"Father, Your Son is holy. I am he on whom You smile in love and tenderness so deep and dear and still the universe smiles back on You, and shares Your holiness. How pure, how safe, how sacred, then, are we, abiding in Your smile, with all Your love bestowed upon us, living one with You, in brotherhood and Fatherhood complete; in sinlessness so perfect that the Lord of Sinlessness conceives us as His Son, a universe of Thought completing Him."

Let us not, then, attack our sinlessness. For it contains the Word of God to us, and in its kind reflection we are saved.

Lesson 218 "I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me."

Lesson 235 "God in His mercy wills that I be saved."

"Father, Your holiness is mine. Your Love created me, and made my sinlessness forever part of You. I have no guilt nor sin in me, for there is none in You."

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?

Section 7 - The Secret Vows

Who punishes the body is insane. For here the little gap is SEEN, and yet it is NOT here. It has not judged ITSELF, nor made itself to be what it is not. IT does not seek to make of pain a joy, and look for lasting pleasure in the dust. It does not TELL you what its purpose is, and CANNOT understand what it is for. IT DOES NOT VICTIMIZE, because it has no will, no preferences, and NO DOUBTS. It does not wonder what it is. And so it has no NEED to be competitive. It CAN be victimized, but CANNOT feel itself as victim. It accepts no role, but does what it is told, WITHOUT attack.

It is indeed a senseless point of view to hold responsible for sight a thing that cannot see, and blame it for the sounds you do not like, although it cannot hear. IT suffers not the punishment you give, because it HAS no feeling. It behaves in ways you want, but NEVER makes the choice. It is not born and does not die. It can but follow aimlessly the path on which it has been set. And if that path is changed, it walks as easily another way. It takes no sides, and judges not the road it travels. It perceives no gap because IT DOES NOT HATE. It can be USED for hate, but it cannot be hateful MADE thereby.

The thing you hate and fear and loathe and WANT, the body does not know. You send it forth to SEEK for separation and BE separate. And THEN you hate it, NOT for what it is, but for the uses you have MADE of it. You shrink from what IT sees and what IT hears, and hate its frailty and its littleness. And you despise its acts, but NOT your own. It sees and acts for YOU. It hears YOUR voice. And it is frail and little by YOUR wish. It SEEMS to punish you, and thus DESERVE your hatred for the limitations which it brings to you. Yet you have made of it a symbol of the limitations which you want your MIND to have and see and KEEP.

The body REPRESENTS the gap between the little bit of mind you call your own, and all the rest of what is REALLY yours. You hate it, yet you think it IS your self, and that, WITHOUT it, would your self be lost. This is the secret vow that you have made with every brother who would walk apart. This is the secret oath you take again whenever you perceive yourself attacked. No-one can suffer if he does NOT see himself attacked, AND LOSING BY ATTACK. Unstated and unheard in consciousness is every pledge to sickness. Yet it is a promise to another to be hurt by him, and to attack him in return.

Sickness is anger taken out upon the body, so that IT will suffer pain. It is the obvious effect of what was made in secret, IN AGREEMENT with another's secret wish to be apart from you, as you would be apart from him. Unless you BOTH agree this is your wish, it CAN have no effects. Whoever says, "There IS no gap between my mind and yours," has kept GOD's promise, NOT his tiny oath to be forever faithful unto death. And by his healing IS his brother healed. Let THIS be your agreement with each one; that you be one with him and NOT apart. And he will keep the promise that you make with him, because it is the one which he has made to God, as God has made to him.

Section 7 - The Appointed Friend

Anything in this world that you believe is good and valuable and worth striving for can hurt you, and will do so. NOT because it has the power to hurt, but just because YOU have denied it is but an illusion, AND MADE IT REAL. And it IS real to you. It is NOT nothing. And through its perceived reality has entered all the world of sick illusions. All belief in sin, in power of attack, in hurt and harm, in sacrifice and death, has come to you. For no-one can make one illusion real, and still escape the rest. For who can choose to keep the ones which he prefers, and find the safety that the truth alone can give? Who can believe illusions are the same, and still maintain that even one is best?

Who dwells with shadows is alone indeed, and loneliness is NOT the Will of God. Would you allow one shadow to usurp the throne that God appointed for your Friend, if you but realized ITS emptiness has left YOURS empty and unoccupied? Make NO illusion friend, for if you do, it CAN but take the place of him whom God has called your Friend. And it is he who is your ONLY Friend in truth. He brings you gifts that are not of this world, and only he, to whom they have been given, CAN make sure that you receive them. He will place them on YOUR throne, when you make room for him on his.

Question 6 - What is the Christ?

Christ is God's Son as He created him. He is the Self we share, uniting us with one another, and with God as well. He is the Thought Which still abides within the Mind That is His Source. He has not left His holy home, nor lost the innocence in which He was created. He abides unchanged forever in the Mind of God.

Home of the Holy Spirit, and at home in God alone, does Christ remain at peace, within the Heaven of your holy mind. This is the only part of you that has reality in truth. The rest is dreams. Yet will these dreams be given unto Christ to fade before His glory, and reveal your holy Self, the Christ, to you at last.

The Holy Spirit reaches from the Christ in you to all your dreams, and bids them come to Him, to be translated into truth. He will exchange them for the final dream which God appointed as the end of dreams. For when forgiveness rests upon the world and peace has come to every Son of God, what could remain to keep things separate, for what remains to see except Christ's face?

And how long will this holy face be seen, when it is but the symbol that the time for learning now is over, and the goal of the Atonement has been reached at last? So therefore let us seek to find Christ's face, and look on nothing else. As we behold His glory, will we know we have no need of learning or perception or of time, or anything except the holy Self, the Christ Whom God created as His Son.

Lesson 57 Today let us review these ideas: (31-35)

32) "I have invented the world I see."

I made up the prison in which I see myself. All I need do is recognize this, and I am free. I have deluded myself into believing it is possible to imprison the Son of God. I was bitterly mistaken in this belief, which I no longer want. The Son of God must be forever free. He is as God created him, and not what I would make of him. He is where God would have him be, and not where I thought to hold him prisoner.

33) "There is another way of looking at the world."

Since the purpose of the world is not the one I ascribed to it, there must be another way of looking at it. I see everything upside-down, and my thoughts are the opposite of truth. I see the world as a prison for God's Son. It must be, then, that the world is really a place where he can be set free. I would look upon the world as it is, and see it as a place where the Son of God finds his freedom.

34) "I could see peace instead of this."

When I see the world as a place of freedom, I will realize that it reflects the laws of God instead of the rules which I made up for it to obey. I will understand that peace, not war, abides in it. And I will perceive that peace also abides in the hearts of all who share this place with me.

35) "My mind is part of God's. I am very holy."

As I share the peace of the world with my brothers, I begin to understand that this peace comes from deep within myself. The world I look upon has taken on the light of my forgiveness, and shines forgiveness back at me. In this light, I begin to see what my illusions about myself had kept hidden. I begin to understand the holiness of all living things including myself, and their oneness with me.

Section 3 - The Mind of the Atonement

God honored even the miscreations of His Children because they had made them. But he also blessed them with a way of thinking about them that could raise their perceptions until they became so lofty that they could reach almost back to Him.

The Holy Spirit is the mind of the Atonement. It represents a state of mind that comes close enough to one-mindedness that transfer is at last possible. As you well know, transfer depends on common elements in the old learning and the new situation to which it is transferred. Perception is not knowledge, but it can be TRANSFERRED to knowledge, or CROSS OVER into it. It might even be more helpful here to use the literal meaning "carried over," for the last step is taken by God.

The Holy Spirit, the shared Inspiration of all the Sonship, induces a kind of perception in which many elements are like those in the Kingdom of Heaven Itself.

First, its universality is perfectly clear, and no-one who receives it could ever believe for one instant that sharing it involves anything BUT gain.

Second, it is incapable of attack, and is therefore truly open. This means that although it does not engender knowledge, it does not obstruct it in any way. Third, it is an unequivocal call to love. Every other voice is still.

There is a point at which sufficient quantitative changes produce real qualitative differences. The next point requires real understanding, because it is the point at which the shift occurs.

Finally, it points the way beyond the healing which it brings, and leads the mind beyond its own integration into the paths of creation.

Healing is not creating; it is reparation. The Holy Spirit promotes healing by looking beyond it, to what the children of God were before healing was needed, and will be when they have BEEN healed. This alteration of the time sequence should be quite familiar, because it is very similar to the shift in time perception which the miracle introduces.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Joy. It is the call to return, with which God blessed the minds of the separated Sons. This the vocation of the mind. It had no calling until the separation, because before it had only BEING, and would not have understood the call to right thinking. The Holy Spirit was God's answer to the separation, the means by which the Atonement could repair until the whole mind returned to creating. The Atonement and the separation began at the same time. When man made the ego, God placed in him the call of joy. This call is so strong that the ego always dissolves at its sound.

That is why you can choose to listen to two voices within you. One you made yourself, and that one is not of God. But the other is given you by God, Who asks you only to listen to it. The Holy Spirit IS in you in a very literal sense. It is the voice that calls you back to where you were before and will be again.

Lesson 69 "My grievances hide the light of the world in me."

No one can look upon what your grievances conceal. Because your grievances are hiding the light of the world in you, everyone stands in darkness, and you beside him. But as the veil of your grievances is lifted, you are released with him. Share your salvation now with him who stood beside you when you were in hell. He is your brother in the light of the world which saves you both.

Let us begin our longer practice period today with the full realization of all this, and real determination to reach what is dearer to us than all else. Salvation is our only need. There is no other purpose here, and no other function to fulfill. Learning salvation is our only goal. Let us end the ancient search today, by finding the light in us and holding it up for everyone who searches with us to look upon and rejoice.

Very quietly now, with your eyes closed, try to let all the content which generally occupies your consciousness go. Think of your mind as a vast round area, surrounded by a layer of heavy dark clouds. You can see only the clouds because you seem to be standing outside the whole area, and quite apart from it. From where you stand, you can see no reason to believe there is a brilliant light hidden by the clouds. The clouds seem to be the only reality. They seem to be all there is to see. Therefore you do not attempt to go through them and past them, which is the only way in which you would be really convinced of their lack of substance. We will make this attempt today.

After you have thought about the importance of what you are trying to do for yourself and the world, try to settle in perfect stillness, remembering only how much you want to reach the light in you today, - now. Determine to go past the clouds. Reach out and touch them in your mind. Brush them aside with your hand; feel them resting on your cheeks and forehead and eyelids as you go through them. Go on; clouds cannot stop you.

If you are doing the exercises properly, you will begin to feel a sense of being lifted up and carried ahead. Your little effort and small determination call on the power of the universe to help you, and God Himself will raise you from darkness into light. You are in accord with His Will. You cannot fail because your will is His.

Have confidence in your Father today, and be certain that He has heard you and has answered you. You may not recognize His answer yet, but you can indeed be sure that it is given you, and you will yet receive it. Try, as you attempt to go through the clouds to the light, to hold this confidence in your mind. Try to remember that you are at last joining your will to God's. Try to keep the thought clearly in mind that what you undertake with God must succeed. Then let the power of God work in you and through you, that His Will and yours may be done.

In the shorter practice periods, which you will want to do as often as possible in view of the importance of today's idea to you and your happiness, remind yourself that your grievances are hiding the light of the world from your awareness. Remind yourself also that you are not searching for it alone, and that you do know where to look for it. Say, then:

"My grievances hide the light of the world in me.

I cannot see what I have hidden.

Yet I want to let it be revealed to me

for my salvation and the salvation of the world."

Also, be sure to tell yourself:

"If I hold this grievance, the light of the world will be hidden from me,"

if you are tempted to hold anything against anyone today.

Section 9 - Changeless Reality

Your brother has a changelessness in him beyond appearance and deception both. It is obscured by changing views of him which you PERCEIVE as his reality. The happy dream about him takes the form of the appearance of his perfect health; his perfect freedom from all forms of lack; and safety from disaster of all kinds. The miracle is proof he is not bound by loss or suffering in any form BECAUSE IT CAN SO EASILY BE CHANGED. This demonstrates that it was never real, and COULD not stem from his reality. For that is changeless, and has no effects which anything in Heaven or on earth could ever alter. But appearances are shown to be unreal BECAUSE they change.

What is temptation but a wish to make illusions real? It does not SEEM to be the wish that NO reality be so. But it IS an assertion that some FORMS of idols have a powerful appeal which makes them HARDER to resist than those you would not WANT to have reality. Temptation, then, is nothing more than this; - a prayer the miracle touch not some dreams, but KEEP their unreality obscure, and GIVE to them reality instead. And Heaven gives no answer to the prayer, nor CAN the miracle be given you to heal appearances you do not like. YOU HAVE ESTABLISHED LIMITS. What you ask IS given you, but not of God Who knows no limits. YOU have limited YOURSELF.

Reality is changeless. Miracles but show what you have interposed BETWEEN reality and your awareness is unreal, and does not interfere at all. The cost of the belief there must be some appearances BEYOND the hope of change is that the miracle cannot come forth from you consistently. For you have ASKED it be withheld from power to heal all dreams. There is no miracle you cannot have when you DESIRE healing. But there is no miracle that CAN be given you UNLESS you want it. CHOOSE what you would heal, and He Who gives all miracles has not been given freedom to bestow His gifts upon God's Son. When he is tempted, he DENIES reality. And he becomes the willing slave of what he chose instead.

BECAUSE reality is changeless is a miracle already there to heal all things that change, and offer them to you to see in happy form, devoid of fear. It WILL be given you to look upon your brother thus. But NOT while you would have it otherwise in some respects. For this but means you would not have him healed and whole. The Christ in him is perfect. Is it this that you would look upon? Then let there be no dreams about him that you would PREFER to seeing this. And you WILL see the Christ in him because you LET Him come to you. And when He has appeared to you, you will be certain you are like Him, for He is the changeless in your brother AND in you.

This will you look upon, when you decide there is not one appearance you would hold in place of what your brother really IS. Let no temptation to prefer a dream allow uncertainty to enter here. Be not made guilty and afraid when you are tempted by a dream of what he is. But do not give it power to REPLACE the changeless in him in your sight of him. There is no false appearance but will fade, if you request a miracle instead. There is no pain from which he is not free, if you would have him be but what he is. Why should you fear to see the Christ in him? You but behold yourself in what you see. As he is healed are YOU made free of guilt, and his appearance IS your own to you.

Section 11 - The Remaining Task

What does it MEAN if you perceive attack in certain FORMS to be unfair to you? It means that there MUST be some forms in which YOU THINK IT FAIR. For otherwise, how could some be evaluated as UNfair? Some, then, are GIVEN meaning, and perceived as sensible. And only SOME are seen as meaningLESS. And this DENIES the fact that ALL are senseless; EQUALLY without a cause or consequence, and CANNOT have effects of ANY kind. Their Presence is obscured by ANY veil which stands between Their shining innocence and your awareness it is your own, and EQUALLY belongs to every living thing along with you. God limits not. And what is limited can NOT be Heaven. So it MUST be hell.

Unfairness and attack are ONE mistake, so firmly joined that where one is perceived, the other MUST be seen. You cannot BE unfairly treated. The belief you ARE is but another form of the idea you are deprived by someone NOT yourself. PROJECTION of the cause of sacrifice is at the root of everything perceived to be unfair, and NOT your just deserts. Yet it is YOU who ask this of yourself, in deep injustice to the Son of God. You HAVE no enemy except yourself, and you are enemy indeed to him, because you do not know him AS yourself. What COULD be more unjust than that he be deprived of what he IS, denied the right to be himself, and asked to sacrifice his Father's Love and yours, as NOT his due?

Beware of the temptation to perceive yourself unfairly treated. In this view, you seek to find an innocence which is NOT Theirs, but yours alone, and at the cost of someone ELSE's guilt. Can innocence be purchased by the giving of YOUR guilt to someone else? And IS this innocence, which your attack on him attempts to get? Is it not retribution for your own attack upon the Son of God you seek? Is it not SAFER to believe that you are innocent of this, and victimized DESPITE your innocence? Whatever way the game of guilt is played, THERE MUST BE LOSS. Someone must LOSE his innocence that someone ELSE can take it from him, making it his own.

You think your brother is unfair to you BECAUSE you think that one must be unfair to MAKE the other innocent. And in this game do you perceive one PURPOSE of your whole relationship. And this you seek to ADD unto the purpose GIVEN it. The Holy Spirit's purpose is to let the Presence of your holy Guests be known to you. And TO this purpose nothing CAN be added, for the world is purposeless except for this. To add or take away from this ONE goal is but to take away ALL purpose from the world, and from yourself. And each unfairness that the world appears to lay upon you, you have laid on it, by rendering it purposeless, without the function that the Holy Spirit sees. And simple justice has been thus denied to every living thing upon the earth.

What this injustice does to you who judge unfairly, and who see as you have judged, you cannot calculate. The world grows dim and threatening, and not a trace of all the happy sparkle that salvation brought can you perceive, to lighten up your way. And so you see YOURSELF deprived of light, abandoned to the dark, unfairly left without a purpose in a futile world. The world is fair because the Holy Spirit has brought injustice to the Light within, and there has ALL unfairness been resolved, and been REPLACED with justice and with love. If you perceive injustice anywhere, you need but say, "By this do I DENY the Presence of the Father and the Son. And I would rather know of Them than see injustice, which Their Presence shines away."

Section 6 - Therapy and Teaching

You must have noticed how often I have used your own ideas to help YOU. Bill is right is saying that you have learned to be a loving, wise, and very understanding therapist, except for yourself. That exception has given you more than perception for others because of what you saw in them, but less than knowledge of your real relationships TO them because you did NOT make them part OF you. Understanding IS beyond perception, because it introduces meaning. But it is below knowledge, even though it can grow TOWARD it. It is possible, with great effort, to understand someone else and to be helpful to him, but the effort is misdirected. The misdirection is quite apparent. It is directed AWAY from you.

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

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

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

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

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

I have come to give you the foundation, so your own thoughts can make you REALLY free. You have carried the burden of the ideas you did NOT share, and which were therefore too weak to increase, but you did NOT recognize how to UNDO their existence because you HAD made them. You CANNOT cancel out your past errors alone. They will NOT disappear from your mind without remedy. The remedy is NOT of your making, any more than YOU are.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 13 - How Many Teachers of God are Needed to Save the World?

