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

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

Lesson 260 "Let me remember God created me."

Now is our Source remembered, and Therein we find our true Identity at last. Holy indeed are we, because our Source can know no sin. And we who are His Sons are like each other, and alike to Him.

Lesson 251 "I am in need of nothing but the truth."

"And for that peace, our Father, we give thanks. What we denied ourselves You have restored, and only that is what we really want."

Special Message 19 - Was There a Physical Resurrection?

Oct. 2, 1976

God holds out His hand to His Son to help him rise and return to Him. I can help because the world is illusion, and I have overcome the world. Look past the tomb, the body, the illusion. Have faith in nothing but the spirit and the guidance God gives you. He could not have created the body because it is a limit. He must have created the spirit because it is immortal. Can those who are created like Him be limited? The body is the symbol of the world. Leave it behind. It cannot enter Heaven. But I can take you there anytime you choose. Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does so. And then, and then... I cannot speak of that.

A body cannot stay without illusions, and the last one to be overcome is death. This is the message of the crucifixion; there is no order of difficulty in miracles. This is the message of the resurrection: Illusions are illusions. Truth is true. Illusions vanish. Only truth remains.

These lessons needed to be taught but once, for when the stone of death is rolled away, what can be seen except an empty tomb? And that is what you see who follow me into the sunlight and away from death, past all illusions, on to Heaven's gate, where God will come Himself to take you home.

Lesson 276 "The Word of God is given me to speak."

"Father, Your Word is mine. And it is this that I would speak to all my brothers, who are given me to cherish as my own, as I am loved and blessed and saved by You."

Section 3 - The Fear of Redemption

You may wonder why it is so crucial that you look upon your hatred, and realize its full extent. And you may think that it would be easy enough for the Holy Spirit to show it to you, and dispel it WITHOUT the need for you to raise it to awareness yourself. But there is one more complication which you have interposed between yourself and the Atonement, that you do not yet realize. We have said that no one will countenance fear, IF HE RECOGNIZES IT. But in your disordered state, YOU ARE NOT AFRAID OF FEAR. You do not LIKE it, but it is NOT your desire to attack which really frightens you. You are not seriously disturbed by your hostility. You keep it hidden, because you are MORE afraid of what it covers.

THIS IS WHAT YOU REALLY WANT TO HIDE. In honesty, is it not harder for you to say "I love" than "I hate?" For you associate love with weakness and hatred with strength, and your REAL power seems to you as your real weakness. For you could NOT control your joyous response to the call of love if you heard it, and the whole world you THINK you control WOULD vanish. The Holy Spirit, then, seems to be ATTACKING YOUR FORTRESS, for you would SHUT OUT GOD, and He does not will to BE excluded.

You have built your whole insane belief system, because you think you would be HELPLESS in God's Presence. And you would SAVE yourself from His love, because you think it would crush you into nothingness. You are afraid it would sweep you AWAY from yourself, AND MAKE YOU LITTLE. For you believe that magnitude lies in defiance, and attack is grandeur. YOU THINK YOU HAVE MADE A WORLD THAT GOD WOULD DESTROY. And by loving Him, WHICH YOU DO, you would throw this world away, WHICH YOU WOULD.

The reason you must look upon your delusions, and not keep them hidden, is that THEY DO NOT REST ON THEIR OWN FOUNDATION. In concealment, they APPEAR to do so, and thus they seem to be SELF-SUSTAINED. THIS is the fundamental illusion on which they rest. For BENEATH them, and concealed as long as THEY are hidden, is the loving mind that THOUGHT it made them in anger. And the pain in this mind is so apparent, when it is uncovered, that its need of healing cannot BE denied. Not all the tricks and games that you have offered it can heal it, for HERE is the REAL crucifixion of God's Son.

And yet he is NOT crucified. For here is both his pain AND his healing, for the Holy Spirit's vision is merciful, and His remedy is quick. Do not HIDE suffering from His sight, but bring it gladly TO Him. Lay before His eternal sanity ALL your hurt, and LET Him heal you. Do not leave any spot of pain hidden from His Light, and search your minds carefully for any thoughts which you may fear to uncover. For He will heal every little thought that you have kept to hurt you, and cleanse it of its littleness, restoring it to the magnitude of God.

Beneath all your grandiosity, which you hold so dear, is your real call for help. For you call for love to your Father, as your Father calls you to Himself. In that place, which you have hidden, you will only to unite with the Father, in loving remembrance of Him. You will find this place of truth as you see it in your brothers, for though they may deceive themselves, like you they long for the grandeur that is in them. And perceiving it you will WELCOME it, and it will be yours. For grandeur is the RIGHT of God's Son, and no illusions can satisfy him, or save him from what he IS.

Only his love is real, and he will be content ONLY with his reality. Save him from his illusions, that you may accept the magnitude of your Father in peace and joy. But exempt no one from your love, or you will be hiding a dark place in your minds, where the Holy Spirit is not welcome. And you will exempt YOURSELF from His healing power, for by not offering total love, YOU will not be healed completely. And healing must be as complete as fear, for love cannot enter where there is one spot of fear to mar its welcome.

Section 3 - Atonement without Sacrifice

If the Crucifixion is seen from an upside down point of view, it certainly does appear AS IF God permitted, and even encouraged, one of his Sons to suffer BECAUSE he was good. Many very devoted ministers preach this every day. This particularly unfortunate interpretation, which actually arose out of the combined misprojection of a large number of my own would-be followers, has led many people to be bitterly afraid of God.

This particularly anti-religious concept happens to enter into many religions, and this is neither by chance nor coincidence.

The real Christian would have to pause and ask "how could this be?" Is it likely that God Himself would be capable of the kind of thinking which His own Words have clearly stated is unworthy of man?

(There are times when) The best defense, as always, is NOT to attack another's position, but rather to protect the truth. It is not necessary to consider anything acceptable, if you have to turn a whole frame of reference around in order to justify it. This procedure is painful in its minor applications, and genuinely tragic on a mass basis. Persecution is a frequent result, justifying the terrible misperception that God Himself persecuted His own Son on behalf of salvation. The very words are meaningless.

It has always been particularly difficult to overcome this because, although the error itself is no harder to overcome than any other error, men were unwilling to give it up because of its prominent escape value. In milder forms, a parent says "This hurts me more than it hurts you," and feels exonerated in beating a child. Can you believe that the Father REALLY thinks this way?

It is so essential that all such thinking be dispelled that we must be VERY sure that NOTHING of this kind remains in your mind. I was NOT punished because YOU were bad. The wholly benign lesson which the Atonement teaches is wholly lost if it is tainted with this kind of distortion in ANY form.

Be very sure that you recognize how impossible this assumption really is, and how ENTIRELY it arises from misprojection. This kind of error is responsible for a host of related fallacies, including the misbelief that God rejected man and forced him out of the Garden of Eden, or that I am misdirecting you. I have made every effort to use words which are ALMOST impossible to distort, but man is very inventive when it comes to twisting symbols around.

God Himself is not symbolic; He is FACT. The Atonement, too, is totally without symbolism. It is perfectly clear, because it exists in light. Only man's attempts to shroud it in darkness have made it inaccessible to the unwilling, and ambiguous to the partly willing. The Atonement itself radiates nothing but truth. It therefore epitomizes harmlessness, and sheds ONLY blessing. It could not do this if it arose from anything other than perfect innocence! Innocence is wisdom, because it is unaware of evil, which does not exist. It is, however, PERFECTLY aware of EVERYTHING, that is true.

The Resurrection demonstrated that NOTHING can destroy truth. Good can withstand ANY form of evil, because light abolishes ALL forms of darkness. The Atonement is thus the perfect lesson. It is the final demonstration that all of the other lessons which I taught are true.

Man is released from ALL errors if he believes in this. The deductive approach to teaching accepts the generalization which is applicable to ALL single instances, rather than building up the generalization after analyzing numerous single instances separately. If you can accept the ONE GENERALIZATION NOW, there will be no need to learn from many smaller lessons.

NOTHING can prevail against a Son of God who commends his Spirit into the hands of His Father. By doing this, the mind awakens from its sleep, and the Soul remembers its Creator. All sense of Separation disappears, and level confusion vanishes. The Son of God IS part of the holy Trinity, but the Trinity Itself is One. There is no confusion within ITS levels, because they are of One Mind and One Will. This Single Purpose creates perfect integration, and establishes the (reign of the) Peace of God.

But this vision can be perceived only by the truly innocent. Because their hearts are pure, they defend true perception, instead of defending themselves AGAINST it. Understanding the lesson of the Atonement, they are without the will to attack, and therefore they see truly. This is what the Bible means when it says "(and) when He shall appear (or be perceived) we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him AS HE IS."

Sacrifice is a notion totally unknown to God. It arises solely from fear of the Records. This is particularly unfortunate, because frightened people are apt to be vicious. Sacrificing others in any way is a clear-cut violation of God's own injunction that man should be merciful even as His Father in Heaven is merciful.

It has been harder for many Christians to realize that this commandment (or assignment) also applies to THEMSELVES. Good teachers never terrorize their students. To terrorize is to attack, and this results in rejection of what the teacher offers. This results in learning failures.

I have been correctly referred to in the Bible as "The Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world." Those who represent the lamb as blood-stained (an all too widespread conceptual error) do NOT understand the meaning of the symbol.

Correctly understood, the symbol is a very simple parable, or teaching device, which merely depicts my innocence. The lion and the lamb lying down together refers to the fact that strength and innocence are NOT in conflict, but naturally live in peace. "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God" is another way of saying the same thing. Only the innocent CAN see God.

There has been some controversy (in human terms) as to whether seeing is an attribute of the eyes, or an expression of the integrative powers of the brain. Correctly understood, the issue revolves around the question of whether the body or the mind can see (or understand). This is not really open to question at all.

The body is not capable of understanding. Only the mind KNOWS anything. A pure mind knows the truth, and this IS its strength. It cannot attack the body, because it knows EXACTLY what the body IS. This is what "a sane mind in a sane body" really means.

A sane mind is NOT out for blood. It does not confuse destruction with innocence, because it associates innocence with strength, NOT with weakness. Innocence is INCAPABLE of sacrificing anything, because the innocent mind HAS everything and strives only to PROTECT its Wholeness. This is why it CANNOT misproject. It can only honor man, because honor is the NATURAL greeting of the truly loved to others who are LIKE them.

The lamb taketh away the sins of the world only in the sense that the state of innocence or Grace, is one in which the meaning of the Atonement is perfectly apparent. The innocence of God is the true state of the mind of His Son. In this state, man's mind DOES see God, and because he sees Him as he Is, he knows that the Atonement, NOT sacrifice, is the ONLY appropriate gift to His OWN altar, where nothing except perfection truly belongs. The understanding of the innocent is TRUTH. That is why their altars are truly radiant.

(Dictated directly without notes) pp 7-12 Though Christians generally (but by no means universally) recognize the contradiction involved in victimizing others, they are less adept at ensuring their own inability to victimize themselves. Although this appears to be a much more benign error from the viewpoint of society, it is nevertheless inherently dangerous because once a two-edged defense is used, its direction cannot be self-controlled.

Bill recently observed how many ideas were condensed into relatively few pages here. This is because we have not been forced to dispel miscreations throughout. (There is one set of notes not yet transcribed which is devoted to this. These emphasize only the enormous waste of time that is involved.) Cayce's notes, too, could have been much shortened. Their excessive length is due to two factors. The first involves a fundamental error which Cayce himself made, and which required constant undoing. The second is more related to the attitude of his followers. They are unwilling to omit anything he said. This is respectful enough, but not overly-judicious. I would be a far better editor, if they would allow me this position on their staff.

It is obvious that Cayce himself was not able to transcend the misperceptions of the need for sacrifice, or he could not possibly have been willing to sacrifice himself. Anyone who is unable to leave the requests of others unanswered has not entirely transcended egocentricity. I never "gave of myself" in this inappropriate way, nor would I ever have encouraged Cayce to do so.

Cayce could not see the Atonement as totally lacking in sacrifice at ANY level. It WAS obvious to him that the mind cannot be so limited. It was equally apparent to him that the Soul is merely unaffected by such an idea. This left him only the body with which to invest his misperception. This is also why he used his own mind at the "EXPENSE of his body."

Because Cayce was a somewhat erratic listener, he was compelled to correct his own errors at very great length, and not always adequately. Consider the basis from which he started, when he began with "yes, we have the body." It is noteworthy that in all these readings, a large section was actually devoted to the body, even though he usually concluded with the caution that the body cannot be healed by itself. It would have saved an enormous number of words if he had always begun with this.

Cayce and his devotion to me are in no way underestimated by the realization that he worked under very great strain, which is ALWAYS a sign that something is wrong. One of the difficulties inherent in trance states is that it is very difficult to overcome the split which the trance itself induces through the medium of communications made while in the trance state.

It should also be noted that, when Cayce attempted to "see" the body in proper perspective, he saw physically discernible auras surrounding it. This is a curious compromise, in which the nonphysical attributes of the self are approached AS IF they could be seen with the physical eye.

The lack of integration which this split state implies is clearly shown in certain off-the-mark detours into areas such as the effects of stones on the mind, and some curious symbolic attempt to integrate churches and glands. (This is hardly more peculiar than some of your own confusion.)

As we have frequently emphasized, man CANNOT control his own errors. Having created them, he does believe in them. Because of his failure to accept his own perfect freedom FROM the past, Cayce could not really perceive others as similarly free. This is why I have not wholly endorsed the Cayce documents for widespread use.

I am heartily supportive of the ARE's endeavor to make Cayce's singular contributions immortal, but it would be most unwise to have them promulgated as a faith until they have been purged of their essential errors. This is why there have been a number of unexplained set backs in their explication. It is also one of the many reasons why the Cayce material, a major step in the speedup, must be properly understood before it can be meaningfully validated.

Cayce's son has been wise in attempting to deal with reliability, which in Cayce's case is very high. There is a way of validating the material, and Hugh Lynn is perfectly aware that this must be done eventually. He is also aware of the fact that he is unable to do it. In the present state of the material, it would be most unwise even to attempt it. There is too much that IS invalid. When the time comes that this can be corrected to the point of real safety, I assure you it will be accomplished. In tribute to Cayce, I remind you that no effort is wasted, and Cayce's effort was very great.

It would be most ungrateful of me if I allowed his work to produce a generation of witch doctors. I am sorry that Cayce himself could not rid himself of a slight tendency in this direction. But fortunately I have a fuller appreciation of him than he had.

I am repeating here a Biblical injunction of my own, already mentioned elsewhere, that if my followers eat any deadly thing it shall not hurt them. This is what Cayce could NOT believe, because he could not see that, as a Son of God, he WAS invulnerable.

Section 4 - Sin as an Adjustment

The belief in sin is an ADJUSTMENT. And an adjustment is a CHANGE, a shift in perception, or a belief that what was so before has been made DIFFERENT. Every adjustment is therefore a DISTORTION, and calls upon defenses to uphold it AGAINST reality. Knowledge requires NO adjustment, and, in fact, is lost if any shift or change is undertaken. For this reduces it at once to mere perception; a way of LOOKING in which CERTAINTY is lost, and DOUBT has entered. To this IMPAIRED condition are adjustments necessary. BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT TRUE. Who need adjust to truth, which calls upon only what he IS, to understand?

Adjustments of ANY kind are of the ego. For it is the ego's fixed belief that all relationships DEPEND upon adjustments, to make of them what it would have them be. DIRECT relationships, in which there are NO interferences, are ALWAYS seen as dangerous. The ego is the self-appointed mediator of ALL relationships, making whatever adjustments it deems necessary, and INTERPOSING them BETWEEN those who would meet, to keep them separate and PREVENT their union. It is this studied interference which makes it difficult to recognize your holy relationship for what it is.

The holy do not interfere with truth. They are NOT afraid of it, for it is WITHIN it that they RECOGNIZED their holiness, and rejoiced at what they saw. They looked on it directly, WITHOUT attempting to ADJUST themselves to it, or it to them. And so they saw that it was IN them, NOT deciding first where they would have it be. Their looking merely asked a question, and it was WHAT THEY SAW that answered . YOU make the world and THEN adjust to it. AND IT TO YOU. Nor is there any difference between yourself and it in your perception, WHICH MADE THEM BOTH.

A simple question yet remains, and NEEDS an answer. Do you LIKE what you have made? A world of murder and attack, through which you thread your timid way through constant dangers, alone and frightened, hoping at most that death will wait a little longer, before it overtakes you, and you disappear. YOU MADE THIS UP. It is a picture of what you think YOU are; of how you SEE yourself. A murderer IS frightened, and those who kill FEAR death. All these are but the fearful thoughts of those who would adjust themselves to a world MADE fearful by their adjustments. And they look out in sorrow from what is sad WITHIN, and see the sadness THERE.

Have you wondered what the world is REALLY like? How would it look through HAPPY eyes? The world you see is but a judgment on YOURSELF. IT is not there at all. But judgment lays a sentence on it, JUSTIFIES it, and MAKES IT REAL. Such is the world you see; a judgment on yourself, and made by YOU. This sickly picture of yourself is carefully preserved by the ego, whose image it IS and which it loves, and placed OUTSIDE you, in the world. And TO this world must YOU adjust, as long as you believe this picture IS outside, and has you at its mercy.

Take not the judgment of the world as answer to the question, "what am I?" The world BELIEVES in sin, but the belief that made it as you see it, is NOT outside you. Seek not to make the Son of God ADJUST to his insanity. There IS a stranger in him, who wandered carelessly into the home of Truth, and who will wander off. He came WITHOUT a purpose. But he will not remain before the shining light the Holy Spirit offered, and you accepted. For there the STRANGER is made homeless, and YOU are welcome. Ask not this transient stranger, "who am I?" He is the only thing in all the universe that does not know.

Yet it is he you asked, and it is to HIS answer you would adjust. This one wild thought, fierce in its arrogance and yet so tiny and so meaningless it slips unnoticed through the universe of truth, becomes your guide. To it you turn, to ask the MEANING of the universe. And of the one blind thing in all the seeing universe you ask, "how shall I look upon the Son of God?" Does one ask judgment of what is totally BEREFT of judgment? And if you HAVE, would you BELIEVE the answer? And ADJUST to it as if it were the truth? The world you look on IS the answer that it gave you. And YOU have given it power to ADJUST the world to MAKE its answer true.

Prisoners bound with heavy chains for years, starved and emaciated, weak and exhausted, and with eyes so long cast down in darkness they remember not the light, do not leap up in joy the instant they are made free. It takes a while for them to understand what freedom IS. You groped but feebly in the dust and found each other's hand, uncertain whether to let it go, or to take hold on life so long forgotten. Strengthen your hold, and raise your eyes unto your strong companion, in whom the meaning of your freedom lies. He seemed to be crucified beside you. And yet his holiness remained untouched and perfect, and with him beside you shall you this day enter with him to Paradise, and know the peace of God.

Such is my will for BOTH of you, and for each of you for one another, and for HIMSELF. Here there is only holiness, and joining without limit. For what is Heaven but union, direct and perfect, and WITHOUT the veil of fear upon it? Here are we one, looking with perfect gentleness upon each other, and on ourselves. Here, all thought of ANY separation between us becomes impossible. You who were prisoners in separation are now made free in Paradise. And here would I unite with you, my friends, my brothers, and my Self. Your gift unto each other has given me the certainty our union will be soon. Share then this faith with me, who KNOW that it is justified.

There is no fear in perfect love, BECAUSE it knows no sin. And it MUST look on others as on itself. Looking with charity within, what can it fear WITHOUT? The innocent see safety, and the pure see God within His Son, and look unto the Son to lead them to the Father. And where else would they go, but where they will to be? Each of you now will lead the other to the Father, as surely as God created His Son holy, and kept him so. In your brother is the light of God's eternal promise of YOUR immortality. See HIM as sinless, and there can BE no fear in you.

Chapter 3 - Retraining the Mind

Section 1 - Introduction

All learning involves attention and study at some level. This course is a MIND-TRAINING course. Good students assign study periods for themselves. However, since this obvious step has not occurred to you, and since we are cooperating in this, I will make the obvious assignment now.

B is better at understanding the need to study the notes than you are, but neither of you realizes that many of the problems you keep being faced with may ALREADY have been solved there. YOU do not think of the notes in this way at all. B DOES from time to time, but he generally says, "It's probably in the notes," and DOESN'T look it up. He believes that, although he reads them over, they cannot REALLY help him until they are complete.

First of all, he cannot be sure of this unless he tries. Second, they would BE completed if both of you so willed.

You vaguely know that the course is intended for some sort of preparation. I can only say that you are not prepared.

I was amused when you reminded Bill that he, too, was being prepared for something quite unexpected, and he said, he was not at all curious about what it was. This disinterest is very characteristic of him when he is afraid. Interest and fear do NOT go together, as your respective behavior clearly shows.

Mental retardation is a defense which, like the others EXCEPT the Atonement, can be used on behalf of error or truth, as elected. When it occurs in REALITY, it is a temporary device, agreed on beforehand, to check the miscreative abilities of strong but misdirected wills.

It is necessary that this appropriate use of the defense BE considered real, because otherwise it cannot serve. The lesson involves not only the individual himself, but also his parents, siblings, and all of those who come in close relation with him. The VALUE of the experience depends on the need of each particular learner. The person himself is a POOR learner, by definition, only as a step toward changing from a bad to a good one.

Mental retardation can also be used as a maladaptive defense, if the wrong (or attack) side is employed. This produces the "pseudo-retardation syndrome" which is justly classified as a psychiatric (or disturbed-level) symptom. Both of you do this all the time. Bill acts as if he does not understand even his OWN special language, let alone mine, and you cannot read at all.

This represents a joint attack on both yourselves AND me, because it renders YOUR mind weak, and mine incompetent. Remember, this puts you in a truly fearful position. If you cannot understand either your own mind OR mine, you do not KNOW what is really willed. It is thus IMPOSSIBLE to avoid conflict, as defined before, because even if you act ACCORDING TO will, you wouldn't know it.

The next part of this course rests too heavily on the earlier part not to REQUIRE its study. Without this, you will become much too fearful when the unexpected DOES occur to make constructive use of it. However, as you study the notes, you will see some of the obvious implications, unless you still persist in misusing the defense of mental retardation. Please remember that its constructive use, described above, is hardly a REAL part of your own REAL proper equipment. It is a PARTICULARLY inappropriate defense as you use it, and I can only urge you to avoid it.

The reason why a solid foundation is necessary at this point is because of the highly likely confusion of "fearful" and "awesome," which most people do make. You will remember that we said once before that awe is inappropriate in connection with the Sons of God, because you should not experience awe in the presence of your own equals. But it WAS emphasized that awe IS a proper reaction of the Soul in the presence of its Creator.

So far, this course has had only indirect recourse to God, and rarely even refers to Him directly. I have repeatedly emphasized that awe is not appropriate in connection with me, BECAUSE of our inherent equality. I have been careful to clarify my own role in the Atonement, without either over or understating it. I have tried to do exactly the same things in connection with yours.

The next step, however, DOES involve the direct approach to God Himself. It would be most unwise to start on this step at all without very careful preparation, or awe will surely be confused with fear, and the experience will be more traumatic than beatific.

Healing is of God in the end. The means are carefully explained in the notes. Revelation has occasionally SHOWN you the end, but to reach it the means are needed.

(The following Introduction dictated by Helen Schucman without notes.) The following is the only detailed description which need be written down as to how error interferes with preparation. The events specifically referred to here could be any events, nor does their particular influence matter. It is the process which is to be noted here, and not its results. The kind of beliefs, and the fallacious premises involved in misthought are as well exemplified here as elsewhere. There is nothing of special interest about the events described below, EXCEPT their typical nature. If this is a true course in mind-training, then the whole value of this section rests ONLY in showing you what NOT to do. The more constructive emphasis is, of course, on the positive approach. Mind-watching would have prevented any of this from occurring, and will do so any time you permit it to.

B's original slight to Dora, because of his own need to get home as he perceived it, stopped him from benefiting from the time-saving device of the miracle. He would have gotten home MUCH quicker if he had taken time to use time properly.

YOU were still suffering from strain (see above), and got quite irritated at the girl who stood next to the door on the side which blocked its opening. Her presence there made it necessary each time the door was opened to hold it for a much longer time than was necessary, and you were angry because this made you cold. Actually, the girl was taking care of the younger child who was standing outside, and both of them were really mentally retarded. If you will remember, the older girl asked you very uncertainly about the bus, and you were well aware at the time of her extreme uncertainty.

It was indeed discourteous ("indeed" is not necessary; it was your OWN error here; I am NOT saying this with any harsh overtones at all. I am just trying to create better learning conditions for the study periods. We want as little interference as possible, for VERY good reasons.)

Now, go back to B; he WAS discourteous when he told you that HE wanted to keep the original copy of the notes, having decided to have them Xeroxed on his OWN will, and then justifying it by a very slight misinterpretation of what I said about "useful for others." In fact, if he will re-read the actual quote, he will see that it REALLY means "useful for HIM." YOU had interpreted it that way, and frankly this was pretty clear to me at the time. But this sort of thing happens all the time. It should, be noted, however, that the result was not only considerable and totally unnecessary planning on B's part, but also a failure to utilize what WAS intended for him as a help for HIMSELF. And before YOU get too self-satisfied, I would remind you that you do it all the time, too.

Bill acted inappropriately toward YOU, by saying that he wanted to be SURE that the original was not lost or dirty. It is noticeable that, having already decided what HE wanted to do, it never occurred to him that it IS possible that HE might lose or dirty them himself, especially as he had not entrusted them to me. This is a form of arrogance that he would be much happier without. He should also note that this would probably not have occurred had he not been ALREADY literally "off the beam." Be SURE to tell him that this pun is to reassure him that I am not angry. If he does not get it, or does not like it, I KNOW it is not very good. The reason is that HE put me in a position where I can really give him very little at the moment.

But I want him to know that I am VERY well aware of the exceedingly few times he now makes errors of this kind. He has come a VERY long way in this respect. It seems a shame that he should allow himself even this much discomfort from it.

I suggest to YOU that we pray for him, and I pray for your full cooperation in this. This will correct YOUR errors, and help him react better to the work on the bookcase, which may otherwise lend itself for misuse by misprojection. There would have been no problem at all about the bookcase, and perhaps even no bookcase, if the solution of the storage problem had been left to me. I have promised to guide you OUT of problems, and will certainly not create them for you. But this means that you do not undertake to solve them yourselves. A storage problem is hardly more difficult for me to solve that a space problem, (see comments under special principles for miracle workers.)

You started well in your attempt to pray with me for Bill, but ended badly. This is because you had already made a number of earlier errors. You were wrong to be pleased with Bill F's criticism of Rose, and should not have enjoyed Bill F's description of Zanvil's caricaturing of her. You could have laughed WITH Bill, but NOT AT Rose. Real courtesy NEVER does this. You should know that all God's children are fully worthy of COMPLETE courtesy. You should NEVER join with one at the EXPENSE of another.

When you called B about joining you, Gene, and Anne at lunch, YOU should have waited to ask ME. In fact, you should not even have told Anne that you would call. Then you could have asked Bill FIRST if HE would want to come, and called ANNE back. It is true that it was better that he came, but this has nothing to do with the real issue. There are ways of treating others in which ONLY consistent courtesy, even in very little things, is offered. This is a VERY HEALING habit to acquire.

B's answer to your call was a clear statement of his own sadly conflicted state. He said, "I don't want to join you, but that's ungracious, so I'll go." Whenever ANY invitation to join others in a gracious way is offered, it should ALWAYS be met with respect, although it need not always be accepted. However, if it is MET ungraciously the resulting feeling may well be one of coercion. This is ALWAYS a split-will reaction.

It is very hard to get out of the chain of miscreation which can arise out of even the simplest mis-thought. To borrow one of your own phrases, "This kind of human tragedy is far easier to avert than to undo."

You must both learn not to let this kind of chain reaction START. You will NOT be able to control it once it has started, because everything and everyone will be pulled into the misprojection, and misinterpreted accordingly. NOTHING is lovely to the unloving. This is because they are CREATING ugliness.

You, Helen, were definitely not acting right-mindedly by writing these notes right in front of Jonathan. (Note that you wrote his name as "Jonathan" this time, although previously in these same notes you referred to him as "Louis," intentionally using his real name. Actually, of course, it does not matter what you call him, but NOTE that you FELT FREE at that time to CHOOSE the name YOU preferred to use. This time, you were FORCED to call him "Jonathan" because you were ATTACKING him when you took the notes in front of him, and are now falling back on the magical device of "protecting his name."

Without going into further elaboration, and we could devote many hours to this, lets consider all the time that we had to waste today. AND all the notes that could have been devoted to a better purpose than undoing the waste, and thus creating further waste. There IS a better use for time, too. I would have liked to have spent some time on corrections of the past notes, as an important step before reviewing them. A major point of clarification is necessary in connection with the phrase "replacing hatred (or fear) with love."

(No, Helen, do NOT check this against the prayer that Bill very kindly typed for you on the card. That WAS a gracious offering on his part, and YOU also accepted it with grace at the time. Why should you deprive yourself of the value of the offering by referring this correction first to HIM?)

Section 9 - Reality and Redemption

Do you REALLY believe that you can kill the Son of God? For the Father has hidden His Son safely within Himself, and kept him far away from your destructive thoughts, but YOU know neither the Father nor the Son because of them. You ATTACK the real world every day and every hour and every minute, and yet you are surprised that you cannot SEE it. If you seek love to attack it, YOU WILL NEVER FIND IT. For if love is SHARING, how can you find it except through ITSELF? Offer it and it will come to you, because it is drawn to itself. But offer attack and it will remain hidden, for it can live only in peace.

When you made what is NOT true visible, what is true became INVISIBLE. Yet it cannot be invisible in ITSELF, for the Holy Spirit sees it with perfect clarity. It IS invisible to you, because you are looking at SOMETHING ELSE. Yet it is no more up to you to decide what is visible and what is invisible, than it is up to you to decide what reality is. What can be seen is WHAT THE HOLY SPIRIT SEES. The definition of reality is God's, not yours. HE created it, and He knows what it is. You who knew have forgotten. And unless He had given you a way to remember, you would have condemned yourselves to oblivion.

You have but to ask for this memory, and you WILL remember. But the memory of God cannot shine in a mind which has MADE it invisible, and WANTS TO KEEP IT SO. For the memory of God can dawn only in a mind that wills to remember, and that has relinquished the insane desire to control reality. You who cannot even control yourselves, should hardly aspire to control the universe. But look upon what you have made of it, and rejoice that it is not so.

Son of God, be not content with nothing. What is not real cannot BE seen, and has NO value. God could not offer His Son what has no value, nor could His Son receive it. You were redeemed the instant you thought you had deserted Him. Everything you made has never been, and is invisible because the Holy Spirit does not see it. Yet what He DOES see is yours to behold, and through HIS vision YOUR perception is healed. You have made the INvisible the only truth that this world holds. Valuing nothing, you have sought it and found it. By making nothing real to you, you have SEEN it.

BUT IT IS NOT THERE. And Christ is invisible to you BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU HAVE MADE VISIBLE TO YOURSELVES. Yet it does not matter how much distance you have tried to interpose between your awareness and Truth. God's Son CAN be seen, because His Vision is shared. The Holy Spirit looks upon Him, and sees nothing else in you. What is invisible to you is perfect in His sight, and encompasses ALL of it. He has remembered YOU because He forgot not the Father.

The real world was given you by God, in loving exchange for the world YOU made, and which you SEE. But take it from the hand of Christ, and look upon it. ITS reality will make everything ELSE invisible, for beholding it is TOTAL perception. And as you look upon it, you will remember that it was always so. Nothingness will become invisible, for you will at last have seen truly. Redeemed perception is easily translated into knowledge, for ONLY perception is capable of error. And perception has never been. Being corrected, it gives place to knowledge, which is forever the ONLY reality. The Atonement is but the way back to what was never lost. Your Father could not cease to love His Son.

Section 2 - The Message of the Crucifixion

We have not dwelt upon the crucifixion, because of its fearful connotations. The only emphasis we laid upon it was that it was NOT a form of punishment. But we know that nothing can be really explained only in negative terms. There is a positive interpretation of the crucifixion which is wholly devoid of fear, and therefore wholly benign in what it teaches, if it is properly understood. It is nothing more than an extreme example. Its value, like the value of any teaching device, lies solely in the kind of learning it facilitates. It can be, and has been, misunderstood. But this is only because the fearful are apt to perceive fearfully.

I told you before that you can always call on me to share my decision and thus MAKE IT STRONGER. I also told you that the crucifixion was the last foolish journey that the Sonship need take, and that it should mean RELEASE from fear to anyone who understands it. While we emphasized the Resurrection only before, the purpose of the crucifixion and how it actually LED to the Resurrection was not clarified at that time. Nevertheless, it has a definite contribution to make to your own lives, and if you will consider it WITHOUT fear, it will help you understand your own role as teachers.

You have reacted for years AS IF you were being crucified. This is a marked tendency of the separated, who ALWAYS refuse to consider what they have done to THEMSELVES. Projection means anger, anger fosters assault, and assault promotes fear. The real meaning of the crucifixion lies in the APPARENT intensity of the assault of some of the Sons of God upon a brother. This, of course, is impossible, and must be fully understood AS an impossibility. In fact, unless it IS fully understood as ONLY that, I cannot serve as a real model for learning.

Assault can ultimately be made ONLY on the body. There is little doubt that one BODY can assault another, and can even destroy it. But if destruction ITSELF is impossible, then ANYTHING that is destructible cannot be real. Therefore, its destruction does NOT justify anger. To the extent to which you believe it DOES, you MUST be accepting false premises and TEACHING THEM TO OTHERS. The message which the crucifixion was intended to teach was that it is not necessary to perceive ANY form of assault in persecution because you cannot BE persecuted. If you respond with anger, you MUST be equating yourself with the destructible, and are therefore regarding yourself insanely. I have made it perfectly clear that I am like you, and you are like me. But our fundamental equality can be demonstrated only through joint decision.

We have said before, "As you teach so shall you learn." If you react as if you are persecuted, you ARE teaching persecution. This is not a lesson which the Sons of God should WANT to teach if they are to realize their own salvation. Rather teach your own perfect immunity, which IS the Truth in you, and KNOW that it cannot be assailed. Do not protect it yourselves, or you have believed that it IS assailable. You are not asked to BE crucified, because that was part of my own teaching contribution. You are merely asked to follow my example in the face of much less extreme temptations to misperceive, and NOT to accept them falsely as justifications for anger.

There can BE no justification for the unjustifiable. Do not believe there is, and do not TEACH that there is. Remember always that what you believe you WILL teach. Believe with me, and we will become equal as teachers. YOUR resurrection is your re-awakening. I am the model for rebirth, but rebirth itself is merely the dawning on your minds of what is already in them. God placed it there Himself, and so it is true forever. I believed in it, and therefore made it forever true for me. Help me to teach it to our brothers in the name of the Kingdom of God. But first believe that it is true for you, or you will teach amiss.

There is no choice in this, because only you can BE the foundation of God's church. A church is where an altar is, and the presence of the altar is what makes it a church. Any church which does not inspire love has a hidden altar which is not serving the purpose for which God intended it. I must found His church on you because you, who accept me as a model are literally my disciples. Disciples are followers, but if the model they follow has chosen to SAVE THEM PAIN IN ALL RESPECTS, they are probably unwise NOT to follow him.

When you hear only one voice, you are never called on to sacrifice. On the contrary, by enabling YOURSELVES to hear the Holy Spirit in others, you can learn from their experiences and gain from them WITHOUT experiencing them. That is because the Holy Spirit IS one, and anyone who listens is inevitably led to demonstrate His way for ALL. You are not persecuted, nor was I. You are not asked to repeat my experience, because the Holy Spirit which we SHARE, makes this unnecessary. But to use my experiences constructively for yourselves, you must still follow my example in how to perceive them.

My brothers and yours are constantly engaged in justifying the unjustifiable. My one lesson, which I must teach as I learned, is that no perception which is out of accord with the judgment of the Holy Spirit CAN be justified. I undertook to show this was true in a very extreme case, merely because this would serve as a good teaching aid to those whose temptations to give in to anger and assault would NOT be as extreme.

I will, with God Himself, that none of His Sons should suffer. Remember that the Holy Spirit is the communication link between God the Father and His separated Sons. If you will listen to His voice, you will know that you cannot either hurt or BE hurt, but that many need your blessing to help them hear this for themselves. When you perceive only this need in them, and do not respond to any others, you will have learned of me, and be as eager to share your learning as I am. The crucifixion CANNOT be shared, because it is the symbol of projection. But the Resurrection IS the symbol of sharing, because the re-awakening of every Son of God is necessary to enable the Sonship to know its wholeness. Only this IS knowledge.

The message of the crucifixion is very simple and perfectly clear: "teach ONLY love, for that is what you ARE." If you interpret it in any other way, you are using it as a weapon for assault rather than as the call to peace for which it was intended. The Apostles often misunderstood it, and always for the same reason that makes anyone misunderstand anything. Their own imperfect love made them vulnerable to projection, and out of their own fear they spoke of the wrath of God as His RETALIATORY weapon. They also could not speak of the crucifixion entirely without anger, because their own sense of guilt had made them angry.

There are two glaring examples of upside down thinking in the New Testament, whose whole Gospel is only the message of love. These are not at all like the several slips into impatience which I made, because I had learned the Atonement prayer, which I also came to teach, too well to engage in upside down thinking myself. If the Apostles had not felt guilty, they never could have quoted ME as saying, "I come not to bring peace but a sword." This is clearly the exact opposite of everything I taught.

I am very grateful to the Apostles for their teaching, and fully aware of the extent of their devotion to me. But as you read their teachings, remember that I told them myself that there was much they would understand later, because they were NOT wholly ready to follow me at the time. I emphasize this only because I do not want you to allow ANY fear to enter into the thought system toward which I am guiding you. I do NOT call for martyrs but for TEACHERS.

Bill is an outstanding example of this confusion, and has literally believed for years that teaching IS martyrdom. This is because he thought, and still thinks at times, that teaching leads to crucifixion rather than to re-awakening. The upside down nature of this association is so obvious that he could only have made it BECAUSE he felt guilty. No-one is "punished" for sins, and the Sons of God are not sinners. ANY concept of "punishment" involves the projection of blame, and REINFORCES the idea that blame is justified. The behavior that results is a LESSON IN BLAME, just as all behavior teaches the beliefs that motivate it.

The crucifixion was a complex of behaviors arising out of clearly opposed thought systems. As such, it is the perfect symbol of conflict between the ego and the Son of God. It was as much intrapersonal as interpersonal then, just as it is now, and it is still just as real. But BECAUSE it is just as real now, its lesson, too, has equal reality WHEN IT IS LEARNED. I do not need gratitude any more than I needed protection. But YOU need to develop your weakened ability to BE grateful, or you cannot appreciate God. HE does not need your appreciation, but you DO.

You cannot love what you do not appreciate, and FEAR MAKES APPRECIATION IMPOSSIBLE. Whenever you are afraid of what you are, you do not appreciate it, and will therefore reject it. As a result, you will TEACH REJECTION. The power of the Sons of God is operating all the time, because they were created as creators. Their influence on EACH OTHER is without limit, and MUST be used for their joint salvation. Each one MUST learn to teach that all forms of rejection are utterly meaningless.

The separation IS the notion of rejection. As long as you teach this, YOU still believe it. This is NOT as God thinks, and you must think as He thinks if you are to know Him again.

Lesson 248 "Whatever suffers is not part of me."

"Father, my ancient love for You returns, and lets me love Your Son again as well. Father, I am as You created me. Now is Your Love remembered, and my own. Now do I understand that they are one."

Chapter 1 - Introduction

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

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

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

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

Lesson 301 "And God Himself shall wipe away all tears."

"Father, unless I judge I cannot weep. Nor can I suffer pain, or feel I am abandoned and unneeded in the world. This is my home, because I judge it not, and therefore is it only what You will. Let me today behold it uncondemned, through happy eyes forgiveness has released from all distortion. Let me see Your world instead of mine. And all the tears I shed will be forgotten, for their source is gone. Father, I will not judge Your world today."

Lesson 322 "I can give up but what was never real."

I sacrifice illusions; nothing more. And as illusions go I find the gifts illusions tried to hide, awaiting me in shining welcome, and in readiness to give God's ancient messages to me. His memory abides in every gift that I receive of Him. And every dream serves only to conceal the Self Which is God's only Son, the likeness of Himself, the Holy One Who still abides in Him forever, as He still abides in me.

Section 3 - The Self-Accused

Only the self-accused condemn. As you prepare to make a choice that will result in DIFFERENT outcomes, there is first one thing that must be overlearned. It must become a habit of response so typical of everything you do, that it becomes your FIRST response to all temptation, and to every situation that occurs. Learn this, and learn it well, for it is here delay of happiness is shortened by a span of time you cannot realize. You NEVER hate your brother for HIS "sins", but ONLY for your own. Whatever form his sins appear to take, the form obscures the fact that you believe it to be yours, and THEREFORE meriting a just attack.

Sins are in bodies. They are not perceived in minds. They are not seen as purposes, but ACTIONS. Bodies act, and minds do not. And therefore must the body be at fault for what it does. It is not seen to be a passive thing, obeying your commands, and doing nothing of itself at all. If you are sin you ARE a body, for the mind acts not. And purpose must be in the body, NOT the mind. The body must act on its own, and motivate itself. If you are sin, you lock the mind WITHIN the body, and you give its purpose to its prison house, which acts INSTEAD of it. A jailer does not follow orders, but ENFORCES orders on the prisoner.

Yet is the BODY prisoner, and NOT the mind. The body thinks no thoughts. It has no power to learn, to pardon, or enslave. It gives no orders that the mind need serve, nor sets conditions that it must obey. It holds in prison but the willing mind that would abide in it. It sickens at the bidding of the mind that would become its prisoner. And it grows old and dies, because that mind is sick within ITSELF. Learning is all that causes change. And so the body, where no learning CAN occur, could never change unless the mind PREFERRED the body change in its appearances, to suit the purpose given by the mind. For it CAN learn, and there is ALL change made.

The mind that thinks it is a sin has but ONE purpose; that the body be the source of sin, and KEEP it in the prison house it chose, and guards, and holds itself at bay, a sleeping prisoner to the snarling dogs of hate and evil, sickness and attack; of pain and age, of grief and suffering. Here are the thoughts of sacrifice preserved, for here guilt rules, and orders that the world be like itself; a place where nothing can find mercy, or survive the ravages of fear except in murder and in death. For here are you made sin, and sin can not abide the joyous nor accept the free, for they are enemies which sin must kill. In death is sin preserved, and those who think that they are sin MUST die for what they are.

Let us be glad that you WILL see what you believe, and that it HAS been given you to CHANGE what you believe. The body will but follow. It can NEVER lead you where you would not be. IT does not guard your sleep, nor interfere with your awakening. Release your body from imprisonment, and you will see no-one as prisoner to what you have escaped. You will not WANT to hold in guilt your chosen enemies, nor keep in chains to the illusion of a changing love the ones you think are friends. The innocent release in gratitude for THEIR release. And what they see upholds their freedom FROM imprisonment and death. Open your mind to change, and there will be no ancient penalty exacted from your brother or yourself. For God has said there IS no sacrifice that can be asked; there IS no sacrifice that can be made.

Lesson 53 Today we will review the following: (11-15)

11) "My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world."

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

12) "I am upset because I see a meaningless world."

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

13) "A meaningless world engenders fear."

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

15) "My thoughts are images which I have made."

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

Lesson 227 "This is my holy instant of release."

And so today we find our glad return to Heaven, which we never really left. The Son of God this day lays down his dreams. The Son of God this day comes home again, released from sin and clad in holiness, with his right mind restored to him at last.

Lesson 321 "Father, my freedom is in You alone."

Today we answer for the world, which will be freed along with us. How glad are we to find our freedom through the certain way our Father has established. And how sure is all the world's salvation, when we learn our freedom can be found in God alone.

Lesson 344 "Today I learn the law of love; that what I give my brother is my gift to me."

How near we are to one another, as we go to God. How near is He to us. How close the ending of the dream of sin, and the redemption of the Son of God.

Section 7 - The Special Function

The grace of God rests gently on forgiving eyes, and everything they look on speaks of Him to the beholder. He can see no evil; nothing in the world to fear, and no-one who is different from himself. And, as he loves them, so he looks upon HIMSELF with love and gentleness. He would no more condemn himself for HIS mistakes than damn another. He is not an arbiter of vengeance, nor a punisher of sin. The kindness of his sight rests on himself with all the tenderness it offers others. For he would ONLY heal and ONLY bless. And, being IN ACCORD with what God wills, he HAS the power to heal and bless all those he looks on with the grace of God upon his sight.

Eyes become used to darkness, and the light of brilliant day seems painful to the eyes grown long accustomed to the dim effects perceived at twilight. And they turn away from sunlight, and the clarity it brings to what they look upon. Dimness seems better; easier to see, and better recognized. Somehow, the vague and more obscure seems EASIER to look upon; LESS painful to the eyes than what is wholly clear and unambiguous. Yet this is NOT what eyes are FOR. And who can say that he PREFERS the darkness, and maintain he WANTS to see?

The WISH to see calls down the grace of God upon your eyes, and brings the gift of light that makes sight possible. Will you behold your brother? God is glad to have you look on him. He does not will your Savior be unrecognized by you. Nor does He will that he remain without the function that He gave to him. Let him no more be lonely, for the lonely ones are those who see no function in the world for them to fill; no place where they are needed, and no aim which ONLY they can perfectly fulfill.

Such is the Holy Spirit's kind perception of specialness; His use of what you made, to heal INSTEAD of harm. To each He gives a special function in salvation he alone can fill; a part for ONLY him. Nor is the plan complete until he finds his special function, and fulfills the part assigned to him, to make himself complete within a world where incompletion rules. Here, where the laws of God do NOT prevail in perfect form, can he yet do ONE perfect thing, and make ONE perfect choice. And, BY this act of special faithfulness, to one perceived as OTHER than himself, he learns the gift was given TO himself, and so they MUST be one.

Forgiveness is the ONLY function meaningful in time. It is the means the Holy Spirit uses to TRANSLATE specialness from sin into salvation. Forgiveness is for all. But, when it RESTS on all, it is complete, and every function of this world completed with it. Then is time no more. But WHILE in time, there is still much to do. And each must do what is allotted him, for, on HIS part, does ALL the plan depend. He HAS a special part in time, for so he chose, and choosing it, made it for himself. His wish was not denied, but changed in form, to let it serve his brother AND himself, and thus become a means to save INSTEAD of lose.

The Holy Spirit needs YOUR special function, that HIS may be fulfilled. Think not you lack a special value here. You wanted it, and it IS given you. ALL that you made can serve salvation easily and well. The Son of God can make NO choice the Holy Spirit can not employ on his BEHALF, and NOT against himself. Only in darkness does your specialness APPEAR to be attack. In light, you see it is your SPECIAL FUNCTION in the plan to save the Son of God from ALL attack, and let him understand that he is safe, as he has ALWAYS been, and will remain in time and in eternity alike. This is the function given each of you for one another. Take it gently, then, from one another's hand, and let salvation be perfectly fulfilled in BOTH of you. Do this ONE thing, that EVERYTHING be given you.

Lesson 294 "My body is a wholly neutral thing."

"My body, Father, cannot be Your Son. And what is not created cannot be sinful or sinless; neither good nor bad. Let me, then, use this dream to help Your plan that we awaken from all dreams we made."

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.

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 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.

I have told you several times that I am in charge of the whole Atonement. This is ONLY because I completed my part in it as a man, and can now complete it through other men. My chosen receiving and sending channels cannot fail, because I will lend them MY strength as long as theirs is wanting. I will go with you to the Holy One, and through MY perception HE can bridge the little gap. Your gratitude to each OTHER is the only gift I want. I will bring it to God for you, knowing that to know your brother IS to know God.

A little knowledge is an all-encompassing thing. If you are grateful to each other you are grateful to God for what 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.

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.

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?

Section 7 - The Test of Truth

But the essential thing is learning that YOU DO NOT KNOW. Knowledge is power, and all power is of God. You who have tried to keep power for yourselves, have lost it. You still HAVE the power, but you have interposed so much between it and your AWARENESS of it, that you cannot use it. EVERYTHING you have taught yourselves has made your power more and more obscure to you. You know not WHAT it is, nor WHERE. You have made a SEMBLANCE of power, and a SHOW of strength, so pitiful that it MUST fail you. For power is not seeming strength, and truth is beyond a semblance of any kind.

Yet all that stands between you, and the power of God in you, is but your learning of the false, and your attempts to UNDO THE TRUE. Be willing, then, for ALL of it to be undone, and be glad that you are not bound to it forever. For you have taught yourselves HOW TO IMPRISON THE SON OF GOD, a lesson so unthinkable that only the insane, in deepest sleep, could even DREAM of it. Can God learn how NOT to be God? And can His Son, GIVEN all power BY Him, learn to be powerLESS? What have you taught yourselves that you can possibly prefer to keep, in place of what you HAVE, and what you ARE?

Atonement teaches you how to escape forever from everything that you have taught yourselves in the past, by showing you ONLY what you ARE NOW. Learning HAS BEEN accomplished, BEFORE its effects are manifest. Learning is therefore IN THE PAST, but its influence DETERMINES the present, by giving it whatever meaning it holds for you. Your learning gives the present NO MEANING AT ALL. Nothing you have ever learned can help you understand the present, or teach you how to undo the past. Your past IS what you have taught yourselves.

This lesson shines with God's glory, for in it lies His power, which He shares so gladly with His Son. Learn of His happiness, which is yours. But to accomplish this, all your dark lessons MUST be brought willingly to truth, and joyously laid down, by hands open to receive, not closed to take. Every dark lesson that you bring to Him Who teaches light, He will accept FROM you, BECAUSE YOU DO NOT WANT IT. And He will gladly EXCHANGE each one for the bright lesson He has learned FOR you. Never believe that ANY lesson you have learned, APART from Him, means ANYTHING.

You have one test, as sure as God, by which to recognize if what you learned is true. If you are WHOLLY free of fear of any kind, and if all those who meet, or even THINK of you, SHARE in your perfect peace, then you can be sure that you have learned GOD's lesson, and NOT yours. Unless all this is true, there ARE dark lessons in your minds, which hurt and hinder you, AND EVERYONE AROUND YOU. The ABSENCE of PERFECT peace means but ONE thing; you THINK you do not will for God's Son what His Father wills for him. Every dark lesson teaches this, on one form or another. And each bright lesson, with which the Holy Spirit will REPLACE the dark ones you do NOT accept and hide, teaches you that you will WITH the Father unto His Son.

Do not be concerned how you can learn a lesson so COMPLETELY different from everything you have taught yourselves. How would you know? Your part is very simple. You need only recognize that everything YOU learned you DO NOT WANT. Ask to BE taught, and do NOT use your experiences to confirm what YOU have learned. When your peace is threatened, or disturbed in ANY way, say to yourself, "I do not know what anything, INCLUDING THIS, means. And so I do NOT know HOW TO RESPOND TO IT. And I will not use my own past learning as the light to guide me now." By this refusal to attempt to teach yourself what you do not know, the Guide Whom God has given you, will speak to you. HE will take His rightful place in your awareness, the instant YOU abandon it, and offer it to Him.

How can you, so firmly bound to guilt and committed so to remain, establish FOR YOURSELF your guiltlessness? This is impossible. But be sure that you are willing to acknowledge that it IS impossible. It is only because you think that you can run some little part, or deal with certain aspects of your lives alone, that the guidance of the Holy Spirit is limited. Thus would you make HIM undependable, and USE this fancied undependability as an excuse for keeping certain dark lessons FROM Him. And, by so limiting the guidance that you would ACCEPT, YOU are unable to DEPEND on miracles, to answer ALL your problems FOR you.

Do you think that what the Holy Spirit would have you GIVE, He would withhold from YOU? You have NO problems which He cannot solve, by offering YOU a miracle. Miracles are for YOU. And EVERY fear or pain or trial you have HAS BEEN undone. HE has brought ALL of them to light, having ACCEPTED them INSTEAD of you, and recognized that they never were. There ARE no dark lessons He has not ALREADY lightened FOR you. The lessons you would teach yourselves, He has corrected already. They do not exist in His Mind at all. For the past binds HIM not, and therefore binds not you.

