Chapter 13 - From Perception to Knowledge

Section 1 - Introduction

Lesson 103 "God, being Love, is also happiness."

Fear is associated then with love, and its results become the heritage of minds which think what they have made is real. These images, with no reality in truth, bear witness to the fear of God, forgetting being Love. He must be joy. This basic error we will try again to bring to truth today, and teach ourselves:

"God, being Love, is also happiness.

To fear Him is to be afraid of joy."

Begin your longer exercises for today with this association, which corrects the false belief that God is fear. It also emphasizes happiness belongs to you because of what He is.

Allow this one correction to be placed within your minds each waking hour today. Then welcome all the happiness it brings, as truth replaces fear, and joy becomes what you expect to take the place of pain. God being Love, it will be given you. Bolster this expectation frequently throughout the day, and quiet all your fears with this assurance, kind and wholly true:

"God, being Love, is also happiness.

And it is happiness I seek today.

I cannot fail, because I seek the truth."

Lesson 264 "I am surrounded by the Love of God."

My brothers, join with me in this today. This is salvation's prayer. Must we not join in what will save the world, along with us?

Chapter 25 - The Remedy

Section 1 - Introduction

The Christ in you inhabits NOT a body. Yet He IS in you. And thus MUST it be that YOU are not within a body. What is within you CANNOT be outside. And it is certain that YOU cannot be APART from what is at the very CENTER of your life. What gives you life cannot be housed in death. NO MORE CAN YOU. Christ is within a frame of holiness, whose ONLY purpose is that He may be made manifest to those who know Him not; that He may call to them to come to Him, and see Him where they THOUGHT their bodies were. Then will their bodies melt away, that they may frame His holiness in them.

The body needs NO healing. But the mind that thinks it IS a body is sick indeed! And it is here that Christ sets forth the remedy. His PURPOSE folds the body in His light, and fills it with the holiness that shines from HIM. And nothing that the body says or does but makes HIM manifest. To those who know Him not it carries Him, in gentleness and love, to heal their minds. Such is the mission that your brother has for YOU. And such it MUST be that YOUR mission is for HIM.

Section 8 - The New Interpretation

Would God have left the meaning of the world to YOUR interpretation? If He had, it HAS no meaning. For it cannot be that meaning changes constantly, and yet is true. The Holy Spirit looks upon the world as with ONE purpose, changelessly established. And NO situation can affect its aim, but MUST be in accord with it. For ONLY if its aim could change with every situation could each one be OPEN to interpretation which is different every time you think of it. You ADD an element into the script you write for every minute in the day, and all that happens now means something else. You TAKE AWAY another element, and every meaning shifts accordingly.

What do your scripts reflect except your plans for what the day SHOULD be? And thus you judge disaster and success, advance, retreat, and gain and loss. These judgments all are made according to the roles the script assigns. The fact they have no meaning in themselves is DEMONSTRATED by the ease with which these labels change with other judgments made on different aspects of experience. And then, in looking back, you think you see ANOTHER meaning in what went before. What have you really done, except to show there WAS no meaning there? And YOU assigned a meaning in the light of goals that change, with EVERY meaning shifting as they change.

Only a CONSTANT purpose can endow events with stable meaning. But it must ACCORD ONE MEANING TO THEM ALL. If they are given DIFFERENT meanings, it MUST mean that they reflect but different purposes, and this is ALL the meaning that they have. Can this BE meaning? Can confusion BE what meaning means? Perception CANNOT be in constant flux, and make allowance for stability of meaning ANYWHERE. Fear is a judgment NEVER justified. Its presence has no meaning but to show you wrote a fearful script, and are afraid accordingly. But NOT because the thing you fear has fearful meaning in itself.

In SINGLE purpose is the end of all ideas of sacrifice, which MUST assume a DIFFERENT purpose for the one who gains and him who loses. There could BE no thought of sacrifice apart from this idea. And it IS this idea of different goals which makes perception shift and meaning change. In one united goal does this become impossible, for your AGREEMENT makes interpretation stabilize and last. How can communication REALLY be established, while the symbols which are used mean different things? The Holy Spirit's goal gives ONE interpretation, meaningful to you AND to your brother. Thus can you communicate with him, and he with you. In symbols which you BOTH can understand, the sacrifice of meaning is undone.

All sacrifice entails the LOSS of your ability to see relationships AMONG events. And, looked at SEPARATELY, they HAVE no meaning. For there is no light by which they can be seen and understood. They HAVE no purpose. And what they are FOR cannot BE seen. In any thought of loss there IS no meaning. No-one has agreed with you on what it means. It is a part of a distorted script, which cannot be interpreted with meaning. It must be forever unintelligible. This is NOT communication. Your dark dreams are but the senseless, isolated scripts you write in sleep. Look not to separate dreams for meaning. ONLY dreams of pardon can be shared. They mean the same for BOTH of you.

Do not interpret out of solitude, for what you see means nothing. It will shift in what it stands for, and you will believe the world is an uncertain place, in which you walk in danger and uncertainty. It is but your INTERPRETATIONS which are lacking in stability. And they are NOT in line with what you really are. This is a state so seemingly unsafe that fear MUST rise. Do not continue thus, my brothers. We have ONE Interpreter. And through His use of symbols are we joined, so that they mean the same to ALL of us. Our common language lets us speak to all our brothers, and to understand with them forgiveness has been given to us all, and thus we CAN communicate again.

Question 11 - What is Creation?

God's Thoughts are given all the power that Their own Creator has. For He would add to Love by Its extension. Thus His Son shares in creation, and must therefore share in power to create. What God has willed to be forever one will still be one when time is over; and will not be changed throughout the course of time, remaining as it was before the thought of time began.

Creation is the opposite of all illusions, for Creation is the truth. Creation is the holy Son of God, for in Creation is His Will complete in every aspect, making every part container of the whole. Its oneness is forever guaranteed inviolate; forever held within His holy Will, beyond all possibility of harm, of separation, imperfection and of any spot upon its sinlessness.

We are Creation; we the Sons of God. We seem to be discrete and unaware of our eternal unity with Him. Yet back of all our doubts, past all our fears, there still is certainty. For Love remains with all Its Thought, Its sureness being Theirs. God's memory is in our holy minds, which know their oneness and their unity with their Creator. Let our function be only to let this memory return, only to let God's Will be done on earth, only to be restored to sanity, and to be but as God created us.

Our Father calls to us. We hear His Voice, and we forgive creation in the Name of its Creator, Holiness Itself, Whose holiness His own creation shares; Whose holiness is still a part of us.

Question 13 - What is a Miracle?

A miracle is a correction. It does not create, nor really change at all. It merely looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is false. It undoes error, but does not attempt to go beyond perception, nor exceed the function of forgiveness. Thus it stays within time's limits. Yet it paves the way for the return of timelessness and love's awakening, for fear must slip away under the gentle remedy it gives.

A miracle contains the gift of grace, for it is given and received as one. And thus it illustrates the law of truth the world does not obey, because it fails entirely to understand its ways. A miracle inverts perception which was upside-down before, and thus it ends the strange distortions that were manifest. Now is perception open to the truth. Now is forgiveness seen as justified.

Forgiveness is the home of miracles. The eyes of Christ deliver them to all they look upon in mercy and in love. Perception stands corrected in His sight, and what was meant to curse has come to bless. Each lily of forgiveness offers all the world the silent miracle of love. And each is laid before the Word of God upon the universal altar to Creator and creation, in the Light of perfect purity and endless joy.

The miracle is taken first on faith, because to ask for it implies the mind has been made ready to conceive of what it cannot see and does not understand. Yet faith will bring its witnesses to show that what it rested on is really there. And thus the miracle will justify your faith in it, and show it rested on a world more real than what you saw before; a world redeemed from what you thought you saw.

Question 12 - What is the Ego?

The ego is idolatry; the sign of limited and separated self, born in a body, doomed to suffer and to end its life in death. It is the will that sees the Will of God as enemy, and takes a form in which It is denied. The ego is the "proof" that strength is weak and love is fearful, life is really death, and what opposes God alone is true.

The Son of God is egoless. What can he know of madness and the death of God, when he abides in Him? What can he know of sorrow and of suffering, when he lives in eternal joy? What can he know of fear and punishment, of sin and guilt, of hatred and attack, when all there is surrounding him is everlasting peace, forever conflict-free and undisturbed, in deepest silence and tranquility?

To know Reality is not to know the ego and its thoughts, its works, its acts, its laws and its beliefs, its dreams, its hopes, its plans for its salvation, and the cost belief in it entails. In suffering, the price for faith in it is so immense that crucifixion of the Son of God is offered daily at its darkened shrine, and blood must flow before the altar where its sickly followers prepare its feast of death.

Yet will one lily of forgiveness change the darkness into light; the altar to illusions to the shrine of Life Itself. And peace will be restored forever to the holy minds which God created as His Son, His dwelling-place, His joy, His love, completely His, completely one with Him.

Section 2 - The Role of Healing

Apart from the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit has no function. He is not separate from either, being in the mind of both, and knowing that Mind is one. He is a thought of God, and God has GIVEN Him to you, because He has NO thoughts He does not share. His message speaks of timelessness in time, and that is why Christ's vision looks on everything with love. Yet even Christ's vision is not His reality. The golden ASPECTS of reality, which spring to light under His loving gaze, are partial glimpses of the Heaven that lies beyond them.

This is the miracle of creation; THAT IT IS ONE FOREVER. Every miracle you offer to the Son of God, is but the true perception of one ASPECT of the whole. Though every aspect IS the whole, you cannot KNOW this, until you SEE that every aspect IS THE SAME, perceived in the SAME light; and THEREFORE one. Everyone seen WITHOUT the past thus brings you nearer to the end of time, by bringing healed and healing sight into the darkness, and ENABLING THE WORLD TO SEE. For light must come into the darkened world, to make Christ's vision possible even here. Help Him to give His gift of light to all who think they wander in the darkness, and let Him gather them into His quiet sight that makes them one.

They are all the same; all beautiful, and equal in their holiness. And He will offer them unto His Father, as they were offered unto Him. There is ONE miracle, as there is ONE reality. And every miracle you do contains them all, as every aspect of reality you see blends quietly into the one reality of God. The only miracle that ever was, is God's most holy Son, created in the One Reality that is his Father. Christ's vision is His gift to you. His Being is His Father's gift to Him.

When you have seen your brothers as yourself, you will be RELEASED to knowledge, having learned to FREE yourself, of Him who knows of freedom. Unite with me, under the holy banner of His teaching, and, as we grow in strength, the power of God's Son will move in us, and we will leave no-one untouched and no-one left alone. And suddenly, time will be over, and we will all unite in the Eternity of God the Father. The holy light you saw OUTSIDE yourself, in every miracle you offered to your brothers, will be RETURNED to you. And, KNOWING that the light is IN you, YOUR creations will be there WITH you, as you are in your Father.

As miracles in this world join you to your brothers, so do your creations establish your fatherhood in Heaven. YOU are the witnesses to the Fatherhood of God, and He has given you the power to create the witnesses to YOURS, which is as HIS. Deny a brother here, and you deny the witnesses to your fatherhood in Heaven. The miracle which God created is perfect, as are the miracles which YOU created in His Name. They need no healing, nor do you, when you know THEM.

But in this world, your perfection is unwitnessed. God knows it, but YOU do not, and so you do not SHARE His witness TO it. Nor do you witness unto Him, for reality is witnessed to as one. God waits your witness to His Son, and to Himself. The miracles you do on earth are lifted up to Heaven, and to Him. They witness to what you do not know, and, as they reach the gates of Heaven, God will open them. For never would He leave His own beloved Son outside them, and beyond Himself.

Review 1 - Introduction

Beginning with today, we will have a series of review periods. Each of them will cover five of the ideas already presented, starting with the first and ending with the fiftieth. There will be a short comment after each of the ideas, which you should consider in your review. In the practice period, the exercises should be done as follows:

Begin, the day by reading the five ideas, with the comments included. Thereafter, it is not necessary to follow any particular order in considering them, though each one should be practiced at least once. Devote two minutes or more to each practice period, thinking about the idea and the related comments. Do this as often as possible during the day. If any one of the five ideas appeals to you more than the others, concentrate on that one. At the end of the day, however, be sure to review all of them once more.

It is not necessary to cover the comments literally or thoroughly in the practice periods. Try, rather, merely to emphasize the central point, and think about it as part of your review of the idea to which it relates. The review exercises should be done with the eyes closed, and when you are alone in a quiet place, if possible.

This is emphasized particularly for reviews at your stage of learning. It will be necessary, however, that you learn to require no special settings in which to apply what you have learned. You will need it most in situations which appear to be upsetting, rather than in those which already seem to be calm and quiet. The purpose of your learning is to enable you to bring the quiet with you, and to heal distress and turmoil. This is not done by avoiding them and seeking a haven of isolation for yourself.

You will note that for review purposes the ideas are not always given in quite their original form of statement. Use them as they are given here. It is not necessary to return to the original statements, nor to apply the ideas as was suggested then. We are now emphasizing the relationships among the first fifty of the ideas we have covered, and the cohesiveness of the thought system to which they are leading you.

Lesson 56 Our review for today covers the following: (26-30)

26) "My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability."

How can I know who I am when I see myself as under constant attack? Pain, illness, loss, age and death seem to threaten me. All my hopes and wishes and plans appear to be at the mercy of a world I cannot control. Yet perfect security and complete fulfillment are my inheritance. I have tried to give my inheritance away in exchange for the world I see. But God has kept my inheritance safe for me. My own real thoughts will teach me what it is.

27) "Above all else I want to see."

Recognizing that what I see reflects what I think I am, I realize that vision is my greatest need. The world I see attests to the fearful nature of the self-image I have made. If I would remember who I am, it is essential that I let this image of myself go. As it is replaced by truth, vision will surely be given me. And with this vision I will look upon the world and upon myself with charity and love.

28) "Above all else I want to see differently."

The world I see holds my fearful self-image in place, and guarantees its continuance. While I see the world as I see it now, truth cannot enter my awareness. I would let the door behind this world be opened for me, that I may look past it to the world that reflects the Love of God.

30) "God is in everything I see because God is in my mind."

In my own mind, behind all my insane thoughts of separation and attack, is the knowledge that all is one forever. I have not lost the knowledge of who I am because I have forgotten it. It has been kept for me in the Mind of God, Who has not left His Thoughts. And I, who am among them, am one with them and with Him.

Section 4 - The Holy Encounter

Glory be to God in the highest, and to you because He has so willed it. Ask and it shall be given you, because it has already been given. Ask for light and learn that you are light. If you WANT understanding and enlightenment you will learn it, because your will to learn it is your decision to listen to the Teacher who knows of light and can therefore TEACH IT TO YOU.

There is no limit on your learning, because there is no limit on your MINDS. There is no limit on His will to teach, because He was created by unlimited Will in ORDER to teach. KNOWING His function perfectly, He wills to fulfill it perfectly, because that is His joy AND YOURS. To fulfill the Will of God perfectly is the only joy and peace that can be fully KNOWN, because it is the only function that can be FULLY EXPERIENCED. When this is accomplished, then, there IS no other experience. But the WISH for other experience will block this, because God's Will CANNOT be forced upon you, being an experience of total WILLINGNESS.

The Holy Spirit knows how to teach this, but YOU do not. That is why you need Him, and why God gave Him TO you. Only HIS teaching will release your will to God's, uniting it with His power and glory, and establishing them as yours. You will share them as He shares them, because this is the natural outcome of their being. The Will of the Father and of the Son are one together BY THEIR EXTENSION. Their extension is the RESULT of their Oneness, holding THEIR unity by extending their JOINT will.

This is perfect creation by the perfectly created in union with the Perfect Creator. The Father MUST give fatherhood to His Sons, because His Own Fatherhood must be extended outward. You who belong in God have the holy function of extending His Fatherhood by placing no limits upon it. Let the Holy Spirit teach you HOW to do this, for you will know what it MEANS of God Himself.

When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him, you will see yourself. As you treat him, you will treat yourself. As you think of him, you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose sight of yourself. Whenever two Sons of God meet they are given another chance at Salvation. Do not leave anyone without giving salvation TO him and receiving it yourself. For I am always there WITH you, in remembrance of YOU.

The goal of the curriculum, regardless of the teacher you choose, is KNOW THYSELF. There is nothing else to learn. Everyone is looking for himself and the power and glory he thinks he has lost. Whenever you are with anyone ELSE, you have another opportunity to find them. Your power and glory are in HIM BECAUSE they are yours. The ego tries to find them in YOURSELF, because he does not know where to look. But the Holy Spirit teaches you that if you look only at yourself you CANNOT find yourself because that is NOT what you are.

Whenever you are with a brother you are learning what you are, because you are TEACHING what you are. He will respond either with pain or with joy, depending on which teacher YOU are following. HE will be imprisoned or released according to your decision, AND SO WILL YOU. Never forget your responsibility to him, because it is your responsibility to YOURSELF. Give him HIS place in the Kingdom, and you will have YOURS. The Kingdom CANNOT be found alone, and you who ARE the Kingdom cannot find YOURSELVES alone.

To achieve the goal of the curriculum, then, you CANNOT listen to the ego. Its purpose is to DEFEAT ITS OWN GOAL. It does not know this, because it does not know anything. But YOU can know this, and you WILL know it if you are willing to look at what the ego has made of YOU. This IS your responsibility, because once you have really done this you WILL accept the Atonement for yourself. What other choice could you make?

God wills NO-ONE suffer. He does not will ANYONE to suffer for a wrong decision you have made, including YOURSELF. That is why He has given you the means for UNDOING it. Through His power and glory all your wrong decisions are undone COMPLETELY, releasing you AND your brothers from EVERY IMPRISONING THOUGHT ANY part of the Sonship has accepted. Wrong decisions HAVE no power BECAUSE they are not true. The imprisonment which they SEEM to produce is no more true than THEY are.

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.

Only what YOU have not given CAN be lacking in ANY situation. But remember this; the goal of holiness was set for YOUR relationship, AND NOT BY YOU. YOU did not set it, because holiness can NOT BE SEEN except through faith, and your relationship was not holy BECAUSE your faith in one another was so limited and little. Your faith must grow, to meet the goal that has been set. The goal's REALITY will call this forth. For you will see that peace and faith will not come separately. What situation can you be in WITHOUT FAITH, and remain faithful to each other? EVERY situation in which you find yourselves, is but a means to meet the purpose set for YOUR relationship. See it as something ELSE, and you ARE faithless.

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.

And you can use THIS in perfect safety. Yet, for all its might, so great it reaches past the stars and to the universe that lies beyond them, your little faithlessness can make IT useless, if you would use the faithlessness instead. But think on this, and learn the CAUSE of faithlessness; you think you hold against another what he has done to you. But what you REALLY blame him for is WHAT YOU DID TO HIM. It is not HIS past but YOURS, you hold against him. And you lack faith in HIM, because of what YOU were. Yet YOU are as innocent of what you were, as HE is. What never was is causeless, and IS NOT THERE to interfere with truth. There IS no cause for faithlessness, but there IS a Cause for faith.

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 9 - Christ and Anti-Christ

What is an idol? Do you think you know? For idols are unrecognized as such, and never seen for what they really are. That is the only power which they have. Their purpose is obscure, and they are feared, and worshipped, both, BECAUSE you do not know what they are for, and why they have been made. An idol is an image of your brother, which you would value MORE than what he IS. Idols are made that HE may be replaced, no matter what their form. And it is this which NEVER is perceived and recognized. Be it a body or a thing, a place, a situation or a circumstance, an object owned or wanted, or a right demanded or achieved, it is the same.

Let not their form deceive you. Idols are but substitutes for your reality. In some way you believe they will complete your little self, and let you walk in safety in a world perceived as dangerous, with forces massed against your confidence and peace of mind. They have the power to supply your lacks, and add the value which you do not have. No-one believes in idols who has not enslaved himself to littleness and loss. And thus must seek BEYOND his little self for strength to raise his head and stand apart from all the misery the world reflects. This is the penalty for looking not within for certainty, and for a quiet calm which liberates you FROM the world, and lets you stand apart in quiet and in peace unlimited.

An idol is a false impression, or a false belief; some form of anti-Christ which constitutes a gap BETWEEN the Christ and what you see. An idol is a wish, made tangible and given form, and thus perceived as real, and seen OUTSIDE the mind. Yet they remain ideas, and CANNOT leave the mind that is their source. Nor is their form apart from the idea it represents. All forms of anti-Christ oppose the Christ. And fall before His Face like a dark veil which SEEMS to shut you off from Him, alone in darkness. Yet the light is there. A cloud does not put out the sun. No more a veil can banish what it seems to separate, nor darken by one whit the Light Itself.

What is an idol? Nothing! It must be believed BEFORE it seems to come to life, and GIVEN power that it may be feared. Its life and power are its believer's gift, and this is what the miracle restores to what HAS life and power worthy of the gift of Heaven and eternal peace. The miracle does not restore the truth, the light the veil between has NOT put out. It merely LIFTS the veil, and LETS the truth shine unencumbered, being what It is. It does not NEED belief to be Itself, for It HAS BEEN created, so It IS. An idol is ESTABLISHED by belief, and when it is withdrawn, the idol "dies."

This is the anti-Christ; the strange idea there is a power PAST omnipotence, a place BEYOND the infinite, a time transcending the eternal. Here the world of idols has been set by the idea this power and place and time are given form, and shape the world where the impossible has happened. Here the deathless come to die; the all-encompassing to suffer loss; the timeless to be made the slaves of time. Here does the changeless change; the peace of God, forever given to all living things, give way to chaos. And the Son of God, as perfect, sinless, and as loving as his Father, come to hate a little while; to suffer pain, and finally to die.

The world BELIEVES in idols. No-one comes unless he worshipped them, and still attempts to seek for one that yet might offer him a gift reality does NOT contain. Each worshipper of idols harbors hope his SPECIAL deities will give him MORE than other men possess. It MUST be "more." It does not really matter more of what, - more beauty, more intelligence, more wealth; or even more affliction and more pain. But MORE of SOMETHING is an idol FOR. And when one fails another takes its place, with hope of finding more of something ELSE. Be not deceived by forms the "something" takes. An idol is a means for getting MORE. And it is THIS that is against God's Will.

God has not many sons, but only One. Who can have more, and who be given less? In Heaven would the Son of God but laugh, if idols could intrude upon his peace. It is for HIM the Holy Spirit speaks, and tells you idols HAVE no purpose here. For MORE than Heaven can you never have. If Heaven is within why would you seek for idols which would make of Heaven less, to give you MORE than God bestowed upon your brother AND on you, as One with Him? God GAVE you all there is. And to be sure you could not lose it, did He ALSO give the same to every living thing as well. And thus IS every living thing a part of you as of Himself. No idol can establish you as MORE than God. But YOU will never be content with being LESS.

Chapter 2 - Who are God's Teachers?