The answer to this question is "one". One wholly perfect teacher, whose learning is complete, suffices. This One, sanctified and redeemed, becomes the Self Who is the Son of God. He Who was always wholly spirit now no longer sees Himself as a body, or even as in a body. Therefore He is limitless. And being limitless, His Thoughts are joined with God's forever and ever. His perception of Himself is based upon God's Judgment, not His Own. Thus does He share God's Will, and bring His Thoughts to still deluded minds. He is forever One, because He is as God created Him. He has accepted Christ and He is saved.

Thus does the son of man become the Son of God. It is not really a change; it is a change of mind. Nothing external alters, but everything internal now reflects only the Love of God. God can no longer be feared, for the mind sees no cause for punishment. God's teachers appear to be many, for that is the world's need. Yet being joined in one purpose, and one they share with God, how could they be separate from each other? What does it matter if they then appear in many forms? Their minds are one; their joining is complete. And God works through them now as One, for that is what they are.

Why is the illusion of many necessary? Only because reality is not understandable to the deluded. Only a very few can hear God's Voice at all, and even they cannot communicate His messages directly through the Spirit Which gave them. They need a medium through which communication becomes possible to those who do not realize that they are Spirit. A body they can see. A voice they understand and listen to without the fear that truth would find in them. Do not forget that truth can come only where it is welcomed without fear. So do God's teachers need a body, for their Unity could not be recognized directly.

Yet what makes them God's teachers is their recognition of the proper purpose of the body. As they advance in their profession, they become more and more certain that the body's function is but to let God's Voice speak through it to human ears. And these ears will carry to the mind of the hearer messages which are not of this world, and the mind will understand because of their Source. From this understanding will come the recognition, in this new teacher of God, of what the body's purpose really is; the only use there really is for it. This lesson is enough to let the Thought of Unity come in, and what is One is recognized as One. The teachers of God appear to share the illusion of separation, but because of what they use the body for, they do not believe in the illusion despite appearances.

Oneness and sickness cannot co-exist. God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while. It is a conscious choice. For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences. The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams, once they are recognized for what they are? Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see. They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regard it as healthy and beautiful. Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeing and yet surely theirs.

Section 4 - Fear as Lack of Love

You and Bill both believe that "being afraid" is involuntary. But I have told you many times that only CONSTRUCTIVE acts should be involuntary. We said that Christ-control can take over everything that DOESN'T matter, and Christ-guidance can direct everything that DOES, if you so will.

Fear cannot be Christ-controlled, but it CAN be self-controlled. Fear is always associated with what does not matter. It prevents Me from controlling it. The correction is therefore a matter of YOUR will, because its presence shows that you have raised the UNIMPORTANT to a higher level than it warrants. You have thus brought it under your will, where it DOES NOT belong. This means YOU feel responsible for it. The level confusion here is perfectly obvious.

The reason that I cannot CONTROL fear for you is that you are attempting to raise to the mind level the proper content of the lower-order reality. I do NOT foster level confusion, but YOU can will to correct it.

You would not tolerate insane behavior on your part, and would hardly advance the excuse that you could not help it. Why should you tolerate insane thinking? There is a fallacy here you would do well to look at clearly.

You both believe that you ARE responsible for what you DO, but NOT for what you THINK. The truth is that you ARE responsible for what you THINK, because it is only at this level that you CAN exercise choice. What you DO comes from what you think. You cannot separate the truth by giving autonomy to your behavior. This is controlled by Me automatically, as soon as you place what you think under my guidance.

Whenever you are afraid, it is a sure sign that you have allowed your mind to miscreate, i.e., have NOT allowed Me to guide it. It is pointless to believe that controlling the outcome of mis-Thought can result in real healing. When you are fearful, you have willed wrongly. This is why you feel you are responsible for it.

You must change your MIND, not your behavior, and this IS a matter of will. You do not need guidance EXCEPT at the mind-level. Correction belongs ONLY at the level where creation is possible. The term does not really mean anything at the symptom-level, where it cannot work.

The correction of fear IS your responsibility. When you ask for release from fear, you are implying that it isn't. You should ask, instead, for help in the conditions which have brought the fear about. This condition always entails a separated Mind-willingness. At this level, you CAN help it.

You are much too tolerant of Mind-wandering, thus passively condoning its miscreation. The particular result never matters, but this fundamental error DOES. The fundamental correction is always the same. Before you will to do anything, ask Me if your will is in accord with Mine. If you are sure that it IS, there will BE no fear.

Fear is always a sign of strain, which arises whenever the WILL to do conflicts with WHAT you do. This situation arises in two major ways:

1) You can will to do conflicting things, either simultaneously or successively. This produces conflicting behavior, which would be tolerable to the self (though not necessarily to others) except for the fact that the part of the will that wants something ELSE is outraged.

2)You can BEHAVE as you think you should, but without entirely WILLING to do so. This produces consistent behavior, but entails great strain WITHIN the self.

If you think about it, you will realize that in both cases the will and the behavior are out-of-accord, resulting in a situation in which you are doing what you do NOT will. This arouses a sense of coercion, which usually produces rage. The anger then invades the mind, and projection in the wrong sense becomes likely. Depression or anxiety are virtually certain.

Remember that whenever there is fear, it is because YOU have NOT MADE UP YOUR MIND. Your will is split, and your behavior inevitably becomes erratic. Correcting at the behavior level can shift the error from the first type to the second, but will NOT obliterate the fear.

It is possible to reach a state in which you bring your will under my guidance without much conscious effort, but this implies the kind of habit pattern which neither you nor Bill has developed dependably as yet.

The lesson here is quite simple, but particularly apt to be overlooked. I will therefore repeat it, URGING you to listen. Only your mind can produce fear. It does so whenever it is conflicted in what it wills, thus producing inevitable strain, because willing and doing become discordant. This CANNOT be corrected by better DOING. But it CAN be corrected by higher WILLING.

Lesson 76 "I am under no laws but God's"

We have observed before how many senseless things have seemed to you to be salvation. Each has imprisoned you with laws as senseless as itself. You are not bound by them. Yet to understand that this is so, you must first realize salvation lies not there. While you would seek for it in things that have no meaning, you bind yourself to laws that make no sense.

Thus do you seek to prove salvation is where it is not. Today we will be glad you cannot prove it. For if you could, you would forever seek where it is not and never find it. The idea for today tells you once again how simple is salvation. Look for it where it waits for you, and there it will be found. Look nowhere else, for it is nowhere else.

Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws which you have set up to save you. You really think that you would starve unless you have stacks of green paper strips and piles of metal discs. You really think a small round pellet or some fluid pushed into your veins through a sharpened needle will ward off death. You really think you are alone unless another body is with you.

It is insanity that thinks these things. You call them laws, and put them under different names in a long catalogue of rituals that have no use and serve no purpose. You think you must obey the "laws" of medicine, of economics, and of health. Protect the body and you will be saved. These are not laws, but madness.

The body is endangered by the mind that hurts itself. The body suffers that the mind will fail to see it is the victim of itself. The body's suffering is a mask the mind holds up to hide what really suffers. It would not understand it is its own enemy; that it attacks itself and wants to die. It is from this your "laws" would save the body. It is for this you think you are a body.

There are no laws except the laws of God. This needs repeating, - over and over until you realize that it applies to everything that you have made in opposition to His Will. Your magic has no meaning. What it is meant to save does not exist. Only what it is meant to hide will save you.

We will begin the longer practice periods today with a short review of the different kinds of "laws" we have believed we must obey. These would include, for example, the laws of nutrition, of immunization, of medication, and of the body's protection in innumerable ways. Think further; you believe in laws of friendship, of "good" relationships and reciprocity.

Perhaps you even think that there are laws which set forth what is God's and what is yours. Many "religions" have been based on this. They would not save, but damn in Heaven's name. Yet they are no more strange than other "laws" you hold must be obeyed to make you safe.

There are no laws but God's. Dismiss all foolish magical beliefs today, and hold your mind in silent readiness to hear the Voice that speaks the truth to you. You will be listening to One Who says there is no loss under the laws of God. Payment is neither given nor received. Exchange cannot be made, there are no substitutes, and nothing is replaced by something else. God's laws forever give and never take.

Hear Him Who tells you this, and realize how foolish are the laws you thought upheld the world you thought you saw. Then listen further. He will tell you more. About the love your Father has for you. About the endless joy He offers you. About His yearning for His only Son, created as His channel for creation; denied to Him by his belief in hell.

Let us today open God's channels to Him, and let His Will extend through us to Him. Thus is creation endlessly increased. His Voice will speak of this to us, as well as of the joys of Heaven which His laws keep limitless forever. We will now repeat today's idea until we have listened and understood there are no laws but God's. Then we will tell ourselves, as a dedication with which the practice period concludes:

"I am under no laws but God's."

We will repeat this dedication as often as possible today; at least four or five times an hour, as well as in response to any temptation to experience ourselves as subject to other laws throughout the day. It is our statement of freedom from all danger and all tyranny. It is our acknowledgment that God is our Father, and that His Son is saved.

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.

You who would make a sacrifice of life, and make your eyes and ears bear witness to the death of God and of His holy Son, think not that you have power to make of them what God willed not they be. In Heaven God's Son is NOT imprisoned in a body, nor is sacrificed in solitude to sin. And as he is in Heaven, so MUST he be eternally and everywhere. He is the same forever. Born again each instant, untouched by time, and FAR beyond the reach of ANY sacrifice of life OR death. For neither did he make, and only ONE was given him, by One Who KNOWS His gifts can NEVER suffer sacrifice and loss.

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.

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.

Yet is the world of hatred equally unseen and inconceivable to those who feel God's Love in them. Their world reflects the quietness and peace that shines in them; the gentleness and innocence they see surrounding them; the joy with which they look out from the endless wells of joy within. What they have felt in them they look upon, and see Its sure reflection everywhere.

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 92 "Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one."

The idea for today is an extension of the previous one. You do not think of light in terms of strength and darkness in terms of weakness. That is because your idea of what seeing means is tied up with the body, and its eyes and brain. This is why you believe that you can change what you see by keeping little bits of glass or other clear material before your eyes held in a frame or placed against the eye. These are among the many magical beliefs that come from the conviction you are a body, and the body's eyes can see.

You also believe the body's brain can think. If you but understood the nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insane idea. It is as if you thought you held the match that lights the sun, and gives it all its warmth; or that you held the universe imprisoned in your hand, securely bound until you let it go. Yet this is no more foolish than to believe the body's eyes can see; the brain can think.

It is God's strength in you that is the light in which you see, as it is His Mind with which you think. His strength denies your weakness. It is your weakness that sees through the body's eyes, peering about in darkness to behold the likeness of itself; the small, the weak, the sickly and the dying, those in need, the helpless and afraid, the sad, the poor, the starving and the joyless. These are seen through eyes which cannot see and cannot bless.

Strength comes from truth, and shines with light its Source has given it; weakness reflects the darkness of its maker. It is sick and looks on sickness, which is like itself. Truth is a savior, and can only will for happiness and peace for everyone. It gives its strength to everyone who asks, in limitless supply. It sees that lack in anyone would be a lack in all, and so it gives its light that all may see, and benefit as one. Its strength is shared, that it may bring to all the miracle in which they will unite in purpose and forgiveness and in love.

Weakness, which looks in darkness, cannot see a purpose in forgiveness and in love. It sees all others different from itself, and nothing in the world which it would share. It judges and condemns, but does not love. In darkness it remains to hide itself, and dreams that it is strong and conquering, a victor over limitations which but grow in darkness to enormous size. It fears and it attacks and hates itself, and darkness covers everything it sees, leaving it dreams as fearful as itself. No miracles are here, but only hate. It separates itself from what it sees, while light and strength perceive themselves as one.

The light of strength is not the light you see. It does not change and flicker and go out. It does not shift from night to day and back to darkness 'til the morning comes again. The light of strength is constant, sure as love, forever glad to give itself away because it cannot give but to Itself. No one can ask in vain to share its sight, and none who enters its abode can leave without a miracle before his eyes, and strength and light abiding in his heart.

The strength in you will offer you the light and guide your seeing, so you do not dwell on idle shadows which the body's eyes provide for self-deception. Strength and light unite in you, and where they meet your Self stands ready to embrace you as Its own. Such is the meeting place we try today to find and rest in, for the peace of God is where your Self, His Son, is waiting now to meet Itself again, and be as One.

Let us give 20 minutes twice today to join this meeting. Let yourself be brought unto your Self. Its strength will be the light in which the gift of sight is given you. Leave, then, the dark a little while today, and we will practice seeing in the light, closing the body's eyes, and asking truth to show us how to find the meeting place of self and Self, where light and strength are one.

After the morning meeting, we will use the day in preparation for the time at night when we will meet again in hope and trust. Let us repeat as often as we can the idea for today, and recognize that we are being introduced to sight, and led away from darkness to the light where only miracles can be perceived.

Chapter 23 - How are Healing and Atonement Related?

Healing and Atonement are not related; they are identical. There is no order of difficulty in miracles because there are no degrees of Atonement. It is the one complete concept possible in this world, because it is the source of a wholly unified perception. Partial Atonement is a meaningless idea, just as special areas of hell in Heaven is inconceivable. Accept Atonement and you are healed. Atonement is the Word of God. Accept His Word and what remains to make sickness possible? Accept His Word and every miracle has been accomplished. To forgive is to heal. The teacher of God has taken accepting the Atonement for himself as his only function. What is there then he cannot heal? What miracle can be withheld from him?

The progress of the teacher of God may be slow or rapid, depending on whether he recognizes the Atonement's inclusiveness or for a time excludes some problem areas from it. In some cases, there is a sudden and complete awareness of the perfect applicability of the lesson of the Atonement to all situations. This, however, is comparatively rare. The teacher of God may have accepted the function God has given him long before he has learned all that his acceptance holds out to him. It is only the end that is certain. Anywhere along the way, the necessary realization of inclusiveness may reach him. If the way seems long, let him be content. He has decided on the direction he will take. What more is asked of him? And having done what was required, would God withhold the rest?

Certainly sickness does not appear to be a decision. Nor would anyone actually believe he wants to be sick. Perhaps he can accept the idea in theory, but it is rarely if ever consistently applied to all specific forms of sickness, both in the individual's perception of himself and of all others as well. Nor is it at this level that the teacher of God calls forth the miracle of healing. He overlooks the mind and body, seeing only the Face of Christ shining in front of him, correcting all mistakes and healing all perception. Healing is the result of the recognition, by God's teacher, of Who it is that is in need of healing. This recognition has no special reference. It is true of all things that God created. In it are all illusions healed.

When a teacher of God fails to heal, it is because he has forgotten Who he is. Another's sickness thus becomes his own. In allowing this to happen, he has identified with another's ego, and has thus confused him with a body. In so doing, he has refused to accept Atonement for himself, and can hardly offer it to his brother in Christ's Name. He will, in fact, be unable to recognize his brother at all, for his Father did not create bodies, and so he is seeing in a brother only the unreal. Mistakes do not correct mistakes, and distorted perception does not heal. Step back now, teacher of God. You have been wrong. Lead not the way, for you have lost it. Turn quickly to your Teacher, and let yourself be healed.

The offer of Atonement is universal. It is equally applicable to all individuals in all circumstances. And in it is the power to heal all individuals of all forms of sickness. Not to believe this is to be unfair to God, and thus unfaithful to Him. A sick person perceives himself as separate from God. Would you see him as separate from you? It is your task to heal the sense of separation that has made him sick. It is your function to recognize for him that what he believes about himself is not the truth. It is your forgiveness that must show him this. Healing is very simple. Atonement is received and offered. Having been received, it must be accepted. It is in the receiving, then, that healing lies. All else must follow from this single purpose.

Who can limit the power of God Himself? Who then can say who can be healed of what, and what must remain beyond God's power to forgive? This is insanity indeed. It is not up to God's teachers to set limits upon Him, because it is not up to them to judge His Son. And to judge His Son is to limit his Father. Both are equally meaningless. Yet this will not be understood until God's teacher recognizes that they are the same mistake. Herein does he receive Atonement, for he withdraws his judgment from the Son of God, accepting him as God created him. No longer does he stand apart from God, determining where healing should be given and where it should be withheld. Now can he say with God, "This is my beloved Son, created perfect and forever so."

Section 9 - The Defense of Conflict

Projection to the Holy Spirit is the law of extension. To the ego, it is the law of deprivation. It therefore produces abundance or scarcity, depending on how you choose to apply it. This choice IS up to you, but it is NOT up to you to decide whether or not you will UTILIZE projection. Every mind MUST project, because that is how it lives, and every mind IS life. The ego's use of projection must be fully understood before the INEVITABLE association between projection and anger can be finally UNmade.

The ego ALWAYS tries to preserve conflict. It is very ingenious in devising ways which SEEM to diminish conflict only because it does NOT want you to find it so intolerable that you will INSIST on giving it up. Therefore, it tries to persuade you that IT can free you OF conflict, lest you give IT up and free YOURSELF. The ego, using its own warped version of the laws of God, uses the power of the mind ONLY to defeat the mind's real purpose. It projects conflict FROM your mind to OTHER minds, in an attempt to persuade you that you have gotten RID of it. This has a number of fallacies which may not be so apparent.

Strictly speaking, conflict cannot BE projected, precisely BECAUSE it cannot be fully shared. Any attempt to keep PART of it and get rid of ANOTHER part does not really mean ANYTHING. Remember that a conflicted teacher is a poor teacher AND A POOR LEARNER. His lessons are confused, and their transfer value severely limited BY his confusion.

A second fallacy is the idea that you can GET RID of something you do not want BY giving it away. GIVING it is how you KEEP it. The belief that by giving it OUT you have excluded it from WITHIN is a complete distortion of the power of EXTENSION.

That is why those who project from the ego are vigilant for their OWN safety. THEY ARE AFRAID THAT THEIR PROJECTIONS WILL RETURN AND HURT THEM. They DO believe they have blotted them out of their OWN minds, but they also believe they are trying to creep back INTO them. This is because their projections have NOT left their minds, and this, in turn, forces them to engage in compulsive activity in order NOT to recognize this.

You cannot perpetuate an illusion about another WITHOUT perpetuating it about yourself. There is no way out of this, because it is IMPOSSIBLE to fragment the mind. To fragment is to break into pieces, and mind CANNOT attack. The belief that it CAN, a fallacy which the ego ALWAYS makes, underlies its whole use of projection. This is because it does not understand what the mind IS, and therefore does not understand what YOU are. Yet ITS existence IS dependent on your mind, because it is a BELIEF. The ego IS therefore a confusion in identification, which never had a consistent model, and never developed consistently. It is the distorted product of the misapplication of the laws of God by distorted minds which are misusing their own power.