Thank God that He is there, and works through you. And all His works are yours. He offers YOU a miracle, with every one you LET Him do through you. God's Son will ALWAYS be indivisible. As we are held as one in God, so do we learn as one in Him. God's Teacher is as like to His Creator as is His Son, and through His Teacher does God proclaim His Oneness AND His Son's. Listen in silence, and do NOT raise your voice against Him. For He teaches the miracle of Oneness, and before HIS lesson, division disappears. Teach LIKE Him here, and you WILL remember that you have ALWAYS created like your Father. The miracle of creation has never ceased, having the holy stamp of immortality upon it. This is the Will of God for all creation, and all creation joins in willing this.

Those who remember always that THEY know nothing, but who have become willing to learn EVERYTHING, will learn it. But whenever they trust THEMSELVES, they will NOT learn. They have destroyed their motivation for learning, BY THINKING THEY ALREADY KNOW. Think not you understand ANYTHING, until you pass the test of perfect peace, for peace and understanding GO TOGETHER, and never can be found alone. Each brings the other WITH it, for it is the law of God that they be not separate. They are cause and effect, each to the other, so, where one is absent, the other CANNOT be.

Only those who see they CANNOT know, UNLESS the effects of understanding are with them, can really learn at all. And for this, IT MUST BE PEACE THEY WANT, and nothing else. Whenever you think YOU know, peace will depart from you, because you have abandoned the Teacher of Peace. Whenever you fully realize that YOU KNOW NOT, peace will return, for you will have invited Him to do so, by abandoning the ego on behalf of Him. Call not upon the ego for ANYTHING. It is only that, that you need do. The Holy Spirit will, OF HIMSELF, fill every mind that so makes room for Him. If you want peace, you MUST abandon the teacher of attack.

The Teacher of Peace can NEVER abandon YOU. YOU can desert HIM, but He will never reciprocate. For His faith in you IS His understanding. It is as firm as is His faith in His Creator, and He knows that faith in His Creator MUST encompass faith in creation. In this consistency, lies His holiness, which He CANNOT abandon, for it is not His Will to do so. With your perfection ever in His sight, He gives the gift of peace to everyone who perceives the NEED for peace, and who would have it. Make way for peace, and it will come. For understanding IS in you, and from it, peace MUST come.

Section 6 - Conflict and the Ego

Most of the abilities man now possesses are only shadows of his real strengths. The Soul knows, loves, and creates. These are its unequivocal functions. All of the functions of man are equivocal, or open to question or doubt. This is because he can no longer be certain how he will USE them. He is therefore incapable of knowledge, because he is uncertain. He is also incapable of true loving, because he can perceive lovelessly. He cannot create surely, because perception deceives, and illusions are not pure.

In our picture of the psyche, there is an unconscious level, which properly consists ONLY of the miracle ability and should be under MY direction; and a conscious level, which perceives or is aware of impulses from both the unconscious and the superconscious. These are the sources of the impulses it receives. Consciousness is thus the level of perception, but NOT of knowledge. Again, to PERCEIVE is NOT to know. (In this connection, Cayce is more accurate than Freud.)

Consciousness was the first split that man introduced into himself. He became a PERCEIVER rather than a creator in the true sense.

The ego is the questioning compartment in the post-Separation psyche which man created for himself. It is capable of asking valid questions, but not of perceiving wholly valid answers, because these are cognitive, and cannot BE perceived. The endless speculation about the meaning of mind has led to considerable confusion because the mind IS confused. Only One-Mindedness is without confusion. A separate, or divided, mind MUST be confused. A divided mind is uncertain by definition. It HAS to be in conflict because it is out of accord with itself.

Intrapersonal conflict arises from the same basis as interpersonal. One part of the psyche perceives another part as on a different LEVEL, and does not understand it. This makes the parts strangers to each other, WITHOUT RECOGNITION. This is the essence of the fear-prone condition, in which attack is ALWAYS possible.

Right-mindedness is not to be confused with the KNOWING mind, because it is applicable only to right perception. You can be right-minded or wrong-minded, and this is subject to degrees, a fact which clearly demonstrates a lack of association with knowledge. (No, Helen, this is PERFECTLY clear and DOES follow the previous section. Neither you nor I is at all confused, even in grammar.)

The term "right-mindedness" is properly used as the correction for wrong-mindedness, and applies to the state of mind which induces accurate perception. It is miraculous because it heals misperception, and healing is indeed a miracle, in view of how man perceives himself. Only the sick NEED healing. The Soul does not need healing, but the mind DOES.

Freud gave a very graphic but upside down account of how the divisions of the mind arose from the bottom UP. Actually, this is impossible, because the unconscious cannot create the conscious. You cannot create something you can't KNOW. Freud was greatly worried about this, being VERY bright, though misguided, and attempted to get around it by introducing a number of "borderline" areas which merely resulted in fuzziness. This was particularly unfortunate, because he was capable of going much higher, if he had not been so afraid. This is why he kept pulling the mind DOWN.

Perception ALWAYS involves some misuse of will, because it involves the mind in areas of uncertainty. The mind is very active because it has will-power. When it willed the Separation it willed to perceive. Until it chose to do this, it willed only to know. Afterwards, it had to will ambiguously, and the only way out of ambiguity IS clear perception.

The ego is as frail as Freud perceived it. The later theorists have tried to introduce a less pessimistic view, but have looked in the wrong direction for their hope. Any attempt to endow the ego with the attributes of the Soul, is merely confused thinking. Freud was more clear-sighted about this, because he knew a BAD thing when he perceived it, but he failed to recognize that a bad thing cannot exist. It is therefore wholly unnecessary to try to get out of it. As you very rightly observed yourself, the thing to do with a desert is to LEAVE.

The mind returns itself to its proper function only when it WILLS TO KNOW. This places it in the Soul's service, where perception is meaningless. The superconscious is the level of the mind which wills to do this. (Freud was particularly distorted on this point, because he was getting too far UP for comfort according to his own perception.) But he WAS right in maintaining that the "parts" of the psyche cannot be correctly perceived either as THINGS or as entirely separate. (He would have thought better if he had said "entirely separated.")

The ability to perceive made the body possible, because you must perceive SOMETHING, and WITH something. This is why perception involves an exchange, or a translation, which knowledge does NOT need. The interpretive function of perception, (actually, a distorted form of creation), then permitted man to interpret the body as HIMSELF, which, although depressing, was a way out of the conflict he induced. (This has already been covered in some detail.)

The superconscious, which KNOWS, could not be reconciled with this loss of power, because it was incapable of darkness. This is why it became almost inaccessible to the mind, and entirely inaccessible to the body. It was PERCEIVED as a threat, because light does abolish darkness by establishing the clear fact that it ISN'T THERE. The truth will ALWAYS destroy error in this sense. This is not an ACTIVE process of destruction at all. We have already emphasized the fact that knowing does not DO anything. It can be PERCEIVED as an attacker, but it CANNOT attack.

What man perceives as its attack is his own recognition of the fact that it can always be REMEMBERED, because it has never been destroyed. This is not a literal remembering as much as a re-membering. (That is largely for Bill I wish he would decide to use that talent of his constructively. He has no idea of how powerful it could be. Actually, it does come from the unconscious, and is really a distorted form of miraculous perception which he has reduced to word twisting. Although this can be quite funny, it is still a real waste. Maybe he'd care to let me control it, and still use it humorously himself. He doesn't have to decide it is one OR the other.)

The unconscious should never have been reduced to a "container" for the waste products of conflict. Even as HE perceives his psyche, every level has a creative potential, because nothing man creates can wholly lose this.

I cannot unite your will with God's for you. But I CAN erase all misperceptions from your mind, if you will bring it under my guidance. ONLY your misperceptions stand in your own way. Without them, your own choice is certain. Sane perception INDUCES sane choosing. The Atonement was an act based on true perception. I cannot choose for you, but I CAN help you make your own right choice.

"Many are called but few are chosen" SHOULD read, "ALL are called but few choose to listen. Therefore, they do not choose RIGHT." The "chosen ones" are merely those who choose right SOONER. This is the real meaning of the celestial speed-up. Strong wills can do this NOW. And you WILL find rest for your Souls. God knows you only in peace, and this IS your reality.

(Note that the term "insight", though referring to lofty perception, is not an attribute of knowledge. This is why terms like "lofty" are meaningless in this context. Insight is not the way TO knowledge, but it IS a prerequisite FOR knowledge. Being of God, knowledge has nothing to do with your perceptions at all. That is why it can only be a gift of God TO you.)

Chapter 4 - The Practice of Psychotherapy

Section 1 - The Selection of Patients

Everyone who is sent to you is a patient of yours. This does not mean that you select him, nor that you choose the kind of "treatment" that is suitable. But it does mean that no-one comes to you by mistake. There are no errors in God's plan. It would be an error, however, to assume that you know what to offer everyone who comes. This is not up to you to decide. There is a tendency to assume that you are being called on constantly to make sacrifices of yourself for those who come. This could hardly be true. To demand sacrifice of yourself is to demand a sacrifice of God, and He knows nothing of sacrifice. Who could ask of Perfection that He be imperfect?

Who, then, decides what each brother needs? Surely not you, who do not yet recognize who he is who asks. There is Something in him that will tell you, if you listen. And that is the answer; listen. Do not demand, do not decide, do not sacrifice. Listen. What you hear is true. Would God send His Son to you and not be sure you recognize his needs? Think what God is telling you; He needs your voice to speak for Him. Could anything be holier? Or a greater gift to you? Would you rather choose who would be god, or hear the Voice of Him Who is God in you?

Your patients need not be physically present for you to serve them in the Name of God. This may be hard to remember, but God will not have His gifts to you limited to the few you actually see. You can see others as well, for seeing is not limited to the body's eyes. Some do not need your physical presence. They need you as much, and perhaps even more, at the instant they are sent. You will recognize them in whatever way can be most helpful to both of you. It does not matter how they come. They will be sent in whatever form is most helpful; a name, a thought, a picture, an idea, or perhaps just a feeling of reaching out to someone somewhere. The joining is in the hands of the Holy Spirit. It cannot fail to be accomplished.

Lesson 84 These are the ideas for today's review: (67-68)

67) "Love created me like Itself."

I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today. I will worship no idols, nor raise my own self-concepts to replace my Self. I am in the likeness of my Creator. Love created me like Itself.

68) "Love holds no grievances."

Grievances are completely alien to love. Grievances attack love, and keep its light obscure. If I hold grievances I am attacking love, and therefore attacking my Self. My Self thus becomes alien to me. I am determined not to attack my Self today, so that I can remember who I am.

These specific forms for applying this idea would be helpful:

"This is no justification for denying my Self."

"I will not use this to attack love."

"Let this not tempt me to attack myself."

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

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.

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 is a very preliminary step, and THE ONLY ONE YOU MUST TAKE YOURSELF. It is not even necessary that you COMPLETE the step yourself, but it IS necessary that you turn in that direction. Having willed to go that way, you place YOURSELF in charge of the journey, where you and ONLY you must remain.

This step APPEARS to exacerbate conflict rather than resolve it, because it is the BEGINNING step in reversing your perception and turning it right side up. This conflicts with the upside down perception which you have not yet abandoned, or the change in direction would not have been necessary. Some people remain at this step for a very long time, experiencing VERY acute conflict. 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, 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 9 - The Inner Shift

The constancy of happiness has NO exceptions, no change of ANY kind. It is unshakable as is the Love of God for His Creation. Sure in its vision as its Creator is in what He KNOWS, it looks on everything and SEES it is the same. It sees NOT the ephemeral, for it DESIRES that everything be like itself, and SEES it so. NOTHING has power to confound its constancy, because its OWN desire can not BE shaken. It comes as surely unto those who see the final question is NECESSARY to the rest, as peace MUST come to those who choose to heal, and NOT to judge.

God has ALREADY given him all that he REALLY wants. But what he is uncertain of, God CANNOT give. For He does NOT desire it while he REMAINS uncertain, and God's giving MUST be incomplete unless it is RECEIVED. You who complete His Will and ARE His happiness, whose will is powerful as His, -- a power that is NOT lost in your illusions, -- think carefully why it should be you have not yet decided how you would answer the final question. Your answer to the others has made it possible to help you be but partially insane. And yet it is the final one that REALLY asks if you are willing to be WHOLLY sane.

What is the holy instant but God's appeal to you to RECOGNIZE what He has given you? Here is the great appeal to reason; the awareness of what is ALWAYS there to see; the happiness that COULD be ALWAYS yours. Here is the CONSTANT peace you could experience forever. Here is what denial has denied, REVEALED to you. For here the final question is ALREADY answered, and what you ask for, GIVEN. Here is the future NOW, for time is powerless BECAUSE of your desire for what will NEVER change. For you HAVE asked that nothing STAND BETWEEN the holiness of your relationship, and your AWARENESS of its holiness.

Section 9 - The "Hero" of the Dream

The body is the central figure in the dreaming of the world. There IS no dream without it, nor does it exist without the dream, in which it acts as if it were a person, to be seen and be believed. It takes the central place in every dream, which tells the story of how it was made by OTHER bodies, born into the world OUTSIDE the body, lives a little while, and dies, to be united in the dust with other bodies, dying like itself. In the brief time allotted it to live, it seeks for other bodies as its friends and enemies. Its safety is its main concern. Its comfort is its guiding rule. It tries to look for pleasure, and avoid the things that would be hurtful. Above all, it tries to teach itself its pains and joys are different, and CAN be told apart.

The dreaming of the world takes many forms, because the body seeks in many ways to PROVE it is autonomous and real. It puts things on itself that it has bought with little metal discs or paper strips the world proclaims as valuable and good. It works to get them, doing senseless things, and tosses them away for senseless things it does not NEED, and does not even WANT. It hires OTHER bodies, that they may protect it, and collect more senseless things that it can call its own. It looks about for special bodies which can SHARE its dream. Sometimes it dreams it is a conqueror of bodies weaker than itself. But in some phases of the dream, it is the slave of bodies which would hurt and torture it.

The body's serial adventures, from the time of birth to dying is the theme of every dream the world has ever had. The "hero" of this dream will never change, nor will its purpose. Though the dream itself takes many forms, and SEEMS to show a great variety of places and events wherein its "hero" finds itself, the dream has but ONE purpose, taught in many ways. This single lesson does it try to teach again, and still again, and yet once more; - that it is CAUSE and NOT effect. And YOU are ITS effect, and CANNOT be its cause. Thus are you NOT the dreamer, but the DREAM. And so you wander idly in and out of places and events that IT contrives.

That this is all the BODY does, is true. For it IS but a figure in a dream. But who REACTS to figures in a dream, UNLESS he sees them as if they were real?

The INSTANT that he sees them as they ARE, they HAVE no more effects on him BECAUSE he understands he GAVE them their effects BY CAUSING THEM, and MAKING them seem real. How willing are you to ESCAPE effects of all the dreams the world has ever had? Is it your wish to let NO dream appear to be the cause of what it is YOU do? Then let us merely look upon the dream's beginning, for the part you see is but the SECOND part, whose CAUSE lies in the first.

No-one asleep and dreaming in the world remembers his attack upon himself. No-one believes there really was a time when he knew nothing of a body, and could never have conceived this world as real. He would have seen at once that these ideas are one illusion, too ridiculous for anything but to be laughed away. How serious they now appear to be! And no-one can remember when they would have met with laughter and with disbelief. We CAN remember this, if we but look directly at their CAUSE. And we will see the grounds for laughter, NOT a cause for fear. Let us return the dream he gave away unto the dreamer, who perceives the dream as SEPARATE from himself, and done to him.

In gentle laughter does the Holy Spirit perceive the cause, and looks NOT to effects. How else could He correct YOUR error, who have OVERLOOKED the cause entirely? He bids you bring each terrible effect to Him, that you may look TOGETHER on its foolish cause, and laugh with Him a while. YOU judge effects, but HE has judged their CAUSE. And by His judgment are effects removed. Perhaps you come in tears, but hear Him say, "My brother, Holy Son of God, behold your idle dream, in which this could occur," and you will leave the holy instant with your laughter and your brother's JOINED with His.

The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes.

The Holy Spirit will repeat this ONE inclusive lesson of deliverance, until it has been learned, REGARDLESS of the form of suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt you bring to Him, He will make answer with this very simple truth. For this one answer TAKES AWAY the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but the SINGLE cause of all of them, no matter WHAT their form. And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo."

Bring, then, all forms of suffering to Him Who knows that every one is like the rest. He sees NO differences where none exist, and He will teach you how each one is CAUSED. None has a DIFFERENT cause from all the rest, and ALL of them are easily undone by but a SINGLE lesson truly learned. Salvation is a secret you have kept but from yourself. The universe proclaims it so. But, to its witnesses, you pay no heed at all. For they attest the thing you do not WANT to know. They seem to keep it secret FROM you. Yet you need but learn you choose but NOT to listen, NOT to see.

How differently will you perceive the world, when this is recognized! When you forgive the world YOUR guilt, YOU will be free of it. Its innocence does NOT demand your guilt, nor does YOUR guiltlessness rest on ITS sins. This is the obvious, a secret kept from no-one but yourself. And it is this that has maintained you SEPARATE from the world, and kept your brother SEPARATE from you. Now need you but to learn that BOTH of you are innocent OR guilty. The one thing that is impossible is that you be UNLIKE each other; that they BOTH be true. This is the only secret yet to learn. And it will be NO secret you are healed.

Section 5 - The Little Willingness

The holy instant is the RESULT of your determination to be holy. It is the ANSWER. The desire and the willingness to let it come PRECEDE its coming. YOU prepare your minds for it ONLY to the extent of RECOGNIZING that you want it above all else. It is not necessary that you do more; indeed, it is necessary that you realize that you can NOT do more. Do not attempt to give the Holy Spirit what He does NOT ask, or you will add the ego unto Him, and CONFUSE THE TWO. He asks but little. It is HE Who adds the greatness and the might. He JOINS with you to make the holy instant far greater than you can understand.

It is your realization that you NEED do so little that enables HIM to give so much. Trust not your good intentions. They are not enough. But trust IMPLICITLY your willingness, whatever else may enter. Concentrate only on this, and be NOT disturbed that shadows surround it. THAT IS WHY YOU CAME. If you could come WITHOUT them, you would not NEED the holy instant. Come to it not in arrogance, assuming that YOU must achieve the state its coming brings with it. The miracle of the holy instant lies in your willingness to let IT be what it is. And in your willingness for THIS, lies also your acceptance of yourself as YOU were meant to be.

The holy instant does NOT come from your little willingness alone. It is ALWAYS the result of your SMALL willingness COMBINED with the unlimited power of HIS Will. You have been wrong in thinking that it is needful to prepare YOURSELF for Him. It is impossible to make arrogant preparations for holiness, and NOT believe that it is up to you to establish the conditions for peace. GOD HAS ESTABLISHED THEM. They do not wait upon your willingness for what they ARE. Your willingness is needed ONLY to make it possible to TEACH you what they are.

Purification is of God alone. And THEREFORE for you. Rather than seek to prepare YOURSELF for Him, try to think thus:

"I who am host to God AM worthy of Him.

He Who ESTABLISHED His dwelling-place in me created it as He would have it be.

It is not needful that I make it ready for Him, but only that I DO NOT INTERFERE with His plan to RESTORE to me my own AWARENESS of my readiness, which is eternal.

I need ADD nothing to His plan,

But to RECEIVE it, I must be willing NOT to substitute my own IN PLACE of it."

And that is all. Add MORE, and you will merely TAKE AWAY the little that is asked. Remember YOU MADE GUILT, and that your plan for the ESCAPE from guilt has been to bring Atonement TO it, and MAKE SALVATION FEARFUL. And it is ONLY fear that you will add, if you prepare YOURSELF for love. The preparation for the holy instant belongs to Him Who gives it. RELEASE yourselves to Him Whose function IS release. Do NOT assume His function FOR Him. Give Him but what He asks, that you may learn how LITTLE is your part, and how great is HIS.

It is this that makes the holy instant so easy and so natural. YOU make it difficult, because you insist there MUST be more that you need do. You find it difficult to ACCEPT the idea that you need give so LITTLE, to receive so much. And it is very hard for you to realize that it is not personally insulting that YOUR contribution and the Holy Spirit's are so EXTREMELY disproportionate. You are still convinced YOUR understanding is a powerful contribution to the truth, and MAKES IT WHAT IT IS. Yet we have emphasized that you need understand nothing. Salvation is easy JUST BECAUSE it asks nothing that you cannot give RIGHT NOW.

Section 5 - The Correction for Lack of Love

After taking the first corrective step, i.e., "Knowing it IS fear," you might benefit temporarily by adding another next step BEFORE going on with the corrective process. Try saying to yourself that you MUST have willed not to love somehow or somewhere, or that fear which arises from behavior-will conflict could not have happened. Then follow previous instructions.

If you consider what the process really means, it is nothing more than a series of pragmatic steps in the larger process of accepting the Atonement as THE remedy. From this viewpoint, the steps can be reworded as follows:

1.) Know first this is fear.

2.) Fear arises from lack of love.

3.) The ONLY remedy for lack of love is perfect love.

4.) Perfect love IS the Atonement.

The final procedural step (3) is inherent in the last statement (4). We have emphasized that the miracle, or the EXPRESSION of Atonement, is always a sign of real respect from the worthy TO the worthy. This worth IS re-established by the Atonement.

It is obvious, then, that when you are afraid you have placed yourself in a position where you NEED Atonement BECAUSE you have DONE something loveless because you WILLED without love. This is precisely the situation for which the Atonement was offered. The need for the remedy inspired its CREATION.

As long as you recognize only the NEED for the remedy, you will remain fearful. However, as soon as you REMEDY it, you have also abolished the fear. This is how TRUE healing occurs.

Everyone experiences fear, and nobody enjoys it. Yet, it would take very little Right-thinking to know why it occurs. Neither you nor Bill have thought about it very much, either. ( I object at this point to the use of plural verb with a properly singular subject - - Helen Schucman - - and remember that last time in a very similar sentence, He said it correctly and I remembered it with real pleasure. This real grammatical error makes me suspicious of the genuineness of these notes. ANSWER: What it really shows is that YOU are not very receptive. The reason it came out that way, is because you are projecting (in the inappropriate way) your own anger, which has nothing to do with these notes. YOU made the error, because you are not feeling loving, so you want me to sound silly, so you won't have to pay attention. Actually, I am trying to get through against considerable opposition, because you are not very happy, and I wish you were. I thought I'd take a chance, even though you are so resistant, because I MIGHT be able to make you feel better. You may be unable not to attack at all, but do try to listen a little, too.)

Very few people appreciate the real power of the mind. Nobody remains fully aware of it all the time. This is inevitable in this world, because the human being has many things he must do, and cannot engage in constant thought-watching. However, if he hopes to spare himself from fear, there are some things he must realize, and realize them fully, at least some of the time.

The mind is a very powerful creator, and it never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is creating, and ALWAYS as you will. Many of your ordinary expressions reflect this. For example, when you say "don't give it a thought", you are implying that if you do not think about something, it will have no effect on you. This is true enough.

While expressions like "think big" give some recognition to the power of thought, they still come nowhere near the truth. You do not expect to grow when you say it, because you don't really believe it. It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move mountains.

It appears at first glance that to believe such power about yourself is merely arrogant, but that is not the real reason why you don't believe it.

People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert real control because they are literally AFRAID of them. Therapists try to help people who are afraid of their own death wishes by depreciating the power of the wish. They even attempt to "free" the patient by persuading him that he can think whatever he wants, without ANY real effect at all.

There is a real dilemma here, which only the truly right-minded can escape. Death wishes do not kill in the physical sense, but they DO kill spiritually. ALL destructive thinking is dangerous. Given a death wish, a man has no choice except to ACT upon his thought, or behave CONTRARY TO it. He can thus choose ONLY between homicide and fear. (See previous notes on will conflicts.) (NOTE I avoided this term in the last series of notes intentionally, because it seemed too Rankian. Apparently, there was a reason why this word should have been used last time. It is used in this section for a very good reason.)

The other possibility is that he depreciates the power of his thought. This is the usual psychoanalytic approach. This DOES allay guilt, but at the cost of rendering thinking impotent. If you believe that what you think is ineffectual, you may cease to be overly afraid of it, but you are hardly likely to respect it, either. The world is full of endless examples of how man has depreciated himself because he is afraid of his own thoughts. In some forms of insanity, thoughts are glorified, but this is only because the underlying depreciation was too effective for tolerance.

The truth is that there ARE no "idle thoughts." ALL thinking produces form at some level. The reason why people are afraid of ESP, and so often react against it, is because they KNOW that thought can hurt them. Their OWN thoughts have made them vulnerable.

You and Bill, who complain all the time about fear, still persist in creating it most of the time. I told you last time that you cannot ask ME to release you from it, because I KNOW it does not exist. YOU don't. If I merely intervene between your thoughts and their results, I would be tampering with a basic law of cause and effect, in fact the most fundamental one there is in this world. I would hardly help if I depreciated the power of your own thinking. This would be in direct opposition to the purpose of this course.

It is certainly much more useful to remind you that you do not guard your thoughts at all carefully, except for a relatively small part of the day, and somewhat inconsistently even then. You may feel at this point that it would take a miracle to enable you to do this, which is perfectly true. Human beings are not used to miraculous thinking, but they CAN be TRAINED to think that way.

All miracle-workers HAVE to be trained that way. I have to be able to count on them. This means that I cannot allow them to leave their mind unguarded, or they will not be able to help me. Miracle-working entails a full realization of the power of thought, and real avoidance of miscreation. Otherwise, the miracle will be necessary to set the mind ITSELF straight, a circular process which would hardly foster the time-collapse for which the miracle was intended. Nor would it induce the healthy respect that every miracle-worker must have for true cause and effect.

Miracles cannot free the miracle-worker from fear. Both miracles AND fear come from his thoughts, and if he were not free to choose one, he would also not be free to choose the other. Remember, we said before that when electing one person, you reject another.

You and Bill are willing to accept primarily what does NOT change your minds too much, and leaves you free to leave them quite unguarded most of the time. You persist in believing that when you do not consciously watch your mind, it is unmindful.

It is time to consider the whole world of the unconscious, or unwatched mind. This will frighten you, because it is the source of fright. You may look at it as a new theory of basic conflict, if you wish, which will not be entirely an intellectual approach, because I doubt if the truth will escape you entirely.

The unwatched mind is responsible for the whole content of the unconscious, which lies above the miracle-level. All psychoanalytic theorists have made some contribution to the truth in this connection, but none of them has seen it in its true entirety. (The correct grammar here is a sign of your better cooperation. Thank you.) Jung's best contribution was an awareness of individual vs. collective unconscious levels. He also recognized the major place of the religious spirit in his schema. His archetypes were also meaningful concepts. But his major error lay in regarding the deepest level of the unconscious as shared in terms of CONTENT. The deepest level of the unconscious is shared as an ABILITY. As MIRACLE-MINDEDNESS, the content, (or the particular miracles which an individual happens to perform) does not matter at all. They will, in fact, be entirely different, because, since I direct them, I make a point of avoiding redundancy. Unless a miracle actually heals, it is not a miracle at all.

The content of the miracle-level is not recorded in the individual's unconscious, because if it were, it would not be automatic and involuntary, which we have said repeatedly it should be. However, the content IS a matter for the record, which is NOT within the individual himself.

All psychoanalysts made one common error, in that they attempted to uncover unconscious CONTENT. You cannot understand unconscious activity in these terms, because "content" is applicable ONLY to the more superficial unconscious levels to which the individual himself contributes. This is the level at which he can readily introduce fear, and usually does.

Freud was right in calling this level pre-conscious, and emphasizing that there is a fairly easy interchange between preconscious and conscious material. He was also right in regarding the censor as an agent for the protection of consciousness from fear. HIS major error lay in his insistence that this level is necessary at all in the psychic structure. If the psyche contains fearful levels from which it cannot escape without splitting, its integration is permanently threatened. It is essential not to control the fearful, but to ELIMINATE it.

No one as yet has fully recognized either the therapeutic value of fear, or the only way in which it can be truly ended. When man miscreates, he IS in pain. The cause and effect principle here is temporarily a real expeditor. Actually, Cause is a term properly belonging to God, and Effect, which should also be capitalized, is HIS Sonship. This entails a set of cause and effect relationships which are totally different from those which man introduced into the Miscreation.

The fundamental opponents in the real basic conflict are Creation and miscreation. All fear is implicit in the second, just as all love is inherent in the first. Because of this difference, the basic conflict IS one between love and fear.

Everything that man creates has energy because, like the Creation of God, they (it) come FROM energy, and are endowed by their creator with the power to create. Miscreation is still a genuine creative act in terms of the underlying IMPULSE, but NOT in terms of the CONTENT of the creation. This, however, does not deprive the creation of its OWN creative power. It DOES, however, GUARANTEE that the power will be misused, or USED FEARFULLY.

This placed them in the illogical position of assuming that the split which their therapies were intended to heal had not occurred. The result of this approach is essentially a form of hypnosis. This is quite different from Freud's approach, which merely ended in a deadlock.

A similar deadlock occurs when both the power of Creation and of miscreation coexist. This is experienced as conflict only because the individual feels AS IF both were occurring AT THE SAME LEVEL. He BELIEVES in what he has created in his own unconscious and he naturally believes it is real BECAUSE he has created it. He, thus, places himself in a position where the fearful becomes REAL.

Nothing but level-confusion can result as long as this belief is held in ANY form. Inappropriate denial and equally inappropriate identification of the REAL factors in the basic conflict will NOT solve the problem itself. The conflict CANNOT disappear until it is fully recognized that miscreation is NOT real, and therefore there IS no conflict. This entails a full realization of the basic fact that, although man has miscreated in a very real sense, he need neither continue to do so, nor to suffer from his past errors in this respect.

Freud's psyche was essentially a good and evil picture, with very heavy weight given to the evil. This is because every time I mentioned the Atonement to him, which was quite often, he responded by defending his theory more and more against it. This resulted in his increasingly strong attempts to make the illogical sound more and more logical.

Freud's superego is a particularly interesting example of the real power of miscreation. It is noteworthy throughout the whole development of his theories that the superego never allied itself with freedom. The most it could do in this direction was to work out a painful truce in which both opponents LOST. This perception could not fail to force him to emphasize discontent in his view of civilization.

The Freudian id is really only the more superficial level of the unconscious, and not the deepest level at all. This, too, was inevitable, because Freud could not divorce miracles from magic. It was therefore his constant endeavor, (even preoccupation) to keep on thrusting more and more material between consciousness and the real deeper level of the unconscious, so that the latter became increasingly obscured. The result was a kind of bedlam, in which there was no order, no control, and no sense. This was exactly how he FELT about it.

The later theoretical switch to the primacy of anxiety was an interesting device intended to deny both the instinctive nature of destructiveness, and the force of the power of miscreation. By placing the emphasis on the RESULT, the generative nature of the power was minimized.

(This goes after basic conflict theory.) (Dictated without notes by Helen Schucman)

We have already said that the basic conflict is one between love and fear, and that the proper organization of the psyche rests on a lack of level confusion. The section on psychic energy should be re-read very carefully, because it is particularly likely to be misinterpreted until this section is complete.

It has already been said that man CANNOT control fear, because he himself created it. His belief in it renders it out of his control by definition. For this reason, any attempt to resolve the basic conflict through the concept of mastery of fear is meaningless. In fact, it asserts the power of fear by the simple assumption that it need be mastered at all.

The essential resolution rests entirely on the mastery of love. In the interim, conflict is inevitable. The reason for this is the strangely illogical position in which man had placed himself. Since we have frequently emphasized that correction must be applied within the level that error occurs, it should be clear that the miracle MUST be illogical because its purpose is to correct the illogical and restore order.

Two concepts which CANNOT coexist are nothing and everything. To whatever extent one is believed in, the other HAS BEEN abolished. In the conflict, fear is really nothing, and love is really everything. (This recognition is really the basis for the castration complex.) This is because whenever light penetrates darkness, it DOES abolish it. The unwillingness to be seen, or submit error to light, is spuriously associated with active doing. In this incarnation, this can take the form of oedipal involvement and concomitant castration anxiety.

However, in more long range and meaningful terms, the oedipal complex is a miniature of the true Separation fear, and the castration complex is a way of denying that it ever occurred. Like all pseudo-solutions, this kind of distorted thinking is very creative, but false. The Separation HAS occurred. To deny this is merely to misuse denial. However, to concentrate on error is merely a further misuse of legitimate psychic mechanisms. The true corrective procedure, which has already been described as the proper use of the spiritual eye (or true vision), is to accept the error temporarily, BUT ONLY as an indication that IMMEDIATE correction is mandatory. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay.

It is worth repeating that ultimately there is no compromise possible between everything and nothing. The purpose of time is essentially a device by which all compromise in this respect can be abolished. It seems to be abolished by degrees precisely because time itself involves a concept of intervals which do not really exist. The faulty use of creation has made this necessary as a corrective device.

"And God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son so that whosoever believeth on Him shall not perish but have Eternal Life" needs only one slight correction to be entirely meaningful in this context. It should read "And God so loved the world that he gave it TO His only begotten Son." It should be noted that God HAS begotten only ONE Son. If you believe that all of the Souls that God created ARE His Sons, and if you also believe that the Sonship is One, then every Soul MUST be a Son of God, or an integral part of the Sonship. You do not find the concept that the whole is greater than its parts difficult to understand. You should therefore not have too great difficulty with this. The Sonship in its Oneness DOES transcend the sum of its parts. However, it loses this special state as long as any of its parts are missing. This is why the conflict cannot ultimately be resolved UNTIL all of the individual parts of the Sonship have returned. Only then, in the true sense, can the meaning of wholeness be understood.

The concept of minus numbers has always been regarded as a mathematical rather than an actual expedient. (This is a major limitation on mathematics as presently understood.) Any statement which implies degrees of difference in negation is essentially meaningless. What can replace this negative approach is a recognition of the fact that as long as one part (which is the same as a million or ten or eight thousand parts) of the Sonship is missing, it is NOT complete.

In the Divine psyche, the Father and the Holy Spirit are not incomplete at all. The Sonship has the unique faculty of believing in error, or incompleteness, if he so elects. However, it is quite apparent that so to elect IS to believe in the existence of nothingness. The correction of this error is the Atonement.

In case this be misunderstood as a statement that an enormous amount of time will be necessary between readiness and mastery, I would again remind you that time and space are under My control. Dictated without notes by Helen Schucman)

It also follows that whatever he creates is real in his own eyes, but not necessarily in the sight of God. This basic distinction leads us directly into the real meaning of the Last Judgment. (I am aware of the fact that you would much rather continue with the parallels involved in other theories of basic conflict. However, this would merely be a delay which we will engage in only if you regard it as essential.)

Lesson 83 Today let us review these ideas: (65-66)

65) "My only function is the one God gave me."

I have no function but the one God gave me. This recognition releases me from all conflict, because it means I cannot have conflicting goals. With one purpose only, I am always certain what to do, what to say, and what to think. All doubt must disappear and I acknowledge that my only function is the one God gave me.

66) "My happiness and my function are one."

All things that come from God are one. They come from Oneness, and must be received as one. Fulfilling my function is my happiness because both come from the same Source. And I must learn to recognize what makes me happy if I would find happiness.

Some useful forms for specific applications of this idea are:

"This cannot separate my happiness from my function."

"The oneness of my happiness and my function remains wholly

unaffected by this."

"Nothing, including this, can justify the illusion of happiness apart from my function."

Chapter 17 - Forgiveness and Healing

Section 1 - Introduction

FANTASIES CHANGE REALITY. That is their purpose. They CANNOT do so IN reality, but they CAN do so in the mind that would HAVE REALITY DIFFERENT. It is, then, only your WISH to change reality that is fearful, because, by your wish you think you have ACCOMPLISHED what you wish. This strange position, in a sense, ACKNOWLEDGES your power, yet by DISTORTING it, and devoting it to 'evil,' it also MAKES IT UNREAL. You cannot be faithful to two masters, who ask of you conflicting things. What you use in fantasy, you DENY to truth. But what you GIVE to truth, to use FOR you, is SAFE from fantasy.

Section 2 - Bargaining versus Healing

The ego demands RECIPROCAL rights, because it is competitive rather than loving. It is always willing to make a deal, but it cannot understand that to be LIKE another means that NO DEALS ARE POSSIBLE. To gain you must GIVE, not bargain. To bargain is to LIMIT giving, and this is NOT God's Will. To will WITH God is to create like HIM. God does not limit HIS gifts in ANY way. You ARE His gifts, and so your gifts must be like HIS.

To think like God is to share His certainty of WHAT YOU ARE. And to CREATE like Him is to share the perfect love He shares with YOU. To this the Holy Spirit leads you, that your joy may be complete because the Kingdom of God is whole. We have said that the last step in the re-awakening of knowledge is taken by God. This is true, but it is hard to explain in words, because words are symbols, and nothing that is true NEEDS to be explained. However, the Holy Spirit always has the task of translating the useLESS into the useFUL, the meaningLESS into the meaningFUL, and the temporary into the timeLESS. He CAN, therefore, tell you something about this last step, but this one you must know yourself, because BY it you know what you are. This IS your being.

The "last step" that God was said to take was therefore true in the beginning, is true now, and will be true forever. What is timeless IS ALWAYS THERE because its BEING is eternally changeless. It does NOT change by increase, because it was forever created TO increase. If you perceive it as NOT increasing, you do not know what it IS. You also do not know what created it, or who HE is. God does not REVEAL this to you, because it was never hidden. His light was never obscured, because it is His Will to SHARE it. How can what is fully shared be withheld and then revealed?

To heal is the ONLY kind of thinking in this world that resembles the Thought of God, and because of the elements which they SHARE, can transfer TO it. When a brother perceives himself as sick, he IS perceiving himself as NOT WHOLE, and therefore IN NEED. If you, too, see him this way, you are seeing him as if he were ABSENT from the Kingdom or separated FROM it, thus making the Kingdom ITSELF obscure to BOTH OF YOU. Sickness and separation are not of God, but the Kingdom IS. If you obscure the Kingdom, you are perceiving WHAT IS NOT OF GOD.

Chapter 21 - The Inner Picture

Section 1 - Introduction

Projection makes perception; the world you see is what you GAVE it, nothing more than that. But, though it is no MORE than that, it is NOT less. Therefore, to YOU, it IS important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the OUTSIDE picture of an INWARD condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive. Therefore, seek not to change the WORLD, but will to change your mind ABOUT the world. Perception is a RESULT, and NOT a cause. And that is WHY order of miracles is meaningless. EVERYTHING looked upon with vision is healed and holy. NOTHING perceived without it means anything. And where there is no meaning, there is chaos.

Section 2 - Projection versus Extension

You have made by projection, but God has created by extension. The cornerstone of God's creation is YOU, for HIS thought system is light. Remember the rays that are there unseen. The more you approach the center of HIS thought system, the clearer the light becomes. The closer you come to the foundation of the ego's thought system, the darker and more obscure becomes the way. But even the little spark in your mind is enough to lighten it. Bring this light fearlessly with you, and hold it up to the foundation of the ego's thought system bravely. Be willing to judge it with perfect honesty. Open the dark stone of terror on which it rests, and bring it out into the light. There you will see that it rests on meaninglessness, and that everything of which you have been afraid was based on nothing.

My brother, you are part of God and part of me. When you have at last looked at the ego's foundation without shrinking, you will also have looked upon ours. I come to you from our Father, to offer you everything again. Do not refuse it to keep a dark cornerstone hidden, for ITS protection will not save you. I GIVE you the lamp, and I will go with you. You will not take this journey alone. I will lead you to your true Father, Who hath need of you, as I have. Will you not answer the call of love with joy?

To be alone is to be separated from Infinity, but how can this be, if Infinity has no end? No-one can BE beyond the limitless, because what has NO limits, must be everywhere. There are no beginnings and no endings in God, Whose Universe is Himself. Can you exclude yourself from the Universe, or from God, Who IS the Universe? I and my Father are one with YOU, for you are part of us. Do you REALLY believe that part of God can be missing or lost to Him?

If you were not part of God, His Will would not be unified. Is this conceivable? Can part of His Mind contain nothing? If your place in His Mind cannot be filled by anyone EXCEPT you, and your filling it WAS your creation, WITHOUT you, there would be an empty place in God's Mind. Extension cannot be blocked, and it has no voids. It continues forever, however much it is denied. Your DENIAL of its reality arrests it in time, but not in Eternity. That is why your creations have not ceased to be extended, and why so much is waiting for your return.

Waiting is possible ONLY in time, but time has no meaning. You who made delay can leave time behind, simply by recognizing that neither beginnings nor endings were created by the Eternal, Who placed no limits on His creation nor upon those who create like Him. You do not know this, simply because you have tried to limit what HE created, and so you believe that ALL creation is limited. How, then, could you know YOUR creations, having DENIED Infinity? The laws of the universe do not permit contradiction. What holds for God holds for you. If you believe YOU are absent from God, you WILL believe He is absent from you.

To give without limit is God's Will for you, because only this can bring you the joy which is His, and which He wills to share with YOU. Your love is as boundless as His because it IS His. Could any part of Him be WITHOUT His Love, and could any part of His Love be contained? God is your heritage, because His one gift is Himself. How can you give except LIKE Him, if you would know His gift to YOU? Give, then, without limit and without end, to learn how much HE has given YOU. Your ability to ACCEPT Him depends on your willingness to give as He gives. Your fatherhood and your Father are One.

God willed to create, and your will is His. It follows, then, that YOU will to create, since your will follows from His. And being the extension of His will, yours MUST be the same. Yet what you will, you do not know. This is not strange, when you realize that to deny IS to not know. God's Will was that you are His Son. By DENYING this, you denied your OWN will, and therefore DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS. The reason you must ask what God's Will is in everything, is merely because It IS yours. YOU do not know what it is, but the Holy Spirit REMEMBERS IT FOR YOU.

Ask him, therefore, what God's Will is for you, and He will tell you YOURS. It cannot be too often repeated that you do NOT KNOW it. Whenever what the Holy Spirit tells you appears to be coercive, it is ONLY because YOU DO NOT RECOGNIZE YOUR OWN WILL. The projection of the ego makes it appear as if God's Will is OUTSIDE yourself, and therefore NOT YOURS. In THIS interpretation, it IS possible for God's Will and yours to conflict. God, then, may seem to demand of you what you do NOT want to give, and thus DEPRIVE you of what you want. Would God, Who wants ONLY your will, be capable of this? Your will is His Life, which He has GIVEN to you. Even in time you cannot live apart from Him, for sleep is not death. What He created can sleep, but it CANNOT die. Immortality is His Will for His Son, and His Son's will for HIMSELF. Yet God's Son cannot will death for himself, because His Father is Life, and HIS SON IS LIKE HIM.

Creation is your will because it is His. You cannot be happy unless you do what you will truly, and you CHANGE this, because it is immutable. But it is immutable by God's Will AND YOURS, for otherwise His Will would not have been extended. You are afraid to know God's Will, because you believe it is NOT yours. This belief is your whole sickness, and your whole fear. Every symptom of sickness and fear arises here, because this is the belief that makes you want not to know. Believing this, you hide in darkness, denying that the Light is in YOU.

God's Will is that His Son be One, and united with Him in His Oneness. That is why healing is the beginning of the recognition that YOUR WILL IS HIS.

Section 2 - Crucifixion by Guilt

The darkest of your hidden cornerstones holds your belief in guilt from your own awareness. For in that dark and secret place is the realization that you have betrayed God's Son, by condemning him to death. You do not even SUSPECT that this murderous but insane idea lies hidden there. For the ego's destructive urge is so intense, that nothing short of the crucifixion of God's Son can ultimately satisfy it. It does not know who the Son of God IS, because it is blind. But let it perceive guiltlessness ANYWHERE, and it will try to destroy it, because it is afraid.

Much of the ego's strange behavior is directly attributable to its definition of guilt. To the ego, THE GUILTLESS ARE GUILTY. Those who do NOT attack are its "enemies," because, by NOT VALUING its interpretation of salvation, they are in an excellent position to LET IT GO. They have approached the darkest and deepest cornerstone in the ego's foundation, and while it can withstand your raising all else to question, it guards this one secret with its life, for its existence DOES depend on keeping this secret. And it is this secret that we must look upon calmly, for the ego cannot protect you AGAINST truth, and in ITS presence the ego is dispelled.

In the calm light of truth, let us recognize that YOU BELIEVE YOU HAVE CRUCIFIED GOD'S SON. You have not admitted this "terrible" secret, because you still wish to crucify him, IF YOU COULD FIND HIM. But the wish has hidden him from you, because it is very fearful, AND YOU ARE AFRAID TO FIND HIM. You have handled this wish TO KILL YOURSELF by NOT KNOWING WHO YOU ARE, and identifying with something ELSE. You have projected guilt blindly and indiscriminately, but you have NOT uncovered its source. For the ego DOES want to kill you, and if you identify WITH it, you MUST believe ITS GOAL IS YOURS.

This course has explicitly stated that its goal FOR YOU is happiness and peace. Yet you are AFRAID of it. You have been told again and again that it will make you free, yet you react as if it is trying to IMPRISON you. Most of the time you DISMISS it, BUT YOU DO NOT DISMISS THE EGO'S THOUGHT SYSTEM. You HAVE seen its results and you STILL lack faith in it. You MUST, then, believe that, by NOT learning the course, YOU ARE PROTECTING YOURSELF. And you do NOT realize that it is only your guiltlessness that CAN protect you.

The Atonement has always been interpreted as the release from guilt, and this is correct, if it is understood. Yet even when I have interpreted it FOR you, you have rejected it, and have NOT accepted it FOR YOURSELF. You have recognized the futility of the ego and its offerings, but though you do not want it, you will not look upon the alternative with gladness. YOU ARE AFRAID OF REDEMPTION, and YOU BELIEVE IT WILL KILL YOU. Make no mistake about the depth of your fear. For you believe that, in the presence of truth, you will turn on yourself and DESTROY yourself.

Section 4 - The Unified Curriculum

To heal is to liberate totally. We once said there is no order in miracles because they are all MAXIMAL EXPRESSIONS OF LOVE. This has no range at all. The non-maximal only APPEARS to have a range. This is because it SEEMS to be meaningful to measure it FROM the maximum and identify its position by HOW MUCH IT IS NOT THERE. Actually, this does not mean ANYTHING. It is like negative numbers in that the concept can be used theoretically, but it has NO application practically. It is true that if you put three apples on the table and then took them AWAY, the three apples are NOT THERE. But it is NOT true that the table is now MINUS three apples. If there is NOTHING on the table, it does NOT matter what WAS there in terms of amount. The "nothing" is neither greater nor less because of what is ABSENT.

That is why "all" and "nothing" are dichotomous, WITHOUT A RANGE. This is perfectly clear in maximal test performance and for EXACTLY the reason you emphasize. You cannot interpret AT ALL, unless you assume either MAXIMAL motivation or its COMPLETE ABSENCE. Only in these two conditions can you validly COMPARE responses, and you MUST assume the former, because if the LATTER is true, the subject WILL NOT DO ANYTHING. Given VARIABLE motivation he WILL do something, but you CANNOT UNDERSTAND WHAT IT IS.

The RESULTS of tests are evaluated relatively, ASSUMING maximal motivation. But this is because we are dealing with ABILITIES, where degree of development IS meaningful. This does NOT mean that what ability is used FOR is necessarily either limited OR divided. But one thing is certain. Abilities are POTENTIALS for learning, and you will apply them to WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN. Learning is EFFORT, and effort MEANS will.

You will notice that we have used the term "abilities" as a plural, which is correct. This is because abilities began with the ego, which perceived them as a POTENTIAL FOR EXCELLING. This is how the ego STILL perceives them and uses them. It does NOT want to teach everyone all it has learned, because that would DEFEAT its purpose in learning. Therefore, it does not REALLY learn at all. The Holy Spirit teaches YOU to use what the ego has made to TEACH the opposite of what the ego has LEARNED. The KIND of learning is as irrelevant as is the particular ability which was applied TO the learning.

You could not have a better example of the Holy Spirit's (this) unified purpose than this course. The Holy Spirit has taken very diversified areas of YOUR past learning, and has applied them to a UNIFIED curriculum. The fact that this was NOT the ego's reason for learning is totally irrelevant. YOU made the effort to learn, and the Holy Spirit has a unified goal for ALL effort. He ADAPTS the ego's potentials for excelling to potentials for EQUALIZING. This makes them USELESS for the ego's purpose, but VERY useful for His.

If different abilities are applied long enough to one GOAL, the abilities THEMSELVES become unified. This is because they are channelized in one direction, or in one WAY. Ultimately, then, they all contribute to ONE RESULT, and by so doing, their SIMILARITY rather than their differences is emphasized. You can EXCEL in many DIFFERENT ways, but you can EQUALIZE in ONE WAY ONLY. Equality is NOT a variable state, by definition.

That is why we once said that papers will be easy to write when you have learned THIS course. To the ego there appears to be no connection, because the EGO is discontinuous. But the Holy Spirit teaches one lesson and applies it to ALL individuals in ALL situations. Being conflict free, He maximizes ALL efforts and ALL results. By teaching the power of the Kingdom of God Himself, He teaches you that ALL POWER IS YOURS. Its application does not matter. It is ALWAYS maximal. Your vigilance does NOT establish it as yours, but it DOES enable you to use it ALWAYS and in ALL WAYS.

Lesson 131 "No one can fail who asks to reach the truth."

Failure is all about you while you seek for goals which cannot be achieved. You look for permanence in the impermanent; for love where there is none; for safety in the midst of danger; immortality within the darkness of the dream of death. Who could succeed where contradiction is the setting of his searching, and the place to which he comes to find stability?

Goals which are meaningless are not attained. There is no way to reach them, for the means by which you strive for them are meaningless as they are. Who can use such senseless means and hope through them to gain in anything? Where can they lead? And what could they achieve that offers any hope of being real? Pursuit of the imagined leads to death because it is the search for nothingness, and while you seek for life you ask for death. You look for safety and security while in your heart you pray for danger and protection for the little dream you made.

Yet searching is inevitable here. For this you came, and you will surely do the thing you came for. But the world can not dictate the goal for which you search unless you give it power to do so. Otherwise, you still are free to choose a goal that lies beyond the world and every worldly thought, and one which comes to you from an idea relinquished yet remembered, old yet new; an echo of a heritage forgot, yet holding everything you really want.

Be glad that search you must. Be glad as well to learn you search for Heaven, and must find the goal you really want. No one can fail to want this goal, and reach it in the end. God's Son cannot seek vainly, though he try to force delay, deceive himself, and think that it is hell he seeks. When he is wrong he finds correction, when he wanders off he is led back to his appointed task.

No one remains in hell, for no one can abandon his Creator, nor affect His perfect, timeless and unchanging Love. You will find Heaven. Everything you seek but this will fall away, yet not because it has been taken from you. It will go because you do not want it. You will reach the goal you really want as certainly as God created you in sinlessness.

Why wait for Heaven? It is here today. Time is the great illusion it is past or in the future. Yet this cannot be if it is where God wills His Son to be. How could the Will of God be in the past or yet to happen? What He wills is now, without a past and wholly futureless. It is as far removed from time as is a tiny candle from a distant star, or what you chose from what you really want.

God does not suffer conflict. Nor is His creation split in two. How could it be His Son could be in hell when God Himself established him in Heaven? Could he lose what the Eternal Will has given him to be his home forever? Let us not try longer to impose an alien will upon His single purpose. He is here because He Wills to be, and what He wills is present now beyond the reach of time.

Today we will not choose a paradox in place of truth. How could the Son of God make time to take away the Will of God? He thus denies himself, and contradicts what has no opposite. He thinks he made a hell opposing Heaven, and believes that he abides in what does not exist, while Heaven is the place he cannot find. Leave foolish thoughts like these behind today, and turn your mind to true ideas instead. No one can fail who asks to reach the truth, and it is truth we ask to reach today.

For several minutes watch your mind and see, although your eyes are closed, the senseless world you think is real. Review the thoughts as well which are compatible with such a world, and which you think are true. Then let them go, and sink below them to the holy place where they can enter not. There is a door beneath them in your mind which you could not completely lock to hide what lies beyond.

Seek for that door and find it. But before you try to open it, remind yourself no one can fail who asks to reach the truth, and it is this request you make today. Nothing but this has any meaning now; no other goal is valued now nor sought; nothing before this door you really want, and only what lies past it do you seek.

You cannot fail today. There walks with you the Spirit Heaven sent you that you might approach this door some day, and through His aid slip effortlessly past it to the light. Today that day has come. Today God keeps His ancient promise to His holy Son, as does His Son remember his to Him. This is a day of gladness, for we come to the appointed time and place where you will find the goal of all your searching here and all the seeking of the world, which end together as you pass beyond the door.

