding it from an ego viewpoint. That is why the Bible quotes me as saying, "Ye believe in God, believe also in me." Belief DOES apply to me, because I am the teacher of the ego. When teaching is no longer necessary, you will merely know God.

Repression HAS been a stronger mechanism in your own ego defense, and that is why you find her shifts so hard to tolerate. Willfulness is more characteristic of her, and that is why she has less sense than you do. It is extremely fortunate, temporarily, that the particular strengths you will both develop and use are precisely those which the other must supply now. You who will be the strength of God are quite weak, and you who will be God's help are clearly in need of help. What better plan could have been devised to prevent the intrusion of the ego's arrogance on the outcome?

Undermining the foundation of an ego's thought-system MUST be perceived as painful, even though this is anything but true. Babies scream in rage if you take away a knife or a scissors, even though they may well harm themselves if you do not. The speedup has placed you both in the same position.

You are NOT by any means prepared, and in this sense you ARE babies. You have no sense of real self-preservation and are very likely to decide that you need precisely what would hurt you most. Whether you know it now or not, however, you both HAVE willed to cooperate in a concerted and very commendable effort to become both harmLESS and helpFUL, two attributes which MUST go together. Your attitudes, even toward this, are necessarily conflicted, because ALL attitudes are ego-based.

This will not last. Be patient awhile, and remember what we have said once before; the outcome is as certain as God! Helen used to perceive the quotation "To him that hath shall be given" as a paradox that bordered on the ironic. She also had a similar reaction to another related one: "Faith is the gift of God." We have re-interpreted both of these statements before, but perhaps we can make them even clearer now.

Only those who have a real and lasting sense of abundance can be truly charitable. This is quite obvious when you consider the concepts involved. To be able to give anything implies that you can do without it. Even if you associate giving with sacrifice, you still give only because you believe you are somehow getting something better so that you can do without the thing you give.

"Giving to get" is an inescapable law of the ego, which ALWAYS evaluates itself in relation to others' egos, and is therefore continually preoccupied with the scarcity principle which gave rise to it. This IS the meaning of Freud's "pleasure principle." Freud was the most accurate "ego psychologist" we ever had, although he would not have preferred this description himself. His ego was a very weak and deprived concept, which could function ONLY as a thing in need.

The "reality principle" of the ego is not real at all. It is forced to perceive the "reality" of other egos, because it CANNOT establish the reality of itself. In fact, its whole perception of other egos AS real is ONLY an attempt to convince itself that IT is real.

"Self esteem," in ego terms, means nothing more than that the ego has deluded itself into accepting its reality and is therefore temporarily less predatory. This "self esteem" is ALWAYS vulnerable to stress, a term which really means that a condition has arisen in which the delusion of reality of the ego is threatened. This produces either ego-deflation or ego-inflation, resulting in either withdrawal or attack. The ego literally lives by comparisons. This means that equality is beyond its grasp, and charity becomes impossible.

The ego NEVER gives out of abundance, because it was made as a SUBSTITUTE for it. This is why the concept of GETTING arose in the ego's thought-system. All appetites are "getting" mechanisms representing ego needs to confirm itself. This is as true of bodily appetites as it is of the so-called "higher" ego needs. Bodily appetites are NOT physical in origin, because the ego regards the body as its home, and DOES try to satisfy itself through the body. But the IDEA that this is possible is a decision of the ego, which is completely confused about what is really possible. This accounts for its essential erraticness.

Consider the inevitable confusion which MUST arise from a perception of the self which responds: When I was completely on my own I "had no idea what was possible."The ego DOES believe it is completely on its own, which is merely another way of describing how it originated. This is such a fearful state that it can only turn to other egos, and unite with them in a feeble attempt at identification, or attack them in an equally feeble show of strength. The ego is free to complete the stem: "When I was completely on my own" in any way it chooses, but it is NOT free to consider the validity of the premise itself, because this premise is its FOUNDATION. The ego IS the belief of the mind that it is completely on its own.

The ego's ceaseless attempts to gain the Soul's acknowledgement and thus establish its own existence are utterly useless. The Soul in its knowledge is unaware of the ego. It does NOT attack the ego. It merely cannot conceive of it at all. While the ego is equally unaware of the Soul, it DOES perceive itself as rejected by something which is greater than itself. This is why self-esteem in ego terms MUST be a delusion.

The creations of God do not create myths, but the creative efforts of man can turn to mythology, but only under one condition. What man then makes is no longer creative. Myths are entirely perceptions and are so ambivalent in form, and so characteristically good and evil in nature that the most benevolent of them is not without fearful components, if only in innuendo. Myths and magic are closely associated, in that myths are usually related to the ego origins, and magic to the powers which the ego ascribes to itself. Every mythological system includes an account of "the creation," and associates this with its particular perception of magic.

The "battle for survival" is nothing more than the ego's struggle to preserve itself and its interpretation of its own beginning. This beginning is always associated with physical birth, because nobody maintains that the ego existed before that point in time. The religiously ego-oriented tend to believe that the Soul existed before, and will continue to exist afterwards, after a temporary lapse into ego-life. Some actually believe that the Soul will be punished for this lapse, even though in reality it could not possibly know anything about it.

The term "salvation" does NOT apply to the Soul, which is not in danger and does not need to be salvaged. Salvation is nothing more that "right-mindedness" which is NOT the one-mindedness of the Soul, but which must be accomplished before one-mindedness can be restored. Right-mindedness dictates the next step automatically, because right perception is uniformly without attack, so that wrong-mindedness is obliterated. The ego cannot survive without judgment, and is laid aside accordingly. The mind then has only ONE direction in which it can move.

The directions which the mind will take are always automatic, because they cannot BUT be dictated by the thought-system to which it adheres. Every thought-system has INTERNAL consistency, and this does provide a basis for the continuity of behavior. However, this is still reliability and NOT validity. Reliable behavior is a meaningful perception, as far as ego thinking goes. However, VALID behavior is an expression which is inherently contradictory, because validity is an END, and behavior is a MEANS. These cannot be combined logically, because when an end has been attained, the means for its attainment are no longer meaningful.

Test constructors recognize that there are different kinds of validity, and also that they are of different orders. This means that they do not mean truth and do not pretend to mean it. Test validity can be judged by logic, by theory, and by practice, each being regarded as a different dimension. In each case, the amount of confidence is expressed in some form of percentage, either quantitatively, or merely in terms of "high," moderate, and low. But a hypothesis is tested as either true or false, to be accepted or rejected accordingly. If it is shown to be true it becomes a fact, after which no one attempts to evaluate it unless its status AS fact is questioned.

EVERY idea which the ego has accorded the status of fact is questionable, because facts are in the realm of knowledge. Confusing realms of discourse is a thinking error which philosophers have recognized for centuries. Psychologists are generally quite deficient in this respect, as are many theologians. Data from one realm of discourse do not mean anything in another, because they can be understood only WITHIN the thought-systems of which they are a part. This is why psychologists are concentrating increasingly on the ego, in an attempt to unify their clearly unrelated data. It need hardly be said that an attempt to relate the unrelated cannot succeed.

The recent ecological emphasis is but a more ingenious way of trying to impose order on chaos. We have already credited the ego with considerable ingenuity, though not with creativeness. But it should always be remembered that inventiveness is really wasted effort, even in its most ingenious forms. We do not have to EXPLAIN anything. This is why we need not trouble ourselves with inventiveness. The highly specific nature of invention is not worthy of the abstract creativity of God's Creations.