DO NOT BE AFRAID OF THE EGO. It DOES depend on your mind, and as you made it by believing in it, so you can dispel it by withdrawing belief FROM it. Do NOT project the responsibility for your belief in it onto ANYONE else, or you will PRESERVE the belief. When you are willing to accept sole responsibility for the ego's existence YOURSELF, you will have laid aside all anger and all attack, because they COME from an attempt to PROJECT RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN ERRORS. But having ACCEPTED the error as yours, DO NOT KEEP THEM. Give them over quickly to the Holy Spirit to be undone completely, so that ALL their effects will vanish from your minds and from the Sonship AS A WHOLE. He will teach you to perceive BEYOND belief, because truth IS beyond belief and His perception IS true.

The ego can be completely forgotten at ANY time, because it was always a belief that is totally incredible. No-one can KEEP a belief he has judged to be unbelievable. The more you learn ABOUT the ego, the more you realize that it cannot BE believed. The incredible cannot BE understood because it IS unbelievable. The utter meaninglessness of ALL perception which comes from the unbelievable MUST be apparent, but it is NOT beyond belief because it was made BY belief.

The whole purpose of this course is to teach you that the ego is unbelievable and will forever BE unbelievable. You who made the ego by BELIEVING the unbelievable CANNOT make this judgment alone. By accepting the Atonement for YOURSELF, you are deciding AGAINST the belief that you can BE alone, thus dispelling the idea of separation and affirming your true identification with the whole Kingdom as literally PART OF YOU. This identification is as beyond doubt as it is beyond belief. Your wholeness HAS no limits, because its being is in Infinity.

Section 7 - The Vision of Christ

The ego is trying to teach you how to gain the whole world, and lose your own Soul. The Holy Spirit teaches that you CANNOT lose your Soul and there IS no gain in the world, for OF ITSELF, it profits nothing. To invest in something WITHOUT profit is surely to impoverish yourself, and the overhead is high. Not only is there no profit in the investment, but the cost TO YOU is enormous. For this investment costs you the world's reality, by DENYING YOURS, and gives you nothing in return. You CANNOT sell your Soul, but you CAN sell your AWARENESS of it.

You cannot perceive the soul, but you will not KNOW it while you perceive anything ELSE as more valuable. The Holy Spirit is your strength because He perceives nothing BUT your soul AS YOU. He is perfectly aware that you do NOT know yourselves, and perfectly aware of how to teach you what you are. BECAUSE He loves you, He will gladly teach you what He loves, for He wills to share it. Remembering you always, He cannot let you forget your worth. For the Father never ceases to remind Him of His Son, and He never ceases to remind His Son of the Father. God is in your memory BECAUSE of Him.

You CHOSE to forget your Father, but you did NOT will to do so. And THEREFORE, you CAN decide otherwise. As it was MY decision, so is it YOURS. YOU DO NOT WANT THE WORLD. The only thing of value in it is whatever part of it YOU look upon with love. This GIVES it the only reality it will ever have. ITS value is NOT in itself, but yours IS in you. As self value comes from self EXTENSION, so does the PERCEPTION of self value come from the projection of loving thoughts outward.

Make the world real unto YOURSELF, for the real world is the gift of the Holy Spirit, and so it BELONGS to you. Correction is for all who cannot see. To open the eyes of the blind is the Holy Spirit's mission, for He knows that they have not LOST their vision, but merely sleep. He would awaken them from the sleep of forgetting, to the remembering of God. Christ's eyes are open, and He will look upon whatever you see with love - if you accept His vision as yours.

When you have seen this real world, as you will surely do, you WILL remember us. But you must learn the cost of sleeping, AND REFUSE TO PAY IT. Only then will you decide to awake. And then the real world will spring to your sight, for Christ has never slept. He is waiting to be seen, for He has never lost sight of YOU. He looks quietly on the real world, which He would SHARE with you, because He knows of the Father's love for Him. And knowing this, He would give you what is yours.

In perfect peace, He waits for you at His Father's altar, holding out the Father's love to you, in the quiet light of the Holy Spirit's blessing. For the Holy Spirit will lead everyone home to his Father, where Christ waits as his Self. Every Child of God is one in Christ, for his Being is in Christ, as Christ's is in God. Christ's love for you is His love for His Father, which He knows because He knows His Father's love for Him. When the Holy Spirit has at last led you to Christ, at the altar to His Father, perception fuses into knowledge, because perception has become so holy that its transfer to Holiness is merely its natural extension.

Love transfers to love without ANY interference, for the situations are identical. Only the ABILITY to make this transfer is the product of learning. As you perceive more and more common elements in ALL situations, the transfer of your training, under the Holy Spirit's guidance increases and becomes generalized. Gradually, you learn to apply it to everyone and everything, for its applicability IS universal. When this has been accomplished, perception and knowledge have become so similar that they share the unification of the Laws of God. What is One cannot be perceived as separate, and the denial of the separation IS the reinstatement of knowledge.

At the altar of God, the holy perception of God's Son becomes so enlightened that light streams into it, and the Spirit of God's Son shines in the Mind of the Father, and becomes one with it. Very gently does God shine upon Himself, loving the extension of Himself which is His Son. The world has no purpose, as it blends into the Purpose of God. For the real world has slipped quietly into Heaven, where everything eternal in it has always been. There, the Redeemer and the redeemed join in perfect love of God, and of each other. Heaven is your home, and being in God, it must ALSO be in you.

Lesson 137 "When I am healed, I am not healed alone."

Sickness is isolation. For it seems to keep one self apart from all the rest, to suffer what the others do not feel. It gives the body final power to make separation real and keep the mind in solitary prison, split apart and held in pieces by a solid wall of sickened flesh which it can not surmount. The world obeys the laws that sickness serves, but healing operates apart from them.

It is impossible that anyone be healed alone. In sickness must he be apart and separate. But healing is his own decision to be one again, and to accept his Self with all its parts intact and unassailed. In sickness does his Self appear to be dismembered and without the unity which gives It life. But healing is accomplished as he sees the body has no power to attack the universal Oneness of God's Son. Sickness would prove that lies must be the truth. But healing demonstrates that truth is true.

The separation sickness would impose has never really happened. To be healed is merely to accept what always was the simple truth, and always will remain exactly as it has forever been. Yet eyes accustomed to illusions must be shown that what they look upon is false. So healing, never needed by the truth, must demonstrate that sickness is not real.

Healing might thus be called a counter-dream which cancels out the dream of sickness in the name of truth, but not in truth itself. Just as forgiveness overlooks all sins that never were accomplished, healing but removes illusions that have not occurred. Just as the real world will arise to take the place of what has never been at all, healing offers restitution for imagined states and false ideas which dreams embroider into pictures of the truth.

Yet think not healing is unworthy of your function here. For anti-Christ becomes more powerful than Christ to those who dream the world is real. The body seems to be more solid and more stable than the mind. And love becomes a dream, while fear remains the one reality which can be seen and justified and fully understood.

Just as forgiveness shines away all sin, and the real world will occupy the place of what you made, so healing must replace the fantasies of sickness which you hold before the simple truth. When sickness has been seen to disappear in spite of all the laws which hold it cannot but be real, then questions have been answered. And the laws can be no longer cherished nor obeyed.

Healing is freedom, for it demonstrates that dreams will not prevail against the truth. Healing is shared. And by this attribute it proves that laws unlike the ones which hold that sickness is inevitable are more potent than their sickly opposites. Healing is strength. For by its gentle hand is weakness overcome. And minds which were walled off within a body free to join with other minds, to be forever strong.

Healing, forgiveness, and the glad exchange of all the world of sorrow for a world where sadness cannot enter, are the means by which the Holy Spirit urges you to follow Him. His gentle lessons teach how easily salvation can be yours; how little practice you need undertake to let His laws replace the ones you made, to hold yourself a prisoner to death. His life becomes your own as you extend the little help He asks in freeing you from everything that ever caused you pain.

And as you let yourself be healed, you see all those around you, or who cross your mind, or whom you touch, or those who seem to have no contact with you, healed along with you. Perhaps you will not recognize them all, nor realize how great your offering to all the world, when you let healing come to you. But you are never healed alone. And legions upon legions will receive the gift which you receive when you are healed.

Those who are healed become the instruments of healing. Nor does time elapse between the instant they are healed and all the grace of healing it is given them to give. What is opposed to God does not exist, and who accepts it not within his mind becomes a haven where the weary can remain to rest. For here is truth bestowed, and here are all illusions brought to truth.

Would you not offer shelter to God's will? You but invite your Self to be at home, and can this invitation be refused? Ask the inevitable to occur and you will never fail. The other choice is but to ask what cannot be to be, and this cannot succeed. Today we ask that only truth will occupy our minds; that thoughts of healing will this day go forth from what is healed to what must yet be healed, aware that they will both occur as one.

We will remember, as the hour strikes, our function is to let our minds be healed that we may carry healing to the world, exchanging curse for blessing, pain for joy, and separation for the peace of God. Is not a minute of the hour worth the giving to receive a gift like this? Is not a little time a small expense to offer for the gift of everything?

Yet must we be prepared for such a gift. And so we will begin the day with this, and give ten minutes to these thoughts with which we will conclude today at night as well:

"When I am healed I am not healed alone.

And I would share my healing with the world,

That sickness may be banished from the mind

Of God's One Son, Who is my only Self."

Let healing be through you this very day. And as you rest in quiet be prepared to give as you receive, to hold but what you give, and to receive the Word of God to take the place of all the foolish thoughts that ever were imagined. Now we come together to make well all that was sick, and offer blessing where there was attack. Nor will we let this function be forgot as every hour of the day slips by, remembering our function with this thought:

"When I am healed I am not healed alone.

And I would bless my brothers, for I would

Be healed with them as they are healed with me."

Section 8 - Pleasure and Pain

Your little part is but to give the Holy Spirit the whole IDEA of sacrifice. And to ACCEPT the peace He gave, instead. WITHOUT the limits that would hold its extension back, and so would limit YOUR awareness of it. For what He gives MUST be extended, if YOU would have its limitless power, and use it for the Son of God's release. It is not THIS you would be rid of, and having it, you CANNOT limit it. If peace is homeless, so are you. And so am I. And He Who IS our Home, is homeless WITH us.

Is this your will? Would you forever be a wanderer in search of peace? Would you invest your hope of peace and happiness in what MUST fail? Faith in the eternal is ALWAYS justified, for the eternal is forever kind, infinite in its patience, and wholly loving. It will accept you wholly, and give you peace. But it can unite only with what ALREADY is at peace in you, immortal as itself. The body can bring you neither peace nor turmoil; not pain nor joy. It is a means, and NOT an end. It HAS no purpose of itself, but only what is GIVEN it to do. The body will seem to BE whatever is the means for reaching the goal that you ASSIGN to it.

Only the mind can set a purpose, and only mind can see the means for its accomplishment, and justify its use. Peace and guilt are both conditions of the mind, to be ATTAINED. And these conditions are the home of the emotion that called them forth, and therefore is COMPATIBLE with it. But think you which it is that is compatible with YOU. Here is your choice, and it IS free. But all that LIES in it WILL come with it. And what you think you are can NEVER be APART from it.

The body is the great SEEMING betrayer of faith. In it lies disillusionment and the seeds of faithlessness. But ONLY if you asked of it what it CANNOT give. Can YOUR mistake be reasonable grounds for your depression and disillusionment, and for retaliative attack on what you think has failed you? Use not your ERROR as the justification for your faithlessness. You have NOT sinned, but you HAVE been mistaken in what is faithful. And the correction of YOUR mistake will GIVE you grounds for faith.

It is impossible to seek for pleasure through the body, and NOT find pain. It is essential that this relationship be understood, for it is one the ego sees as proof of sin. It is not REALLY punitive at all. It is but the inevitable result of equating yourself WITH the body, which is the INVITATION to pain. For it invites FEAR to enter, and become your PURPOSE. The attraction of guilt MUST enter with it, and WHATEVER fear directs the body to do IS therefore painful. It will share the pain of ALL illusions, and the illusion of pleasure will BE the same as pain.

Why should the body be ANYTHING to you? Certainly what it is MADE of is not precious. And, just as certainly, IT has no feeling. It transmits TO YOU the feelings that you WANT. Like any communication medium, the body receives and sends the messages that it is given. It has NO feeling for them. All of the feeling with which they are invested is given by the sender and the receiver. The ego and the Holy Spirit both recognize this. And both also recognize that here, THE SENDER AND RECEIVER ARE THE SAME. The Holy Spirit TELLS you this with joy. The ego HIDES it, for it would keep you unaware of it.

Who would send messages of hatred and attack, if he but understood he sends them to HIMSELF? Who would accuse, make guilty and condemn HIMSELF?The ego's messages are ALWAYS sent AWAY from you, in the belief that, for your message of attack and guilt, will someone OTHER than yourself suffer. And, even if YOU suffer, yet someone ELSE will suffer more. The great deceiver recognizes that this is not so, but, as the "enemy" of peace, it urges you to SEND OUT all your messages of hate, and free YOURSELF. And, to convince you this is possible, it bids the body search for pain in attack upon another, calling it pleasure, and OFFERING it to you as freedom FROM attack.

Hear not its madness, and believe not the impossible is true. Forget not that the ego has DEDICATED the body to the goal of sin, and places in it ALL its faith that this can be accomplished. Its sad disciples chant the body's praise continually, in solemn celebration of the ego's rule. Not one but MUST believe that YIELDING to the attraction of guilt is the ESCAPE from pain. Not one but MUST regard the body as himself, WITHOUT which he would die, and yet WITHIN which is his death equally inevitable.

It is not given to the ego's disciples to realize that they have dedicated themselves to death. This has been OFFERED them, but they have not accepted it. And what is offered must also be received, to be truly given. For the Holy Spirit, too, is a communication medium, receiving from the Father, and offering His messages unto the Son. Like to the ego, the Holy Spirit is both the sender and receiver. For what is sent through Him RETURNS to Him, seeking itself along the way, and FINDING what it seeks. So does the ego FIND the death it seeks, returning it to YOU.

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

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

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

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

It is this Child in you your Father knows as His Own Son. It is this Child Who knows His Father. He desires to go home so deeply, so unceasingly, His Voice cries unto you to let Him rest a while. He does not ask for more than just a few instants of respite; just an interval in which He can return to breathe again the holy air that fills His Father's house. You are His home as well. He will return. But give Him just a little time to be Himself, within the peace that is His home, resting in silence and in peace and in love.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lesson 193 "All things are Lessons God would have me learn."

God does not know of learning. Yet His Will extends to what He does not understand, in that He wills the happiness His Son inherited of Him be undisturbed; eternal and forever gaining scope, eternally expanding in the joy of full creation, and eternally open and wholly limitless in Him. This is His Will. And thus His Will provides the means to guarantee that it is done.

These are the lessons God would have you learn. His Will reflects them all, and they reflect His loving kindness to the Son He loves. Each lesson has a central thought, the same in all of them. The form alone is changed, with different circumstances and events; with different characters and different themes apparent but not real. They are the same in fundamental content. It is this: "Forgive and you will see this differently."

Certain it is that all distress does not appear to be but unforgiveness. Yet that is the content underneath the form. It is this sameness which makes learning sure, because the lesson is so simple that it cannot be rejected in the end. No one can hide forever from a truth so very obvious that it appears in countless forms, and yet is recognized as easily in all of them, if one but wants to see the simple lesson there.

"Forgive and you will see this differently." These are the words the Holy Spirit speaks in all your tribulations, all your pain, all suffering regardless of its forms. These are the words with which temptation ends and guilt, abandoned, is revered no more. These are the words which end the dream of sin, and rid the mind of fear. These are the words by which salvation comes to all the world.

Shall we not learn to say these words when we are tempted to believe that pain is real, and death becomes our choice instead of life? Shall we not learn to say these words when we have understood their power to release all minds from bondage? These are words which give you power over all events which seem to have been given power over you. You see them rightly when you hold these words in full awareness, and do not forget these words apply to everything you see or any brother looks upon amiss.

How can you tell when you are seeing wrong, or someone else is failing to perceive the lesson he should learn? Does pain seem real in the perception? If it does, be sure the lesson is not learned. And there remains an unforgiveness hiding in the mind which sees the pain through eyes the mind directs.

God would not have you suffer thus. He would help you forgive yourself. His Son does not remember who he is. And God would have him not forget His Love, and all the gifts His Love brings with It. Would you now renounce your own salvation? Would you fail to learn the simple lessons Heaven's Teacher sets before you that all pain may disappear, and God may be remembered by His Son?

All things are lessons God would have you learn. He would not leave an unforgiving thought without correction, nor one thorn or nail to hurt His sacred Son in any way. He would ensure his holy rest remain untroubled and serene, without a care in an eternal home which cares for him. And He would have all tears be wiped away, with none remaining yet unshed, and none but waiting their appointed time to fall. For God has willed that laughter should replace each one, and that His Son be free again.

We will attempt today to overcome a thousand seeming obstacles to peace in just one day. Let mercy come to you more quickly. Do not try to hold it off another day, another minute, or another instant. Time was made for this. Use it today for what its purpose is. Morning and night devote what time you can to serve its proper aim, and do not let the time be less than meets your deepest need. Give all you can and give a little more, for now we would arise in haste and go unto our Father's house. We have been gone too long, and we would linger here no more.

And as we practice, let us think about all things we saved to settle by ourselves, and kept apart from healing. Let us give them all to Him Who knows the way to look upon them so that they will disappear. Truth is His message; truth His teaching is. His are the lessons God would have us learn.

Each hour spend a little time today, and in the days to come, in practicing the lesson in forgiveness in the form established for the day. And try to give it application to the happenings the hour brought, so that the next one is free of the one before. The chains of time are easily unloosened in this way. Let no one hour cast its shadow on the one that follows, and when that one goes let everything that happened in its course go with it. Thus will you remain unbound, in peace eternal in the world of time.

This is the lesson God would have you learn: There is a way to look on everything that lets it be to you another step to Him and to salvation of the world. To all that speaks of terror, answer thus:

"I will forgive and this will disappear."

To every apprehension, every care, and every form of suffering repeat these selfsame words. And then you hold the key that opens Heaven's gate, and brings the Love of God the Father down to earth at last, to raise it up to Heaven. God will take this final step Himself. Do not deny the little steps He asks you take to Him.