Remember often that today should be a time of special gladness, and refrain from dismal thoughts and meaningless laments. Salvation's time has come. Today is set by Heaven Itself to be a time of grace for you and for the world. If you forget this happy fact, remind yourself with this:

"Today I seek and find all that I want.

"My single purpose offers it to me.

No one can fail who asks to reach the truth."

Miracle Principle 31

Miracles praise God through men. They praise God by honoring his Creations, affirming their perfection. They heal because they deny body-identification and affirm Soul-identification. By perceiving the Spirit, they adjust the levels and see them in proper alignment. This places the Spirit at the center, where Souls can communicate directly.

Miracles should inspire gratitude, not awe. Man should thank God for what he really is. The Children of God are very holy. The miracle honors their holiness.

God's Creations cannot lose their holiness, although it can be hidden. The miracle uncovers it, and brings it into the light where it belongs.

Holiness can never be really hidden in darkness, but man can deceive himself on this point. This illusion makes him fearful, because in his heart he KNOWS it is an illusion. Like all illusions, he exerts enormous efforts to establish their validity. The miracle sets validity where it belongs. Eternal validity belongs only to the Soul. The miracle acknowledges only the Truth. It thus dispels man's illusions about himself, and puts him into communion with himself and with God.

Miracle Principle 32

Christ inspires all miracles, which are essentially intercessions. They intercede for man's holiness, and make him holy. They place man beyond the physical laws, and raise him into the sphere of celestial order. In this order, man IS perfect.

The Soul never loses its communion with God. Only the mind and body need Atonement. The miracle joins in the Atonement of Christ by placing the mind in the service of the Spirit. This establishes the proper function of mind, and abolishes its errors.

Miracle Principle 33

Miracles honor man, BECAUSE he is loveable. They dispel illusions about himself, and perceive the light in him. They thus atone for his errors by freeing him from his own nightmares. They release him from a prison in which he has imprisoned himself. By freeing his mind from illusions, they restore his sanity, and place him at the feet of Jesus.

(Biblical quotation re healing of devil possessed man, in which the sufferer was subsequently found healed in his right mind, and sitting at feet of Jesus. Helen Schucman note.)

(Tell Bill man's mind can be possessed by illusions, but his Spirit is eternally free. If a mind creates without love, it can create an empty shell. This CAN be possessed by evil. But the Atonement restores the Soul to its proper place. Unless there is emptiness there is no danger, and emptiness is a false creation. The mind that serves the Spirit is invulnerable.)

Miracle Principle 34

The miracle restores the Soul to its fullness. By atoning for lack, it establishes perfect protection. The strength of the Soul leaves no room for intrusions. The forgiven are filled with the Soul, and their Soul forgives in return. It is the duty of the released to release their brothers.

The forgiven ARE the means of Atonement. Those released by Christ must join in releasing their brothers, for this is the plan of Atonement.

Miracles are the way in which minds that serve the spirit unite with Christ for the salvation (or release) of all God's Creations.

AsideHelen Schucman commented on awakening with the phrase "God is not Mocked," with anticipation of punishment.)

Interpretation: "God is not mocked" was intended as reassurance. You are afraid that what you wrote last night was contradictory, conflicting with some earlier points, especially because you were writing while you were all doped up. Remember, "God is not mocked" under any circumstances.

Contradictions in MY word mean lack of understanding, or scribal failures, which I make every effort to correct. But they are still NOT crucial. The Bible has the same problem, I assure you, and it's STILL being edited. Consider the power of MY WORD, in that it has withstood all the attacks of error, and is the Source of Truth.

(Tell Bill that there are certain advantages in being a Psychologist. A major one is the understanding of projection, and the extent of its results. Possession is very closely related to projection. "Lucifer" could be literally translated "Light Bearer." He literally PROJECTED himself from Heaven. Projection still has this "hurling" connotation, because it involves hurling something you DO NOT want, and regard as dangerous and frightening, to someone else. This is the opposite of the Golden Rule, and having placed this rule upside down, the reverse of miracles, or projection, follows automatically.)

The correction lies in accepting what is true in YOURSELF, by bringing ALL that you are into light. (Helen Schucman fearful of writing next part.) Cacey sic was wrong about Possession, and he was also wrong about hurting himself. One of the major problems with miracle workers is that they are so sure that what they are doing is right, because they KNOW it stems from love, that they do not pause to let ME establish MY limits.

Miracle Principle 35

The answer is NEVER perform a miracle without asking me IF you should. This spares you from exhaustion, and because you act under direct communication the trance becomes unnecessary. Because miracles are expressions of love, it does NOT follow that they will always be effective. I am the only one who can perform miracles indiscriminately, because I AM the Atonement. You have a ROLE in Atonement, which I will dictate TO you.

Remember, you already have a point about the involuntary nature of miracles. We also have established the fact that everything involuntary belongs under Christ-control, NOT under yours. Under Christ-control, Miracles REPLENISH the doer as well as the receiver.

Possession really means "Not under Christ-Control", thus making him (the mind?) vulnerable to projection. The references to the earth-bound entering bodies really refer to the "taking over" by their own earth-bound "thoughts." This IS Demon Possession. After all, Lucifer fell, but he was still an angel. He is thus the symbol for man. Atonement is the knowledge that the belief that angels can fall is false. It is true that mind can create projections as well as miracles, but it's NOT true that projections are REAL. Any psychologist should understand this. This is what is meant by "The Truth shall set you free."

Miracle Principle 36

Christ-controlled miracles are part of the Atonement, but Christ-guidance is personal, and leads to PERSONAL salvation. The impersonal nature of miracles is an essential ingredient, because this enables Me to control their distribution as I see fit.

Christ-guidance, on the other hand, leads to the highly PERSONAL experience of Revelation. This is why it involves PERSONAL choice. A guide does NOT control, by definition, but he does DIRECT, leaving the following up to you. "Lead us not into temptation" means "guide us out of our own errors." Note that the word is "lead", NOT order.

"Take up thy cross and follow me" should be interpreted to read "Recognize your errors and choose to abandon them by following My guidance."

(Tell Bill when he is afraid of Possession, he need only remember that error cannot really threaten Truth, which ALWAYS can withstand its assaults. ONLY the error is really vulnerable.) The "Princes of this World" are princes only because they are really angels. But they are free to establish their kingdom where they see fit.

If you will remember that ALL princes INHERIT their power from the Father, the right choice becomes inevitable.

The soul is in a state of grace forever.

Man's reality is ONLY his soul.

Therefore, man is in a state of Grace forever.

Atonement undoes all errors in this respect, and thus uproots the REAL source of fear. If you will check back at the reference to uprooting, you will understand it better in this context.

(Tell Bill that WHENEVER God's reassurances are experienced as threat, it is ALWAYS because man is defending his misplaced and misdirected love and loyalty. That is what projection always involves.)

"Casting spells" merely means "affirming error", and error is lack of love. When man projects this onto others, he DOES imprison them, but only to the extent that he reinforces errors they have already made. This distortion makes them vulnerable to the curse of others, since they have already cursed themselves. The miracle worker can only bless, and this undoes the curse and frees the soul from prison.

(Tell Bill that his slip about (rivet) should be noted. Some slips reach consciousness from the un-Christ-controlled subconscious, and betray a lack of love.)

But others (slips) come from the superconscious, which IS in communion with God, and which can also break into consciousness.

HIS slip (rivet) was an expression of a Soul gaining enough strength to request freedom from prison. It will ultimately DEMAND it.

Special Revelation for Helen Schucman

You are wholly lovely. A perfect shaft of pure light. Before your loveliness the stars stand transfixed, and bow to the power of your will.

What do children know of their creation, except what their Creator tells them?

You were created ABOVE the angels because your role involves creation as well as protection.

You who are in the image of the Father need bow only to HIM, before whom I kneel with you.

Thanks for blessing him with a miracle rather than cursing him with projection.

NOTE FURTHER: HE needn't feel concerned about it either; so he forgot? It happens all the time, until the habit of asking becomes involuntary.

This gave ME a chance to let you leave it to the real expert, whom I sent to answer the question.

Miracle Principle 37

Miracles are examples of right thinking. Reality contact at all levels becomes strong and accurate, thus permitting correct delineation of intra- and interpersonal boundaries. As a result, the doer sees the truth as God created it. This is what is meant by the point on "perspective adjustment."

Miracle Principle 38

A miracle is a correction factor introduced into false thinking by ME.

It acts as a catalyst, shaking up erroneous perception and snapping it into place. This correction factor places man under the Atonement principle, where his perception is healed. Until this has occurred, perception of the Divine Order is impossible. True depth perception becomes possible only at the highest order of perceptual integration.

Miracle Principle 39

The Spiritual eye is the mechanism of miracles, because what the Spiritual eye perceives IS truth. The Spiritual eye perceives both the Creations of God AND the creations of man. Among the creations of man, it can also separate the true from the false by its ability to perceive totally rather than selectively. It thus becomes the proper instrument for reality testing, which always involves the necessary distinction between the true and the false.

Miracle Principle 40

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

Darkness is lack of light. It does not have unique properties of its own. It is an example of the scarcity fallacy, from which only error can proceed.

(Truth is always abundant... Those who perceive and acknowledge that they have everything have no need for driven behavior of any kind. Helen Schucman has other personal material related to this re pregnancy.)

Section 6 - The Power of Joint Decision

WE are the joint will of the Sonship, whose wholeness is for all. We begin the journey back by setting out TOGETHER, and gather in our brothers as we CONTINUE together.

Every gain in our strength is offered to all, so they, too, can lay aside their weakness and add their strength to us. God's welcome waits for us all, and He will welcome us as I am welcoming YOU. Forget not the Kingdom of God for anything the world has to offer. The world can ADD nothing to the power and the glory of God and His Holy Sons, but it CAN blind the Sons to the Father if they behold it. You cannot behold the world and know God. Only one is true.

No-one created by God can find joy in anything except the eternal. That is not because he is DEPRIVED of anything else, but because nothing else is WORTHY of him. What God AND His Sons create IS eternal, and in this and this only is their joy. Listen to the story of the prodigal son, and learn what God's treasure is and YOURS.

God wants only His Son, because His Son is His only treasure. You want your creations, as He wants His. Your creations are your gift to the Holy Trinity, created in gratitude for YOUR creation. They do not leave you, any more than you have left YOUR Creator. But they EXTEND your creation, as God extended Himself to YOU. Can the Creations of God Himself take joy in what is not real? And what IS real except the Creations of God and those which are created like His? YOUR creations love you as your Soul loves your Father FOR THE GIFT OF CREATION. There IS no other gift that is eternal, and therefore THERE IS NO OTHER GIFT THAT IS TRUE.

How, then, can you accept anything else, or GIVE anything else, and expect joy in return? And what else BUT joy would you want? You made neither yourself nor your function. YOU have made only the DECISION to be unworthy of both. But you COULD not make YOURSELF unworthy because YOU ARE THE TREASURE OF GOD. What HE values IS valuable. There CAN be no question of its worth, because its value lies in God's sharing Himself with it and ESTABLISHING ITS VALUE FOREVER. YOUR function is to ADD to God's treasure by creating YOURS. His will TO you is His Will FOR you. He would not withhold creation from you, because HIS joy is in it.

An unwilling will does not mean anything, because it is a contradiction in terms which actually leaves nothing. You can make yourself powerless only in a way that has NO MEANING AT ALL. When you THINK you are unwilling to will with God, YOU ARE NOT THINKING. God's will IS thought. It cannot be contradicted BY thought. God does not contradict HIMSELF. And His Sons, who are like Him, cannot contradict themselves OR Him. But their thought is so powerful that they can even imprison the mind of God's Son IF THEY SO CHOOSE. This choice DOES make the Son's function unknown TO HIM, but never to his Creator. And BECAUSE it is not unknown to his Creator, it is forever knowable to him.

There is no question but one you should ever ask of yourself: "Do I want to know my Father's Will for me?" HE will not hide it. He has revealed it to me because I asked it of Him, and learned of what He had already given. Our function is to function together, because apart from each other we cannot function at all. The whole power of God's Son lies in all of us, but not in any of us alone. God would not have us be alone because HE does not will to be alone. That is why He created His Son and gave him the power to create with Him. Our creations are as holy as we are, and we are the Sons of God Himself, and therefore as holy as He is. Through our creations we extend our Love, and thus increase the joy of the Holy Trinity. You do not understand this for a very simple reason. You who are God's own treasure do not regard yourselves as valuable. Given this belief YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND ANYTHING.

I share with God the knowledge of the value HE puts upon you. My devotion to you is of Him, being born of my knowledge of myself AND Him. We cannot BE separated. Whom God has joined CANNOT be separated, and God has joined all His Sons WITH HIMSELF. Can you be separated from your life and your being? The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always, and what you are forever. It is a journey without distance, to a goal that has never changed.

Truth can only be EXPERIENCED. It cannot be described and it cannot be explained. I can make you aware of the CONDITIONS of truth, but the experience is of God. Together we can meet its conditions, but truth will dawn upon you of itself. What God has willed for you IS yours. He has given His Will to His treasure, whose treasure It is. Your heart lies where your treasure is, as His does. You who are beloved of God are wholly blessed. Learn this of me, and free the Holy Will of all those who are as blessed as you are.

Chapter 28 - What is Death?

Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end? We have asked this question before, but now we need to consider it still more carefully. It is the one fixed, unchangeable belief of the world that all things in it are born only to die. This is regarded as "the way of nature," not to be raised to question, but to be accepted as the "natural" law of life. The cyclical, the changing and unsure; the undependable and the unsteady, waxing and waning in a certain way upon a certain path, - all this is taken as the Will of God. And no-one asks if a benign Creator could will this.

In this perception of the universe as God created it, it would not be possible to think of Him as loving. For who decreed that all things pass away, ending in dust and disappointment and despair, can but be feared. He holds your little life in his hand but by a thread, ready to break it off without regret or care, perhaps today. Or if he waits, yet is the ending certain. Who loves such a god knows not of love, because he has denied that life is real. Death has become life's symbol. His world is now a battleground, where contradiction reigns and opposites make endless war. Where there is death is peace impossible.

Death is the symbol of the fear of God. His Love is blotted out in the idea, which holds It from awareness like a shield held to obscure the sun. The grimness of the symbol is enough to show it cannot co-exist with God. It holds an image of the Son of God in which he is "laid to rest" in devastation's arms, where worms await to greet him and to last a little while by his destruction. Yet the worms as well are doomed to be destroyed as certainly. And so do all things live because of death. Devouring is nature's "law of life." God is insane, and fear alone is real.

The "reality" of death is firmly rooted in the belief that God's Son is a body. And if God created bodies, death would indeed be real. But God would not be loving. There is no point at which the contrast between the perception of the real world and that of the world of illusions becomes more sharply evident. Death is indeed the death of God, if He is Love. And now His Own creation must stand in fear of Him. He is not Father but destroyer. He is not Creator but avenger. Terrible His Thoughts and fearful His image. To look on His creations is to die.

"And the last to be overcome will be death." Of course! Without the idea of death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one. This is salvation's final goal; the end of all illusions. And in death are all illusions born. What can be born of death and still have life? But what is born of God and still can die? The inconsistencies, the compromises and the rituals the world fosters in its vain attempts to cling to death and yet to think love real are mindless magic, ineffectual and meaningless. God is, and in Him all created things must be eternal. Do you not see that otherwise He has an opposite, and fear would be as real as love?

Teacher of God, your one assignment could be stated thus: Accept no compromise in which death plays a part. Do not believe in cruelty, nor let attack conceal the truth from you. What seems to die has been misperceived and carried to illusion. Now it becomes your task to let the illusion be carried to the truth. Be steadfast but in this; be not deceived by the "reality" of any changing form. Truth neither moves nor wavers nor sinks down to death and dissolution. And what is the end of death? Nothing but this; the realization that the Son of God is guiltless now and forever. Nothing but this. But do not let yourself forget it is not less than this.

Chapter 28 - The Undoing of Fear

Section 1 - Introduction

THE MIRACLE DOES NOTHING. All it does is to UNdo. And thus it cancels out the interference to what HAS BEEN done. It does not add, but merely takes away. And what it takes away is long since gone, but, being kept in memory, APPEARS to have immediate effects. This world was over long ago. The thoughts that made it are no longer in the mind that thought of them, and loved them for a while. The miracle but shows the past is gone, and what has truly gone HAS no effects. REMEMBERING a cause can but produce ILLUSIONS of its presence, NOT effects.

Nothing employed for healing represents an effort to do anything at all. It is a recognition that you HAVE no needs which mean that something must be DONE. It is an unselective memory, which is NOT used to INTERFERE with truth. All things the Holy Spirit can employ for healing have been given Him WITHOUT the content and the purposes for which they have been made. They are but skills WITHOUT an application. They AWAIT their use. They have NO dedication and NO aim.

Question 1 - What is forgiveness?

An unforgiving thought is one which makes a judgment that it will not raise to doubt, although it is untrue. The mind is closed, and will not be released. The thought protects projection, tightening its chains, so that distortions are more veiled and more obscure; less easily accessible to doubt, and further kept from reason. What can come between a fixed projection and the aim that it has chosen as its needed goal?

An unforgiving thought does many things. In frantic action it pursues its goal, twisting and overturning what it sees as interfering with its chosen path. Distortion is its purpose and the means by which it would accomplish it as well. It sets about its furious attempts to smash reality without concern for anything that would appear to pose a contradiction to its point of view.

Forgiveness, on the other hand, is still, and quietly does nothing. It offends no aspect of reality, nor seeks to twist it to appearance that it likes. It merely looks and waits and judges not. He who would not forgive must judge, for he must justify his failure to forgive. But he who would forgive himself must learn to welcome truth exactly as it is.

Do nothing, then, and let forgiveness show you what to do through Him Who is your Guide, your Savior and Defender, strong in hope and certain of your ultimate success. He has forgiven you already, for such is His function, given Him by God. Now must you share His function, and forgive whom He has saved, whose sinlessness He sees, and whom He honors as the Son of God.

Chapter 24 - Does Jesus have a Special Place in Healing?

God's gifts can rarely be received directly. Even the most advanced of God's teachers will give way to temptation in this world. Would it be fair if their pupils were denied healing because of this? The Bible says "Ask in the name of Jesus Christ." Is this merely an appeal to magic? A name does not heal, nor does an invocation call forth any special power. What does it mean to call on Jesus Christ? What does calling on his Name confer? Why is the appeal to him part of healing?

We have repeatedly stated that one who has perfectly accepted the Atonement for himself can heal the world. Indeed, he has already done so. Temptation may recur to others, but never to this One. He has become the risen Son of God. He has overcome death because he has accepted Life. He has recognized himself as God created him, and in so doing he has recognized all living things as part of him. There is now no limit on his power, because it is the Power of God. So has his name become the Name of God, for he no longer sees himself as separate from Him.

The name of Jesus Christ as such is but a symbol. But it stands for love that is not of this world. It is a symbol that can safely be used as a replacement for the many names of all the gods you pray to. It becomes the shining symbol for the Word of God, so close to What it stands for that the little space between the two is lost the moment that the Name is called to mind. Remembering His name is to give thanks for all the gifts that God has given you. And gratitude to God becomes the way in which He is remembered, for love cannot be far behind a grateful heart and thankful mind. God enters easily, for these are the true conditions for your coming home.

Jesus has led the way. Why would you not be grateful to him? He has asked for love, but only that he might give it to you. You do not love yourself. But in his eyes your loveliness is so complete and flawless that he sees in it an image of his Father. You become the symbol of his Father here on earth. To you he looks for hope, because in you he sees no limit and no stain to mar your beautiful perfection. In his eyes Christ's vision shines in perfect constancy. He has remained with you. Would you not learn the lesson of salvation through his learning? Why would you choose to start again, when he has made the journey for you?

This course has come from him because his words have reached you in a language you can love and understand. Are other teachers possible, to lead the way to those who speak in different tongues and appeal to different symbols? Certainly there are. Would God leave anyone without a very present help in time of trouble; a Savior who can symbolize Himself? Yet do we need a many-faceted curriculum, not because of content differences but because symbols must shift and change to suit the need. Jesus has come to answer yours. In him you find God's Answer. Do you then teach with him, for he is with you; he is always here.

Lesson 66 "My happiness and my function are one."

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

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

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

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

Begin the 10 to 15 minute practice period by reviewing these thoughts:

"God gives me only happiness.

He has given my function to me.

Therefore my function must be happiness."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"My happiness and function are one,

because God has given me both."

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

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.

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.

Abilities must be DEVELOPED, or you cannot use them. This is not true of anything that God created, but it is the kindest solution possible to what YOU have made. In an impossible situation, you can develop your abilities to the point where they CAN GET YOU OUT OF IT. You have a guide to how to develop them, but you have no commander EXCEPT YOURSELF. This leaves YOU in charge of the Kingdom, with both a guide to FIND it and a MEANS to keep it. You have a model to follow who will strengthen YOUR command, and never detract from it in any way. You therefore retain the central place in your perceived enslavement, a fact which ITSELF demonstrates that you are NOT enslaved.

You are in an impossible situation only because you thought it was possible to be in one. You WOULD be in an impossible situation if God showed you your perfection, and PROVED to you that you were wrong. This would demonstrate that the perfect were inadequate to bring THEMSELVES to the awareness of their perfection, and thus side with the belief that those who have everything need help, and are therefore helpless.

This is the kind of reasoning 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.

God's answer IS your teacher.

Chapter 7 - The Consistency of the Kingdom

Section 1 - Introduction

If you created GOD and He created you, the KINGDOM could not increase through its OWN creative thought. Creation would therefore be limited, and you would NOT be co-creators WITH God. As God's creative Thought proceeds FROM Him TO you, so must YOUR creative thoughts proceed FROM you to YOUR creations. In this way only can ALL creative power EXTEND OUTWARD. God's accomplishments are NOT yours. But yours are LIKE His. HE created the Sonship, and YOU increase it. You HAVE the power to ADD to the Kingdom, but NOT to add to the Creator OF the Kingdom.

You claim this power when you have become wholly vigilant for God AND the Kingdom. BY ACCEPTING this power as YOURS, you have learned to be what you ARE. YOUR creations belong in YOU, as YOU belong in God. You are part of God, as your sons are part of His Sons. To create is to love. Love extends outward simply because it cannot be contained. Being limitless, it DOES NOT STOP. It creates forever, but NOT in time. God's creations have ALWAYS BEEN, because HE has always been. YOUR creations have always been, because you can create only as HE creates.

Eternity is yours because He created you eternal.

Lesson 70 "My salvation comes from me."

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

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

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

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.

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

"My salvation comes from me.

Nothing outside of me can hold me back.

Within me is the world's salvation and my own."

Lesson 93 "Light and joy and peace abide in me."

You think you are the home of evil, darkness and sin. You think if anyone could see the truth about you he would be repelled, recoiling from you as if from a poisonous snake. You think if what is true about you were revealed to you, you would be struck with horror so intense that you would rush to death by your own hand, living on after seeing this being impossible.

These are beliefs so firmly fixed that it is difficult to help you see that they are based on nothing. That you have made mistakes is obvious. That you have sought salvation in strange ways; have been deceived, deceiving and afraid of foolish fantasies and savage dreams; and have bowed down to idols made of dust; all this is true by what you now believe.

Today we question this, not from the point of view of what you think, but from a very different reference point, from which such idle thoughts are meaningless. These thoughts are not according to God's Will. These weird beliefs He does not share with you. This is enough to prove that they are wrong, but you do not perceive that this is so.

The self you made is not the Son of God. Therefore this self does not exist at all. And anything it seems to do and think means nothing. It is neither bad nor good. It is unreal, and nothing more than that. It does not battle with the Son of God. It does not hurt him, nor attack his peace. It has not changed creation, nor reduced eternal sinlessness to sin and love to hate. What power can this self you made possess, when it would contradict the Will of God?

Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Over and over this must be repeated until it is accepted. It is true. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Nothing can touch it, nor can change what God created as eternal. The self you made, evil and full of sin, is meaningless. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God, and light and joy and peace abide in you.

In our longer exercise periods today, which would be most profitable if done for the first five minutes of every waking hour, we will begin by stating the truth about our creation:

"Light and joy and peace abide in me.

My sinlessness is guaranteed by God."

Then put away your foolish self-images, and spend the rest of the practice period in trying to experience what God has given you, in place of what you have decreed for yourself.

You are what God created, or what you made. One Self is true; the other is not there. Try to experience the unity of your One Self. Try to appreciate Its holiness and the Love from Which It was created. Try not to interfere with the Self Which God created as you by hiding Its majesty behind the tiny idols of evil and sinfulness you have made to replace It. Let It come into Its own. Here you are; This is you. And light and joy and peace abide in you because this is so.

You may not be willing or even able to use the first five minutes of each hour for these exercises. Try, however, to do so when you can. At least remember to repeat these thoughts each hour:

"Light and joy and peace abide in me.

My sinlessness is guaranteed by God."

Then try to devote at least a minute or so to closing your eyes and realizing that this is a statement of the truth about you.

If a situation arises which seems to be disturbing, quickly dispel the illusion of fear by repeating these thoughts again. Should you be tempted to become angry with someone, tell him silently:

"Light and joy and peace abide in you.

Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God."

You can do much for the world's salvation today. You can do much today to bring you closer to the part in salvation which God has assigned to you. And you can do much today to bring the conviction to your mind that the idea for the day is true indeed.

September 24, 1969

Question 5 - What is the Body?

The body is a fence the Son of God imagines he has built to separate parts of his Self from other parts. It is within this fence he thinks he lives, to die as it decays and crumbles. For within this fence he thinks that he is safe from love. Identifying with his safety, he regards himself as what his safety is. How else could he be certain he remains within the body, keeping love outside?

The body is a dream. Like other dreams, it sometimes seems to picture happiness, but can quite suddenly revert to fear, where every dream is born. For only love creates in truth, and truth can never fear. Made to be fearful, must the body serve the purpose given it. But we can change the purpose which the body will obey by changing what we think that it is for.

The body is the means by which God's Son returns to sanity. Though it was made to fence him into hell without escape, yet has the goal of Heaven been exchanged for the pursuit of hell. The Son of God extends his hand to reach his brother, and to help him walk along the road with him. Now is the body holy. Now it serves to heal the mind that it was made to kill.

You will identify with what you think will make you safe. Whatever it may be, you will believe that it is one with you. Your safety lies in truth and not in lies. Love is your safety. Fear does not exist. Identify with love, and you are safe. Identify with love, and you are home. Identify with love, and find your Self.

Section 6 - The Alternate to Dreams of Fear

What is a sense of sickness but a sense of limitation? Of a splitting OFF and separating FROM? A gap perceived BETWEEN ourselves and what is seen as health? The good is seen OUTSIDE; the evil, IN. And thus is sickness separating OFF the self from good, and KEEPING evil there. God is the ALTERNATE to dreams of fear. Who shares in them can NEVER share in Him. But who WITHDRAWS his mind from sharing them IS sharing Him. There IS no other choice. Except you share it, NOTHING can exist, and YOU exist because God shared His Will with you, that His creation might create.

You have conceived a little gap between illusions and the truth to be the place where all your safety lies, and where your Self is safely hidden by what you have made. Here is a world established that is sick, and this the world the body's eyes perceive. Here are the sounds it hears, the voices which its ears were made to hear. Yet sights and sounds the body can perceive are meaningless. It cannot see nor hear. It does not know what seeing IS; what listening is FOR. It is as little able to perceive as it can judge, or understand, or know. Its eyes are blind, its ears are deaf. It can NOT think, and so it cannot HAVE effects.

What is there God created can be sick? And what that He created not can BE? Let not your eyes behold a dream; your ears bear witness to illusion. They were made to look upon a world that is not there; to hear the voices that can make no sounds. Yet are there other sounds and other sights which can be seen and heard and UNDERSTOOD. For eyes and ears are senses without sense, and what they see and hear they but report. It is not THEY that hear and see, but YOU, who PUT TOGETHER every jagged piece, each senseless scrap and shred of evidence, and MAKE a witness to the world you want.

Let not the body's ears and eyes perceive these countless fragments seen within the gap that YOU imagined, and let THEM persuade their maker his imaginings were real. Creation proves reality because it SHARES the function ALL creation shares. It is not made of little bits of glass, a piece of wood, a thread or two perhaps, and put together to ATTEST its truth. Reality does not depend on THIS. There IS no gap which separates the truth from dreams and from illusions. Truth has left no room for them in ANY place or time. For It fills every place and every time, and makes them wholly indivisible.

You who believe there is a little gap between you do not understand that it is HERE that you are kept as prisoners in a world perceived to be EXISTING here. The world you see does not exist BECAUSE the place where you perceive it is not real. The gap is carefully concealed in fog, and misty pictures rise to cover it with vague, uncertain forms and changing shapes, forever unsubstantial and unsure. Yet in the gap is NOTHING. And there ARE no awesome secrets and no darkened tombs where terror rises from the bones of death. Look at the little gap, and you behold the innocence and emptiness of sin that you will see within yourself, when you have lost the fear of recognizing love.

Section 2 - The Message of the Holy Relationship

Let reason take another step. If you attack whom God would heal, and hate the one He loves, then you and your Creator have a DIFFERENT will. Yet, if you ARE His Will, what you MUST then believe is that you are NOT yourself. You can, indeed, believe this, and you DO. And you HAVE faith in this, and see much evidence on its behalf. And where, you wonder, does your strange uneasiness, your sense of being disconnected, and your haunting fear of lack of meaning in yourself arise? It is as though you wandered in, without a plan of any kind except to wander off, for only that seems certain.

Yet we have heard a very similar description earlier. But it was NOT of you. And yet, this strange idea which it DOES accurately describe, you think IS you. Reason would tell you that the world you see through eyes that are not yours, MUST make no sense to you. To whom would vision such as this send BACK its messages? Surely not you, whose sight is wholly INDEPENDENT of the eyes which look upon the world. If this is NOT your vision, what can it show to YOU? The brain can NOT interpret what YOUR vision sees. This YOU would understand. The brain interprets to the body, of which it is a part. But what IT says, YOU cannot understand.

Reason would tell you that this is no SECRET, that need be hidden as a sin. But a MISTAKE indeed! Let not your fear of sin protect it from correction, for the attraction of guilt is ONLY fear. Here is the ONE emotion that YOU made, WHATEVER it may seem to be. And it IS the emotion of secrecy, of private thoughts, AND OF THE BODY. This is the ONE emotion that opposes love, and ALWAYS leads to sight of differences, and LOSS of sense of sameness. Here is the ONE emotion that keeps you blind, dependent on the self you think you made, to lead you through the world it made for you.

YOUR sight was GIVEN you, along with everything that you CAN understand. You will perceive NO difficulty in understanding what this vision tells you. For everyone sees ONLY what he thinks he IS. And what YOUR sight will show you, you will understand BECAUSE it is the truth. Only YOUR vision can convey to YOU what YOU can see. It reaches you directly, WITHOUT a need to be INTERPRETED to you. What NEEDS interpretation MUST be alien. Nor will it EVER be made understandable, by an interpreter you cannot understand. Of all the messages you have received and failed to understand, this course alone is OPEN to your understanding, and CAN be understood.

This IS your language. You do not understand it yet, only because your whole communication is like a baby's. The sounds a baby makes, and what he hears, are highly unreliable, meaning DIFFERENT things to him at different times. Neither the sounds he hears, nor sights he sees, are stable yet. Yet what he hears and does not understand WILL BE his native tongue, through which he will communicate with those around him, and they with him. And the strange, shifting ones he sees about him will become to him his comforters, and he will recognize his home, and see them there WITH him.

So, in each holy relationship, is the ability to communicate INSTEAD of separate reborn. Yet a holy relationship, so recently reborn itself from an unholy relationship, and yet more ancient than the old illusion that it has replaced, IS like a baby now, in its rebirth. Yet, in this infant is YOUR vision returned to you, and he will speak the language BOTH of you can understand. He is not nurtured by the "something else" you THOUGHT was you. He was not GIVEN there, nor was received by anything EXCEPT yourself. For no two people CAN unite EXCEPT through Christ, Whose vision sees them one.

Think what is GIVEN you, my holy brothers. This child will teach you what you do not understand, and make it plain. For his will be no alien tongue. He will need NO interpreter to you. For it was YOU who taught him what he knows, BECAUSE you knew it. He could not come to anything BUT you, NEVER to something else. Where Christ has entered, no-one is alone, for never could He find a home in separate ones. Yet must He be reborn into His ancient home, so seeming new and yet as old as He, a tiny newcomer, dependent on the holiness of your relationship, to let Him live.

Here is the first DIRECT perception that you have made. You made it through awareness older than perception, and yet reborn in just an instant. For what is time to what was ALWAYS so? Think what that instant brought; the RECOGNITION that the "something else" you thought was you IS AN ILLUSION. And truth came instantly to show you where your self MUST be. It is denial of ILLUSIONS that calls on truth. For to deny illusions is to recognize that FEAR is meaningless. Into the holy home where fear is powerless, love enters thankfully, grateful that it is one with you who joined to LET it enter.

Christ comes to what is LIKE Himself; the same, NOT different. For He is ALWAYS drawn unto Himself. What is as like Him as a holy relationship? And what draws YOU together, draws HIM to you. Here is His sweetness, and His gentle innocence PROTECTED from attack. And here can He RETURN in confidence, for faith in one another is ALWAYS faith in Him. You are indeed correct in looking on each other as His chosen home. For here you willed WITH Him and with His Father. This IS your Father's Will for you, and yours WITH Him. And who is drawn to Christ is drawn to God, as surely as both are drawn to every holy relationship, the home prepared for them as earth is turned to Heaven.

Question 2 - What is salvation?

Salvation is a promise, made by God, that you would find your way to Him at last. It cannot not be kept. It guarantees that time will have an end, and all the thoughts that have been born in time will end as well. God's Word is given every mind which thinks that it has separate thoughts, and will replace these thoughts of conflict with the Thought of peace.

Salvation is undoing in the sense that it does nothing, failing to support the world of dreams and malice. Thus it lets illusions go. By not supporting them, it merely lets them quietly go down to dust. And what they hid is now revealed; an altar to the holy Name of God whereon His Word is written, with the gifts of your forgiveness laid before It, and the memory of God not far behind.

Let us come daily to this holy place, and spend a while together. Here we share our final dream. It is a dream in which there is no sorrow, for it holds a hint of all the glory given us by God. The grass is pushing through the soil, the trees are budding now, and birds have come to live within their branches. Earth is being born again in new perception. Night has gone, and we have come together in the light.

From here we give salvation to the world, for it is here salvation was received. The song of our rejoicing is the call to all the world that freedom is returned, that time is almost over, and God's Son has but an instant more to wait until his Father is remembered, dreams are done, eternity has shined away the world, and only Heaven now exists at all.

Chapter 8 - The Journey Back

Section 1 - Introduction

You are hampered in your progress by your demands to know what you do not know. This is actually a way of hanging on to deprivation. You cannot reasonably object to following instructions in a course FOR knowing, on the grounds that you do not know. The need for the course is implicit in your objection. Knowledge is not the motivation for learning this course. PEACE is. As the PREREQUISITE for knowledge, peace MUST be learned. This is ONLY because those who are in conflict are not peaceful, and peace is the CONDITION of knowledge because it is the condition of the Kingdom.

The distraction of the ego SEEMS to interfere with your learning, but it HAS no power to distract unless you GIVE it the power. The ego's voice is an hallucination. You cannot expect the EGO to say "I am not real." Hallucinations ARE inaccurate perceptions of reality. But you are NOT asked to dispel them alone. You are merely asked to evaluate them in terms of their results TO YOU. If you DO NOT WANT THEM on the basis of LOSS OF PEACE, they will be removed from your mind FOR you. Every response to the ego is a call to war, and war DOES deprive you of peace.

Yet in this war THERE IS NO OPPONENT. THIS is the re-interpretation of reality which you must make to secure peace, and the ONLY one you need ever make.

Section 4 - The Forgiveness of Specialness

Forgiveness is the end of specialness. Only illusions can BE forgiven, and then they disappear. Forgiveness is release from ALL illusions, and that is why it is impossible but PARTLY to forgive. No-one who clings to ONE illusion can see himself as sinless, for he holds one error to himself as lovely still. And so he calls it "unforgivable," and makes it sin. How can he then give HIS forgiveness wholly, when he would not receive it for himself? For it is sure he WOULD receive it wholly, the instant that he gave it so. And thus HIS secret guilt would disappear, forgiven by himself.

Whatever form of specialness you cherish, you have made sin. Inviolate it stands, strongly defended with all your puny might against the Will of God. And thus it stands against YOURSELF, YOUR enemy, NOT God's. So does it seem to split you off from God, and make you separate from Him as its defender. YOU would protect what God created not. And yet this idol that seems to GIVE you power has taken it away. For you have given your brother's birthright to it, leaving HIM alone and unforgiven, and yourself in sin beside him, both in misery, before the idol that can save you not.

Without foundation nothing is secure. Would God have left His Son in such a state, where safety HAS no meaning? No, -- His Son is safe, resting on Him. It is your specialness that is attacked by everything that walks and breathes, or creeps or crawls, or even lives at all. Nothing is safe from its attack, and it is safe from nothing. It will forever more BE unforgiving, for that is what it IS. A secret vow that what God wants for you will never be, and that you will oppose His Will forever. Nor is it possible the two can ever be the same, while specialness stands like a flaming sword of death between them, and makes them enemies.

God asks for your forgiveness. He would have no separation, like an alien will, rise between what He wills for you, and what YOU will. THEY are the same, for neither one wills specialness. How could they will the death of love itself? Yet they are powerless to make attack upon illusions. They are NOT BODIES; as One Mind they wait for all illusions to be BROUGHT to them, and left behind. Salvation challenges not even death. And God Himself, Who knows that death is NOT your will, must say, "Thy will be done," because YOU think it is.

Forgive the great Creator of the universe, the Source of life, of love and holiness, the perfect Father of a perfect Son, for your illusions of your specialness. Here is the hell you chose to be your home. He chose not this for you. Ask not He enter this. The way is barred to love and to salvation. Yet if you would release your brother from the depths of hell, you have forgiven Him Whose Will it is you rest forever in the arms of peace, in perfect safety, and without the heat and malice of one thought of specialness to mar your rest. Forgive the Holy One the specialness He could not give, and yet you made instead.

The slaves of specialness will yet be free. Such is the Will of God, and of His Son. Would God condemn HIMSELF to hell and to damnation? And do YOU will that this be done unto your Savior? God calls to you from him to join His Will to save you BOTH from hell. Look on the print of nails upon his hands that he holds out for your forgiveness. God asks your mercy on His Son, and on Himself. Deny them not. They ask of you but that your will be done. They seek your love that you may love yourself. Love not your specialness instead of them. The print of nails are on your hands as well. Forgive your Father it was NOT His Will that you be crucified.

Section 4 - From Darkness to Light

When the light comes, and you have said, "God's Will is mine," you will see such beauty that you will KNOW it is not of you. Out of your joy, you will create beauty in His Name, for YOUR joy could no more be contained than His. The bleak little world will vanish into nothingness, and your heart will be so filled with joy that it will leap into Heaven and into the presence of God. I cannot tell you what this will be like, for your hearts are not ready. But I CAN tell you, and remind you often, that what God wills for Himself He wills for YOU, and what He wills for you IS yours.

The way is not hard, but it IS very different. Yours is the way of pain, of which God knows nothing. THAT way is hard indeed, and very lonely. Fear and grief are your guests, and they go with you, and abide with you on the way. But the dark journey is not the way of God's Son. Walk in light, and do not see the dark companions, for they are not fit companions for the Son of God, who was created OF Light and IN Light. The Great Light ALWAYS surrounds you, and shines out FROM you. How can you see the dark companions in a Light such as this? If you see THEM, it is only because you are denying the Light. But DENY THEM INSTEAD, for the Light is here, and the way is clear.

God hides nothing from His Son, even though he would hide himself. Yet the Son of God cannot hide his glory, for God wills him to be glorious, and GAVE him the Light that shines in him. You will never lose your way, for God leads you. When you wander, you but undertake a journey which is not real. The dark companions, the dark way, are all illusions. Turn toward the Light, for the little spark in you is part of a Light so great that it can sweep you out of all darkness forever. For your Father IS your Creator, and you ARE like Him. The Children of Light cannot abide in darkness, for darkness is NOT in them.

Do not be deceived by the dark comforters, and never let them enter the mind of God's Son, for they have no place in His temple. When you are tempted to deny Him, remember that there ARE no other Gods that you CAN place before Him, and accept His Will for you in peace. For you CANNOT accept it otherwise. Only God's Comforter CAN comfort you. In the quiet of His temple, He waits to give you the peace that is yours. GIVE His peace that you may enter the temple, and find it waiting for you. But be holy in the Presence of God, or you will not know that you are there. For what is unlike God cannot enter His Mind, because it was not in His Thought, and therefore does not belong to Him. And YOUR minds must be as pure as His, if you would know what belongs to YOU.

Guard carefully His temple, for He Himself dwells there, and abides in peace. You cannot enter God's Presence with the dark companions beside you, but you also cannot enter alone. All your brothers must enter WITH you, for until you have accepted them, YOU cannot enter. For you cannot understand Wholeness unless YOU are whole, and no part of the Son can be excluded, if he would know the wholeness of his Father.

In your mind you can ACCEPT the whole Sonship, and bless it with the light your Father gave it. Then you will be worthy to dwell in the temple WITH Him, because it is YOUR will not to be alone. God blessed His Son forever. If you will bless him in TIME, you will BE in eternity. Time cannot separate you from God, if you use it on BEHALF of the eternal.

Section 5 - The Fear to Look Within

The Holy Spirit will NEVER teach you that you are sinful. ERRORS He will correct, but this makes no-one fearful. You are indeed afraid to look within, and see the sin you THINK is there. This you would NOT be fearful to admit. Fear in association with sin the ego deems quite appropriate, and smiles approvingly. IT has no fear to let you feel ashamed. It doubts not your belief and faith in sin. Its temples do not shake because of THIS. Your faith that sin is there but witnesses your desire that it BE there to see. This merely SEEMS to be the source of fear. Remember that the ego is NOT alone. Its rule IS tempered. And its unknown "Enemy," Whom it cannot even see, it FEARS.

Loudly the ego tells you NOT to look inward, for if you do, your eyes will light on sin, and God will strike you blind. This you believe, and so you do NOT look. Yet this is NOT the ego's hidden fear, nor YOURS who serve it. Loudly indeed the ego claims it IS. TOO loudly and TOO often. For underneath this constant shout and frantic proclamation, the ego is NOT certain it is so. Beneath your fear to look within because of sin is yet ANOTHER fear, and one which makes the ego tremble. What if you looked within, and saw NO sin? This "fearful" question is one the ego NEVER asks. And you who ask it now ARE "threatening" the ego's whole defensive system too seriously for it to bother to PRETEND it is your friend.

Those who have joined their brothers HAVE detached themselves from their belief that their identity lies in the ego. A holy relationship is one in which you join with what IS part of you in TRUTH. And your belief in sin has been ALREADY shaken, nor are you now ENTIRELY unwilling to look within and see it NOT. Your liberation still is only partial; still limited and incomplete, yet born WITHIN you. Not wholly mad, you HAVE been willing to look on much of your insanity, and RECOGNIZE its madness. Your faith is moving inward, PAST insanity, and on to reason. And what your reason tells you now, the ego would not hear.

And now the ego IS afraid. But what it hears in terror, the OTHER part hears as the sweetest music; the song it longed to hear since first the ego came into your minds. The ego's weakness is ITS strength. The song of freedom, which sings the praises of ANOTHER world, brings to it hope of peace. For it REMEMBERS Heaven. And now it sees that Heaven HAS come to earth at last, from which the ego's rule has kept it out so long. Heaven has come because it found a home in your relationship on earth. And earth can hold no longer what has been GIVEN Heaven as its own.

Look gently on each other, and remember the ego's WEAKNESS is revealed in BOTH your sight. What it would keep apart has met and joined, and looks upon the ego unafraid. Little children, innocent of sin, follow in gladness the way to certainty. Be not held back by fear's insane insistence that sureness lies in doubt. This HAS no meaning. What matters it to you how loudly it is proclaimed? The senseless is not made meaningful by repetition and by clamor. The quiet way is open. Follow it happily, and question not what MUST be so.

Section 2 - The Direction of the Curriculum

Those whom you PERCEIVE as opponents are PART of your peace, which YOU are giving up by attacking them. How can you have what YOU give up? You SHARE to have, but you do NOT give it up yourselves. When you GIVE UP peace, you are EXCLUDING yourself FROM it. This is a condition which is so ALIEN to the Kingdom that you CANNOT understand the state which prevails WITHIN it.

The curriculum of the Atonement IS the opposite of the curriculum you have established for yourselves, but SO IS ITS OUTCOME. If the outcome of yours has made you unhappy, and if you WANT a different outcome, a change in the curriculum is obviously necessary.

The first change that MUST be introduced is a change in DIRECTION. A meaningful curriculum CANNOT be inconsistent. If it is planned by two teachers, each believing in diametrically opposed ideas, it CANNOT be integrated. If it is carried out by these two teachers simultaneously, EACH ONE MERELY INTERFERES WITH THE OTHER. This leads to fluctuation, but NOT to change. The volatile HAVE no direction. They cannot choose one, because they CANNOT relinquish the others EVEN IF THE OTHERS DO NOT EXIST. Their conflicted curriculum teaches them that ALL directions exist, and gives them no RATIONALE for choice.

The total senselessness of such a curriculum must be fully recognized before a real change in direction becomes possible. You CANNOT learn simultaneously from two teachers who are in TOTAL DISAGREEMENT ABOUT EVERYTHING. Their joint curriculum presents an IMPOSSIBLE learning task. They are teaching you ENTIRELY different things in ENTIRELY different ways, which WOULD be possible except for the crucial fact that both are teaching you about YOURSELF. Your REALITY is unaffected by both. But if you LISTEN to both, your mind will split on WHAT YOUR REALITY IS.

Lesson 54 These are the review ideas for today: (16-20)

16) "I have no neutral thoughts."

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

18) "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing."

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

19) "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts."

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

20) "I am determined to see."

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

Lesson 139 "I will accept Atonement for myself."

Here is the end of choice. For here we come to a decision to accept ourselves as God created us. And what is choice except uncertainty of what we are? There is no doubt that is not rooted here. There is no question but reflects this one. There is no conflict that does not entail the single simple question, "What am I?"

Yet who could ask this question except one who has refused to recognize himself? Only refusal to accept yourself could make the question seem to be sincere. The only thing that can be surely known by any living thing is what it is. From this one point of certainty it looks on other things as certain as itself.

Uncertainty about what you must be is self-deception on a scale so vast its magnitude can hardly be conceived. To be alive and not to know yourself is to believe that you are really dead. For what is life except to be yourself, and what but you can be alive instead? Who is the doubter? What is it he doubts? Whom does he question? Who can answer him?

Thus he becomes uncertain of his life, for what it is has been denied by him. It is for this denial that you need Atonement. Your denial made no change in what you are. But you have split your mind into what knows and does not know the truth. You are yourself. There is no doubt of this, and yet you doubt it. But you do not ask what part of you can really doubt yourself. It cannot really be a part of you that asks this question, for it asks of one who knows the answer. Were it part of you, uncertainty would be impossible.

Atonement remedies the strange idea that it is possible to doubt yourself and be unsure of what you really are. This is the depth of madness. Yet it is the universal question of the world. What does this prove except the world is mad? Why share its madness in the sad belief that what is universal here is true? Nothing the world believes is true. It is a place whose purpose is to be a home where those who claim they do not know themselves can come to question what it is they are.

And they will come again until the time Atonement is accepted, and they learn it is impossible to doubt yourself and not to be aware of what you are. Only acceptance can be asked of you, for what you are is certain. It is set forever in the holy Mind of God and in your own. It is so far beyond all doubt and question that to ask what it must be is all the proof you need to show that you believe the contradiction that you know not what you cannot fail to know.

What we accept as what we are proclaims what everyone must be along with us. Fail not your brothers, or you fail yourself. Look lovingly on them that they may know that they are part of you and you of them. This does Atonement teach, and demonstrates the oneness of God's Son is unassailed by his belief he knows not what he is.

Today accept Atonement, not to change reality, but merely to accept the truth about yourself, and go your way rejoicing in the endless Love of God. It is but this that we are asked to do. It is but this that we will do today. Five minutes in the morning and at night we will devote to dedicate our minds to our assignment for today. We start with this review of what our mission is:

"I will accept Atonement for myself,

For I remain as God created me."

We have not lost the knowledge that God gave to us when He created us like Him. We can remember it for everyone, for in creation are all minds as one, and in our memory is the recall how dear our brothers are to us in truth, how much a part of us is every mind, how faithful they have really been to us, and how our Father's Love contains us all.

In thanks for all creation, in the Name of its Creator and His Oneness with all aspects of creation, we repeat our dedication to our cause today each hour, as we lay aside all thoughts which would distract us from our holy aim. For several minutes let your mind be cleared of all the foolish cobwebs which the world would weave around the holy Son of God and learn the fragile nature of the chains which seem to keep the knowledge of yourself apart from your awareness, as you say:

"I will accept Atonement for myself,

For I remain as God created me."

Section 5 - The Truth Behind Illusions

You WILL attack what does not satisfy, and thus you will not see you made it up. You ALWAYS fight illusions. For the truth behind them is so lovely and so still in loving gentleness, were you AWARE of it, you would forget defensiveness entirely, and rush to its embrace. The truth could never BE attacked. And this you knew when you made idols. They were made that this might be forgotten. You attack but FALSE ideas, and NEVER truthful ones. All idols ARE the false ideas you made to fill the gap you think arose between yourself and what is true. And you attack them for the things you think they REPRESENT. What lies BEYOND them cannot BE attacked.

The gap that is not there is filled with toys in countless forms. And each one seems to break the rules you set for it. It never WAS the thing you thought. It MUST appear to break your rules for safety, since the RULES are wrong. But YOU are not endangered. You can laugh at popping heads and squeaking toys, as does the child who learns they are no threat to him. But while he likes to play with them, he still perceives them as obeying rules he made for his enjoyment. So there still are rules which they can seem to break, and frighten him. Yet IS he at the mercy of his toys? And CAN they represent a threat to him?

Reality observes the laws of God, and NOT the rules you set. It is His laws which GUARANTEE your safety. All illusions that you believe about yourself obey NO laws. They seem to dance a little while, according to the rules you set for them. But then they fall, and cannot rise again. They are but toys, my children. Do not grieve for them. Their dancing never brought you joy, but neither were they things to frighten you, nor make you safe if they obeyed your rules. They must be neither cherished NOR attacked, but merely looked upon as children's toys, without a SINGLE meaning of their own. See ONE in them, and you will see them all. See NONE in them, and they will touch you not.

Appearances deceive BECAUSE they are appearances, and not reality. Dwell not on them in ANY form. They but OBSCURE reality. And they bring fear BECAUSE they hide the truth. Do not attack what you have made to LET you be deceived. For thus you prove that you HAVE BEEN deceived. Attack HAS power to make illusions real. Yet what it makes is nothing. Who could be made fearful by a power that can have no REAL effects at all? What could it BE but an illusion, making things appear like to itself? Look calmly at its toys, and understand that they are idols which but dance to vain desires. Give them not your worship, for they are not there. But this is EQUALLY forgotten in attack.

God's Son needs NO defense against his dreams. His idols do not threaten him at all. His ONE mistake is that he thinks them real. What can the power of illusions DO? Appearances can but deceive the mind that WANTS to be deceived. And you can make a simple choice that will forever place you far BEYOND deception. You need not concern yourself with HOW this will be done, for this you CANNOT understand. But you WILL understand that mighty changes have been quickly brought about, when you decide one very simple thing; you do not WANT whatever you believe an idol gives. For thus the Son of God declares that he is free of idols. And thus IS he free.

No more than this is asked. Be glad indeed salvation asks so little, NOT so much. It asks for NOTHING in reality. And even in illusions it but asks forgiveness be the substitute for fear. Such is the ONLY rule for happy dreams. The gap is emptied of the toys of fear, and then its unreality is plain. Dreams are for nothing. And the Son of God CAN have no need of them. They offer him no single thing that he could ever want. He is DELIVERED from illusions by his will, and but restored to what he IS. What could God's plan for his salvation BE, except a means to give him to Himself?

Section 10 - Magic versus Miracles

All magic is a form of reconciling the irreconcilable. All religion is the recognition that the irreconcilable cannot BE reconciled.