A teacher of God is anyone who chooses to be one. His qualifications consist solely in this; somehow, somewhere he has made a deliberate choice in which he did not see his interests as apart from someone else's. Once he has done that his road is established and his direction is sure. A light has entered the darkness. It may be a single light, but that is enough. He has entered an agreement with God, even if he does not yet believe in Him. He has become a bringer of salvation. He has become a teacher of God.

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.

Lesson 97 "I am Spirit."

Today's idea identifies you with your One Self. It accepts no split identity, nor tries to weave opposing factors into unity. It simply states the truth. Practice this truth today as often as you can, for it will bring your mind from conflict to the quiet fields of peace. No chill of fear can enter, for your mind has been absolved of madness, letting go illusions of a split identity.

We state again the truth about your Self, the holy Son of God Who rests in you; Whose mind has been restored to sanity. You are the Spirit lovingly endowed with all your Father's Love and peace and joy. You are the Spirit Which completes Himself, and shares His Function as Creator. He is with you always, as you are with Him.

Today we try to bring reality still closer to your mind. Each time you practice, awareness is brought a little nearer at least; sometimes a thousand years or more are saved. The minutes which you give are multiplied over and over, for the miracle makes use of time, but is not ruled by it. Salvation is a miracle, the first and last; the first that is the last, for it is one.

You are the Spirit in Whose Mind abides the miracle in which all time stands still; the miracle in which a minute spent in using these ideas becomes a time which has no length and which has no end. Give, then, these minutes willingly, and count on Him Who promised to lay timelessness beside them. He will offer all His strength to every little effort which you make.

Give Him the minutes which He needs today to help you understand with Him you are the Spirit that abides in Him, and Which calls through His Voice to every living thing; offers His sight to everyone who asks; replaces errors with the simple truth.

Thus will your gifts to Him be multiplied a thousand-fold and tens of thousands more. And when it is returned to you, it will surpass in might the little gift you gave as much as does the radiance of the sun outshine the tiny gleam a firefly makes an uncertain moment, and goes out. The steady brilliance of this light remains, and leads you out of darkness, nor will you be able to forget the way again.

Begin these happy exercises with the words the Holy Spirit speaks to you, and let them echo round the world through Him:

"Spirit am I, a holy Son of God,

Free of all limits, safe and healed and whole,

Free to forgive, and free to save the world."

Expressed through you, the Holy Spirit will accept this gift which you received of Him, increase its power, and give it back to you.

Offer each practice period today gladly to Him. And He will speak to you, reminding you that you are Spirit, one with Him and God, your brothers and your Self. Listen for His assurance every time you speak the word He offers you today, and let Him tell your mind that they are true. Use them against temptation, and escape its sorry consequences if you yield to the belief that you are something else. The Holy Spirit gives you peace today. Receive His words, and offer them to Him.

Section 2 - Healing as Joining

Healing is an act of thought by which two minds perceive their oneness, and become glad. This gladness calls to every part of the Sonship to rejoice with them, and let God Himself go out into them and through them. Only the healed mind can experience revelation with lasting effect, because revelation is an experience of pure joy. If you do not will to be wholly joyous, your mind cannot HAVE what it does not will to BE.

Remember that the Soul knows no difference between being and having. The higher mind thinks according to the laws which the Soul obeys, and therefore honors only the laws of God. To Him, getting is meaningless, and giving is all. Having everything, the Soul HOLDS everything by GIVING it, thus creating as the Father created.

If you think about it, you will see that, while this kind of thinking is totally alien to having THINGS, even to the lower mind it is quite comprehensible in connection with IDEAS. If you share a physical possession, you DO divide its ownership. But if you share an IDEA, you do NOT lessen it. ALL of it is still yours, although all of it has been given away. Further, if the person to whom you give it accepts it as HIS, he reinforces it in YOUR mind, and thus INCREASES it.

If you can accept the concept that the world IS one of ideas, the whole belief in the false association which the ego has made between giving and LOSING is gone. Let us start our process of re-awakening with just a few simple concepts:

Thoughts INCREASE by being given away.

The more who BELIEVE in them, the STRONGER they become.

EVERYTHING is an idea.

How, then, is it possible that giving and losing can be meaningfully associated?

This is the invitation to the Holy Spirit. I told you that I could reach up and bring the Holy Spirit down to you. But I can bring Him to you only at your own invitation. The Holy Spirit is nothing more than your own right mind. He was also mine. The Bible says, "May the mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus," and uses this as a BLESSING. It is the blessing of miracle-mindedness. It asks that you may think as I thought, joining with me in Christ-thinking.

The Holy Spirit is the only part of the Holy Trinity which is symbolic. He is referred to in the Bible as the Healer, the Comforter, and the Guide. He is also described as something separate, apart from the Father and from the Son. I myself said, "and if I go I will send you ANOTHER comforter, and he will abide with you."

The Holy Spirit is a difficult concept to grasp, precisely because it IS symbolic, and therefore open to many different interpretations. As a man and as one of God's creations, my right thinking, which came from the Universal Inspiration which IS the Holy Spirit, taught me first and foremost that this Inspiration is for ALL. I could not have it myself without knowing that.

The Holy Spirit is the Christ mind that senses the knowledge that lies beyond perception. It came into being with the separation as a protection, and inspired the beginning of the Atonement at the same time. Before that, there was no need for healing and no-one was comfortless.

Section 8 - The Total Commitment

Whenever you deny a blessing to a brother, YOU will feel deprived. This is because denial is as total as love. It is as impossible to deny part of the Sonship as it is to love it in part. Nor is it possible to love it totally AT TIMES. You CANNOT be totally committed SOMETIMES. Remember a very early lesson, -- "never underestimate the power of denial." It has no power in ITSELF, but YOU can give it the power of YOUR mind, whose power is without limit of ANY kind. If you use it to deny reality, reality is gone FOR YOU. REALITY CANNOT BE PARTLY APPRECIATED. That is why denying any part of it means you have lost awareness of ALL of it.

That is the negative side of the law as it operates in this world. But denial is a defense, and so it is as capable of being used positively as it is of being used destructively. Used negatively, it WILL be destructive, because it will be used for attack. But in the service of the Holy Spirit, the law becomes as beneficent as all of the laws of God. Stated positively, the law requires you only to recognize PART of reality to appreciate ALL of it. Mind is too powerful to be subject to exclusion. You will NEVER be able to exclude yourself from what you project.

When a brother acts insanely, he is offering you an opportunity to bless him. His need is YOURS. YOU need the blessing you can offer him. There is no way for you to have it EXCEPT by giving it. This IS the law of God, and it HAS NO EXCEPTIONS. What you deny you LACK, not because it IS lacking, but because you have denied it in another, and therefore are not aware of it in YOU. Every response you make is determined by what you think you ARE. And what you WANT to be IS what you think you are. Therefore, what you WANT to be determines every response you make.

You do NOT need God's blessing, because that you have forever. But you DO need YOURS. The picture you see of yourselves is deprived, unloving, and very vulnerable. You CANNOT love this. But you can very easily escape FROM it, or better, leave it behind. You are NOT there, and that is not YOU. Do not see this picture in anyone, or you HAVE accepted it as you. ALL illusions about the Sonship are DISPELLED together, as they were MADE together. Teach no-one that HE is what YOU do not want to be. Your brother is the mirror in which you will see the image of yourself as long as perception lasts. And perception WILL last until the Sonship knows itself as whole.

You MADE perception, and it MUST last as long as you WANT it. Illusions are investments. They will last as long as you value them. Values are relative, but they are powerful because they are MENTAL JUDGMENTS. The only way to dispel illusions is to withdraw ALL investment from them, and they will HAVE no life for you because you have put them OUT OF YOUR MIND. While you include them IN it, you are GIVING them life. Except there is nothing there to receive your gift.

The gift of life IS yours to give, because it was given YOU. You are unaware of YOUR gift BECAUSE you do not give it. You CANNOT make nothing live, because it cannot BE enlivened. Therefore, you have NOT extended the gift you both have and are, and so you do NOT know your being. All confusion comes from not extending life, because this is NOT the will of your Creator. You CAN do nothing apart from Him, and you DO do nothing apart from him. Keep His Way to remember yourselves, and teach His Ways lest you forget yourself. Give only honor to the sons of the living God, and count yourself among them gladly.

ONLY honor is a fitting gift for those whom God Himself created worthy of honor and whom He honors. Give them the appreciation which God accords them always, because they are His Beloved Sons in whom He is well pleased. You CANNOT be apart from them, because you are not apart from Him. Rest in His love, and protect your rest by loving. But love EVERYTHING He created, of which YOU are part, or you cannot learn of His peace and accept His gift FOR yourself and AS yourself. You CANNOT know your own perfection until you have honored all those who were created LIKE you.

One Child of God is the only teacher sufficiently worthy to teach another. One Teacher is in all your minds, and He teaches the same lesson to all. He always teaches you the inestimable worth of EVERY Son of God, teaching it with infinite patience born of the Love of Him for whom He speaks. Every attack is a call for His patience, because ONLY His patience can translate attack into blessing. Those who attack DO NOT KNOW THEY ARE BLESSED. They attack BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE THEY ARE DEPRIVED. Give therefore of YOUR abundance, and teach them THEIRS. Do not share their delusions of scarcity, or you will perceive YOURSELF as lacking.

Attack could never PROMOTE attack unless you perceived it as a means of depriving you of SOMETHING YOU WANT. But you cannot lose ANYTHING unless YOU do not value it and therefore DO NOT WANT IT. This makes you feel DEPRIVED of it, and by projecting YOUR rejection, you believe that others are TAKING IT FROM YOU. One MUST be fearful if he believes that his brother is attacking him to tear the Kingdom of Heaven from him.

This is the ultimate basis for ALL of the ego's projection. Being the part of your mind which does NOT believe it is responsible for ITSELF, and being without allegiance to God, it is incapable of trust. Projecting its insane belief that YOU have been treacherous to YOUR Creator, it believes that your brothers, who are as incapable of this as you are, are out to TAKE GOD FROM YOU. Whenever a brother attacks another, THIS IS WHAT HE BELIEVES. Projection ALWAYS sees YOUR will in others. If you will to separate YOURSELF from God, that is what you will think others are doing TO you.

There is only one way out of the world's thinking, just as there was only one way INTO it. Understand totally by understanding TOTALITY. Perceive ANY part of the ego's thought system as wholly insane, wholly delusional, and wholly undesirable, and you have CORRECTLY EVALUATED ALL OF IT. This correction enables you to perceive ANY part of Creation as wholly real, wholly perfect, and WHOLLY DESIRABLE. Wanting this ONLY, you will HAVE this only, and giving this only, you will BE only this. The gifts you offer to the ego are ALWAYS experienced as sacrifices. But the gifts you offer to the Kingdom are gifts to YOU. They will always be treasured by God, because they belong to His Beloved Sons who belong to Him. All power and glory are yours because the Kingdom is His.

Lesson 75 "The light has come."

The light has come. You are healed and you can heal. The light has come. You are saved and you can save. You are at peace and you bring peace with you wherever you go. Darkness and turmoil and death have disappeared. The light has come. Today we celebrate the happy ending to your long dream of disaster. There are no dark dreams now. The light has come.

Today the time of light begins for you and everyone. It is a new era, in which a new world is born. The old one has left no trace upon it in its passing. Today we see a different world because the light has come. Our exercises for today will be happy ones, in which we offer thanks for the passing of the old and the beginning of the new. No shadows from the past remain to darken our sight and hide the world forgiveness offers us.

Today we will accept the new world as what we want to see. We will be given what we desire. We will to see the light; the light has come.

Our longer practice periods will be devoted to looking at the world which our forgiveness shows us. This is what we want to see, and only this. Our single purpose makes our goal inevitable. Today the real world rises before us in gladness, to be seen at last. Sight is given us, now that the light has come. We do not see the ego's shadow on the world today. We see the light, and in it we see Heaven's reflection lie across the world.

Begin the practice period by telling yourself the glad tidings of your release:

"The light has come.

I have forgiven the world."

Dwell not upon the past today. Keep a completely open mind, washed of all past ideas and clean of every concept you have made. You have forgiven the world today. You can look upon it now as if you never saw it before. You do not know yet what it looks like. You merely wait to have it shown to you. While you wait, repeat several times slowly and in complete patience;

"The light has come.

I have forgiven the world."

Realize that your forgiveness entitles you to vision. Understand that the Holy Spirit never fails to give the gift of sight to the forgiving. Believe He will not fail you now. You have forgiven the world. He will be with you as you watch and wait. He will show what true vision sees. It is His Will, and you have joined with Him.

Wait patiently for Him. He will be there. The light has come. You have forgiven the world. Tell Him you know you cannot fail because you trust in Him. Tell yourself you wait in certainty to look upon the world He promised you. From this time forth you will see differently. Today the light has come. And you will see the world that has been promised you since time began, and in which is the end of time ensured.

The shorter practice periods, too, will be joyful reminders of your release. Remind yourself every quarter of an hour or so that today is a time for special celebration. Give thanks for mercy and the Love of God. Rejoice in the power of forgiveness to heal your sight completely. Be confident that on this day there is a new beginning. Without the darkness of the past upon your eyes, you cannot fail to see today. And what you see will be so welcome that you will gladly extend today forever. Say, then:

"The light has come.

I have forgiven the world."

Should you be tempted, say to anyone who seems to pull you back to darkness:

"The light has come.

I have forgiven you."

Section 6 - Healing and the Changelessness of Mind

The body is nothing more than a framework for developing abilities. It is therefore a means for developing potentials, which is quite apart from what the potential is used FOR. This IS a decision. The effects of the ego's decision in this matter are so apparent that they need no elaboration here. But the Holy Spirit's decision to use the body ONLY for communication has such direct connection with healing that it DOES need clarification. The unhealed healer OBVIOUSLY does not understand his own vocation.

ONLY minds communicate. Since the ego CANNOT obliterate the impulse to communicate because it is also the impulse to CREATE, it can only try to teach you that the BODY can both communicate AND create, and therefore DOES NOT NEED THE MIND. The ego, then, tries to teach you that the body can ACT like the mind, and therefore IS self-sufficient. But we have learned that behavior is NOT the level for either teaching OR learning. This MUST be so, because you CAN act in accordance with what you do NOT believe. But this will weaken you as teachers AND learners because, as has been repeatedly emphasized, you teach what you DO believe. An inconsistent lesson WILL be poorly taught and POORLY LEARNED. If you teach both sickness AND healing, you ARE both a poor teacher and a poor learner.

Healing is the one ability that everyone CAN develop, and MUST develop, if he is to BE healed. Healing IS the Holy Spirit's form of communication, and THE ONLY ONE HE KNOWS. He recognizes no other, because he does NOT accept the ego's confusion of mind and body. Minds CAN communicate, but they CANNOT hurt. The body in the service of the ego can hurt other BODIES, but this CANNOT occur UNLESS the body has ALREADY been confused WITH the mind. This fact, too, can be used either for healing or for magic, but you must realize that magic is ALWAYS the belief that healing is HARMFUL. This is its totally insane premise, and so it proceeds accordingly.

Healing ONLY STRENGTHENS. Magic always tries to weaken. Healing perceives NOTHING in the healer that everyone else does not share WITH him. Magic ALWAYS sees something special in the healer, which he believes he can offer as a gift to someone who does NOT have it. He may believe that this gift comes from God TO him, but it is quite evident that he does NOT understand God if he thinks HE has something that others DO NOT. You might well ask why SOME healing CAN result from this kind of thinking, and there is a real reason for this.

However misguided the "magical healer" may be, and however much he may be trying to strengthen his ego, HE IS ALSO TRYING TO HELP. He IS conflicted and unstable, but AT TIMES he is offering SOMETHING to the Sonship, and the ONLY thing the Sonship can ACCEPT IS healing. When the so-called healing "works," then, the impulse both to help and BE helped have coincided. This is co-incidental, because the healer may NOT be experiencing HIMSELF as truly helpful at the time, and the belief that he IS, in the mind of ANOTHER, HELPS HIM.

The Holy Spirit does NOT work by chance, and the healing that is of HIM ALWAYS works. And unless the healer ALWAYS heals BY Him, the results WILL vary. But healing itself IS consistence, because ONLY consistence is conflict-free, and only the conflict-free ARE whole. By accepting exceptions, and acknowledging that he can SOMETIMES heal and SOMETIMES not, the healer is OBVIOUSLY accepting INconsistency. He is therefore IN conflict and TEACHING conflict.

Can ANYTHING of God NOT be for all and always? Love is incapable of ANY exceptions. Only if there is fear does the whole IDEA of exceptions of any kind seem to be meaningful. Exceptions ARE fearful because they were made BY fear. The "fearful healer" is a contradiction in terms, and is therefore a concept that ONLY a conflicted mind could POSSIBLY perceive as meaningful. Fear does NOT gladden. Healing DOES. Fear ALWAYS makes exceptions. Healing NEVER does. Fear produces dissociation because it induces SEPARATION. Healing ALWAYS induces harmony because it proceeds from integration.

Healing is predictable BECAUSE it can be counted on. EVERYTHING that is of God can be counted on, because everything of God is WHOLLY REAL. HEALING can be counted on BECAUSE it is inspired by His voice, and is in accord with His laws. But if healing IS consistence, it CANNOT be inconsistently understood. Understanding MEANS consistence, because GOD means consistence. And because that IS His Meaning, it is also YOURS. YOUR meaning CANNOT be out of accord with His, because your whole meaning, and your ONLY meaning, comes FROM His and is LIKE His. God CANNOT be out of accord with HIMSELF, and YOU cannot be out of accord with Him. You cannot separate your SELF from YOUR Creator, who created YOU by sharing HIS Being WITH you.

The unhealed healer wants gratitude FROM his brothers, but he is NOT grateful to them. This is because he thinks he is giving something TO them, and is NOT receiving something equally desirable in return. His TEACHING is limited because he is LEARNING so little. His HEALING lesson is limited by his own ingratitude, which is a lesson in sickness. Learning is constant and so vital in its power for change that a Son of God can recognize his power in an instant, and change the world in the next. That is because by changing HIS mind he has changed the most powerful device that was ever created FOR change.

This in no way contradicts the changelessness of mind as GOD created it. But YOU think that you HAVE changed it, as long as you learn through the ego. This DOES place you in a position of needing to learn a lesson which SEEMS contradictory: you must learn to change your mind ABOUT your mind. Only by this can you learn that it IS changeless.

When you heal, that is exactly what you ARE learning (doing). You are recognizing the changeless mind in your brother by perceiving (knowing) that he could NOT have changed his mind. That is how you perceive the Holy Spirit in him. It is ONLY the Holy Spirit in him that never changes His mind. He himself must think he CAN, or he would not perceive himself as sick. He therefore does not know what his self IS. If YOU see only the changeless in him, you have not really changed him at all. But by changing your mind about HIS FOR him, you help him undo the change his ego thinks it has made in him. As you can hear two voices, so you can see in two ways. One way shows you an image, or better, an idol which you may worship out of fear, but which you will never love. The other shows you only truth, which you will love because you will UNDERSTAND it. Understanding is APPRECIATION, because what you understand you can identify WITH, and by making it part of YOU you have accepted it with love. This is how God Himself created YOU, in understanding, in appreciation, and in love.

The ego is totally unable to understand this, because it does NOT understand what it makes. It does NOT appreciate it, and it does NOT love it. It incorporates to TAKE AWAY. It literally believes that every time it deprives someone of something IT has increased. We have spoken often of the INCREASE of the Kingdom by YOUR creations, which can only BE created as YOU were.

The whole glory and perfect joy that IS the Kingdom lies in you to give. Do you not WANT to give it? You CANNOT forget the Father because I am with you and I CANNOT forget Him. To forget ME is to forget yourself and Him who created you. Our brothers ARE forgetful. That is why they need your remembrance of Me and Him who created Me. Through this remembrance you can change THEIR minds about themselves, as I can change YOURS. Your minds are so powerful a light that you can look into theirs and enlighten them, as I can enlighten yours.

The mind WE share IS shared by all our brothers, and as we see them truly, they WILL be healed. Let YOUR minds shine with mine upon their minds, and by our gratitude to them make THEM aware of the light in THEM. This light will shine back upon YOU and on the whole Sonship because this IS your proper gift to God. He will accept it and give it to the Sonship, because it is acceptable to Him, and therefore to His Sons. This is the true communion of the Spirit Who sees the altar of God in everyone, and by bringing it to YOUR appreciation calls upon you to love God and His Creation.

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.

His glory belongs to Him, but it is equally YOURS. You cannot, then, BE less glorious than He is. He is more than you ONLY because He CREATED you, but not even this would He keep from you. Therefore, you CAN create as He did, and YOUR dissociation WILL NOT ALTER THIS. Neither God's Light nor YOURS is dimmed because you do not see.

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 7 - The Savior's Vision

Learning is change. Salvation does not seek to use a means as yet too alien to your thinking to be helpful, nor to make the kinds of change you could not recognize. Concepts are needed while perception lasts. And changing concepts IS salvation's task. For it must deal in contrasts, not in truth, which has no opposite and cannot change. In this world's concepts are the guilty "bad;" the "good" are innocent. And no-one here but holds a concept of himself in which he counts the "good" to pardon him the "bad." Nor does he trust the "good" in anyone, believing that the "bad" must lurk behind.

This concept emphasizes treachery, and trust becomes impossible. Nor could it change while you perceive the "bad" in you. You could not recognize your "evil" thoughts as long as you see value in attack. You WILL perceive them sometimes, but will NOT see them as meaningless. And so they come in fearful form, with content still concealed, to shake your sorry concept of yourself, and blacken it with still another "crime." YOU cannot give yourself your innocence, for you are too confused about yourself. But should ONE brother dawn upon your sight as wholly worthy of forgiveness, then your concept of yourself IS wholly changed.

YOUR "evil" thoughts have been forgiven with his, because you let them all effect YOU not. No longer did you choose that you should be the sign of "evil" and of guilt in him. And as you gave your trust to what is "good" in him, you gave it to the "good" in you. In terms of concepts, it is thus you see him MORE than just a body, for the "good" is NEVER what the body seems to be. The actions of the body are perceived as coming from the "baser" part of you, and thus of him as well. By focusing upon the "good" in him, the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight, and will at length be seen as little more than just a shadow circling round the "good."

And this will be your concept of YOURSELF, when you have reached the world beyond the sight your eyes alone can offer you to see. For you will not interpret what you see without the Aid that God has given you. And in His sight there IS another world. You live in that world just as much as this, for BOTH are concepts of yourself, which can be interchanged, but never jointly held. The contrast is far greater than you think, for you will love this concept of yourself, BECAUSE IT WAS NOT MADE FOR YOU ALONE. Born as a gift for someone NOT perceived to be yourself, it has been given YOU. For your forgiveness, offered unto him, has been accepted now for BOTH of you.

Have faith in him who walks with you, so that your fearful concept of yourself may change. And look upon the "good" in him, that you may not be fearful of your "evil" thoughts, because they do not cloud your view of him. And all this shift requires is that you be WILLING that this happy change occur. No more than this is asked. On its behalf, remember what the concept of yourself which now you hold has brought you in its wake, and welcome the glad contrast offered you. Hold out your hand, that you may have the gift of kind forgiveness, which you offer one whose need for it is just the same as yours. And let your cruel concept of yourself be changed to one which brings the peace of God.