Section 7 - The Justification for Forgiveness

Anger is NEVER justified. Attack has NO foundation. It is here escape from fear begins, and will be made complete. Here is the real world given in exchange for dreams of terror. For it is on this forgiveness rests, AND IS BUT NATURAL. You are NOT asked to offer pardon where attack is due, and WOULD be justified. For this would mean that you forgive a sin by overlooking what is REALLY there. THIS IS NOT PARDON. For it would assume that, by responding in a way which is NOT justified, your PARDON will become the answer to attack which HAS been made. And thus is pardon inappropriate, by being granted where it is NOT due.

This understanding is the ONLY change that lets the real world rise to take the place of dreams of terror. Fear cannot ARISE unless attack is justified. And if it HAD a real foundation, pardon could have none. The real world is achieved when you perceive the basis of FORGIVENESS is quite real and fully justified. While you regard it as a gift unwarranted, it MUST uphold the guilt you would "forgive." Unjustified forgiveness IS attack. And this is all the world can ever give. It pardons "sinners" sometimes, but remains AWARE that they have sinned. And so they do not MERIT the forgiveness that it gives.

This is the false forgiveness which the world employs to KEEP the sense of sin alive. And recognizing God is just, it seems impossible His pardon COULD be real. Thus is the fear of God the sure result of seeing pardon as unmerited. No-one who sees himself as guilty CAN avoid the fear of God. But he is SAVED from this dilemma if HE can forgive. The mind MUST think of its Creator as it looks upon itself. If you can see your brother MERITS pardon, you have learned forgiveness is YOUR right, as much as his. Nor will you think that God intends for you a fearful judgment which your brother does not merit. For it is the truth that you CAN merit neither more nor less than he.

Forgiveness RECOGNIZED as merited will heal. It gives the miracle its strength to OVERLOOK illusions. This is how you learn that you must be forgiven too. There CAN be no appearance that can NOT be overlooked. For, if there were, it would be necessary FIRST there be some sin which stands BEYOND forgiveness. There would be an error that is MORE than a mistake; a special FORM of error, which remains unchangeable, eternal, and beyond correction or escape. There would be one mistake which had the power to UNDO creation, and to make a world which could REPLACE it and DESTROY the Will of God. Only if this were possible could there be SOME appearances which could withstand the miracle, and NOT be healed by it.

There is no surer proof idolatry is what you wish than a belief there are some forms of sickness and of joylessness forgiveness CANNOT cure. This means that you prefer to keep SOME idols, and are not prepared, as yet, to let ALL idols go. And thus you think that SOME appearances are real, and not appearances at all. Be not deceived about the MEANING of a fixed belief that SOME appearances are harder to look past than others are. It ALWAYS means you think forgiveness must be limited. And you have set a goal of partial pardon and a limited escape from guilt FOR YOU. What can this be, except a false forgiveness of YOURSELF, and everyone who seems APART from you?

It MUST be true the miracle can heal ALL forms of sickness, or it CANNOT HEAL. Its purpose cannot be to judge which FORMS are real, and which APPEARANCES are true. If one appearance must remain APART from healing, one illusion must be part of truth. And you could NOT escape all guilt, but only SOME of it. You must forgive God's Son ENTIRELY. Or you will keep an image of yourself that is not whole, and will remain afraid to look within, and find escape from EVERY idol there. Salvation rests on faith there CANNOT be some forms of guilt which you can NOT forgive. And so there cannot be appearances which have replaced the truth about God's Son.

Look on your brother with the willingness to see him as he is. And do not keep a part of him outside your willingness that he be healed. To heal is to make whole. And what is whole can HAVE no missing parts that have been kept outside. Forgiveness rests on recognizing this, and being GLAD there cannot be some forms of sickness which the miracle must LACK the power to heal. God's Son is perfect, or he cannot be God's Son. Nor will you KNOW him, if you think he does not merit the escape from guilt in ALL its forms and ALL its consequence. There IS no way to think of him but this, if you would know the truth about yourself:

"I thank you, Father, for your perfect Son,

And in his glory will I see my own."

Here is the joyful statement that there are NO forms of evil which can overcome the Will of God; the glad acknowledgment that guilt has NOT succeeded, by your wish, to make illusions real. And what is this, except a simple statement of the truth? Look on your brother with this hope in you, and you will understand he COULD not make an error that could change the truth in him. It is NOT difficult to overlook mistakes that have been given no effects. But what you see as having power to make an idol of the Son of God, you will NOT pardon. For he has become to you a graven image, and a sign of death. Is THIS your Savior? Is his Father WRONG about His Son? Or have YOU been deceived in him who has been given you to heal for YOUR salvation and deliverance?

Section 4 - Beyond All Idols

Idols are quite specific. But your will is universal, being limitless. And so it has NO form, nor is content for its expression in the terms of form. Idols are LIMITS; they are the belief that there are FORMS which will bring happiness, and that, BY limiting, is all attained. It is as if you said, "I have no need of everything. This LITTLE thing I want, and it will BE as everything to me." And this MUST fail to satisfy, because it IS your will that everything be yours. Decide for idols, and you ask for LOSS. Decide for truth, and everything IS yours.

IT IS NOT FORM YOU SEEK. What form can be a substitute for God the Father's Love? What form can take the place of all the love in the divinity of God the Son? What idol can make two of what IS one? And CAN the limitless be limited? You do not WANT an idol. It is NOT your will to have one. It will NOT bestow on you the gift you seek. When you decide upon the FORM of what you want, you LOSE the understanding of its purpose. So you see YOUR will within the idol, thus reducing it to a SPECIFIC form. But this could never BE your will, because what shares in all creation CANNOT be content with SMALL ideas and LITTLE things.

Behind the search for EVERY idol lies the yearning for completion. Wholeness has no form BECAUSE it is unlimited. To seek a special person or a thing to ADD to you to make yourself complete, can ONLY mean that you believe some FORM is missing. And, by finding THIS, you will achieve completion in a FORM you like. This is the purpose of an idol; that you will not look BEYOND it, to the source of your belief that you ARE incomplete. ONLY if you had sinned could this be so. For sin is the IDEA you are alone, and separated OFF from what is whole. And thus it WOULD be necessary for the search for wholeness to be made BEYOND the boundaries of limits on yourself.

It NEVER is the idol that you want. But what you think it OFFERS you, you want indeed, and have the RIGHT to ask for. Nor could it be POSSIBLE it be denied. Your will to be complete IS but God's will, and this is given you BY being His. God knows not form. He CANNOT answer you in terms which have no meaning. And YOUR will could not BE satisfied with empty forms, made but to fill a gap which is not there. It is not this you WANT. Creation gives no SEPARATE person and no SEPARATE thing the power to complete the Son of God. What idol CAN be called upon to give the Son of God what he already HAS?

Completion is the FUNCTION of God's Son. He has no need to SEEK for it at all. Beyond ALL idols stands his holy will to be but what he IS. For MORE than whole is meaningless. If there were change in him; if he could be reduced to ANY form and limited to what is NOT in him, he would not BE as God created him. What idol CAN he need to be himself? For CAN he give a part of him away? What is not whole cannot MAKE whole. But what is REALLY asked for CANNOT be denied. Your will IS granted. NOT in any form that would content you not, but in the whole, completely lovely Thought God holds of you.

Nothing that God knows not exists. And what He knows exists forever, changelessly. For thoughts endure as long as does the mind that thought of them, and in the Mind of God there is no ending, nor a time in which His Thoughts were absent, or could suffer change. Thoughts are not born and cannot die. They share the attributes of their creator, nor have they a separate life, apart from him. The thoughts YOU think are in your mind, as you are in the Mind Which thought of you. And so there ARE no separate parts in what exists within God's Mind. It is forever One, eternally united and at peace.

Thoughts SEEM to come and go. But all this means is that you are sometimes AWARE of them, and sometimes not. An unremembered thought is born again to YOU when it returns to your awareness. Yet it did not die when you forgot it. It was ALWAYS there, but YOU were unaware of it. The Thought God holds of you is perfectly unchanged by your forgetting. It will ALWAYS be exactly as it was before the time when you forgot, and will be just the same when you remember. And it is the same WITHIN the interval when you forgot. The Thoughts of God are FAR beyond all change, and shine forever. They await not birth. They wait for welcome and remembering.

Beyond all idols is the Thought God holds of you. Completely unaffected by the turmoil and the terror of the world, the dreams of birth and death that here are dreamed, the myriad of forms that fear can take, quite undisturbed, the Thought God holds of you remains EXACTLY as It always was. Surrounded by a stillness so complete no sound of battle comes remotely near, It rests in certainty and perfect peace. Here is your ONE reality kept safe, completely unaware of all the world that worships idols, and that knows not God. In perfect sureness of Its changelessness and of Its rest in Its eternal home, the Thought God holds of you has never left the Mind of Its Creator, Whom It knows as Its Creator knows that It is there.

Where could the Thought God holds of you EXIST but where you are? Is your reality a thing APART from you, and in a world which your reality knows NOTHING of? Outside you there IS no eternal sky, no changeless star, and NO reality. The Mind of Heaven's Son in Heaven is, for there the Mind of Father and of Son joined in creation which can HAVE no end. You have not two realities, but One. Nor can you be AWARE of more than one. An idol OR the Thought God holds of you is your reality. Forget not, then, that idols MUST keep hidden what you are, NOT from the Mind of God, but from your own. The star shines still; the sky has never changed. But you, the holy Son of God Himself, are unaware of your reality.

Section 6 - Reason and Perception

Perception selects, and MAKES the world you see. It literally PICKS IT OUT, as mind directs. The laws of size and shape and brightness would hold, perhaps, if other things were equal. They are NOT equal. For what you look FOR you are far more likely to discover, REGARDLESS of its color, shape, or size, than what you would prefer to OVERLOOK. The still small Voice for God, is NOT drowned out by all the ego's raucous screams and senseless ravings, to those who WANT to hear. Perception is a choice, and NOT a fact.

But on this choice depends far more than you may realize as yet. For, on the voice you choose to hear, and on the sights you choose to see, depends ENTIRELY your whole belief of what you ARE. Perception is a witness but to this, and never to reality. Yet it can show you the conditions in which AWARENESS of reality is possible, or those where it could NEVER be. Reality needs no cooperation from you, to be itself. But your awareness of it NEEDS your help, because it IS your choice.

Listen to what the ego says, and see what it DIRECTS you see, and it is sure that you will see YOURSELF as tiny, vulnerable, and afraid. You WILL experience depression, a sense of worthlessness, and feelings of impermanence and unreality. You WILL believe that you are helpless prey to forces far beyond your own control, and far more powerful than you. And you WILL think the world you made directs your destiny. For this will be your FAITH. But never believe, because it is your faith, it makes REALITY. There is ANOTHER vision and ANOTHER voice, in which your freedom lies, awaiting but your choice. And, if you place your faith in them, you will perceive ANOTHER Self in YOU.

This other self sees miracles as natural. They are as simple and as natural to it as breathing to the body. They are the OBVIOUS response to calls for help, the ONLY one it makes. Miracles seem unnatural to the ego, because it does not understand how SEPARATE minds can influence each other. Nor COULD they do so. But minds cannot BE separate. This other self is PERFECTLY aware of this. And thus it recognizes that miracles do NOT affect ANOTHER'S mind, only its OWN. They always change YOUR mind. There IS no other.

You do not realize the whole extent to which the idea of separation has INTERFERED with reason. Reason lies in the other self you have CUT OFF from your awareness. And nothing you have allowed to STAY in it is CAPABLE of reason. How can the segment of the mind DEVOID of reason understand what reason IS? Or grasp the information it would give? All sorts of QUESTIONS may arise in it, but, if the basic question stems from REASON, it will not ask it. Like ALL that stems from reason, the basic question is obvious, simple, and remains unasked. But think not reason could not ANSWER it.

God's plan for your salvation could not have been established WITHOUT your will and your consent. It MUST have been accepted by the Son of God, for what God wills for him, he MUST receive. For God wills not, apart from him. Nor does the Will of God wait upon time to be accomplished. Therefore, what JOINED the Will of God MUST be in you NOW, being eternal. You MUST have set aside a place in which the Holy Spirit can abide, and where He IS. He must HAVE BEEN there since the need for Him arose, and was fulfilled in the same instant.

Such would your REASON tell you, if you listened. Yet such is clearly NOT the ego's "reasoning." Its alien nature, TO THE EGO, is proof you will NOT find the answer there. Yet if it MUST be so, it must exist. And, if it exists FOR you, and has your freedom as the purpose GIVEN it, you MUST be free to FIND it. God's plan is simple; NEVER circular, and NEVER Self-defeating. He has no Thoughts except the Self-EXTENDING, and in this, YOUR will MUST be included. Thus there MUST be a part of you that KNOWS His Will and SHARES It.

It is NOT meaningful to ask if what MUST be is so. But it IS meaningful to ask why you are UNAWARE of what is so. For this MUST have an answer, if the plan of God for your salvation is complete. And it must BE complete, because its Source knows not of incompletion. Where would the answer BE, but in the Source? And where are YOU but there, where this same Answer is? Your identity, as much a true EFFECT of this same Source as is this Answer, must therefore be TOGETHER and the SAME.

Oh yes, you know this. And more than this alone. But any part of knowledge threatens dissociation as much as ALL of it. And all of it will COME with any part. Here is the part you CAN accept. What reason points to, you CAN see, because the witnesses on its behalf ARE clear. Only the TOTALLY insane can disregard them. And you HAVE gone past this. Reason is a means which serves the Holy Spirit's purpose in its OWN right. It is not RE-INTERPRETED and REDIRECTED from the goal of sin, as are the others. For reason is BEYOND the ego's range of means.

Faith and perception and belief can be misplaced, and serve the great deceiver's needs, as well as truth. But reason has no place at all in madness, nor can it be ADJUSTED to fit its ends. Faith and belief are STRONG in madness, guiding perception toward what the mind has valued. But reason enters NOT AT ALL in this. For the perception would fall away at once, if reason were applied. There IS no reason in insanity, for it depends ENTIRELY on reason's absence. The ego NEVER uses it, because it does not realize that it EXISTS.

You have come very close to this. Faith and belief have shifted, and you HAVE asked the question that the ego will NEVER ask. Does not your reason tell you now the question MUST have come from something that you do NOT know, but must BELONG to you? Faith and belief, upheld by reason, CANNOT fail to lead to changed perception. And, in THIS change, is room made way for vision. Vision extends BEYOND itself, as does the purpose which it serves, and ALL the means for its accomplishment.

Section 10 - The Time of Christ

It IS in your power, IN TIME, to delay the perfect union of the Father and the Son. For in this world, the attraction of guilt DOES stand between them. Neither time nor season means anything in eternity. But here, it is the Holy Spirit's function to use them both, NOT as the ego uses them. This is the season when you would celebrate my birth into this world. Yet you know not how to do it. Let the Holy Spirit teach you, and let ME celebrate YOUR birth through Him. The only gift I can accept of you, is the gift I GAVE you. Release ME, as I willed YOUR release. The time of Christ we celebrate TOGETHER. For it HAS no meaning, if we are apart.

The holy instant is truly the time of Christ. For, in this liberating instant, no guilt is laid upon the Son of God, and his unlimited power is thus restored to him. What OTHER gift can you offer me, when ONLY THIS I will to offer YOU? And to see me, is to see me in everyone, and offer everyone the gift you offer me. I am incapable of receiving sacrifice as God is. And every sacrifice you ask of YOURSELF, you ask of me. Learn NOW that sacrifice, of ANY kind, is nothing but a LIMITATION IMPOSED ON GIVING. And, BY this limitation, you have limited YOUR acceptance of the gift I offer YOU.

We who are one, cannot give separately. When you are willing to accept OUR relationship AS REAL, guilt will hold NO attraction for you. For, in OUR union, you will accept ALL of our brothers. The gift of union is the only gift that I was born to give. Give it to ME, that YOU may have it. The time of Christ is the time appointed for the gift of freedom, offered to everyone. And, by YOUR acceptance of it, you have offered it TO everyone. It IS in your power to make this season holy. For it is in your power to make the time of Christ be NOW.

It is possible to do this all at once, because there is but ONE shift in perception that is necessary. For you made but ONE mistake. It SEEMS like many, but it is all the same. For, though the ego takes many forms, it is ALWAYS the same idea. What is NOT love is always fear, and nothing else. It is not necessary to follow fear through all the circuitous routes by which it burrows underground, and hides in darkness, to emerge in FORMS quite different from what it IS. It IS necessary to examine each one, as long as you would retain the PRINCIPLE which governs all of them. But when you are willing to regard them, NOT as separate, but as DIFFERENT MANIFESTATIONS OF THE SAME IDEA, and ONE YOU DO NOT WANT, they go together.

The idea is simply this; you believe that it is possible to be host to the ego, or hostage to God. This is the choice you think you have, and the decision that you believe that you must make. You see no other alternatives. For you can NOT accept the fact that SACRIFICE GETS NOTHING. Sacrifice is so essential to your thought-system, that salvation, APART from sacrifice, means NOTHING to you. Your confusion of sacrifice and love is so profound that you cannot conceive of love WITHOUT sacrifice. And it is THIS that you must look at; SACRIFICE IS ATTACK, NOT LOVE. If you would accept but this ONE idea, your fear of love would vanish.

Guilt CANNOT last, when the idea of sacrifice has been removed. For, if there MUST be sacrifice, as you are convinced, someone must pay, and someone must get. And the ONLY question that remains to BE decided is HOW MUCH is the price, for getting WHAT. As host to the ego, you believe that you can give ALL your guilt away, WHATEVER you think, and purchase peace. For the payment DOES NOT SEEM TO BE YOURS. While it is obvious that the ego DOES demand payment, it NEVER seems to be demanding it OF YOU. For you are unwilling to recognize that the ego, which you INVITED, is treacherous only to those who think they are its host.

The ego will NEVER let you perceive this, for this recognition WILL make it homeless. For, when this recognition dawns clearly, you will NOT be deceived by ANY form the ego takes, to protect itself FROM your sight. Each form will be recognized as but a cover, for the one idea that hides behind them all. That love demands sacrifice, and is therefore INSEPARABLE from attack and fear. And that GUILT IS THE PRICE OF LOVE, which MUST be paid BY fear. How fearful, then, has God become to you, and how great a sacrifice do you believe His Love demands! For total love would demand total sacrifice. And so the ego seems to demand LESS of you than God, and of the two is judged as the LESSER of two evils, one to be feared a little, but the Other TO BE DESTROYED.