Sickness and perfection ARE irreconcilable. If God created you perfect, you ARE perfect. If you believe you can be sick, you HAVE placed other gods before Him. GOD is not at war with the god of sickness which you made, but YOU are. He is the symbol of willing AGAINST God, and you are afraid of him BECAUSE he cannot be reconciled with God's will. If you ATTACK him, you will make him real to you. But if you refuse to worship him, in whatever form he may appear to you, and wherever you think you see him, he will disappear into the nothingness out of which he was made.

Reality can dawn only in an unclouded mind. It is always THERE, to BE accepted, but its acceptance depends on your WILLINGNESS TO HAVE IT. To know reality MUST involve the willingness to judge Unreality FOR WHAT IT IS. This is the RIGHT use of selective perception. To overlook nothingness is merely to judge it correctly, and because of your ability to evaluate it truly, to LET IT GO. Knowledge cannot dawn on a mind full of illusions, because truth and illusions are irreconcilable. Truth is whole, and CANNOT be known by PART of a mind.

The Sonship cannot be perceived as PARTLY sick, because to perceive it that way, is not to perceive it at all. If the Sonship is ONE, it is one in ALL respects. ONENESS CANNOT BE DIVIDED. If you perceive other gods, YOUR mind is split, and you will not be able to LIMIT the split, because the split IS the sign that you have removed part of your mind from God's Will, and this MEANS that it is out of control. To be out of control is to be out of REASON, and the mind DOES become unreasonable without reason. This is merely a matter of DEFINITION. By DEFINING the mind wrongly, you perceive it as FUNCTIONING wrongly.

God's laws will keep your minds at peace, because peace IS His Will, and His laws are established to uphold it. His are the laws of freedom, but yours are the laws of bondage. Since freedom and bondage are irreconcilable, their laws CANNOT BE UNDERSTOOD TOGETHER. The laws of God work only for your good, and there ARE no other laws beside His. Everything else is merely lawLESS, and therefore chaotic. But God Himself has protected EVERYTHING He created BY His laws. Therefore, everything that is not under them does not exist.

All this has never been. Nothing but the laws of God has ever operated, and nothing except His Will will ever be. You were created through His laws and by His Will, and the manner of your creation established you AS CREATORS. What you have made is so unworthy of you, that you could hardly want it, IF YOU WERE WILLING TO SEE IT AS IT IS. You will see nothing at all. And your vision will AUTOMATICALLY look beyond it, to what is IN you, and all AROUND you. Reality cannot BREAK THROUGH the obstructions you interpose, but it WILL envelop you completely, WHEN YOU LET THEM GO.

When you have experienced the protection of God, the making of idols becomes inconceivable. There are no strange images in the Mind of God, and what is not in His Mind CANNOT be in yours, because you are of One Mind, and that Mind belongs to HIM. It is yours BECAUSE it belongs to Him, for ownership is sharing to Him. And if it is so for Him, it is so for you. His definitions ARE His laws, for by them He established the universe as what it is. No false gods you attempt to interpose between yourself and your reality, affect truth at all. Peace is yours because God created you. And He created nothing else.

The miracle is the act of a Son of God who has laid aside all false gods, and who calls on his brothers to do likewise. It is an act of faith, because it is the recognition that his brother CAN do it. It is a call to the Holy Spirit in his mind, a call to Him which is strengthened by this joining. Because the miracle-worker has heard Him, he strengthens His Voice in a sick brother by weakening his belief in sickness, which he does NOT share. The power of one mind CAN shine into another, because all the lamps of God were lit by the same spark. It is everywhere, and it is eternal.

In many, only the spark remains, for the great rays are obscured. But God has kept the spark alive, so the rays can never be completely forgotten. If you but see the little spark, you will learn of the greater light, for the rays are there unseen. Perceiving the spark will heal, but knowing the Light will create. Yet in the returning, the little light must be acknowledged first, for the separation was a descent from magnitude to littleness. But the spark is still as pure as the Great Light, because it is the remaining call of Creation. Put all your faith in it, and God Himself will answer you.

Section 4 - Shadows of the Past

THEY REPRESENT THE EVIL THAT YOU THINK WAS DONE TO YOU. You bring them with you ONLY that you may "return" evil FOR evil, hoping that THEIR witness will enable you to think guiltily of another, and NOT harm yourself. They speak so clearly for the separation, that no-one NOT obsessed with KEEPING separation, COULD hear them otherwise. They offer you the 'reasons' why you should enter into unholy alliances, which support the ego's goals, and make your relationships the witness to ITS power. It is these shadow figures which would MAKE THE EGO HOLY in your sight, and teach you what you do to keep IT safe, is really LOVE.

The shadow figures ALWAYS speak for vengeance, and ALL relationships into which they enter, are totally insane. WITHOUT EXCEPTION, these relationships have, AS THEIR PURPOSE, the EXCLUSION of the truth about the other, AND OF YOURSELF. That is why you see, IN BOTH what is not there, and MAKE of both the slaves of vengeance. And why whatever reminds you of your PAST grievances, no matter how distorted the associations by which you ARRIVE at the remembrance may be, ATTRACTS you, and seems to you to go by the name of love. And, finally, why all such relationships become the attempt at union THROUGH THE BODY, for ONLY bodies CAN be seen as means for vengeance.

That bodies are central to all unholy relationships is evident. Your OWN experience has taught you this. But what you do NOT realize, are ALL the reasons that go to MAKE the relationship unholy. For UNholiness seeks to RE-INFORCE itself, by gathering TO itself, what it perceives as LIKE itself, as holiness does. In the unholy relationship, it is NOT the body of the OTHER with which union is attempted, but the bodies of those WHO ARE NOT THERE. Even the BODY of the other, ALREADY a severely limited perception of him, is NOT the central focus as it is, or in entirety. What can be used for fantasies of vengeance, and what can be most readily associated with those on whom vengeance is REALLY sought, are centered on, and SEPARATED OFF, as being the only parts OF VALUE.

Every step taken in the making, the maintaining, and the breaking off of the unholy relationship, is a move toward further fragmentation and unreality. The shadow figures enter more and more, and the one in whom they SEEM to be, DECREASES in importance. Time is indeed unkind to the unholy relationship. For time IS cruel in the ego's hands, as it is kind when used for gentleness. The attraction of the unholy relationship begins to fade and to be questioned, almost at once. Once it is formed, doubt MUST enter in, because its purpose IS impossible. The only such relationships which RETAIN the fantasies which center on them, are the ones which have been DREAMED of, but have NOT been made at all.

Where NO reality has entered, there is NOTHING to intrude upon the DREAM of happiness. But consider what this means; the more of the REALITY that enters into the unholy relationship, the LESS SATISFYING it becomes. And the more the FANTASIES can encompass, the greater the satisfaction seems to be. The 'ideal' of the unholy relationship thus becomes one in which the REALITY of the other does not ENTER AT ALL, to 'spoil' the dream. And the LESS the other REALLY brings to it, the 'better' it becomes. Thus, the attempt at union becomes a way of EXCLUDING even the one with whom the union was sought. For it was FORMED to GET HIM OUT OF IT, and join with fantasies in uninterrupted 'bliss.'

How can the Holy Spirit bring HIS interpretation of the body, as a means of communicating into relationships whose ONLY purpose is SEPARATION from reality? What forgiveness IS, enables Him to do so. If all but loving thoughts have been forgotten, what remains IS eternal, and the TRANSFORMED past is made LIKE THE PRESENT. No longer does the past CONFLICT with now. THIS continuity EXTENDS the present, by increasing its reality, AND ITS VALUE, in your perception of it. In these loving thoughts is the spark of beauty, hidden in the ugliness of the unholy relationship in which the HATRED is remembered, yet there to COME ALIVE as the relationship is given to Him Who GIVES it life and beauty.

That is why Atonement centers ON THE PAST, which is the SOURCE of separation, and where it must be undone. For separation must be corrected WHERE IT WAS MADE. The EGO seeks to 'resolve' ITS problems, NOT at their source, but where they were NOT made. And thus it seeks to guarantee there WILL be no solution. The Holy Spirit wills only to make HIS resolutions complete and perfect. And so He seeks and FINDS the source of problems WHERE IT IS, and there UNDOES it. And, with each step in HIS undoing, is the SEPARATION more and more undone, and UNION brought closer. HE is not at all confused by ANY 'reasons' for separation. ALL He perceives in it is that it MUST BE UNDONE.

Let Him uncover the hidden spark of beauty in your relationships, and SHOW it to you. Its loveliness will so attract you, that you will be unwilling ever to lose the sight of it again. And you will LET it transform the relationship, so you can see it more and more. For you will want it more and more, and become increasingly unwilling to LET it be hidden from you. And you will learn to seek for, and ESTABLISH, conditions in which this, beauty CAN be seen. All this you will do gladly, if you but let Him hold the spark before you, to light your way, and make it CLEAR to you.

God's Son is one. And whom God has JOINED as one, the ego CANNOT break apart. The spark of holiness MUST be safe, however hidden it may be, in EVERY relationship. For the Creator of the one relationship, has LEFT no part of it without HIMSELF. THIS is the only part of the relationship the Holy Spirit sees, because He knows that ONLY this is true. YOU have made the relationship unreal, and THEREFORE unholy, by seeing it WHERE it is not, and as it IS not. Give the past to Him Who can change YOUR mind about it, FOR you. But first, be SURE you fully realize what YOU have made the past to REPRESENT, and why.

In brief, the past is NOW your justification for entering into a continuing, unholy alliance with the ego AGAINST THE PRESENT. For the present IS forgiveness. Therefore, the relationships which the unholy alliance dictates are not perceived NOR FELT as now. Yet the frame of reference to which the present is REFERRED for meaning, is an ILLUSION of the past, in which those elements which FIT the purpose of the unholy alliance are retained and ALL THE REST LET GO. And what is thus let go, is all the truth the past could ever OFFER to the present, as witnesses for ITS reality, while what is KEPT, but witnesses to the reality of dreams.

It is still up to you to choose to be willing to join with truth or illusion. But remember that to choose ONE, is to LET THE OTHER GO. Which one you choose, YOU will endow with beauty and reality, because the choice DEPENDS on which you value more. The spark of beauty, or the veil of ugliness; the real world, or the world of guilt and fear; truth or illusion; freedom or slavery, - it is all the same. For you can NEVER choose EXCEPT between God and the ego. Thought-systems are but true or false, and all their ATTRIBUTES come simply from what they ARE. Only the Thoughts of God ARE true. And all that follows FROM them, COMES FROM what they are, and is as true as is the holy Source from which they come.

My holy brothers, I would enter into all your relationships, and step between you and your fantasies. Let MY relationship to you be REAL to you, and let me bring REALITY to your perception of your brothers. They were not created to enable you to HURT yourselves through them. They were created to CREATE with you. This is the truth that I would interpose, between you and your goal of madness. Be not separate from me, and let not the holy purpose of Atonement be lost to you, in dreams of vengeance. Relationships in which such dreams are cherished have EXCLUDED me. Let me enter, in the Name of God, and bring YOU peace, that YOU may offer peace to me.

Lesson 10 "My thoughts do not mean anything."

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

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

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

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

The exercises consist, as before, in searching your mind for all the thoughts which are available to you, without selection or judgment. Try to avoid classification of any kind. In fact, if you find it helpful to do so, you might imagine that you are watching an oddly assorted procession going by, which has little if any personal meaning to you. As each one crosses your mind, say:

"This thought about ____ does not mean anything."

"That thought about ____ does not mean anything."

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

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

Section 6 - The Ladder Ends

Illusions and humility have goals so far apart they cannot coexist, nor share a dwelling place. Where one has come the other disappears. The truly humble have no goal but God because they need no idols, and defense no longer has a purpose. Enemies are useless now, because humility does not oppose. It does not hide in shame because it is content with what it is, knowing creation is the Will of God. Its selflessness is Self, and this it sees in every meeting, where it gladly joins with every Son of God, whose purity it recognizes that it shares with him. Now prayer is lifted from the world of things, of bodies, and of gods of every kind, and you can rest in holiness at last. Humility has taught you how to understand your glory as God's Son, and recognize the arrogance of sin. A dream has veiled the face of Christ from you. Now can you look upon His sinlessness.

High has the ladder risen. You have come almost to Heaven. There is little more to learn before the journey is complete. Now you say to everyone who joins in prayer with you:

"I cannot go without you, for you are a part of me."

And so he is in truth. Now must you pray only for what you truly share with him. For you have understood he never left, and you, who seemed alone, are one with him.

The ladder ends with this, for learning is no longer needed. Now you stand before the gate of Heaven, and your brother stands beside you there. The lawns are deep and still, for here the place appointed for the time when you should come has waited long for you. Here will time end forever. At this gate eternity itself will join with you. Prayer has become what it was meant to be, for you have recognized the Christ in you.

Part 2 - Introduction

Words will mean little now. We use them but as guides on which we do not now depend. For now we seek direct experience of truth alone. The lessons which remain are merely introductions to the times in which we leave the world of pain, and go to enter into peace. Now we begin to reach the goal this course has set, and find the end toward which our practicing is geared.

Now we attempt to let the exercise be merely a beginning. For we wait in quiet expectation for our God and Father. He has promised He will take the final step Himself. And we are sure His promises are kept. We have come far along the road, and now we wait for Him.

We will continue spending time with Him each morning and at night, as long as makes us happy. We will not consider time a matter of duration now. We use as much as we will need for the result that we desire. Nor will we forget our hourly remembrance, in between calling to God when we have need of Him as we are tempted to forget our goal.

We will continue with a central thought for all the days to come. And we will use that thought to introduce our times of rest, and calm our minds at need. Yet we will not content ourselves with simple practicing in the remaining holy instants which conclude the year that we have given God. We say some simple words of welcome, and expect our Father to reveal Himself as He has promised. We have called on Him, and He has promised that His Son will not remain unanswered when he calls His Name.

Now do we come to Him with but His Word upon our minds and hearts, and wait for Him to take the step to us that He has told us, through His Voice, He would not fail to take when we invited Him. He has not left His Son in all his madness, nor betrayed His trust in him. Has not His faithfulness earned Him the invitation that He seeks to make us happy? We will offer it, and it will be accepted. So our times with Him will now be spent. We say the words of invitation that His Voice suggests, then we wait for Him to come to us.

Now is the time of prophecy fulfilled. Now are all ancient promises upheld and fully kept. No step remains for time to separate from its accomplishment. For now we cannot fail. Sit silently and wait upon your Father. He has willed to come to you when you have recognized it is your will He do so. And you could have never come this far unless you saw, however dimly, that it is your will.

I am so close to you, we cannot fail. Father, we give these holy times to You in gratitude to Him Who taught us how to leave the world of sorrow, in exchange for its replacement given us by You. We look not backward now. We look ahead, and fix our eyes upon the journey's end. Accept these little gifts of thanks from us, as through Christ's vision we behold a world beyond the one we made, and take that world to be the full replacement of our own.

And so we start upon the final part of this one holy year, which we have spent together in the search for Truth and God, Who is Its one Creator. We have found the way He chose for us, and made the choice to follow it as He would have us go. His hand has held us up. His Thoughts have lit the darkness of our minds. His Love has called to us unceasingly since time began.

We had a wish that God would fail to have the Son whom He created of Himself. We wanted God to change Himself, and be what we would make of Him. And we believed that our insane desires were the truth. Now we are glad that this is all undone, and we no longer think illusions true. The memory of God is shimmering across the wide horizons of our minds. A moment more, and It will rise again. A moment more, and we who are God's Son are safely home, where He would have us be.

Now is the need for practice almost done. For in this final section we will come to understand that we need only call to God, and all temptations disappear. Instead of words, we need but feel His Love. Instead of prayer, we need but call His Name. Instead of judging, we need but be still and let all things be healed. We will accept the way God's plan will end, as we received the way it started. Now is it complete. This year has brought us to eternity.

One further use for words we still retain. From time to time, instructions on a theme of special relevance will intersperse our daily lessons and the periods of wordless, deep experience which should come afterwards. These special thoughts should be reviewed each day, each one of them to be continued 'til the next is given you. They should be slowly read and thought about a little while, preceding one of the holy and blessed instants in the day. We give the first of these instructions now.

Section 8 - The Need for Faith

There is NO problem in ANY situation that faith will not solve. There is no SHIFT in any ASPECT of the problem, but will make SOLUTION IMPOSSIBLE. For if you shift PART of a problem elsewhere, the meaning of the problem MUST be lost, and the SOLUTION to the problem is INHERENT in its meaning. Is it not possible that ALL your problems HAVE BEEN solved, but you have removed YOURSELF from the solution? Yet faith MUST be where something has BEEN done, and where you SEE it done. A situation is a relationship, being the joining of thoughts. If problems are perceived, it is because the thoughts are judged to be IN CONFLICT. But if the goal is TRUTH, this is impossible. Some idea of bodies MUST have entered, for minds can NOT attack.

The thought of bodies IS the sign of faithlessness, for bodies CANNOT solve anything. And it is their INTRUSION on the relationship, an error in YOUR thoughts ABOUT the situation, that then became the JUSTIFICATION for your lack of faith. You WILL make this error, but be not at all concerned with that. The error does not matter. But do not USE the error to what SEEMS to be to your advantage, for that DOES matter. Faithlessness brought to faith, will never interfere with truth. But faithlessness used AGAINST truth will ALWAYS destroy faith. If you lack faith, ask that it be restored WHERE IT WAS LOST, and seek not to have it MADE UP TO YOU elsewhere, as if you had been unjustly DEPRIVED of it.

USE NOT YOUR FAITHLESSNESS. Let it enter, and look upon it calmly, but DO NOT USE IT. Faithlessness is the servant of illusion, and wholly faithful to its master. USE it, and it will carry you straight to illusions. Be tempted not by what it offers you. It interferes, not with the goal, but with the VALUE of the goal TO YOU. Accept not the illusion of peace it offers, but look upon its offering, and recognize it IS illusion. The GOAL of illusion is as closely tied to faithlessness, as faith to truth. If you lack faith in ANYONE to fulfill, AND PERFECTLY, his part in ANY situation dedicated IN ADVANCE to truth, YOUR dedication is divided. And so you have been faithless TO EACH OTHER, and USED your faithlessness AGAINST each other.

No relationship is holy, unless its holiness goes with it EVERYWHERE. As holiness and faith go hand in hand, so must its faith go everywhere WITH it. The goal's reality will call forth, AND ACCOMPLISH, every miracle needed for its fulfillment. Nothing too small or too enormous, nothing too insignificant or too imposing, too weak or too compelling, but will be gently turned to its use and purpose. The universe will serve it gladly, as it serves the universe. BUT DO NOT INTERFERE. The power set in you, in whom the Holy Spirit's goal has been established, is so far beyond your little conception of the infinite, that you have no idea how great the strength that goes with you.

That Cause has entered ANY situation that shares its purpose. The light of truth shines from the center of the situation, and touches everyone to whom the situation's purpose calls. IT CALLS TO EVERYONE. There is NO situation that does NOT involve your WHOLE RELATIONSHIP, in every aspect and complete in every part. You can leave NOTHING of yourself outside it, and keep the situation holy. For it shares the purpose of your whole relationship, and derives its meaning FROM it. Enter each situation with the faith that you would give each other, or you ARE faithless to your own relationship. YOUR faith will call the others to SHARE your purpose, as this same purpose called forth the faith in you.

And you will see the means you once employed to lead you to illusions, transformed to means for truth. Truth calls for faith, and faith makes room FOR TRUTH. When the Holy Spirit CHANGED the purpose of your relationship by exchanging yours for His, the goal He placed there WAS extended to every situation in which you entered, or will EVER enter. And EVERY situation was thus MADE FREE of the past, which WOULD have made it purposeLESS. You CALL FOR faith, because of Him Who walks with you in every situation. You are no longer wholly insane, NOR NO LONGER ALONE. For loneliness in God MUST be a dream. You whose relationship SHARES the Holy Spirit's goal, are SET APART from loneliness, because the truth has come. Its call for faith is strong. Use not your faithlessness against it, for it calls you to salvation and to peace.

Section 2 - The Imagined World

How foolish it is to attempt to judge what could be seen instead. It is not necessary to IMAGINE what the world must look like. It must be SEEN, before you recognize it for what it is. You can be SHOWN which doors are open, and you can SEE where safety lies. And which way leads to darkness; which to light. Judgment will ALWAYS give you false directions. But vision SHOWS you where to go. Why should you guess? There is no NEED to learn through pain. And gentle lessons are acquired joyously, and are remembered gladly. What gives you happiness you WANT to learn. and NOT forget.

It is not this you would deny. YOUR question is whether the means by which this course is learned WILL bring the joy it promises. If you BELIEVED it would, the LEARNING of it would be NO problem. You are not happy learners yet, because you still remain uncertain that vision gives you MORE than judgment does, and you HAVE learned that both you CANNOT have. The blind become ACCUSTOMED to their world by their adjustments TO it. They think they know their way about in it. They learned it not through joyous lessons, but through the stern necessity of limits they believed they could not overcome. And, STILL believing this, they hold those lessons dear, and cling to them BECAUSE they cannot see.

They do not understand the lessons KEEP them blind. This they do NOT believe. And so they keep the world they learned to "see" in their imagination, believing that their choice is that, or nothing. They hate the world they learned through pain. And everything they think is in it, serves to remind them that THEY are incomplete and bitterly deprived. Thus they DEFINE their life and where they live it, ADJUSTING to it as they think they must, afraid to lose the little that they have. And so it is with all who see the body as all they have, and all their brothers have. They try to reach each other, and they fail. And fail again. And they ADJUST to loneliness, believing that to KEEP the body is to SAVE the little that they have.

Listen, and try to think if you remember what we will speak of now. Listen, -- perhaps you catch a hint of an ancient state not quite forgotten; dim, perhaps, and yet not altogether unfamiliar. Like a song whose name is long forgotten, and the circumstances in which you heard completely unremembered. Not the whole song has stayed with you, but just a little wisp of melody, attached not to a person or a place, or anything particular. But you remember, from just this little part, how lovely was the song, how wonderful the setting where you heard it, and how you loved those who were there, and listened with you.

The notes are nothing; yet you have kept them with you, not for themselves, but as a soft reminder of what would make you weep, if you remembered how dear it was to you. You COULD remember, yet you are afraid, believing you would lose the world you learned since then. And yet you know that nothing in the world you learned is half so dear as this. Listen, and see if you remember an ancient song you knew so long ago, and held more dear than any melody you taught yourself to cherish since. Beyond the body, beyond the sun and stars, past EVERYTHING you see and yet somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light that stretches, as you look, into a great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes.

The edges of the circle disappear, and what is in it no longer is contained at all. The light expands and covers everything, extending to infinity, forever shining, and with no break or limit anywhere. Within it, EVERYTHING is joined in perfect continuity. Nor is it possible to imagine that anything COULD be outside. For there IS nowhere that this light is not. This is the vision of the Son of God, whom you know well. Here is the sight of him who knows his Father. Here is the memory of what you ARE; a PART of this, with ALL of it within you, and JOINED to all of it as surely as all is joined to you.

ACCEPT the vision that can show you this, and NOT the body. You KNOW the ancient song, and know it well. Nothing will ever be as dear to you as is this ancient hymn of love the Son of God sings to his Father still. And now the blind can see, for that same song they sing in honor of their Creator, gives praise to them as well. The blindness that they made will not withstand the memory of this song. And they will look upon the vision of the Son of God, remembering who he is they sing of. What is a miracle, but this remembering? And who is there in whom this memory lies not? The light in one, awakens it in all. And, when you see it in each other, you ARE remembering for everyone.

Section 6 - Therapy and Teaching

This does NOT mean that it is lost to you, but it DOES mean that you are not aware of it. I have saved all of your kindnesses and every loving thought you have had, and I assure you, you have had many. I have purified them of errors which hid their light, and have kept them for you in their own perfect radiance. They are beyond destruction and beyond guilt. They came from the Holy Spirit within YOU, and we know that what God creates is eternal.

Bill once spoke of the Kingdom in this way, because he yearns for what he has repressed. You are much more afraid of it, because dissociation is more fearful. B's better contact has allowed him the strength to retain the fear in awareness, and to resort to displacement, which he is learning to overcome with YOUR help. That is because you do not perceive HIM as dissociated, and can help him with his repression, which does not frighten you. He, on the other hand, has no difficulty in seeing YOU dissociate, and does not have to deal with repression in you, which WOULD produce fear in him.

Joining in Atonement, which I have repeatedly asked you to do, is ALWAYS a way OUT of fear. This does not mean that you can safely fail to acknowledge anything that is true, but the Holy Spirit will not fail to help you re-interpret EVERYTHING that you perceive as fearful, and teach you ONLY what is loving IS true. It is beyond your ability to destroy, but entirely within your grasp. It BELONGS to you because YOU created it. It is yours because it is part of you, just as you are part of God, because He created you.

The Atonement is the GUARANTEE of the safety of the Kingdom. Nothing good is lost, because it comes from the Holy Spirit, the voice for Creation. Nothing that is not good was ever created, and therefore CANNOT be protected. What the ego makes it KEEPS TO ITSELF, and so it is without strength. Its unshared existence does not die. It was merely never born. Real birth is not a beginning; it is a CONTINUING. Everything that CAN continue has already BEEN born. But it can INCREASE as you are willing to return the part of your mind that needs healing to the higher part, and thus render your creating (creation) undivided.

You yourself always told your patients that the real difference between neurotic and 'healthy' guilt feelings was that neurotic guilt feelings DO NOT HELP ANYONE. This distinction was very wise, though incomplete. Let us make the distinction a little sharper now. Neurotic guilt feelings are a device of the ego for "atoning" without sharing, and for asking for pardon without change. The ego NEVER calls for real atonement, and cannot tolerate real forgiveness, which IS change.

Your concept of "healthy guilt feelings" has great merit, but without the concept of the Atonement it lacked the healing potential it held. YOU make the distinction in terms of feelings which led to a decision not to REPEAT the error, which is only PART of healing. Your concept therefore lacked the idea of UNDOING it. What you were really advocating, then, was adopting a policy of sharing without a real FOUNDATION.

The Atonement cannot be understood except as a PURE ACT OF SHARING. That is what is meant when we said that it is possible even in this world to listen to ONE voice. If you are part of God, and the Sonship is one, you CANNOT be limited to the self the ego sees. Every loving thought held in ANY part (of the Sonship) belongs to every part. It is shared BECAUSE it is loving. Sharing is God's way of creating, and also YOURS. Your ego can keep you in exile FROM the Kingdom but in the Kingdom itself it has no power.

You have become willing to receive my messages as I give them, without interference by the ego, so we can clarify an earlier point which was mentioned before. We said that you will one day teach as much as you learn, and that will keep you in balance. The time is now, because you have let it be now. You cannot learn EXCEPT by teaching. I heard one voice because I had learned that learning is attained BY teaching. I understood that I COULD NOT ATONE FOR MYSELF ALONE.

Listening to one voice MEANS the will to share the voice to hear it yourself. The mind that was in me is still irresistibly drawn to every mind created by God, because God's wholeness IS the wholeness of his Son. Turning the other cheek does NOT mean that you should submit to violence without protest. It means that you cannot be hurt, and do not want to show your brother anything except your wholeness. Show him that he CANNOT hurt you, and hold nothing against him, or you hold it against yourself.

Teaching is done in many ways, by formal means, by guidance, and above all BY EXAMPLE. If you will to learn, you MUST will to teach. Teaching is therapy because it means the sharing of ideas, and the awareness that to share them is to strengthen them. The union of the Sonship IS its protection. The ego cannot prevail against the Kingdom BECAUSE it is united, and the ego fades away and is undone in the presence of the attraction of the parts of the Sonship which hear the call of the Holy Spirit to be as One.

I cannot forget my need to teach what I have learned which arose in me BECAUSE I learned it. I call upon you to teach what you have learned, because by so doing YOU can depend on it. Make it dependable in my name, because my name is the name of God's Son. What I learned I give you freely, and the mind which was in me rejoices as YOU will to hear it. The Holy Spirit atones in all of us by UNDOING, and thus lifts the burden you have placed in your mind. By following Him, He leads you back to God where you belong. And how can you find this way except by taking your brother with you?

My part in the Atonement is not complete until YOU join it, and give it away. As you teach, so shall you learn. I will never leave you or forsake you, because to forsake you would be to forsake myself and God who created me. You will forsake yourselves and your God if you forsake any of YOUR brothers. You are more than your brother's keeper. In fact, you do not WANT to keep him. You must learn to see him as he is, and KNOW that he belongs to God, as you do. How could you treat your brother better than by rendering unto God the things which are God's?

Ideas do not LEAVE the mind which thought them in order to have separate being. Nor do separate thoughts conflict with one another in space, because they do not occupy space at all. HUMAN ideas can conflict in content, because they occur at different levels, and include opposite thoughts at the SAME level. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO SHARE OPPOSING THOUGHTS. The Holy Spirit does not LET you forsake your brothers. Therefore, you can really share only the parts of your thoughts which are of Him, which He also keeps for YOU. And of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. All the rest remains with you until He has re-interpreted them in the light of the Kingdom, making them, too, worthy of being shared. When they have been sufficiently purified, He lets you give them away. The will to share them IS their purification.

The Atonement gives you the power of a healed mind, but the power to create is of God. Therefore, those who have been forgiven must devote themselves first to healing, because having RECEIVED the idea of healing they MUST give it to hold it. The full power of creation (creating) cannot be expressed as long as any of God's ideas are withholding it from the Kingdom. The joint will of ALL the Sonship is the only creator that can create like the Father. That is because only the complete can think completely, and the thinking of God lacks nothing. Everything YOU think that is not through the Holy Spirit IS lacking.

How can you who are so Holy suffer? All your past, except its beauty, is gone, and nothing is left except a blessing. You can indeed depart in peace, because I have loved you as I loved myself. You go WITH my blessing and FOR my blessing. Hold it and share it, that it may always be ours. I place the peace of God in your heart, and in your hands, to hold and share. The heart is pure to hold it, and the hands are strong to give it. We cannot lose. My judgment is as strong as the wisdom of God, in whose Heart and Hands we have our being. His quiet children are His blessed sons. The Thoughts of God are with you.

Section 3 - The Laws of Mind

To heal, then, is to correct perception in your brother AND yourself by SHARING THE HOLY SPIRIT WITH HIM. This places you both WITHIN the Kingdom and restores ITS wholeness in your minds. This PARALLELS creation because it UNIFIES BY INCREASING, and INTEGRATES BY EXTENDING.

WHAT YOU PROJECT YOU BELIEVE. This is an immutable law of mind in this world as well as in the Kingdom. However, its CONTENT is somewhat different in this world from what it REALLY is, because the thoughts it governs are VERY different from the thoughts in the Kingdom. Laws must be adapted to circumstances, if they are to maintain order.

The outstanding characteristic of the laws of mind, as they operate in this world, is that by obeying them, and I assure you that you MUST obey them, you can arrive at diametrically opposed results. This is because the laws have adapted to the circumstances of this world, in which diametrically opposed outcomes are BELIEVED in. The laws of mind govern thoughts, and you DO respond to two conflicting voices. You have heard many arguments on behalf of "the freedoms," which would indeed have BEEN freedom if man had not chosen to FIGHT for them. That is why they perceive "the freedoms" as many instead of ONE.

But the argument that underlies the DEFENSE of freedom is perfectly valid. Because it is true, it should not be FOUGHT for, but it SHOULD be sided WITH. Those who are AGAINST freedom believe that its outcome will hurt them, which CANNOT be true. But those who are FOR freedom, even if they are misguided in HOW they defend it, are siding with the one thing in this world which IS true. Whenever anyone can listen fairly to both sides of ANY issue, he WILL make the right decision. This is because he HAS the answer. Conflict can indeed be projected, but it MUST be intrapersonal first.

The term "intraPERSONAL" is an ego term, because "personal" implies of ONE person, and NOT of others. "Interpersonal" has a similar error, because it implies something that exists between DIFFERENT individuals. When we spoke before of the extremely PERSONAL nature of revelation, we followed this statement immediately with a description of the inevitable outcomes of the revelation in terms of SHARING. A PERSON conceives of himself as separate, largely because he perceives OF himself as bounded by a body. ONLY if he perceives as a MIND can he overcome this. THEN he is free to use terms like "intraMENTAL" and "interMENTAL" WITHOUT seeing them as different and conflicting, because minds CAN be in perfect accord.

OUTSIDE the Kingdom, the law which prevails INSIDE it is ADAPTED to "what you project you believe." This is its TEACHING form, because outside the Kingdom teaching is mandatory because learning is essential. This form of the law clearly implies that you will learn what YOU are from what you have projected onto others and therefore believe THEY are. IN the Kingdom, there is no teaching OR learning, because there is no BELIEF. There is only CERTAINTY. God and His Sons, in the surety of Being, KNOW that what you project you ARE.

The Holy Spirit IS the translator of the Laws of God to those who do NOT understand them. YOU could not do this yourselves because conflicted minds CANNOT be faithful to one meaning, and will therefore CHANGE THE MEANING TO PRESERVE THE FORM. The Holy Spirit's purpose in translating is naturally EXACTLY the opposite. He translates ONLY to preserve the original meaning in ALL respects and in ALL languages. Therefore, He OPPOSES differences in form as meaningful, and emphasizes always that THESE DIFFERENCES DO NOT MATTER. The meaning of His message is ALWAYS the same, and ONLY the meaning matters.

God's Law of Creation, in perfect form, does NOT involve the USE of truth to convince His sons OF truth. The EXTENSION of truth, which IS the Law of the Kingdom, rests only on the knowledge of WHAT TRUTH IS. This is your INHERITANCE, and requires no learning at all. But when you DISinherited YOURSELVES, you BECAME learners. No-one questions the intimate connection of learning and memory. Learning is impossible WITHOUT memory, because it CANNOT be consistent UNLESS it is remembered.

That is why the Holy Spirit IS a lesson in remembering. We said before that He teaches remembering and FORGETTING, but the forgetting aspect is only TO MAKE THE REMEMBERING CONSISTENT. You forget to REMEMBER BETTER. You will NOT understand His translations while you listen to two ways of perceiving them. Therefore, you must forget or relinquish one to UNDERSTAND the other. This is the only way you can LEARN consistency, so that you can finally BE consistent. What can the perfect consistency of the Kingdom MEAN to the confused? It MUST be apparent that confusion INTERFERES with meaning, and therefore PREVENTS THE LEARNER FROM APPRECIATING IT.

Section 9 - Healing as Corrected Perception

We once said that the Holy Spirit is the Answer. He is the answer to EVERYTHING, because He knows what the answer to everything IS. The ego does not know what a REAL question is, although it asks an endless number. But YOU can learn this, as you learn to question the value of the ego and thus establish your ability to EVALUATE its questions. When the ego tempts you to sickness, do not ask the Holy Spirit to heal the body. For this would merely be to accept the ego's belief that the body is the proper aim for healing. Ask rather that the Holy Spirit teach you the right PERCEPTION of the body, for perception alone can be distorted.

ONLY PERCEPTION CAN BE SICK, because perception can be WRONG. Wrong perception is DISTORTED WILLING, which WANTS things to be as they are not. The reality of EVERYTHING is totally harmless, because total harmlessness is the CONDITION of its reality. It is also the condition of your AWARENESS of its reality. You do not have to SEEK reality. It will seek you and FIND you, WHEN YOU MEET ITS CONDITIONS. Its conditions are part of WHAT IT IS. And this part only is up to you. The rest is of Itself. You need do so little, because It is so powerful that your little part WILL bring the whole to you. Accept, then, your little part, and LET the whole be yours. Wholeness heals BECAUSE it is of the mind.

All forms of sickness, even unto death, are physical expressions of the FEAR OF AWAKENING. They are attempts to reinforce UNCONSCIOUSNESS out of fear of CONSCIOUSNESS. This is a pathetic way of TRYING NOT TO KNOW by rendering the faculties for knowing ineffectual. "Rest in peace" is a blessing for the living, not the dead, because rest comes from waking, not from sleeping. Sleep is withdrawing; waking is JOINING. Dreams are ILLUSIONS of joining, taking on the ego's distortions about what joining means, if you are sleeping under its guidance. But the Holy Spirit, too, has use for sleep, and can use dreams on BEHALF of waking, if you will let Him.

Healing is release from the fear of waking, and the substitution of the will to wake. The will to wake is the will to love, since ALL healing involves replacing fear with love. The Holy Spirit cannot distinguish among degrees of error, for if He taught that one form of sickness is more serious than another, He would be teaching that one error can be more REAL than another. But HIS function is to distinguish ONLY between the false and the true, REPLACING the false WITH the true.

The ego, which always WEAKENS the will, wants to SEPARATE the body from the mind. This IS an attempt to DESTROY it. But the ego actually believes that it is PROTECTING it. This is because it believes that MIND IS DANGEROUS, and that to MAKE MINDLESS is to heal. But to make mindless is impossible, since it would mean to make nothing out of what God Created. The ego DESPISES weakness, even though it makes every effort to INDUCE it. IT WANTS ONLY WHAT IT HATES. To the ego this is perfectly sensible. Believing in the power of attack, it WANTS it.

You have begun to realize that this is a very practical course, because it means EXACTLY what it says. So does the Bible, if it is properly understood. There has been a marked tendency on the part of many of the Bible's followers, and also its translators, to be entirely literal about fear and ITS effects, but NOT about love and ITS results. Thus, "hellfire" means burning, but raising the dead becomes allegorical. Actually, it is PARTICULARLY the references to the outcomes of love that should be taken literally because the Bible is ABOUT love, being about GOD.

The Bible enjoins you to be perfect, to heal ALL errors, to take no thought of the body AS SEPARATE, and to accomplish all things IN MY NAME. This is not my name alone, for ours is a shared identification. The name of God's Son is One, and you are enjoined to do the works of love BECAUSE we share this oneness. Our minds are whole BECAUSE they are one. If you are sick, you are withdrawing from me. But you CANNOT WITHDRAW FROM ME ALONE. You can only withdraw from yourself AND me.

I would not ask you to do things which you CANNOT do, and it is impossible that I could do things YOU cannot do. Given this, and given this QUITE LITERALLY, there CAN be nothing which prevents you from doing EXACTLY what I ask, and EVERYTHING which argues FOR it. I give you NO limits, because God lays none upon you. When you limit YOURSELF, we are NOT of one mind, and that IS sickness. But sickness is not of the body, but OF THE MIND. ALL forms of DISfunction are merely signs that the mind has split, and does not accept a UNIFIED PURPOSE.

The unification of purpose, then, is the Holy Spirit's ONLY way of healing. This is because it is the only level at which healing MEANS anything. The re-establishing of meaning in a chaotic thought system IS the only way to heal it. We said before that your task is only to meet the conditions FOR meaning, since meaning itself is of God. But your RETURN to meaning is essential TO HIS, because YOUR meaning is PART of His. Your healing, then, is part of HIS health, because it is part of His Wholeness. He cannot lose this, but YOU can not know it. Yet it is still His will for you, and His will MUST stand forever and in all things.

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.

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.

What makes no sense and has no meaning IS insanity. And what is madness CANNOT be the truth. If ONE belief so deeply valued here were true, then every Thought God ever had is an illusion. And if but ONE Thought of His is true, then ALL beliefs the world gives ANY meaning to are false, and make no sense at all. This IS the choice you make. Do not attempt to see it differently, nor twist it into something it is not. For only THIS decision CAN you make. The rest is up to God, and NOT to you.

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.

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 11 - The Denial of God

The rituals of the god of sickness are strange and very demanding. Joy is never permitted, for depression is the sign of allegiance to him. Depression MEANS that you have foresworn God. Men are afraid of blasphemy, but they do not know what it means. They do not realize that, to deny God, is to deny their own identity, and in this sense, the wages of sin IS death. The sense is very literal; -- denial of Life perceives its opposite, as ALL forms of denial replace what IS, with what is NOT. No-one can really DO this, but that you can THINK you can, and BELIEVE YOU HAVE, is beyond dispute.

Do not forget, however, that to deny God will inevitably result in projection, and you will believe that others, AND NOT YOURSELF, have done this TO you. You WILL receive the message you give, because it is the message you WANT. You may believe that you judge your brothers by the messages they give YOU, but you HAVE judged them by the message you give THEM. Do not attribute your denial of joy to them, or you cannot see the spark in them, that could bring joy to YOU. It is the DENIAL of the spark that brings depression, and whenever you see your brothers WITHOUT it, you ARE denying God.

Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego's religion. The god of sickness obviously demands the denial of health, because health is in direct opposition to its own survival. But consider what this means to YOU. UNLESS you are sick you cannot keep the gods you made, for only in sickness could you possibly WANT them. Blasphemy, then, is SELF-destructive, not God destructive. It means that you are willing NOT to know yourself, IN ORDER to be sick. This IS the offering which your god demands, because having made him out of YOUR insanity, he IS an insane idea. He has many forms, but though he may seem like many different things, he is but one idea;-- the denial of God.

Sickness and death entered the mind of God's Son against His Will. The "attack on God" made His Son think he was fatherless, and out of his depression he made the god of depression. This was his alternative to joy, because he would not accept the fact that, although he was a creator, he had been created. Yet the Son IS helpless without the Father, Who alone IS his Help. We said before that of yourselves you can do nothing, but you are not OF yourselves. If you were, what you have made would be true, and you could never escape.

Son of God, you have not sinned, but you have been much mistaken. But this can be corrected, and God will help you, knowing that you could not sin against Him. You denied Him BECAUSE you loved Him, knowing that if you RECOGNIZED your love for Him, you COULD not deny Him. Your denial therefore MEANS that you love Him, and THAT YOU KNOW HE LOVES YOU. Remember that what you deny you MUST have known. And if you can accept denial, YOU CAN ACCEPT ITS UNDOING.

Your Father has not denied you. He does not retaliate, but He DOES call to you to return. When you think He has not answered your call, YOU HAVE NOT ANSWERED HIS. He calls to you from every part of the Sonship, because of His love for His Son. If you hear His message, He HAS answered you, and you will learn what you are of Him, if you hear aright. The love of God is in everything He created, for His Son is everywhere. Look with peace upon your brothers, and God will come rushing into your heart, in gratitude for your gift to Him.

Do not look to the god of sickness for healing, but only to the God of love, for healing is the acknowledgment of Him. When you acknowledge Him, you will KNOW that He has never ceased to acknowledge you, and that in His acknowledgment OF you lies your Being. You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do. Remember, though, that to do this IS blasphemy, for it means that you are looking without love on God and His Creation, from which He cannot be separated. Only the eternal can be loved, for love does not die. What is of God is His forever, and you ARE of God. Would He allow Himself to suffer? And would He offer His Son anything that is not acceptable to Him?

If you will accept yourself as God created you, you will be incapable of suffering. But to do this, you must acknowledge Him as your Creator. This is not because you will be punished otherwise. It is merely because your acknowledgment of your Father IS the acknowledgment of yourself as you ARE. Your Father created you Wholly without sin, wholly without pain, and wholly without suffering of any kind. If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also DENY what it creates, because it is free.

You do not realize how much you have denied yourself, and how much God, in His love, would not have it so. Yet He would not interfere with you, because He would not know His Son if he were not free. To interfere with you would be to attack HIMSELF, and God is not insane. When you denied HIM, you WERE insane. Would you have Him SHARE your insanity? God will never cease to love His Son, and His Son will never cease to love Him. That was the condition of His Son's Creation, fixed forever in the Mind of God. To know that is sanity. To deny it is insanity. God gave HIMSELF to you in your Creation, and His gifts ARE eternal. Would you deny yourself to Him?

Out of your gifts to Him, the Kingdom will be restored to His Son. His Son removed himself from His gift by refusing to accept what had been created FOR him, and what he himself had created in the name of His Father. Heaven waits for his return, for it was created as the dwelling place of God's Son. You are not at home anywhere else, or in any other condition. Do not deny yourself the joy which was created FOR you, for the misery you have made for yourselves. God has given you the means for undoing what you have made. Listen, and you WILL learn what you are.

If God knows His children as wholly sinless, it is blasphemous to perceive them as guilty. If God knows His children as wholly without pain, it is blasphemous to perceive suffering anywhere. If God knows his children to be wholly joyous, it is blasphemous to feel depressed. All these illusions, and the many other forms which blasphemy may take, are REFUSALS TO ACCEPT CREATION AS IT IS. If God created His Son perfect, that is how you must learn to see him, to learn of his reality. And as part of the Sonship, THAT IS HOW YOU MUST SEE YOURSELF TO LEARN YOURS.

Only if you ACCEPT the Fatherhood of God will you have anything, because His Fatherhood GAVE you everything. That is why to deny Him IS to deny yourself. Arrogance is the denial of love, because love shares and arrogance withholds. As long as both appear to you to be desirable, the concept of choice, which is not of God, will remain with you. While this is not true in Eternity, it IS true in time, so that, while time lasts in YOUR minds, there WILL be choices. Time itself WAS your choice. If you would remember Eternity, you must learn to look on only the Eternal. If you allow yourselves to become preoccupied with the temporal, you are LIVING IN TIME. As always, your choice is determined by what you value. Time and Eternity cannot both be real, because they contradict each other. If you will accept only what is timeless as real, you will begin to understand Eternity, and make it yours.

Section 2 - The Re-interpretation of Defenses

When you are afraid of ANYTHING, you are acknowledging its power to hurt you. Remember that where your heart is, there is your treasure also. This means that you believe in what you VALUE. If you are AFRAID, you are VALUING WRONG. Human understanding will inevitably value wrong, and by endowing all human thoughts with equal power, will inevitably DESTROY peace. This is why the Bible speaks of "The peace of God which PASSETH (human) understanding."

THIS peace is totally incapable of being shaken by human errors of any kind. It denies the ability of anything which is not of God to effect you in any way.

This is the PROPER use of denial. It is not used to HIDE anything, but it IS used to correct error. It brings ALL error into the light, and since error and darkness are the same, it abolishes error automatically.

True denial is a very powerful protective device. You can and should deny any belief that error can hurt you. This kind of denial is NOT a concealment device, but a correction device. The "Right Mind" of the mentally healthy DEPENDS on it.

God and the Souls He created ARE symbiotically related. They are COMPLETELY dependent on each other. The creation of the Soul itself has already been perfectly accomplished, but the creation BY Souls has not. God created Souls so He could depend on them BECAUSE He created them perfectly. He gave them His peace so they would not be shaken, and would be unable to be deceived. Whenever you are afraid, you ARE deceived. Your mind is NOT serving your Soul. This literally starves the Soul by denying its daily bread. Remember the poem about the Holy Family which crossed your mind last night:

"Where tricks of words are never said

And mercy is as plain as bread."

The reason why that had such a strong impact on you originally was because you knew what it MEANT.

God offers ONLY mercy. Your own words should ALWAYS reflect only mercy, because that is what you have received, and that is what you should GIVE. Justice is a temporary expedient, or an attempt to teach man the meaning of mercy. Its JUDGMENTAL side rises only because man is capable of INJUSTICE if that is what his mind creates. You are afraid of God's will because you have used your own will, which He created in the likeness of His own, to MISCREATE.

What you do NOT realize is that the mind can miscreate only when it is NOT free. An imprisoned mind is not free by definition. It is possessed, or held back, by ITSELF. Its will is therefore limited, and not free to assert itself.

The three things that crossed your mind, which was comparatively free at the time, are perfectly relevant:

1. It is alright to remember the past, PROVIDED you also remember that ANYTHING you suffer is because of YOUR OWN ERRORS.

3. The story about Hinda. This was an excellent example of misperception which led to a totally unwarranted fear of a PERSON. (Helen Schucman story refers to a very young child who fell down the stairs when Helen Schucman had arms open in a welcoming gesture at bottom of stairs. For years afterwards, Hinda screamed upon seeing Helen Schucman.) The mis-step which caused her fall had nothing at all to do with you, just as your own mis-steps have nothing at all to do with me.

Denial of error is a very powerful defense of truth. We have slowly been shifting the emphasis from the negative to the positive use of denial. Remember, we have already stated that denial is not a purely negative device; it results in positive miscreation. That is the way the mentally ill DO employ it.

But remember a very early thought of your own, "Never underestimate the power of denial." In the service of the "Right Mind", the denial of ERROR frees the mind and re-establishes the freedom of the will. When the will is REALLY free, it CANNOT miscreate, because it recognizes ONLY TRUTH.

Projection arises out of FALSE DENIAL. Not out of its proper use. My own role in the Atonement IS one of true projection, i.e., I can project to YOU the affirmation of truth. If you project error to me (or to yourself) you are interfering with the process. My use of projection, which can also be yours, is NOT based on faulty denial. But it DOES involve the very powerful use of the denial of error.

The miracle worker is one who accepts my kind of denial and projection, unites his own inherent abilities to deny and project with mine, and imposes them back on himself and others. This establishes the total lack of threat anywhere. Together we can then work for the real time of peace, which is Eternal.

I inspired Bob (ref. to elevator man who took Helen Schucman down from her apt.) to make that remark to you, and it is a pity that you heard only the last part. But you can still use that. His remark ended with: "Every shut eye is not asleep." Since your own vision is much improved at the moment, we will go on a while.

Freud's identification of mechanisms was quite correct, as was his recognition of their creative ability. They can INDEED create man's perception, both of himself and his surroundings.

But Freud's limitations induced inevitable limits on his own perception. He made two kinds of errors.

The first is that he saw only how the mechanisms worked in the mentally ill.

The second is his own denial of the mechanism of the Atonement.

Let us take up the first, because a clear understanding of the second depends on it.

Denial should be directed only to error, and projection should be limited to truth. You should truly give as you have truly received. The Golden Rule can work effectively only on this basis.

Intellectualization is a poor word, which stems from the brain-mind confusion. "Right-Mindedness" is better. This device defends the RIGHT MIND, and gives it control over the body. "Intellectualization" implies a split, whereas "Right-Mindedness" involves healing.

Withdrawal is properly employed in the service of withdrawing from the desert. It is NOT a device for escape, but for consolidation. There IS only One Mind.

Dissociation is quite similar. You should split yourself off from error, but only in defense of integration.

Detachment is essentially a weaker form of dissociation. This is one of the major areas of withholding that both you and Bill are engaging in.

Flight can be undertaken in whatever direction you choose, but note that the concept itself implies flight FROM something. Flight from error is perfectly appropriate..

Distantiation is a way of putting distance between yourself and what you SHOULD fly from.

Regression is a real effort to return to your own original state. In this sense, it is utilized to RESTORE, not to go back to the less mature.

Sublimation should be associated with the SUBLIME.

There are many other so-called "dynamic" concepts which are profound errors due essentially to the misuse of defenses. Among them is the concept of different levels of aspiration, which results from real level confusion.

However, the main point to be understood from these notes is that you can defend truth as well as error, and in fact, much better.

So far we have concentrated on ends rather than means because unless you regard an end as worth achieving, you will not devote yourself to the means by which it can BE achieved. Your own question enabled me to shift the emphasis from end to means. (Question asked was "how can we incorporate this material?") You and Bill HAVE accepted the end as valuable, thus signifying your willingness to use defenses to ensure it.

The means are easier to clarify after the true worth of the goal itself is firmly established.

Everyone defends his own treasure. You do not have to tell him to do this, because HE will do so automatically. The real question still remains WHAT do you treasure, and HOW MUCH do you treasure it?

Once you learn to consider these two points, and bring them into ALL your actions as the true criteria for behavior, I will have little difficulty in clarifying the means. You have not learned to be consistent about this as yet. I have therefore concentrated on showing you that the means ARE available whenever you DO ask.

You can save a lot of time, however, if you do not need to extend this step unduly. The correct focus will shorten it immeasurably.

Papers will be very easy to write as this time is shortened.

The Atonement actually began long before the Crucifixion. Many Souls offered their efforts on behalf of the Separated Ones but they could not withstand the strength of the attack, and had to be brought back. Angels came, too, but their protection was not enough, because the Separated ones were not interested in peace. They had already split themselves, and were bent on dividing rather than reintegrating. The levels they introduced into themselves turned against each other, and they, in turn, turned against each other. They established differences, divisions, cleavages, dispersion, and all the other concepts related to the increasing splits they produced.

Not being in their Right Minds, they turned their defenses from protection to assault, and acted literally insanely. It was essential to introduce a split-proof device which could be used ONLY to heal, if it was used at all.

The Atonement was built into the space-time belief in order to set a limit on the need for the belief, and ultimately to make learning complete. The Atonement IS the final lesson. Learning itself, like the classrooms in which it occurs, is temporary. Let all those who overestimate human intelligence remember this. (Helen Schucman questions last sentence, which she perceives as threatening.) The ability to learn has no value when change of understanding is no longer necessary. The eternally creative have nothing to learn. Only after the Separation was it necessary to direct the creative force to learning, because changed behavior had become mandatory.