The concept of yourself which now you hold would GUARANTEE your function here remain forever unaccomplished and undone. And thus it dooms you to a bitter sense of deep depression and futility. Yet it need not be fixed, unless you choose to hold it past the hope of change, and keep it static and concealed within your mind. Give it instead to Him Who understands the changes that it needs to let it SERVE the function given you to bring you peace, that you may offer peace to have it yours. Alternatives are in your mind to use, and you CAN see yourself another way. Would you not rather look upon yourself as NEEDED for salvation of the world, instead of as salvation's enemy?

The concept of the self stands like a shield, a silent barricade before the truth, and hides it from your sight. All things you see are images because you look on them as through a barrier which dims your sight and warps your vision, so that you behold nothing with clarity. The light is kept from everything you see. At most, you glimpse a shadow of what lies beyond. At least you merely look on darkness, and perceive the terrified imaginings that come from guilty thoughts and concepts born of fear. And what you see is hell, for fear IS hell. All that is given you is for release; the sight, the vision and the inner Guide all lead you OUT of hell, with those you love beside you, and the universe with them.

Behold your role within the universe! To every part of true creation has the Lord of Love and Life entrusted ALL salvation from the misery of hell. And to each one has He allowed the grace to be a Savior to the holy ones especially entrusted to his care. And this he learns when first he looks upon ONE brother as he looks upon himself, and sees the mirror of himself in him. Thus is the CONCEPT of himself laid by, for nothing stands BETWEEN his sight and what he looks upon, to judge what he beholds. And in this single vision does he see the Face of Christ, and understands he looks on everyone, as he beholds this One. For there is light where darkness was before, and now the veil is lifted from his sight.

The veil across the Face of Christ, the fear of God and of salvation, and the love of guilt and death, - they all are different names for just ONE error; that there is a space between you and your brother, kept apart by an illusion of yourself which holds him off from you, and you away from him. The sword of judgment is the weapon which you give to the illusion of yourself, that it may fight to keep the space that holds your brother off unoccupied by love. Yet while you hold this sword you MUST perceive the body as YOURSELF, for you are bound to separation from the sight of him who holds the mirror to another view of what HE is, and thus what YOU must be.

What is temptation but the WISH to stay in hell and misery? And what could this give rise to BUT an image of yourself that CAN be miserable, and remain in hell and torment? Who has learned to see his brother NOT as this HAS saved himself, and thus IS he a savior to the rest. To everyone has God entrusted all, because a PARTIAL savior would be one who is but partly saved. The holy ones whom God has given each of you to save are everyone you meet or look upon, not knowing who they are; all those you saw an instant and forgot, and those you knew a long while since, and those you will yet meet, the unremembered and the not yet born. For God has given you His Son to save from every concept that he ever held.

Whatever form temptation seems to take, it ALWAYS but reflects a wish to be a self that you are not. And FROM that wish a concept rises, teaching you you ARE the thing you wish to be. It will remain your concept of yourself until the wish that fathered it no longer is held dear. And while you cherish it, you will behold your brother in the likeness of the self whose image has the wish begot of YOU. For vision CAN but represent a wish, because it has NO power to create. Yet it can look with love or look with hate, depending only on the simple choice of whether you would JOIN with what you see, or keep yourself apart and separate.

The Savior's vision is as innocent of what your brother is as it is free of any judgment made upon yourself. It sees no past in anyone at all. And thus it serves a wholly open mind, unclouded by old concepts and prepared to look on ONLY what the present holds. It cannot judge because it does not know. And RECOGNIZING this, it merely asks, "What is the meaning of what I behold?" Then is the Answer given, and the door held open for the Face of Christ to shine upon the one who asks in innocence to see BEYOND the veil of old ideas and ancient concepts held so long and dear AGAINST the vision of the Christ in you.

Be vigilant against temptation, then, remembering that it is but a wish, insane and meaningless, to make yourself a thing which you are not. And think as well upon the thing that you would be instead. It is a thing of madness, pain, and death; a thing of treachery and black despair, of failing dreams and no remaining hope except to die and end the dream of fear. THIS is temptation; nothing MORE than this. CAN this be difficult to choose AGAINST? Consider what temptation is, and see the real alternatives you choose between. There ARE but two. Be not deceived by what appears as many choices. There is hell or Heaven. And of these you choose but ONE.

Let not the world's light, given unto you, be hidden from the world. It NEEDS the light, for it is dark indeed, and men despair because the Savior's vision is withheld, and what they see is death. Their Savior stands, unknowing and unknown, beholding them with eyes unopened. And THEY cannot see until he looks on them with seeing eyes, and offers them forgiveness with his own. Can you to whom God says, "Release My Son" be tempted NOT to listen, when you learn that it is YOU for whom He asks release? And what BUT this is what this course would teach? And what BUT this is there for you to learn?

Lesson 189 "I feel the Love of God within me now."

There is a light in you the world can not perceive. And with its eyes you will not see this light, for you are blinded by the world. Yet you have eyes to see it. It is there for you to look upon. It was not placed in you to be kept hidden from your sight. This light is a reflection of the thought we practice now. To feel the Love of God within you is to see the world anew, shining in innocence, alive with hope, and blessed with perfect charity and love.

Who could feel fear in such a world as this? It welcomes you, rejoices that you came, and sings your praises as it keeps you safe from every form of danger and of pain. It offers you a warm and gentle home in which to stay a while. It blesses you throughout the day, and watches through the night as silent guardian of your holy sleep. It sees salvation in you, and protects the light in you in which it sees its own. It offers you its flowers and its snow in thankfulness for your benevolence.

This is the world the Love of God reveals. It is so different from the world you see through darkened eyes of malice and of fear that one belies the other. Only one can be perceived at all. The other one is wholly meaningless. A world in which forgiveness shines on everything and peace offers its gentle light to everyone is inconceivable to those who see a world of hatred, rising from attack, poised to avenge, to murder and destroy.

What would you see? The choice is given you. But learn and do not let your mind forget this law of seeing: You will look upon that which you feel within. If hatred finds a place within your heart, you will perceive a fearful world, held cruelly in death's sharp-pointed, bony fingers. If you feel the Love of God within you, you look out upon a world of mercy and of love.

Today we pass illusions as we seek to reach to what is true in us, and feel Its all-embracing tenderness, Its Love Which knows us perfect as Itself, Its sight which is the gift Its Love bestows on us. We learn the way today. It is as sure as Love Itself, to Which it carries us. For its simplicity avoids the snares the foolish convolutions of the world's apparent reasoning but serve to hide.

Simply do this: Be still and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false or good or bad; of every thought it judges worthy and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.

Is it not He Who knows the way to you? You need not know the way to Him. Your part is simply to allow all obstacles that you have interposed between the Son and God the Father to be quietly removed forever. God will do His part in joyful and immediate response. Ask and receive. But do not make demands, nor point the road to God by which He should appear to you. The way to reach Him is merely to let Him be. For in that way is your reality acclaimed as well.

And so today we do not choose the way in which we go to Him. But we do choose to let Him come, and with this choice we rest. And in our quiet hearts and open minds His Love will blaze Its pathway of Itself. What has not been denied is surely there, if it be true, and can be surely reached. God knows His Son, and knows the way to him. He does not need His Son to show Him how to find His way. Through every opened door His Love shines outward from Its home within, and lightens up the world in innocence.

Father, we do not know the way to You. But we have called and You have answered us. We will not interfere. Salvation's ways are not our own for they belong to You, and it is unto You we look for them. Our hands are open to receive Your gifts. We have no thoughts we think apart from You, and cherish no beliefs of what we are or who created us. Yours is the way that we would find and follow. And we ask but that Your Will, Which is our own as well, be done in us and in the world, that it becomes a part of Heaven now. Amen.

Lesson 187 "I bless the world because I bless myself."

No one can give unless he has. In fact, giving is proof of having. We have made this point before. What seems to make it hard to credit is not this. No one can doubt that you must first possess what you would give. It is the second phase on which the world and true perception differ. Having had and given, then the world asserts that you have lost what you possessed. The truth maintains that giving will increase what you possess.

How is this possible? For it is sure that if you give a finite thing away, your body's eyes will not perceive it yours. Yet we have learned that things but represent the thoughts which make them. And you do not lack for proof that when you give ideas away, you strengthen them in your own mind. Perhaps the form in which the thought seems to appear is changed in giving. Yet it must return to him who gives. Nor can the form it takes be less acceptable. It must be more.

Ideas must first belong to you before you give them. If you are to save the world, you first accept salvation for yourself. But you will not believe that this is done until you see the miracles it brings to everyone you look upon. Herein is the idea of giving clarified and given meaning. Now you can perceive that by your giving is your store increased.

Protect all things you value by the act of giving them away, and you are sure that you will never lose them. What you thought you did not have is thereby proven yours. Yet value not its form. For this will change, and grow unrecognizable in time, however much you try to keep it safe. No form endures. It is the thought behind the form of things that lives unchangeable.

Give gladly. You can only gain thereby. The thought remains and grows in strength as it is reinforced by giving. Thoughts extend as they are shared, for they can not be lost. There is no giver and receiver in the sense the world conceives of them. There is a giver who retains; another who will give as well. And both must gain in this exchange, for each will have the thought in form most helpful to him. What he seems to lose is always something he will value less than what will surely be returned to him.

Never forget you give but to yourself. Who understands what giving means must laugh at the idea of sacrifice. Nor can he fail to recognize the many forms which sacrifice may take. He laughs as well at pain and loss, at sickness and at grief, at poverty, starvation and at death. He recognizes sacrifice remains the one idea that stands behind them all, and in his gentle laughter are they healed.

Illusion recognized must disappear. Accept not suffering, and you remove the thought of suffering. Your blessing lies on everyone who suffers when you choose to see all suffering as what it is. The thought of sacrifice gives rise to all the forms that suffering appears to take. And sacrifice is an idea so mad that sanity dismisses it at once.

Never believe that you can sacrifice. There is no place for sacrifice in what has any value. If the thought occurs, its very presence proves that error has arisen, and correction must be made. Your blessing will correct it. Given first to you, it now is yours to give as well. No form of sacrifice and suffering can long endure before the face of one who has forgiven and has blessed himself.

The lilies that your brother offers you are laid upon your altar, with the ones you offer him beside them. Who could fear to look upon such lovely holiness? The great illusion of the fear of God diminishes to nothingness before the purity that you will look on here. Be not afraid to look. The blessedness you will behold will take away all thought of form, and leave instead the perfect gift forever there, forever to increase, forever yours, forever given away.

Now are we one in thought, for fear has gone. And here, before the altar to one God, one Father, one Creator and one Thought, we stand together as one Son of God. Not separate from Him Who is our Source; not distant from one brother who is part of our one Self Whose innocence has joined us all as one, we stand in blessedness and give as we received. The Name of God is on our lips. And as we look within, we see the purity of Heaven shine in our reflection of our Father's Love.

Lesson 124 "Let me remember I am one with God."

How holy are our minds! And everything we see reflects the holiness within the mind at one with God and with itself. How easily do errors disappear, and death give place to everlasting life. Our shining footprints point the way to truth, for God is our Companion as we walk the world a little while. And those who come to follow us will recognize the way because the light we carry stays behind, yet still remains with us as we walk on.

What we receive is our eternal gift to those who follow after, and to those who went before or stayed with us a while. And God, Who loves us with the equal love in which we were created, smiles on us and offers us the happiness we gave.

Today we will not doubt His Love for us, nor question His protection and His care. No meaningless anxieties can come between our faith and our awareness of His Presence. We are one with Him today in recognition and remembrance. We feel Him in our hearts. Our minds contain His Thoughts, our eyes behold His loveliness in all we look upon. Today we see only the loving and the loveable.

We see it in appearances of pain, and pain gives way to peace. We see it in the frantic, in the sad and the distressed, the lonely and afraid, who are restored to the tranquility and peace of mind in which they were created. And we see it in the dying and the dead as well, restoring them to life. All this we see because we saw it first within ourselves.

No miracle can ever be denied to those who know that they are one with God. No thought of theirs but has the power to heal all forms of suffering in anyone in times gone by and times as yet to come as easily as in the ones who walk beside them now. Their thoughts are timeless, and apart from distance as apart from time.

We join in this awareness as we say that we are one with God. For in these words we say as well that we are saved and healed; that we can save and heal accordingly. We have accepted and we now would give, for we would keep the gifts our Father gave. Today we would experience ourselves at one with Him, so that the world may share our recognition of reality. In our experience the world is freed. As we deny our separation from our Father, it is healed along with us.

Peace be to you today. Secure your peace by practicing awareness you are one with your Creator, as He is with you. Sometime today, whenever it seems best, devote a half an hour to the thought that you are one with God. This is our first attempt at an extended period for which we give no rules nor special words to guide your meditation. We will trust God's Voice to speak as He sees fit today, certain He will not fail. Abide with Him this half an hour. He will do the rest.

Your benefit will not be less if you believe that nothing happened. You may not be ready to accept the gain today. Yet sometime, somewhere, it will come to you, nor will you fail to recognize it when it dawns with certainty upon your mind. This half an hour will be framed in gold, with every minute like a diamond set around the mirror that this exercise will offer you. And you will see Christ's Face upon it, in reflection of your own.

Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, you will see your own transfiguration in the glass this holy half an hour will hold out to you, to look upon yourself. When you are ready; you will find it there, within your mind and waiting to be found. You will remember then the Thought to which you gave this half an hour, thankfully aware no time was ever better spent. Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, you will look into this glass, and understand the sinless light you see belongs to you; the loveliness you look on is your own.

Count this half hour as your gift to God, in certainty that His return will be a sense of love you cannot understand, a joy too deep for you to comprehend, a sight too holy for the body's eyes to see, and yet you can be sure some day, perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, you will understand and comprehend and see. Add further jewels to the golden frame that holds the mirror offered you today by hourly repeating to yourself:

"Let me remember I am one with God,

At one with all my brothers and my Self,

In everlasting holiness and peace."

Lesson 107 "Truth will correct the errors in my mind."

What can correct illusions but the truth? And what are errors but illusions which remain unrecognized for what they are? Where truth has entered errors disappear. They merely vanish, leaving not a trace by which to be remembered. They are gone because without belief they have no life, and so they disappear to nothingness, returning whence they came. From dust to dust they come and go, for only truth remains.

Can you imagine what a state of mind without illusions is? How it would feel? Try to remember when there was a time, - perhaps a minute, maybe even less, - when nothing came to interrupt your peace; when you were certain you were loved and safe. Then try to picture what it would be like to have that moment be extended to the end of time and to eternity. Then let the sense of quiet that you felt be multiplied a hundred times, and then be multiplied another hundred more.

When truth has come it does not stay a while, to disappear, or change to something else. It does not shift and alter in its form, nor come and go and go and come again. It stays exactly as it always was, to be depended on in every need, and trusted with a perfect trust in all the seeming difficulties and the doubts which the appearances the world presents engender. They will merely blow away when truth corrects the errors in your mind.

When truth has come it harbors in its wings the gift of perfect constancy, and love which does not falter in the face of pain but looks beyond it, steadily and sure. Here is the gift of healing, for the truth needs no defense, and therefore no attack is possible. Illusions can be brought to truth to be corrected. But the truth stands far beyond illusions, and can not be brought to them to turn them into truth.

Truth does not come and go nor shift nor change, in this appearance now and then in that, evading capture and escaping grasp. It does not hide. It stands in open light, in obvious accessibility. It is impossible that anyone could seek it truly and would not succeed. Today belongs to truth. Give truth its due, and it will give you yours. You were not meant to suffer and to die. Your Father wills these dreams be gone. Let truth correct them all.

We do not ask for what we do not have. We merely ask for what belongs to us, that we may recognize it as our own. Today we practice on the happy note of certainty which has been born of truth. The shaky and unsteady footsteps of illusion is not our approach today. We are as certain of success as we are sure we live and hope and breathe and think. We do not doubt we walk with truth today, and count on it to enter into all the exercises that we do this day.

Begin by asking Him Who goes with you upon this undertaking that He be in your awareness as you go with Him. You are not made of flesh and blood and bone, but were created by the self-same Thought Which gave the gift of life to Him as well. He is your Brother, and so like to you your Father knows that you are both the same. It is your Self you ask to go with you, and how could He be absent where you are?

Truth will correct all errors in your mind which tell you you could be apart from Him. You speak to Him today, and make your pledge to let His function be fulfilled through you. To share His function is to share His joy. His confidence is with you as you say:

"Truth will correct all errors in my mind,

And I will rest in Him who is my Self."

Then let Him lead you gently to the truth which will envelop you and give you peace so deep and tranquil that you will return to the familiar world reluctantly.

And yet you will be glad to look again upon this world. For you will bring with you the promise of the changes which the truth that goes with you will carry to the world. They will increase with every gift you give of five small minutes, and the errors which surround the world will be corrected as you let them be corrected in your mind.

Do not forget your function for today. Each time you tell yourself with confidence, "Truth will correct all errors in my mind," you speak for all the world, and Him Who would release the world as He would set you free.

Section 5 - The Quiet Answer

In quietness are all things answered, and is every problem quietly resolved. In conflict there can BE no answer and no resolution. For its PURPOSE is to make NO resolution possible, and to ensure NO answer will be plain. A problem set in conflict HAS no answer, for it is seen in different ways. And what would be an answer from one point of view is NOT an answer in another light. You ARE in conflict. Thus it must be clear you cannot answer anything at all, for conflict HAS no limited effects. Yet, if God gave an Answer, there MUST be a way in which your problems are resolved, for what He wills already has been done.

Thus it MUST be that time is not involved, and every problem can be answered now. Yet it must also be that in your state of mind, solution is impossible. Therefore, God must have given you a way of reaching to ANOTHER state of mind, in which the answer is ALREADY THERE. Such is the Holy Instant. It is here that ALL your problems should be brought and LEFT. Here they BELONG, for here THEIR answer is. And where its answer is, a problem MUST be simple and be easily resolved. It MUST be pointless to attempt to solve a problem where the answer cannot be. Yet, just as surely, it MUST be resolved, if it is brought to where the answer IS.

Attempt to solve NO problems but within the Holy Instant's surety. For there the problem WILL be answered and resolved. Outside, there will be no solution, for there IS no answer there that could be found. Nowhere outside a single simple question is ever ASKED. The world can ONLY ask a double question, with MANY answers, none of which will do. It does not ask a question to BE answered, but only to restate its point of view. All questions asked within this world are but a way of LOOKING, NOT a question asked. A question asked in hate cannot be answered, because it IS an answer in itself. A double question asks and answers, both attesting the same thing, in different form.

The world asks but one question. It is this: "Of these illusions, which of them are true? Which ones establish peace and offer joy? And which can bring escape from all the pain of which this world is made?" Whatever form the question takes, its purpose is the same. It asks but to ESTABLISH sin is real, and answers in the form of preference. "Which sin do you prefer?" That is the one that you should choose. The OTHERS are not true. What can the body get that you would want the most of all? It is your servant and your friend. But tell it what you want, and it will serve you lovingly and well. And this is NOT a question, for it TELLS you WHAT you want, and WHERE to go to ask for it. It leaves no room to question its beliefs, except that what it states takes question's FORM.

A pseudo-question has no answer. It DICTATES the answer, even as it asks. Thus is all questioning within the world a form of propaganda for itself. Just as the body's witnesses are but the senses from WITHIN itself, so are the answers to the questions of the world contained within the questions. Where answers represent the QUESTIONS they add nothing new, and nothing has been learned. An HONEST question is a learning tool which asks for something that you do NOT know. It does NOT set conditions for response, but merely asks what the RESPONSE should be. And no-one in a conflict state is free to ASK this question, for he does not WANT an honest answer, where the conflict ENDS.

The Holy Instant is the interval in which the mind is still enough to hear an answer that is NOT entailed within the question asked. It offers something new and DIFFERENT from the question. How COULD it be answered, if it but repeats itself. Therefore, attempt to solve NO problem in a world from which the answer has been barred. But bring the problem to the only place which holds the answer lovingly FOR you. Here are the answers which will SOLVE your problems, because they stand APART from them, and see what CAN be answered; what the QUESTION is. Within the world, the answers merely raise ANOTHER question, though they leave the first unanswered. In the holy instant, you can bring the question TO the answer, and receive the answer that was MADE for you.

Lesson 121 "Forgiveness is the key to happiness."

Here is the answer to your search for peace. Here is the key to meaning in a world which seems to make no sense. Here is the way to safety in apparent dangers which appear to threaten you at every turn, and bring uncertainty to all your hopes of ever finding quietness and peace. Here are all questions answered; here the end of all uncertainty ensured at last.

The unforgiving mind is full of fear, and offers love no room to be itself; no place where it can spread its wings in peace, and soar above the turmoil of the world. The unforgiving mind is sad, without the hope of respite and release from pain. It suffers and abides in misery, peering about in darkness, seeing not, yet certain of the danger lurking there.

The unforgiving mind is torn with doubt, confused about itself and all it sees, afraid and angry, weak and blustering, afraid to go ahead, afraid to stay, afraid to waken or to go to sleep, afraid of every sound, yet more afraid of stillness; terrified of darkness, yet more terrified at the approach of light. What can the unforgiving mind perceive but its damnation? What can it behold except the proof that all its sins are real?

The unforgiving mind is in despair, without the prospect of a future which can offer anything but more despair. Yet it regards its judgment of the world as irreversible, and does not see it has condemned itself to this despair. It thinks it cannot change, for what it sees bears witness that its judgment is correct. It does not ask because it thinks it knows. It does not question, certain it is right.

Forgiveness is acquired. It is not inherent in a mind which cannot sin. As sin was an idea you taught yourself, forgiveness must be learned by you as well, but from a Teacher other than yourself, who represents the other Self in you. Through Him you learn how to forgive the self you think you made, and let it disappear. Thus you return your mind as one to Him Who is your Self, and Who can never sin.

Each unforgiving mind presents you with an opportunity to teach your own how to forgive itself. Each one awaits release from hell through you, and turns to you imploringly for Heaven here and now. It has no hope, but you become its hope. And as its hope do you become your own. The unforgiving mind must learn through your forgiveness that it has been saved from hell. And as you teach salvation, you will learn. Yet all your teaching and your learning will be not of you, but of the Teacher Who was given you to show the way to you.

Today we practice learning to forgive. If you are willing, you can learn today to take the key to happiness, and use it on your own behalf. We will devote ten minutes in the morning, and at night another ten, to learning how to give forgiveness and receive forgiveness too.

The unforgiving mind does not believe that giving and receiving are the same. Yet we will try to learn today that they are one through practicing forgiving toward one whom you think of as an enemy and one whom you consider as a friend. And as you learn to see them both as one, we will extend the lesson to ourselves, and see that their escape included ours.

Begin the longer practice periods by thinking of someone you do not like, who seems to irritate you, or to cause regret in you if you should meet him; one you actively despise, or merely try to overlook. It does not matter what the form your anger takes. You probably have chosen him already. He will do.