For you see love AS DESTRUCTIVE, and your only question is WHO is to be destroyed, you or another? You seek to answer this question in your special relationships, in which you are both destroyer and destroyed IN PART, but with the idea of being able to be neither completely. And this you think SAVES YOU FROM GOD, whose TOTAL Love would COMPLETELY destroy you. You think that everyone OUTSIDE yourself demands your sacrifice, but you do NOT see that ONLY you demand sacrifice, and ONLY of yourself. Yet the demand of sacrifice is so savage and so fearful, that you CANNOT accept it WHERE IT IS. But the REAL price of NOT accepting this has been so great, that you have GIVEN GOD AWAY, rather than look at it.

You will have to choose between TOTAL freedom and TOTAL bondage, for there are no alternatives but these. You have tried many compromises, in the attempt to avoid recognizing the one decision that MUST be made. And yet, it is the RECOGNITION of the decision, JUST AS IT IS, that makes the decision so easy! Salvation is simple, being of God, and therefore VERY easy to understand. But do not try to project it FROM you, and see it OUTSIDE yourself. In YOU are both the question and the Answer; the demand for sacrifice and the peace of God.

Section 7 - Grandeur versus Grandiosity

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

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

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

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

The ego will make every effort to recover, and mobilize its energies AGAINST your release. It will tell you that you are insane, and argue that grandeur CANNOT be a real part of you, because of the littleness in which IT believes. But your grandeur is NOT delusional, BECAUSE YOU DID NOT MAKE IT. YOU have made grandiosity, and are afraid of it, because it is a form of ATTACK. But your grandeur is of God, who created it out of His love. From your grandeur you can only bless, because your grandeur is your ABUNDANCE. By blessing you hold it in your minds, protecting it from illusions, and keeping yourself in the Mind of God.

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

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

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

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

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

You did not ESTABLISH your value, and it needs no defense. NOTHING can attack it, or prevail over it. It does not vary. It merely IS. Ask the Holy Spirit WHAT it is, and He will tell you. But do not be afraid of His Answer, for it comes from God. It IS an exalted answer, because of its Source. But the Source is true, and so is its answer. Listen and do not question what you hear, for God does not deceive. He would have you replace the ego's belief in littleness with His own exalted answer to the question of your being, so that you can cease to question it, and KNOW it for what it IS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way.

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

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

We will devote ten minutes to this goal three times today, and we will ask to see the rising of the real world to replace the foolish images that we held dear, with true ideas arising in the place of thoughts which have no meaning, no effect, and neither source nor substance in the truth. This we acknowledge as we start upon our practice periods. Begin with this:

"I ask to see a different world, and think

A different kind of thoughts from those I made.

The world I seek I did not make alone,

The thoughts I want to think are not my own."

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

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

Put out your hand and see how easily the door swings open with your one intent to go beyond it. Angels light the way, so that all darkness vanishes and you are standing in a light so bright and clear that you can understand all things you see. A tiny moment of surprise, perhaps, will make you pause before you realize the world you see before you in the light reflects the truth you knew, and did not quite forget in wandering away in dreams.

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

"Today I seek and find all that I want.

"My single purpose offers it to me.

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

Section 2 - The Irreconcilable Beliefs

The memory of God comes to the quiet mind. It CANNOT come where there is conflict, for a mind at war against itself remembers not Eternal Gentleness. The means of war are NOT the means of peace. And what the warlike would remember is NOT love. War is impossible unless belief in VICTORY is cherished. Conflict WITHIN you MUST imply that you believe the ego has the power TO BE VICTORIOUS. Why else would you identify with it? Surely you realize the ego IS at war with God. Certain it is it HAS no enemy. But just as certain is its fixed belief it has an enemy that it MUST overcome, and WILL SUCCEED.

Do you not realize a war against yourself would BE a war on God? Is victory CONCEIVABLE? And, if it were, is this a victory that you would WANT? The death of God, if it were possible, would be YOUR death. Is this a VICTORY? The ego ALWAYS marches to defeat, BECAUSE it thinks that triumph over you is possible. And God thinks otherwise. This is no war. Only the mad belief the Will of God can be attacked and overthrown. You may IDENTIFY with this belief, but never will it be more than madness. And fear will reign in madness, and will SEEM to have replaced love there. This is the conflict's PURPOSE. And to those who think that it is possible, the means seem real.

Be certain that it is impossible God and the ego, or yourself and it, will EVER meet. You SEEM to meet, and make your strange alliances, on grounds that have no meaning. For your beliefs converge upon the body, the ego's chosen home, which you believe is YOURS. You meet at a mistake; - an error in your self-appraisal. The ego joins with an ILLUSION of yourself you SHARE with it. And yet, illusions cannot join. They ARE the same, and they are nothing. Their joining lies in nothingness; two are as meaningless as one, or as a thousand. The ego joins with nothing, BEING nothing. The victory it seeks is meaningless as is itself.

Brothers, the war against yourself is almost over. The journey's end is at the place of peace. Would you not now ACCEPT the peace offered you here? This enemy you fought as an INTRUDER on your peace is here transformed before your sight into the GIVER of your peace. Your "enemy" was God Himself, to Whom all conflict, triumph, and attack of ANY kind are all unknown. He loves you perfectly, completely, and eternally. The Son of God at war with his Creator is a condition as ridiculous as nature roaring at the wind in anger, and proclaiming that it is part of itself no longer.

Could nature possibly ESTABLISH this, and make it true? Nor IS it up to you to say what shall be part of you, and what is kept apart. The war against yourself was undertaken to teach the Son of God that he is NOT himself, and NOT his Father's Son. For this, the memory of his Father MUST be forgotten. It IS forgotten in the body's life, and, if you think you ARE a body, you will believe you HAVE forgotten it. But truth can never be forgotten by ITSELF. And you have NOT forgotten what you are. Only a strange illusion of yourself, a wish to triumph OVER what you are, remembers not.

The war against yourself is but the battle of two illusions, struggling to make them DIFFERENT from each other, in the belief the one which conquers will be true. There IS no conflict between them and the TRUTH. Nor ARE they different from each other. Both are NOT true. And so it matters not what form they take. What made them is insane, and they remain part of what made them. Madness holds out no menace to reality, and has no influence upon it. Illusions CANNOT triumph over truth, nor can they threaten it in any way. And the reality which they deny is NOT a part of them.

What YOU remember IS a part of you. For you MUST be as God created you. Truth does not fight against illusion, nor do illusions fight against the truth. Illusions battle ONLY with themselves. Being fragmented, they fragment. But truth is indivisible, and FAR beyond their little reach. You will remember what you know when you have learned you CANNOT be in conflict. One ILLUSION about yourself can battle with another, yet the war of two illusions is a state where NOTHING HAPPENS. There is no victor, and there is no victory. And truth stands radiant, APART from conflict, untouched and quiet, in the peace of God.

Conflict must be between two FORCES. It can NOT exist between one power and nothingness. There is nothing you COULD attack that is not part of you. And, BY attacking it, you make two illusions of yourself, IN CONFLICT with each other. And this occurs whenever you look on ANYTHING that God created with anything but love. Conflict is fearful, for it is the birth of fear. Yet what is born of nothing cannot WIN reality through battle. Why would you fill your world with conflicts with yourself? Let all this madness be undone for you, and turn in peace to the remembrance of God, still shining in your quiet mind.

See how the conflict of illusions disappears, when it is brought to truth! For it seems real ONLY as long as it is seen as war between CONFLICTING truths, the conqueror to be the truer, the MORE real, the VANQUISHER of the illusion that was less real, MADE an illusion by defeat. For conflict is the choice BETWEEN illusions, one to be crowned as real, the other vanquished and despised. Here will the Father NEVER be remembered. Yet NO illusion can invade His home, and drive Him out of what He loves forever. And what He loves MUST be forever quiet and at peace, BECAUSE it is His home. And you who are beloved of Him are no illusions, being as true and holy as Himself.

Over His home the Holy Spirit watches, sure that its peace can never BE disturbed. How can the resting place of God turn on itself, and seek to overcome the One Who dwells there? And think what happens when the house of God perceives itself divided. The altar disappears, the light grows dim, the temple of the Holy One becomes a house of sin. And nothing is remembered, EXCEPT illusions. Illusions CAN conflict, because their forms ARE different. And they do battle ONLY to establish which FORM is true.

Illusion meets illusion; truth, itself. The meeting of illusions leads to war. Peace looking on itself EXTENDS itself. War is the condition in which fear is born, and grows and seeks to dominate. Peace is the state where love abides, and seeks to share itself. Conflict and peace are opposites; where one abides, the other CANNOT be; where either goes, the other disappears. So is the memory of God obscured in minds that have become illusion's battleground. Yet far beyond this senseless war it shines, ready to BE remembered when you side with peace.

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

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.

Here in the present is the world set free. For as you let the past be lifted and release the future from your ancient fears, you find escape and give it to the world. You have enslaved the world with all your fears, with doubts and miseries, your pain and tears, and all your sorrows press upon it, and keep it a prisoner to your beliefs. Death strikes it everywhere because you hold the bitter thought of death within your mind.

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 2 - The Message of the Holy Relationship

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

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

Yet you have LISTENED to it. And long and hard you TRIED to understand its messages. You did not realize it is IMPOSSIBLE to understand what fails ENTIRELY to REACH you. You have received NO messages at all you understood. For you have listened to what can never communicate at all. Think, then, what happened. Denying what you are, and firm in faith that you are something ELSE, this something else, which you have MADE to be yourself, BECAME your sight. Yet it MUST be the SOMETHING ELSE which sees, and, as NOT YOU, explains its sight TO you.

YOUR vision would, of course, render this quite unnecessary. But, if your eyes are closed, and you have called upon this thing to lead you, asking it to EXPLAIN to you the world IT sees, you have no reason NOT to listen, nor to suspect that what it tells you is NOT true. Reason would tell you that it CAN'T be true, BECAUSE you do not understand it. GOD HAS NO SECRETS. He does NOT lead you through a world of misery, waiting to tell you, at the journey's end, why He DID this to you. What could be secret from His Will? Yet you believe that YOU have secrets. What could your secrets BE except ANOTHER will, that is your own, APART from His?

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

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

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

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

Be certain that God does not entrust His Son to the unworthy. Nothing but what is PART of Him is worthy of BEING joined. Nor is it possible that anything NOT part of Him CAN join. Communication MUST have been restored to those that join, for this they COULD not do through bodies. What, then, HAS joined them? Reason will tell you that they MUST have seen each other through a vision NOT of the body, and communicated in a language the body does not speak. Nor could it be a fearful sight or sound that drew them gently into one. Rather, in each, the other saw a perfect shelter where his Self could be reborn in safety and in peace. Such did his reason tell him; such he believed BECAUSE it is the truth.

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

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

Section 6 - The Ego-Body Illusion

ALL things work together for good. There are NO exceptions except in the ego's judgment. Control is a central factor in what the ego permits into consciousness, and one to which it devotes its maximum vigilance. This is NOT the way a balanced mind holds together. ITS control is unconscious.

The ego is further off balance by keeping its primary motivation UNconscious, and raising control rather than sensible judgment to predominance. It has every reason to do this, according to the thought-system which both gave rise to it and which it serves. Sane judgment would inevitably judge AGAINST it, and MUST be obliterated by the ego in the interest of its self-preservation.

A crucial source of the ego's off-balance state is its lack of discrimination between impulses from God and from the body. Any thought-system which makes THIS confusion MUST be insane. Yet this demented state is ESSENTIAL to the ego, which judges ONLY in terms of threat or non-threat TO ITSELF.

In one sense, the ego's fear of the idea of God is at least logical, because this idea DOES dispel it. Fear of dissolution from the higher source, then, makes SOME sense in ego terms. But fear of the body, with which the ego identifies so closely, is more blatantly senseless. The body is the ego's home by its own election. It is the only identification with which it feels safe, because the body's vulnerability is its own best argument that you CANNOT be of God.

This is the belief that it sponsors eagerly. Yet the ego hates the body, because it does not accept the idea that the body is good enough as its home. Here is where the mind becomes actually dazed. Being told by the ego that it is really part of the body, and that the body is its protector, it is also constantly informed that the body can NOT protect it. This, of course, is not only true, but perfectly obvious.

Therefore, the mind asks, "Where can I go for protection?", to which the ego replies, "Turn to me." The mind, and not without cause, reminds the ego that it has itself insisted that it IS identified with the body, so there is no point in turning to it for protection. The ego has no real answer to this because there ISN'T any. But it DOES have a typical solution. It obliterates the question from the mind's awareness. Once unconscious, it can and does produce uneasiness, but it cannot be answered because it cannot be asked.

This is the question which MUST be asked: "Where am I to go for protection?" Only an insane mind FAILS to ask it. Even the insane ask it unconsciously, but it requires real sanity to ask it consciously.

If you will remember your dream about the recorder, which was remarkably accurate in some ways because it came partly from ego-repressed knowledge, the real problem was correctly stated as "What is the question?"because, as you very well knew, the answer COULD be found if the question were recognized. If you remember, there were a number of solutions you attempted, all ego-based, not because you thought they would really work, but because the question ITSELF was obscure.

When the Bible says "Seek and ye shall find," it does NOT mean that you should seek blindly and desperately for something you wouldn't recognize. Meaningful seeking is consciously undertaken, consciously organized, and consciously directed. B's chief contribution to your joint venture is his insistence that the goal be formulated clearly, and KEPT IN MIND.

B has very intelligently suggested that you both should set yourself the goal of really studying for this course. There can be no doubt of the wisdom of this decision, for any student who wants to pass it. But, knowing your individual weaknesses as learners and being a teacher with some experience, I must remind you that learning and wanting to learn are inseparable.

All learners learn best when they believe that what they are trying to learn is of value to them. But values in this world are hierarchical, and not everything you may WANT to learn has lasting value. Indeed, many of the things you want to learn are chosen BECAUSE their value will not last. The ego thinks it is an advantage not to commit itself to ANYTHING that is eternal, because the eternal MUST come from God.

Eternalness is the one function that the ego has tried to develop, but has systematically failed. It may surprise you to learn that had the ego willed to do so, it COULD have made the eternal, because, as a product of the mind, it IS endowed with the power of its own creator. But the DECISION to do this, rather than the ABILITY to do it is what the ego cannot tolerate. That is because the decision, from which the ability would naturally develop, would necessarily involve true perception, a state of clarity which the ego, fearful of being judged truly, MUST avoid.

The results of this dilemma are peculiar, but no more so than the dilemma itself. The ego has reacted characteristically here as elsewhere, because mental illness, which is ALWAYS a form of ego-involvement, is not a problem of reliability as much as of validity. The ego compromises with the issue of the eternal, just as it does with all issues that touch on the real question in ANY way. By compromising in connection with all TANGENTIAL questions, it hopes to hide the REAL question and keep it OUT OF MIND. Its characteristic "business" with non-essentials is precisely for that purpose.

Consider the alchemist's age-old attempts to turn base metal into gold. (This typo was originally "god"). The one question which the alchemist did not permit himself to ask was "What For?" He COULD not ask this, because it would immediately become apparent that there was no sense in his efforts, even if he succeeded. The ego has also countenanced some strange compromises with the idea of the eternal, making odd attempts to relate the concept to the unimportant in an effort to satisfy the mind without jeopardizing itself. Thus, it has permitted many good minds to devote themselves to perpetual MOTION, but NOT to perpetual THOUGHTS.

Ideational preoccupations with conceptual problems set up to be incapable of solution are another favorite ego device for impeding the strong-willed from real progress in learning. The problems of squaring the circle, and carrying pi to infinity are good examples. A more recent ego-attempt is particularly noteworthy. The idea of preserving the body by suspension, thus giving it the kind of limited immortality which the ego can tolerate, is among its more recent appeals to the mind.

It is noticeable that in all these diversionary tactics, the ONE question which is NEVER asked by those who pursue them is "What for?" This is the question which YOU must learn to ask in connection with everything your mind wills to undertake. What is your purpose? Whatever it is, you cannot doubt that it will channelize your efforts automatically. When you make a decision of purpose, then, you HAVE made a decision about future effort, a decision which will remain in effect UNLESS you change the DECISION.

Psychologists are in a good position to realize that the ego is capable of making and accepting as real some very distorted associations which are not true. The confusion of sex with aggression, and resulting behavior which is the same for BOTH, is a good example. This is understandable to the psychologist, and does not produce surprise. The lack of surprise, however, is NOT a sign of understanding. It is a symptom of the psychologist's ability to accept as reasonable a compromise which is clearly senseless, to attribute it to the mental illness of the patient rather than his own, and to limit his questions about both the patient AND himself to the trivial.

These relatively minor confusions of the ego are not among its more profound misassociations, although they DO reflect them. Your own egos have been blocking the more important questions which your minds should ask. You do NOT understand a patient while you yourselves are willing to limit the questions you raise about HIS mind, because you are also accepting these limits for YOURS. This makes you unable to heal him AND yourselves. Be ALWAYS unwilling to adapt to ANY situation in which miracle-mindedness is unthinkable. That state in ITSELF is enough to demonstrate that perception is wrong.

Section 3 - The Uses of Projection

Any split in will MUST involve a rejection of part of it, and this IS the belief in separation. The wholeness of God, which IS His peace, cannot be appreciated EXCEPT by a whole mind, which recognizes the wholeness of God's creation and BY this recognition knows its Creator.

Projection will ALWAYS hurt you. It reinforces your belief in your own split mind, and its ONLY purpose is to KEEP THE SEPARATION GOING. It is solely a device of the ego to make you feel DIFFERENT from your brothers and separated FROM them. The ego justifies this on the wholly spurious grounds that it makes you seem better than they are, thus obscuring equality WITH them still further.

Projection and attack are inevitably related, because projection is ALWAYS a means of JUSTIFYING attack. Anger without projection is impossible. The ego uses projection ONLY to distort your perception of both yourself AND your brothers. It begins by excluding something you think exists in you which you do not want, and leads directly to your excluding yourself from your brothers.

But we know that there is another use of projection. Every ability of the ego has a better counterpart, because its abilities are directed by the mind, which has a better voice. The Holy Spirit, as well as the ego, utilizes projection but since their goals are opposed, so is the result. The Holy Spirit begins by perceiving YOU as perfect. KNOWING this perfection is shared, it RECOGNIZES it in others, thus strengthening it in both. Instead of anger, this arouses love FOR both because IT ESTABLISHES INCLUSION. Perceiving equality, it perceives equal needs. This invites Atonement automatically, because Atonement IS the one need which is universal.