Human beings can learn to improve their behavior, and can also learn to become better and better learners. This increase serves (Helen Schucman notes that this was written "served") to bring them in closer and closer accord with the Sonship. But the Sonship itself is a perfect creation, and perfection is not a matter of degree. Only while there are different degrees is learning meaningful. The evolution of man is merely a process by which he proceeds from one degree to the next. He corrects his previous missteps by stepping forward. This represents a process which is actually incomprehensible in temporal terms, because he RETURNS as he progresses. (Originally, was "goes forward", rather than "progresses")

The Atonement is the device by which he can free himself from the past as he goes ahead. It UNDOES his past errors, thus making it unnecessary for him to keep retracing his steps without advancing toward his return.

In this sense, the Atonement saves time, but, like the miracle which serves it, does not abolish it. As long as there is need for Atonement, there is need for time. But the Atonement, as a completed plan, does have a unique relationship TO time. Until the Atonement is finished, its various phases will proceed IN time, but the whole Atonement stands at its end. At this point, the bridge of the return has been built.

(Note to Helen Schucman. The reason this is upsetting you is because the Atonement is a TOTAL commitment. You still think this is associated with loss. This is the same mistake ALL the Separated ones make, in one way or another. They cannot believe that a defense which CANNOT attack also IS the best defense. Except for this misperception, the angels COULD have helped them. What do you think "the meek shall inherit the earth" MEANS? They will literally take it over because of their strength. A two-way defense is inherently weak, precisely BECAUSE it has two edges it can turn against the self very unexpectedly. This tendency CANNOT be controlled EXCEPT by miracles.)

The miracle turns the defense of Atonement to the protection of the inner self, which, as it becomes more and more secure; assumes its natural talent of protecting others. The inner self knows itself as both a brother AND a son.

(The above notes were taken with great difficulty by Helen Schucman, and constitute the only series thus far that were written very slowly. When Helen Schucman asked about this, she was told, "don't worry about the notes. They are right, but YOU are not sufficiently Right-Minded yet to write about the Atonement with comfort. You will write about it yet with joy.)

I am not too sure of the sequence, but it began with a VERY clear assurance of love, and an equally clear emphasis on my own great value, beauty, and purity. Things got a little confusing after that. First, the idea of "Bride of Christ" occurred to me with vaguely inappropriate "undertones." Then there was a repetition of "the way of Love", and a restatement of an earlier experience, now as if it were FROM Him TO me: "Behold the Handmaid of the Lord; Be it done unto you according to His Word." (This threw me into panic before, but at that time, it was stated in the more accurate Biblical phrasing: "Be it done unto ME according to HIS Word.")This time I was a bit uneasy, but remembered I had misperceived it last time, and was probably still not seeing it right. Actually, it is really just a statement of allegiance to the Divine Service, which can hardly be dangerous.

Then there was a strange sequence, in which Christ seemed to be making very obvious advances, which became quite sexual in my perception of them. I ALMOST thought briefly that he turned into a devil. I got just a LITTLE scared, and the possession idea came in for a while, but I thought it SO silly, that there is no point in taking it seriously.

(As I am writing this, I remember that thing in the book about the demon lover, which once THROUGH me (note spelling, "threw") into a fit. I am upset, but the spelling slip is reassuring.

This morning we reviewed the whole episode. He said he was "VERY pleased at the COMPARATIVE lack of fear, and also the concomitant awareness that it WAS misperception. This showed much greater strength, and a much increased Right-Mindedness. This is because defenses are now being used much better, on behalf of truth MORE than error, though not completely so.

The weaker use of mis-projection is shown by my recognition that it can't REALLY be that way, which became possible as soon as denial was applied against error, NOT truth. This permitted a much greater awareness of alternative interpretations.

It was also explained (the shift to the passive form instead of "He also explained" should be noted. This is an expression of fear.) "Remember the section in "Letters from the Scattered Brotherhood" you read last evening about 'Hold fast', and please do so.")

You know that when defenses are disrupted there is a period of real disorientation, accompanied by fear, guilt, and usually vacillations between anxiety and depression. This process is different only in that defenses are not being disrupted, but re-interpreted, even though it may be experienced as the same thing.

In the re-interpretation of defenses, they are not disrupted but their use for ATTACK is lost. Since this means they can be used only ONE way, they became MUCH stronger, and much more dependable. They no longer oppose the Atonement, but greatly facilitate it. The Atonement can only be accepted within you.

The re-interpretation of defenses is essential to break open the INNER light. Since the Separation, man's defenses have been used almost entirely to defend themselves AGAINST the Atonement, and thus maintain their separation. They generally see this as a need to protect the body from external intrusion (or intruding), and this kind of misperception is largely responsible for the homosexual fallacy, as well as your own pregnancy fears. The so-called "anal" behavior is a distorted attempt to "steal" the Atonement, and deny its worth by concealing it, and holding onto it with a bodily receptacle, which is regarded as particularly vicious. "Oral" fantasies are rather similar in purpose, except that they stem more from a sense of deprivation, and insatiable thirst which results. "Anal" fallacies are more of a refusal to give, while oral fantasies emphasize a distorted need to take. The main error in both is the belief that the body can be used as a means for attaining Atonement.

Perceiving the body as the Temple is only the first step in correcting this kind of distortion. (Helen Schucman scalded hand, and looked for butter to put on. It occurred to her that the Atonement was the cure. Burn appeared to be minimal, and caused little discomfort.)

Seeing the body as the Temple alters part of the misperception, but not all of it. It DOES recognize, however, that the concept of addition or subtraction in PHYSICAL terms is not appropriate. But the next step is to realize that a Temple is not a building at all. Its REAL holiness lies in the INNER altar, around which the building is built. The inappropriate emphasis which men have put on beautiful Church BUILDINGS is a sign of their own fear of Atonement, and unwillingness to reach the altar itself. The REAL beauty of the Temple cannot be seen with the physical eye. The spiritual eye, on the other hand, cannot see the building at all, but it perceives the altar within with perfect clarity. This is because the spiritual eye has perfect vision.

This heals the Separation, and places within man the one defense against all Separation-mind errors which can make him perfectly invulnerable.

The acceptance of the Atonement by everyone is only a matter of time. In fact, both TIME and MATTER were created for this purpose. This appears to contradict free will, because of the inevitability of this decision. If you review the idea carefully, you will realize that this is not true. Everything is limited in some way by the manner of its creation. Free will can temporize, and is capable of enormous procrastination. But it cannot depart entirely from its Creator, who set the limits on its ability to miscreate by virtue of its own real purpose.

The misuse of will engenders a situation which, in the extreme, becomes altogether intolerable. Pain thresholds can be high, but they are not limitless. Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight. The alternating investment in the two types or levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict for a long time, and can become very acute.

But the outcome is as certain as God. The spiritual eye literally CANNOT SEE error, and merely looks for Atonement. All the solutions which the physical eyes seek, dissolve in its sight. The spiritual eye, which looks within, recognizes immediately that the altar has been defiled, and needs to be repaired and protected. Perfectly aware of the RIGHT defense, it passes over all others, looking past error to truth. Because of the real strength of ITS vision, it pulls the will into its own service, and forces the mind to concur. This reestablishes the true power of the will, and makes it increasingly unable to tolerate delay. The mind then realizes, with increasing certitude, that delay is only a way of increasing unnecessary pain, which it need not tolerate at all. The pain threshold drops accordingly, and the mind becomes increasingly sensitive to what it would once have regarded as very minor intrusions of discomfort.

The Children of God are entitled to perfect comfort, which comes from a sense of perfect trust. Until they achieve this, they waste themselves and their true creative power on useless attempts to make themselves more comfortable by inappropriate means. But the real means is ALREADY provided, and does not involve any efforts on their part at all. Their egocentricity usually misperceives this as personally insulting, an interpretation which obviously arises from their misperception of themselves. Egocentricity and communion cannot coexist. Even the terms themselves are contradictory.

The Atonement is the only gift which is worthy of being offered to the Altar of God. This is because of the inestimable value of the Altar itself. It was created perfect, and is entirely worthy of receiving perfection. God IS lonely without His SOULS, and THEY are lonely without Him. Remember the "spiritual" (a VERY good term) which begins with "And God stepped down from Heaven and said: I'M lonely - - I'll make ME a World." The world WAS a way of healing the Separation, and the Atonement is the GUARANTEE that the device will ultimately do so.

(Helen Schucman request for special message for Bill Tell B that his delaying tactics are holding him back. He does not really understand detachment, distantiation, and withdrawal. He is interpreting them as "holding himself aloof" from the Atonement.)

Section 3 - The Mechanism of Miracles

Fear is a symptom of your deep sense of loss. If, when you perceive it in others, you learn to SUPPLY the loss, the basic CAUSE of fear is removed. Thereby you teach yourself that fear does not exist IN YOU, for you have in YOURSELF, the means for removing it, and have DEMONSTRATED this by GIVING it. Fear and love are the only emotions of which you are capable. One is false, for it was made out of denial, and denial DEPENDS on the real belief in what is denied for its OWN existence.

By interpreting fear correctly, as a POSITIVE AFFIRMATION OF THE UNDERLYING BELIEF IT MASKS, you are undermining its perceived usefulness by rendering it useless. Defenses which do not work AT ALL are AUTOMATICALLY discarded. If you raise what fear conceals to CLEAR-CUT, UNEQUIVOCAL PRE-DOMINANCE, fear becomes meaningless. You have denied its power to conceal love, which was its only purpose. The mask which YOU have drawn across the face of Love has disappeared.

If you would look upon Love, which IS the world's reality, how could you do better than to recognize, in every defense AGAINST it, the underlying appeal FOR it? And how could you better learn of its reality, than by answering the appeal for it by GIVING it? The Holy Spirit's interpretation of fear DOES dispel it, for the AWARENESS of truth cannot BE denied. Thus does the Holy Spirit replace fear with love, and translate error into truth. And thus will YOU learn of Him how to replace your dream of separation with the fact of unity. For the separation is only the DENIAL of union, and, correctly interpreted, attests to your eternal knowledge that union is true.

Miracles are merely the translation of denial into truth. If to love oneself is to HEAL oneself, those who are sick do NOT love themselves. Therefore, they are asking for the love that would heal them, but which they are DENYING TO THEMSELVES. If they knew the truth about themselves, they could not be sick. The task of the miracle-worker thus becomes to DENY THE DENIAL OF TRUTH. The sick must heal THEMSELVES, for the truth is IN them. But, having OBSCURED it, the light in ANOTHER mind must shine into theirs, because that light IS theirs.

The light in them shines as brightly, REGARDLESS of the density of the fog that obscures it. If you give no power to the fog to obscure the light, it HAS none, for it has power ONLY because the Son of God gave power TO it. He must HIMSELF withdraw that power, remembering that all power is of God. YOU CAN REMEMBER THIS FOR ALL THE SONSHIP. Do not allow your brother not to remember, for his forgetfulness is YOURS. But YOUR remembering is HIS, for God cannot be remembered alone. THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN. To perceive the healing of your brother as the healing of yourself, is thus the way to remember God. For you forgot your brothers WITH Him, and God's answer to your forgetting is but the way to remember.

Perceive in sickness but another call for love, and offer your brother what he believes he cannot offer HIMSELF. Whatever the sickness, there is but one remedy. You will be made whole as you MAKE whole, for to perceive in sickness the appeal for health, is to recognize in hatred the call for love. And to give a brother what he REALLY wants, is to offer it unto yourself. For your Father wills you to know your brother AS yourself. Answer HIS call for love, and YOURS is answered. Healing is the love of Christ for His Father, and for HIMSELF.

You do not realize how much you hate each other. You will not get rid of this until you DO realize it, for UNTIL then, you will think you want to get rid of EACH OTHER and KEEP THE HATRED. Yet if you are each other's salvation, what can this mean except that you PREFER attack to salvation? Be glad that neither your reality nor your salvation is a matter of your preference, for you HAVE much cause for joy. But that the cause is NOT of your making is surely obvious. You DO hate and fear each other, and your love, which is very real, is TOTALLY obscured by it. How can you know the meaning of love UNLESS it is total?

This will be a very difficult period for you, but it will not be so for long. You are in danger, but you WILL be helped, and nothing will happen. But you cannot remain in darkness, and this will BE the way out. Look as calmly as you can upon hatred, for if we are to deny the denial of truth, we must first RECOGNIZE what we are denying. Remember that knowledge PRECEDES denial, and that the separation was a descent from magnitude to littleness. And so the way back is to retrace the way to magnitude.

Your hatred is not real, But it is real to you. IT HIDES WHAT YOU REALLY WANT. Surely you are willing to look upon what you do NOT want without fear, EVEN IF IT FRIGHTENS YOU, if you can thereby get rid of it? For you CANNOT escape salvation, and you WILL not escape fear until you WANT salvation. Be not afraid of this journey into fear, for it is not your destination. And we will walk through it in safety, for peace is not far, and you will be led in its light.

Remember what we said about the frightening perceptions of little children, which terrify them because they do not understand them. If they ASK for enlightenment, AND ACCEPT IT, their fears vanish. But if they HIDE their nightmares, they will KEEP them. It is easy to help an uncertain child, for he recognizes that he does not know what his perceptions mean. But you believe you DO know. Little children, you are hiding your heads under the covers of the heavy blankets you have laid upon yourselves. You are hiding your nightmares in the darkness of your own certainty, and refusing to open your eyes and LOOK AT THEM.

Let us not save nightmares, for they are not fitting offerings for Christ, and so they are not fit gifts for YOU. Take off the covers, and look at what you are afraid of. Only the ANTICIPATION will frighten you, for the reality of nothingness cannot be frightening. Let us not delay this, for your dream of hatred will not leave you without help, and help is here. Learn to be quiet in the midst of turmoil, for quietness is the END of strife, and this is the journey to peace. Look straight at every image that rises to delay you, for the goal is inevitable, because it is eternal.

The goal of love is but your right, and it belongs to you DESPITE your preference. YOU STILL WILL WHAT GOD WILLS, and no nightmare can defeat a Child of God in his purpose. For your purpose was given you by God, and you must accomplish it, BECAUSE it is His Will. Awake and remember your purpose, for it is YOUR will to do so. What has been accomplished FOR you MUST be yours. Do not let your hatred stand in the way of love, for NOTHING can withstand the love of Christ for His Father, or His Father's love for Him.

There is no fear in perfect love. We will but be making perfect TO you, what is ALREADY perfect IN you. You do not fear the UNKNOWN, but the KNOWN. You will not fail in your mission, because I failed not in mine. Give me but a little trust, in the name of the COMPLETE trust I have in you, and we will easily accomplish the goal of perfection together. For perfection IS, and cannot be denied. To deny the denial of perfection is not so difficult as the denial of truth. And what we can accomplish together MUST be believed, when you SEE it as accomplished. You who have tried to banish love have not succeeded. But you who choose to banish fear WILL succeed.

The Lord is with you, but you know it not. Yet your Redeemer liveth, and abideth in you in the peace out of which He was created. Would you not exchange THIS awareness for the awareness of your fear? When we have OVERCOME fear, not by hiding it, not by minimizing it, not by denying its full import in ANY way, THIS IS WHAT YOU WILL REALLY SEE. You cannot lay aside the obstacle to real vision without looking upon it, for to lay aside means to judge AGAINST. If YOU will look, the Holy Spirit will judge, AND WILL JUDGE TRULY. He cannot shine away what YOU keep hidden, for you have not offered it TO Him, and He CANNOT take it FROM you.

We therefore are embarking on an organized, well-structured, and carefully planned program, aimed at learning how to offer to the Holy Spirit everything you do NOT want. HE knows what to DO with it. You do NOT know how to use what He knows. Whatever is revealed to Him that is not of God, is gone. But you must reveal it to YOURSELF in perfect willingness, for otherwise His knowledge remains useless TO you. Surely He will not fail to help you, since help is His ONLY purpose. Do you not have greater reason for fearing the world, as you perceive it, than for looking at the cause of fear, and letting it go forever?

Section 8 - The Illusion of Suffering

Suffering is an emphasis upon all that the world has done to injure YOU. Here is the world's demented version of salvation clearly shown. Like to a dream of punishment, in which the dreamer is unconscious of what brought on the attack against himself, he sees himself attacked unjustly, and by something NOT himself. HE is the victim of this "something else," a thing OUTSIDE himself for which he has no reason to be held responsible. He must be innocent BECAUSE he knows not what HE does, but what is done TO him. Yet is his own attack upon himself apparent still, for it is he who bears the suffering. And he can NOT escape BECAUSE its source is seen outside himself.

Now you are being shown you CAN escape. All that is needed is you look upon the problem as it IS, and NOT the way that you have set it up. How COULD there be another way to solve a problem which is VERY simple, but has been obscured by heavy clouds of complication, which were MADE to keep the problem unresolved? WITHOUT the clouds, the problem will emerge in all its primitive simplicity. The choice will NOT be difficult, because the problem is absurd when clearly seen. No-one has difficulty making up his mind to let a simple problem be resolved, if it is SEEN as hurting him, and also very easily removed.

The "reasoning" by which the world is made, on which it rests, by which it is maintained, is simply this: "YOU are the cause of what I do. Your presence JUSTIFIES my wrath, and you exist and think APART from me. While YOU attack, I MUST be innocent. And what I suffer from IS your attack." No-one who looks upon this "reasoning" EXACTLY as it is could fail to see it does NOT follow, and it makes NO sense. Yet it SEEMS sensible, because it LOOKS as if the world WERE hurting you. And so it seems as if there is no NEED to go beyond the obvious in terms of cause.

This is the PURPOSE of the world he sees. And, LOOKED AT thus, the world provides the means by which this purpose SEEMS to be fulfilled. The means ATTEST the purpose, but are NOT themselves a cause. Nor will the CAUSE be changed by seeing it APART from its effects. The cause PRODUCES the effects, which then bear witness to the CAUSE, and NOT themselves. Look, then, BEYOND effects. It is NOT here the CAUSE of suffering and sin must lie. And dwell not on the suffering and sin, for they are but REFLECTIONS of their cause. The part you play in SALVAGING the world from condemnation IS your own escape.

Forget not that the witness to the world of evil cannot speak EXCEPT for what has seen a NEED for evil in the world. And this is where YOUR guilt was first beheld. In separation from your brother was the first attack upon yourself begun. And it is THIS the world bears witness to. Seek not another cause, nor look among the mighty legions of its witnesses for its undoing. They SUPPORT its claim on your allegiance. What CONCEALS the truth is not where you should look to FIND the truth. The witnesses to sin all stand within ONE little space. And it is HERE you find the CAUSE of your perspective on the world.

So little is his worth that he is but a dancing shadow, leaping up and down, according to a senseless plot conceived within the idle dreaming of the world. This is the ONLY picture you can see, the ONE alternative that you can choose, the OTHER possibility of cause, if you be NOT the dreamer of your dreams. And this IS what you choose, if you deny the cause of suffering is in YOUR mind. Be glad indeed it is, for thus are YOU the ONE decider of your destiny in time. The choice IS yours to make between a sleeping death and dreams of evil, or a happy wakening and joy of life.

What COULD you choose between, but life or death, waking or sleeping, war or peace, your dream or your reality? But if the choice is REALLY given you, then you must see the causes of the things you choose BETWEEN exactly AS they are and WHERE they are. What choices can be made between two states, but ONE of which is clearly recognized? Who could be free to choose BETWEEN effects, when only ONE is seen as up to you? An honest choice could NEVER be perceived as one in which the choice is split between a tiny you and an enormous world, with DIFFERENT dreams about the truth in you.

The gap between reality and dreams lies not between the dreaming of the world and what you dream in secret. THEY are one. The dreaming of the world is but a part of your own dream you gave away, and saw as if it were its start and ending, both. Yet was it started by your SECRET dream, which you do NOT perceive, although it CAUSED the part you see and do not doubt is real. How COULD you doubt it, while you lie asleep, and dream in secret that its CAUSE is real? A brother SEPARATED from yourself, an ancient enemy, a murderer who stalks you in the night and plots your death, yet plans that it be lingering and slow, -

Of this you dream. And, UNDERNEATH this dream, is yet another, in which YOU become the murderer, the secret enemy, the scavenger and the destroyer of the brother and the world you fear alike. Here is the CAUSE of suffering, the space BETWEEN your dreams and your reality. The little gap you do not even see, the birthplace of illusions and of fear, the time of terror and of ancient hate, the instant of disaster; -- all are here. Here is the CAUSE of unreality. And it is here that it will be undone. YOU are the dreamer of the world of dreams. No OTHER cause it has, nor ever will.

Nothing more fearful than an idle dream has terrified God's Son, and made him think that he has lost his innocence, denied his Father, and made war upon himself. So fearful is the dream, so seeming real, he could not waken to reality without the sweat of terror and a scream of mortal fear, unless a gentler dream preceded his awaking, and allowed his calmer mind to welcome, NOT to fear, the Voice that called with love to waken him. A gentler dream, in which his suffering was healed, and where his brother was his friend. God willed he waken gently, and with joy. And GAVE him means to waken WITHOUT fear. Accept the dream He gave, INSTEAD of yours. It is NOT difficult to shift a dream, when once the dreamer has been recognized.

Rest in the Holy Spirit, and allow His gentle dreams to take the place of those you dreamed in terror, and in fear of death. He brings FORGIVING dreams, in which the choice is NOT who is the murderer, and who shall be the victim. In the dreams HE brings, there IS no murder, and there IS no death. The dream of guilt is fading from your sight, although your eyes are closed. A smile has come to lighten up your sleeping face. The sleep is peaceful now, for these are happy dreams. Dream softly of your sinless brother, who unites with you in holy innocence. And, from THIS dream, the Lord of Heaven will Himself awaken His beloved Son.

Dream of your brother's kindnesses INSTEAD of dwelling in your dreams on his mistakes. Select his thoughtfulness to dream about, INSTEAD of counting up the hurts he gave. Forgive him his illusions, and give thanks to him for all the helpfulness he gave. And do not brush aside his many gifts, because he is not perfect in your dreams. He represents his Father, Whom you see as offering both life AND death to you. Brother, He gives BUT life, and what you see as gifts your brother offers REPRESENT the gifts you dream your Father gives to you. Let all your brother's gifts be seen in light of charity and kindness offered you. And let no pain disturb your dream of deep appreciation for his gifts to you.

Chapter 2 - Who are God's Teachers?

They come from all over the world. They come from all religions and from no religion. They are the ones who have answered. The Call is universal. It goes on all the time everywhere. It calls for teachers to speak for it and redeem the world. Many hear it but few will answer. But it is all a matter of time. Everyone will answer in the end, but the end can be a long, long way off. It is because of this that the plan of the teachers was established. Their function is to save time. Each one begins as a single light, but with the Call at its center it is a light that cannot be limited. And each one saves a thousand years of time as the world judges it. To the Call itself time has no meaning.

There is a course for every teacher of God. The form of the course varies greatly. So do the particular teaching aids involved. But the content of the course never changes. Its central theme is always, "God's Son is guiltless, and in his innocence is his salvation." It can be taught by actions or thoughts; in words or soundlessly; in any language or in no language; in any place or time or manner. It does not matter who the teacher was before he heard the Call. He has become a savior by his answering. He has seen someone else as himself. He has therefore found his own salvation and the salvation of the world. In his rebirth is the world reborn.

This is a manual for a special curriculum, intended for teachers of a special form of the universal course. There are many thousands of other forms, all with the same outcome. They merely save time. Yet it is time alone that winds on wearily, and the world is very tired now. It is old and worn and without hope. There was never a question of outcome, for what can change the Will of God? But time, with its illusions of change and death, wears out the world and all things in it. Yet time has an ending, and it is this that the teachers of God are appointed to bring about. For time is in their hands. Such was their choice, and it is given them.

Section 4 - The Real Alternative

There is a tendency to think the world can offer consolation and escape from problems that its purpose is to keep. Why should this be? Because it is a place where choice among illusions seems to be the ONLY choice. And YOU are in control of outcomes of your choosing. Thus you think, within the narrow band from birth to death, a little time is given you to use for you alone; a time when everyone conflicts with you, but you can choose which road will lead you out of conflict, and AWAY from difficulties which concern you not. But they ARE your concern. How, then, can you escape from them by leaving them behind? What MUST go with you, you will take with you whatever road you choose to walk along.

Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. ALL its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There IS no choice in its alternatives. Seek not ESCAPE from problems here. The world was made that problems could not BE escaped. Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given. They have but one end. And each is but the means to GAIN that end, for it is here that all its roads will lead, however differently they seem to start; however differently they seem to go. Their end is certain, for there is no choice among them. All of them will lead to death. On some you travel gaily for a while, before the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt at once. The choice is not WHAT will the ending be, but WHEN it comes.

There IS no choice where every end is sure. Perhaps you would prefer to try them all, before you REALLY learn they are but one. The roads this world can offer seem to be quite large in number, but the time must come when everyone begins to see how like they are to one another. Men have died on seeing this, because they saw no way EXCEPT the pathways offered by the world. And, learning THEY led nowhere, lost their hope. And yet this was the time they COULD have learned their greatest lesson. All must reach this point, and go BEYOND it. It is true indeed there is no choice at all within the world. But this is NOT the lesson in itself. The lesson has a PURPOSE, and in THIS you come to understand what it is FOR.

Why would you seek to try another road, another person or another place, when you HAVE learned the way the lesson starts, but do not yet perceive what it is for? Its purpose is the ANSWER to the search that all must undertake who still believe there is another answer to be found. Learn now, WITHOUT despair, there is no hope of answers in the world. But do not judge the lesson which is but BEGUN with this. Seek not another signpost in the world which seems to point to still another road. No longer look for hope where there is none. Make fast your learning NOW, and understand you but waste time unless you go BEYOND what you have learned to what is yet to learn. For from this lowest point will learning lead to heights of happiness, in which you see the PURPOSE of the lesson shining clear, and perfectly within your learning grasp.

The search for DIFFERENT pathways in the world is but the search for different FORMS of truth. And this would KEEP the truth from being reached. Think not that happiness is EVER found by following a road AWAY from it. This makes NO sense, and CANNOT be the way. To you who seem to find this course to be too difficult to learn, let me repeat that, to achieve a goal, you must proceed in its direction, not AWAY from it. And EVERY road that goes the other way will NOT advance the purpose to be found. If THIS be difficult to understand, then IS this course impossible to learn. But only then. For otherwise, it is a simple teaching in the obvious.

There IS a choice which you have power to make, when you have seen the real alternatives. UNTIL that point is reached you HAVE no choice, and you can but decide how you would choose the better to deceive yourself again. This course attempts to teach no more than that the power of decision cannot lie in choosing different forms of what is still the SAME illusion and the SAME mistake. All choices in the world depend on this; - You choose BETWEEN your brother and yourself, and you will gain as much as he will lose, and what you lose is what is given him. How utterly OPPOSED to truth is this, when what the lesson's purpose is to teach that what your brother loses YOU have lost, and what he gains is what is given YOU.

He has not left His Thoughts! But you forgot His Presence, and remember not His Love. No pathway in the world can lead to Him, nor any worldly goal is one with His. What road in all the world will lead within, when EVERY road was made to separate the journey and the purpose it MUST have, unless it be but futile wandering? All roads that lead AWAY from what you are will lead you to confusion and despair. Yet has He never left His Thoughts to die, without their Source forever in themselves. He has not left His Thoughts. He could no more depart from them than they could keep Him out. In unity with Him do they abide, and in their Oneness BOTH are kept complete.

Section 3 - Atonement as a Lesson in Sharing

Atonement is for all, because it is the way to UNDO the belief that ANYTHING is for you ALONE. To forgive is to OVERLOOK. Look, then, BEYOND error, and do not let your perception rest UPON it, for you will believe what your perception HOLDS. Accept as true only what your brother IS, if you would know yourself. Perceive what he is NOT, and you CANNOT know what you are, BECAUSE you see HIM falsely. Remember always that your identity is shared, and that its sharing IS its reality.

You have a PART to play in the Atonement. But the plan of the Atonement IS beyond you. You do not know how to OVERLOOK errors, or you would not make them. It would merely be further error to think either that you do NOT make them, or that you can CORRECT them without a GUIDE TO CORRECTION. And if you do not FOLLOW this Guide, your errors will NOT be corrected. The plan is not yours BECAUSE of your limited ideas about WHAT YOU ARE. But this limitation IS where ALL ERRORS ARISE. The way to UNDO them is, therefore, not OF you, but FOR you.

The ego has a plan of forgiveness, because you are ASKING for one, but not of the right teacher. The EGO's plan, of course, MAKES NO SENSE and WILL NOT WORK. By following it, you will merely place yourself in an impossible situation, to which the ego ALWAYS leads you. Its plan is to have you SEE ERROR CLEARLY FIRST, and THEN overlook it. But how CAN you overlook what you have made real? By seeing it clearly, you HAVE made it real, and CANNOT overlook it.

This is where the ego is forced into appealing to mysteries, and begins to insist that you accept the meaningless, to save yourself. Many have tried to do this in my name, forgetting that my words make PERFECT sense, because they come from GOD. They are as sensible now as they ever were, because they speak of ideas which are eternal. Forgiveness that is learned of ME does not use fear to UNDO fear. Nor does it make real the UNreal, and then destroy it.

Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus KEEPING it unreal for you. Do not let any belief in its realness enter your minds AT ALL, or you will also believe that you must UNDO what you have made, in order to BE forgiven. What has no effect does not exist, and to the Holy Spirit, the effects of error are TOTALLY non-existent. By steadily and consistently canceling out ALL its effects, EVERYWHERE AND IN ALL RESPECTS, He teaches that the ego does not exist, and PROVES IT. Follow His teaching in forgiveness, then, because forgiveness IS His function, and HE knows how to fulfill it perfectly. That is what we meant when we once said that miracles are NATURAL, and when they do NOT occur, something has gone wrong. Miracles are merely the sign of your willingness to follow HIS plan of Salvation, in recognition of the FACT that you do NOT know what it is. His work is NOT your function, and unless you accept this, you CANNOT learn what your function IS.

The confusion of functions is so typical of the ego, that you should be quite familiar with it by now. The ego believes that ALL functions belong to IT, even though it has no idea what they ARE. This is more than mere confusion. It is a particularly dangerous combination of grandiosity AND confusion, that makes it likely that the ego will attack anyone and anything, for no reason at all. This is exactly what it DOES. It is TOTALLY unpredictable in its responses, because it has no idea WHAT it heard.

If one has no idea what is happening, how appropriately can you EXPECT him to react? But you might still ask yourself, regardless of how you can ACCOUNT for the reactions, whether they place the ego in a very sound position as a guide for YOURS. It seems absurd to have to emphasize repeatedly that the ego's qualifications as a guide are singularly unfortunate, and that it is a remarkably poor choice as a teacher of salvation. Yet this question, ridiculous as it seems, is REALLY the crucial issue in the whole separation fantasy.

Anyone who elects a totally insane guide, MUST be totally insane himself. It is not true that you do not know the guide is insane. YOU know it because I know it, and you HAVE judged it by the same Standard as I have. The ego literally lives on borrowed time, and ITS days ARE numbered. Do not fear the last judgment, but welcome it and do not wait, for the ego's time is borrowed from YOUR eternity. This IS the Second Coming, which was made FOR you, as the First was created.

The Second Coming is merely the return of SENSE. Can this POSSIBLY be fearful? What can be fearful but fantasy, and no one turns to fantasy unless he despairs of satisfaction in reality. But it is CERTAIN that he will NEVER find satisfaction in fantasy, so that his ONLY hope is to change his mind about REALITY. Only if the decision that reality is fearful is WRONG, can GOD be right. And I ASSURE you that God IS right.

Fairy tales can be pleasant or fearful, pretty or ugly, but NO ONE calls them TRUE. Children may believe them, and so, for a while, they ARE true for them. But when Reality dawns, they are gone. REALITY has NOT gone in the meanwhile. The Second Coming is the AWARENESS of Reality, not its RETURN. Behold, my children, Reality is here. It belongs to you and me and God, and is perfectly satisfying to all of us. Only THIS awareness heals, because it is the awareness of truth.

Chapter 5 - What are the Characteristics of God's Teachers?

Section 1 - Introduction

The surface traits of God's teachers are not at all alike. They do not look alike to the body's eyes, they come from vastly different backgrounds, their experiences of the world vary greatly, and their superficial "personalities" are quite distinct. Nor at the beginning stages of their functioning as teachers of God, have they yet acquired the deeper characteristics that will establish them as what they are. God gives special gifts to His teachers because they have a special role in His plan for Atonement. Their specialness is, of course, only temporary; set in time as a means of leading out of time. These special gifts, born in the holy relationship toward which the teaching-learning situation is geared, become characteristic of all teachers of God who have advanced in their own learning. In this respect they are all alike.

All differences among the Sons of God are temporary. Nevertheless, in time it can be said that the advanced teachers of God have the following characteristics:

Section 2 - Trust

This is the foundation on which their ability to fulfill their function rests. Perception is the result of learning. In fact, perception is learning, because cause and effect are never separated. The teachers of God have trust in the world, because they have learned it is not governed by the laws the world made up. It is governed by a Power which is in them but not of them. It is this Power that keeps all things safe. It is through this Power that the teachers of God look on a forgiven world.

When this Power has once been experienced, it is impossible to trust one's own petty strength again. Who would attempt to fly with the tiny wings of a sparrow when the mighty power of an eagle has been given him? And who would place his faith in the shabby offerings of the ego when the gifts of God are laid before him? What is it that induces them to make the shift?

First, they must go through what might be called "a period of undoing." This need not be painful, but it usually is so experienced. It seems as if things are being taken away, and it is rarely understood initially that their lack of value is merely being recognized. How can lack of value be perceived unless the perceiver is in a position where he must see things in a different light? He is not yet at a point at which he can make the shift entirely internally. And so the plan will sometimes call for changes in what seem to be external circumstances. These changes are always helpful. When the teacher of God has learned that much, he goes on to the second stage.

Next, the teacher of God must go through "a period of sorting-out." This is always somewhat difficult because, having learned that the changes in his life are always helpful, he must now decide all things on the basis of whether they increase the helpfulness or hamper it. He will find that many, if not most of the things he valued before will merely hinder his ability to transfer what he has learned to new situations as they arise. Because he has valued what is really valueless, he will not generalize the lesson for fear of loss and sacrifice. It takes great learning to understand that all things, events, encounters and circumstances are helpful. It is only to the extent to which they are helpful that any degree of reality should be accorded them in this world of illusion. The word "value" can apply to nothing else.

The third stage through which the teacher of God must go can be called a "period of relinquishment." If this is interpreted as giving up the desirable it will engender enormous conflict. Few teachers of God escape this distress entirely. There is, however, no point in sorting out the valuable from the valueless unless the next obvious step is taken. The third step is rarely if ever begun until the second is complete. Therefore, the period of overlap is apt to be one in which the teacher of God feels called upon to sacrifice his own best interests on behalf of truth. He has not realized as yet how wholly impossible such a demand would be. He can learn this only as he actually does give up the valueless. Through this, he learns that where he anticipated grief, he finds a happy light-heartedness instead; where he thought something was asked of him he finds a gift bestowed on him.

Now comes "a period of settling down." This is a quiet time, in which the teacher of God rests a while in reasonable peace. Now he consolidates his learning. Now he begins to see the transfer value of what he has learned. Its potential is literally staggering, and the teacher of God is now at the point in his progress at which he sees in it his whole way out. "Give up what you do not want, and keep what you do." How simple is the obvious. And how easy to do. The teacher of God needs this period of respite. He has not yet come as far as he thinks. Yet when he is ready to go on, he goes with mighty companions beside him. Now he rests a while, and gathers them before going on. He will not go on from here alone.

And finally, there is "a period of achievement." It is here that learning is consolidated. Now what was seen as merely shadows before become solid gains, to be counted on in all "emergencies" as well as tranquil times. Indeed, the tranquility is their result; the outcome of honest learning, consistency of thought and full transfer. This is the stage of real peace, for here is Heaven's state fully reflected. From here, the way to Heaven is open and easy. In fact, it is here. Who would "go" anywhere, if peace of mind is already complete? And who would seek to change tranquility for something more desirable? What could be more desirable than this?

Section 3 - Honesty

All other traits of God's teachers rest on trust. Once that has been achieved the others cannot fail to follow. Only the trusting can afford honesty, for only they can see its value. Honesty does not apply only to what you say. The term actually means consistency. There is nothing you say that contradicts what you think or do; no thought opposes any other thought; no act belies your word; and no word lacks agreement with another. Such are the truly honest. At no level are they in conflict with themselves. Therefore it is impossible for them to be in conflict with anyone or anything.

The peace of mind which the advanced teachers of God experience is largely due to their perfect honesty. It is only the wish to deceive that makes for war. No-one at one with himself can even conceive of conflict. Conflict is the inevitable result of self-deception, and self-deception is dishonesty. There is no challenge to a teacher of God. Challenge implies doubt, and the trust on which God's teachers rest secure makes doubt impossible. Therefore they can only succeed. In this as in all things they are honest. They can only succeed, because they never do their will alone. They choose for all mankind; for all the world and all things in it; for the unchanging and unchangeable beyond appearances; and for the Son of God and his Creator. How could they not succeed? They choose in perfect honesty, sure of their choice of themselves.

Section 4 - Tolerance

God's teachers do not judge. To judge is to be dishonest, for to judge is to assume a position you do not have. Judgment without self-deception is impossible. Judgment implies that you have been deceived in your brothers. How then could you not have been deceived in yourself? Judgment implies a lack of trust, and trust remains the bedrock of the teacher of God's whole thought system. Let this be lost and all his learning goes. Without judgment are all things equally acceptable, for who could judge otherwise? Without judgment are all men brothers, for who is there who stands apart? Judgment destroys honesty and shatters trust. No teacher of God can judge and hope to learn.

Section 5 - Gentleness

Harm is impossible for God's teachers. They can neither harm nor be harmed. Harm is the outcome of judgment. It is the dishonest act that follows a dishonest thought. It is a verdict of guilt upon a brother and therefore on oneself. It is the end of peace and the denial of learning. It demonstrates the absence of God's curriculum and its replacement by insanity. No teacher of God but must learn, - and fairly early in his training, - that harmfulness completely obliterates his function from his awareness. It will make him confused, fearful, angry and suspicious. It will make the Holy Spirit's lessons impossible to learn. Nor can God's Teacher be heard at all except by those who realize that harm can actually achieve nothing. No gain can come from it.

Section 6 - Joy

Joy is the inevitable result of gentleness. Gentleness means that fear is now impossible, and what could come to interfere with joy? The open hands of gentleness are always filled. The gentle have no pain. They cannot suffer. Why would they not be joyous? They are sure they are beloved and must be safe. Joy goes with gentleness as surely as grief attends attack. God's teachers trust in Him. And they are sure His Teacher goes before them, making sure no harm can come to them. They hold His gifts and follow in His way, because God's Voice directs them in all things. Joy is their song of thanks. And Christ looks down on them in thanks as well. His need of them is just as great as theirs of Him. How joyous it is to share the purpose of salvation.

Section 7 - Defenselessness

God's teachers have learned how to be simple. They have no dreams that need defense against the truth. They do not try to make themselves. Their joy comes from their understanding Who created them. And does what God created need defense? No-one can become an advanced teacher of God until he fully understands that defenses are but the foolish guardians of mad illusions. The more grotesque the dream, the fiercer and more powerful its defenses seem to be. Yet when the teacher of God finally agrees to look past them, he finds nothing was there. Slowly at first he lets himself be undeceived. But he learns faster as his trust increases. It is not danger that comes when defenses are laid down. It is safety. It is peace. It is joy. And it is God.

Section 8 - Generosity

The term generosity has special meaning to the teacher of God. It is not the usual meaning of the word; in fact, it is a meaning that must be learned and learned very carefully. Like all the other attributes of God's teachers this one rests ultimately on trust, for without trust no-one can be generous in the true sense. To the world, generosity means "giving away" in the sense of "giving up." To the teachers of God, it means "giving away" in order to keep. This has been emphasized throughout the text and the workbook, but it is perhaps more alien to the thinking of the world than many other ideas in our curriculum. Its greater strangeness lies merely in the obviousness of its reversal of the world's thinking. In the clearest way possible and at the simplest of levels, the word means the exact opposite to the teachers of God and to the world.

The teacher of God is generous out of Self-interest. This does not refer, however, to the self the world speaks of. The teacher of God does not want anything he cannot give away, because he realizes it would be valueless to him by definition. What would he want it for? He could only lose because of it. He could not gain. Therefore he does not seek what only he could keep, because that is a guarantee of loss. He does not want to suffer. Why should he ensure himself pain? But he does want to keep for himself all things that are of God, and therefore for His Son. These are the things that belong to him. These he can give away in true generosity, protecting them forever for himself.

Section 9 - Patience

Section 10 - Faithfulness

The extent of the teacher of God's faithfulness is the measure of his advancement in the curriculum. Does he still select some aspects of his life to bring to his learning, while keeping others apart? If so, his advancement is limited and his trust not yet firmly established. Faithfulness is the teacher of God's trust in the Word of God to set all things right; not some, but all. Generally, his faithfulness begins by resting on just some problems, remaining carefully limited for a time. To give up all problems to one Answer is to reverse the thinking of the world entirely. And that alone is faithfulness. Nothing but that really deserves the name. Yet each degree, however small, is worth achieving. Readiness, as the text notes, is not mastery.

True faithfulness, however, does not deviate. Being consistent it is wholly honest. Being unswerving it is full of trust. Being based on fearlessness it is gentle. Being certain it is joyous, and being confident it is tolerant. Defenselessness attends it naturally, and joy is its condition. Faithfulness, then, combines in itself the other attributes of God's teachers. It implies acceptance of the Word of God and His definition of His Son. It is to Them that faithfulness in the true sense is always directed. Toward Them it looks, seeking until it finds. And having found, it rests in quiet certainty on That alone to which all faithfulness is due.

Section 11 - Open-Mindedness

The centrality of open-mindedness, perhaps the last of the attributes the teacher of God acquires, is easily understood when its relation to forgiveness is recognized. Open-mindedness comes with lack of judgment. As judgment shuts the mind against God's Teacher, so open-mindedness invites Him to come in. As condemnation judges the Son of God as evil, so open-mindedness permits him to be judged by the Voice for God on His behalf. As the projection of guilt upon him would send him to hell, so open-mindedness lets Christ's image be projected on him. Only the open-minded can be at peace, for they alone see reason for it.

How do the open-minded forgive? They have let go all things that would prevent forgiveness. They have in truth abandoned the world, and let it be restored to them in newness and in joy so glorious they never could have conceived of such a change. Nothing is now as it was formerly. Nothing but sparkles now which seemed so dull and lifeless before. And above all are all things welcoming, for threat has gone. No clouds remain to hide the Face of Christ. Now is the goal achieved. Forgiveness is the final goal of the curriculum. It paves the way for what goes far beyond all learning. The curriculum makes no effort to exceed its legitimate goal. Forgiveness is its single aim, at which all learning ultimately converges. It is indeed enough.

You may have noticed that the list of attributes of God's teachers does not include those things which are the Son of God's inheritance. Terms like love, sinlessness, perfection, knowledge, and eternal truth do not appear in this context. They would be most inappropriate here. What God has given is so far beyond our curriculum that learning but disappears in its presence. Yet while its presence is obscured, the focus properly belongs on the curriculum. It is the function of God's teachers to bring true learning to the world. Properly speaking, it is unlearning that they bring, for that is "true learning" in the world. It is given to the teachers of God to bring the glad tidings of complete forgiveness to the world. Blessed indeed are they, for they are the Bringers of salvation.

Section 7 - Grandeur versus Grandiosity

Grandeur is of God, and ONLY of Him. Therefore, it is in you. Whenever you become aware of it, however dimly, you abandon the ego automatically, because in the presence of the grandeur of God, the meaninglessness of the ego becomes perfectly apparent. Though it does not understand this, the ego believes that its "enemy" has struck, and attempts to offer gifts to induce you to return to its protection. SELF-inflation is the only offering it can make. The grandiosity of the ego is its alternative to the grandeur of God. Which will you choose?

Grandiosity is ALWAYS a cover for despair. It is without hope, because it is not real. It is an attempt to COUNTERACT your littleness, based on the belief THAT THE LITTLENESS IS REAL. WITHOUT this belief, the grandiosity is meaningless, and you could not possibly WANT it. The essence of grandiosity is competitiveness, because it ALWAYS involves ATTACK. It is a delusional attempt to OUTDO, but NOT to UNdo. We said before that the ego vacillates between suspiciousness and viciousness. It remains suspicious as long as you DESPAIR of yourself. It shifts to viciousness whenever you will not tolerate self-debasement, and seek relief. Then it offers you the delusion of ATTACK as a solution.

The ego does not know the difference between grandeur and grandiosity, because it does not know the difference between miracle-impulses and ego-alien beliefs of its own. We once said that the ego IS aware of threat, but does NOT make distinctions between two ENTIRELY different kinds of threat to its existence. Its own PROFOUND sense of vulnerability renders it incapable of judgment, EXCEPT in terms of attack. When it experiences threat, its ONLY decision is whether to attack NOW, or withdraw to attack later. If you ACCEPT its offer of grandiosity, it will attack immediately. If you do not, it will wait.

The ego is immobilized in the presence of God's grandeur, because HIS grandeur establishes YOUR freedom. Even the faintest hint of your reality literally drives the ego from your mind, because of the complete lack of investment in it. Grandeur is totally WITHOUT illusion, and because it is real, it is compellingly convincing. But the conviction of reality will not REMAIN with you, UNLESS YOU DO NOT ALLOW THE EGO TO ATTACK IT.

Remember always that you cannot be anywhere EXCEPT in the Mind of God. When you FORGET this, you WILL despair, and you WILL attack. The ego depends SOLELY on your willingness to tolerate it. But if you are willing to look upon your grandeur, you CANNOT despair, and therefore you CANNOT want the ego. Your grandeur is God's ANSWER to the ego, because it is true. Littleness and grandeur cannot co-exist, nor is it possible for them to alternate in your awareness. Littleness and grandiosity can and MUST, since both are untrue, and therefore on the same level. Being the level of shift, it is experienced as shifting, and extremes are its essential characteristic.

But truth and littleness are DENIALS of each other, and grandeur IS truth. Truth does not vacillate; it is ALWAYS true. When grandeur slips away from you, YOU HAVE REPLACED IT WITH SOMETHING YOU HAVE MADE. Perhaps it is the belief in littleness; perhaps it is the belief in grandiosity. But it MUST be insane, because it is NOT TRUE. Your grandeur will NEVER deceive you, but your illusions ALWAYS will. Illusions ARE deceptions.

You CANNOT triumph, but you ARE exalted. And in your exalted state, you seek others like you, and rejoice with them. It is easy to distinguish grandeur from grandiosity, simply because love is returned, but pride is not. Pride will not produce miracles, and therefore will deprive you of the true witnesses to your reality. Truth is not obscure nor hidden, but its obviousness to YOU lies in the joy you bring to its witnesses, WHO SHOW IT TO YOU. They attest to your grandeur, but they cannot attest to pride because pride is not shared.

God WANTS you to behold what He created, because it is HIS joy. Can your grandeur be arrogant, when God HIMSELF witnesses to it? And what can be real that has NO witnesses? What good can come of it? And if no good can come of it, the Holy Spirit cannot use it. What He cannot TRANSFORM to the Will of God does not exist at all. Grandiosity is delusional because it is used to REPLACE your grandeur. Yet what God has created cannot BE replaced.

God is incomplete without you, simply because His grandeur is total, and you cannot BE missing from it. You are altogether irreplaceable in the Mind of God. No one else can fill your part of it, and while you leave your part of it empty, your eternal place merely waits for your return. God, through His Voice, reminds you of it, and God Himself keeps your extensions safe within it. But YOU do not know them, until you return TO them.

You CANNOT replace the Kingdom, and you cannot replace yourself. God, Who KNOWS your value, would not have it so, and so it is NOT so. Your value is in GOD's Mind, and therefore NOT in yours alone. To accept yourself as He created you CANNOT be arrogant, because it is the DENIAL of arrogance. To accept your littleness IS arrogant, because it means that you believe that YOUR evaluation of yourself is TRUER THAN GOD's. But if truth is indivisible, then YOUR evaluation of yourself MUST BE GOD's.

Final Lessons

Our final lessons will be left as free of words as possible. We use them but at the beginning of our practicing, and only to remind us that we seek to go beyond them. Let us turn to Him Who leads the way and makes our footsteps sure. To Him we leave these lessons, as to Him we give our lives henceforth. For we would not return again to the belief in sin, which made the world seem ugly and unsafe, attacking and destroying, dangerous in all its ways and treacherous beyond the hope of trust and the escape from pain.

His is the only way to find the peace that God has given us. It is His way that everyone must travel in the end, because it is this ending God Himself appointed. In the dream of time it seems to be far off. And yet, in truth, it is already here; already serving us as gracious guidance in the way to go. Let us together follow in this way that truth points out to us. And let us be the leaders of our many brothers who are seeking for the way but find it not.

And to this purpose let us dedicate our minds, directing all our thoughts to serve the function of salvation. Unto us the aim is given to forgive the world. It is the goal that God has given us. It is His ending to the dream we seek, and not our own. For all that we forgive we will not fail to recognize as part of God Himself. And thus His memory is given back completely and complete.

It is our function to remember Him on earth, as it is given us to be His own completion in reality. So let us not forget our goal is shared. For it is that remembrance which contains the memory of God, and points the way to Him and to the Heaven of His peace. And shall we not forgive our brother, who can offer this to us? He is the way, the truth and life that show the way to us. In him resides salvation, offered us through our forgiveness given unto him.

We will not end this year without the gift our Father promised to His holy Son. We are forgiven now, and we are saved from all the wrath we thought belonged to God, and found it was a dream. We are restored to sanity, in which we understand that anger is insane, attack is mad, and vengeance merely foolish fantasy. We have been saved from wrath because we learned we were mistaken. Nothing more than that. And is a Father angry at His Son because he failed to understand the truth?

Section 9 - The Principle of Salvation

Here is the ONLY principle salvation needs. Nor is it necessary that your faith in it be strong, unswerving, and without attack from all beliefs opposed to it. You HAVE no fixed allegiance. But remember salvation is not needed by the saved. You are NOT called upon to do what one divided still against himself WOULD find impossible. Have little faith that wisdom COULD be found in such a state of mind. But be you thankful that only little faith is ASKED of you. What BUT a little faith remains to those who still believe in sin? What COULD they know of Heaven and the justice of the saved?

There is a kind of justice in salvation of which the world knows nothing. To the world, justice and VENGEANCE are the same, for sinners see justice ONLY as their punishment, perhaps sustained by someone ELSE, but NOT escaped. The laws of sin DEMAND a victim. WHO it may be makes little difference. But death MUST be the cost and MUST be paid. This is NOT justice, but insanity. Yet how could justice BE defined WITHOUT insanity, where love means hate, and death is seen as victory and triumph over eternity and timelessness and life?

You who know not of justice still can ask, and learn the answer. Justice looks on all in the same way. It is NOT just that one should lack for what another has. For that is vengeance, in WHATEVER form it takes. Justice demands NO sacrifice, for ANY sacrifice is made that sin MAY BE PRESERVED and KEPT. It is a payment offered for the cost of sin, BUT NOT THE TOTAL COST. The rest is taken from another, to be laid beside your LITTLE payment, to "atone" for all that you would keep and NOT give up. So is the victim seen as PARTLY you, with someone ELSE by far the greater part. And in the TOTAL cost, the greater his, the less is yours. And justice, being blind, is satisfied by being paid, it matters not by whom.

It is extremely hard for those who still believe sin meaningful to understand the Holy Spirit's justice. They believe He shares their OWN confusion, and can NOT avoid the vengeance that their own belief in justice MUST entail. And so they fear the Holy Spirit, and perceive the wrath of God in Him. They are unjust indeed to Him. Nor can they trust Him NOT to strike them dead with lightening bolts torn from the fires of Heaven by God's Own angry hand. They DO believe that Heaven is hell, and ARE afraid of love. And deep suspicion and the chill of fear come over them when they are told that they have NEVER sinned. Their world DEPENDS on sin's stability. And they perceive the "threat" of what God KNOWS as justice to be more destructive to themselves and to their world than vengeance, which they understand and love.