Now close your eyes and see him in your mind, and look at him a while. Try to perceive some light in him somewhere; a little gleam which you had never noticed. Try to find some little spark of brightness shining through the ugly picture which you hold of him. Look at this picture until you see a light somewhere within it, and then try to let this light extend until it covers him, and makes the picture beautiful and good.

Look at this changed perception for a while, and turn your mind to one you call a friend. Try to transfer the light you learned to see around your former "enemy" to him. Perceive him now as more than friend to you, for in that light his holiness shows you your Savior, saved and saving, healed and whole.

Then let him offer you the light you see in him, and let your "enemy" and Friend unite in blessing you with what you gave. Now are you one with them, and they with you. Now have you been forgiven by yourself. Do not forget, throughout the day, the role forgiveness plays in bringing happiness to every unforgiving mind, with yours among them.

Every hour tell yourself:

"Forgiveness is the key to happiness.

I will awaken from the dream that I

Am mortal, fallible, and full of sin,

And know I am the perfect Son of God."

Section 6 - Salvation and God's Will

God's Will is your salvation. Would He not have given you the means to find it? If He wills you to HAVE it, He MUST have made it possible, and very easy to obtain it.

But you cannot abide in peace unless you accept the Atonement, because the Atonement IS the way to peace. The reason is very simple, and so obvious that it is often overlooked. That is because the ego is AFRAID of the obvious, since obviousness is the essential characteristic of reality. You CANNOT overlook it, unless you are NOT LOOKING. It is PERFECTLY obvious that if the Holy Spirit looks with love on all He perceives, He looks with love on YOU. His EVALUATION of you is based on his knowledge of what you ARE, and so He evaluates you truly. And this evaluation MUST be in your mind, because HE is.

The ego is also in your mind, because you have ACCEPTED it there. ITS evaluation of you, however, is the exact opposite of the Holy Spirit's, because the ego does NOT love you. It is unaware of what you are, and wholly mistrustful of EVERYTHING it perceives, because its own perceptions are so shifting. The ego is therefore capable of suspiciousness at best, and viciousness at worst. That is its range. It cannot exceed it, because of its uncertainty. And it can never go BEYOND it, because it can never BE certain.

You, then, have two conflicting evaluations of yourself in your minds, and they CANNOT BOTH BE TRUE. You do not yet realize how COMPLETELY different these evaluations are, because you do not understand how lofty the Holy Spirit's perception of you really is. He is not deceived by ANYTHING you do, because He NEVER forgets what you are. The ego is deceived by EVERYTHING you do, even when you respond to the Holy Spirit, because at such times ITS CONFUSION INCREASES. The ego is, therefore, particularly likely to attack you when you react lovingly, because it has evaluated you AS UNLOVING, and you are going AGAINST ITS JUDGMENT.

The ego will begin to ATTACK your motives as soon as they become clearly out of accord with its perception of you. This is when it will shift abruptly from suspiciousness to viciousness, because its uncertainty is INCREASED. But it is surely pointless to attack in return. What can this mean, except that you are AGREEING with the ego's evaluation of what you are? If you are willing to see yourself as unloving, YOU WILL NOT BE HAPPY. You are condemning yourself, and MUST therefore regard yourself as inadequate.

Would you look to the ego to help you escape from a sense of inadequacy it has PRODUCED, and must MAINTAIN for its own existence? Can you ESCAPE from its evaluation of you, by using its methods for keeping this picture INTACT? You cannot evaluate an insane belief system from WITHIN it. Its own range precludes this. You can only GO BEYOND it, and look back from a point where SANITY exists, and SEE THE CONTRAST. Only BY this contrast, can insanity be judged as insane.

With the grandeur of God in you, you have chosen to be little, and lament your littleness. Within the system which DICTATED this choice, the lament IS inevitable. Your littleness is TAKEN FOR GRANTED there, and you do NOT ask who granted it. The question is meaningless WITHIN the ego's thought-system, because it OPENS THE WHOLE THOUGHT-SYSTEM TO QUESTION. We said before that the ego does not know what a real question is. Lack of knowledge of ANY kind is ALWAYS associated with UNWILLINGNESS to know, and produces a TOTAL lack of knowledge, simply because KNOWLEDGE is total. NOT to question your littleness is, therefore, to deny ALL knowledge, and keep the ego's WHOLE thought-system intact.

You cannot retain PART of a thought-system, because it can BE questioned only at its foundation. And this MUST be questioned from beyond it, because WITHIN it, its foundation DOES stand. The Holy Spirit judges against the reality of the ego's thought-system, merely because He knows its FOUNDATION is not true. Therefore, nothing that arises from it MEANS anything. The Holy Spirit judges every belief you hold in terms of where it comes from. If it comes from God, He knows it to be true. If it does not, He knows it is meaningless.

Whenever you question your value, say, "God Himself is incomplete without me." Remember this when the ego speaks, and you will not hear it. The truth about YOU is so lofty that nothing that is unworthy of God is worthy of you. Choose, then, what you want in these terms, and accept nothing that you would not offer to God as wholly fitting for HIM, for YOU do not want anything else. Return your part of Him, and He will give you all of Himself, in exchange for your return of what belongs to Him, and renders Him complete.

Section 7 - The Happy Learner

The Holy Spirit needs a happy learner, in whom His mission can be happily accomplished. You who are steadfastly devoted to misery, MUST first recognize that you ARE miserable and NOT happy. The Holy Spirit cannot teach WITHOUT this contrast, for you believe that misery IS happiness. This has so confused you, that you have undertaken to learn to do what you can NEVER do, believing that, UNLESS you learn it, you will NOT be happy. You do NOT realize that the foundation on which this most peculiar learning goal depends, means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. This DOES make sense to you.

Have faith in nothing, and you will FIND the treasure that you sought. But you will add another burden to your mind, ALREADY burdened, or you would NOT have sought another. You will believe that NOTHING IS OF VALUE, and will VALUE it. A little piece of glass, a speck of dust, a body, or a war, are one to you. For if you value ONE thing made of nothing, you HAVE believed that nothing CAN be precious, and that you CAN learn how to make the UNtrue true. The Holy Spirit, SEEING where you are, but KNOWING you are elsewhere, begins His lesson in simplicity with the fundamental teaching that TRUTH IS TRUE. This is the hardest lesson you will ever learn, and in the end, the ONLY one.

Simplicity is very difficult for twisted minds. Consider all the distortions you have made of nothing; all the strange forms and feelings, and actions and reactions, that you have woven out of it. Nothing is so alien to you as the simple truth and nothing are you LESS inclined to listen to. The contrast between what is true, and what is not, is PERFECTLY apparent, yet you do NOT see it. The simple and the obvious are NOT apparent to those who would make palaces and royal robes of nothing, believing they are kings with golden crowns BECAUSE of them. All this the Holy Spirit sees, and teaches, simply, that ALL THIS IS NOT TRUE.

To these unhappy learners, who would teach themselves nothing, and delude themselves into believing that it is NOT nothing, the Holy Spirit says, with steadfast quietness, "The truth is true. Nothing else matters, nothing else is real, and EVERYTHING beside it is not there. Let Me make the one distinction FOR you, which you CANNOT make, but NEED to learn. Your faith in nothing IS deceiving you. Offer your faith to Me, and I will place it gently in the holy place where it belongs. You will find NO deception there, but only the simple Truth. And you will love it, because you will UNDERSTAND it."

Like you, the Holy Spirit did NOT make truth. Like God, He KNOWS it to be true. He brings the LIGHT of truth into the darkness, and LETS it shine on you. And as it shines, YOUR BROTHERS see it, and, realizing that this light is NOT what you have made, they see in you MORE than YOU see. They will be happy learners of the lesson which this light brings to them, because it teaches them release from nothing, and from all the works of nothing. The heavy chains which SEEM to bind them unto despair, they do NOT see as nothing, until YOU bring the light TO them. And THEN they see the chains have disappeared, and so they MUST have been nothing.

And YOU will see it WITH them. BECAUSE you taught them gladness and release, they will become YOUR teachers in release and gladness. When you teach ANYONE that truth is true, YOU LEARN IT WITH HIM. And so you learn that what seemed hardest was the easiest. Learn to be happy learners. You will NEVER learn how to make nothing everything. But see that this HAS BEEN your goal, and RECOGNIZE how foolish it has been. Be glad it is undone, for, when you look at it in simple honesty, it IS undone. We said before, "Be not content with nothing," for you HAVE believed that nothing COULD content you. IT IS NOT SO.

If you would be a happy learner, you must give EVERYTHING that YOU have learned over to the Holy Spirit, to be UNlearned FOR you. And THEN begin to learn the joyous lessons that come quickly, on the firm foundation that truth is true. For what is builded there IS true, and BUILT on truth. The universe of learning will open up before you, in all its gracious simplicity. With truth before you, you will not look back. The happy learner meets the conditions of learning here, as he also meets the conditions of knowledge in the Kingdom.

All this lies in the Holy Spirit's plan to free you from the past, and open up the way to freedom FOR you. For truth IS true. What else could ever be, or ever was? This simple lesson holds the key to the dark door, which you believe is locked forever. You MADE this door OF nothing, and behind it IS nothing. The key is only the light which shines away the shapes and forms and fears of nothing. Accept this key to freedom, from the hands of Christ, Who gives it to you, that you may join Him in the holy task of bringing light to darkness. For, like your brothers, YOU do not realize the light has come, and freed you from the sleep of darkness.

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.

"Laws of chaos" are meaningless, by definition. Creation is perfectly lawful, and the chaotic is without meaning, BECAUSE IT IS WITHOUT GOD. You have given your peace to the gods you made, but they are not there to take it FROM you, and you are NOT able to give it TO them. You are NOT free to give up freedom, but only to DENY it. YOU CANNOT DO WHAT GOD DID NOT INTEND, because what He did not intend DOES NOT HAPPEN. Your gods do not BRING chaos; you are ENDOWING them with chaos, and accepting it OF them.

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.

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 3 - The Question of Payment

Only an unhealed healer could try to heal for money, and he will not succeed to the extent to which he values it. Nor will he find his healing in the process. There will be those of whom the Holy Spirit asks some payment for His purpose. There will be those from whom He does not ask. It should not be the therapist who makes these decisions. There is a difference between payment and cost. To give money where God's plan allots it has no cost. To withhold it from where it rightfully belongs has enormous cost. The therapist who would do this loses the name of healer, for he could never understand what healing is. He cannot give it, and so he does not have it.

The therapists of this world are indeed useless to the world's salvation. They make demands, and so they cannot give. Patients can pay only for the exchange of illusions. This, indeed, must demand payment, and the cost is great. A "bought" relationship cannot offer the only gift whereby all healing is accomplished. Forgiveness, the Holy Spirit's only dream, must have no cost. For if it does, it merely crucifies God's Son again. Can this be how he is forgiven? Can this be how the dream of sin will end?

The "right to live" is something no-one need fight for. It is promised him, and guaranteed by God. Therefore it is a right the therapist and patient share alike. If their relationship is to be holy, whatever one needs is given by the other; whatever one lacks the other supplies. Herein is the relationship made holy, for herein both are healed. The therapist repays the patient in gratitude, as does the patient repay him. There is no cost to either. But thanks are due to both, for the release from long imprisonment and doubt. Who would not be grateful for such a gift? Yet who could possibly imagine that it could be bought?

It has well been said that to him who hath shall be given. Because he has, he can give. And because he gives, he shall be given. This is the law of God, and not of the world. So it is with God's healers. They give because they have heard His Word and understood it. All that they need will thus be given them. But they will lose this understanding unless they remember that all they have comes only from God. If they believe they need anything from a brother, they will recognize him as a brother no longer. And if they do this, a light goes out even in Heaven. Where God's Son turns against himself, he can look only upon darkness. He has himself denied the light, and cannot see.

One rule should always be observed: No-one should be turned away because he cannot pay. No-one is sent by accident to anyone. Relationships are always purposeful. Whatever their purpose may have been before the Holy Spirit entered them, they are always His potential temple; the resting place of Christ and home of God Himself. Whoever comes has been sent. Perhaps he was sent to give his brother the money he needed. Both will be blessed thereby. Perhaps he was sent to teach the therapist how much he needs forgiveness, and how valueless is money in comparison. Again will both be blessed. Only in terms of cost could one have more. In sharing, everyone must gain a blessing without cost.

This view of payment may well seem impractical, and in the eyes of the world it would be so. Yet not one worldly thought is really practical. How much is gained by striving for illusions? How much is lost by throwing God away? And is it possible to do so? Surely it is impractical to strive for nothing, and to attempt to do what is impossible. Then stop a while, long enough to think of this: You have perhaps been seeking for salvation without recognizing where to look. Whoever asks your help can show you where. What greater gift than this could you be given? What greater gift is there that you would give?

Physician, healer, therapist, teacher, heal thyself. Many will come to you carrying the gift of healing, if you so elect. The Holy Spirit never refuses an invitation to enter and abide with you. He will give you endless opportunities to open the door to your salvation, for such is His function. He will also tell you exactly what your function is in every circumstance and at all times. Whoever He sends you will reach you, holding out his hand to his Friend. Let the Christ in you bid him welcome, for that same Christ is in him as well. Deny him entrance, and you have denied the Christ in you. Remember the sorrowful story of the world, and the glad tidings of salvation. Remember the plan of God for the restoration of joy and peace. And do not forget how very simple are the ways of God:

You were lost in the darkness of the world until you asked for light. And then God sent His Son to give it to you.

Lesson 167 "There is one life, and that I share with God."

There are not different kinds of life, for life is like the truth. It does not have degrees. It is the one condition in which all that God created share. Like all His Thoughts, it has no opposite. There is no death because what God created shares His Life. There is no death because an opposite to God does not exist. There is no death because the Father and the Son are One.

In this world there appears to be a state that is life's opposite. You call it death. Yet we have learned that the idea of death takes many forms. It is the one idea which underlies all feelings that are not supremely happy. It is the alarm to which you give response of any kind that is not perfect joy. All sorrow, loss, anxiety and suffering and pain, even a little sigh of weariness, a slight discomfort or the merest frown, acknowledge death. And thus deny you live.

You think that death is of the body. Yet it is but an idea, irrelevant to what is seen as physical. A thought is in the mind. It can be then applied as mind directs it. But its origin is where it must be changed, if change occurs. Ideas leave not their source. The emphasis this course has placed on that idea is due to its centrality in our attempts to change your mind about yourself. It is the reason you can heal. It is the cause of healing. It is why you cannot die. Its truth established you as one with God.

Death is the thought that you are separate from your Creator. It is the belief conditions change, emotions alternate because of causes you cannot control, you did not make, and you can never change. It is the fixed belief ideas can leave their source, and take on qualities the source does not contain, becoming different from their own origin, apart from it in kind as well as distance, time, and form.

Death cannot come from life. Ideas remain united to their source. They can extend all that their source contains. In that they can go far beyond themselves. But they can not give birth to what was never given them. As they are made, so will their making be. As they were born, so will they then give birth. And where they come from, there will they return.

The mind can think it sleeps, but that is all. It cannot change what is its waking state. It cannot make a body, nor abide within a body. What is alien to the mind does not exist, because it has no source. For mind creates all things that are, and cannot give them attributes it lacks, nor change its own eternal, mindful state. It cannot make the physical. What seems to die is but the sign of mind asleep.

The opposite of life can only be another form of life. As such, it can be reconciled with what created it, because it is not opposite in truth. Its form may change; it may appear to be what it is not. Yet mind is mind awake or sleeping. It is not its opposite in anything created, nor in what it seems to make when it believes it sleeps.

What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was.

Let us today be children of the truth, and not deny our holy heritage. Our life is not as we imagine it. Who changes life because he shuts his eyes, or makes himself what he is not because he sleeps and sees in dreams an opposite to what he is? We will not ask for death in any form today. Nor will we let imagined opposites to life abide even an instant where the Thought of Life Eternal has been set by God Himself.

His holy home we strive to keep today as He established it, and wills it be forever and forever. He is Lord of what we think today. And in His Thoughts, Which have no opposite, we understand there is one life, and that we share with Him; with all creation, with their thoughts as well, whom He created in a Unity of life which cannot separate in death and leave the Source of Life from where It came.

We share our life because we have one Source, a Source from Which perfection comes to us, remaining always in the holy minds which He created perfect. As we were, so are we now and will forever be. A sleeping mind must waken as it sees its own perfection mirroring the Lord of Life so perfectly it fades into what is reflected there. And now it is no more a mere reflection. It becomes the thing reflected, and the light which makes reflection possible. No vision now is needed. For the wakened mind is one that knows its Source, its Self, its Holiness.

Section 8 - The Lingering Illusion

Seek not outside yourself. For it will fail, and you will weep each time an idol falls. Heaven cannot be found where it is not, and there can be no peace EXCEPTING there. Each idol that you worship when God calls will never answer in His place. There IS no other answer you can substitute, and find the happiness His Answer brings. Seek not outside yourself. For all your pain comes simply from a futile search for what you want, insisting WHERE it must be found. What if it is not there? Do you prefer that you be right or happy? Be you glad that you are told where happiness abides, and seek no longer elsewhere. You will fail.

But it is given you to know the truth, and NOT to seek for it outside yourself. No-one who comes here but must still have hope, some lingering illusion, or some dream that there is something OUTSIDE of himself that will bring happiness and peace to him. If everything is IN him, this can not be so. And therefore, BY his coming, he denies the truth about himself, and seeks for something MORE than everything, as if a part of it were separated off, and found where all the REST of it is NOT. This is the purpose he bestows upon the body; that it seek for what he lacks, and GIVE him what would make himself complete.

And thus he wanders aimlessly about, in search of something that he cannot find, believing him to be what he is not. The lingering illusion will impel him to seek out a thousand idols, and to seek beyond them for a thousand more. And each will fail him, all excepting one; for he will die, and does not understand the idol that he seeks IS but his death. Its FORM appears to be outside himself. Yet does he seek to kill God's Son within, and PROVE that he is victor over him. This is the purpose EVERY idol has, for this the role that is assigned to it, and this the role that cannot BE fulfilled.

Whenever you attempt to reach a goal in which the body's betterment is cast as major beneficiary, you try to bring about your death. For you believe that you can suffer lack, and lack IS death. To sacrifice is to GIVE UP, and thus to be without, and to have suffered loss. And, BY this giving up is life renounced. Seek not outside yourself. The search implies you are not whole within, and fear to look upon your devastation, and prefer to seek outside yourself for what you are. Idols must fall BECAUSE they have no life, and what is lifeless IS a sign of death. You came to die, and what would you expect, but to PERCEIVE the signs of death you seek?

No sadness and no suffering proclaims a message OTHER than an idol found, which represents a parody of life which, in its lifelessness, is really death, conceived as real and given living form. Yet each must fail and crumble and decay, because a form of death can not BE life, and what is sacrificed can not BE whole. All idols of this world were made to keep the truth within from being known to you, and to maintain allegiance to the dream that you must find what is OUTSIDE of you to be complete and happy. It is vain to worship idols in the hope of peace. God dwells within, and your completion lies in Him. No idol takes His place. Look not to idols. Do not seek outside yourself.

You CHOOSE your dreams, for they are what you wish, perceived AS IF it had been given you. And idols do what you would have them do, and HAVE the power you ascribe to them. And you pursue them vainly in the dream, because you want their power as your own. Yet where ARE dreams, but in a mind asleep? And CAN a dream succeed in making real the pictures it projects outside itself? Save time, my brothers! Learn what time is FOR. And speed the end of idols in the world made sad and sick by seeing idols there. Your holy minds are altars unto God, and where He is NO idols can abide.

The fear of God is but the fear of loss of idols. It is NOT the fear of loss of your reality. But YOU have made of your reality an idol, which you must protect AGAINST the light of truth. And all the world becomes the means by which this idol can be saved. Salvation thus appears to THREATEN life, and offer death. It is not so. Salvation seeks to prove there IS no death, and ONLY life exists. The sacrifice of death is NOTHING lost. An idol CANNOT take the place of God. Let Him remind you of His Love for you, and do not seek to drown His Voice in chants of deep despair to idols of yourself. Seek not outside your Father for your hope. For hope of happiness is NOT despair.

Lesson 154 "I am among the ministers of God."

Let us today be neither arrogant nor falsely humble. We have gone beyond such foolishness. We cannot judge ourselves, nor need we do so. These are but attempts to hold decision off, and to delay commitment to our function. It is not our part to judge our worth, nor can we know what role is best for us; what we can do within a larger plan we cannot see in its entirety. Our part is cast in Heaven, not in hell. And what we think is weakness can be strength; what we believe to be our strength is often arrogance.

Whatever your appointed role may be it was selected by the Voice for God, Whose function is to speak for you as well. Seeing your strengths exactly as they are, and equally aware of where they can be best applied, for what, to whom and when, He chooses and accepts your part for you. He does not work without your own consent, but He is not deceived in what you are, and listens only to His Voice in you.

It is through His ability to hear One Voice which is His Own that you become aware at last there is One Voice in you. And that One Voice appoints your function, and relays it to you, giving you the strength to understand it, do what it entails, and to succeed in everything you do that is related to it. God has joined His Son in this, and thus His Son becomes His messenger of unity with Him.

It is this joining, through the Voice of God, of Father and of Son, that sets apart salvation from the world. It is this Voice which speaks of laws the world does not obey; Which promises salvation from all sin, with guilt abolished in the mind which God created sinless. Now this mind becomes aware again of Who created it, and of His lasting union with itself. So is its Self the one Reality in Which its will and That of God are joined.

A messenger does not elect to make the message he delivers. Nor does he question the right of him who does, nor ask why he has chosen those who will receive the message that he brings. It is enough that he accept it, bring it to the ones for which it was appointed, and fulfill his role in its delivery. If he insists on judging what the messages should be, or what their purpose is, or where they should be carried, he is failing to perform his proper part as bringer of the Word.

An earthly messenger fulfills his role by giving all the messages away. The messengers of God perform their part by their acceptance of His messages as for themselves, and show they understand the messages by giving them away. They choose no roles that are not given them by His authority. And so they gain by every message which they give away.

Would you receive the messages of God? For thus do you become His messengers. You are appointed now, and yet you wait to give the messages you have received, and so you do not know that they are yours, and do not recognize them. No one can receive and understand he has received until he gives. For in the giving is his own acceptance of what he received.

You who are now the messengers of God receive His messages, for that is part of your appointed role. He has not failed to offer what you need, nor has it been left unaccepted. Yet another part of your appointed task is yet to be accomplished. He Who has received for you the messages of God would have them be received by you as well. For thus do you identify with Him and claim your own.

It is this joining that we undertake to recognize today. We will not seek to keep our minds apart from Him Who speaks for us, for it is but our voice we hear as we attend Him. He alone can speak to us and for us, joining in One Voice the getting and the giving of God's Word; the giving and receiving of His Will.