To perceive YOURSELF in this way is the ONLY way in which you can find happiness in this world. This is because it is the acknowledgement that you are NOT in this world, and the world IS unhappy. How else can you find joy in a joyless place EXCEPT by realizing that YOU ARE NOT THERE? You cannot be ANYWHERE that God did not put you, and God created you as part of HIM. That is both WHERE you are and WHAT you are. This is COMPLETELY unalterable. It is total inclusion. You cannot change this now or ever. It is forever true. It is NOT a belief, but a fact.

Anything that God creates is as true as He is. Its truth lies only in its perfect inclusion in Him Who alone IS perfect. To deny this in any way is to deny yourself AND Him, because it is impossible to accept one without the other. The perfect equality of the Holy Spirit's perception is the counterpart of the perfect equality of God's knowing. The ego's perception has no counterpart in God, but the Holy Spirit remains the bridge between perception and knowledge. By enabling you to use perception in a way that PARALLELS knowledge, you will ultimately meet it and KNOW it.

The ego prefers to believe that parallel lines do not meet, and conceives of their meeting as impossible. But you might remember that the human eye perceives them as if they DO meet in the distance, which is the same as IN THE FUTURE, if time and space are one dimension. The later mathematics support the interpretation of ultimate convergence of the parallel theoretically. EVERYTHING meets in God, because everything was created BY Him and IN Him. God created His Sons by extending His Thought and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind. ALL His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other because they, were created neither partially nor in part.

The Holy Spirit enables you to PERCEIVE THIS WHOLENESS NOW. You can no more pray for yourselves alone than you can find joy for yourself alone. Prayer is a re-statement of INCLUSION, directed by the Holy Spirit under the laws of God. God created you to create. You cannot EXTEND His Kingdom until you KNOW of its wholeness. But thoughts begin in the mind OF THE THINKER, from which they extend outward. This is as true of God's thinking as it is of yours. Because your minds are split, you can also perceive as well as think, but perception cannot escape from the basic laws of mind. You perceive FROM your mind, and extend your perceptions outward.

Although perception of any kind is unnecessary, YOU made it and the Holy Spirit can therefore use it well. He can INSPIRE perception and lead it toward God by making it PARALLEL to God's way of thinking, and thus guaranteeing their ultimate meeting. This convergence SEEMS to be far in the future ONLY because your mind is NOT in perfect alignment with the idea, and therefore DOES NOT WANT IT NOW. The Holy Spirit USES time, but does NOT believe in it. Coming from God, He uses EVERYTHING for good, but does not BELIEVE in what is not true.

Since the Holy Spirit IS in your minds, then your minds MUST be able to believe ONLY what is true. The Holy Spirit can speak only for this, because he speaks for God. He tells you to return your whole mind to God, BECAUSE IT HAS NEVER LEFT HIM. If it has never left Him, you need only perceive it AS IT IS to BE returned. The full awareness of the Atonement, then, is the recognition that the separation NEVER OCCURRED. The ego CANNOT prevail against this, because it is an explicit statement that the EGO never occurred.

The ego can accept the idea that RETURN is necessary, because it can so easily make the idea seem so difficult. But the Holy Spirit tells you that even RETURN is unnecessary, because what never happened CANNOT involve ANY problem. But it does NOT follow that YOU cannot make the idea of return both necessary AND difficult. God made nothing either necessary OR difficult. But YOU have perceived both AS IF they were part of His perfect creations. Yet it is surely clear that the perfect NEED nothing, and CANNOT experience perfection as a difficult accomplishment because that is what they ARE.

This is the way in which you MUST perceive God's Creations, bringing all of your perceptions into the one parallel line which the Holy Spirit sees. This line is the direct line of communication with God, and lets YOUR mind converge with HIS. There is NO CONFLICT ANYWHERE in this perception, because it means that ALL perception is guided by the Holy Spirit, whose mind is fixed on God. ONLY the Holy Spirit can resolve conflict, because ONLY the Holy Spirit is conflict-free. He perceives ONLY what is true in YOUR mind, and extends outward to ONLY what is true in other minds.

The difference between the ego's use of projection and projection as the Holy Spirit uses it is very simple. The ego projects to EXCLUDE and therefore to deceive. The Holy Spirit projects by RECOGNIZING HIMSELF in EVERY mind, and thus perceives them as ONE. Nothing conflicts in this perception, because what the Holy Spirit perceives IS the same. Wherever He looks He sees Himself, and because He is UNITED, He offers the whole Kingdom always. This is the one message which God gave TO Him, and for which He must speak because that is what He IS. The peace of God lies in that message, and so the peace of God lies in YOU.

The great peace of the Kingdom shines in your mind forever, but it must shine OUTWARD to make YOU aware of it. The Holy Spirit was given you with perfect impartiality, and only by perceiving Him impartially can you perceive Him at all. The ego is legion, but the Holy Spirit is one. No darkness abides ANYWHERE in the Kingdom, so your part is only to allow no darkness to abide in your OWN mind. This alignment with Light is unlimited, because it is in alignment with the Light of the world. Each of us IS the Light of the world, and by joining our minds IN this Light, we proclaim the Kingdom of God together and AS ONE.

Section 8 - The Meeting-Place

How bitterly does everyone tied to this world defend the specialness he WANTS to be the truth! His wish is law to him, and he obeys. Nothing his specialness demands does he withhold. Nothing it needs does he deny to what he loves. And, while it calls to him, he hears no other Voice. No effort is too great, no cost too much, no price too dear, to save his specialness from the least slight, the tiniest attack, the whispered doubt, the hint of threat, or anything but deepest reverence. This is your son, beloved of you as you are to your Father. Yet it stands in place of your creations, who ARE Son to you, that you might SHARE the Fatherhood of God, not snatch it FROM Him.

What IS this son that you have made to be your strength? What is this child of earth, on whom such love is lavished? What is this parody of God's creation, that takes the place of YOURS? And where are THEY, now that the host of God has found another son that he prefers to them? The memory of God shines not alone. What is within your brother still contains ALL of creation, everything created and creating, born and unborn as yet, still in the future or apparently gone by. What is in him is changeless, and YOUR changelessness is recognized in its acknowledgment. The holiness in you belongs to him. And, BY your seeing it in him, returns to YOU.

All of the tribute you have given specialness belongs to him, and thus returns to you. All of the love and care, the strong protection, the thought by day and night, the deep concern, the powerful conviction this is you, belong to him. Nothing you gave to specialness but is HIS due. And nothing due him is NOT due to you. How will you KNOW your worth, while specialness claims you instead? How can you FAIL to know it, in his holiness? Seek not to make your specialness the truth, for, if it were, you would be lost indeed. Be thankful, rather, it is given you to see his holiness BECAUSE it is the truth. And what is true in him MUST be as true in you.

Ask yourself this: CAN YOU PROTECT THE MIND? The body, yes, a little; not from time, but temporarily. And much you think to save, you hurt. What would you save it FOR? For, in that choice, lie both its health AND harm. Save it for show, as bait to catch another fish, to house your specialness in better style, or weave a frame of loveliness around your hate, and you condemn it to decay and pain. And, if you see this purpose in your brother's, such is your condemnation of your own. Weave rather, then, a frame of holiness around him, that the truth may shine in him, and give YOU safety from decay.

The test of EVERYTHING on earth is simply this: "What is it FOR?" The answer makes it what it IS for you. It has NO meaning of itself, yet you can GIVE reality to it, according to the purpose which YOU serve. Here, YOU are but means, along with it. God is a Means as well as End. In Heaven, means and end are one, and One with Him. This is the state of true creation, found not within time, but in eternity. To no-one here is this describable. Nor is there any way to learn what this condition means. Not 'til you go PAST learning to the Given; not 'til you make again a holy home for YOUR creations is it understood.

A co-creator with the Father must have a Son. Yet must this Son have been created like Himself. A perfect Being, all-encompassing and all-encompassed, nothing to add and nothing taken FROM; not born of size nor weight nor time, nor held to limits or uncertainties of ANY kind. Here do the means and end unite as One, nor does this One have any end at all. All this is true, and yet it has no meaning to anyone who still retains one unlearned lesson in his memory; one thought with purpose still uncertain, or one wish with a divided aim.

This course makes no attempt to teach what cannot easily be learned. Its scope does not exceed your own. Except to say that what is yours will come to you when you are ready. Here, are the means and purpose separate, because they were so made and so perceived. And therefore do we deal with them as if they were. It is essential it be kept in mind that ALL perception still is upside down, until its PURPOSE has been understood. Perception does not SEEM to be a means. And it is this that makes it hard to grasp the whole extent to which it MUST depend on what you use it FOR.

Perception seems to TEACH you what you see. Yet it but witnesses to what YOU taught. It is the outward picture of a wish, an image that you WANTED to be true. Look at yourself, and you will see a body. Look at this body in a different light, and it looks different. And without a light, it seems that it is gone. Yet you are reassured that it is there, because you still can feel it with your hands, and hear it move.

Here is an image that you WANT to be yourself. It is the means to make your wish come true. It GIVES the eyes with which you look on it, the hands that feel it, and the ears with which you listened to the sounds it makes. IT PROVES ITS OWN REALITY TO YOU. Thus is the body made a THEORY of yourself, with NO provisions made for evidence BEYOND itself, and NO escape within its sight. Its course is sure, when seen through its own eyes. It grows and withers, flourishes and dies. And you cannot conceive of you APART from it. You brand it sinful, and you hate its acts, judging it evil. Yet your specialness whispers, "Here is my own beloved son, with whom I am well pleased."

Thus does the son become the MEANS to serve his father's purpose. NOT identical, not even like, but still a means to offer to the father WHAT HE WANTS. Such is the travesty on God's creation. For, as His Son's creation gave HIM joy, and witness to HIS Love and shared HIS Purpose, so does the body testify to the idea that made it, and speak for ITS reality and truth. And thus are two sons made, and BOTH appear to walk this earth without a meeting place, and NO encounter. One do you see OUTSIDE yourself, your OWN beloved son. The other rests within, His Father's Son, within your brother as he is in you.

Their difference does not lie in how they look, or where they go, or even what they do. THEY SHARE A DIFFERENT PURPOSE. It is this that joins them to their like, and separates each from all aspects with a DIFFERENT purpose. The Son of God retains his Father's Will. The son of man perceives an alien will, AND WISHES IT WERE SO. And thus does his perception serve his wish, by giving it APPEARANCES of truth. Yet can perception serve ANOTHER goal. It is not bound to specialness, but by your choice. And it IS given you to make a different choice, and use perception FOR A DIFFERENT PURPOSE. And what you see will serve that purpose well, and prove ITS own reality to you.

Section 8 - "Be Vigilant Only for God and His Kingdom"

But what you must remember is that what the Holy Spirit REJECTS the ego ACCEPTS. This is because they are in fundamental disagreement about everything, because they are in fundamental disagreement about WHAT YOU ARE. The ego's beliefs on this crucial issue vary, and that is why it promotes different moods. The Holy Spirit NEVER varies on this point, and so the ONE mood that He engenders is joy. He PROTECTS this by rejecting everything that does NOT foster joy, and so He alone can keep you wholly joyous.

The Holy Spirit does not teach your mind to be critical of other minds, because He does not want you to teach your errors and LEARN THEM YOURSELVES. He would hardly be consistent if He allowed you to STRENGTHEN what you must learn to avoid. In the mind of the THINKER, then, He IS judgmental, but only in order to unify it so IT CAN perceive WITHOUT judgment. This enables the mind to TEACH without judgment and therefore learn to BE without judgment. The UNdoing is necessary only in YOUR mind, so that you cannot PROJECT it. God Himself has established what you can project with perfect safety. Therefore, the Holy Spirit's third lesson is: Be vigilant ONLY for God and HIS Kingdom.

This is a major step toward FUNDAMENTAL change. Yet it is still a lesson in thought REVERSAL, because it implies that there is something you must be vigilant AGAINST. It has advanced far from the first lesson which was PRIMARILY a reversal, and also from the second, which was essentially the identification of what is MORE desirable. This step, which follows from the second as the second does from the first, emphasizes the DICHOTOMY between the desirable and the UNdesirable. It therefore makes the ULTIMATE choice inevitable. But while the first step seems to INCREASE conflict, and the second still ENTAILS it to some extent, this one calls for CONSISTENT EFFORT AGAINST IT.

We said already that you can be as vigilant AGAINST the ego as FOR it. This lesson teaches not that you CAN be, but that you MUST be. It does not concern itself with order of difficulty, but with CLEAR-CUT PRIORITY FOR VIGILANCE. This step is unequivocal in that it teaches THERE MUST BE NO EXCEPTIONS, but it does NOT deny that the temptations to MAKE exceptions will occur. Here, then, your consistency is called on DESPITE chaos. But chaos and consistency CANNOT coexist for long, because they are MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. As long as you must be vigilant against ANYTHING, however, you are not recognizing this, and are holding the belief that you can CHOOSE EITHER ONE.

By teaching you WHAT to choose, the Holy Spirit will ultimately be able to teach you that YOU NEED NOT CHOOSE AT ALL. This will finally liberate your will FROM choice, and direct it toward creation WITHIN the Kingdom. Choosing through the Holy Spirit will only lead you TO it. You create by what you ARE, but this IS what you must learn. The way to learn it is INHERENT in the third step, which brings together the lessons inherent in the others, and goes beyond them toward real integration.

If you allow yourselves to HAVE in your minds only what God put there, you are acknowledging your mind as God created it. Therefore, you are accepting it AS IT IS. And since it IS whole, you are teaching peace BECAUSE you have believed in it. The final step will still be taken FOR you by God. But by the third step, the Holy Spirit has PREPARED you FOR God. He is GETTING YOU READY to translate having into being by the very nature of the steps you must take WITH Him. You learn first that having rests on GIVING and NOT getting. Next you learn that you learn what you TEACH, and that you WANT TO LEARN PEACE. This is the CONDITION for identifying WITH the Kingdom, because it is the condition OF the Kingdom.

But you have believed that you are WITHOUT the Kingdom, and have therefore excluded yourself FROM it in your belief. It is therefore essential to teach you that YOU must be INCLUDED, and the BELIEF THAT YOU ARE NOT is the ONLY thing that you must exclude.

The third step is thus one of PROTECTION for your minds by allowing you to identify ONLY with the center, where God placed the altar to HIMSELF. We have already said that altars are BELIEFS, but God and His creations are BEYOND belief because they are beyond question. The Voice FOR God speaks only for BELIEF beyond question, but this IS the preparation for BEING without question.

As long as belief in God and His Kingdom is assailed by ANY doubts in your minds, His perfect Accomplishment is NOT apparent to you. This is why you MUST be vigilant ON GOD's BEHALF. The ego speaks AGAINST His Creation, and therefore DOES engender doubt. You cannot go BEYOND belief UNTIL you believe wholly. No one can EXTEND a lesson he has NOT LEARNED FULLY. Transfer, which IS extension, is the measure of learning because it is the MEASURABLE RESULT. This, however, does NOT mean that what it transfers TO is measurable. On the contrary, unless it transfers to the whole Sonship, which is immeasurable because it was created BY the Immeasurable, the learning itself MUST be incomplete.

To teach the WHOLE Sonship WITHOUT EXCEPTION demonstrates that you PERCEIVE ITS WHOLENESS and have learned that it IS One. Now you must be vigilant to HOLD its Oneness in your minds because if you allow doubt to enter, YOU will lose awareness of its wholeness, and WILL BE UNABLE TO TEACH IT. The wholeness of the Kingdom does NOT depend on your perception, but your AWARENESS of its wholeness DOES. It is only your awareness that NEEDS protection, because your BEING cannot be assailed. Yet a real sense of being CANNOT be yours while you are doubtful of what you ARE. THIS IS WHY VIGILANCE IS ESSENTIAL. Doubts ABOUT being MUST not enter your mind, or you CANNOT know what you are with certainty.

Certainty is OF God for YOU. Vigilance is not necessary for truth, but it IS necessary AGAINST ILLUSION. Truth is WITHOUT illusions, and therefore WITHIN the Kingdom. Everything OUTSIDE the Kingdom IS ILLUSION. But you must learn to ACCEPT truth because YOU THREW IT AWAY. You therefore saw yourself AS IF you were WITHOUT it. By making another Kingdom WHICH YOU VALUED, you did NOT keep the Kingdom of God alone in your minds, and thus placed part of your mind OUTSIDE of it. What you have made has thus DIVIDED YOUR WILL and given you a sick mind that MUST be healed. Your vigilance AGAINST this sickness IS the way to heal it.

Once YOUR mind is healed, it radiates health and thereby TEACHES healing. This establishes you as a teacher who teaches LIKE me. Vigilance was required of me as much as of you. But remember that those who will to teach the same thing MUST be in agreement about what they believe.

The third step, then, is a statement of what you WANT to believe, and entails a willingness to RELINQUISH EVERYTHING ELSE. I told you that you were just beginning the second step, but I also told you that the third one FOLLOWS it. The Holy Spirit WILL enable you to go on IF YOU FOLLOW HIM. Your vigilance is the sign that you WANT Him to guide you. Vigilance DOES require effort, but only to teach you that effort ITSELF is unnecessary. You have exerted GREAT effort to preserve what you made BECAUSE it is NOT true. Therefore, you must now turn your effort AGAINST it. Only this can cancel out the NEED for effort, and call upon the BEING which you both HAVE and ARE. THIS recognition is wholly WITHOUT effort, because it is ALREADY true and needs no protection. It is in the perfect safety of God. Therefore, inclusion is total and Creation is WITHOUT LIMIT.

Chapter 17 - How Should the Teacher of God Spend his Day?

But what about those who have not reached his certainty? They are not yet ready for such lack of structuring on their own part. What must they do to learn to give the day to God? There are some general rules which do apply, although each one must use them as best he can in his own way. Routines as such are dangerous, because they easily become gods in their own right, threatening the very goals for which they were set up. Broadly speaking, then, it can be said that it is well to start the day right. It is always possible to begin again, should the day begin with error. Yet there are obvious advantages in terms of saving time if the need for this can be avoided.

At the beginning it is wise to think in terms of time. This is by no means the ultimate criterion, but at the outset it is probably the simplest to observe. The saving of time is an essential early emphasis which, although it remains important throughout the learning process, becomes less and less emphasized. At the outset, we can safely say that time devoted to starting the day right does indeed save time. How much time should be so spent? This must depend on the teacher of God himself. He cannot claim that title until he has gone through the Workbook, since we are learning within the framework of our course. After completion of the more structured practice periods which the Workbook contains, individual need becomes the chief consideration.