So do they think the LOSS of sin a curse. And flee the blessing of the Holy Spirit as if He were a messenger from hell, sent from above in treachery and guile, to work God's vengeance on them in the guise of a deliverer and friend. What COULD He be to them except a devil dressed to deceive, within an angel's cloak? And what escape has He for them, except a door to hell that SEEMS to look like Heaven's gate? Yet justice cannot punish those who ask for punishment, but have a Judge Who knows that they are wholly innocent in truth. In justice He is BOUND to set them free, and GIVE them all the honor they deserve, and have denied themselves because they are NOT fair, and CANNOT understand that they ARE innocent.

Love is NOT understandable to sinners. BECAUSE they think that justice is SPLIT OFF from love, and stands for something else. And thus is love perceived as weak and vengeance strong. For love has LOST when judgment left its side, and is too weak to SAVE from punishment. But vengeance WITHOUT love has GAINED in strength by being separate and apart from love. And what BUT vengeance now can help and save, while love stands feebly by, with helpless hands, bereft of justice and vitality, and powerless to save? What can Love ask of you who think that all of this is true? Could He, in justice AND in love believe in your confusion you HAVE much to give?

You are NOT asked to trust Him far. No further than what you SEE He offers you, and what you recognize you COULD not give yourself. In God's Own justice does He recognize all you deserve, but understands as well that you can NOT accept it for yourself. It is His Special Function to hold out to you the gifts the innocent DESERVE. And every one that you accept brings joy to Him AS WELL as you. He knows that Heaven is richer made by each one you accept. And God rejoices as His Son receives what loving justice KNOWS to be his due. For love and justice are NOT different. BECAUSE they are the same, does mercy stand at God's right Hand, and GIVE the Son of God the power to forgive HIMSELF of sin.

To him who merits EVERYTHING, how can it be that ANYTHING is kept FROM him? For that would be injustice, and unfair indeed to all the holiness that IS in him, however much he recognize it not. God knows of NO injustice. He would not allow His Son be judged by those who seek his death, and COULD not see his worth at all. What honest witnesses could THEY call forth, to speak on his behalf? And who would come to plead FOR him, and not AGAINST his life? No justice would be given him by you. Yet God ensured that justice WOULD be done unto the Son He loves, and would protect from ALL unfairness you might seek to offer, believing vengeance IS his proper due.

As specialness cares not who pays the cost of sin, so it BE paid, the Holy Spirit heeds not who looks on innocence at last, provided it IS seen and recognized. For just ONE witness is enough, if he sees truly. Simple justice asks no more. Of each one does the Holy Spirit ask if he will be that one, so justice may return to love, and there be satisfied. Each special function He allots is but for this; that each one learn that love and justice are NOT separate. And both are strengthened by their union with each other. Without love is justice prejudiced and weak. And love WITHOUT justice is impossible. For love is fair, and cannot chasten without cause. What cause can BE to warrant an attack upon the innocent? In justice, then, does love correct mistakes, but NOT in vengeance. For that would be unjust to innocence.

You can be perfect witness to the power of love AND justice, if you understand it is impossible the Son of God COULD merit vengeance. You need NOT perceive, in every circumstance, that this is true. Nor need you look to your experience WITHIN the world, which is but shadows of all that is REALLY happening within yourself. The understanding that you need comes NOT of you, but from a larger Self, so great and holy that He COULD not doubt His innocence. Your special function is a call to Him, that He may smile on you whose sinlessness He shares. HIS understanding will be YOURS. And so the Holy Spirit's Special Function has been fulfilled. God's Son has found a witness unto his sinlessness, and NOT his sin. How LITTLE need you give the Holy Spirit, that simple justice may be given YOU.

Without impartiality there IS no justice. How CAN specialness be just? Judge not because you cannot, NOT because you are a miserable sinner too. How can the special REALLY understand that justice is the same for everyone? To take from one to give another MUST be an injustice to them both, since they are equal in the Holy Spirit's sight. Their Father gave the SAME inheritance to both. Who would have more OR less is not aware that he has everything. He is no judge of what MUST be another's due, because he thinks HE is deprived. And so MUST he be envious, and try to TAKE AWAY from whom he judges. He is NOT impartial, and CANNOT fairly see another's rights BECAUSE his own have been obscured to him.

You have the right to all the universe; to perfect peace, complete deliverance from ALL effects of sin, and to the life eternal, joyous, and complete in EVERY way, as God appointed for His holy Son. This is the ONLY justice Heaven knows, and all the Holy Spirit brings to earth. Your special function shows you nothing else BUT perfect justice CAN prevail for you. And you ARE safe from vengeance in ALL forms. The world deceives, but it can NOT replace God's justice with a version of its own. For only love IS just, and CAN perceive what justice must accord the Son of God. Let love decide, and never fear that you, in your unfairness, will deprive yourself of what GOD's justice has allotted you.

Section 9 - The Eternal Fixation

The concept of "set" is among the better psychological percepts. Actually, it is used quite frequently in the Bible, and also here, under many different terms. "God will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed (or set) on Thee because he trusteth in Thee."

The pronouns here are confusing without explanation, and the attempt to shift "Thee" to "Him" is a misinterpretation. The statement means that God's peace is set in the Holy Spirit, because it is fixed on God. It is also fixed in you. You, then, ARE fixed in the peace of God.

The concept of "fixation" is a very helpful one, which Freud understood perfectly. Unfortunately, he lost his understanding because he was afraid, and as you know all too well, fear is incompatible with good judgment. Fear DISTORTS thinking, and therefore DISorders thought. Freud's system of thought was extremely ingenious, because Freud was extremely ingenious. A mind MUST endow its thoughts with its own attributes. This is its inherent STRENGTH, even though it may misuse its power.

A man who knows what fixation REALLY means and does NOT yield to it is terribly afraid. Fixation is the pull of God, on whom your mind IS fixed because of the Holy Spirit's irrevocable set. "Irrevocable" means "cannot be called back or redirected." The irrevocable nature of the Holy Spirit's set is the basis for its unequivocal voice. The Holy Spirit NEVER changes its mind. Clarity of thought CANNOT occur under conditions of vacillation. Unless a mind is fixed in its purpose, it is NOT clear. But clarity literally means the state of light, and enlightenment IS understanding. It stands UNDER perception because you have denied it as the REAL foundation of thought. This is the basis for ALL delusional systems.

The concept of fixation, as Freud saw it, has a number of real learning advantages. First, it recognizes that man CAN be fixated at a point in development which does NOT accord with a point in time. This clearly could have been a means toward real release from the time belief, had Freud pursued it with an open mind. But Freud suffered all his life from refusal to allow eternity to dawn upon his mind, and enlighten it truly. As a result, he overlooked NOW entirely, and merely saw the continuity of past and future.

Second, although he misinterpreted what the Holy Spirit told him, or better, reminded him of, he was too honest to deny more than he had to, to keep his fear in tolerable bounds, as he perceived the situation. Therefore, he EMPHASIZED that the point in development at which the mind is fixated is more real to ITSELF than the external reality with which it DISagrees. This again could have been a powerful RELEASE mechanism, had Freud not decided to involve it in a strong defense system because he perceived it as an attack.

But throughout his thought-system, the "threat" of fixation remained, and could never be completely eliminated by any living human being anywhere. Essentially, this was the basis of his pessimism. This was personally as well as theoretically the case. Freud tried every means his very inventive mind could devise to set up a form of therapy which could enable the mind to escape from fixation forever, even though he KNEW this was impossible. The knowledge plagued his belief in his own thought-system at every turn, because he was both an honest man and a healer. He was therefore only PARTIALLY insane at the perceptual level, and was unable to relinquish the hope of release even though he could not cope with it.

The reason for this amount of detail is because YOU are in the same position. You were eternally fixated on God in your creation, and the pull of this fixation is so strong that you will never overcome it. The reason is perfectly clear. The fixation is on a level that is so high that it cannot BE surmounted. You are ALWAYS being pulled back to your Creator because you belong in Him.

Do you REALLY believe you can make a voice that can drown out His? Do you REALLY believe that you can devise a thought-system which can separate you from His? Do you REALLY believe that you can plan for your safety and joy better than He can? You need be neither careful nor careless. You need merely cast all your cares upon Him because He careth for YOU. You ARE His care because He loves you. His voice reminds you always that all hope is yours BECAUSE of His care.

You are asked merely to return to God the mind as HE created it. He asks you only for what He gave, knowing that this giving will heal YOU. Sanity IS wholeness. And the sanity of your brothers IS yours. Why should you listen to the endless insane calls which you think are made upon you, when you KNOW the voice of God Himself is in you? God commended His Spirit to you, and asks that you commend yours to Him. He wills to keep it in perfect peace because you are of one mind and Spirit with Him.

Excluding yourself from the Atonement is the ego's last-ditch defense of its own existence. It reflects both the ego's need to separate, and your willingness to side with its separateness. This willingness means that YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE HEALED. When I told Bill that there is "just one more thing," he heard me very well. I hope he will hear me as well now. His intelligent mis-hearing of "river" as "rivet" showed that, even though he wanted release, he was not able to cope with it at the time.

But the time IS now. You have not been asked to work out the Plan of Salvation yourselves, because, as I told you before, the Remedy is NOT of your making. God Himself gave you the perfect correction for everything you have made which is not in accord with His Holy Will. I have made His Plan perfectly clear and perfectly explicit to you, and have also told you of your part in His Plan and how urgent it is that you fulfill it.

There is time for delay, but there need not be. God weeps at the sacrifice of His children who believe they are lost to Him. The "one more thing" that Bill must learn is merely that he is NOT the one more. He is both ONE and AT ONE. If he will learn this NOW, he will be willing in accord with the last judgment, which is really only the Biblical reminder of the inevitability of self-INCLUSION. This is what "Physician, heal thyself" really means. Bill has frequently observed for HIMSELF that this is hard to do. He has, however, been perfectly aware of JUST what YOU should do about it.

You might ask him for me whether he does not think he might be dissociating HIMSELF from his own awareness, since he is so clear about the remedy for YOU. You might also remind him that to whatever extent he separates himself from you, he is separating himself from ME. This IS a collaborative venture. Let me therefore return his own ideas to him, so that you can share them and thus help each other to help me.

But let me first remind you of something I told you myself. Whenever you are not wholly joyous, it is because you have reacted with a lack of love to some Soul which God created. Perceiving this as sin, you become defensive because you EXPECT ATTACK. The decision to react in that way, however, was YOURS, and can therefore be undone. It CANNOT be undone by repentance in the usual sense, because this implies guilt. If you allow yourself to feel guilty, you will reinforce the error, rather than allowing it to be undone FOR you.

Decisions CANNOT be difficult. This is obvious if you realize that you must ALREADY have made a decision NOT to be wholly joyous if that is what you feel. Therefore, the first step in the undoing is to recognize that YOU ACTIVELY DECIDED WRONGLY, BUT CAN AS ACTIVELY DECIDE OTHERWISE.

Be very firm with yourselves in this, and keep yourselves fully aware of the fact that the UNDOING process, which does NOT come from you, is nevertheless WITHIN you because God placed it there. YOUR part is merely to return your thinking to the point at which the error was made, and give it over to the Atonement in peace. Say to yourselves the following, as sincerely as you can, remembering that the Holy Spirit will respond fully to your slightest invitation:

I must have decided wrongly because I am NOT at peace.

I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.

I WILL to decide otherwise, because I WANT to be at peace.

I do NOT feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo ALL

the consequences of my wrong decision IF I WILL LET HIM.

I WILL to let Him by allowing Him to decide for God for me.

Lesson 186 "Salvation of the world depends on me."

Here is the statement that will one day take all arrogance away from every mind. Here is the thought of true humility which holds no function as your own but that which has been given you. It offers your acceptance of a part assigned to you, without insisting on another role. It does not judge your proper role. It but acknowledges the Will of God is done on earth as well as Heaven. It unites all wills on earth in Heaven's plan to save the world, restoring it to Heaven's peace.

Today's idea may seem quite sobering until you see its meaning. All it says is that your Father still remembers you, and offers you the perfect trust He holds in you who are His Son. It does not ask that you be different in any way from what you are. What could humility request but this? And what could arrogance deny but this? Today we will not shrink from our assignment on the specious grounds that modesty is outraged. It is pride that would deny the Call of God Himself.

All false humility we lay aside today, that we may listen to God's Voice reveal to us what He would have us do. We do not doubt our adequacy for the function He will offer us. We will be certain only that He knows our strengths, our wisdom and our holiness. And if He deems us worthy, so we are. It is but arrogance that judges otherwise.

Arrogance makes an image of yourself that is not real. It is this image which quails and retreats in terror as the Voice for God assures you that you have the strength, the wisdom and the holiness to go beyond all images. You are not weak, as is the image of yourself. You are not ignorant and helpless. Sin can not tarnish the truth in you, and misery can come not near the holy home of God.

All this the Voice for God relates to you. And as He speaks, the image trembles and seeks to attack the threat it does not know, sensing its basis crumble. Let it go. Salvation of the world depends on you, and not upon this little pile of dust. What can it tell the holy Son of God? Why need he be concerned with it at all?

And so we find our peace. We will accept the function God has given us, for all illusions rest upon the weird belief that we can make another for ourselves. Our self-made roles are shifting, and they seem to change from mourner to ecstatic bliss of love and loving. We can laugh or weep, and greet the day with welcome or with tears. Our very being seems to change as we experience a thousand shifts in mood, and our emotions raise us high indeed or dash us to the ground in hopelessness.

Is this the Son of God? Could He create such instability and call it Son? He Who is changeless shares His attributes with His creation. All the images His Son appears to make have no effect on what he is. They blow across his mind like wind-swept leaves that form a patterning an instant, break apart to group again, and scamper off. Or like mirages seen above a desert, rising from the dust.

These unsubstantial images will go, and leave your mind unclouded and serene when you accept the function given you. The images you make give rise to but conflicting goals, impermanent and vague, uncertain and ambiguous. Who could be constant in his efforts, or direct his energies and concentrated drive toward goals like these? The functions which the world esteems are so uncertain that they change ten times an hour at their most secure. What hope of gain can rest on goals like this?

In lovely contrast, certain as the sun's return each morning to dispel the night, your truly given function stands out clear and wholly unambiguous. There is no doubt of its validity. It comes from One Who knows no error. And His Voice is certain of Its messages. They will not change nor be in conflict. All of them point to one goal, and one you can attain. Your plan may be impossible, but God's can never fail because He is its Source.

Do as His Voice directs. And if It asks a thing of you that seems impossible, remember Who it is that asks and who would make denial. Then consider this; which is more likely to be right? The Voice that speaks for the Creator of all things, Who knows all things exactly as they are, or a distorted image of yourself, confused, bewildered, inconsistent and unsure of everything? Let not its voice direct you. Hear instead a certain Voice Which tells you of a function given you by your Creator, Who remembers you and urges that you now remember Him.

His gentle Voice is calling from the known to the unknowing. He would comfort you although He knows no sorrow. He would make a restitution though He is complete; a gift to you although He knows that you have everything already. He has Thoughts which answer every need His Son perceives, although He sees them not. For Love must give, and what is given in His Name takes on the form most useful in a world of form.

These are the forms which never can deceive, although they come from Formlessness Itself. Forgiveness is an earthly form of love which as it is in Heaven has no form. Yet what is needed here is given here as it is needed. In this form you can fulfill your function even here, although what love will mean to you when formlessness has been restored to you is greater still. Salvation of the world depends on you who can forgive. Such is your function here.

Section 3 - The Coming of the Guest

Why would you not perceive it as RELEASE from suffering to learn that you are free? Why would you not ACCLAIM the truth, instead of looking on it as an enemy? Why does an EASY path, so clearly marked it is impossible to lose the way seem thorny, rough, and far too difficult for you to follow? Is it not because you see it as the road to hell, instead of looking on it as a simple way, without a sacrifice or ANY loss, to find yourself in Heaven and in God? Until you realize you give up NOTHING; until you understand there IS no loss; you will have some regrets about the way that you have chosen. And you will NOT see the many gains your choice has offered you.

Yet, though you do not see them, they are there. Their CAUSE has been effected, and they MUST be present were their cause has entered in. You have accepted healing's Cause, and so it MUST be you are healed. And, being healed, the power to heal must ALSO now be yours. The miracle is not a separate thing that happens suddenly, as an effect without a cause, nor is it, in itself, a cause. But where its Cause is MUST it be. Now IS it caused, though not as yet perceived. And its effects are THERE, though not yet seen. Look inward now, and you will not behold a reason for regret, but cause indeed for glad rejoicing and for hope of peace.

It HAS been hopeless to attempt to find the hope of peace upon a battleground. It HAS been futile to demand escape from sin and pain of what was made to serve the function of RETAINING sin and pain. For pain and sin are ONE illusion, as are hate and fear, attack and guilt but one. Where they are causeless, their effects ARE gone, and love MUST come wherever they are not. Why are you not rejoicing? You ARE free of pain and sickness, misery and loss, and ALL effects of hatred and attack. No more is pain your friend and guilt your god, and you should WELCOME the effects of love.

You do not see how much you now can GIVE, because of everything you have received. Yet He Who entered in but waits for YOU to come where you invited HIM to be. There is no other place where He can find His host, nor where His host can meet with Him. And nowhere else His gifts of peace and joy, and all the happiness His Presence brings can be obtained. For they are where He is that brought them with Him, that they might be yours. You can not see your Guest, but you CAN see the gifts He brought. And when you LOOK on them, you will believe His Presence MUST be there. For what you now can do could not BE done without the love and grace His Presence holds.

Such is the promise of the living God; His Son have life, and every living thing is part of him, and nothing else has life. What YOU have "given" life is NOT alive, and symbolizes but your wish to be alive APART from life, alive in death, with death perceived as life, and living, death. Confusion follows on confusion here, for ON confusion has this world been based, and there is nothing else it rests upon. Its basis does not change, although it SEEMS to be in constant change. But what is that except the state confusion really MEANS? Stability to those who are confused is meaningless. And shift and change become the law on which they predicate their lives.

The body does not change. It represents the larger dream that change is POSSIBLE. To change is to attain a state unlike the one in which you found yourself before. There IS no change in immortality, and Heaven knows it not. Yet here on earth, it has a double purpose, for it can be made to teach opposing things. And they reflect the teacher who is teaching them. The body can APPEAR to change with time, with sickness or with health, and with events that seem to alter it. And this but means the mind remains unchanged in its belief of what the PURPOSE of the body is.

Sickness is a demand the body be a thing that it is not. Its NOTHINGNESS is guarantee that it can NOT be sick. In your demand that it be MORE than this lies the idea of sickness. For it asks that God be LESS than all He really is. What, then, becomes of YOU, for it IS you of whom the sacrifice is asked? For He is told that part of him BELONGS to Him no longer. He must sacrifice your self, and in His sacrifice are YOU made more, and He is lessened by the loss of you. And what is GONE from Him becomes your god, PROTECTING you from being part of Him.

The body that is asked to be a god WILL be attacked, because its nothingness has not been recognized. And so it seems to be a thing with power IN ITSELF. As something, it CAN be perceived, and thought to feel and act, and hold you in its grasp as prisoner to itself. And it CAN fail to be what you demanded it to be. And you WILL hate it for its littleness, unmindful that the failure does not lie in that it is not MORE than it should be, but ONLY in YOUR failure to perceive that it is nothing. Yet its nothingness IS your salvation, from which you would flee.

As something, is the body asked to be God's enemy, replacing what He is with littleness and limit and despair. It is HIS loss you celebrate when you behold the body as a thing you love, or look upon it as a thing you hate. For if He be the sum of everything, then what is NOT in Him does not exist. And His completion IS its nothingness. Your Savior is NOT dead, nor does he dwell in what was built as temple unto death. He lives in God, and it is this that makes him Savior unto YOU, and ONLY this. His body's nothingness releases yours from sickness and from death. For what is yours cannot be more NOR less than what is his.

Section 9 - The Decision to Forget

Unless you KNOW something, you CANNOT dissociate it. Knowledge therefore PRECEDES dissociation, and dissociation is nothing more than a DECISION TO FORGET. What has been FORGOTTEN then appears to be fearful, but ONLY because the dissociation was an ATTACK ON TRUTH. You are fearful BECAUSE you have forgotten. And you have REPLACED your knowledge by an awareness of dreams, BECAUSE YOU ARE AFRAID OF YOUR DISSOCIATION, NOT of what you have dissociated. Even in this world's therapy, when dissociated material is ACCEPTED, it ceases to be fearful, for the laws of mind always hold.

But to give up the dissociation of REALITY brings more than merely lack of fear. In THIS decision lie joy, and peace, and the glory of creation. Offer the Holy Spirit only your will to remember, for He retains the knowledge of God and of you FOR you, waiting for your acceptance. Give up gladly EVERYTHING that would stand in the way of your remembering, for God is in your memory, and His Voice will tell you that you are part of Him when you are willing to remember Him and know your own reality again. Let nothing in this world delay your remembering of Him, for in this remembering is the knowledge of YOURSELF.

To remember is merely to restore to your mind WHAT IS ALREADY THERE. You do not make what you remember; you merely accept again what has BEEN made AND REJECTED. The ability to ACCEPT truth in this world is the perceptual counterpart of creating in the Kingdom. God WILL do His part if you will do yours, and HIS return in exchange for yours IS the exchange of knowledge for perception. NOTHING is beyond His will for you. But signify your will to remember Him, and behold! He will give you everything but for your asking.

Whenever you attack, you are denying YOURSELF. You are specifically teaching yourself that you are NOT what you are. YOUR denial of reality precludes ACCEPTANCE of God's gift, BECAUSE YOU HAVE ACCEPTED SOMETHING ELSE IN ITS PLACE. If you understand that the misuse of defenses always constitutes an attack on truth, and truth is God, you will realize why this is ALWAYS fearful. If you further recognize that you are PART of God, you will also understand why it is that YOU ALWAYS ATTACK YOURSELF FIRST.

ALL attack is self attack. It cannot BE anything else. Arising from your OWN decision NOT to be what you ARE, IT IS AN ATTACK ON YOUR IDENTIFICATION. Attack is thus the way in which your identification is lost, because, when you attack, you MUST have forgotten what you are. And if your reality is God's, when YOU attack, you are not remembering HIM. This is not because He is gone, but because you are ACTIVELY WILLING NOT TO REMEMBER HIM.

If you realized the complete havoc this makes of your peace of mind, you COULD not make such an insane decision. You make it only because you still believe that it can GET YOU SOMETHING YOU WANT. It follows, then, that you want something OTHER than peace of mind, and you have not considered what it must be. Yet the logical outcome of your decision is perfectly clear, if you will LOOK at it. By deciding AGAINST your reality, you have made yourself vigilant AGAINST God and His Kingdom. And it is THIS vigilance that makes you afraid to remember Him.

You have NOT attacked God, and you DO love Him. Can you change your reality? No-one can will to destroy himself. When you think you are attacking your SELF, it is a sure sign that you hate what you think you are. And this, and ONLY this, can BE attacked by you. What you THINK you are CAN be hateful, and what this strange image makes you do can be very destructive. The destruction is no more real than the image, but those who make idols DO worship them. The idols are nothing, but their worshippers are the Sons of God in sickness.

God would have them released from their sickness, and returned to His Mind. He will not limit your power to help them, because He has given it TO you. Do not be afraid of it, because it is your salvation. What Comforter can there be for the sick children of God except His power through YOU? Remember that it does not matter where in the Sonship He is accepted. He is ALWAYS accepted for all, and when your mind receives Him, the remembrance of Him awakens throughout the Sonship.

Heal your brothers simply by accepting God FOR them. Your minds are not separate, and God has only one channel for healing, because He has but one Son. His remaining communication link with all His Children joins them together, and them to Him. To be aware of this is to heal them, because it is the awareness that no one is separate, and so no one is sick. To believe that a Son of God can be sick is to believe that PART OF GOD CAN SUFFER.

Love CANNOT suffer, because it cannot attack. The remembrance of love therefore brings invulnerability with it. Do not side with sickness in the presence of a Son of God, even if HE believes in it, for YOUR acceptance of God in him ACKNOWLEDGES the love of God which he has forgotten. Your recognition of him as PART OF GOD teaches him the truth about himself, WHICH HE IS DENYING. Would you STRENGTHEN his denial of God, and thus lose sight of YOURSELF? Or would you remind him of his wholeness, and remember your Creator WITH him?

To believe a Son of God is sick is to worship the same idol he does. God created love, NOT idolatry. ALL forms of idolatry are caricatures of creation, taught by sick minds, who are too divided to know that Creation SHARES power, and NEVER usurps it. Sickness is idolatry, because it is the belief that POWER CAN BE TAKEN FROM YOU. But this is impossible, because you are part of God, Who IS all power. A sick god MUST be an idol, made in the image of what its maker thinks HE is. And that is exactly what the ego DOES perceive in a Son of God; -- a sick god, self-created, self-sufficient, very vicious, and very vulnerable.

Is this the idol you would worship? Is this the image you would be vigilant to SAVE? Are you REALLY afraid of losing THIS? Look calmly at the logical conclusion of the ego's thought-system, and judge whether its offering is really what you want, for this IS what it offers you. To obtain THIS, you are willing to attack the Divinity of your brothers, and thus lose sight of YOURS. And you are willing to keep it hidden, to protect this idol, which you think will save you from dangers WHICH THE IDOL ITSELF STANDS FOR, but which do not exist.

There are no idolaters in the Kingdom, but there is great appreciation for every Soul which God created, because of the calm knowledge that each one is part of Him. God's Son knows no idols, but He DOES know His Father. Health in this world is the counterpart of value in Heaven. It is not my merit that I contribute to you, but my love, for you do not value yourselves. When you do not value yourself you become sick, but MY value of you can heal you, because the value of God's Son is one.

I CAN heal you, because I KNOW you. I know your value FOR you, and it is this value that makes you whole. A whole mind is not idolatrous, and does not know of conflicting laws. I will heal you merely because I have only ONE message, and it is true. Your faith in it will make you whole, when you have faith in me. I do not bring God's message with deception, and you will learn this as you learn that you ALWAYS receive as much as you ACCEPT. You could accept peace NOW, for everyone you meet, and offer them perfect freedom from ALL illusions, BECAUSE YOU HEARD. But have no other gods before Him, or you will NOT hear.

God is not jealous of the gods you make, but YOU are. You would save them and serve them, because you believe that THEY MADE YOU. You think they are your father, because you are projecting onto them the fearful fact that YOU MADE THEM TO REPLACE GOD. But when they seem to speak to you, remember that NOTHING can replace God, and whatever replacements you have attempted ARE nothing. Very simply, then, you may BELIEVE you are afraid of nothingNESS, but you are REALLY afraid of NOTHING. And in THAT awareness you ARE healed.

You can give up the god of sickness for your brothers; in fact, you would HAVE to do so, if you give him up for yourself. For if you see him anywhere, YOU are accepting him. And if you accept him, you WILL bow down and worship him, because HE WAS MADE AS GOD's REPLACEMENT. He is the belief that YOU CAN CHOOSE WHICH GOD IS REAL. Although it is perfectly clear that this has nothing to do with REALITY, it is equally clear that it has EVERYTHING to do with REALITY AS YOU PERCEIVE IT.

Section 4 - The Voice for God

It is possible even in this world to hear ONLY that voice and no other. It takes effort and great willingness to learn. It is the final lesson that I learned, and God's Sons are as equal as learners as they are as Souls. The voice of the Holy Spirit IS the call to Atonement, or the restoration of the integrity of the mind. When the Atonement is complete and the whole Sonship is healed, there will be no call to return, but what God creates is eternal. The Holy Spirit will remain with the Sons of God, to bless THEIR creations and keep them in the light of joy.

You ARE the Kingdom of Heaven, but you have let the belief in darkness enter your minds, and so you need a new light. The Holy Spirit is the radiance that you must let to banish the idea of darkness. His is the glory before which dissociation falls away, and the Kingdom of Heaven breaks through into its own.

God is not in you; YOU are part of HIM. When you willed to leave Him, He gave you a voice to speak FOR Him, because He could no longer share His knowledge with you without hindrance. Direct communication was broken, because you had made another voice through another will. The Holy Spirit calls you both to remember and forget. You have chosen to be in a state of opposition, in which opposites are possible. As a result, there ARE choices which you must make. In the holy state, the will is free in the sense that its CREATIVE power is unlimited, but choice itself is meaningless.

The voice of the Holy Spirit does not command, because it is incapable of arrogance. It does not demand, because it does not seek control. It does not overcome, because it does not attack. It merely REMINDS. It is compelling only because of what it reminds you OF. It brings to your mind the OTHER way, remaining quiet even in the midst of the turmoil you have made for yourselves. The voice for God is always quiet, because it speaks of peace. Yet peace is stronger than war, because it heals. War is DIVISION, not increase. No-one gains from strife.

"What profiteth a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own Soul?" This means that if he listens to the wrong voice, he has LOST SIGHT of his Soul. He CANNOT lose it, but he CAN not know it. It is therefore LOST TO HIM, until he chooses right. The Holy Spirit is your guide in choosing. He is the part of your mind which ALWAYS speaks for the right choice, because he speaks for God. He is your remaining communication with God, which you can interrupt, but cannot destroy.

The Holy Spirit is the way in which God's will can be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Both Heaven and Earth are in YOU, because the call of both are in your wills, and therefore in your minds. The voice for God comes from your own altars to Him. These altars are not THINGS. They are DEVOTIONS. But you have other devotions now. Your divided devotion has given you the two voices, and you must choose at which altar you will to serve. The call you answer now IS an evaluation, because it is a DECISION. The decision itself is very simple. It is made on the basis of which call is worth more to you.

My mind will always be like yours, because we were created as equals. It was only my DECISION that gave me all power in Heaven and earth. My only gift to you is to help you make the same decision FOR YOURSELF. The will for this decision is the will to SHARE it, because the decision itself IS the decision to share. It is MADE BY GIVING, and is therefore the one act of mind that resembles true creation.

You understand the role of models in the learning process, and the importance of the models you value and choose to follow in determining what you will to learn. I am your model for decision. By deciding for God, I showed you that this decision CAN be made, and that YOU can make it. I promised you that the mind that made the decision for me is also in YOU, and that you can let it change you just as it changed me. This mind is unequivocal, because it hears only ONE VOICE, and answers in ONE WAY.

You are the light of the world with me. Rest does not come from sleeping, but from waking. The Holy Spirit is the call to awake and be glad. The world is very tired, because it is the IDEA of weariness. Our task is the joyous one of waking it to the call for God. Everyone will answer the call of the Holy Spirit, or the Sonship cannot be as one. What better vocation could there be for any part of the Kingdom than to restore it to the perfect integration that can make it whole?

Hear only this through the Holy Spirit within you, and teach your brothers to listen as I am teaching you. When you are tempted by the wrong voice, call on me to remind you how to heal by sharing my decision and MAKING IT STRONGER. As we share this goal, we increase its power to attract the whole Sonship, and to bring it back into the Oneness in which it was created.

Remember that "Yoke" means "join together," and "burden" means message. Let us reconsider the biblical statement "my yoke is easy and my burden light" in this way. Let us join together, for my message is Light. I came to your minds because you had grown vaguely aware of the fact that there is another way, or another voice. Having given this invitation to the Holy Spirit, I could come to provide the model for HOW TO THINK.

Psychology has become the study of BEHAVIOR, but no-one denies the basic law that behavior is a response to MOTIVATION, and motivation is will. I have enjoined you to behave as I behaved, but we must respond to the same mind to do this. This mind is the Holy Spirit, whose will is for God always. It teaches you how to keep me as the model for your thought, and behave like me as a result.

The power of our joint motivation is beyond belief, but NOT beyond accomplishment. What we can accomplish together has no limits, because the call for God IS the call to the unlimited. Child of God, my message is for YOU, to hear and give away as you answer the Holy Spirit within you.

Section 5 - Self-Concept versus Self

The learning of the world is built upon a concept of the self adjusted to the world's reality. It fits it well. For this an image is that suits a world of shadows and illusions. Here it walks at home, where what it sees is one with it. The building of a concept of the self is what the learning of the world is FOR. This is its purpose; that you come WITHOUT a self, and MAKE one as you go along. And by the time you reach "maturity," you have perfected it to meet the world on equal terms, at one with its demands. A concept of the self is made by YOU. It bears NO likeness to yourself at all. It is an idol, made to take the place of your reality as Son of God.

The concept of the self the world would teach is not the thing that it appears to be. For it is made to serve two purposes, but one of which the mind can recognize. The first presents the face of innocence, the aspect acted ON. It is this face that smiles and charms and even seems to love. It searches for companions, and it looks at times with pity on the suffering, and sometimes offers solace. It believes that it is good, within an evil world. This aspect can grow angry, for the world is wicked, and unable to provide the love and shelter innocence deserves. And so this face is often wet with tears, at the injustices the world accords to those who would be generous and good.

This aspect NEVER makes the first attack. But every day a hundred little things make small assaults upon its innocence, provoking it to irritation, and at last to open insult and abuse. The face of innocence the concept of the self so proudly wears can tolerate attack in self-defense, for is it not a well-known fact the world deals harshly with defenseless innocence? No-one who makes a picture of himself omits this face, for he has need of it. The other side he does not want to see. But it is here the learning of the world has set its sights. For it is here the world's reality is set, to see to it the idol lasts.

Beneath the face of innocence there is a lesson that the concept of the self was made to teach. It is a lesson in a terrible displacement, and a fear so devastating that the face which smiles above it must forever look away, lest it perceive the treachery it hides. The lesson teaches this; "I am the thing you made of me, and as you look on me you stand condemned, because of what I am." On this conception of the self the world smiles with approval, for it guarantees the pathways of the world are safely kept, and those who walk on them will not escape.

Here is the central lesson that ensures your brother is condemned eternally. For what YOU are has now become his sin. For this is no forgiveness possible. No longer does it matter what he does, for your accusing finger points to him, unwavering and deadly in its aim. It points to you as well, but this is kept still deeper in the mists below the face of innocence. And in these shrouded vaults are all his sins and yours preserved, and kept in darkness, where they cannot be perceived as errors, which the light would surely show. You can be neither BLAMED for what you are, nor can you CHANGE the things it makes you do. And you are each the symbol of your sins to one another, silently, and yet with ceaseless urgency condemning still your brother for the hated thing you are.

Concepts are learned. They are not natural. Apart from learning they do not exist. They are not given, and they must be made. Not one of them is true, and many come from feverish imaginations, hot with hatred and distortions born of fear. What is a concept but a thought to which its maker gives a meaning of his own? Concepts maintain the world. But they can NOT be used to demonstrate the world is real. For all of them are made WITHIN the world, born in its shadow, growing in its ways, and finally "maturing" in its thought. They are ideas of idols painted with the brushes of the world, which cannot make a single picture representing truth.

A concept of the self is meaningless, for no-one here can see what it is for, and therefore cannot picture what it IS. Yet is all learning that the world directs begun and ended with the single aim of teaching you this concept of yourself, that you will choose to follow this world's laws, and never seek to go BEYOND its roads, nor realize the way you see yourself. Now must the Holy Spirit find a way to help you see this concept of the self must be undone, if ANY peace of mind is to be given you. Nor can it be unlearned except by lessons aimed to teach that you are something else. For otherwise, you would be asked to make exchange of what you now believe for total loss of self. And greater terror would arise in you.

Perhaps the reason why this concept must be kept in darkness is that, in the light, the one who would not think it true is YOU. And what would happen to the world you know, if all its underpinnings were removed? Your concept of the world DEPENDS upon this concept of the self. And BOTH would go, if either one were ever raised to doubt. The Holy Spirit does not seek to throw you into panic. So He merely asks if just a LITTLE question might be raised. There ARE alternatives about the thing that you must be. You might, for instance, be the thing you chose to have your BROTHER be.

Although this step has gains, it does not yet approach a basic question. Something must have gone BEFORE these concepts of the self. And something must have done the learning which gave rise to them. Nor can this be explained by either view. The main advantage of the shifting to the second from the first is that you somehow entered in the choice by YOUR decision. But this gain is paid in almost equal loss, for now YOU stand accused of guilt for what your BROTHER is. And you must SHARE his guilt, because you chose it FOR him, in the image of your own. While ONLY he was treacherous before, now must YOU be condemned along with him.

The concept of the self has always been the great preoccupation of the world. And everyone believes that he must find the answer to the riddle of himself. Salvation can be seen as nothing more than the ESCAPE from concepts. It does not concern itself with content of the mind, but with the simple statement THAT IT THINKS. And what can think has choice, and CAN be shown that different thoughts have different consequence. And it can learn that EVERYTHING it thinks reflects the deep confusion that it feels about how it was made, and what it is. And vaguely does the concept of the self appear to answer what it does not know.

Seek not your Self in symbols. There can be no concept that can stand for what you are. What matters it which concept you accept, while you perceive a self which interacts with evil, and reacts to wicked things? Your concept of yourself will still remain quite meaningless. And you will not perceive that you can interact but with yourself. To see a guilty world is but the sign your learning has been guided by the world, and you behold it as you see yourself. The concept of the self embraces all you look upon, and NOTHING is outside of this perception. If you can be hurt by ANYTHING, you see a picture of your secret wishes. Nothing more than this. And in your suffering of ANY kind, you see your own concealed desire to kill.

You will make many concepts of the self as learning goes along. Each one will show the changes in your own relationships, as your perception of yourself is changed. There will be some confusion every time there is a shift, but be you thankful that the learning of the world is loosening its grasp upon your mind. And be you sure and happy in the confidence that it will go at last, and leave your mind at peace. The role of the accuser will appear in many places and in many forms, and each will seem to be accusing you. But have no fear it will not be undone. The world can teach no images of you unless you WANT to learn them. There will come a time when images have all gone by, and you will see you know not what you are.

It is to this unsealed and open mind that truth returns, unhindered and unbound. Where concepts of the self have been laid by is truth revealed exactly as it is. When every concept has been raised to doubt and question, and been recognized as made on NO assumptions that would stand the light, then is the truth left free to enter in its sanctuary clean and free of guilt. There is no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this:

"I do not know the thing I am, and THEREFORE do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world and on myself." Yet in this learning is salvation born. And what you are will TELL you of Itself.

Section 4 - God's Witnesses

Condemn your Savior not because he thinks he is a body. Far beyond his dreams is his reality. But he must learn he is a Savior first, before he can remember what he is. And he must save who would BE saved. On saving YOU depends his happiness. For who is Savior, but the one who GIVES salvation? Thus he learns it must be his to give. UNLESS he gives, he will not know he HAS, for giving is the proof of having. Only those who think that God is lessened by their strength could fail to understand this must be so. For who COULD give unless he has, and who could lose by giving what must be INCREASED thereby?

Think you the Father LOST Himself when He created you? Was HE made weak because He shared His Love? Was He made incomplete by YOUR perfection? Or are you the proof that He IS perfect and complete? Deny Him not His witness in the dream His Son prefers to his reality. He must be Savior FROM the dream he made, that he be free of it. He must see someone ELSE as NOT a body, one with him, without the wall the world has built to keep apart all living things who know not that they live. Within the dream of bodies and of death, is yet one theme of truth. No more, perhaps, than just a tiny spark, a space of light created in the dark, where God shines still.

You cannot wake yourself. But you can LET yourself be wakened. You can overlook your brother's dreams. So perfectly can you forgive him his illusions, he becomes your Savior from YOUR dreams. And as you see him shining in the space of light where God abides within the darkness, you will see that God Himself is where his body is. Before this light the body disappears, as heavy shadows MUST give way to light. The darkness cannot CHOOSE that it remain. The coming of the light MEANS it is gone. In glory will you see your brother then, and understand what REALLY fills the gap so long perceived as keeping you apart.

How holy are you, that the Son of God can be your Savior in the midst of dreams of desolation and disaster. See how eagerly he comes, and steps aside from heavy shadows that have hidden him, and shines on you in gratitude and love. He is himself, but not himself alone. And as his Father lost not part of Him in your creation, so the light in him is brighter still, because you gave your light to him, to save him from the dark. And now the light in you must be as bright as shines in him. This is the spark that shines within the dream; that you can help him waken, and be sure his waking eyes will rest upon you first, and in his glad salvation YOU are saved.

Section 9 - The Conditions of Forgiveness

The holy instant is nothing more than a special case, or an extreme example, of what EVERY situation is MEANT to be. The meaning that the Holy Spirit's purpose has GIVEN it, is also given to EVERY situation. It calls forth just the same SUSPENSION of faithlessness, withheld and left UNUSED, that faith might answer to the call of truth. The holy instant is the shining example, the clear and unequivocal demonstration of the meaning of EVERY relationship, and EVERY situation SEEN AS A WHOLE. Faith has ACCEPTED every ASPECT of the situation, and faithlessness has not forced ANY exclusion on it. It is a situation of perfect peace, simply because YOU have LET IT BE WHAT IT IS.

This simple courtesy is all the Holy Spirit asks of you. Let Truth be what it is. Do not INTRUDE upon it, do not ATTACK it, do NOT interrupt its coming. Let it encompass EVERY situation, and bring you peace. Not even faith is asked of you, for Truth asks nothing. Let it enter, and IT will call forth, and SECURE for you, the faith you need for peace. But rise you not AGAINST it, for against YOUR opposition it CANNOT come. Would you not WANT to make a holy instant of EVERY situation? For such is the gift of faith, freely given wherever faithlessness is laid aside, UNUSED.

And THEN the power of the Holy Spirit's purpose is free for use instead. This power INSTANTLY transforms ALL situations into one sure and continuous means for ESTABLISHING His purpose, and DEMONSTRATING its reality. What has been DEMONSTRATED has called for faith, and has been GIVEN it. Now it becomes a fact, from which faith can no longer BE withheld. The strain of REFUSING faith to truth is enormous, and far greater than you realize. But to ANSWER truth with faith entails no strain at all.

To you who have ACKNOWLEDGED the call of your Redeemer, the strain of NOT responding to His call SEEMS to be GREATER than before. This is not so. Before, the strain was there, but you attributed it TO SOMETHING ELSE, believing that the 'something else' PRODUCED it. This was NEVER true. But what the 'something else' produced was sorrow and depression, sickness and pain, darkness and dim imaginings of terror, cold fantasies of fear, and fiery dreams of hell. And it was nothing but the intolerable strain of your refusal to give faith to truth, and see its evident reality.

When you accepted truth as the goal for your relationship, you became givers of peace, as surely as your Father gave peace to YOU. For the goal of peace cannot BE accepted, APART from its conditions. And you had faith in it, for no-one accepts what he does NOT believe is REAL. YOUR PURPOSE HAS NOT CHANGED, and WILL not change, for you ACCEPTED what can NEVER change. And nothing that it needs to BE forever changeless, can you now WITHHOLD from it. Your release is certain. Give as you have received. And demonstrate that you have risen FAR beyond ANY situation that could hold you back, and keep you SEPARATE from Him Whose call you answered.

Lesson 134 "Let me perceive forgiveness as it is."

Let us review the meaning of "forgive," for it is apt to be distorted and to be perceived as something which entails an unfair sacrifice of righteous wrath, a gift unjustified and undeserved, and a complete denial of the truth. In such a view, forgiveness must be seen as mere eccentric folly, and this course appears to rest salvation on a whim.

This twisted view of what forgiveness means is easily corrected when you can accept the fact that pardon is not asked for what is true. It must be limited to what is false. It is irrelevant to everything except illusions. Truth is God's creation, and to pardon this is meaningless. All truth belongs to Him, reflects His laws and radiates His Love. Does this need pardon? How can you forgive the sinless and eternally benign?

The major difficulty that you find in genuine forgiveness on your part is that you still believe you must forgive the truth and not illusions. You conceive of pardon as a vain attempt to look past what is there; to overlook the truth in an unfounded effort to deceive yourself by making an illusion true. This twisted viewpoint but reflects the hold that the idea of sin retains as yet upon your mind as you regard yourself.

Because you think your sins are real, you look on pardon as deception. For it is impossible to think of sin as true and not believe forgiveness is a lie. Thus is forgiveness really but a sin, like all the rest. It says the truth is false, and smiles on the corrupt as if they were as blameless as the grass; as white as snow. It is delusional in what it thinks it can accomplish. It would see as right the plainly wrong; the loathsome as the good.

It is sin's unreality which makes forgiveness natural and wholly sane, a deep relief to those who offer it; a quiet blessing where it is received. It does not countenance illusions, but collects them lightly, with a little laugh, and gently lays them at the feet of truth. And there they disappear entirely.

Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the world. It sees their nothingness, and looks right through the thousand forms in which they may appear. It looks on lies but it is not deceived. It does not heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt. It looks on them with quiet eyes, and merely says to them, "My brother, what you think is not the truth."

The strength of pardon is its honesty, which is so uncorrupted that it sees illusions as illusions, not as truth. It is because of this that it becomes the undeceiver in the face of lies, the great restorer of the simple truth. By its ability to overlook what is not there, it opens up the way to truth, which had been blocked by dreams of guilt. Now are you free to follow in the way your true forgiveness opens up to you. For if one brother has received this gift of you, the door is open to yourself.

Thus will you see alternatives for choice in terms which render choosing meaningful, and keep your mind as free of guilt and pain as God Himself intended it to be, and as it is in truth. It is but lies which would condemn. In truth is innocence the only thing there is. Forgiveness stands between illusions and the truth, between the world you see and that which lies beyond, between the hell of guilt and Heaven's gate.

Across this bridge, as powerful as Love Which laid Its blessing on it, are all dreams of evil and of hatred and attack brought silently to truth. They are not kept to swell and bluster and to terrify the foolish dreamer who believes in them. He has been gently wakened from his dream by understanding what he thought he saw was never there. And now he cannot feel that all escape has been denied to him.

He does not have to fight to save himself. He does not have to kill the dragons which he thought pursued him. Nor need he erect the heavy walls of stone and iron doors he thought would make him safe. He can remove the ponderous and useless armor made to chain his mind to fear and misery. His step is light, and as he lifts his foot to stride ahead, a star is left behind to point the way to those who follow him.

Forgiveness must be practiced for the world cannot perceive its meaning, nor provide a guide to teach you its beneficence. There is no thought in all the world which leads to any understanding of the laws it follows, nor the Thought which it reflects. It is as alien to the world as is your own reality. And yet it joins your mind with the reality in you.

Today we practice true forgiveness that the time of joining be no more delayed. For we would meet with our Reality in freedom and in peace. Our practicing becomes the footsteps lightening up the way for all our brothers, who will follow us to the Reality we share with them.

That this may be accomplished, let us give a quarter of an hour twice today, and spend it with the Guide Who understands the meaning of forgiveness, and was sent to us to teach it. Let us ask of Him:

"Let me perceive forgiveness as it is."

Then choose one brother as He will direct, and catalogue his "sins" as one by one they cross your mind. Be certain not to dwell on any one of them, but realize that you are using his "offenses" but to save the world from all ideas of sin. Briefly consider all the evil things you thought of him, and each time ask yourself "Would I condemn myself for doing this?"

Let him be freed from all the thoughts you had of sin in him. And now you are prepared for freedom. If you have been practicing thus far in willingness and honesty, you will begin to sense a lifting up, a lightening of weight across your chest, a deep and certain feeling of relief. The time remaining should be given to experiencing the escape from all the heavy chains you sought to lay upon your brother, which were laid upon yourself.

Forgiveness should be practiced through the day, for there will be so many times when you forget its meaning, and attack yourself. When this occurs, allow your mind to see through this illusion as you tell yourself:

"Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.

Would I accuse myself of doing this?

I will not lay this chain upon myself."

In everything you do remember this:

No one is crucified alone, and yet,

No one can enter Heaven by himself.

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.

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.

To Him I offer this review for you. I place you in His charge, and let Him teach you what to do and say and think each time you turn to Him. He will not fail to be available to you each time you call to Him to help you. Let us offer Him the whole review we now begin, and let us also not forget to Whom it has been given, as we practice, day by day, advancing toward the goal He set for us; allowing Him to teach us how to go, and trusting Him completely for the way each practice period can best become a loving gift of freedom to the world.

Section 3 - Freedom of Will

How wonderful it is to do your will! For that IS freedom. There is nothing else that ever should be called by freedom's name. UNLESS you do your will, you are NOT free. And would God leave His Son WITHOUT what he has chosen for himself? God but ensured that you would never LOSE your will, when He gave you His perfect Answer. Hear It now, that you may be reminded of His Love, and learn YOUR will. God would not have His Son made prisoner to what he does not want. He JOINS with you in willing you be free. And to OPPOSE Him is to make a choice against YOURSELF, and choose that YOU be bound.

Look once again upon your enemy, the one you chose to hate instead of love. For thus was hatred born into the world, and thus the rule of fear established here. Now hear God speak to you through Him Who is His Voice, and YOURS as well, reminding you that it is NOT your will to hate, and be a prisoner to fear, a slave to death, a LITTLE creature with a LITTLE life. Your will is boundless; it is NOT your will that it be bound. What lies in you has joined with God Himself in all creation's birth. Remember Him Who has created you, and through YOUR will created everything.

Not one created thing but gives you thanks, for it is by your will that it was born. No light of Heaven shines except for you, for it was set in Heaven by your will. What cause have you for anger in a world which merely waits YOUR blessing to be free? If YOU be prisoner, then God Himself could not be free. For what is done to him whom God so loves is done to God Himself. Think not HE wills to bind you, Who has made you co-creator of the universe along with Him. He would but KEEP your will forever and forever limitless.

The world awaits the freedom you will give, when you have recognized that YOU are free. But you will not forgive the world until you have forgiven Him Who GAVE your will to you. For it is BY your will the world is given freedom. Nor can YOU be free APART from Him Whose holy Will you share. God turns to YOU to ask the world be saved, for by your OWN salvation is it healed. And no-one walks upon the earth but must depend on YOUR decision, that he learn death HAS no power over him because he shares YOUR freedom, as he shares your will. It IS your will to heal him, and because you have decided WITH him, he is healed. And now is God forgiven, for you chose to look upon your brother as a friend.

Section 3 - Reversing Effect and Cause

Without a cause there can be no effects, and yet, without effects, there is no CAUSE. The cause a cause is MADE by its effects; the Father IS a father by His Son. Effects do not CREATE their cause, but they ESTABLISH its causation. Thus the Son gives fatherhood to his Creator, and RECEIVES the gift that he has given Him. It is BECAUSE he is God's Son that he must ALSO be a father, who creates as God created him. The circle of creation has no end. Its starting and its ending are the same. But, in itself, it holds the universe of all creation, without beginning AND without an end.

Fatherhood is creation. Love MUST be extended. Purity is not confined. It is the NATURE of the innocent to be forever uncontained, without a barrier or limitation. Thus is purity NOT of the body. Nor can it be FOUND where limitation is. The body CAN be healed by its EFFECTS, which are as limitless as is itself. Yet must all healing come about because the mind is recognized as NOT within the body, and its innocence is quite APART from it, and where ALL healing IS. Where, then, is healing? ONLY where its cause is GIVEN its effects. For sickness is a meaningless attempt to give effects to causelessness, and MAKE it be a cause.

Always in sickness does the Son of God attempt to make himself his cause, and NOT allow himself to be his Father's Son. For this impossible desire, he does not believe that he is Love's EFFECTS, and must be cause BECAUSE of what he is. The cause of healing is the ONLY Cause of everything. It has but ONE effect. And, in that recognition, causelessness is GIVEN no effects, and none are SEEN. A mind within a body, and a world of other bodies, each with SEPARATE minds, are your "creations," you the "other" mind, creating with effects UNLIKE yourself. And, AS their father, you must be like them.

Nothing at all has happened, but that you have put yourself to sleep, and dreamed a dream in which you were an alien to yourself, and but a part of someone ELSE's dream. The miracle does not awaken you, but merely shows you who the DREAMER is. It teaches you there IS a choice of dreams while you are still asleep, depending on the PURPOSE of your dreaming. Do you wish for dreams of healing, or for dreams of death? A dream is like a memory, in that it pictures what you WANTED shown to you. An empty storehouse, with an open door, holds ALL your shreds of memories and dreams.

Yet, if you are the DREAMER, you perceive this much at least; that YOU have caused the dream, and can accept ANOTHER dream as well. But, for this change in content of the dream, it MUST be realized that it is YOU who dreamed the dreaming that you do not like. It is but an effect that YOU have caused, and you would not BE cause of this effect. In dreams of murder and attack are YOU the victim, in a dying body slain. But, in forgiving dreams, is NO-ONE asked to be the victim and the sufferer. These are the happy dreams the miracle exchanges for your own. It does NOT ask you make another. ONLY that you see you made the one you would EXCHANGE for this.