We practice giving Him what He would have, that we may recognize His gifts to us. He needs our voice that He may speak through us. He needs our hands to hold His messages, and carry them to those He appoints. He needs our feet to bring us where He wills, that those who wait in misery may be at last delivered. And He needs our will united with His Own, that we may be the true receivers of the gifts He gives.

Let us but learn this lesson for today: we will not recognize what we receive until we give it. You have heard this said a hundred ways, and yet belief is lacking still. But this is sure; until belief is given it, you will receive a thousand miracles and then receive a thousand more, but will not know that God Himself has left no gift beyond what you already have; nor has denied the tiniest of blessings to His Son. What can this mean to you, until you have identified with him and with his own?

Our lesson for today is stated thus:

"I am among the ministers of God,

And I am grateful that I have the means

By which to recognize that I am free."

The world recedes as we light up our minds, and realize these holy words are true. They are the message sent to us today from our Creator. Now we demonstrate how they have changed our minds about ourselves, and what our function is. For as we prove that we accept no will we do not share, our many gifts from our Creator will spring to our sight and leap into our hands, and we recognize what we received.

Section 4 - The Fundamental Law of Perception

To the extent to which you value guilt, to that extent will you perceive a world in which attack is justified. To the extent to which you recognize that guilt is meaningless, to that extent will you perceive attack cannot BE justified. This is in strict accord with vision's FUNDAMENTAL law: You see what you believe is there, and you believe it there because you WANT it there. Perception HAS no other law than this. The rest but stem from this, to hold it up and offer it support. This is perception's form, adapted to this world, of God's more basic law; that Love creates Itself, and nothing BUT Itself.

Perception rests on choosing; knowledge does not. Knowledge has but one law BECAUSE it has but One Creator. But this world has two who made it, and they do NOT see it as the same. To each it has a DIFFERENT purpose, and to each it is a perfect means to serve the goal for which it is perceived. For specialness it is the perfect frame to set it off; the perfect battleground to wage its wars, the perfect shelter for the illusions which it would make real. Not one but it upholds in its perception; not one but can be fully justified.

There is another Maker of the world, the simultaneous Corrector of the mad belief that ANYTHING could be established and maintained without some link that kept it still within the Laws of God. NOT as the Law Itself upholds the universe as God created it. But in some form adapted to the need the Son of God believes he has. Corrected error IS the error's end. And thus has God protected still His Son, even in error. There IS another purpose in the world that error made because it has another Maker, Who CAN reconcile its goal with His Creator's Purpose.

In His perception of the world, nothing is seen but justifies forgiveness and the sight of perfect sinlessness. Nothing arises but is met with instant and complete forgiveness. Nothing remains an instant, to obscure the sinlessness that shines unchanged, beyond the pitiful attempts of specialness to put it out of mind, where it MUST be, and light the BODY up INSTEAD of it. The lamps of Heaven are NOT for it to choose to see them where it will. If it elects to see them elsewhere from their home, as if they lit a place where they could never be, AND YOU AGREE, then must the Maker of the world correct your error, lest you still remain in darkness, where the lamps are NOT.

Everyone here has entered darkness, yet no-one has entered it alone. Nor need he stay more than an instant. For he has come with Heaven's help within him, ready to lead him OUT of darkness into light at ANY time. The time he chooses can be ANY time, for help is there, awaiting but his choice. And when he chooses to AVAIL himself of what is given him, then will he see each situation that he thought before was means to justify his anger, turned to an event which justifies his love.

He will hear plainly that the calls to war he heard before are really calls to peace. He will perceive that where he gave attack is but another altar where he can, with equal ease and FAR more happiness, bestow forgiveness. And he will re-interpret ALL temptation as just another chance to bring him joy. How CAN a misperception be a sin? Let ALL your brother's errors be to you nothing except a chance for YOU to see the workings of the Helper given YOU to see the world HE made, instead of yours.

What, then, is justified? WHAT DO YOU WANT? For these two questions ARE the same, and, when you see them AS the same, your choice is made. For it is SEEING them as one that brings release from the belief there are two ways to see. This world has much to offer to your peace, and many chances to extend your own forgiveness. Such its PURPOSE is, to those who WANT to see peace and forgiveness descend on THEM, and offer THEM the light. The Maker of the world of gentleness has perfect power to offset the world of violence and hate that SEEMS to stand BETWEEN you and His gentleness. It is not there in His forgiving eyes. And THEREFORE it need not be there in yours.

Sin is the fixed belief perception CANNOT change. What has been damned IS damned, and damned forever, BEING FOREVER UNFORGIVABLE. If, then, it IS forgiven, sin's perception MUST have been wrong. And thus is change made possible. The Holy Spirit, too, sees what HE sees as far beyond the chance of change. But on His Vision sin can NOT encroach. For sin HAS BEEN corrected by His sight. And thus IT MUST HAVE BEEN AN ERROR, NOT a sin. For what it claimed could never be, HAS BEEN. Sin is ATTACKED by punishment, and so PRESERVED. But to FORGIVE it is to change its state from error into truth.

The Son of God could NEVER sin, but he CAN wish for what would hurt him. And he HAS the power to think he CAN BE hurt. What could this be EXCEPT a misperception of himself? Is this a sin or a mistake; forgivable or not? Does he need help or condemnation? Is it YOUR purpose that he be saved or damned? Forgetting not that what he is to YOU will make this choice YOUR future. For you MAKE IT NOW, the instant when ALL time becomes a means to reach a goal. Make, then, your choice, but recognize that, in this choice, the purpose of the world you see is chosen, and WILL be justified.

Section 6 - The Healing Example

The ONLY way to heal is to be healed. The miracle extends WITHOUT your help. But you ARE needed that it can BEGIN. ACCEPT the miracle of healing, and it WILL go forth, because of what it IS. It is its NATURE to extend itself the instant it is born. And it is born the instant it is offered and RECEIVED. No-one can ask ANOTHER to be healed. But he can let HIMSELF be healed, and thus offer the other what he has received. Who can bestow upon another what he does not HAVE? And who can SHARE what he denies HIMSELF? The Holy Spirit speaks to YOU. He does not speak to someone ELSE. Yet BY your listening, His Voice extends, BECAUSE you have accepted what He says.

Health is the witness unto health. As long as it is unattested, it remains without conviction. Only when DEMONSTRATED has it BEEN proved, and MUST compel belief. No-one is healed through double messages. If you wish ONLY to be healed, you heal. Your single PURPOSE makes this possible. But if you are AFRAID of healing, then it cannot come through you. The ONLY thing that is required for a healing is a lack of fear. The fearful are NOT healed, and cannot heal. This does NOT mean the conflict must be gone forever from your mind. For if it were, there were no NEED for healing any more. But it DOES mean, if only for an instant, you love without attack. An instant is sufficient. Miracles wait not on time.

The holy instant is the miracle's abiding-place. From there, each one is born into this world, as witness to a state of mind which has TRANSCENDED conflict, and has reached to peace. It carries comfort from the place of peace into the battleground, and DEMONSTRATES that war has no effects. For all the hurt that war has sought to bring; the broken bodies and the shattered limbs, the screaming dying and the silent dead, are gently lifted up and comforted. There IS no sadness, where a miracle has come to heal. And nothing more than just ONE instant of your love WITHOUT attack is necessary, that all this occur.

In that ONE instant are YOU healed, and in that single instant is ALL healing done. What stands APART from you, when you accept the blessing that the holy instant brings? Be not afraid of blessing for the One Who blesses you loves all the world, and leaves nothing within the world that COULD be feared. But if you SHRINK from blessing, will the world indeed seem fearful, for you have WITHHELD its peace and comfort, leaving it to die. Would not a world so bitterly bereft be looked on as a condemnation by the one who COULD have saved it, but stepped back, because he was AFRAID of being healed? The eyes of all the dying bring reproach, and suffering whispers, "What is there to fear?"

Consider well its question. It is asked of you on YOUR behalf. A dying world asks only that you rest an instant from attack upon YOURSELF, that it be healed. Come to the holy instant and be healed, for nothing that is there received is left behind, on your returning to the world. And BEING blessed, you will bring blessing. Life is given you, to give the dying world. And suffering eyes no longer will accuse, but shine in thanks to you who blessing gave. The holy instant's radiance will light YOUR eyes, and give them sight to see beyond ALL suffering, and see Christ's Face INSTEAD. Healing REPLACES suffering. Who looks on one cannot PERCEIVE the other, for they CANNOT both be there. And what YOU see the world will witness, and will witness TO.

Thus is YOUR healing everything the world requires, that it may be healed. It needs ONE lesson that has perfectly been learned. And then, when YOU forget it, will the world remind you gently of what you have taught. No reinforcement will its thanks withhold from you who let yourselves be healed, that it might live. It will call forth its witnesses to show the Face of Christ to you who brought the sight to THEM, by which THEY witnessed it. The world of accusation is replaced by one in which all eyes look lovingly upon the friend who brought them their release. And happily your brother will perceive the many friends he thought were enemies.

Problems are not specific, but they take specific forms, and these specific shapes make up the world. And no-one understands the nature of his problem. If he DID, it would be there no more for him to see. Its very NATURE is that it is NOT. And thus, WHILE he perceives it, he can NOT perceive it as it is. But HEALING is apparent in specific instances, and generalizes to include them all. This is because they really ARE the same, DESPITE their different forms. All learning aims at transfer, which becomes complete within two situations which are seen as one. For ONLY common elements are there. But this can only be attained by One Who does not see the DIFFERENCES you see.

The total transfer of your learning is NOT made by you. But that it HAS been made, IN SPITE of all the differences you see, convinces YOU that they could not be real. Your healing WILL extend, and WILL be brought to problems that you thought were NOT your own. And it will ALSO be apparent that your many DIFFERENT problems will be solved, as any ONE of them has been escaped. It CANNOT be their differences which made this possible, for learning does not jump from situations to their opposites, and bring the SAME effects. All healing MUST proceed in lawful manner, in accord with laws that have been properly perceived, but NEVER violated. Fear you not the way that YOU perceive them. You ARE wrong, but there is One within you Who is RIGHT.

Leave, then, the transfer of your learning to the One Who REALLY understands its laws, and Who will GUARANTEE that they remain unviolated and unlimited. Your part is merely to apply what He has taught you TO YOURSELF, and He will do the rest. And thus the power of your learning will be PROVED to you, by all the many DIFFERENT witnesses it finds. Your brother FIRST among them will be seen, but thousands stand behind him, and beyond each one of them there are a thousand more. Each one may SEEM to have a problem which is DIFFERENT from the rest. Yet they are solved TOGETHER. And their common Answer shows the QUESTIONS could not have been separate.

Section 9 - The Vision of Sinlessness

Vision will come to you at first in glimpses, but they will be enough to show you what is given YOU who see your brother sinless.

Truth is restored to you through your desire, as it was lost to you through your desire for something ELSE. Open the holy place which you closed off by VALUING the something else, and what was never lost will quietly return. It HAS been saved for you. Vision would not be necessary, had judgment not been made. Desire now its whole undoing, and it is done FOR you. Do you not WANT to know your own identity? Would you not happily exchange your doubts for certainty? Would you not willingly be FREE of misery, and learn again of joy? Your holy relationship offers all this to you. As IT was given you, so will be its EFFECTS.

And as its holy purpose was not made by you, the means by which its happy end is yours is also not of you. Rejoice in what is yours but for the asking. And think not that you need make either means OR end. All this is GIVEN you, who would but SEE your brother sinless. All this is GIVEN, waiting on your desire but to RECEIVE it. Vision is freely given to those who ask to see. Your brother's sinlessness is given you in shining light, to look on with the Holy Spirit's vision, and to rejoice in, along with Him. For peace will come to all who ask for it with real desire and sincerity of purpose, SHARED with the Holy Spirit, and at one with Him on what salvation IS.

Be willing, then, to see your brother sinless, that Christ may rise before your vision, and give you joy. And place NO value on your brother's body, which held him to illusions of what he is. It is HIS desire to see his sinlessness, as it is YOURS. And bless the Son of God in your relationship, nor see in him what you have MADE of him. The Holy Spirit GUARANTEES that what God has willed and given shall be yours. This is YOUR purpose now, and the vision that makes it yours is ready to be given. You have the vision that enables you to see the body not. And as you look upon each other, you will see an altar to your Father, holy as Heaven, glowing with radiant purity, and sparkling with the shining lilies you laid upon it.

What can you value more than this? Why do you think the body is a better home, a safer shelter for God's Son? Why would you rather look on IT, than on the truth? How can the engine of destruction be PREFERRED, and chosen to REPLACE the holy home the Holy Spirit offers, where HE will dwell WITH you? The body is the sign of weakness, vulnerability, and LOSS of power. Can such a Savior HELP you? Would you turn, in your distress and need for help, unto the HELPLESS? Is the pitifully LITTLE the perfect choice to call upon for strength? Judgment WILL seem to make your Savior weak. But it is YOU who need his strength.

There is no problem, no event or situation, no perplexity, that vision will not solve. All is redeemed, when looked upon with vision. For this is not YOUR sight, and brings with it the laws beloved of Him Whose sight it IS. Everything looked upon with vision falls gently into place, according to the laws brought TO it by His calm and certain sight. The end, for everything HE looks upon, is ALWAYS sure. For it will meet His purpose, seen in UNADJUSTED form, and suited perfectly to meet it. Destructiveness becomes benign, and sin is turned to blessing under His gentle gaze.

What if you recognized this world is a hallucination? What if you REALLY understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who SEEM to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are WHOLLY unreal? Could you have FAITH in what you see, if you ACCEPTED this? AND WOULD YOU SEE IT? Hallucinations disappear when they are RECOGNIZED for what they are. This IS the healing and the remedy. Believe them not, and they ARE gone. And all YOU need to do is recognize YOU DID THIS. Once you ACCEPT this simple fact, and take unto YOURSELF the power you GAVE them, YOU are released from them.

One thing is sure; hallucinations serve a purpose, and when that PURPOSE is no longer held, THEY disappear. Therefore, the question never is whether you want THEM, but ALWAYS do you want the purpose that they serve? This world SEEMS to hold out many purposes, each different, and with different values. Yet they are all the same. Again, there is no order, but a SEEMING hierarchy of values. Only two purposes are possible. And one is sin; the other holiness. Nothing is in between, and which you choose determines what you see. For what you see is merely HOW you elect to meet your goal.

Hallucinations serve to meet the goal of madness. They are the means by which the OUTSIDE world, projected from within, ADJUSTS to sin, and SEEMS to witness to its reality. It still is true that nothing IS without. Yet, upon nothing, are ALL projections made. For it is the PROJECTION which gives the "nothing" ALL the meaning that it holds. What has NO meaning, cannot BE perceived. And meaning ALWAYS looks within, to find itself. And THEN looks out. ALL meaning that you give the world outside, must thus reflect the sight you saw WITHIN. Or better, IF you saw at all, or merely judged AGAINST.

Vision is the means by which the Holy Spirit translates your nightmares into happy dreams; your wild hallucinations, that show you all fearful outcomes of imagined sin, into the calm and reassuring sights with which He would replace them. These gentle sights and sounds are looked on happily, and heard with joy. They are HIS substitutes for all the terrifying sights and screaming sounds the ego's purpose brought to your horrified awareness. They step AWAY from sin, reminding you that it is NOT reality that frightens you, and that the errors which you made CAN be corrected.

When you have looked on what seemed terrifying, and SEEN it change to sights of loveliness and peace; when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and WATCHED them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need PERSUADE you to accept the gift of vision? And AFTER vision, who is there who COULD refuse what MUST come after? Think but an instant just on this. YOU can behold the holiness God gave His Son. And NEVER need you think that there IS something else for you to see.

Section 11 - The End of Sacrifice

Fear not to recognize as SOLELY OF YOUR MAKING the whole idea of sacrifice. And seek not safety by attempting to PROTECT yourself from where it is NOT. Your brothers and your Father have become VERY fearful to you, and you would bargain with them for a few special relationships, in which you think you see some scraps of safety. Do not try longer to KEEP APART your thoughts and the Thought that has been GIVEN you. When they are brought together, and perceived WHERE THEY ARE, the choice BETWEEN them is nothing more than a gentle awakening, and as simple as opening your eyes to daylight, when you have no more need of sleep.

The sign of Christmas is a star, a light in darkness. See it not OUTSIDE of yourself, but as shining in the Heaven within, and accept it as the sign the time of Christ has come. He comes demanding NOTHING. No sacrifice of ANY kind, of ANYONE, is asked by Him. In His Presence, the whole IDEA of sacrifice loses ALL meaning. For He is Host to God. And you need but invite Him in Who is there ALREADY, by recognizing that His Host is One. And no thought ALIEN to His Oneness can abide with Him there. Love MUST be total to give Him welcome, for the Presence of holiness CREATES the holiness which surrounds It. No fear can touch the Host Who cradles God in the time of Christ. For the Host is as holy as the Perfect Innocence that He protects, and Whose Power protects HIM.

This Christmas, give the Holy Spirit EVERYTHING that would hurt you. LET yourself be healed completely, that you may JOIN with Him in healing. And let us celebrate our release together, by releasing everyone WITH us. Leave nothing behind, for release is TOTAL. And when you have accepted it WITH me, you will GIVE it with me. All pain and sacrifice and littleness will disappear in OUR relationship, which is as innocent as our relationship with our Father, and as powerful. Pain will be brought to us, and disappear in our presence. And, WITHOUT pain, there can BE no sacrifice. And WITHOUT SACRIFICE, there love MUST be.

You who believe that sacrifice IS love, must learn that sacrifice is separation FROM love. For sacrifice brings guilt, as surely as love brings peace. Guilt is the CONDITION of sacrifice, as peace is the condition for the awareness of your relationship with God. For through guilt, you EXCLUDE your Father and your brothers FROM yourself. And through peace, you will invite them back, and realize they are where your invitation bids them be. What you excluded from yourself seems fearful, for you ENDOWED it with fear, and tried to CAST IT OUT, though it was part of you. Who can perceive part of himself as loathsome, and live within himself in peace? And who can try to resolve the perceived conflict of Heaven and hell IN HIM by casting Heaven out, and GIVING IT the attributes of hell, WITHOUT experiencing himself as incomplete and lonely?

As long as you perceive the body as your reality, so long will you perceive yourself as lonely and deprived. And so long will you also perceive yourself as a VICTIM OF SACRIFICE, JUSTIFIED in sacrificing others. For who could thrust Heaven and its Creator aside, WITHOUT a sense of sacrifice and loss? And who can suffer sacrifice and loss, without attempting to RESTORE himself? Yet how could you accomplish this yourselves, when the basis of your attempts is the belief in the REALITY OF THE DEPRIVATION? For deprivation breeds attack, BEING the belief that attack IS justified. And, as long as you would RETAIN the deprivation, attack becomes salvation, and sacrifice becomes love.

So is it that, in all your seeking for love, YOU SEEK FOR SACRIFICE, and FIND it. Yet you find NOT love. For it is impossible to DENY what love IS, and still RECOGNIZE it. The meaning of love lies in what you have cast OUTSIDE yourself, and it HAS no meaning at all, APART from you. It is what you preferred to KEEP, that has no meaning. While all that you would KEEP AWAY holds all the meaning of the universe, and holds the universe together in its meaning. For, unless the universe were joined in YOU, it would be APART FROM God, and to be without Him IS to be without meaning.

In the holy instant, the condition of love is met, for minds are joined without the body's INTERFERENCE, and where there is communication, there is peace. The Prince of Peace was born to re-establish the CONDITION of love, by teaching that communication remains unbroken, even if the body is destroyed, PROVIDED THAT you see NOT the body as the necessary means of communication. And if you UNDERSTAND this lesson, you will realize that, to sacrifice the BODY, is to SACRIFICE NOTHING. And communication, which MUST be of the mind, CANNOT be sacrificed. Where, then, is sacrifice?

For in the time of Christ, communication with Him is restored, and He joins us in the celebration of His Son's Creation. God offers thanks to the holy host who would receive Him, and let Him enter, and abide where He would be. And BY your welcome, does HE welcome you into Himself. For what is contained in you who welcome Him is RETURNED to Him. And we but celebrate HIS Wholeness, as we welcome Him into ourselves. Those who receive the Father are one with Him, being host to Him Who created them. And by allowing Him to enter, the remembrance of the Father enters with Him, and with Him they remember the only relationship they ever had, and ever want to have.

This is the week-end in which a new year will be born from the time of Christ. I have perfect faith in you, to do all that you would accomplish. Nothing will be lacking, and you will MAKE COMPLETE, and NOT destroy. Say and UNDERSTAND this:

I give you to the Holy Spirit, as part of myself.

I know that you will be released, UNLESS I WANT TO

USE YOU TO IMPRISON MYSELF.

In the name of MY freedom, I WILL your release,

Because I recognize that we will be released TOGETHER.

So will the year begin in joy and freedom. There is much to do, and we have been long delayed. Accept the holy instant as this year is born, and take your place, so long left unfulfilled, in the Great Awakening. Make this year different, by making it ALL THE SAME. And let ALL your relationships be made holy FOR you. This is OUR will.

Amen.

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 Atonement is a lesson in sharing, which is given you because YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO DO IT. The Holy Spirit merely reminds you of what is your NATURAL ability. By RE-INTERPRETING the ability to ATTACK, which you DID make, into the ability to SHARE, He TRANSLATES what you have made, into what God created. But if you would accomplish this THROUGH Him, you cannot look on your abilities through the eyes of the ego, or you will judge them as IT does. All their harmfulness lies in ITS judgment. All their HELPFULNESS lies in the judgment of the Holy Spirit.

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.

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.

Be glad, then, that you HAVE been wrong, but this was only because you did not know who you WERE. Had you REMEMBERED, you could no more have been wrong than God can. The impossible can happen ONLY in fantasy. When you search for reality in fantasies, you will not find it. The symbols of fantasy are of the ego, and of THESE you will find many. But do not look for meaning in them. They have no more meaning than the fantasies into which they are woven.

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.

Lesson 166 "I am entrusted with the gifts of God."

All things are given you. God's trust in you is limitless. He knows His Son. He gives without exception, holding nothing back that can contribute to your happiness. And yet, unless your will is one with His, His gifts are not received. But what would make you think there is another will than His?

Here is the paradox that underlies the making of the world. This world is not the Will of God, and so it is not real. Yet those who think it real must still believe there is another will, and one which leads to opposite effects from those He wills. Impossible indeed; but every mind which looks upon the world and judges it as certain, solid, trustworthy and true believes in two creators; or in one, himself alone. But never in One God.

The gifts of God are not acceptable to anyone who holds such strange beliefs. He must believe that to accept God's gifts, however evident they may become, however urgently he may be called to claim them as his own, is being pressed to treachery against himself. He must deny their presence, contradict the truth, and suffer to preserve the world he made.

Here is the only home he thinks he knows. Here is the only safety he believes that he can find. Without the world he made is he an outcast, homeless and afraid. He does not realize that it is here he is afraid indeed, and homeless too; an outcast wandering so far from home, so long away, he does not realize he has forgotten where he came from, where he goes, and even who he really is.