This course is always practical. It may be that the teacher of God is not in a situation which fosters quiet thought as he awakes. If this is so, let him but remember that he chooses to spend time with God as soon as possible, and let him do so. Duration is not the major concern. One can easily sit still an hour with closed eyes, and accomplish nothing. One can as easily give God only an instant, and in that instant join with Him completely. Perhaps the one generalization that can be made is this; as soon as possible after waking take your quiet time, continuing a minute or two after you begin to find it difficult. You may find that the difficulty will diminish and drop away. If not, that is the time to stop.

The same procedures should be followed at night. Perhaps your quiet time should be fairly early in the evening, if it is not feasible for you to take it just before going to sleep. It is not wise to lie down for it. It is better to sit up, in whatever position you prefer. Having gone through the Workbook you must have come to some conclusions in this respect. If possible, however, just before sleeping is a desirable time to devote to God. It sets your mind into a pattern of rest, and orients you away from fear. If it is expedient to spend this time earlier, at least be sure that you do not forget a brief period,- not more than a moment will do,- in which you close your eyes and think of God.

There is one thought in particular that should be remembered throughout the day. It is a thought of pure joy; a thought of peace, a thought of limitless release, - limitless because all things are freed within it. You think you made a place of safety for yourself. You think you made a power that can save you from all the fearful things you see in dreams. It is not so. Your safety lies not there. What you give up is merely the illusion of protecting illusions. And it is this you fear, and only this. How foolish to be so afraid of nothing! Nothing at all! Your defenses will not work, but you are not in danger. You have no need of them. Recognize this and they will disappear. And only then will you accept your real protection.

How simply and how easily does time slip by for the teacher of God who has accepted His protection! All that he did before in the name of safety no longer interests him. For he is safe, and knows it to be so. He has a Guide Who will not fail. He need make no distinctions among the problems he perceives, for He to Whom he turns with all of them recognizes no order of difficulty in resolving them. He is as safe in the present as he was before illusions were accepted into his mind, and as he will be when he has let them go. There is no difference in his state at different times and different places, because they are all one to God. This is his safety. And he has no need for more than this.

Yet there will be temptations along the way the teacher of God has yet to travel, and he has need of reminding himself throughout the day of his protection. How can he do this, particularly during the time when his mind is occupied with external things? He can but try, and his success depends on his conviction that he will succeed. He must be sure success is not of him, but will be given him at any time, in any place and circumstance he calls for it. There are times his certainty will waver, and the instant this occurs he will return to earlier attempts to place reliance on himself alone. Forget not this is magic, and that magic is a sorry substitute for true assistance. It is not good enough for God's teacher because it is not good enough for God's Son.

The avoidance of magic is the avoidance of temptation. For all temptation is nothing more than the attempt to substitute another will for God's. These attempts may indeed seem frightening, yet they are merely pathetic. They can have no effects; neither good nor bad, neither rewarding nor demanding sacrifice, healing nor destructive, quieting nor fearful. When all magic is recognized as merely nothing, the teacher of God has reached the most advanced state. All intermediate lessons will but lead to this, and bring this goal nearer to recognition. For magic of any kind, in all its forms, simply does nothing. Its powerlessness is the reason it can be so easily escaped. What has no effects can hardly terrify.

There is no substitute for the Will of God. In simple statement, it is to this fact that the teacher of God devotes his day. Each substitute he may accept as real can but deceive him. But he is safe from all deception if he so decides. Perhaps he needs to remember "God is with me. I cannot be deceived." Perhaps he prefers other words, or only one or none at all. Yet each temptation to accept magic as true must be abandoned through his recognition not that it is fearful, not that it is sinful, not that it is dangerous, but merely that it is meaningless. Rooted in sacrifice and separation, two aspects of one error and no more, he merely chooses to give up all that he never had. And for this "sacrifice" is Heaven restored to his awareness.

Is not this an exchange that you would want? The world would gladly make it, if it knew it could be made. It is God's teachers who must teach it that it can. And so it is their function to make sure that they have learned it. No risk is possible throughout the day except to put your trust in magic, for it is only this that leads to pain. "There is no will but God's." His teachers know that this is so, and have learned that everything but this is magic. All belief in magic is maintained by just one simple-minded illusion; - that it works. All through his training, every day and hour, and even every minute and second, must God's teachers learn to recognize the forms of magic and perceive their meaninglessness. Fear is withdrawn from them and so they go. And thus the Gate of Heaven is reopened, and its light can shine again on an untroubled mind.

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.

It is HIS sinlessness that eyes that see can look upon. It is HIS loveliness they see in everything. And it is HE they look for everywhere, and find no sight or place or time where He is NOT. Within your brother's holiness, the perfect frame for YOUR salvation and the world's, is set the shining memory of Him in Whom your brother lives, and you along with him. Let not your eyes be blinded by the veil of specialness that hides the face of Christ from him, and you as well. And let the fear of God no longer hold the vision you were MEANT to see from you. Your brother's BODY shows not Christ to you. He IS set forth within his holiness.

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 9 - The "Hero" of the Dream

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

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

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

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

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

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

Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects. Together, we can laugh them BOTH away, and understand that time can NOT intrude upon eternity. It IS a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which MEANS there is no time. A timelessness in which is time made real; a Part of God Which can attack Itself; a separate brother as an enemy; a mind WITHIN a body; all are forms of circularity, whose ending starts at its beginning, ending at its cause.

The world but demonstrates an ancient truth; - you WILL believe that others do to you EXACTLY what you think you did to them. But, once deluded into blaming THEM, you will not see the CAUSE of what they do BECAUSE you want the guilt to rest on them. How childish is this petulant device to keep your innocence by pushing guilt OUTSIDE yourself, but NEVER letting go! It is not easy to perceive the jest, when all around you do your eyes behold its heavy consequences, but WITHOUT their trifling cause. Without the cause do its effects seem serious and sad indeed. Yet they but follow. And it is their CAUSE which follows nothing, and is but a jest.

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

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

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

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

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

Section 3 - The Treachery of Specialness

Comparison MUST be an ego device, for love makes none. Specialness ALWAYS makes comparisons. It is ESTABLISHED by a lack seen in another, and maintained by searching for and keeping clear in sight all lacks it can perceive. This does it seek, and this it looks upon. And ALWAYS whom it thus diminishes would be your Savior, had you not chosen to make of him a tiny measure of your specialness instead. Against the littleness you see in him you stand as tall and stately, clean and honest, pure and unsullied by comparison with what you see.

Nor do you understand it is YOURSELF that you diminish thus. Pursuit of specialness is always at the cost of peace. Who can attack his Savior, and cut him down, and recognize his strong support? Who can detract from his omnipotence, and SHARE his power? And who can use him as the gauge of littleness, and be RELEASED from limits? You have a function in salvation. ITS pursuit will bring you joy. But the pursuit of specialness MUST bring you pain. Here is a goal that would defeat salvation, and thus run COUNTER to the Will of God. To value specialness is to esteem an alien will, to which illusions of yourself ARE dearer than the truth.

Specialness is the idea of sin MADE REAL. Sin is impossible even to imagine, without this base. For sin rose from it, out of nothingness, an evil flower with no roots at all. Here is the self-made savior, the creator who creates UNLIKE the Father, and which made His Son like to itself, and NOT like unto Him. His SPECIAL sons are many, NEVER one, each one in exile from himself and Him of Whom they are a part. Nor do they love the Oneness which created them as One with Him. They chose their specialness INSTEAD of Heaven and INSTEAD of peace, and wrapped it carefully in sin, to keep it "safe" from truth.

You are NOT special. If you think you are, and would defend your specialness against the truth of what you REALLY are, how can you know the truth? What answer that the Holy Spirit gives can reach you, when it is your specialness to which you listen, and which asks AND ANSWERS? Its tiny answer, soundless in the melody which pours from God to you eternally in loving praise of what you are, is all you listen to. And that vast song of honor and of love for what you are seems silent and unheard before ITS mightiness. You strain your ears to hear ITS soundless voice, and yet the Call of God Himself is soundless to you.

You CAN defend your specialness, but never will you hear the Voice for God beside it. They speak a different language, and they fall on different ears. To every special one a DIFFERENT message, and one with DIFFERENT meaning, is the truth. Yet how CAN truth be different to each one? The special messages the special hear convince them THEY are different and apart; each in his special sins and safe from love, which does not see his specialness at all. Christ's Vision IS their enemy, for it sees not what THEY would look upon. And it WOULD show them that the specialness they think they see IS an illusion.

What would they see instead? The shining radiance of the Son of God, so like his Father that the memory of Him springs instantly to mind. And with this memory, the Son remembers his own creations, as like to him as he is to his Father. And all the world he made, and all his specialness, and all the sins he held in its defense AGAINST himself, will vanish as his mind accepts the truth about himself, as it returns to take their place. This is the only "cost" of truth. You will no longer see what never was, nor hear what makes no sound. Is it a sacrifice to give up nothing, and to receive the Love of God forever?

You who have chained your Savior to your specialness, and given it HIS place, remember this: He has NOT lost the power to forgive you all the sins you think you placed between him and the function of salvation GIVEN him for you. Nor will you CHANGE his function, any more than you can change the truth in him and in yourself. But be you certain that the truth is just the same in both. It gives no different messages, and has ONE meaning. And it is one you BOTH can understand, and one which brings release to BOTH of you. Here stands your brother with the key to Heaven in his hand, held out to you. Let not the dream of specialness remain between you. What is one IS joined in truth.

Think of the loveliness that you will see within yourself, when you have looked on him as on a Friend. He IS the enemy of specialness, but ONLY friend to what is real in you. Not one attack you thought you made on him has taken from him the gift that God would have him give to you. His need to give it is as great as yours to have it. Let him forgive you all your specialness, and make you whole in mind, and one with him. He waits for your forgiveness only that he may return it unto you. It is not God Who has condemned His Son. But ONLY you, to save his specialness, and kill his Self.

You have come far along the way of truth; too far to falter now. Just one step more, and every vestige of the fear of God will melt away in love. Your brother's specialness and yours ARE enemies, and bound in hate to kill each other and DENY they are the same. Yet it is not illusions that have reached this final obstacle that seems to make God and His Heaven so remote that they cannot be reached. Here, in this holy place, does truth stand waiting to receive you both in silent blessing, and in peace so real and so encompassing that NOTHING stands outside.

Leave all illusions of yourself OUTSIDE this place, to which you come in hope and honesty. Here is your Savior FROM your specialness. He is in need of your acceptance of himself as part of you, as you for his. You are alike to God as God is to Himself. He is not special, for He would not keep one part of what He is unto Himself, NOT given to His Son, but kept for Him alone. And it is this you fear; for, if He is not special, then He willed His Son be like Him, and your brother IS like you. Not special, but possessed of everything, INCLUDING you.

Give him but what he has, remembering God gave Himself to BOTH of you in equal love, that both might share the universe with Him Who chose that love could never be divided and kept separate from what it IS and must forever be. You ARE your brother's; part of love was not DENIED to him. But can it be that YOU have lost because HE is complete? What has been given him makes YOU complete, as it does him. God's love gave you to him and him to you, BECAUSE He gave Himself. What is the same as God IS One with Him. And ONLY specialness could make the truth of God and you AS One seem anything BUT Heaven. And the hope of peace at last in sight.

Specialness is the seal of treachery upon the gift of love. Whatever serves its purpose MUST be given to kill. No gift that bears its seal but offers treachery to giver and receiver. Not one glance from eyes it veils but looks on sight of death. Not one believer in its potency but seeks for bargains and for compromise that would establish sin as love's substitute, and serve it faithfully. And no relationship that holds its purpose dear but clings to murder as safety's weapon, and the great defender of all illusions from the "threat" of love.

The key you threw away God gave your brother, whose holy hands would offer it to you, when you were ready to accept His plan for your salvation in place of yours. How could this readiness be reached save through the sight of all your misery, and the awareness that your plan has failed, and will forever fail to bring you peace and joy of ANY kind? Through this despair you travel now, yet it is but ILLUSION of despair. The death of specialness is NOT your death, but your awaking into Life Eternal. You but emerge from an illusion of what you are, to the acceptance of yourself as God created you.

Section 5 - The Recognition of Truth

God's MEANING waits in the Kingdom because that is where He placed it. It does NOT wait in time. It merely RESTS there (in the Kingdom) because it BELONGS there, as YOU do. How can you, who ARE God's meaning, perceive yourselves as absent FROM it? You can see yourselves as separated FROM your meaning only by EXPERIENCING YOURSELF AS UNREAL. This is WHY the ego is insane; it teaches that you are NOT what you ARE. This is so contradictory that it is clearly impossible. It is therefore a lesson which you CANNOT REALLY LEARN, and therefore CANNOT REALLY TEACH. But you ARE always teaching. You MUST, then, be teaching SOMETHING ELSE AS WELL, even though the ego DOES NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS.

The ego, then, IS always being undone, and DOES suspect your motives. Your mind CANNOT be unified in allegiance to the ego, because the mind does NOT BELONG to it. But what is "treacherous" to the ego IS faithful to peace. The ego's "enemy" is therefore YOUR friend. We said before that the ego's friend is not part of you but that is because the ego perceives itself as at war and therefore in need of allies. YOU, who are NOT at war, must look for brothers and RECOGNIZE all you see AS brothers, because ONLY EQUALS ARE AT PEACE.

Because God's equal Sons have everything, they CANNOT compete. But if they perceive ANY of their brothers as anything OTHER than their perfect equals, the IDEA of competition HAS entered their minds. Do not underestimate your need to be vigilant AGAINST this idea, because ALL your conflicts come FROM it. It IS the belief that conflicting interests are possible, and therefore means that you have accepted the IMpossible as true. How is that different from saying that you are perceiving YOURSELF as unreal?

To be IN the Kingdom is merely to focus your full attention ON it. As long as you believe that you can ATTEND to what is NOT true, you are accepting conflict as your CHOICE. IS IT REALLY A CHOICE? It SEEMS to be, but seeming and reality are hardly the same. You who ARE the Kingdom are not concerned with seeming. Reality is yours because you ARE reality. This is how having and being are ultimately reconciled, NOT in the Kingdom, but IN YOUR MINDS. The altar there is the ONLY reality. It is PERFECTLY clear in its thought, because it is a reflection of PERFECT Thought. It SEES only brothers because it sees ONLY in its own Light.

Healing is both an art and a science, as has so often been said. It is an art because it depends on inspiration in the sense that we have already used the term. Inspiration is the opposite of dis-spiriting, and therefore means to make joyful. The dis-spirited are depressed because they believe that they are literally "without the Spirit," which is an illusion. You do not PUT the Spirit in them by inspiring them, because that would be "magic," and therefore would not be real healing. But you DO recognize the Spirit that is ALREADY THERE, and thereby REAWAKEN IT. This is why the healer is part of the Resurrection and the LIFE. The SPIRIT is not asleep in the minds of the sick, but the part of the mind that can perceive it and be glad IS.

Healing is also a science because it obeys the laws of God, whose laws are true. BECAUSE they are true, they are perfectly dependable, and therefore universal in application. The real aim of science is neither prediction nor control, but ONLY UNDERSTANDING. This is because it does NOT establish the laws it seeks; CANNOT discover them through prediction, and has NO control over them at all. Science is nothing more than an approach to WHAT ALREADY IS. Like inspiration, it can be misunderstood as magic, and WILL be whenever it is undertaken as SEPARATE from what already is, and perceived as a means for ESTABLISHING it. To believe this is possible is to believe YOU CAN DO IT. This can ONLY be the voice of the ego.

Truth can only be RECOGNIZED, and NEED only be recognized. Inspiration is of the Spirit, and certainty is of God according to His laws. Both therefore come from the same Source, because inspiration comes from the voice FOR God and certainty comes from the laws OF God. Healing does not come DIRECTLY from God, who knows His Creations as perfectly whole. But healing is nevertheless OF God, because it proceeds from His Voice and from His laws. It is their RESULT in a state of mind which does not know Him. The STATE is unknown to Him, and therefore does not exist. But those who sleep are stupefied, or better, UNAWARE. And BECAUSE they are unaware THEY DO NOT KNOW.

The Holy Spirit must work THROUGH you to teach you He is IN you. This is an intermediary step toward the knowledge that YOU are in God BECAUSE YOU ARE PART OF HIM. The miracles which the Holy Spirit inspires CAN have no order, because every part of Creation IS of one order. This is God's will AND yours. The laws of God ESTABLISH this, and the Holy Spirit reminds you OF it. When you heal, you are REMEMBERING THE LAWS OF GOD and FORGETTING the laws of the ego. We said before that forgetting is merely a way of REMEMBERING BETTER. It is therefore NOT the opposite of remembering, when it is properly conceived. Perceived IMproperly, it induces a perception of CONFLICT WITH SOMETHING ELSE, as all incorrect perception does. PROPERLY perceived, it can be used as a way OUT of conflict, as all proper perception can.

ALL abilities, then should be given over to the Holy Spirit, WHO KNOWS HOW TO USE THEM PROPERLY. He can use them ONLY for healing, because He knows you ONLY as whole. BY healing you learn of wholeness, and by learning of wholeness you learn to remember God. You HAVE forgotten Him, but the Holy Spirit still knows that YOUR forgetting MUST be translated into a way of remembering, and NOT perceived as a SEPARATE ability which OPPOSES AN OPPOSITE. This is the way in which the ego tries to use ALL abilities, because its goal is ALWAYS to make YOU believe that YOU are in opposition.

The ego's goal is as unified as the Holy Spirit's, and it is BECAUSE of this that their goals can NEVER be reconciled in ANY way or to ANY extent. The ego ALWAYS seeks to divide and separate. The Holy Spirit ALWAYS seeks to unify and HEAL. As you heal, you ARE healed because the Holy Spirit sees NO ORDER OF HEALING. Healing IS the way to undo the belief in differences, because it is the ONLY way of perceiving the Sonship WITHOUT this belief. This perception is therefore IN accord with the laws of God even in a state of mind which is OUT of accord with His. But the strength of right perception is so great that it brings the mind INTO accord with His, because it yields to His pull which IS in all of you.