This world is CAUSELESS, as is every dream that anyone has dreamed within the world. No plans are possible, and no design exists that could be found and understood. What else could be EXPECTED from a thing that has no cause? But, if it HAS no cause, IT HAS NO PURPOSE. You may cause a dream, but never will you give it real EFFECTS. For that would change its CAUSE, and it is this you CANNOT do. The dreamer of a dream is NOT awake, but does NOT know he sleeps. He sees ILLUSIONS of himself as sick or well, depressed or happy, but without a stable cause with GUARANTEED effects.

The miracle does nothing but to show him that HE has done nothing. What he fears is cause WITHOUT the consequences which would MAKE it cause. And so it never was. The separation started with the dream the Father was deprived of His effects, and powerless to keep them, since He was no longer their Creator. In the dream, the dreamer made HIMSELF, but what he made had turned AGAINST him, taking on the role of its creator, as the dreamer had. And, as he hated HIS Creator, so the figures in the dream have hated HIM. His body is their slave, which they abuse because the motives HE has given it have THEY adopted as their own. And hate it for the vengeance IT would offer THEM.

It is THEIR vengeance on the body which appears to prove the dreamer COULD not be the maker of the dream. Effect and cause are first split off, and then REVERSED, so that effect becomes a cause; the cause, effect. This is the separation's final step, with which salvation, which proceeds to go the OTHER way, begins. This final step is an effect of what has gone before, APPEARING as a cause. The miracle is the first step in giving BACK to cause the function of causation, NOT effect. For THIS confusion has produced the dream, and, while it lasts, will wakening be feared. Nor will the Call to wakening be heard, because it SEEMS to be the call of fear.

The miracle returns the CAUSE of fear to you who made it. But it ALSO shows that, HAVING no effects, it is NOT cause, because the function of causation is to HAVE effects. And where effects are gone, there IS no cause. Thus is the body healed by miracles BECAUSE they show the mind MADE sickness, and employed the body to be victim, or EFFECT, of what it made. But HALF the lesson will not teach the whole. The miracle is useless, if you learn but that the BODY can be healed, for this is NOT the lesson it was sent to teach. The lesson is the MIND was sick that thought the body COULD be sick; projecting OUT its guilt caused NOTHING, and had NO effects.

This world is full of miracles. They stand in shining silence next to every dream of pain and suffering, of sin and guilt. They are the dream's ALTERNATIVE, the choice to be the dreamer, rather than deny the active role in making up the dream. They are the glad effects of taking back the consequence of sickness to its cause. The body is released, because the mind acknowledges "this is not DONE TO me, but I am doing this." And thus the mind is free to make another choice instead. Beginning here, salvation will proceed to change the course of every step in the descent to separation, until all the steps have been retraced, the ladder gone, and ALL the dreaming of the world undone.

Section 3 - The Responsibility for Sight

We have repeated how little is asked of you to learn this course. It is the same small willingness you need to have your whole relationship transformed to joy. The LITTLE gift you offer to the Holy Spirit, for which He gives you EVERYTHING. The very little, on which salvation rests. The tiny change of mind by which the crucifixion is changed to Resurrection. And, being true, it is so simple that it cannot fail to be COMPLETELY understood. Rejected, yes, but NOT ambiguous. And, if you choose AGAINST it now, it will NOT be because it is obscure, but rather that this LITTLE cost seemed, in YOUR judgment, to be TOO MUCH to pay for peace.

This is the ONLY thing that you need do for vision, happiness, release from pain, and the COMPLETE escape from sin, ALL to be given you. Say ONLY this, but MEAN it with NO reservations, for here the power of salvation lies:

"I AM responsible for what I see. I CHOSE the feelings I experience, and I DECIDED ON the goal I would achieve. And everything that SEEMS to happen TO me, I ASKED FOR and received as I had asked."

Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what is done TO you. Acknowledge but that YOU have been mistaken, and ALL effects of your mistakes will disappear.

It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events OUTSIDE him. It is impossible that the happenings that come to him were NOT his choice. His power of decision is the DETERMINER of every situation in which he seems to FIND himself by chance or accident. No accident or chance is POSSIBLE within the universe as God created it, OUTSIDE of which is nothing. Suffer, and YOU decided sin was your goal. Be happy, and you GAVE the power of decision to Him Who MUST decide for God for you. This is the little gift you offer to the Holy Spirit, and even this He gave to you to give yourself. For, BY this gift, is given you the power to release your Savior, that HE may give salvation unto YOU.

Begrudge not, then, this little offering. WITHHOLD it, and you keep the world as now you see it. GIVE IT AWAY, and everything YOU see goes with it. Never was so much given for so little. In the holy instant is this exchange effected and MAINTAINED. Here is the world you do NOT want, brought to the one you DO. And here the one you do is GIVEN you, BECAUSE you want it. But, for this, the POWER of your wanting must first be RECOGNIZED. You must accept its STRENGTH, and NOT its weakness. You must perceive that what is strong enough to MAKE a world, can let it go. And CAN accept correction, if it is willing to see that it was wrong.

Perhaps you do not see the need for you to give this little offering. Look closer, then, at what it IS. And, very simply, see in it the whole exchange of separation for salvation. All that the ego is, is an idea that it is possible that things should HAPPEN to the Son of God, WITHOUT his will. And thus, without the Will of his Creator, Whose Will cannot BE separated from his own. This is the Son of God's REPLACEMENT for his will, a mad revolt against what must forever be. This is the statement that he HAS the power to make God powerLESS. And so to take it from HIMSELF, and leave himself WITHOUT what God has willed FOR him.

This is the mad idea you have enshrined upon your altars, AND WHICH YOU WORSHIP. And anything that threatens this, seems to ATTACK your faith. For here it is invested. Think not that you are faithless, for your belief and trust in THIS is strong indeed. The Holy Spirit can GIVE you faith in holiness, and vision to see it, easily enough. But you have not left open and unoccupied the altar where the gift belongs. Where THEY should be, YOU have set up your idols to something ELSE. This OTHER will, which seems to TELL you what must happen, you GAVE reality. And what would SHOW you otherwise must therefore seem unreal.

All that is asked of you is to MAKE ROOM for truth. You are NOT asked to make or do what lies BEYOND your understanding. All you are asked to do is LET IT IN. Only to stop your INTERFERENCE with what will happen OF ITSELF. Simply to recognize again the presence of what you THOUGHT you gave away. Be willing, for an instant, to leave your altars free of what YOU placed upon them and what is REALLY there you CANNOT fail to see. The holy instant is NOT an instant of creation, but of RECOGNITION. For recognition comes of vision and SUSPENDED judgment. Then only is it possible to look within and see what MUST be there, plainly in sight, and wholly INDEPENDENT of inference and judgment.

Undoing is not YOUR task, but it IS up to you to welcome it or not. Faith and desire go hand in hand. For everyone believes in what he wants. We have already said that wishful thinking is how the ego deals with what it wants, to make it so. There is no better demonstration of the power of wanting, and therefore of FAITH, to make its goals seem real and possible. Faith in the UNreal leads to ADJUSTMENTS of reality, to make it fit the goal of madness. The goal of sin induces the perception of a fearful world, to JUSTIFY its purpose. What you desire, you WILL see. And if its reality is false, you will UPHOLD it by NOT realizing all the adjustments YOU have introduced, to MAKE it so.

When vision is DENIED, confusion of cause and effect becomes inevitable. The PURPOSE now becomes to KEEP OBSCURE the cause of the effect, and make effect appear to BE a cause. This seeming independence of effect enables it to be regarded as STANDING BY ITSELF, and capable of serving as a CAUSE of the events and feelings its maker thinks IT causes. Long ago, we spoke of your desire to create your own Creator, and be father and not Son to Him. This is the same desire. The Son is the effect, whose Cause he would deny. And so he seems to BE the cause, producing real EFFECTS.

The Son's creations ARE like his Father's. But, in creating THEM, the Son does not delude himself that he is INDEPENDENT of his Source. His union with It is the SOURCE of his creating. APART from this, he HAS no power to create, and what he makes is meaningless. It changes NOTHING in creation, depends ENTIRELY upon the madness of its maker, and can NOT serve to justify the madness. Your brother thinks he made the world with you. Thus he denies creation. With you, he thinks the world he made, made HIM. Thus he denies he MADE it.

Yet the truth is you were both created by a loving Father, Who created you together and as one. SEE what "proves" otherwise, and you DENY your whole reality. But grant that EVERYTHING that seems to stand BETWEEN you, keeping you from each other and separate from your Father, YOU MADE IN SECRET, and the instant of release has come to you. ALL its effects are gone, because its source has been uncovered. It is its seeming INDEPENDENCE of its source that kept you prisoner. This IS the same delusion that YOU are independent of the Source by which YOU were created, and have never left.

Chapter 31 - The Simplicity of Salvation

Section 1 - Introduction

How simple is salvation! All it says is what was never true is not true now, and never will be. The impossible has NOT occurred, and CAN have no effects. And that is all. Can this BE hard to learn by anyone who WANTS it to be true? ONLY unwillingness to learn it could make such an easy lesson difficult. How hard is it to see that what is false can not be true, and what is true can not be false? You can no longer say that you perceive no differences in false and true. You have been told EXACTLY how to tell one from the other, and just what to do if you become confused. Why, then, do you persist in learning NOT such simple things?

No-one who understands what you have learned, how carefully you learned it, and the pains to which you went to practice and repeat the lessons endlessly, in every form you could conceive of them, could EVER doubt the power of your learning skill. There is no greater power in the world. The world was MADE by it, and even now depends on nothing else. The lessons you have taught yourselves have been so overlearned and fixed they rise like heavy curtains, to obscure the simple and the obvious. Say not you cannot learn them. For your power to learn is strong enough to teach you that your will is NOT your own; your thoughts do NOT belong to you; and even YOU are someone else.

Who could maintain that lessons such as these are easy? Yet you have learned more than this. You have continued, taking every step, however difficult, without complaint, until a world was built that suited you. And every lesson that makes up the world arises from the first accomplishment of learning; an enormity so great the Holy Spirit's Voice seems small and still before its magnitude. The world began with one strange lesson, powerful enough to render God forgotten, and His Son an alien to himself, in exile from the home where God Himself established him. You who have taught yourselves the Son of God is guilty, say not that you cannot learn the simple things salvation teaches you.

Learning is an ability you made, and gave yourselves. It was NOT made to do the Will of God, but to uphold a wish that It COULD be opposed, and that a will APART from It was yet more real than It. And this has learning sought to demonstrate, and you HAVE learned what it was made to teach. Now does your ancient overlearning stand implacable before the Voice of Truth, and teach you that Its lessons are not true; too hard to learn, too difficult to see, and too opposed to what is REALLY true. Yet you WILL learn them, for their learning is the ONLY purpose for your learning skill the Holy Spirit sees in all the world.

His simple lessons in forgiveness have a power mightier than yours, because they call from God and from your Self to you. Is this a LITTLE Voice, so small and still It cannot rise above the senseless noise of sounds which have no meaning? God willed not His Son forget Him. And the power of His Will is in the Voice That speaks for Him. Which lesson will you learn? Which outcome is inevitable, sure as God, and far beyond all doubts or question? CAN it be your little learning, strange in outcome, and incredible in difficulty, will withstand the simple lessons being taught to you in every moment of each day, since time began and learning had been made?

The lessons to be learned are only two. Each has its outcome in a different world. And each world follows surely from its source. The certain outcome of the lesson that God's Son is guilty is the world you see. It IS a world of terror and despair. Nor IS there hope of happiness in it. There IS no plan for safety you can make that ever will succeed. There IS no joy that you can seek for here, and hope to find. But this is NOT the only outcome which your learning can produce. However much you may have overlearned your chosen task, the lesson which reflects the Love of God is stronger still. And you WILL learn God's Son is innocent, and see ANOTHER world.

The soft, eternal calling of each part of God's creation to the whole is heard throughout the world this second lesson brings. There is no living thing which does not share the universal will that it be whole, and that you do not leave its call unheard. Without your answer is it left to die, as it is saved from death when you have heard its calling as the ancient call to life, and understood that it is but your own. The Christ in you remembers God with all the certainty with which He knows His Love. But ONLY if His Son is innocent can He BE Love. For God were fear indeed, if he whom He created innocent could be a slave to guilt. God's perfect Son remembers his creation. But in guilt he has forgotten what he really is.

The fear of God results as surely from the lesson that His Son is guilty as God's Love must be remembered when he LEARNS his innocence. For hate must father fear, and look upon its father as itself. How wrong are you who fail to hear the call that echoes past each seeming call to death, that sings behind each murderous attack, and pleads that love restore the dying world! You do not understand Who calls to you beyond each form of hate, each call to war. But you will recognize Him as you give Him answer in the language that He calls. He will appear when you have answered Him, and you will know in Him that God is Love.

What is temptation but a wish to make the wrong decision on what you would learn, and have an outcome which you do not want? It is the RECOGNITION that it is a state of mind UNWANTED that becomes the means whereby the choice is reassessed; another outcome seen to be preferred. You are deceived if you believe you want disaster and disunity and pain. Hear not the call for this within yourself, but listen, rather, to the deeper call beyond it, that appeals for peace and joy. And all the world will GIVE you joy and peace. For as you hear you answer, and behold! - your answer is the proof of what you learned. Its outcome is the world you look upon.

Let us be still an instant, and forget all things we ever learned, all thoughts we had, and every preconception that we hold of what things mean, and what their purpose is. Let us remember not our own ideas of what the world is for. We do not know. Let every image held of anyone be loosened from our minds and swept away. Be innocent of judgment, unaware of any thoughts of evil or of good that ever crossed your mind of anyone. Now do you know him not. But you ARE free to learn of him, and learn of him anew. Now is he born again to you, and you are born again to him, WITHOUT the past that sentenced him to die, and you with him. Now is he free to live, as you are free, because an ancient learning passed away, and left a place for truth to be reborn.

Section 2 - The Present Memory

The Holy Spirit can indeed make use of memory, for God Himself is there. But this is NOT a memory of past events, but ONLY of a PRESENT state.

You are so long accustomed to believe that memory holds only what is past, that it is hard for you to realize it is a skill that CAN remember NOW. The limitations on remembering the world imposes on it are as vast as those you let the world impose on YOU. There IS no link of memory to the past. If YOU would have it there, then there it IS. But ONLY your desire made the link, and ONLY you have held it to a part of time where guilt appears to linger still. The Holy Spirit's use of memory is quite APART from time. He does NOT seek to use it as a means to KEEP the past, but rather as a way TO LET IT GO.

Memory holds a message it receives, and does what it is GIVEN it to do. It does NOT write the message, nor appoint what it is FOR. Like to the body, it is purposeless within itself. And if it seems to serve to cherish ancient hate, and offer you the pictures of injustices and hurts that you were saving, this is what you asked its message BE, and this is what it IS. Committed to its vaults, the history of all the body's past is hidden there. All of the strange associations made to keep the past alive, the present dead, are stored within it, waiting your command that they be brought to you, and lived again. And thus do their effects appear to be INCREASED by time, which TOOK AWAY their cause.

Yet time is but another phase of what DOES NOTHING. It works hand in hand with all the other attributes with which you sought to keep concealed the truth about yourself. Time neither takes away, nor can restore. And yet you make strange use of it, as if the past had CAUSED the present, which is but a CONSEQUENCE, in which no change can be made possible, because its cause has GONE. And change must have a cause that will endure, or else it will not last. No change can be made in the present, if its cause is PAST. ONLY the past is held in memory, as you make use of it, and so it is a way to hold the past AGAINST the now.

Remember NOTHING that you taught yourself, for you were badly taught. Who would keep a senseless lesson in his mind, when he can learn and can preserve a BETTER one? When ancient memories of hate appear, remember that their cause is gone. And so you CANNOT understand what they are FOR. Let not the cause that you would give them NOW be what it was that made them what they were, or seemed to be. Be GLAD that it is gone, for this is what you would be pardoned FROM. And see, instead, the NEW effects of cause accepted NOW, with consequences HERE.

What YOU remember never WAS. It came from causelessness which you CONFUSED with cause. It CAN deserve but laughter, when you learn you have remembered consequences which were causeless, and could never BE effects. The miracle reminds you of a Cause forever present, perfectly untouched by time and interference. NEVER changed from what It IS. And YOU are Its effects, as changeless and as perfect as Itself. Its memory does NOT lie in the past, nor waits the future. It is NOT revealed in miracles. They but remind you that It has not gone. When you forgive It for YOUR sins, It will no longer BE denied.

You who have sought to lay a judgment on your own Creator, cannot understand it is NOT He Who laid a judgment on His Son. You would DENY Him His effects, yet have they never BEEN denied. There WAS no time in which His Son could be condemned for what was causeless, and AGAINST His Will. What YOUR remembering would witness to, is but the fear of God. He has not DONE the thing you fear. No more have YOU. And so your innocence has NOT been lost. You need NO healing to be healed. In quietness, see in the miracle a lesson in allowing Cause to have Its OWN effects, and doing NOTHING that would interfere.

The miracle comes quietly into the mind that stops an instant, and is still. It reaches gently from that quiet time, and from the mind it healed in quiet then, to other minds to SHARE its quietness. And they will JOIN in doing nothing to prevent its radiant extension back into the Mind that caused ALL minds to be. Born out of sharing, there can BE no pause in time to cause the miracle delay in hastening to all unquiet minds, and bringing them an instant's stillness, when the memory of God returns to them. Their OWN remembering is quiet now, and what has come to take its place will not be wholly unremembered afterwards.

He to Whom time is given offers thanks for every quiet instant given Him. For in that instant is His memory allowed to offer all its treasures to the Son of God, for whom they have been kept. How gladly does He offer them unto the one for whom He has been given them! And His Creator SHARES His thanks, because He would not be deprived of His effects. The instant's silence that His Son accepts gives welcome to eternity and Him, and lets them enter where they would abide. For in that instant does the Son of God do NOTHING that would make himself afraid.

How instantly the memory of God arises in the mind that has no fear to keep the memory away. Its own remembering has gone. There IS no past to keep its fearful image in the way of glad awakening to present peace. The trumpets of eternity resound throughout the stillness, yet disturb it not. And what is NOW remembered is not fear, but rather is the Cause that fear was made to render unremembered and undone. The stillness speaks in gentle sounds of love the Son of God remembers from BEFORE his own remembering came IN BETWEEN the present and the past, to shut them out.

What better way to close the little gap between illusions and reality than to allow the memory of God to flow ACROSS it, making it a bridge an instant will suffice to reach beyond? For God has closed it with Himself. His memory has NOT gone by, and left a stranded Son forever on a shore where he can glimpse ANOTHER shore which he can never reach. His Father wills that he be lifted up, and gently carried over. HE has built the bridge, and it is He Who will transport His Son across it. Have no fear that He will fail in what He wills. Nor that you be excluded from the Will that IS for you.

Lesson 39 "My holiness is my salvation."

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

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

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

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

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

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

Slowly, without conscious selection and without undue emphasis on any one in particular, search your mind for every thought that stands between you and your salvation. Apply the idea for today to each one of them in this way:

"My unloving thoughts about ____ are keeping me in hell. My holiness is my salvation."

You may find these sessions easier if you intersperse the applications with several short periods during which you merely repeat today's idea to yourself slowly a few times. You may also find it helpful to include a few short intervals in which you just relax and do not seem to be thinking of anything. Sustained concentration is very difficult at first. It will become much easier as your mind becomes more disciplined and less distractible.

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

"If guilt is hell, what is its opposite?"

In the shorter applications, which should be made some three or four times an hour and more if possible, you may ask yourself this question, repeat today's idea, or preferably both. If temptations arise, a particularly helpful form of the idea is:

"My holiness is my salvation from this."

Chapter 21 - What is the Peace of God?

It has been said that there is a kind of peace that is not of this world. How is it recognized? How is it found? And being found, how can it be retained? Let us consider each of these questions separately, for each reflects a different step along the way.

First, how can the peace of God be recognized? God's peace is recognized at first by just one thing; in every way it is totally unlike all previous experiences. It calls to mind nothing that went before. It brings with it no past associations. It is a new thing entirely. There is a contrast, yes, between this thing and all the past. But strangely, it is not a contrast of true differences. The past just slips away, and in its place is everlasting quiet. Only that. The contrast first perceived has merely gone. Quiet has reached to cover everything.

How is this quiet found? No-one can fail to find it who but seeks out its conditions. God's peace can never come where anger is, for anger must deny that peace exists. Who sees anger as justified in any way or any circumstance proclaims that peace is meaningless, and must believe that it cannot exist. In this condition, peace cannot be found. Therefore, forgiveness is the necessary condition for finding the peace of God. More than this, given forgiveness there must be peace. For what except attack will lead to war? And what but peace is opposite to war? Here the initial contrast stands out clear and apparent. Yet when peace is found, the war is meaningless. And it is conflict now that is perceived as non-existent and unreal.

How is the peace of God retained, once it is found? Returning anger, in whatever form, will drop the heavy curtain once again, and the belief that peace cannot exist will certainly return. War is again accepted as the one reality. Now must you once again lay down your sword, although you will not recognize that you have picked it up again. But you will learn, as you remember even faintly now what happiness was yours without it, that you must have taken it again as your defense. Stop for a moment now and think of this: Is conflict what you want, or is God's peace the better choice? Which gives you more? A tranquil mind is not a little gift. Would you not rather live than choose to die?

What is the peace of God? No more than this; the simple understanding that His Will is wholly without opposite. There is no thought that contradicts His Will, yet can be true. The contrast between His Will and yours but seemed to be reality. In truth there is no conflict, because His Will is yours. Now is the mighty Will of God Himself His gift to you. He does not seek to keep it for Himself. Why would you seek to keep your tiny, frail imaginings apart from Him? The Will of God is One and all there is. This is your heritage. The universe beyond the sun and stars, and all the thoughts of which you can conceive, belong to you. God's peace is the condition for His Will. Attain His peace, and you remember Him.

Miracle Principle 11

The use of miracles as a spectacle to INDUCE belief is wrong. They are really used for and by believers.

(Helen Schucman has some fear about 11) and doubt about 9) and 10). Probably doubt induced by fear of 11).

(When you say "If you want me to I will" please add "and if you DON'T want me to I won't." This is the RIGHT use of inhibition. There has to be SOME control over learning for channelizing purposes. Remember retroactive inhibition which should be easy enough for you.

Sometimes the new learning is the more important, and HAS to inhibit the old. It's a form of correction.)

Miracle Principle 12

Prayer is the medium of miracles. Prayer is the natural communication of the Created with the Creator. Through prayer, love is received, and through miracles love is expressed.

Miracle Principle 13

Miracles are thought-creations. Thought can create lower-order or higher-order realities. This is the basic distinction between intellectualization and thinking. One creates the physical, and the other the spiritual, and we believe in what we create.

Miracle Principle 14

A miracle is a beginning and an end(ing). It thus abolishes time. It is always an affirmation of re-birth, which seems to go back, but really goes forward. It undoes the past in the present, and thus releases the future.

Miracle Principle 15

Miracles attest to truth. They are convincing because they arise from conviction. Without conviction, they deteriorate into magic, which is mindless, and therefore destructive, or rather, the uncreative use of Mind.

Miracle Principle 16

Each day should be devoted to miracles. (God created time so that man could use it creatively, and convince himself of his own ability to create. Time is a teaching device, and a means to an end. It will cease when it is no longer useful for facilitating learning.)

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS: Notes on this course have to be taken only under good learning conditions. The same goes for review periods. I will tell you when, but REMEMBER TO ASK.

Miracle Principle 17

Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating that it is more blessed to give than to receive. They simultaneously increase the reserve strength of the giver, and supply the lack of strength in the receiver. BE VERY CAREFUL in interpreting this.

INSTRUCTIONS: The purpose of this course is integration. I told you that you will not be able to use it right until you have taken it. As long as your identification vacillates, (and B's is weak) you cannot accept the gift that belongs to you. You are still vacillating between recognizing the gift and throwing it away. B regards himself as too weak to accept it. You do not yet know its healing power. After you have passed the course, you will accept it and keep it and use it. That is the final exam, which you will have no trouble in passing. Midterm marks are not entered on the permanent record.

Miracle Principle 18

Miracles are the absence of the body. They are sudden shifts into invisibility, away from lower order reality. That is why they heal.

Miracle Principle 19

A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service that one soul can render another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. The doer recognizes his own and his neighbor's inestimable value simultaneously.

Miracle Principle 20

Miracles rest on the law and order of eternity, not of time.

Section 4 - Praying for Others

We said that prayer is always for yourself, and this is true. Why, then, should you pray for others at all? And if you should, how should you do it? Praying for others, if rightly understood, becomes a means for lifting your projections of guilt from your brother, and enabling you to recognize it is not he who is hurting you. The poisonous thought that he IS your enemy, your evil counterpart, your nemesis, must be relinquished before YOU can be saved from guilt. For this the means is prayer, of rising power and with ascending goals, until it reaches even up to God.

The earlier forms of prayer, at the bottom of the ladder, will not be free from envy and even malice. They call for vengeance, not for love. Nor do they come from one who understands that they are calls for death, made out of fear by those who cherish guilt. They call upon a vengeful god, and it is he who seems to answer them. Hell cannot be asked for another, and then escaped by him who asks for this. Only those who are in hell can ask for hell. Those who have been forgiven, and who have accepted their forgiveness, could never make a prayer like this.

At this level, then, the learning goal must be to recognize that prayer will bring an answer only in the form in which the prayer was made. This is enough. From here it will be an easy step to the next level. It begins with this:

"What I have asked for for my brother is not what I would have. Thus have I made of him my enemy."

It is apparent that this step cannot be reached by anyone who sees no value nor advantage to himself in setting others free. This may be long delayed, because this step may seem to be dangerous instead of merciful. To the guilty there seems indeed to be a real advantage in having enemies, and this imagined gain must go, if enemies are to be set free. Guilt must be given up, and not concealed. Nor can it be without some pain, and a glimpse of the merciful nature of this step may for some time be followed by a deep retreat into fear. For fear's defenses are fearful in themselves, and when they are recognized they bring their fear with them.

Yet what advantage has an illusion of escape ever brought a prisoner? His real escape from guilt can lie only in the recognition that the guilt has gone. And how can this be recognized as long as he hides it in another, and does not see it as his own? Fear of escape makes it difficult to welcome freedom, and to make a jailer of an enemy seems to be safety. How, then, can he be released without an insane fear for yourself? You have made of him your salvation and your escape from guilt. Your investment in this escape is heavy, and your fear of letting go is strong.

It is not easy to realize that prayers for things, for status, for external "gifts" of any kind, are always made to set up jailers and to hide from guilt. Yet these things, too, are used for goals that substitute for God, and therefore distort the purpose of prayer. The desire for them IS the prayer. One need not ask explicitly. The goal of God is lost in the quest for lesser goals of any kind, and prayer becomes requests for enemies. The power of prayer can be quite clearly recognized even in this. No-one who wants an enemy will fail to find one. But just as surely will he lose the only true goal that is given him. Think of the cost, and understand it well. All other goals are at the cost of God.

Chapter 5 - Perception - Knowledge

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh my brothers, if you only knew the peace that will envelop you and hold you safe and pure and lovely in the Mind of God, you could but rush to meet Him where His altar is. Hallowed your Name and His, for they are joined here in this holy place. Here He leans down to lift you back to Him, out of illusions into holiness; out of the world and into timelessness; out of all fear and given back to Love.

Lesson 163 "There is no death. The Son of God is free."

Death is a thought which takes on many forms, often unrecognized. It may appear as sadness, fear, anxiety or doubt; as anger, faithlessness and lack of trust; concern for bodies, envy, and all forms in which the wish to be as you are not may come to tempt you. All such thoughts are but reflections of the worshipping of death as Savior and as giver of release.

Embodiment of fear, the host of sin, god of the guilty and the lord of all illusions and deceptions, does the thought of death seem mighty. For it seems to hold all living things within its withered hand; all hopes and wishes in its blighting grasp; all goals perceived but in its sightless eyes. The frail, the helpless and the sick bow down before its image, thinking it alone is real, inevitable, worthy of their trust. For it alone will surely come.

All things but death are seen to be unsure, too quickly lost however hard to gain, uncertain in their outcome, apt to fail the hopes they once engendered, and to leave the taste of dust and ashes in their wake in place of aspirations and of dreams. But death is counted on. For it will come with certain footsteps when the time has come for its arrival. It will never fail to take all life as hostage to itself.

Would you bow down to idols such as this? Here is the strength and might of God Himself perceived within an idol made of dust. Here is the opposite of God proclaimed as lord of all creation, stronger than God's Will for life, the endlessness of love and Heaven's perfect, changeless constancy. Here is the Will of Father and of Son defeated finally, and laid to rest beneath the headstone death has placed upon the body of the holy Son of God.

Unholy in defeat, he has become what death would have him be. His epitaph, which death itself has written, gives no name to him, for he has passed to dust. It says but this: "Here lies a witness God is dead." And this it writes again and still again, while all the while its worshippers agree, and kneeling down with foreheads to the ground, they whisper fearfully that it is so.

It is impossible to worship death in any form, and still select a few you would not cherish, and would yet avoid while still believing in the rest. For death is total. Either all things die, or else they live and cannot die. No compromise is possible. For here again we see an obvious position which we must accept if we be sane; what contradicts one thought entirely can not be true unless its opposite is proven false.

Death's worshippers may be afraid. And yet can thoughts like these be fearful? If they saw that it is only this which they believed, they would be instantly released. And you will show them this today. There is no death, and we renounce it now in every form, for their salvation and our own as well. God made not death. Whatever form it takes must therefore be illusion. This the stand we take today. And it is given us to look past death and see the life beyond.

"Our Father, bless our eyes today. We are Your messengers, and we would look upon the glorious reflection of Your Love which shines in everything. We live and breathe in You alone. We are not separate from Your Eternal Life. There is no death, for death is not Your Will. And we abide where You have placed us, in the Life we share with You and with all living things, to be like You and part of You forever. We accept Your Thoughts as ours, and our will is One with Yours eternally. Amen."

Section 6 - Recognizing the Spirit

You see the flesh or recognize the Spirit. There is no compromise between the two. If one is real the other must be false, for what is real denies its opposite. There is no choice in vision but this one. What you decide in this determines all you see, and think is real, and hold as true. On this one choice does all your world depend, for here have you established what you are, as flesh or Spirit in your own belief. If you choose flesh, you never will escape the body as your own reality, for you have chosen that you want it so. But choose the Spirit, and all Heaven bends to touch your eyes, and bless your holy sight, that you may see the world of flesh no more, except to heal and comfort and to bless.

Salvation is undoing. If you choose to see the body, you behold a world of separation, unrelated things, and happenings that make no sense at all. This one appears and disappears in death. That one is doomed to suffering and loss. And no-one is exactly as he was an instant previous. Nor will he be the same as he is now an instant hence. Who could have trust where so much change is seen, for who is worthy if he be but dust? Salvation is undoing of all this. And constancy arises in the sight of those whose eyes salvation has released from looking at the cost of keeping guilt, because they chose to let it go instead.

How is this done? It is not done at all. What COULD there be within the universe that God created that must still be done? Only in arrogance could you conceive that YOU must make the way to Heaven plain. The means are GIVEN you by which to see the world that will replace the one you made. Your will be done! In Heaven as on earth this is forever true. It matters not where you believe you are, or what you think the truth about yourself must really be. It makes no difference what you look upon, nor what you choose to feel or think or wish. For God Himself hath said, "Thy will be done." And it IS done to you accordingly.

You who believe that you can choose to see the Son of God as you would have him be, forget not that no CONCEPT of yourself will stand against the truth of what you are. Undoing truth would be impossible. But concepts are not difficult to change. One vision, clearly seen, that does not fit the picture as it was perceived before, will change the world for eyes that learn to see BECAUSE THE CONCEPT OF THE SELF HAS CHANGED. Are YOU invulnerable? Then the world is harmless in your sight. Do YOU forgive? Then is the world forgiving, for you have forgiven it its trespasses. And so it looks on you with eyes that see as yours.

Are YOU a body? So is all the world perceived as treacherous, and out to kill. Are you a Spirit, deathless, and without the promise of corruption and the stain of sin upon you? So the world is seen as stable, fully worthy of your trust; a happy place to rest in for a while, where nothing need be feared but only loved. Who is unwelcome to the kind in heart? And what could hurt the truly innocent? Thy will be done, you holy Child of God. It does not matter if you think you are in earth or Heaven. What your Father wills for you can never change. The truth in you remains as radiant as a star, as pure as light, as innocent as Love Itself. And you ARE worthy that your Will be done.

Section 8 - The Inclusiveness of Creation

NOTHING beyond yourself can make you fearful or loving, because nothing IS beyond you. Time and eternity are both in your minds, and WILL conflict, until you perceive time SOLELY as a means to REGAIN eternity. You cannot do this, as long as you believe that ANYTHING that happens to you is caused by factors OUTSIDE yourself. You must learn that time is solely at YOUR disposal, and that nothing in the world can take this responsibility FROM you. You can VIOLATE God's laws in your imagination, but you cannot escape from them. They were established for your protection, and are as inviolate as your safety.

God created nothing beside you, and nothing beside you exists, for you are part of Him. What except Him CAN exist? Nothing BEYOND Him can happen, because nothing EXCEPT Him is real. YOUR creations add to Him, as YOU do. But nothing is added that is different, because everything has always BEEN. What can upset you except the ephemeral, and how can the ephemeral be real, if you are God's ONLY creation, and He created you eternal?

Your holy will establishes EVERYTHING that happens to you. Every response you make, to everything you perceive, is up to you, because your will DETERMINES your perception of it. God does not change His Mind about YOU, for He is not uncertain of HIMSELF. And what He knows CAN be known, because He does not know only for Himself. He CREATED you for Himself, but He gave you the power to create for YOUR self, so you would be LIKE Him. That is why your will is holy.

Can anything EXCEED the love of God? Can anything, then, exceed YOUR will? Nothing can reach you from BEYOND it, because being in God, YOU encompass everything. Believe this, and you will realize how much IS up to you. When ANYTHING threatens your peace of mind, ask yourself "Has God changed His Mind about me?" Then ACCEPT His decision, for it is indeed changeless, and refuse to change your mind about YOURSELF.- God will never decide AGAINST you, or He would be deciding against Himself.

The reason you do not know YOUR creations is simply that you would decide against them, as long as your minds are split, and to attack what you have created is impossible. But remember that IT IS AS IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD. The law of Creation is that you love your creations as yourself, BECAUSE THEY ARE PART OF YOU. Everything that was created is therefore PERFECTLY safe, because the laws of God protect it by His love. Any part of your mind that does not know this, has banished itself from knowledge, because it has NOT MET ITS CONDITIONS.

Is it not possible that you merely shifted from one dream to another without really wakening? Would you bother to reconcile what happened in conflicting DREAMS, or would you dismiss BOTH TOGETHER, if you discovered that REALITY is in accord with neither? You do not remember being awake. When you hear the Holy Spirit, you merely feel BETTER, because loving seems POSSIBLE to you. But you do NOT remember yet that it once was so, and it is in this remembering that you will know it can be so again.

What is possible has not yet been accomplished. But what has once been is so now, if it is eternal. When you remember, you will know what you remember IS eternal, and therefore is NOW.

You will remember everything the instant you DESIRE IT WHOLLY, for if to desire wholly is to create, you will have willed away the separation, returning your mind simultaneously to your Creator and your creations. Knowing them, you will have no wish to sleep, but only the will to waken and be glad. Dreams will be impossible, because you will WANT only truth, and being at last your will, it will be yours.

Section 7 - Dreams and the Body

What could God give, but knowledge of Himself? What else IS there to give? The belief that you could give AND GET something, else, something OUTSIDE yourself, has cost you the awareness of Heaven, and the loss of knowledge of your identity. And you have done a stranger thing than you yet realize. You have displaced your guilt to your bodies, FROM YOUR MINDS. Yet a body CANNOT be guilty, for it can do nothing of itself. You who think you hate your bodies, deceive yourselves. YOU HATE YOUR MINDS, for guilt has entered into them, and they would remain separate, which they CANNOT DO.

Minds ARE joined; bodies are not. Only by assigning to the mind the properties OF THE BODY, does separation SEEM to be possible. And it is MIND that seems to be fragmented and private and ALONE. Its guilt, which KEEPS it separate, is projected to the body, which suffers and dies, BECAUSE IT IS ATTACKED to hold the separation in the mind, and let it NOT KNOW its unity. Mind cannot attack, but it CAN make fantasies, and direct the body to act them out. But it is never what the BODY does that seems to satisfy. Unless the mind BELIEVES the body is ACTUALLY acting out ITS fantasies, it will attack the body by INCREASING the projection of its guilt upon it.

In this, the mind is CLEARLY delusional. It cannot attack, but maintains it CAN, and USES what it does to hurt the body, to PROVE it can. The mind can not attack, but it CAN deceive itself. And this is ALL it does, when it believes it has attacked the body, It CAN project its guilt, but it will NOT lose it through projection. And though it clearly can MISPERCEIVE the function of the body, it CANNOT change its function from what the Holy Spirit ESTABLISHES it to be. The body was NOT made by love. But love does not condemn it, and can use it lovingly, respecting what the Son of God has made, and using it to SAVE him from illusions.

Would you not have the instruments of separation RE-INTERPRETED as means for salvation, and USED for purposes of love? Would you not welcome AND SUPPORT the shift from fantasies of vengeance to RELEASE from them? Your PERCEPTION of the body can clearly be sick, but project this not upon the body. For your wish to make destructive what CANNOT destroy, can have no REAL effect at all. And what God created is only what He would have it be, being His Will.

You cannot make His Will destructive. You can make FANTASIES, in which your will CONFLICTS with His, but that is all. It is insane to use the body as the scapegoat for guilt; DIRECTING its attack, and BLAMING it for what you wished it to do. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ACT OUT FANTASIES. For it is still the FANTASIES you want, and they have nothing to do with what the body does. IT does not dream of them, and they but make IT a liability, where it COULD be an asset. For fantasies have made your body your "enemy," weak, vulnerable, and treacherous, "worthy" of the hate which you invest in it.

How has this served you? You have IDENTIFIED with this thing you hate, the instrument of vengeance, and the perceived source of your guilt. YOU have done this to a thing that has no meaning, proclaiming it to be the dwelling place of the Son of God, and turning it AGAINST him. This is the host of God that YOU have made. And neither God nor His most holy Son can enter an abode which harbors hate, and where you have sown the seeds of vengeance, violence, and death.

This thing you made to serve your guilt, stands between you and other minds. The minds ARE joined, but you do not IDENTIFY with them. You SEE yourself as locked in a separate prison, remote and unreachable, incapable of reaching out as being reached. You HATE the prison that you made, and would destroy it. Yet you would NOT escape from it, leaving it unharmed, WITHOUT your guilt upon it. But only thus CAN you escape. The home of vengeance is not yours; The place you set aside to house your hatred is NOT a prison, but an ILLUSION OF YOURSELF.

The body is a limit imposed on the universal communication which is an eternal property of mind. But the communication is INTERNAL. Mind reaches to ITSELF. It is NOT made up of different PARTS, which reach each other. It does not go OUT. Within ITSELF, it HAS no limits, and there is nothing OUTSIDE it. It encompasses EVERYTHING. It encompasses you ENTIRELY; you within it, and it within you. There IS nothing else, anywhere or ever. The body is OUTSIDE you, and SEEMS to surround you, shutting you off from others, and keeping you APART from them, and them from you.

IT IS NOT THERE. There IS no barrier between God and His Son, nor can His Son be separated from himself, except in illusion. This is NOT his reality, though he believes it IS. Yet this could only BE, IF God were wrong. God would have had to create DIFFERENTLY, and to have separated HIMSELF from His Son, to make this possible. He would have had to create DIFFERENT things, and to establish different ORDERS of reality, only SOME of which were love. Yet love must be forever like itself, changeless forever, and forever WITHOUT alternative. And so it is.

Everyone has experienced what he would call a sense of being transported BEYOND himself. This feeling of liberation FAR exceeds the DREAM of freedom sometimes experienced in special relationships. It is a sense of actual ESCAPE from limitations. If you will consider what this "transportation" REALLY entails, you will realize that it is a sudden UNawareness of the body, and a joining of your self and SOMETHING ELSE, in which your mind ENLARGES to encompass it. It becomes PART of you, as you UNITE with it. And BOTH become whole, as NEITHER is perceived as separate.

What REALLY happens is that you have GIVEN UP the illusion of a LIMITED awareness, and lost your fear of union. The love that INSTANTLY replaces it EXTENDS to what has freed you, and UNITES you with it. And, while this lasts, you are NOT uncertain of your identity, and would not limit it. You have escaped from fear to peace, asking no questions of reality, but merely ACCEPTING it. You have accepted this INSTEAD of the body, and have LET yourself be ONE with something beyond it, simply by NOT letting your mind be limited BY it.

This can occur REGARDLESS of the physical distance that SEEMS to be between you and what you join; of your respective positions in space; and of your differences in size and seeming quality. Time is not relevant; it can occur with something past, present, or anticipated. The "something" can be ANYTHING and ANYWHERE; a sound, a sight, a thought, a memory, even a more GENERAL idea, WITHOUT specific reference. But, in every case, you join it without RESERVATION, because you love it, and would BE with it. And so you rush to meet it, letting your limits melt away, suspending ALL the "laws" your body obeys, and gently SETTING THEM ASIDE.

There is no violence at all in this escape. The body is NOT attacked, but merely PROPERLY PERCEIVED. It does not limit you, merely because YOU would not have it so. You are not really "lifted out" of it; it cannot CONTAIN you. You go where you would be; GAINING, NOT losing, a sense of self. In these instants of release from physical restrictions, you experience much of what happens in the holy instant; the lifting of the barriers of time and space, the sudden experience of peace and joy, and, above all, the LACK of awareness of the body, and of the questioning WHETHER OR NOT ALL THIS IS POSSIBLE. It IS possible, BECAUSE YOU WANT IT.

The sudden EXPANSION of the self that takes place with your DESIRE for it, is the irresistible appeal the holy instant holds. It calls to you to be yourself, within its safe embrace. There are the laws of limit lifted FOR you, to welcome you to openness of mind, and freedom. Come to this place of refuge, where you can be yourself in peace. NOT through destruction, NOT through a "breaking out," but merely by a quiet "melting in." For peace will join you there, simply because YOU have been willing to let go the limits YOU have placed on love, and JOINED it where it is, and where it led you, in answer to its gentle call to be at peace.

Section 10 - Guiltlessness and Invulnerability

The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death. Children are born into it through pain and in pain. Their growth is attended by suffering, and they learn of sorrow and separation and death. Their minds are trapped in their brain, and its powers decline if their bodies are hurt. They seem to love, yet they desert, and are deserted. They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and seem to be no more. Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel.

This world IS a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son. And until you realize that God's Son CANNOT be crucified, this is the world you will see. But you will NOT realize this, until you accept the eternal fact that GOD'S SON IS NOT GUILTY. He DESERVES only love, because he has GIVEN only love. He cannot be condemned, because he has never condemned. The Atonement is the final lesson he need learn, for it teaches him that, never having sinned, HE HAS NO NEED OF SALVATION.

Long ago we said that the Holy Spirit shares the goal of all good teachers, whose ultimate aim is to make themselves unnecessary, by teaching their pupils all they know. The Holy Spirit wills ONLY this, for sharing the Father's love for His Son, He wills to remove all guilt from his mind, that he may remember his Father in peace. For peace and guilt are antithetical, and the Father can BE remembered ONLY in peace. Love and guilt cannot coexist, and to accept one is to DENY the other.

Guilt hides Christ from your sight, for it is the denial of the blamelessness of God's Son. In this strange world which you have made, the Son of God HAS sinned. How could you SEE him, then? By making HIM invisible, the world of retribution rose in the black cloud of guilt which you accepted, and you hold it dear. For the blamelessness of Christ is the proof that the ego never was, and can never be. Without guilt the ego HAS no life, and God's Son IS without guilt.

As you look upon yourselves and judge what you do honestly, as you have been asked to do, you may be tempted to wonder how you can be guiltless. But consider this. You are NOT guiltless in time, but IN ETERNITY. You HAVE "sinned" IN THE PAST, but there IS no past. Always has no direction. Time seems to go in one direction, but when you reach its end, it will roll up like a long carpet that has spread along the past behind you, and will disappear. As long as you believe the Son of God is guilty, you will walk along this carpet, believing that it leads to death. And the journey will seem long and cruel and senseless, for so it is.

The journey which the Son of God has set HIMSELF is foolish indeed. But the journey on which his Father sets him is one of release and joy. The Father is not cruel, and His Son CANNOT hurt himself. The retaliation which he fears, AND WHICH HE SEES, will never touch him, for although he BELIEVES in it, the Holy Spirit KNOWS it is not true. He stands at the end of time, where YOU must be, because He is WITH you. He has ALWAYS undone everything unworthy of the Son of God, for such was His mission, given BY God. And what God gives HAS always been.

You will see me as you learn the Son of God is guiltless. He has always sought his guiltlessness, and he has FOUND it. For everyone is seeking to escape from the prison he has made, and the way to find release is not denied him. Being IN him, he has found it. WHEN he finds it is only a matter of time, and time is but an illusion. For the Son of God is guiltless NOW, and the brightness of his purity shines untouched forever in God's Mind. God's Son will ALWAYS be as he was created. Deny YOUR world, and judge him not. For his eternal guiltlessness is in the mind of his Father, and protects him forever.

When you have accepted the Atonement for yourselves, you will realize that THERE IS NO GUILT IN GOD'S SON. And ONLY as you look upon him as guiltless, can you understand his Oneness. For the IDEA of guilt brings a belief of condemnation of one by another, projecting separation in place of unity. You can condemn only yourself, and by doing so, you cannot know that you are God's Son. For you have denied the condition of his Being, which is his perfect blamelessness. Out of Love he was created, and in Love he abides. Goodness and mercy have always followed him, for he has always extended the Love of his Father.

As you perceive the holy companions who travel with you, you will realize that there IS no journey, but only an awakening. The Son of God, who sleepeth not, has kept faith with his Father FOR you. There is no road to travel ON, and no time to travel THROUGH. For God waits not for His Son in time, being forever unwilling to be without him. And so it has always been. Let the holiness of God's Son shine away the cloud of guilt that darkens your mind, and by accepting his purity AS yours, learn of him that it IS yours.

You are invulnerable BECAUSE you are guiltless. You can hold on to the past ONLY through guilt. For guilt establishes that you WILL BE punished for what you have done, and thus depends on one-dimensional time, proceeding from past to future. No-one who believes this, can understand what ALWAYS means. And therefore guilt MUST deprive you of the appreciation of eternity. You are immortal BECAUSE you are eternal, and always MUST be now. Guilt, then, is a way of holding past and future in your minds, to ensure the ego's continuity. For if what it HAS BEEN WILL BE punished, it's continuity WOULD be guaranteed.

But the guarantee of your continuity is God's, not the ego's. And immortality is the opposite of time, for time passes away, while immortality is constant. Accepting the Atonement teaches you WHAT IMMORTALITY IS, for by accepting your guiltlessness, you learn that the past has never been, and so the future is needless. The future IN TIME is ALWAYS associated with expiation, and ONLY guilt could induce a sense of NEED for expiation. Accepting the guiltlessness of the Son of God AS YOURS is therefore God's way of reminding you of His Son, and what he is in truth. For God has never condemned His Son, and being guiltless, he IS eternal.

You cannot dispel guilt by making it real, and THEN atoning for it. For this is the ego's plan, which it offers INSTEAD of dispelling it. The ego believes in ATONEMENT THROUGH ATTACK, being fully committed to the insane notion that attack IS salvation. And YOU who cherish guilt must ALSO believe it, for how else but by identifying WITH the ego, could you hold dear what you do not want?

The ego teaches you to attack yourself BECAUSE you are guilty, and this MUST INCREASE the guilt, for guilt is the RESULT of attack. In the ego's teaching, then, there IS no escape from guilt. For attack MAKES GUILT REAL, and if it is real there IS no way to overcome it. The Holy Spirit dispels it simply through the calm recognition that it has never been. As He looks upon the guiltless Son of God, he KNOWS this is true. And being true for you, you CANNOT attack yourself, for WITHOUT guilt, attack is impossible. You, then, ARE saved BECAUSE God's Son is guiltless. And being wholly pure, you ARE invulnerable.

Section 5 - Dream Roles

Do you believe that truth can be but SOME illusions? They are dreams BECAUSE they are not true. Their EQUAL lack of truth becomes the basis for the miracle, which MEANS that you have understood that dreams are dreams, and that escape depends, NOT on the dream, but ONLY on awaking. COULD it be some dreams are KEPT, and others WAKENED FROM? The choice is NOT between which dreams to keep, but ONLY if you want to live in dreams, or to awaken from them. Thus it is the miracle does not select SOME dreams to leave untouched by its beneficence. You cannot dream some dreams and wake from some. For you are either sleeping OR awake. And dreaming goes with only ONE of these.

In simplest form, it can be said attack is a response to function unfulfilled AS YOU PERCEIVE THE FUNCTION. It can be in you or someone else, but where it is perceived, it will be there it is attacked. Depression or assault must be the theme of every dream, for they are made of fear. The thin disguise of pleasure and of joy in which they may be wrapped but slightly veils the heavy lump of fear which is their core. And it is THIS the miracle perceives, and NOT the wrappings in which it is bound. When you are angry, is it not because someone has failed to fill the function YOU allotted him? And does not THIS become the "reason" your attack is justified?

The dreams you THINK you like are those in which the functions YOU have given have been filled; the needs which YOU ascribe to you are met. It does not matter if they be fulfilled, or merely wanted. It is the idea that they EXIST from which the fears arise. Dreams are not wanted more or less. They are desired or not. And each one represents some function which you have assigned; some goal which an event, or body, or a thing SHOULD represent, and SHOULD achieve for you. If it succeeds, you think you LIKE the dream. If it should fail, you think the dream is sad. But whether it succeeds or fails is not its core, but just the flimsy covering.

How happy would your dreams become, if you were NOT the one who gave the "proper" role to every figure that the dream contains. No-one can fail but your IDEA of him, and there IS no betrayal but of this. The core of dreams the Holy Spirit gives is NEVER one of fear. The coverings may not appear to change, but what they MEAN has changed BECAUSE they cover something else. Perceptions are determined by their purpose, in that they seem to BE what they are FOR. A shadow figure who attacks becomes a brother giving you a chance to help, if this becomes the FUNCTION of the dream. And dreams of sadness thus are turned to joy.

What is your brother FOR? You do not know, because YOUR function is obscure to you. Do NOT ascribe a role to him which you imagine would bring happiness to you. And do not try to hurt him, when he fails to take the part which you assigned to him in what you dream your life was meant to be. He asks for help in every dream he has, and you have Help to give him if you see the FUNCTION of the dream as He perceives its function, Who can utilize all dreams as means to serve the Function given Him. Because He loves the dreamer, NOT the dream, each dream becomes an offering of love. For at its center is His Love for you, which lights WHATEVER form it takes with love.

Lesson 188 "The peace of God is shining in me now."

Why wait for Heaven? Those who seek the light are merely covering their eyes. The light is in them now. Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all. Light is not of the world, yet you who bear the light in you are alien here as well. The light came with you from your native home, and stayed with you because it is your own. It is the only thing you bring with you from Him Who is your Source. It shines in you because it lights your home, and leads you back to where it came from and you are at home.

This light can not be lost. Why wait to find it in the future, or believe it has been lost already or was never there? It can so easily be looked upon that arguments which prove it is not there become ridiculous. Who can deny the presence of what he beholds in him? It is not difficult to look within, for there all vision starts. There is no sight, be it of dreams or from a truer source, that is not but the shadow of the seen through inward vision. There perception starts and there it ends. It has no source but this.

The peace of God is shining in you now, and from your heart extends around the world. It pauses to caress each living thing, and leave a blessing with it which remains forever and forever. What it gives must be eternal. It removes all thoughts of the ephemeral and valueless. It brings renewal to all tired hearts, and lights all vision as it passes by. All of its gifts are given everyone, and everyone unites in giving thanks to you who give and you who have received.

The shining in your mind reminds the world of what it has forgotten, and the world restores the memory to you as well. From you salvation radiates with gifts beyond all measure, given and returned. To you, the giver of the gift, does God Himself give thanks. And in His blessing does the light in you shine brighter, adding to the gifts you have to offer to the world.