He seems a sorry figure, weary, worn, in threadbare clothing, and with feet that bleed a little from the rocky road he walks. No one but has identified with him, for everyone who comes here has pursued the path he follows, and has felt defeat and hopelessness as he is feeling them. Yet is he really tragic when you see that he is following the way he chose, and need but realize Who walks with him, and open up his treasures to be free?

This is your chosen self, the one you made as a replacement for reality. This is the self you savagely defend against all reason, every evidence, and all the witnesses with proof to show this is not you. You heed them not. You go on your appointed way, with eyes cast down lest you might catch a glimpse of truth, and be released from self deception and set free.

You cower fearfully lest you should feel Christ's touch upon your shoulder, and perceive His gentle hand directing you to look upon your gifts. How could you then proclaim your poverty in exile? He would make you laugh at this perception of yourself. Where is self-pity then? And what becomes of all the tragedy you sought to make for him whom God intended only joy?

Your ancient fear has come upon you now, and justice has caught up with you at last. Christ's hand has touched your shoulder, and you feel that you are not alone. You even think the miserable self you thought was you may not be your identity. Perhaps God's Word is truer than your own. Perhaps His gifts to you are real. Perhaps He has not wholly been outwitted by your plan to keep His Son in deep oblivion, and go the way you chose without your Self.

God's Will does not oppose. It merely is. It is not God you have imprisoned in your plan to lose your Self. He does not know about a plan so alien to His Will. There was a need He did not understand, to which He gave an Answer. That is all. And you who have this Answer given you have need no more of anything but this.

Now do we live, for now we cannot die. The wish for death is answered, and the sight that looked upon it now has been replaced by vision which perceives that you are not what you pretend to be. One walks with you Who gently answers all your fears with this one merciful reply, "It is not so." He points to all the gifts you have each time the thought of poverty oppresses you, and speaks of His Companionship when you perceive yourself as lonely and afraid.

Yet He reminds you still of one thing more you had forgotten. For His touch on you has made you like Himself. The gifts you have are not for you alone. What He has come to offer you, you now must learn to give. This is the lesson that His giving holds, for He has saved you from the solitude you sought to make, in which to hide from God. He has reminded you of all the gifts that God has given you. He speaks as well of what becomes your will when you accept these gifts, and recognize they are your own.

The gifts are yours, entrusted to your care, to give to all who chose the lonely road you have escaped. They do not understand they but pursue their wishes. It is you who teach them now. For you have learned of Christ there is another way for them to walk. Teach them by showing them the happiness that comes to those who feel the touch of Christ and recognize God's gifts. Let sorrow not tempt you to be unfaithful to your trust.

Your sighs will now betray the hopes of those who look to you for their release. Your tears are theirs. If you are sick you but withhold their healing. What you fear but teaches them their fears are justified. Your hand becomes the giver of Christ's touch; your change of mind becomes the proof that who accepts God's gifts can never suffer anything. You are entrusted with the world's release from pain.

Betray it not. Become the living proof of what Christ's touch can offer everyone. God has entrusted all His gifts to you. Be witness in your happiness to how transformed the mind becomes which chooses to accept His gifts and feel the touch of Christ. Such is your mission now. For God entrusts the giving of His gifts to all who have received them. He has shared His joy with you. And now you go to share it with the world.

Section 5 - The Two Emotions

We have said that you have but two emotions, love and fear. One is changeless but continually exchanged, being offered BY the eternal TO the eternal. In this exchange it is extended, for it INCREASES as it is given. The other has many forms, for the content of INDIVIDUAL illusions differs greatly. But they have one thing in common; they are all insane. They are made of sights which are NOT seen, and sounds which are NOT heard. They make up a PRIVATE world which CANNOT be shared. For they are meaningful ONLY to their maker, and so they have no meaning at all. In this world their maker moves alone, for only HE perceives them.

Each one peoples his world with figures from his INDIVIDUAL past, and it is because of this that private worlds DO differ. But the figures that he sees were NEVER real, for they are made up ONLY of his REACTIONS to his brothers, and do NOT include their reactions to HIM. Therefore he does not see that he made them, and that they ARE NOT WHOLE. For these figures HAVE NO WITNESSES, being perceived in one SEPARATE mind only.

It is THROUGH these strange and shadowy figures that the insane relate to their insane world. For they SEE only those who remind them of these images, and it is to THEM that they relate. Thus do they communicate with those who ARE NOT THERE, and it is THEY who answer them. And no-one hears their answer save him who called upon them, and he ALONE believes they answered him. Projection MAKES perception, and you CANNOT see beyond it. Again and again have men attacked each other, because they saw IN THEM a shadow figure in their private world.

And thus it is that you MUST attack yourself first. For what you attack is NOT in others. Its ONLY reality is in your OWN mind, and by attacking others, you are literally attacking WHAT IS NOT THERE. The delusional can be very destructive, for they do not recognize they have condemned THEMSELVES. They do not wish to die, YET THEY WILL NOT LET CONDEMNATION GO. And so they SEPARATE into their private world, where everything is disordered, and where what is within, appears to be without. Yet what IS within they do NOT see, for the REALITY of their brothers they CANNOT see.

You have but two emotions, yet in your private world, you react to each of them AS THOUGH IT WERE THE OTHER. For love cannot abide in a world apart, where, when it comes, it is not recognized. If you see your own hatred AS your brother, you are not seeing HIM. Everyone draws nigh unto what he loves, and recoils from what he fears. And you react with fear to love, and draw AWAY from it. But fear ATTRACTS you, and believing it is love, you call it to yourself. Your private world is filled with the figures of fear you have invited into it. And all the love your brothers offer you, YOU DO NOT SEE.

Little children, would you offer THIS to your Father? For if you offer it to yourself, you ARE offering it to Him. And He will NOT return it, for it is unworthy of you BECAUSE it is unworthy of Him. But He WOULD release you from it, and set you free. His sane answer tells you that what you have offered YOURSELF is NOT true, but HIS offering TO you has never changed. You who know not what you do, CAN learn what insanity IS, and look beyond it. It is GIVEN you to learn how to DENY insanity, and come forth from your private world in peace.

And you will see all that you denied in your brothers, BECAUSE you denied it in yourself. For you will love them, and by drawing nigh unto them, you will draw them to YOURSELF, perceiving them as witnesses to your reality, which you share with GOD. For I am WITH them, as I am with YOU. And we will draw them from their private world, for as we are united, so would we unite with them. The Father welcomes all of us in gladness, and gladness is what WE would offer Him. For every Son of God is given you, to whom God gave HIMSELF. And it is God Whom you must offer them, to recognize His gift to YOU.

Vision depends on light, and you CANNOT see in darkness. Yet in the darkness, in the private world of sleep, you SEE in dreams, although your eyes are closed. And it is here that WHAT you see YOU MADE. But let the DARKNESS go, and ALL you made YOU WILL NO LONGER SEE, for sight of IT depends upon DENYING vision. But from denying vision, IT DOES NOT FOLLOW THAT YOU CANNOT SEE. Yet this is what denial DOES, for BY it you ACCEPT insanity, believing you can make a private world, AND RULE YOUR OWN PERCEPTION. But FOR this, light MUST be excluded. Dreams disappear when light has come, AND YOU CAN SEE.

Do not seek vision through YOUR eyes. For you MADE your way of seeing, that you might see in darkness, and in this you ARE deceived. BEYOND this darkness, and yet still WITHIN you, is the vision of Christ, Who looks on all in light. YOUR vision comes from fear, as His from Love. And He sees FOR you, as your witness to the real world. He is the Holy Spirit'sMANIFESTATION, looking always on the real world, and calling forth its witnesses, and drawing them unto YOU. For He loves what He sees within you, and He would EXTEND it. And He will not return unto the Father, until He has extended your perception even unto Him. And there perception is no more, for He has RETURNED you to the Father WITH Him.

You have but two emotions, and one you made and one was GIVEN you. Each is a WAY OF SEEING, and different worlds arise from their different visions. See through the vision that is GIVEN you, for through Christ's vision He beholds Himself. And seeing what He is, He knows His Father. Beyond your darkest dreams, He sees God's guiltless Son within you, shining in perfect radiance, which is undimmed by your dreams. And this YOU will see, as you look with Him. For His vision is His gift of love to you, given Him of the Father FOR you.

The Holy Spirit is the light in which Christ stands revealed. And all who would behold Him can see Him, for they have ASKED for light. Nor will they see Him ALONE, for He is no more alone than THEY are. Because they SAW the Son, they have risen IN Him to the Father. And all this will they understand, because they looked within, and saw, beyond the darkness, the Christ in them, and RECOGNIZED Him. In the sanity of His vision, they looked upon themselves with love, seeing themselves as the Holy Spirit sees them. And WITH this vision of the truth in THEM, came all the beauty of the world to shine upon them.

Section 9 - The Purpose of the Body

It is only the awareness of the body that makes love seem limited. For the body IS a limit on love. The belief in limited love was its origin, and it was MADE to limit the UNlimited. Think not that this is merely allegorical; for it was made to limit YOU. Can you who see yourselves WITHIN a body, know yourself AS AN IDEA? Everything you recognize you identify by EXTERNALS, something OUTSIDE itself. You cannot even think of GOD without a body, or some form you think you recognize. The body cannot KNOW. And while you limit your awareness to its tiny senses, you will not see the grandeur that surrounds you.

God cannot come into a body, nor can you join Him there. Limits on love will ALWAYS seem to shut Him out, and to keep you APART from Him. The body is a tiny fence around a little part of a glorious and completely limitless idea. It draws a circle, infinitely small, around a very little segment of Heaven, splintered from the whole, proclaiming that, within it, is YOUR Kingdom, where God can enter not. Within this kingdom the ego rules, and cruelly. And, to defend this little speck of dust, it bids you fight against the universe.

This fragment of your mind is such a tiny part of it that, could you but appreciate the whole, you would see instantly that it is like the smallest sunbeam is to the sun. Or like the faintest ripple on the surface of the ocean. In its amazing arrogance, this tiny sunbeam has decided it IS the sun; this almost imperceptible ripple hails itself as the ocean. Think how alone and frightened is this little thought, this infinitesimal illusion, holding itself apart, against the universe. The sun becomes the sunbeam's "enemy," which would devour it. And the ocean terrifies the little ripple, and "wants" to swallow it.

Yet neither sun nor ocean is even aware of all this strange and meaningless activity. They merely continue, unaware that they are feared and hated by a tiny segment of themselves. Even that segment is not LOST to them, for it could not survive APART from them And what IT thinks it is in no way changes its total dependence on them FOR ITS BEING. Its whole existence still remains IN THEM. Without the sun, the sunbeam WOULD be gone; the ripple WITHOUT the ocean IS inconceivable.

Such is the strange position in which those in a world inhabited by bodies seem to be. Each body seems to house a SEPARATE mind, a DISCONNECTED thought, living alone and in no way joined to the Thought by which it was created. Each tiny fragment seems to be self-contained, needing each other for SOME things, but by no means TOTALLY dependent on their One Creator for EVERYTHING. And needing the whole to give them ANY meaning, for by themselves, they DO mean nothing. Nor HAVE they any life apart, and by themselves.

Yet, like the sun and ocean, your Self continues, unmindful that this tiny part regards ITSELF as you. It is not missing; it could not EXIST if it were separate, nor would the whole BE whole without it. It is not a separate kingdom, ruled by an IDEA of separation from the rest. Nor does a fence surround it, preventing it from JOINING with the rest, and keeping it apart from its Creator. This little aspect is NO DIFFERENT from the whole, being continuous with it, and at one with it. It leads no separate life, because its life IS in the Oneness in which its being was created.

Do not accept this little, fenced-off aspect as your Self. The sun and ocean are as nothing, beside what YOU are. The sunbeam sparkles only in the sunlight, and the ripple dances as it rests upon the ocean. Yet in neither sun nor ocean is the power that rests in you. Would you remain WITHIN your tiny kingdom, a sorry king, a bitter ruler of all he surveys, who looks on nothing, but who would still die to DEFEND it? This little self is NOT your kingdom. Arched high above it, and surrounding it, with love, is the glorious whole, which offers all its happiness and deep content to EVERY part.

The little aspect that you think you set apart is no exception. Love knows no bodies, and reaches to everything created like itself. Its total lack of limit IS its meaning. It is COMPLETELY impartial in its giving, encompassing ONLY to preserve and KEEP COMPLETE what it would give. In your tiny kingdom you have so little! Should it not, then, be there that you would call on love to enter? Look at the desert, dry and unproductive, scorched and joyless, that makes up your little kingdom. And realize the life and joy that love would bring to it, from where IT comes, and where it would return WITH you.

The love they BROUGHT with them will STAY with them, as it will stay with YOU. And, under its beneficence, your little garden will expand, and reach out to everyone who thirsts for living water, but has grown too weary to go on alone. Go out and FIND them, for they bring your Self with them. And lead them gently to your quiet garden, and receive their blessing there. So will it grow, and stretch across the desert, leaving no lonely little kingdoms locked away from love, and leaving YOU outside. And you will RECOGNIZE yourself, and see your little garden gently transformed into the Kingdom of Heaven, with all the love of its Creator shining upon it.

The holy instant is your invitation to love, to enter into your bleak and joyless kingdom, and transform it into a garden of peace and welcome. Love's answer is inevitable. It will come, because you came WITHOUT the body, and interposed no barriers which would INTERFERE with its glad coming. In the holy instant, you ask of love only what it offers everyone, neither less nor more. Asking for EVERYTHING, you will RECEIVE it. And your shining Self will lift the tiny aspect that you tried to hide from Heaven, straight into Heaven. No part of love calls on the whole in vain. No son of God remains OUTSIDE His Fatherhood.

Be sure of this; love has entered your special relationship, and entered fully, at your weak request. You do NOT recognize that love has come, because you have not yet let go of ALL the barriers you hold against EACH OTHER. And you will NOT be able to give love welcome separately. You could no more know God alone, than He knows YOU without your brother. But, TOGETHER, you could no more be UNAWARE of love, than love could know you not, or fail to recognize ITSELF in you.

You have reached the end of an ancient journey not realizing yet that it is over. You are still worn and tired, and the desert's dust still seems to cloud your eyes, and keep you sightless. Yet He Whom you welcomed has come to you, and would welcome YOU. He has waited long to give you this. Receive it now of Him, for He would have you KNOW Him. Only a little wall of dust still stands between you. Blow on it lightly and with happy laughter, and it will fall away. And walk into the garden love has prepared for BOTH of you.

Lesson 151 "All things are echoes of the Voice of God."

No one can judge on partial evidence. That is not judgment. It is merely an opinion based on ignorance and doubt. Its seeming certainty is but a cloak for the uncertainty it would conceal. It needs irrational defense because it is irrational. And its defense seems strong, convincing, and without a doubt, because of all the doubting underneath.

You do not seem to doubt the world you see. You do not really question what is shown you through the body's eyes. Nor do you ask why you believe it, even though you learned a long while since your senses do deceive. That you believe them to the last detail which they report is even stranger when you pause to recollect how frequently they have been faulty witnesses indeed! Why would you trust them so implicitly? Why but because of underlying doubt which you would hide with show of certainty?

How can you judge? Your judgment rests upon the witness that your senses offer you. Yet witness never falser was than this. But how else do you judge the world you see? You place pathetic faith in what your eyes and ears report. You think your fingers touch reality and close upon the truth. This is awareness which you understand, and think more real than what is witnessed to by the eternal Voice of God Himself.

Can this be judgment? You have often been urged to refrain from judging, not because it is a right to be withheld from you. You cannot judge. You merely can believe the ego's judgments, all of which are false. It guides your senses carefully, to prove how weak you are; how helpless and afraid, how apprehensive of just punishment, how black with sin, how wretched in your guilt.

This thing it speaks of and would yet defend it tells you is yourself. And you believe that this is so with stubborn certainty. Yet underneath remains the hidden doubt that what it shows you as reality with such conviction it does not believe. It is itself alone that it condemns. It is within itself it sees the guilt. It is its own despair it sees in you.

Hear not its voice. The witnesses it sends to prove to you its evil is your own are false, and speak with certainty of what they do not know. Your faith in them is blind because you would not share the doubts their lord can not completely vanquish. You believe to doubt his vassals is to doubt yourself.

Yet you must learn to doubt their evidence will clear the way to recognize yourself, and let the Voice for God alone be Judge of what is worthy of your own belief. He will not tell you that your brother should be judged by what your eyes behold in him, nor what his body's mouth says to your ears, nor what your fingers' touch reports of him. He passes by such idle witnesses, which merely bear false witness to God's Son.

He recognizes only what God loves, and in the holy light of what He sees do all the ego's dreams of what you are vanish before the splendor He beholds. Let Him be Judge of what you are, for He has certainty in which there is no doubt because it rests on Certainty so great that doubt is meaningless before Its Face. Christ cannot doubt Himself. The Voice of God can only honor Him, rejoicing in His perfect, everlasting sinlessness.

Whom He has judged can only laugh at guilt, unwilling now to play with toys of sin, unheeding of the body's witnesses before the rapture of His holy Face. And thus He judges you. Accept His word of what you are, for He bears witness to your beautiful creation and the Mind Whose Thought created your reality.

What can the body mean to Him Who knows the glory of the Father and the Son? What whispers of the ego can He hear? What could convince Him that your sins are real? Let Him be Judge as well of everything that seems to happen to you in this world. His lessons will enable you to bridge the gap between illusions and the truth.

He will remove all faith that you have placed in pain, disaster, suffering and loss. He gives you vision which can look beyond these grim appearances, and can behold the gentle Face of Christ in all of them. You will no longer doubt that only good can come to you who are beloved of God, for He will judge all happenings and teach the single lesson which they all contain.

He will select the elements in them that represent the truth, and disregard those aspects which reflect but idle dreams. And He will reinterpret all you see, and all occurrences, each circumstance, and every happening which seems to touch on you in any way from His one frame of reference, wholly unified and sure. And you will see the love beyond the hate, the constancy in change, the pure in sin, and only Heaven's blessing on the world.

Such is your resurrection, for your life is not a part of anything you see. It stands beyond the body and the world, past every witness for unholiness, within the Holy, holy as Itself. In everyone and everything His Voice would speak to you of nothing but your Self and your Creator, Who is One with Him. So will you see the holy Face of Christ in everything, and hear in everything no sound except the echo of God's Voice.

We practice wordlessly today, except at the beginning of the time you spend with God. We introduce these times with but a single, slow repeating of the thought with which the day begins. And then we watch our thoughts, appealing silently to Him Who sees the elements of truth in them. Let Him evaluate each thought that comes to mind, remove the elements of dreams, and give them back to you as clean ideas which do not contradict the Will of God.

Spend fifteen minutes thus when you awake, and gladly give another fifteen more before you go to sleep. Your ministry begins as all your thoughts are purified. So are you taught to teach the Son of God the holy lesson of his sanctity. No one can fail to listen when you hear the Voice of God give honor to God's Son. And everyone will share the thoughts with you which He has retranslated in your mind.

Such is your Eastertide. And so you lay the gift of snow-white lilies on the world, replacing witnesses to sin and death. Through your transfiguration is the world redeemed and joyfully released from guilt. Now do we lift our resurrected minds in gladness and in gratitude to Him Who has restored our sanity to us.

And we will hourly remember Him Who is salvation and deliverance. As we give thanks, the world unites with us, and happily accepts our holy thoughts, which Heaven has corrected and made pure. Now has our ministry begun at last, to carry 'round the world the joyous news that truth has no illusions, and the peace of God, through us, belongs to everyone.

Lesson 132 "I loose the world from all I thought it was."

What keeps the world in chains but your beliefs? And what can save the world except your Self? Belief is powerful indeed. The thoughts you hold are mighty, and illusions are as strong in their effects as is the truth. A madman thinks the world he sees is real and does not doubt it. Nor can he be swayed by questioning his thoughts' effects. It is but when their source is raised to question that the hope of freedom comes to him at last.

Yet is salvation easily achieved, for anyone is free to change his mind, and all his thoughts change with it. Now the source of thought has shifted, for to change your mind means you have changed the source of all ideas you think or ever thought or yet will think. You free the past from what you thought before. You free the future from all ancient thoughts of seeking what you do not want to find. The present now remains the only time.

The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real. Perhaps you think you did not make the world, but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning. Yet in truth you found exactly what you looked for when you came. There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly.

Ideas leave not their source. This central theme is often stated in the text, and must be borne in mind if you would understand the lesson for today. It is not pride that tells you that you made the world you see, and that it changes as you change your mind. But it is pride that argues you have come into a world quite separate from yourself, impervious to what you think, and quite apart from what you chance to think it is.

There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. He will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again. But healing is the gift of those who are prepared to learn there is no world, and can accept the lesson now. Their readiness will bring the lesson to them in some form which they can understand and recognize.

Some see it suddenly on point of death, and rise to teach it. Others find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world does not exist because what they behold must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world. And some will find it in this course, and in the exercises that we do today.

Today's idea is true because the world does not exist. And if it is indeed your own imagining, then you can loose it from all things you ever thought it was by merely changing all the thoughts that gave it these appearances. The sick are healed as you let go all thoughts of sickness, and the dead arise when you let thoughts of life replace all thoughts you ever held of death.

A lesson earlier repeated once must now be stressed again, for it contains the firm foundation for today's idea. You are as God created you. There is no place where you can suffer, and no time that can bring change to your eternal state. How can a world of time and place exist if you remain as God created you?

What is the lesson for today except another way of saying that to know your Self is the salvation of the world? To free the world from every kind of pain is but to change your mind about yourself. There is no world apart from your ideas because ideas leave not their source, and you maintain the world within your mind in thought.

Yet if you are as God created you, you cannot think apart from Him, nor make what does not share His timelessness and love. Are these inherent in the world you see? Does it create like Him? Unless it does, it is not real and cannot be at all. If you are real the world you see is false, for God's creation is unlike the world in every way. And as it was His Thought by which you were created, so it is your thoughts which made it and must set it free, that you may know the Thoughts you share with God.

Release the world! Your real creations wait for this release to give you fatherhood, not of illusions, but as God in truth. God shares His Fatherhood with you who are His Son, for He makes no distinctions in what is Himself and what is still Himself. What He creates is not apart from Him, and nowhere does the Father end, the Son begin as something separate from Him.

There is no world because it is a thought apart from God, and made to separate the Father and the Son, and break away a part of God Himself and thus destroy His wholeness. Can a world which comes from this idea be real? Can it be anywhere? Deny illusions, but accept the truth. Deny you are a shadow briefly laid upon a dying world. Release your mind, and you will look upon a world released.

Today our purpose is to free the world from all the idle thoughts we ever held about it, and about all living things we see upon it. They can not be there, no more than we. For we are in the home our Father set for us along with them. And we who are as He created us would loose the world this day from every one of our illusions, that we may be free.

Begin the fifteen minute periods in which we practice twice today with this:

"I who remain as God created me

Would loose the world from all I thought it was.

For I am real because the world is not,

And I would know my own reality."

Then merely rest, alert but with no strain, and let your mind in quietness be changed so that the world is freed along with you.