The peace of God can never be contained. Who recognizes it within himself must give it. And the means for giving it are in his understanding. He forgives because he recognized the truth in him. The peace of God is shining in you now, and in all living things. In quietness is it acknowledged universally. For what your inward vision looks upon is your perception of the universe.

Sit quietly and close your eyes. The light within you is sufficient. It alone has power to give the gift of sight to you. Exclude the outer world, and let your thoughts fly to the peace within. They know the way. For honest thoughts, untainted by the dream of worldly things outside yourself, become the holy messengers of God Himself. These thoughts you think with Him. They recognize their home. And they point surely to their Source, where God the Father and the Son are One.

God's peace is shining on them, but they must remain with you as well, for they were born within your mind, as yours was born in God's. They lead you back to peace, from where they came but to remind you how you must return. They heed your Father's Voice when you refuse to listen. And they urge you gently to accept His Word for what you are, instead of fantasies and shadows. They remind you that you are the co-creator of all things that live. For as the peace of God is shining in you, it must shine on them.

We practice coming nearer to the light in us today. We take our wandering thoughts, and gently bring them back to where they fall in line with all the thoughts we share with God. We will not let them stray. We let the light within our minds direct them to come home. We have betrayed them, ordering that they depart from us. But now we call them back, and wash them clean of strange desires and disordered wishes. We restore to them the holiness of their inheritance.

Section 7 - The Secret Vows

Who punishes the body is insane. For here the little gap is SEEN, and yet it is NOT here. It has not judged ITSELF, nor made itself to be what it is not. IT does not seek to make of pain a joy, and look for lasting pleasure in the dust. It does not TELL you what its purpose is, and CANNOT understand what it is for. IT DOES NOT VICTIMIZE, because it has no will, no preferences, and NO DOUBTS. It does not wonder what it is. And so it has no NEED to be competitive. It CAN be victimized, but CANNOT feel itself as victim. It accepts no role, but does what it is told, WITHOUT attack.

It is indeed a senseless point of view to hold responsible for sight a thing that cannot see, and blame it for the sounds you do not like, although it cannot hear. IT suffers not the punishment you give, because it HAS no feeling. It behaves in ways you want, but NEVER makes the choice. It is not born and does not die. It can but follow aimlessly the path on which it has been set. And if that path is changed, it walks as easily another way. It takes no sides, and judges not the road it travels. It perceives no gap because IT DOES NOT HATE. It can be USED for hate, but it cannot be hateful MADE thereby.

The thing you hate and fear and loathe and WANT, the body does not know. You send it forth to SEEK for separation and BE separate. And THEN you hate it, NOT for what it is, but for the uses you have MADE of it. You shrink from what IT sees and what IT hears, and hate its frailty and its littleness. And you despise its acts, but NOT your own. It sees and acts for YOU. It hears YOUR voice. And it is frail and little by YOUR wish. It SEEMS to punish you, and thus DESERVE your hatred for the limitations which it brings to you. Yet you have made of it a symbol of the limitations which you want your MIND to have and see and KEEP.

The body REPRESENTS the gap between the little bit of mind you call your own, and all the rest of what is REALLY yours. You hate it, yet you think it IS your self, and that, WITHOUT it, would your self be lost. This is the secret vow that you have made with every brother who would walk apart. This is the secret oath you take again whenever you perceive yourself attacked. No-one can suffer if he does NOT see himself attacked, AND LOSING BY ATTACK. Unstated and unheard in consciousness is every pledge to sickness. Yet it is a promise to another to be hurt by him, and to attack him in return.

Sickness is anger taken out upon the body, so that IT will suffer pain. It is the obvious effect of what was made in secret, IN AGREEMENT with another's secret wish to be apart from you, as you would be apart from him. Unless you BOTH agree this is your wish, it CAN have no effects. Whoever says, "There IS no gap between my mind and yours," has kept GOD's promise, NOT his tiny oath to be forever faithful unto death. And by his healing IS his brother healed. Let THIS be your agreement with each one; that you be one with him and NOT apart. And he will keep the promise that you make with him, because it is the one which he has made to God, as God has made to him.

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.

Do not establish what the form should be that His forgiveness takes. He knows the way to make of every call a help to you, as you arise in haste to go at last unto your Father's house. He will direct your footsteps surely, and your words sincere; not with your own sincerity, but with His Own. Let Him take charge of how you would forgive, and each occasion then will be to you another step to Heaven and to peace.

"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.

Chapter 11 - How is Judgment Relinquished?

Judgment, like other devices by which the world of illusions is maintained, is totally misunderstood by the world. It is actually confused with wisdom, and substitutes for truth. As the world uses the term, an individual is capable of "good" and "bad" judgment, and his education aims at strengthening the former and minimizing the latter. There is, however, considerable confusion about what these categories mean. What is "good" judgment to one is "bad" judgment to another. Further, even the same person classifies the same action as showing "good" judgment at one time and "bad" judgment at another time. Nor can any consistent criteria for determining what these categories are be really taught. At any time the student may disagree with what his would-be teacher says about it, and the teacher himself is inconsistent in what he believes they are.

The aim of our curriculum, unlike the goal of the world's learning, is the recognition that judgment in the usual sense is impossible. This is not an opinion but a fact. In order to judge anything rightly, one would have to be fully aware of an inconceivably wide range of things; past, present and to come. One would have to recognize in advance all the effects of his judgments on everyone and everything involved in them in any way. And one would have to be certain there is no distortion in his perception, so that his judgment would be wholly fair to everyone on whom it rests now and in the future. Who is in a position to do this? Who except in grandiose fantasies would claim this for himself?

Remember how many times you thought you knew all the "facts" you needed for judgment, and how wrong you were! Is there anyone who has not had this experience? Would you know how many times you merely thought you were right, without ever realizing you were wrong? Why would you choose such an arbitrary basis for decision-making? Wisdom is not judgment; it is the relinquishment of judgment. Make then but one more judgment. It is this; there is Someone with you Whose judgment is perfect. He does know all the facts, past, present and to come. He does know all the effects of His judgment on everyone and everything involved in any way. And He is wholly fair to everyone, for there is no distortion in His perception.

Therefore lay judgment down, not with regret but with a sigh of gratitude. Now are you free of a burden so great that you could merely stagger and fall down beneath it. And it was all illusion. Nothing more. Now can the teacher of God rise up unburdened, and walk lightly on. Yet it is not only this that is his benefit. His sense of care is gone, for he has none. He has given it away, along with judgment. He gave himself to Him Whose judgment he has chosen now to trust instead of his own. Now he makes no mistakes. His Guide is sure. And where he came to judge he comes to bless. Where now he laughs he used to come to weep.

It is not difficult to relinquish judgment. But it is difficult indeed to try to keep it. The teacher of God lays it down happily the instant he recognizes its cost. All of the ugliness he sees about him is its outcome. All of the pain he looks upon is its result. All of the loneliness and sense of loss; of passing time and growing hopelessness; of sickening despair and fear of death; all these have come of it. And now he knows that these things need not be. Not one is true. For he has given up their cause, and they, which never were but the effects of his mistaken choice, have fallen from him. Teacher of God, this step will bring you peace. Can it be difficult to want but this?

Section 6 - The Happy Dream

Prepare you NOW for the undoing of what never was. If you already UNDERSTOOD the difference between truth and illusion, Atonement would HAVE no meaning. The holy instant, your holy relationship, the Holy Spirit's teaching, and all the means by which salvation is accomplished, would have no purpose. For they are all but ASPECTS of the plan to change your dreams of fear to happy dreams, from which you waken easily to knowledge. Put yourself NOT in charge of this, for you can NOT distinguish between advance and retreat. Some of your greatest advances YOU have judged as failures, and some of your deepest retreats YOU have evaluated as success.

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.

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."

Chapter 4 - The Root of All Evil

Section 1 - Introduction

(Aside to Helen Schucman. You were both wise and devoted (two words which are literally interchangeable in the sense that they truly bring on the exchange of one another.) in claiming your scribal functions and working so late. You HAD committed a serious error against your brother, and one who had asked for your help. A devoted priestess does not do this. The Bible says you should go WITH a brother twice as far as he asks. It certainly DOES NOT suggest that you set him BACK on his journey.

Devotion to a brother CANNOT set YOU back either. It can ONLY lead to mutual progress. The result of genuine devotion is inspiration, a word which, properly understood is the OPPOSITE of fatigue. To be fatigued is to be DIS-spirited, but to be inspired is to be IN the spirit. To be egocentric IS to be dispirited. But to be self-centered in the RIGHT sense is to be inspired, or in the Soul. The truly inspired are enlightened, and cannot abide in darkness.

Do not attempt to break God's copyright, because His Authorship alone CAN copy right. Your own right authorship does NOT lie in remaking His copies, but in creating LIKE Him.

Embarrassment is ALWAYS an expression of egocentricity, an association which has been made before. (Made, NOT created. This kind of association is ALWAYS man-made). Both of you have completed the SCT stem: When I was called on to speak - with - "I became embarrassed and COULD NOT SPEAK."This should be corrected to "Recognized my Authorship."

Tell Bill that he cannot be embarrassed by his own words unless he believes that HE is responsible for them. We have already corrected "word" to "thought," and he IS free to allocate the authorship for his thoughts as he elects. He can speak from his Soul or from his ego, precisely as he chooses. If he speaks from his Soul, he has chosen to "be still and know that I am God." These words are inspired, because they come from KNOWLEDGE. If he speaks from his ego, he is DISCLAIMING knowledge instead of AFFIRMING it, and is thus dis-spiriting himself.

The dis-spirited have no choice BUT to be narcissistic, and to be narcissistic IS to place your faith in the unworthy. Your real worth IS your divine authorship, and your Soul is its acknowledgement. I cannot guide your egos EXCEPT as you associate them with your Souls.

Chesterton wrote an excellent description of Cervantes and his perception of his "unheroic hero," a view of man which the ego tolerates all too frequently, but the Soul NEVER countenances:

"And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain."

Do not embark on foolish journeys because they are indeed in vain. The ego may will them because the ego IS both lean and foolish. But the Soul CANNOT embark on them because it is forever Unwilling to depart from its Foundation. The journey to the cross should be the LAST foolish journey for every mind. Do not dwell upon it, but dismiss it as accomplished. If you can accept that as YOUR OWN last foolish journey, you are free also to join My Resurrection. Human living has indeed been needlessly wasted in repetition compulsion. It re-enacts the Separation, the loss of power, the foolish journey of the ego in its attempt at reparation, and finally the crucifixion of the body, or death. Repetition compulsions can be endless, unless they are given up by an act of will, or, more properly as active creation. Do not make the pathetic human error of "clinging to the old rugged cross." The only message of the crucifixion is in respect for man's ability to OVERCOME the cross. Unless he does so, he is free to crucify himself as often as he chooses. But this was NOT the gospel I intended to offer him.

We have another journey to undertake, and I hope that, if both of you will read these notes carefully, they will help to prepare you to undertake it.

Section 10 - The Acceptance of Reality

Fear of the Will of God is one of the strangest beliefs that the human mind has ever made. This could not possibly have occurred unless the mind was already profoundly split, making it possible for IT to be afraid of what it really is. It is apparent that reality CANNOT "threaten" anything except illusions, because reality can only UPHOLD truth. The very fact that the will of God, which IS what you are, is perceived as fearful TO you demonstrates that you ARE afraid of what you are. It is not, then, the will of God of which you are afraid, but YOURS. Your will is NOT the ego's, and that is why the ego is against you. What seems to be the fear of God is really only the fear of YOUR OWN REALITY.

It is impossible to learn anything consistently in a state of panic. If the purpose of this course is to learn what you are, and if you have ALREADY DECIDED that what you are is FEARFUL, then it MUST follow that you will NOT LEARN THIS COURSE. But you might remember that the reason FOR the course is that you do NOT know who you are. If you do not know your reality, how would you know whether it is fearful or not? The association of truth and fear, which would be highly artificial at best, is particularly inappropriate in the minds of those who do not know what truth IS. All that this kind of association means is that you are arbitrarily endowing something quite beyond your awareness with something YOU DO NOT WANT.

It is evident, then, that you are judging something of which you are totally unaware. You have set this strange situation up so that it is COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE to escape from it WITHOUT a guide who DOES know what your reality is. The purpose of this Guide is merely to remind you of what YOU want. He is not attempting to force an alien will UPON you. He is merely making every possible effort, within the limits YOU impose upon Him, to RE-ESTABLISH your OWN will in your consciousness. You have IMPRISONED it in your UNconscious, where it remains available, but cannot help you. When we said that the Holy Spirit's function is to sort out the true from the false in your unconscious, we meant that He has the power to look into what YOU have hidden, and perceive the Will of God there.

His perception of this will can make it real to YOU, because HE is in your mind, and therefore He IS your reality. If, then, His perception OF your mind brings its reality TO you, He IS teaching you what you are. The only source of fear in this whole process can ONLY be WHAT YOU THINK YOU LOSE. But it is only what the Holy Spirit sees that you can possibly HAVE. We have emphasized many times that the Holy Spirit will never call upon you to sacrifice anything. But if you ask the sacrifice of reality OF YOURSELVES, the Holy Spirit MUST remind you that this is not God's will BECAUSE it is not yours.

How sensible can your messages be, when they ask for WHAT YOU DON'T WANT? Yet as long as you are afraid of your will, this is precisely what you WILL ask for. You may insist that the Holy Spirit does not answer you, but it might be wiser to consider the kind of asker you are. YOU DO NOT ASK ONLY FOR WHAT YOU WANT. This is SOLELY because you are afraid you might receive it, AND YOU WOULD. THIS is really why you persist in asking the teacher who could not possibly teach you your will. Of him, you can never learn it, and this gives you the illusion of safety. But you cannot be safe FROM truth, but only IN it. Reality is the ONLY safety.

Your will is your salvation BECAUSE IT IS THE SAME AS GOD's. The separation is nothing more than the belief that it is DIFFERENT. NO mind can believe that its will is STRONGER than God's. If, then, a mind believes that ITS will is different FROM His, it can only decide either that there IS no God, or that GOD'S WILL IS FEARFUL. The former accounts for the atheist, and the latter for the martyr. Martyrdom takes many forms, the category including ALL doctrines which hold that God demands sacrifices of ANY kind.

Either basic type of insane decision will induce panic, because the atheist believes he is alone and the martyr believes that God is crucifying him. Both really fear both abandonment AND retaliation, but the former is more reactive against abandonment and the latter against retaliation. The atheist maintains that God has left him, but he does not care. He will, however, become very fearful, and hence very ANGRY, if anyone suggests that God has NOT left him. The martyr, on the other hand, is more aware of guilt, and believing that punishment is inevitable, attempts to teach himself to LIKE it.

The truth is, very simply, that NO-ONE WANTS EITHER ABANDONMENT OR RETALIATION. Many people SEEK both, but it is still true that they do NOT want it. Can you ask the Holy Spirit for "gifts" such as these, and actually expect to RECEIVE them? The Holy Spirit is totally incapable of giving YOU anything that does NOT come from God. His task is NOT to make anything FOR you. He CANNOT make you want something you DON'T want. When you ask the Universal Giver for what you do not want, YOU are asking for what CANNOT be given, BECAUSE IT WAS NEVER CREATED. It was never created because it was never your will for YOU.

Ultimately everyone must learn the will of God, because ultimately everyone must recognize HIMSELF. This recognition IS the recognition that HIS WILL AND GOD'S ARE ONE. In the presence of Truth, there are no unbelievers and no sacrifices. In the security of Reality fear is totally meaningless. To deny what IS can only SEEM to be fearful. Fear cannot be real without a cause, and GOD is the only Cause. God is Love, and you DO want Him. This IS your will. Ask for THIS and you WILL be answered, because you will be asking only for what BELONGS to you.

When you ask the Holy Spirit for what would hurt you, He CANNOT answer, because NOTHING can hurt you and SO YOU ARE ASKING FOR NOTHING. ANY desire which stems from the ego IS a desire for nothing, and to ask for it IS NOT A REQUEST. It is merely a denial in the FORM of a request. The Holy Spirit is not concerned with form at all, being aware only of MEANING. The ego cannot ask the Holy Spirit for ANYTHING, because there is COMPLETE COMMUNICATION FAILURE between them. But YOU can ask for EVERYTHING of the Holy Spirit, because YOUR requests are real, being of your will. Would the Holy Spirit deny the Will of God? And could He fail to recognize it in God's Sons?

The energy which you withdraw from Creation you expend on fear. This is not because your ENERGY is limited, but because YOU HAVE LIMITED IT. You do not recognize the ENORMOUS waste of energy which you expend in denying truth. What would YOU say of someone who PERSISTED in attempting the impossible, and believed that to ACHIEVE it is SUCCESS? The belief that you MUST HAVE THE IMPOSSIBLE in order to be happy is totally at variance with the principle of Creation. God COULD not will that happiness DEPENDED on what you could never have.

Attempts of any kind to deny what IS are fearful, and if they are strong they WILL induce panic. WILLING AGAINST reality, though impossible, can be MADE into a very persistent goal, EVEN THOUGH YOU DO NOT WANT IT. But consider the result of this strange decision. You are DEVOTING your mind to what you DO NOT WANT. How real can this devotion be? If you do not want it, it was never created. If it was never created, it is nothing. Can you REALLY devote yourself to nothing?

God, in His devotion to YOU, created you devoted to EVERYTHING, and GAVE you what you are devoted TO. Otherwise, you would not have been created perfect. Reality IS everything, and you therefore have everything BECAUSE you are real. You cannot make the UNreal because the ABSENCE of reality is fearful, and fear cannot BE created. As long as you believe that fear is possible, YOU WILL NOT CREATE. Opposing orders of reality MAKE REALITY MEANINGLESS, and reality is MEANING.

Remember, then, that God's Will is ALREADY possible, and nothing else will EVER be. This is the simple acceptance of Reality because only this is real. You cannot DISTORT reality and KNOW WHAT IT IS. And if you DO distort reality you will experience anxiety, depression, and ultimately panic, because you are trying to MAKE YOURSELF UNREAL. When you feel these things do not try to look BEYOND yourself for truth, for truth can only be WITHIN you. Say, therefore, :

"Christ is in me, and where He is God MUST be, for Christ is PART of Him."

Section 6 - The Changeless Dwelling-Place

There is a place in you where this whole world has been forgotten. Where no memory of sin and of illusion linger still. There is a place in you which time has left, and echoes of eternity are heard. There is a resting place so still no sound except a hymn to Heaven rises up to gladden God the Father and the Son. Where Both abide are They remembered Both. And where They are is Heaven and is peace. Think not that you can change Their dwelling place. For your Identity abides in Them, and where They are, forever must YOU be.

The changelessness of Heaven is in you, so deep within that nothing in this world but passes by, unnoticed and unseen. The still infinity of endless peace surrounds you gently in its soft embrace, so strong and quiet, tranquil in the might of its Creator, nothing can intrude upon the sacred Son of God within. Here is the role the Holy Spirit gives to you who wait upon the Son of God, and would behold him waken and be glad: He is a part of you, and you of him, BECAUSE he is his Father's Son, and not for ANY purpose you may see in him. Nothing is asked of you but to ACCEPT the Changeless and Eternal that abide in him, for YOUR Identity is there.

The peace in you CAN but be found in him. And every thought of love you offer him but brings you nearer to your wakening to peace eternal and to endless joy. This sacred Son of God is like yourself; the mirror of his Father's Love for you, the soft reminder of his Father's Love by which he was created, and which still abides in him, as It abides in you. Be very still, and hear God's Voice in him, and let It tell you what his function is. He was created that YOU might be whole, for only the complete can be a part of God's Completion, Which created you.

There is no gift the Father asks of you but that you see in all creation but the shining glory of His Gift to you. Behold His Son, His perfect gift, in whom his Father shines forever, and to whom is all creation given as his own. BECAUSE he has it is it given you, and where it lies in him behold YOUR peace. The quiet that surrounds you dwells in him, and FROM this quiet come the happy dreams in which your hands are joined in innocence. These are not hands that grasp in dreams of pain. They hold no sword, for they have left their hold on every vain illusion of the world. And, being empty, they received instead a brother's hand in which completeness lay.

A dream is given you in which he is your Savior, NOT your enemy in hate. A dream is given you in which you have forgiven him for all his dreams of death; a dream of hope you SHARE with him, instead of dreaming evil separate dreams of hate. Why does it seem so hard to share this dream? Because, unless the Holy Spirit gives the dream its function, it was made for hate, and will continue in death's services. Each form it takes in some way calls for death. And those who serve the lord of death have come to worship in a separated world, each with his tiny spear and rusted sword, to keep his ancient promises to die.

Such is the core of fear in every dream that has been kept apart from use by Him Who sees a different function for a dream. When dreams are SHARED, they lose the function of attack and separation, even though it was for this that every dream was made. Yet nothing in the world of dreams remains without the hope of change and betterment, for here is NOT where changelessness is found. Let us be glad indeed that this is so, and seek not the eternal in this world. Forgiving dreams are means to step aside from dreaming of a world OUTSIDE yourself. And leading finally beyond ALL dreams, unto the peace of everlasting life.

Section 3 - Out of the Darkness

The quiet light in which the Holy Spirit dwells within you, is merely perfect openness, in which nothing is hidden, and therefore nothing is feared. Attack will ALWAYS yield to love, if it is brought TO love, not hidden FROM it. There is no darkness that the light of love will not dispel, unless it is concealed from love's beneficence. What is KEPT APART from love CANNOT share its healing power, because it has been separated off, and KEPT IN DARKNESS. The sentinels of darkness watch over it carefully, and you who made these guardians of illusion out of nothing, are now AFRAID of them.

Would you continue to give imagined power to these strange ideas of safety? They are neither safe nor unsafe. They do not protect, NEITHER DO THEY ATTACK. They DO nothing at all, BEING nothing at all. As guardians of darkness and of ignorance, look to them ONLY for fear, for what they keep obscure IS fearful. But let them go, and what WAS fearful, will be so no longer. Without protection of obscurity, ONLY the light of love remains, for only this HAS meaning, and CAN live in light. Everything else MUST disappear.

Death yields to life, simply because destruction IS NOT TRUE. The light of guiltlessness shines guilt away because, when they are BROUGHT TOGETHER, the truth of one MUST make the falsity of its OPPOSITE perfectly clear. Keep not guilt and guiltlessness APART, for your belief that you can HAVE THEM BOTH, is meaningless. All you have done by keeping them apart is LOSE THEIR MEANING, by confusing them with each other. And so you do not realize that only one means ANYTHING, and the other is wholly without sense of ANY kind.

You have interpreted the separation as a means which you have made for BREAKING your communication with your Father. The Holy Spirit re-interprets it as a means of re-establishing what has NOT been broken, but HAS been made obscure. All things you made have use to Him, for His most holy purpose. He KNOWS you are not separate from God, but He perceives much in your mind that lets you THINK you are. All this, and nothing else, would He separate FROM you. The power of decision, which you made IN PLACE of power of creation, He would teach you how to use ON YOUR BEHALF. You who made it to crucify yourselves, must learn of Him how to apply it to the holy cause of restoration.

You who speak in dark and devious symbols, do not understand the language you have made. It HAS no meaning, for its purpose is NOT communication, but rather, the DISRUPTION of communication. If the purpose of language IS communication, how can this tongue mean ANYTHING? Yet even this strange and twisted effort to communicate through NOT communicating, holds enough of love to MAKE IT MEANINGFUL, IF ITS INTERPRETER IS NOT ITS MAKER. You who made it are but expressing CONFLICT, from which the Holy Spirit would RELEASE you. Leave what you would communicate to Him. He will interpret it to you with perfect clarity, for He knows with Whom you ARE in perfect communication.

You know not what you say, and so you know not what is said to you. But your Interpreter perceives the meaning in your alien language. He will not attempt to communicate the meaningless. But He WILL separate out all that HAS meaning, dropping off all the rest, and offering your true communication to those who would communicate as truly WITH you. YOU SPEAK TWO LANGUAGES AT ONCE, and this MUST lead to unintelligibility. But if one means nothing, and the other EVERYTHING, only that one is possible for purposes of communication. The other but INTERFERES with it.

The Holy Spirit's function is ENTIRELY communication. He therefore MUST remove whatever INTERFERES with it, in order to RESTORE it. Therefore, keep no source of interference from His sight, for He will NOT attack your sentinels. But bring them TO Him, and let His gentleness teach you that, in the light, they are not fearful, and CANNOT serve to guard the dark doors behind which nothing at all is carefully concealed. We must open all doors, and let the light come streaming through. There are no hidden chambers in God's Temple. Its gates are open wide, to greet His Son. No-one can fail to come where God has called him, if he close not the door himself upon His Father's welcome.

Section 7 - The Loss of Certainty

Dictated without notes.

We said before that the abilities which man possesses are only shadows of his true abilities. The Soul's true functions are knowing, loving, and creating. The intrusion of the ability to perceive, which is inherently judgmental, was introduced only after the Separation. No one has been sure of anything since then. You will also remember that I made it very clear that the Resurrection was the return to knowledge, which was accomplished by the union of my will with the Father's.

Since the Separation, the words "create" and "make" are inevitably confused. When you make something, you make it first out of a sense of lack or need, and second, out of a something that already exists. Anything that is made is made for a specific purpose. It has no true generalizability. When you make something to fill a perceived lack, which is obviously why you would make anything, you are tacitly implying that you believe in the Separation. Knowing does not lead to doing, as we have frequently observed already.

What appears to be contradictory about the difference between knowing and perceiving, and Revelation and miracles, is again the fallacy that is the root cause of all subsequent errors. The miracle was associated with perception, and not with knowing. However, we also noted that prayer is the medium of miracles, and also the natural communication of the Creator and the Created. Prayer is always an affirmation of knowledge, not of accurate perception. That is why unless perception has entered into it, it calls on Revelation.

The confusion between your own creation and what you create is so profound that it has literally become impossible to know anything, because knowledge is always stable. It is quite evident that human beings are not. Nevertheless, they are perfectly stable as God created them. In this sense, when their behavior is unstable, they are obviously disagreeing with God's idea of the Creation. This is a fundamental right of man, although not one he would care to exercise if he were in his Right Mind.

The problem that is bothering you most is the fundamental question which man continually asks of himself, but which cannot properly be directed to himself at all. He keeps on asking "himself" what he is. This implies that the answer is not only one which he knows, but one which is up to him. The first part of this statement is perfectly true, but the second part is not. We have frequently commented on the absolute necessity of correcting all fallacious thinking which associates man in any way with his own Creation. Man CANNOT perceive himself correctly. He has no image at all. The word "image" is always perception related, and is not a product of knowing. Images are symbolic, and stand for something else. The current emphasis on "changing your image" is a good description of the power of perception, but it implies that there is nothing to KNOW.

Prayer is the medium of miracles, not because God created perceptions, but because God created YOU. At the beginning of this course, we said that YOU are a miracle. Therefore, the miracle worker is a miracle NOT of his own creation. Unless perception rests on some knowing basis, it is so unstable that it doesn't mean anything. Knowing is not open to interpretation, because its meaning is its own. It is possible to interpret meaning, but this is always open to error because it involves the perception of meaning. All of these wholly needless complexities are the result of man's attempt to regard himself both as separated and unseparated at the same time. It is impossible to undertake a confusion as fundamental as this without engaging in further confusion.

Methodologically, man's mind has been very creative. But, as always occurs when method and content are separated, it has not been utilized for anything but an attempt to escape a fundamental and entirely inescapable impasse. This kind of thinking cannot result in a creative outcome, though it has resulted in considerable ingenuity. It is noteworthy, however, that this ingenuity has almost totally divorced him from knowledge.

Knowledge does not require ingenuity at all. When we say "the truth shall set you free," we mean that all this kind of thinking is a waste of time, but that you are free of the need of engaging in it.

Note again that the functions of the Soul were not referred to as abilities. This point requires clarification, because abilities are beliefs which are BASED on the scarcity fallacy, since they do not mean anything apart from within-group comparisons. As you yourself never fail to point out, "nobody has none of an ability, and nobody has all of it." That is, of course, why the curve never rests on the line. The clearest implications of relativity, which properly inheres in this statement, DEMONSTRATE that abilities are not functions of the Soul. The Soul's functions are NOT relative. They are ABSOLUTE. They are OF God and FROM God, and therefore God-like.

Prayer is a way of asking for something. When we said that prayer is the medium of miracles, we also said that the only meaningful prayer is for forgiveness, because those who have been forgiven HAVE everything. Once forgiveness has been accepted, prayer in the usual sense becomes utterly without meaning. Essentially, a prayer for forgiveness is nothing more than a request that we may be able to recognize something we already have.

Perception is impossible WITHOUT a belief in "more" and "less." Unless perception, at every level, involves selectivity, it is incapable of organization. In all types of perception, there is a continual process of accepting and rejecting, of organizing and reorganizing, and of shifting and changing focus. Evaluation is an essential aspect of perception, because judgment MUST be made for selection. "Lack of lack" is a concept which is meaningless to a perceiver, because the ability to perceive at all RESTS ON lack.

What happens to perceptions if there ARE no judgments, and there is nothing BUT perfect equality? Perception is automatically useless. Truth can only be KNOWN. All of it is equally true, and knowing any part of it IS to know all of it.

Only perception involves partial awareness. Knowledge transcends ALL of the laws which govern perception. Partial KNOWLEDGE is impossible. It is all One, and has no separate parts. (i.e. the parts have NOT separated.) This IS the real knowledge. You who are really one with it need but know YOURSELF and your knowledge is complete. To know God's miracle is to know Him.

Forgiveness is the healing of the perception of separation. Correct perception of EACH OTHER is necessary ONLY because minds have willed to see themselves AS separate beings. Each Soul knows God completely. This IS the miraculous power of the Soul. The fact that each Soul has this power completely is a fact that is entirely alien to human thinking, in which if any ONE has everything, there is nothing LEFT.

God's miracles are as total as His Thought, because they ARE His thoughts. God shines in them all with perfect light. If they recognize this light anywhere, they know it universally. Revelation cannot be explained, because it IS knowledge. Revelation HAPPENS. It is the only REALLY natural happening, because it reflects the nature of God.

As long as perception lasts, prayer has a place. Since perception rests on lack, those who perceive have not totally accepted the Atonement and given over themselves to truth. Perception IS a separated state, and the perceiver DOES need healing. Communion, not prayer, is the natural state of those who know. God and HIS miracles are inseparable.

All words, at best, are preparatory. THE word is really a thought. No one WORD is universally meaningful, because a word is a symbol, but thought is not divisible by creation. The original name for "thought" and "word" was the same. The quotation should read "In the beginning was the thought, and the thought was with God, and the thought WAS God." How beautiful indeed are the thoughts of God, who live in His light. Your worth is beyond perception because it is beyond doubt.

Do not perceive yourself in different lights. KNOW yourself in the One Light, where the miracle which is you is perfectly clear.

The prerequisites for therapy must include the following conditions:

1. The procedure must involve the recognition rather than the denial of the importance of thought.

2. The exact equality of everyone who is involved. This must include Me.

3. No one is either therapist or patient. (Bill should add "teacher or pupil.")

4. Above all EVERYONE involved must want to give up everything that is NOT true. The reason for the negative emphasis here is that therapy implies something HAS gone wrong. Even though the purpose is to correct, those who are ill ARE negative.

5. Therapy is EXACTLY the same as all other forms of miracle-working. It has no separate laws of its own. All of the points that were given for miracles apply to therapy because, UNLESS therapy proceeds from miracle-mindedness, it CANNOT heal.

6. The therapist (hopefully) does have the role of being the better perceiver. (This is also, again hopefully, true of the teacher.) It does not follow that he is the better knower. Temporarily, the therapist or teacher can help in straightening out twisted perceptions, which is also the only role that I would ever contribute myself. All therapy should do is try to place EVERYONE involved in the right frame of mind to help one another. It is essentially a process of true courtesy, including courtesy to Me.

Any form of mental illness can truthfully be described as an expression of viciousness. We said before that those who are afraid are apt to be vicious. If we were willing to forgive other people's misperceptions of us, they could not possibly affect us at all. There is little doubt that you can explain your present attitudes in terms of how people used to look at you, but there is no wisdom in doing so. In fact, the whole historical approach can justifiably be called doubtful.

As you have so often said, no one has adopted ALL of his parents' attitudes as his own. In every case, there has been a long process of choice, in which the individual has escaped from those he himself vetoed, while retaining those he voted FOR. Bill has not retained his parents political beliefs, in spite of the particular kind of newspapers that constituted their own reading matter in this area. The reason why he could do this was because he believed he was free in this area.

There must be some acute problem OF HIS OWN that would make him so eager to accept their misperception of his own worth. This tendency can ALWAYS be regarded as punitive. It cannot be justified by the inequality of the strengths of parents and children. This is never more than temporary, and is largely a matter of maturational and thus physical difference. It does not last unless it is held onto.

Bill has a very serious question to ask himself in this connection. We said before that the purpose of the Resurrection was to "demonstrate that no amount of misperception has any influence at all on a Son of God." This demonstration EXONERATES those who misperceive, by establishing beyond doubt that they have NOT hurt anyone. B's question, which he must ask himself very honestly, is whether he is willing to demonstrate that his parents have NOT hurt him. Unless he is willing to do this, he has not forgiven them.

The essential goal of therapy is the same as that of knowledge. No one can survive independently as long as he is willing to see himself through the eyes of others. This will always put him in a position where he MUST see himself in different lights. Parents do not create the image of their children, though they may perceive images which they do create. However, as we have already said, you are not an image. If you SIDE WITH image-makers, you are merely being idolatrous.

Bill has no justification whatever for perpetuating ANY image of himself at all. He is NOT an image. Whatever is true of him is wholly benign. It is essential that he KNOW this about himself, but he cannot know it while he chooses to interpret himself as vulnerable enough to BE hurt. This is a peculiar kind of arrogance, whose narcissistic component is perfectly obvious. It endows the perceiver with sufficient unreal strength to make him over, and then acknowledges the perceiver's miscreation. There are times when this strange lack of real courtesy appears to be a form of humility. Actually, it is never more than simple spite.

No one has the right to change himself according to different circumstances. Only his actions are capable of appropriate variation. His belief in himself is a constant, unless it rests on perceptual acuity rather than knowledge of what he is.

It is your DUTY to establish beyond doubt that you are totally unwilling to side with (identify with) anyone's misperceptions of you, including your own. If you become concerned with totally irrelevant factors, such as the physical condition of a classroom, the number of students, the hour of the course, and the many elements which you may choose to select for emphasis as a basis for misperception, you have lost the knowledge of what ANY interpersonal relationship is for. It is NOT true that the difference between pupil and teacher is lasting. They meet IN ORDER to abolish the difference. At the beginning, since we are still in time, they come together on the basis of inequality of ability and experience. The aim of the teacher is to give them more of what is temporarily his. This process has all of the miracle conditions we referred to at the beginning. The teacher (or miracle worker) gives more to those who have less, bringing them closer to equality with him, at the same time gaining for himself.

Presumably, children must learn from parents. What parents learn from children is merely of a different order. Ultimately, there is no difference in order, but this involves only knowledge. Neither parents nor children can be said to HAVE knowledge, or their relationships would not exist AS IF they were on different levels. The same is true of the teacher and the pupil. Children have an authority problem ONLY if they believe that their image is influenced BY the authority. This is an act of will on their part, because they are electing to misperceive the authority and GIVE him this power.

A TEACHER with an authority problem is merely a pupil who refuses to teach others. He wants to maintain HIMSELF in a position where he can be misused and misperceived. This makes him resentful of teaching, because of what he insists it has done to him.

The ONLY way out of this particular aspect of the desert is still to leave. The way this is left is to release EVERYONE involved, by ABSOLUTELY REFUSING to engage in any form of honoring error. Neither teacher nor pupil is imprisoned by learning unless he uses it as an attack. If he does this, he will be imprisoned whether he actually teaches or learns, or refuses to be engaged in the process at all.

The role of a teacher, properly conceived, is one of leading himself and others out of the desert. The value of this role can hardly be underestimated, if only because it was one to which I very gladly dedicated my own life. I have repeatedly asked MY pupils to follow me. This means that, to be effective teachers, they MUST interpret teaching as I do. I have made EVERY effort to teach you ENTIRELY without fear. If you do not listen, you will be unable to avoid the VERY obvious error of perceiving teaching as a threat.

It is hardly necessary to say that teaching is a process whose purpose is to produce learning. The ultimate purpose of ALL learning is to abolish fear. This is necessary so that knowledge can happen. The role of the teacher is NOT the role of God. This confusion is all too frequently made, by parents, teachers, therapists, and the clergy. It is a real misunderstanding of both God and His miracles. Any teacher who believes that teaching is fearful CANNOT learn because he is paralyzed. He also cannot really teach.

Bill was quite right in maintaining that this course is a prerequisite for his. However, he was really saying much more than that. The purpose of this course IS to prepare you for knowledge. So is the only real purpose of ANY legitimate course. All that is required of you as a teacher is to follow Me.

Whenever anyone decides that he can function only in SOME roles but not in others, he cannot BUT be attempting to make a compromise which will not work. If Bill is under the misbelief that he is coping with the fear problem by functioning as an administrator and as a teacher of interns, but NOT as a teacher of students, he is merely deceiving himself. He owes himself greater respect. There is nothing as tragic as the attempt to deceive one's self, because it implies that you perceive yourself as so unworthy that deception is more fitting for you than truth. Either you can function in all of the roles you have properly undertaken to fill, or you cannot function effectively in any of them. This IS an all or none decision. You CANNOT make inappropriate level distinctions within this choice. You are either capable or not. This does not mean that you can DO everything, but it DOES mean that you are either totally miracle-minded or not. This decision is open to NO compromise whatever. When Bill says that he cannot teach, he is making the same mistake that we spoke of before, when he acted as if universal laws applied to everyone except him. This is not only arrogant, but patently untrue. Universal laws MUST apply to him, unless he does not exist. We will not bother to argue about this.

Descartes engaged in a very interesting teaching procedure, and one from which he himself learned a great deal. He began with doubting the existence of everything, except himself. He insisted that his own existence was not open to doubt, and rebuilt his entire thought system on the one premise "I think, therefore I am." It is noteworthy that he arrived at accepting the entire system he originally doubted, solely on the basis of this ONE piece of knowledge. There was, however, a distinct shift in his own perception. He no longer really questioned the reality of what he perceived, because he KNEW he was there.

We mentioned before that Bill is not too sure of this, and that is why we suggested that he concentrate on "Lord, here I am." A teacher is unlikely to be effective unless he begins with BEING THERE. B, this is not really open to question. You will lose all your fear of teaching and relating in any form once you know who you are. There is no point whatever in remaining in the prison of believing that this is up to you. You do NOT exist in different lights. It is this belief which has confused you about your own reality. Why would you want to remain so obscure to yourself?

Section 9 - The Way of Salvation

When you accept a brother's guiltlessness, you will SEE Atonement in him. For, by proclaiming it in HIM, you make it YOURS, and you WILL see what you sought. You will not see the symbol of your brother's guiltlessness shining within him, while you still believe IT IS NOT THERE. HIS guiltlessness is YOUR Atonement. Grant it to him, and you will see the truth of what you have acknowledged. Yet truth is offered FIRST, to be received, even as God gave it first to His Son. The first in time means nothing, but the First in Eternity is God the Father, Who is both First and One. Beyond the First, there is no other, for there is no order, no second or third, and nothing BUT the First.

You who belong to the First Cause, created by Him like unto Himself, and part of Him, are more than merely guiltless. The state of guiltlessness is only the condition in which what is NOT there has been REMOVED, from the disordered mind that THOUGHT it WAS. This state, and only this, must YOU attain with God beside you. For until you do, you will still think that you are separate FROM Him. You can feel His Presence NEXT TO you, but CANNOT know that you are one with Him. This need not be taught. Learning applies ONLY to the condition IN WHICH IT HAPPENS of itself.

When you have let all that has obscured the truth in your most holy mind be undone for you, and stand in grace before your Father, He will give Himself to you, as He has ALWAYS done. Giving Himself is all He knows, and so it is ALL knowledge. For what He knows NOT cannot be, and therefore CANNOT BE GIVEN. Ask not to BE forgiven, for this has already been accomplished. Ask rather to LEARN how to forgive, and restore WHAT ALWAYS WAS to your unforgiving mind. Atonement becomes real and visible, to them that USE it. On earth, it is your ONLY function, and you must learn that it is all you WANT to learn.

Decide that God is right, and YOU are wrong, about yourself. He created you out of Himself, but still WITHIN Him. He knows what you are. Remember that there is no second to Him. There cannot, therefore, be anyone WITHOUT His Holiness, nor anyone unworthy of His perfect love. Fail not in your function of loving in a loveless place, made out of darkness and deceit, for thus are darkness and deception UNdone. FAIL NOT YOURSELF, but instead, offer to God AND YOU His blameless Son. For this small gift of appreciation FOR His love, God will Himself exchange your gift for HIS.

Before you make ANY decisions for yourself, remember that YOU HAVE DECIDED AGAINST YOUR FUNCTION IN HEAVEN, and consider carefully whether you WANT to make decisions here. Your function here is only to decide AGAINST deciding what you want, in recognition that YOU DO NOT KNOW. How, then, CAN you decide what you should do? Leave ALL decisions to the One Who speaks for God, and for your function as He KNOWS it. So will He teach you to remove the awful burden you have laid upon yourself, by loving not the Son of God, and trying to teach him guilt INSTEAD of love. Give up this frantic and insane attempt, which cheats you of the joy of living with your God and Father, and awaking gladly to His Love and Holiness, which join together as truth in YOU, making you One with Him.

When you have learned how to decide WITH God, ALL decisions become as easy and as right as breathing. There is no effort, and you will be led as gently, as if you were being carried along a quiet path in summer. Only your own volition seems to make deciding hard. The Holy Spirit will not delay at all in answering your EVERY question what to do. He KNOWS. And He will TELL you, and then do it FOR you. You who are tired might consider whether this is not more restful than sleep. For you can bring your guilt into sleeping, but NOT into this.

Section 5 - The Awareness of the Holy Spirit

How can you become increasingly aware of the Holy Spirit in you, EXCEPT by His EFFECTS? You cannot see Him with your eyes, nor hear Him with your ears. How, then, can you perceive Him at all? If you INSPIRE joy, and others react to you WITH joy, even though you are not experiencing joy yourself, there must be SOMETHING IN YOU that IS CAPABLE OF PRODUCING IT. If it is in YOU, and CAN produce joy, and if you see that it DOES produce joy in others, you MUST be dissociating it in yourself.

It seems to you that the Holy Spirit does not produce joy consistently in you, ONLY because YOU DO NOT CONSISTENTLY AROUSE JOY IN OTHERS. Their reactions to you ARE your evaluations of His consistency. When you are inconsistent, you will not always GIVE RISE to joy, and so you will not always recognize HIS consistency. What you offer to your brother, you offer to Him, because He cannot GO BEYOND your offering in HIS giving. This is NOT because HE limits His giving, but simply because YOU have limited your RECEIVING.

The will to receive is the will to accept. If your brothers ARE part of you, will you ACCEPT them? Only they can teach you what you are, and your learning is the result of what you taught THEM. What you call upon in them, you call upon in YOURSELF. And as you call upon it IN THEM, it becomes real to YOU. God has but one Son, knowing them all as One. Only God Himself is more than they, but they are not less than He is. Would you know what this means? If what you do to my brother you do to me, and if you do everything for yourself because we are PART of you, everything WE do belongs to you as well. Every Soul God created is part of you, and shares His glory WITH you.

Because the Sonship MUST create as one, you remember creation whenever you recognize part of creation. Each part you remember adds to YOUR wholeness, because each part IS whole. Wholeness is indivisible, but you cannot learn YOUR wholeness, UNTIL YOU SEE IT EVERYWHERE. You can know yourself only as God knows His Son, for KNOWLEDGE is shared WITH God. When you awake in Him, you will know your magnitude by accepting HIS limitlessness as YOURS. But meanwhile, you will judge it as you judge your brothers', and will accept it as you accept theirs.

You are not yet awake, but you can learn HOW to awaken. Very simply the Holy Spirit teaches you to awaken others. As you see them waken, you will learn WHAT WAKING MEANS. And because you have willed to wake them, their gratitude, and their appreciation of what you have given them, will TEACH YOU ITS VALUE. THEY will become the witnesses to your reality, as YOU were created witnesses to God's. But when the Sonship COMES TOGETHER and accepts its oneness, it will be known by ITS creations, who witness to its reality, as the Son does to the Father.

Miracles have no place in eternity because they are reparative. But while you still need healing, your miracles are the only witnesses to your reality THAT YOU CAN RECOGNIZE. You cannot perform a miracle FOR YOURSELF, because miracles are a way of GIVING ACCEPTANCE AND receiving it. In TIME, the giving comes FIRST, though they are simultaneous in eternity, where they cannot BE separated. When you have learned that they ARE the same, the need for time is over. Eternity is ONE time, its ONLY dimension being "always."

But this cannot mean anything to you, until you remember God's open arms, and finally know His open Mind. Like Him, YOU are ALWAYS, in His Mind, and with a mind like His. In your open mind are YOUR creations, in perfect communication, born of perfect understanding. Could you but accept one of them, you would not want ANYTHING the world has to offer. Everything else would be totally meaningless. God's meaning is incomplete without you, and you are incomplete without your creations.

Accept your brother in this world, and accept NOTHING ELSE, for in him you will find your creations, because he created them WITH you. You will never know that you are co-creator with God, until you learn that your brother is a co-creator with YOU.

Section 2 - The "Sacrifice" of Oneness

The world you see is based on SACRIFICE of oneness. It is a picture of a COMPLETE disunity and total LACK of joining. Around each entity is built a wall so seeming solid that it looks as if what is inside can never reach without, and what is out can never reach and join with what is locked away within the wall. Each part must SACRIFICE the other part to keep itself complete. For if they joined, each one would LOSE its own identity, and BY their separation are their selves maintained. The little that the body fences off BECOMES the self, preserved through sacrifice of all the rest. And all the rest must LOSE this little part, remaining incomplete to keep its own identity intact.

In THIS perception of your self the BODY's loss would be a sacrifice indeed. And sight of bodies becomes the sign that sacrifice IS limited, and something still remains for you alone. And FOR this little to belong to you, are limits placed on EVERYTHING outside, just as they are on everything you think is YOURS. For giving and receiving ARE the same. And to ACCEPT the limits of a body is to IMPOSE these limits on each brother that you see. For you MUST see him as you see yourself. The body IS a loss, and CAN be made to sacrifice. And while you see your brother as a body,APART from you and separate in his cell, you are demanding sacrifice of him AND you.

What greater sacrifice could be demanded than that God's Son perceive himself without his Father? And his Father be without His Son? Yet EVERY sacrifice demands that they be separate and without the other. The memory of God MUST be denied, if ANY sacrifice is asked of ANYONE. What witness to the wholeness of God's Son is seen within a world of separate bodies, however much he witnesses to truth? He is INVISIBLE in such a world. Nor can his song of union and of joy be heard at all. Yet is it given him to make the world recede before his song and sight of him REPLACE the body's eyes.

Those who would see the witnesses to truth INSTEAD of to illusion merely ask that they might see a PURPOSE in the world that gives it sense and makes it meaningful. WITHOUT your special function HAS this world no meaning for you. Yet it can become a treasure house as rich and limitless as Heaven Itself. No instant passes here in which your brother's holiness can NOT be seen, to add a limitless supply to every meager scrap and tiny crumb of happiness that you allot yourself. You CAN lose sight of oneness, but can NOT make sacrifice of its reality. Nor can you LOSE what you would sacrifice, nor keep the Holy Spirit from His task of showing you that it has NOT been lost.

Hear, then, the song your brother sings to you. And LET the world recede, and TAKE the rest his witness offers on behalf of peace. But judge him not, for you will hear no song of liberation for yourself, nor see what it is given him to witness to, that YOU may see it and rejoice WITH him. Make not his holiness a sacrifice to your belief in sin. You sacrifice YOUR innocence with his, and die each time you see in him a sin deserving death. Yet every instant can you be reborn, and given life again. His holiness gives life to you, who CANNOT die because his sinlessness is known to God, and can no more be sacrificed by you than can the light in you be blotted out because he sees it not.

God's justice rests in gentleness upon His Son, and keeps him safe from ALL injustices the world would lay upon him. COULD it be that YOU could make his sins reality, and sacrifice his Father's Will for him? Condemn him not by seeing him within the rotting prison where he sees himself. It is your special function to ensure the door be opened, that he may come forth to shine on you, and give you back the gift of freedom by receiving it of you. What is the Holy Spirit's Special Function but to release the holy Son of God from the imprisonment he made, to KEEP himself from justice? Could YOUR function be a task apart and SEPARATE from His Own?

Section 5 - Perception and the Two Worlds

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.

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.

It is essential to realize that ALL defenses DO what they would DEFEND. The underlying basis for their effectiveness is that they OFFER what they defend. What they defend is placed IN them for safe-keeping, and as THEY operate, THEY BRING IT TO YOU. Every defense operates BY GIVING GIFTS, and the gift is ALWAYS a miniature of the thought-system the defense protects, set in a golden frame. The frame is very elaborate, all set with jewels, and deeply carved and polished. Its purpose is to be of value IN ITSELF, and to divert YOUR attention from what it encloses. But the frame WITHOUT the picture, you CANNOT have. Defenses operate TO MAKE YOU THINK YOU CAN.

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.

Lesson 91 "Miracles are seen in light."

It is important to remember that miracles and vision necessarily go together. This needs repeating and frequent repeating. It is a central idea in your new thought system and the perception which it produces. The miracle is always there. Its presence is not caused by your vision; its absence is not the result of your failure to see. It is only your awareness of miracles that is affected. You will see it in the light; you will not see it in the dark.

To you, then, light is crucial. While you remain in darkness the miracle remains unseen. Thus you are convinced it is not there. This follows from the premises from which the darkness comes. Denial of light leads to failure to perceive it. Failure to perceive light is to perceive darkness. The light is useless to you then, even though it is there. You cannot use it because its presence is unknown to you. And the seeming reality of the darkness makes the idea of light meaningless.

To be told that what you do not see is there sounds like insanity. It is very difficult to become convinced that it is insanity not to see what is there, and to see what is not there instead. You do not doubt that the body's eyes can see. You do not doubt the images they show you are reality. Your faith lies in the darkness, not the light. How can this be reversed? For you it is impossible, but you are not alone in this.

Three times today, set aside about 10 minutes for a quiet time in which you try to leave your weakness behind. This is accomplished very simply, as you instruct yourself that you are not a body. Faith goes to what you want, and you instruct your mind accordingly. Your will remains your teacher, and your will has all the strength to do whatever it desires. You can escape the body if you choose. You can experience the strength in you.

Begin the longer practice periods with this statement of true cause and effect relationships:

"Miracles are seen in light.

The body's eyes do not perceive the light.

But I am not a body. What am I?"

The question with which this statement ends is needed for our exercises today. What you think you are is a belief to be undone. But what you really are must be revealed to you. The belief you are a body calls for correction, being a mistake. The truth of what you are calls on the strength in you to bring to your awareness what the mistake concealed.

If you are not a body, what are you? You need to be aware of what the Holy Spirit uses to replace the image of a body in your mind. You need to feel something to put your faith in, as you lift it from the body. You need a real experience of something else, something more solid and more sure; more worthy of your faith, and really there.

If you are not a body, what are you? Ask this in honesty, and then devote several minutes to allowing your mistaken thoughts about your attributes to be corrected, and their opposites to take their place. Say, for example:

"I am not weak, but strong."

"I am not helpless, but all powerful."

"I am not limited, but unlimited."

"I am not doubtful, but certain."

"I am not an illusion, but a reality."

"I cannot see in darkness, but in light."

In the second phase of the exercise period, try to experience these truths about yourself. Concentrate particularly on the experience of strength. Remember that all sense of weakness is associated with the belief you are a body, a belief that is mistaken and deserves no faith. Try to remove your faith from it, if only for a moment. You will become accustomed to keeping faith with the more worthy in you as we go along.

Relax for the rest of the practice period, confident that your efforts, however meager, are fully supported by the strength of God and all His Thoughts. It is from Them your strength will come. It is through Their strong support that you will feel the strength in you. They are united with you in this practice period, in which you share a purpose like Their own. Theirs is the light in which you will see miracles, because Their strength is yours. Their strength becomes your eyes, that you may see.

Five or six times an hour, at reasonably regular intervals, remind yourself that miracles are seen in light. Also, be sure to meet temptation with today's idea. This form would be helpful for this special purpose:

"Miracles are seen in light.

Let me not close my eyes because of this."