You need not realize that healing comes to many brothers far across the world as well as to the ones you see near by, as you send out these thoughts to bless the world. But you will sense your own release, although you may not fully understand as yet that you could never be released alone.

Throughout the day, increase the freedom sent through your ideas to all the world, and say whenever you are tempted to deny the power of your simple change of mind:

"I loose the world from all I thought it was,

And choose my own reality instead."

Section 7 - Salvation from Fear

Before your brother's holiness the world is still, and peace descends on it in gentleness and blessing so complete, that not one trace of conflict still remains to haunt you in the darkness of the night. He is your Savior from the dreams of terror. He is the healing of your sense of sacrifice, and fear that what you have will scatter with the wind, and turn to dust. In him is your assurance God is here, and with you now. While he is what he is, you can be sure that God is knowable, and WILL be known to you. For He could never leave His own creation. And the sign that this is so lies in your brother, offered you that all your doubts about yourself may disappear before his holiness.

See in him God's creation. For in him his Father waits for your acknowledgment that He created YOU as part of Him. Without you, there would be a lack in God, a Heaven incomplete, a Son without a Father. There could be no universe, and no reality. For what God wills is whole, and part of Him BECAUSE His Will is One. Nothing alive that is not part of Him, and nothing is but IS alive in Him. Your brother's holiness shows you that God is One with him AND you; that what he has is yours BECAUSE you are not separate from him OR from his Father.

Nothing is lost to you in all the universe. Nothing that God created has He failed to lay before you lovingly, as yours forever. And no thought within His Mind is absent from your own. It is His Will you SHARE His love for you, and look upon yourself as lovingly as He conceived of you before the world began, and as He knows you still. God changes not His Mind about His Son with passing circumstance which has no meaning in eternity where He abides, and you with Him. Your brother IS as He created him. And it is this that saves YOU from a world that He created not.

Forget not that the healing of God's Son is all the world is for. That is the ONLY purpose the Holy Spirit sees in it, and thus the only one it HAS. Until you see the healing of the Son as all you wish to be accomplished by the world, by time, and ALL appearances, you will NOT know the Father OR yourself. For you will use the world for what is NOT its purpose, and will NOT escape its laws of violence and death. Yet it is GIVEN you to be BEYOND its laws in ALL respects, in EVERY way, and EVERY circumstance; in ALL temptation to perceive what is NOT there, and ALL belief God's Son can suffer pain because he sees himself as he is not.

Look on your brother, and behold in him the whole reversal of the laws that SEEM to rule this world. See in his freedom YOURS, for such it IS. Let not his specialness obscure the truth in him, for not one law of death you bind him to will YOU escape. And not one sin you see in him but keeps you BOTH in hell. Yet will his perfect sinlessness RELEASE you both, for holiness is quite impartial, with one judgment made for all it looks upon. And that is made, not of itself, but through the Voice that speaks for God in everything that lives, and shares His Being.

Choose, then, his body OR his holiness as what you WANT to see, and which you choose is yours to look upon. Yet will you choose in countless situations, and through time which seems to have no end, until the truth be your decision. For eternity is NOT regained by still one more denial of the Christ in him. And where is YOUR salvation, if he is but a body? Where is YOUR peace, but in his holiness? And where is God Himself but in that part of Him He set forever in your brother's holiness, that YOU might see the truth about yourself set forth at last in terms you recognized and understood?

Your brother's holiness is sacrament and benediction unto YOU. His errors can NOT withhold God's blessing from himself, nor you who see him truly. His mistakes can cause delay, which it is given YOU to take from him, that both may end a journey that has never been begun, and NEEDS no end. What never was is NOT a part of you. Yet will you think it is, until you realize that it is not a part of him who stands beside you. He is the mirror of yourself, wherein you see the judgment you have laid on BOTH of you. The Christ in you beholds his holiness. Your specialness looks on his body, and beholds him not.

See him as what he IS, that YOUR deliverance may not be long. A senseless wandering, without a purpose and without accomplishment of any kind, is all the other choice can offer you. Futility of function not fulfilled will haunt you while your brother lies asleep, 'til what has been assigned to you is done, and he is risen from the past. He who condemned himself, and you as well, is given you to save from condemnation, along with you. And both shall see God's glory in His Son, whom you mistook as flesh, and bound to laws that have NO power over him at all.

Would you not gladly realize these laws are not for YOU? Then see HIM not as prisoner to them. It CANNOT be what governs part of God holds not for all the rest. You place YOURSELF under the laws you see as ruling HIM. Think, then, how great the Love of God for YOU must be, that He has given you a part of Him, to save from pain and give YOU happiness. And never doubt but that your specialness will disappear before the Will of God Who loves each part of Him with equal love and care. The Christ in you CAN see your brother truly. And would you decide AGAINST the holiness He sees?

Specialness is the function that you gave yourself. It stands for you alone, as self-created, self-maintained, in need of nothing, and unjoined with anything beyond the body. In its eyes, you are a separate universe, with all the power to hold itself complete within itself, with every entry shut against intrusion, and every window barred against the light. Always attacked and always furious, with anger always fully justified, you have pursued this goal with vigilance you never thought to yield, and effort that you never thought to cease. And all this grim determination was for this: YOU WANTED SPECIALNESS TO BE THE TRUTH.

Now you are merely asked that you pursue another goal with far LESS vigilance, with little effort and with little time, and with the power of God maintaining it, and promising success. Yet, of the two, it is THIS one you find more difficult. The SACRIFICE of self you understand, nor do you deem THIS cost too heavy. But a tiny willingness, a nod to God, a greeting to the Christ in you, you find a burden wearisome and tedious, too heavy to be borne. Yet, to the dedication to the truth as GOD established it, NO sacrifice is asked, NO strain called forth, and all the power of Heaven and the might of truth itself is given to provide the means, and GUARANTEE the goal's accomplishment.

You who believe it easier to see your brother's body than his holiness, be sure you understand what made this judgment. Here is the voice of specialness heard clearly, judging AGAINST the Christ, and setting forth, for YOU, the purpose that you CAN attain, and what you can NOT do. Forget not that this judgment MUST apply to what you do with IT as your ally. For what you do through Christ it does not know. To Him, this judgment makes no sense at all, for ONLY what His Father wills is possible, and there IS no alternative for Him to see. Out of His LACK of conflict comes your peace. And from His purpose come the means for effortless accomplishment and rest.

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?

You HAVE learned your need of healing. Would you bring anything ELSE to the Sonship, KNOWING your need of it for yourself? For in this lies the beginning of knowledge; the foundation on which God will help you build again the thought system which you share WITH Him. Not one stone you place upon it but will be blessed by Him. For you will be restoring the holy dwelling place of His Son, where He wills His Son to be, and where he IS. In whatever part of the mind of God's Son you restore this reality, you restore it to YOURSELF. For you dwell in the Mind of God WITH your brother, for God Himself did not will to be alone.

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.

Infinity is meaningless WITHOUT you, and YOU are meaningless without God. There IS no end to God and His Son, for we ARE the universe. God is not incomplete, and He is not childless. Because He did not will to be alone, He created a Son like Himself. Do not deny Him His Son, for your unwillingness to accept His Fatherhood has denied you yours. See His creations as HIS Son, for yours were created in honor of Him.

The universe of love does not stop because you do not see it, and your closed eyes have not lost the ability to see. Look upon the glory of His creation, and you will learn what God has kept for YOU. God has given you a place in His Mind which is yours forever. But you could keep it only by Giving it, as it was given to you. Could YOU be alone there, if it was given you because GOD did not will to be alone? God's Mind cannot be lessened. It can ONLY be increased, and EVERYTHING He creates has the function of creating. LOVE DOES NOT LIMIT, and what it creates is not limited.

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.

You are asked to trust the Holy Spirit only because He speaks for YOU. He is the Voice for God, but never forget that God did not will to be alone. He SHARES His Will with you; He does not thrust it UPON you. Always remember that what He gives He holds, so that nothing He gives CAN contradict Him. You who share His Life must share it to KNOW it, for sharing IS knowing. Blessed are you who learn that to hear the Will of your Father, is to know your own. For it is YOUR will to be LIKE Him, Whose Will it is that it be so.

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 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.

It is BECAUSE you did not make yourselves, that you need be troubled by nothing. Your gods are nothing, because your Father did not create them. You cannot make creators who are unlike your Creator, any more than He could have created a Son who was unlike Him. If creation is sharing, it cannot create what is unlike itself. It can share only what it IS. Depression is isolation, and so it could not have BEEN created.

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.

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.

Do not perceive ANYTHING God did not create, or you ARE denying Him. His is the ONLY Fatherhood, and it is yours only because HE has given it to you. Your gifts to YOURSELF are meaningless, but your gifts to YOUR creations are like His, because they are given in His Name. That is why your creations are as real as His. But the real Fatherhood must be acknowledged, if the real Son is to be known. You believe that the sick things which you have made are your real creations, because you believe that the sick images you perceive are the Sons of God.

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 4 - Release and Restoration

You are accustomed to the notion that the mind can see the source of pain where it is not. The doubtful service of displacement is to hide the REAL source of your guilt, and KEEP from your awareness the full perception THAT IT IS INSANE. Displacement ALWAYS is maintained by the illusion that the source, from which attention is diverted, MUST BE TRUE. And MUST BE FEARFUL, or you would not have displaced the guilt onto what you believed to be LESS fearful. You are therefore willing, with little opposition, to look upon all sorts of "sources" underneath awareness, provided that they are not the deeper source, to which they bear no real relationship at all. Insane ideas HAVE no real relationships, for that is why they ARE insane.

No real relationship can rest on guilt, or even hold one spot of it, to mar its purity. For all relationships which guilt has touched, are used but to avoid the person AND the guilt. What strange relationships you have made for this strange purpose! And you forgot that real relationships are holy, and cannot be used by YOU at all. They are used ONLY by the Holy Spirit, and it is that that MAKES them pure. If you displace YOUR guilt upon them, the Holy Spirit cannot use them. For, by pre-empting FOR YOUR OWN ends what you should have given HIM, he cannot use them unto YOUR release. No-one who would unite in ANY way, with ANYONE, for his OWN salvation will find it in that strange relationship. It is not shared, and so it is not real.

In any union with a brother, in which you seek to lay YOUR guilt upon him, or share it WITH him, or perceive his own, YOU WILL FEEL GUILTY. Nor will you find satisfaction and peace with him, because your union with him IS NOT REAL. You will see guilt in that relationship, BECAUSE YOU PUT IT THERE. It is inevitable that those who suffer guilt WILL attempt to displace it, because they DO believe in it. Yet, though they suffer, they will not look within, AND LET IT GO. They cannot know they love, and cannot understand WHAT LOVING IS. Their main concern is to perceive the source of guilt OUTSIDE themselves, BEYOND their own control.

When you maintain that YOU are guilty, but the source LIES IN THE PAST, you are NOT looking inward. The past is NOT in you. Your weird associations to it HAVE no meaning in the present. Yet you let them stand BETWEEN you and your brothers, with whom you find no REAL relationships at all. Can you EXPECT to use your brothers as a means to solve the past, and still to see them as they really ARE? Salvation is not found by those who use their brothers to resolve problems WHICH ARE NOT THERE. You wanted not salvation in the past. Would you impose your idle wishes on the present, and hope to find salvation NOW?

Determine, then, to be NOT as you were. Use no relationship to hold you to the past, but with each one, each day, be born again. A minute, even less, will be enough to free you from the past, and give your mind in peace over to the Atonement. When everyone is welcome to you as you would have YOURSELF be welcome to your Father, you will see no guilt in you. For you will have ACCEPTED the Atonement, which shone within you all the while you dreamed of guilt, and would not look within and SEE it.

As long as you believe that guilt is justified in ANY way, in ANYONE, WHATEVER he may do, you will not look within, where you would ALWAYS find Atonement. The end of guilt will never come as long as you believe THERE IS A REASON FOR IT. For you must learn that guilt is ALWAYS totally insane, and HAS no reason. The Holy Spirit seeks not to dispel REALITY. If GUILT were real, ATONEMENT would not be. The purpose of Atonement is to dispel illusions, NOT to establish them as real, and THEN forgive them. The Holy Spirit does not KEEP illusions in your mind to frighten you, and show them to you fearfully, to demonstrate what He has saved you FROM.

The moment that you realize GUILT IS INSANE, WHOLLY unjustified, and WHOLLY without reason, you will NOT fear to look upon Atonement, and ACCEPT IT WHOLLY. You who have been unmerciful unto yourselves, do not remember your Father's love. And, looking without mercy upon your brothers, you do not remember how much YOU love HIM. Yet it is forever true. In shining peace within you, is the perfect purity in which you were created. Fear not to look upon the lovely truth in you. Look THROUGH the cloud of guilt that dims your vision, and look PAST darkness, to the holy place where you will see the light.

The altar to your Father is as pure as He Who raised it to Himself. Nothing can keep FROM you what Christ would have you see. His will is like His Father's, and He offers mercy to every Child of God, as He would have YOU do. RELEASE from guilt, as you would BE released. There is no other way to look within, and see the light of love shining as steadily, and as surely, as God Himself has always loved His Son. AND AS HIS SON LOVES HIM. There is no fear in love, for love is guiltless. You who have ALWAYS loved your Father can have no fear, for ANY reason, to look within, and see your holiness.

You CANNOT be as you believed you WERE. Your guilt is without reason, because it is not in the Mind of God, where YOU are. And this IS reason, which the Holy Spirit would RESTORE to you. He would remove ONLY illusions. All else He would have you see. And in Christ's vision He would show you the perfect purity that is forever within God's Son. You cannot enter into REAL relationship with ANY of God's Sons, unless you love them all, and EQUALLY. Love is not special. If you single out PART of the Sonship for your love, you are imposing guilt on ALL your relationships, and MAKING them unreal.

You can love ONLY as God loves. Seek not to love UNLIKE Him, for there IS no love apart from His. Until you recognize that this is true, you will have no idea WHAT LOVE IS LIKE. No-one who condemns a brother, can see HIMSELF as guiltless in the peace of God. If he IS guiltless and in peace, AND SEES IT NOT, he IS delusional, and has NOT looked upon himself. To him I say, "Behold the Son of God, and look upon his purity, and be still. In quiet, look upon his holiness, and offer thanks unto his Father, that no guilt has ever touched him."

No illusion that you have ever held against him, has touched his innocence in any way. His shining purity, wholly untouched by guilt, and wholly loving, is bright within you. Let us look upon him together, and love him. For in our love of him IS your guiltlessness. But look upon yourself, and gladness and appreciation for what you will see, will banish guilt forever. I thank You, Father, for the purity of Your most holy Son, whom Thou hast created guiltless forever.

Like you, my faith and my belief are centered on what I treasure. The difference is that I love ONLY what God loves WITH me, and, because of this, I treasure you beyond the value that you set on yourselves, even unto the worth that God has placed upon you. I love all that He created. And all my faith and my belief I offer unto it. My faith in you is strong as all the love I give my Father. My trust in you is without limit, and without the fear that you will hear me not. I thank the Father for your loveliness, and for the many gifts that you will let me offer to the Kingdom, in honor of its wholeness that is of God.

Praise be unto you, who make the Father One with His Own Son. Alone we are all lowly, but together, we shine with brightness so intense, that none of us alone can even think on it. Before the glorious radiance of the Kingdom, guilt melts away, and, transformed into kindness, will never more be what it was. Every reaction that you experience will be so purified, that it is fitting as a hymn of praise unto your Father. See only praise of Him in what He has created, for He will never cease His praise of YOU. United in this praise, we stand before the gates of Heaven, where we will surely enter, in our blamelessness. God loves you. Could I, then, lack faith in you, and love Him perfectly?

Forgetfulness and sleep, and even death, become the ego's best advice for how to deal with the perceived and harsh intrusion of guilt on peace. Yet no-one sees himself in conflict, and ravaged by a cruel war, unless he believes that BOTH "opponents" in the war are real. Believing this, he must escape, for such a war would surely end his peace of mind, and so destroy him. But if he could but realize the war is between forces that are real and UNREAL powers, he could look upon himself, and SEE his freedom. No-one finds himself ravaged and torn in endless battles, which he HIMSELF perceives as wholly without meaning.

God would not have His Son embattled, and so His Son's imagined "enemy," which he made, is TOTALLY unreal. You are but trying to escape a bitter war from which you HAVE escaped. The war is gone. For you have heard the hymn of freedom, rising unto Heaven. Gladness and joy belong to God for your release, because YOU made it not. But, as you made not freedom, so you made not a war that could ENDANGER freedom. Nothing destructive ever was, or will be. The war, the guilt, the past, are gone as one, into the unreality from whence they came.

Section 4 - The Unreality of Sin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You will NOT wait to give him this. For you will CALL to him and he will answer, RECOGNIZING in your call the call of God. And you will draw him in and give him rest, as it was given YOU. All this will you do. But the peace that already lies deeply within, must first expand and FLOW ACROSS the obstacles YOU place before it. THIS IT WILL DO. For nothing undertaken WITH the Holy Spirit, remains unfinished. You can indeed be sure of NOTHING you see OUTSIDE you, but of this you CAN be sure.

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

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

Section 8 - The Problem and the Answer

The world as YOU perceive it cannot have been created by the Father, for the world is NOT as you see it. God created ONLY the eternal, and everything YOU see is perishable. Therefore, there must be another world which you do NOT see. The Bible speaks of a NEW Heaven and a NEW earth, yet this cannot be literally true, for the eternal are not RE-created. To PERCEIVE anew is merely to perceive again, implying that before YOU WERE NOT PERCEIVING AT ALL. What, then, is the world that awaits your perception WHEN YOU SEE IT? Every loving thought that the Son of God ever had is eternal. Those which his mind perceived in this world are the world's only reality. They are still perceptions, because he still believes that he is separate, yet they are eternal, because they are loving. And BEING loving, they are like the Father, and therefore cannot die.

The real world can ACTUALLY BE PERCEIVED. All that is necessary is a willingness to perceive nothing ELSE. For if you perceive both good AND evil, you are accepting both the false AND the true, AND MAKING NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN THEM. The ego sees SOME good, but never ONLY good. That is WHY its perceptions are so variable. It does not reject goodness entirely, for this you could not accept, but it always ADDS something that is NOT real TO the real, thus CONFUSING ILLUSION AND REALITY. For perceptions cannot be partly true. If you believe in truth AND illusion you CANNOT TELL WHICH IS TRUE.

To establish your PERSONAL autonomy, you tried to create UNLIKE your Father, BELIEVING what you made to be capable of BEING unlike Him. Yet everything in what you have made that IS true, IS like Him. Only this is the real world, and perceiving ONLY this will lead you to the real Heaven because IT WILL MAKE YOU CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING IT. The perception of goodness is not knowledge, but the denial of the OPPOSITE of goodness enables you to perceive a condition in which opposites do not exist. And this IS the condition of knowledge. WITHOUT this awareness, you have NOT met its conditions, and until you do you will not know that it is yours already.

You have made many ideas which you have placed between yourselves and your Creator, and these beliefs are the world as YOU perceive it. Truth is not absent here, but it IS obscure. You do not know the difference between what you have made, and what God created, and so you do not know the difference between what you have made, and what YOU have created. To believe that you can perceive the real world is to believe that you can know yourself. You CAN know God, because it is His Will to BE known. The real world is all that the Holy Spirit has saved for you, out of what you have made, and to perceive only this is salvation, because it is the recognition that reality is ONLY WHAT IS TRUE.

This is a very simple course. Perhaps you do not feel that a course which, in the end, teaches nothing more than that only reality is true is necessary. BUT DO YOU BELIEVE IT? When you have perceived the real world, you will recognize that you did NOT believe it. But the swiftness with which your new and ONLY real perception will be translated into knowledge, will leave you only an instant to realize that this judgment is true. And then everything you made will be forgotten, the good and the bad, the false and the true. For as Heaven and earth become one, even the real world will vanish from your sight. The end of the world is not its destruction, but its TRANSLATION into Heaven. The RE-INTERPRETATION of the world is the transfer of ALL perception to knowledge.

The Bible tells you to become as little children. Little children recognize that they do not understand what they perceive, and so they ASK WHAT IT MEANS. Do not make the mistake of believing that YOU understand what YOU perceive, for its meaning IS lost to you. But the Holy Spirit has saved its meaning FOR you, and if you will LET Him interpret it FOR you, He will restore what you have thrown away. As long as you THINK YOU KNOW its meaning, you will see no need to ask it OF Him. You do not know the meaning of ANYTHING you perceive. NOT ONE THOUGHT YOU HOLD IS WHOLLY TRUE.

The recognition of this is your firm beginning. You are not misguided; you have accepted no guide at all. Instruction in perception is your great need, FOR YOU UNDERSTAND NOTHING. RECOGNIZE this, but do not accept it, for understanding is your inheritance. Perceptions are learned, and you are not without a Teacher. But your willingness to learn of Him depends on your willingness to question EVERYTHING you have learned OF YOURSELF, for you who have learned amiss should not be your own teachers. No-one can withhold truth, except from himself. Yet God will not refuse the answer He GAVE you. Ask, then, for what is yours, but which you did NOT make, and do not defend yourself AGAINST truth.

YOU made the problem which God HAS answered. Ask yourselves, therefore, but one simple question; "Do I want the problem or do I want the answer?" Decide for the answer, and you WILL have it, for you will see it as it is, and it is yours already. You complain that this course is not sufficiently specific for you to understand it AND USE IT. Yet it has been VERY specific, and YOU HAVE NOT DONE WHAT IT SPECIFICALLY ADVOCATES. This is not a course in the play of ideas, but in their PRACTICAL APPLICATION. Nothing could be more specific than to be told very clearly, that if you ask you WILL receive.

The Holy Spirit will answer EVERY specific problem, as long as you believe that problems ARE specific. His answer is both many and one, as long as you believe that the One IS many. Realize that YOU ARE AFRAID OF HIS SPECIFICITY, for fear of what you think it will DEMAND of you. Yet only by asking will you learn that nothing that is of God demands ANYTHING of you. God GIVES; He does NOT take. You are refusing to ask, because you believe that asking is TAKING, and you do not perceive it as sharing. The Holy Spirit will give you only what is yours, and will take nothing in return. For what is yours IS everything, and you share it WITH God. This IS its reality. Would the Holy Spirit, Who wills only to RESTORE, be capable of MISinterpreting the question you must ask to learn His answer?

You HAVE heard the answer, but you have misunderstood the QUESTION. You have believed that to ask for guidance of the Holy Spirit, IS TO ASK FOR DEPRIVATION. Little children of God, you do not understand your Father. You believe in a world that takes because you believe that you can get by taking. But BY that perception, you have lost sight of the real world. You are afraid of the world AS YOU SEE IT, but the real world is still yours for the asking. Do not deny it TO yourself, for it can ONLY free you. Nothing of God will enslave His Son, whom He created free and whose freedom is protected by HIS Being.

Blessed are you who will ask the truth of God without fear, for only thus can you learn that His answer IS the release from fear. Beautiful Child of God, you are asking only for what I promised you. Do you believe I would DECEIVE you? The Kingdom of Heaven IS within you. Believe that the truth is in me, for I KNOW that it is in YOU. God's Sons have nothing which they do not share. Ask for truth of any Son of God, and you have asked it of me. No one of us but has the answer in him, to give to anyone who asks it OF him. Ask anything of God's Son, and His Father will answer you, for Christ is not deceived in His Father and His Father is not deceived in Him.

Do not, then, be deceived in your brother, and see only his loving thoughts as his reality, for by denying that his mind is split, YOU WILL HEAL YOURS. Accept him as his Father accepts him, and heal him unto Christ, for Christ is his healing AND YOURS. Christ is the Son of God Who is in no way separate from His Father, Whose EVERY thought is as loving as the Thought of His Father, by which He was created. Be not deceived in God's Son, for thereby you MUST be deceived in yourself. And being deceived in yourself you ARE deceived in your Father, in Whom no deceit is possible.

Do not accept your brother's variable perception of himself, for his split mind is yours, and you will not accept YOUR healing without his. For you share the real world as you share Heaven, and his healing IS yours. To love yourself is to HEAL yourself, and you cannot perceive part of you as sick and achieve your OWN goal. Brother, we heal together as we live together, and love together. Be not deceived in God's Son, for he is one with himself, and One with his Father. Love him who is beloved of His Father, and you will learn of the Father's Love for YOU.

If you perceive offense in a brother, pluck the offense from your mind, for you are offended by Christ, and are deceived in Him. HEAL in Christ and be not offended by Him, for there is no offense IN Him. If what you perceive offends you, you are offended in YOURSELF, and are condemning God's Son, whom God condemneth not. Let the Holy Spirit remove ALL offense of God's Son against himself and perceive no-one but through HIS guidance, for He would save you from ALL condemnation. Accept His healing power, and use it for all He sends you, for He wills to heal the Son of God in whom He is not deceived.

Children perceive terrifying ghosts and monsters and dragons, and they are terrified. But if they ask someone they trust for the REAL meaning of what they perceive, and are willing to LET THEIR INTERPRETATIONS GO IN FAVOR OF REALITY, their fear goes with them. When a child is helped to translate his "ghost" into a curtain, his "monster" into a shadow and his "dragon" into a dream, he is no longer afraid, and laughs happily at his own fear. You, my children, are afraid of your brothers, and of your Father and of YOURSELVES. But you are merely DECEIVED in them.

Ask what they ARE of the Teacher of Reality, and hearing His answer, you too will laugh at your fears and replace them with peace. For fear lies not in reality, but in the minds of children who do not UNDERSTAND it. It is only their LACK OF UNDERSTANDING that frightens them, and when they learn to perceive truly, they are not afraid. And because of this, they will ask for truth again, when they are frightened. It is not the REALITY of your brothers, or your Father, or yourself which frightens you. You do not know what they ARE, and so YOU perceive them as ghosts and monsters and dragons.

ASK of their reality from the One Who knows it, and He will tell you what they are. For you do NOT understand them, and because you are deceived by what you see, you NEED reality to dispel your fears. Would you not exchange your fears for truth if the exchange is yours for the asking? For if God is not deceived in you, you can be deceived only in YOURSELF. But you can learn the truth of yourself of the Holy Spirit, Who will teach you that, as part of God, deceit in YOU is impossible. When you perceive yourself without deceit, you will accept the real world in place of the false one you have made. And then your Father will lean down to you, and take the last step for you, by raising you unto Himself.

Section 5 - The Light of the World

If God's Will for you is complete peace and joy, unless you experience ONLY this you MUST be refusing to acknowledge His Will. His Will does not vacillate, being changeless forever. When you are not at peace, it can only be because you do not believe you are IN HIM. Yet He is all in all. His peace IS complete, and you MUST be included in it. His laws govern you because they govern EVERYTHING. You cannot exempt yourself from His laws, although you CAN disobey them. But if you do, and ONLY if you do, you WILL feel lonely and helpless, because you ARE denying yourself everything.

I am come as a light into the world which DOES deny itself everything. It does this simply by dissociating itself FROM everything. It is therefore an illusion of isolation, MAINTAINED by fear of the same loneliness which IS its illusion. I have told you that I am with you always even to the end of the world. That is WHY I am the light of the world. If I am with you in the loneliness of the world, THE LONELINESS IS GONE. You CANNOT maintain the illusion of loneliness if you are NOT alone.

You WERE in darkness until God's Will was done completely by ANY part of the Sonship. When it was, it was perfectly accomplished by ALL. How else could it BE perfectly accomplished? My mission was simply to UNITE the Will of the Sonship WITH the Will of the Father by being aware of the Father's Will myself. This is the awareness I came to give YOU, and YOUR problem in accepting it IS the problem of this world. Dispelling it is salvation, and in this sense I AM the salvation of the world.

The world MUST despise and reject me, because the world IS the belief that love is impossible. YOUR reactions to me ARE the reactions of the world to God. If you will accept the fact that I am with you, you are DENYING the world and ACCEPTING GOD. My will IS His, and YOUR will to hear me IS the decision to hear His Voice and abide in His Will. As He sent me to you, so will I send you to others. But I will go to them WITH you, so we can teach them union and peace.

Do you not think the world needs peace as much as you do? Do you not want to give it to the world as much as you want to receive it? For unless you do, you will NOT receive it. If you will to have it of me, you MUST give it. Rehabilitation does not come from anyone ELSE. You can have GUIDANCE from without, but you must ACCEPT it from within. The guidance must become what YOU want, or else it will be meaningless to you. That is why rehabilitation is a collaborative venture. I can tell you what to DO, but this will not really help you unless you collaborate by believing that I KNOW what to do. Only then will your MIND will to follow me.

Without YOUR will, you cannot be rehabilitated. MOTIVATION TO BE HEALED is the crucial factor in rehabilitation. Without this, you are deciding AGAINST healing, and your veto of my will FOR you MAKES HEALING IMPOSSIBLE. If healing IS our joint will, unless our wills ARE joined you CANNOT be healed. This is obvious when you consider what healing is FOR.

Healing is the way in which the separation is overcome. Separation is overcome by UNION. It CANNOT be overcome by separating. The WILL to unite must be unequivocal, or the will ITSELF is separated or NOT WHOLE. Your will is the means by which you determine your own condition, because will is the MECHANISM OF DECISION. It is the power by which you separate or join, and experience pain or joy accordingly. My will cannot OVERCOME yours, because YOURS IS AS POWERFUL AS MINE. If it were not so, the Sons of God would be unequal.

All things BECOME possible through our joint will. But my will alone will not help you. Your will is as free as mine, and God Himself would not go against it. I cannot will what God does not will. I CAN offer you my will to make yours invincible by this sharing, but I CANNOT oppose yours without competing with it and thereby violating God's Will for you. Nothing God created can oppose your will, as nothing God created can oppose His. God GAVE your will its power, which I can only acknowledge in honor of His.

If you want to be LIKE me, I will help you, knowing that we ARE alike. If you want to be DIFFERENT, I will wait until you change your mind. I can TEACH you, but only you can choose to LISTEN to my teaching. How else can it be, if God's Kingdom IS freedom? Freedom cannot be learned by tyranny of ANY kind, and the perfect equality of ALL God's Sons cannot be recognized through the dominion of one will over another. God's Sons are equal in will, all being the Will of their Father. This is the ONLY lesson I can teach, knowing that it is true.

When your will is NOT mine, it is not Our Father's. This means that you have imprisoned YOURS, and have not LET it be free. Of yourselves you can do nothing, because of yourselves you ARE nothing. I am nothing without the Father, and YOU are nothing without me because by DENYING the Father you deny YOURSELF. I will ALWAYS remember you, and in MY remembrance OF you lies your remembrance of YOURSELF. In our remembrance of EACH OTHER lies our remembrance of God. And in this remembrance lies your freedom, because your freedom is in Him.

Join then with me in praise of Him AND you whom He created. This is our gift of gratitude to Him, which He will share with ALL His Creations, to whom He gives equally whatever is acceptable to Him. BECAUSE it is acceptable to Him, it is the gift of freedom, which IS His Will for all His Sons. By OFFERING freedom you will be free, because freedom is the only gift which you can offer to God's Sons, being an acknowledgment of what they are and what HE is.

Freedom is creation because it is love. What you seek to imprison you do NOT love. Therefore, when you seek to imprison ANYONE, including YOURSELF, you do not love him and you cannot identify with him. When you imprison yourself, you are losing sight of your true identification with me and with the Father. Your identification IS with the Father and with the Son. It CANNOT be with one and not the other. If you are part of one, you MUST be part of the other because they ARE One.

The Holy Trinity is holy BECAUSE It is One. If you exclude YOURSELF from this union, you are perceiving the Holy Trinity as separated. You MUST be included in It, because It IS everything. Unless you take your place in It and fulfill your function AS part of It, It is as bereft as YOU are. No part of It can be imprisoned if Its Truth is to be known.

Can you be separated from your identification and be at peace? Dissociation is NOT a solution; it is a DELUSION. The delusional believe that truth will ASSAIL them, and so they DO NOT SEE IT because they prefer the delusion. Judging truth as something they do NOT want, they perceive deception and block knowledge. Help them by offering them YOUR unified will on their behalf, as I am offering you mine on YOURS. Alone we can do nothing, but TOGETHER our wills fuse into something whose power is far beyond the power of its separate parts.

By NOT BEING SEPARATE, the Will of God is established IN ours and AS ours. This will is invincible BECAUSE it is undivided. The UNDIVIDED will of the Sonship is the perfect creator, being wholly in the likeness of God, Whose Will it IS. YOU cannot be exempt from it, if you are to understand what it is and what YOU are. By separating your will from mine, you ARE exempting yourself from the Will of God which IS yourself.

But to heal is still to make whole. Therefore to heal is to UNITE with those who are LIKE you, because perceiving this likeness IS to recognize the Father. If YOUR perfection is in Him and ONLY in Him, how can you KNOW it WITHOUT recognizing Him? The recognition of God is the recognition of yourself. There IS no separation of God and His Creation. You will learn this as you learn that there is no separation of YOUR will and mine.

Let the love of God shine upon you by your acceptance of me. MY reality is yours and His. By joining YOUR will with mine, you are signifying your awareness that the Will of God is One. His Oneness and ours are not separate, because His Oneness ENCOMPASSES ours. To join WITH me is to restore His power TO you BECAUSE we are sharing it. I offer you only the recognition of His power in you, but in that lies ALL truth. As WE unite, we unite with Him. Glory be to the union of God and His Holy Sons, because all glory lies IN them because they ARE united.

The miracles WE do bear witness to the Will of the Father for His Son, and to our joy in uniting WITH His Will FOR us. When you unite with me, you are uniting WITHOUT the ego, because I have renounced the ego in myself, and therefore CANNOT unite with yours. OUR union is therefore the way to renounce the ego in YOURSELVES. The truth in both of us is BEYOND the ego. By willing that, you HAVE gone beyond it toward truth.

Our success in transcending the ego is guaranteed by God, and I can share my perfect confidence IN His Promise because I know He gave me this confidence for both of us and ALL of us. I bring His Peace back to all His Children, because I received it of Him for us all. Nothing can prevail against our united wills, because nothing can prevail against God's. Would ye know the Will of God for YOU? Ask it of me, who knows it for you, and you will find it. I will deny YOU nothing, as God denies ME nothing.

Ours is simply the journey back to God Who is our home. Whenever fear intrudes anywhere along the road to peace, it is ALWAYS because the ego has attempted to JOIN the journey with us AND CANNOT DO SO. Sensing defeat and angered by it, it regards itself as rejected and becomes retaliative. You are invulnerable to its retaliation BECAUSE I AM WITH YOU. On this journey, you have chosen me as your companion INSTEAD of your ego. Do not try to hold on to both, or you will try to go in different directions and will lose the way.

The ego's way is not mine, but it is also NOT YOURS. The Holy Spirit has one direction for ALL minds, and the one He taught me IS yours. Let us not lose sight of His direction through illusions, for ONLY illusions of another direction can obscure the one for which God's Voice speaks in all of us. Never accord the ego the power to interfere with the journey, because it HAS none, and the journey is the way to what is TRUE. Leave ALL deception behind, and reach beyond all attempts of the ego to hold you back.

I DO go before you, because I AM beyond the ego. Reach therefore for my hand because you WANT to transcend the ego. My will will NEVER be wanting, and if you want to share it YOU WILL. I give it willingly and gladly, because I need YOU as much as you need ME.

Section 2 - Right Teaching and Right Learning

We have spoken of many different human symptoms, and at this level there IS almost endless variation. But there is only one cause for all of them. The authority problem IS "the root of all evil." Money is but one of its many reflections, and is a reasonably representative example of the kind of thinking which stems from it. The idea of buying and selling implies precisely the kind of exchange that the Souls cannot understand at all, because their own Supply is always abundant, and all their demands are fully met.

Every symptom which the ego has made involves a contradiction in terms. This is because the mind is split between the ego and the Soul, so that WHATEVER the ego makes is incomplete and contradictory. Consider what a "speechless professor" means as a concept. It literally means a "non-professing professor," or a "nonspeaking speaker."

Untenable positions such as this are the result of the authority problem, which, because it accepts the one inconceivable thought as its premise, can only produce ideas which are inconceivable. Bill may claim (and has certainly done so in the past) that the PROFESSORSHIP was thrust upon him. This is not true. He wanted it very much, and also worked hard to get it. He would not have had to work so hard either, if he had not misunderstood it.

The term "profess" is used quite frequently in the Bible, but in a somewhat different context. To profess is to identify with an idea and offer the idea to others to be THEIR own. The idea does NOT lessen; it becomes STRONGER. The teacher clarifies his own ideas and strengthens them BY teaching them.

Teacher and pupil, therapist and patient, are all alike in the learning process. They are in the SAME order of learning, and unless they SHARE their lessons they will lack conviction. If a salesman must believe in the product he sells, how much more must a teacher believe in the ideas which he professes. But he needs another condition; he must also believe in the students to whom he offers his ideas.

Bill could not be afraid to teach unless he still believes that interaction means loss, and that learning means separation. He stands guard over his own ideas, because he wants to protect his thought-system as it is, and learning MEANS change. Change is always fearful to the separated, because they cannot conceive of it as a change toward HEALING the separation. They ALWAYS perceive it as a change for further separation, because separation WAS their first experience of change.

Bill, your whole fear of teaching is nothing but an example of your own intense separation anxiety, which you have handled with the usual series of mixed defenses in the combined pattern of attack on truth and defense of error, which characterizes ALL ego-thinking.

You insist that if you allow no change to enter into your EGO, your SOUL will find peace. This profound confusion is possible only if one maintains that the SAME thought-system can stand on two foundations.

NOTHING can reach the Soul from the ego, and nothing FROM the Soul can strengthen the ego, or reduce the conflict within it. The ego IS a contradiction. Man's self and God's Self ARE in opposition. They are opposed in creation, in will, and in outcome. They are fundamentally irreconcilable because the Soul cannot perceive, and the ego cannot know. They are therefore NOT IN COMMUNICATION, and can never BE in communication.

Nevertheless the ego can learn, because its maker can be misguided, but CANNOT make the totally lifeless out of the life-given. The Soul need not be taught, but the ego MUST. The ultimate reason why learning or teaching is perceived as frightening is because true learning DOES lead to the relinquishment (NOT destruction) of the ego to the light of the Soul. This is the change the ego MUST fear, because it does not share my charity.

My lesson was like yours, and because I learned it I can teach it. I never attack your egos (in spite of H's strange beliefs to the contrary), but I DO try to teach them how their thought-systems have arisen. When I remind you of your TRUE Creation, your egos cannot BUT respond with fear.

Bill, teaching and learning are your greatest strengths now, because you MUST change your mind and help others change theirs. It is pointless to refuse to tolerate change or changing because you believe that you can demonstrate by doing so that the Separation never occurred. The dreamer who doubts the reality of his dream while he is still dreaming it is not really healing the level-split.

You HAVE dreamed of a separated ego, and you HAVE believed in a world which rested upon it. This is very real to you. You cannot undo this by doing nothing and not changing.

If you are willing to renounce the role of guardians of your thought-systems and open them to me, I will correct them very gently, and lead you home. Every good teacher hopes to give his students so much of his own thinking that they will one day no longer need him. This is the one real goal of the parent, teacher, and therapist. This goal will not be achieved by those who believe that they will LOSE their child or pupil or patient if they succeed.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to convince the ego of this, because it goes against all of its own laws. But remember that laws are set up to protect the continuity of the system in which the law-maker believes. It is natural enough for the ego to try to protect itself, once YOU have made it. But it is NOT natural for YOU to want to obey its laws unless YOU believe in them.

The ego cannot make this choice because of the nature of its origin. But YOU can, because of the nature of YOURS. Egos can clash in any situation, but Souls cannot clash at all. If you perceive a teacher as merely a "larger ego," you WILL be afraid, because to ENLARGE an ego IS to increase separation anxiety. Do not engage in this foolishness, Bill. I will teach with you and live with you, if you will think with me.

But my goal will always be to absolve you finally from the need for a teacher. This is the OPPOSITE of the ego-oriented teacher's goal. He is concerned with the effect of HIS ego on OTHER egos, and he therefore interprets their interaction as a means of ego preservation. This is no less true if he is afraid to teach than if he is frankly out to dominate through teaching. The form of the symptom is only a reflection of his particular way of handling the separation anxiety.

ALL separation anxiety is a symptom of a continuing will to remain separated. This cannot be repeated too often because you have NOT learned it. Bill, you are afraid to teach ONLY because you are afraid of the impression your image of yourself will make ON OTHER IMAGES. You believe that their APPROVAL of your image will exalt it, but also that your separation anxiety will be increased. You also believe that their DISAPPROVAL of it will lessen the separation anxiety, but at the cost of depression.

I would not be able to devote myself to teaching if I believed either of these ideas, and YOU will not be a devoted teacher yourself as long as you maintain them. I am constantly being perceived as a teacher either to be exalted or rejected, but I do not accept either perception for myself.

Your own worth is NOT established by your teaching. Your worth was established by God. As long as you dispute this, EVERYTHING you do will be fearful, and particularly any situation which lends itself easily to the superior-inferior fallacy. Teachers must be patient, and repeat their lessons until they are learned. I am willing to do so, because I have no right to set your learning limits for you.

Once again, - NOTHING you do, or think, or will, or make is necessary to establish your worth. This point IS NOT DEBATABLE except in delusions. Your ego is NEVER at stake because God did not create it. Your Soul is never at stake because He DID. Any confusion on this point IS a delusion, and no form of devotion is possible as long as this delusion lasts.

Bill, if you will to be a devoted teacher rather than an egocentric one, you will not be afraid. The teaching situation IS fearful if it is misused as an ego involvement. If you become afraid, it is BECAUSE you are using it this way. But the devoted teacher perceives the situation AS IT IS, and NOT as HE wills it. He does not see it as dangerous because HE is not exploiting it.

The ego tries to exploit ALL situations into forms of praise for itself in order to overcome its doubts. It will be doubtful forever, or better, as long as you believe in it. You who made it CANNOT trust it, because you KNOW it is not real. The ONLY sane solution is not to try to change reality, which is indeed a fearful attempt, but to see it as it is. YOU are part of reality, which stands unchanged beyond the reach of your ego, but within easy reach of your Soul.

Bill, again I tell you that when you are afraid, be still and KNOW that God is real and YOU are His beloved son in whom he is well pleased. Do not let your ego dispute this, because the ego cannot know what is as far beyond its reach as you are. God is NOT the author of fear. YOU are. You have willed, therefore, to create unlike Him, and you have made fear for yourselves.

You are not at peace, because you are not fulfilling your function. God gave you a very lofty responsibility which you are not meeting. You KNOW this, and you are afraid. But your egos have chosen to be afraid INSTEAD of meeting it. When you awaken you will not be able to understand this, because it is literally incredible.

DO NOT BELIEVE THE INCREDIBLE NOW. Any attempt to increase its believableness is merely to postpone the inevitable. The word "inevitable" is fearful to the ego, but joyous to the Soul. God IS inevitable and you CANNOT avoid Him any more than He can avoid YOU.

The ego is afraid of the Soul's joy, because once you have experienced this, you will withdraw all protection from your ego and become totally without investment in fear. Your investment is great now, because fear is a witness to the Separation, and your ego rejoices when you witness to it.

Leave it behind. Do not listen to it, and do not preserve it. Listen only to God, who is as incapable of deception as are the Souls he created. As teachers and therapists, release yourselves and release others. Do not present a false and unworthy picture of yourselves TO others, or accept such a picture OF them yourselves.

The ego has built a shabby and unsheltering home for you, because it cannot build otherwise. Do not try to make this impoverished house stand. ITS weakness IS your strength. Only God could make a home that was worthy of His Creations, who have chosen to leave it empty by their own dispossession.

His Home will stand forever, and is ready for you when you choose to enter. Of this you can be wholly certain. God is as incapable of creating the perishable as your ego is of making the eternal.

The meek shall inherit the earth because their egos are humble, and this gives them better perception. The Kingdom of Heaven is the right of the Soul, whose beauty and dignity are beyond doubt, beyond perception, and stand forever as the mark of the love of God for His Creations, who are wholly worthy of Him and ONLY of Him. Nothing else is sufficiently worthy to be a gift for a creation of God Himself.

I will substitute for your ego if you will, but NEVER for your Soul. A father can safely leave a child with an elder brother who has shown himself responsible, but this involves no confusion about the child's origin. The brother can protect the child's body and his ego, which are very closely associated, but he does not confuse HIMSELF with the father because he does this, although the child may.

The reason why I can be entrusted with YOUR body and YOUR egos is simply because this enables YOU not to be concerned with them, and ME to teach you their unimportance. I could not understand their importance to YOU if I had not once been tempted to believe them myself. Let us undertake to learn this lesson together, so we can also be free of them together.

I need devoted teachers as much as I need devoted priestesses. They both heal the mind, and that is always my own aim. The Soul is far beyond the need of your protection OR mine.

The Biblical quotation should read "In this world you need NOT have tribulation BECAUSE I have overcome the world." THAT is why you should "be of good cheer."

B's course was very carefully chosen, because "abnormal psychology" IS ego psychology. This is precisely the kind of content which should never be taught FROM the ego whose abnormality should be lessened by teaching, not increased. You, Bill, are particularly well suited to perceive this difference, and can therefore teach this course as it should be taught. Most teachers have an unfortunate tendency to teach the COURSE abnormally, and many of the students are apt to suffer considerable perceptual distortion because of their own authority problem.

Your teaching assignment (and I assure you it IS an assignment) will be to present perceptual distortions without either engaging in them yourself, or encouraging your students to do so. This interpretation of your role and theirs is too charitable to induce fear. If you adhere to this role, you will both engender and experience hope, and you will inspire rather than dispirit the future teachers and therapists I am entrusting to you.

I promise to attend myself, and you should at least credit with me with some dependability in keeping my own promises. I never make them lightly, because I know the need my brothers have for trust.