To oppose the pull or the will of God is not an ability but a real delusion. The ego believes that it HAS this ability, and can offer this ability to YOU as a gift. YOU DO NOT WANT IT. It is NOT a gift. It is NOTHING AT ALL. God HAS given you a gift, which you both HAVE and ARE. When you do not USE it, you do not know you HAVE it. By not knowing this, you do NOT know what you ARE. Healing, then, is a way of APPROACHING knowledge by THINKING in accordance with the laws of God and RECOGNIZING THEIR UNIVERSALITY. WITHOUT this recognition, you have made the laws themselves meaningless TO you. But the LAWS are not meaningless, because all meaning is contained BY them, and IN them.

Seek ye FIRST the Kingdom of Heaven, because that is where the laws of God operate truly, and they can operate ONLY truly, because they are the laws of Truth. But SEEK THIS ONLY, because you can FIND nothing else. There IS nothing else. God is all in all in a very literal sense. All being is in Him because He IS all Being. YOU are therefore in Him because YOUR being IS His. Healing is a way of FORGETTING the sense of danger that the ego has induced in YOU by not recognizing its existence in your brothers. This strengthens the Holy Spirit in BOTH of you, because it is a REFUSAL TO ACKNOWLEDGE FEAR. Love needs only this invitation. It comes freely to ALL the Sonship, because it is what the Sonship IS. By their awakening TO it, they merely forget what they are NOT. This enables them to remember what they ARE.

Section 7 - Dreams and the Body

THERE IS NOTHING OUTSIDE YOU. That is what you must ultimately learn, for it is in that realization that the Kingdom of Heaven is restored to you. For God created only this, and He did not depart from it, nor leave it separate from Himself. The Kingdom of Heaven is the dwelling place of the Son of God, who left not his Father, and dwells not apart from Him. Heaven is not a place nor a condition. It is merely an awareness of perfect Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else. Nothing OUTSIDE THIS Oneness, and NOTHING ELSE within.

What could God give, but knowledge of Himself? What else IS there to give? The belief that you could give AND GET something, else, something OUTSIDE yourself, has cost you the awareness of Heaven, and the loss of knowledge of your identity. And you have done a stranger thing than you yet realize. You have displaced your guilt to your bodies, FROM YOUR MINDS. Yet a body CANNOT be guilty, for it can do nothing of itself. You who think you hate your bodies, deceive yourselves. YOU HATE YOUR MINDS, for guilt has entered into them, and they would remain separate, which they CANNOT DO.

In this, the mind is CLEARLY delusional. It cannot attack, but maintains it CAN, and USES what it does to hurt the body, to PROVE it can. The mind can not attack, but it CAN deceive itself. And this is ALL it does, when it believes it has attacked the body, It CAN project its guilt, but it will NOT lose it through projection. And though it clearly can MISPERCEIVE the function of the body, it CANNOT change its function from what the Holy Spirit ESTABLISHES it to be. The body was NOT made by love. But love does not condemn it, and can use it lovingly, respecting what the Son of God has made, and using it to SAVE him from illusions.

Would you not have the instruments of separation RE-INTERPRETED as means for salvation, and USED for purposes of love? Would you not welcome AND SUPPORT the shift from fantasies of vengeance to RELEASE from them? Your PERCEPTION of the body can clearly be sick, but project this not upon the body. For your wish to make destructive what CANNOT destroy, can have no REAL effect at all. And what God created is only what He would have it be, being His Will.

You cannot make His Will destructive. You can make FANTASIES, in which your will CONFLICTS with His, but that is all. It is insane to use the body as the scapegoat for guilt; DIRECTING its attack, and BLAMING it for what you wished it to do. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ACT OUT FANTASIES. For it is still the FANTASIES you want, and they have nothing to do with what the body does. IT does not dream of them, and they but make IT a liability, where it COULD be an asset. For fantasies have made your body your "enemy," weak, vulnerable, and treacherous, "worthy" of the hate which you invest in it.

How has this served you? You have IDENTIFIED with this thing you hate, the instrument of vengeance, and the perceived source of your guilt. YOU have done this to a thing that has no meaning, proclaiming it to be the dwelling place of the Son of God, and turning it AGAINST him. This is the host of God that YOU have made. And neither God nor His most holy Son can enter an abode which harbors hate, and where you have sown the seeds of vengeance, violence, and death.

This thing you made to serve your guilt, stands between you and other minds. The minds ARE joined, but you do not IDENTIFY with them. You SEE yourself as locked in a separate prison, remote and unreachable, incapable of reaching out as being reached. You HATE the prison that you made, and would destroy it. Yet you would NOT escape from it, leaving it unharmed, WITHOUT your guilt upon it. But only thus CAN you escape. The home of vengeance is not yours; The place you set aside to house your hatred is NOT a prison, but an ILLUSION OF YOURSELF.

The body is a limit imposed on the universal communication which is an eternal property of mind. But the communication is INTERNAL. Mind reaches to ITSELF. It is NOT made up of different PARTS, which reach each other. It does not go OUT. Within ITSELF, it HAS no limits, and there is nothing OUTSIDE it. It encompasses EVERYTHING. It encompasses you ENTIRELY; you within it, and it within you. There IS nothing else, anywhere or ever. The body is OUTSIDE you, and SEEMS to surround you, shutting you off from others, and keeping you APART from them, and them from you.

IT IS NOT THERE. There IS no barrier between God and His Son, nor can His Son be separated from himself, except in illusion. This is NOT his reality, though he believes it IS. Yet this could only BE, IF God were wrong. God would have had to create DIFFERENTLY, and to have separated HIMSELF from His Son, to make this possible. He would have had to create DIFFERENT things, and to establish different ORDERS of reality, only SOME of which were love. Yet love must be forever like itself, changeless forever, and forever WITHOUT alternative. And so it is.

YOU cannot put a barrier around yourself, because God placed none between HIMSELF and you. Your hand can stretch out, and reach to Heaven. You whose hands are joined have begun to reach BEYOND the body, but NOT outside yourselves. To reach your shared identity TOGETHER. Could this be OUTSIDE you? Where God is not? Is He a body, and did He create you as He is not, and where He CANNOT be? You are surrounded ONLY by Him. What limits CAN there be on you, whom HE encompasses?

Everyone has experienced what he would call a sense of being transported BEYOND himself. This feeling of liberation FAR exceeds the DREAM of freedom sometimes experienced in special relationships. It is a sense of actual ESCAPE from limitations. If you will consider what this "transportation" REALLY entails, you will realize that it is a sudden UNawareness of the body, and a joining of your self and SOMETHING ELSE, in which your mind ENLARGES to encompass it. It becomes PART of you, as you UNITE with it. And BOTH become whole, as NEITHER is perceived as separate.

What REALLY happens is that you have GIVEN UP the illusion of a LIMITED awareness, and lost your fear of union. The love that INSTANTLY replaces it EXTENDS to what has freed you, and UNITES you with it. And, while this lasts, you are NOT uncertain of your identity, and would not limit it. You have escaped from fear to peace, asking no questions of reality, but merely ACCEPTING it. You have accepted this INSTEAD of the body, and have LET yourself be ONE with something beyond it, simply by NOT letting your mind be limited BY it.

This can occur REGARDLESS of the physical distance that SEEMS to be between you and what you join; of your respective positions in space; and of your differences in size and seeming quality. Time is not relevant; it can occur with something past, present, or anticipated. The "something" can be ANYTHING and ANYWHERE; a sound, a sight, a thought, a memory, even a more GENERAL idea, WITHOUT specific reference. But, in every case, you join it without RESERVATION, because you love it, and would BE with it. And so you rush to meet it, letting your limits melt away, suspending ALL the "laws" your body obeys, and gently SETTING THEM ASIDE.

There is no violence at all in this escape. The body is NOT attacked, but merely PROPERLY PERCEIVED. It does not limit you, merely because YOU would not have it so. You are not really "lifted out" of it; it cannot CONTAIN you. You go where you would be; GAINING, NOT losing, a sense of self. In these instants of release from physical restrictions, you experience much of what happens in the holy instant; the lifting of the barriers of time and space, the sudden experience of peace and joy, and, above all, the LACK of awareness of the body, and of the questioning WHETHER OR NOT ALL THIS IS POSSIBLE. It IS possible, BECAUSE YOU WANT IT.

The sudden EXPANSION of the self that takes place with your DESIRE for it, is the irresistible appeal the holy instant holds. It calls to you to be yourself, within its safe embrace. There are the laws of limit lifted FOR you, to welcome you to openness of mind, and freedom. Come to this place of refuge, where you can be yourself in peace. NOT through destruction, NOT through a "breaking out," but merely by a quiet "melting in." For peace will join you there, simply because YOU have been willing to let go the limits YOU have placed on love, and JOINED it where it is, and where it led you, in answer to its gentle call to be at peace.

Section 3 - The Fear of Healing

Is healing frightening? To many, yes. For accusation is a bar to love, and damaged bodies ARE accusers. They stand firmly in the way of trust and peace, proclaiming that the frail can HAVE no trust, and that the damaged HAVE no grounds for peace. Who has been injured BY his brother, and could love and trust him still? He HAS attacked, and will attack again. Protect him not, because your damaged body shows that you must be protected FROM him. To forgive may be an act of charity, but NOT his due. He may be PITIED for his guilt, but NOT exonerated. And if you forgive him his transgressions, you but ADD to all the guilt that he has really earned.

The unhealed CANNOT pardon. For they are the witnesses that pardon is unfair. They would retain the CONSEQUENCES of the guilt they overlook. Yet no-one CAN forgive a sin which he believes is real. And what has consequences MUST be real, because what it has DONE is there to see. Forgiveness is NOT pity, which but seeks to pardon what it knows to be the truth. Good cannot BE returned for evil, for forgiveness does not first ESTABLISH sin, and THEN forgive it. Who can say and MEAN, "My brother, you have injured me, and yet, because I am the BETTER of the two, I pardon you my hurt." HIS pardon and YOUR hurt can NOT exist together. One DENIES the other, and MUST make it false.

To witness sin, and yet forgive it, is a paradox which reason cannot see. For it maintains what has been done to you DESERVES no pardon. And, by GIVING it, you grant your brother mercy, but retain the proof he is not REALLY innocent. The sick remain accusers. They cannot forgive their brothers AND themselves as well. For no-one in whom true forgiveness reigns CAN suffer. He holds not the proof of sin, before his brother's eyes. And thus he MUST have overlooked it, and removed it from his own. Forgiveness CANNOT be for one, and not the other. Who forgives IS healed. And in his healing lies the PROOF that he has truly pardoned, and retains no trace of condemnation that he still would hold against himself or any living thing.

Forgiveness is not real UNLESS it brings a healing to your brother AND yourself. YOU must attest his sins had no effect on YOU, to demonstrate they were not real. How else COULD he be guiltless? And how COULD his innocence be justified UNLESS his sins have no effect to WARRANT guilt? Sins are beyond forgiveness just BECAUSE they would entail effects which CANNOT be undone and overlooked entirely. In their UNDOING lies the proof that they were merely errors. LET yourself be healed, that you may be forgiving, offering salvation to your brother AND yourself. A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect.

What you would prove to him you will believe. The power of witness COMES from your belief. And everything you say or do or think but testifies to what you teach to him. Your body can be means to teach that it has never suffered pain because of him. And in its healing can it offer him mute testimony to his innocence. It is THIS testimony that can speak with power greater than a thousand tongues. For here is his forgiveness PROVED to him. A miracle can offer nothing LESS to him than it has given unto you. So does your healing show your mind is healed, and has forgiven what he did NOT do. And so is HE convinced his innocence was never lost, and healed along with you.

Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never BE undone. And hopelessness and death MUST disappear before the ancient clarion call of life. This call has power FAR beyond the weak and miserable cry of death and guilt. The ancient Calling of the Father to His Son, and of the Son unto his own, will yet be the last trumpet that the world will ever hear. Brother, there is no death. And this you learn when you but wish to show your brother that you had no hurt of him. He thinks your blood is on his hands, and so he stands condemned. But it is given you to SHOW him, by your healing, that his guilt is but the fabric of a senseless dream.

How just are miracles! For they bestow an equal gift of full deliverance from guilt upon your brother AND yourself. YOUR healing saves HIM pain, as well as you. And YOU are healed BECAUSE you wished him well. This is the law the miracle obeys; That healing sees no specialness at all. It does NOT come from pity, but from love. And love would prove ALL suffering is but a vain imagining, a foolish wish with NO effects. Your health is a result of your desire to see your brother with no blood upon his hands, nor guilt upon his heart made heavy with the proof of sin. And what you wish is GIVEN you to see.

The "cost" of your serenity is his. This is the "price" the Holy Spirit and the world interpret differently. The world perceives in it a statement of the "fact" that your salvation SACRIFICES his. The Holy Spirit knows YOUR healing is the witness UNTO his, and CANNOT be apart from him at all. As long as he consents to suffer, YOU will be unhealed. But you can show him his suffering is purposeless and wholly without cause. Show him YOUR healing, and he will consent no more to suffer. For his innocence HAS BEEN established in your sight AND his. And laughter will REPLACE your sighs BECAUSE God's Son remembered that he IS God's Son.

Who, then, fears healing? Only those to whom their brother's sacrifice and pain is seen to represent their own serenity. Their helplessness and weakness represent grounds on which they justify his pain. The constant sting of guilt he suffers serves to prove that he is slave, and they are free. The constant pain THEY suffer demonstrates that they are free BECAUSE they hold him bound. And sickness is desired to prevent a shift of balance in the sacrifice. How could the Holy Spirit be deterred an instant, even less, to reason with an argument for sickness such as this? And need YOUR healing be delayed because you pause to listen to insanity?

Correction is NOT your function. It belongs to One Who knows of fairness, NOT of guilt. If you assume correction's role, you LOSE the function of forgiveness. No-one can forgive until he learns correction is BUT to forgive, and NEVER to accuse. Alone, you CANNOT see they are the same, and therefore is correction NOT of you. Identity and function are the same, and BY your function do you know yourself. And thus, if you confuse your function with the function of Another, you MUST be confused about yourself and who you are. What is the separation but a wish to take God's Function from Him and DENY that it is His? Yet if it is NOT His it is not YOURS, for YOU must lose what you would take away.

In a split mind, identity MUST seem to be divided. Nor can anyone perceive a function unified which has conflicting purposes and different ends. Correction, to a mind so split, MUST be a way to punish sins you think are YOURS in someone else. And thus does he become your victim, NOT your brother, DIFFERENT from you in that he is MORE GUILTY, thus in need of your correction, as the one MORE INNOCENT than he. This splits HIS function off from yours, and gives you both a DIFFERENT role. And so you CANNOT be perceived as one, and with a single function that would MEAN a shared identity with but ONE end.

Correction YOU would do MUST separate, because that is the function given it BY you. When you perceive correction is the SAME as pardon, then you also know the Holy Spirit's Mind and yours are One. And so your OWN identity is found. Yet must He work with what is GIVEN Him, and you allow Him only HALF your mind. And thus He represents the OTHER half, and seems to have a DIFFERENT purpose from the one you cherish, and you THINK is yours. Thus does your function seem DIVIDED, with a half IN OPPOSITION to a half. And these two halves appear to represent a split within a self perceived as two.

Consider how this self perception MUST extend, and do not overlook the fact that EVERY thought extends, because that is its purpose, being what it really IS. From an idea of self AS TWO, there comes a NECESSARY view of function split BETWEEN the two. And what you would correct is only HALF the error, which you think is ALL of it. Your BROTHER's sins become the central target for correction, lest your errors and his own be seen as one. YOURS are mistakes, but HIS are sins, and NOT the same as yours. HIS merit punishment, while yours, in fairness, should be overlooked.

In THIS interpretation of correction, your own mistakes you will not even SEE. The FOCUS of correction has been placed OUTSIDE yourself, on one who CANNOT be a part of you while this perception lasts. What is condemned can never be returned to its accuser, who has hated it, AND HATES IT STILL. This is your brother, focus of your hate, unworthy to be part of you, and thus OUTSIDE your self, the other half, which is denied. Only what is left, WITHOUT his presence, is perceived as ALL of you. To this remaining half the Holy Spirit must represent the OTHER half, until you recognize it IS the other half. And this He does by giving BOTH of you a function that is one, NOT different.

Correction IS the function given both, but neither one alone. And when it is fulfilled as SHARED, it MUST correct mistakes in both of you. It CANNOT leave mistakes in one unhealed, and make the other free. THAT is DIVIDED purpose, which cannot BE shared, and so it CANNOT be the function which the Holy Spirit sees as His. And you can rest assured that He will NOT fulfill a function that He cannot understand, and recognize as His. For only thus can He keep YOURS preserved intact, DESPITE your separated view of what your function IS. If He UPHELD divided function, you were lost indeed. His INABILITY to see His goal divided and distinct for each of you preserves your Self from being made aware of any function OTHER than Its Own.

Section 8 - The Decision for Guiltlessness

Learning will be commensurate with motivation, and the interference in your motivation for learning, is EXACTLY the same as that which interferes with ALL your thinking. The happy learner CANNOT FEEL GUILTY ABOUT LEARNING. This is so ESSENTIAL to learning, that it should never be forgotten. The guiltless learner learns so easily, BECAUSE HIS THOUGHTS ARE FREE. But this entails the recognition that GUILT IS INTERFERENCE, NOT SALVATION, and serves NO useful function at all.

You are accustomed to using guiltlessness merely to offset the pain of guilt, and do not look upon it as having value IN ITSELF. You believe that guilt AND guiltlessness are BOTH of value, each representing an ESCAPE from what the other does NOT offer you. You do NOT want either alone, for without both, you do not see YOURSELVES as whole, and therefore happy. You are whole ONLY in your guiltlessness, and only in your guiltlessness, CAN you be happy. There IS no conflict here.

To wish for guilt in ANY way, in ANY form, will lose appreciation of the value of your guiltlessness, and push it from your sight. There is NO compromise that you can make with guilt, and escape from the pain which ONLY guiltlessness allays. Learning is living here, as creating is Being in Heaven. Whenever the pain of guilt seems to ATTRACT you, remember that, if you yield to it, you are deciding AGAINST your happiness, and will NOT learn how to be happy. Say, therefore, to yourself, gently, but with the conviction born of the love of God and of His Son:

What I experience I will make manifest.

If I am guiltless, I have nothing to fear.

I choose to testify to my ACCEPTANCE of the Atonement,

NOT FOR ITS REJECTION.

I would accept my guiltlessness by making it manifest,

and SHARING it.

Let me bring peace to God's Son from his Father.

Each day, each hour and minute, - even each second, - you are deciding between the crucifixion and the Resurrection; between the ego and the Holy Spirit. The ego is the choice for guilt, the Holy Spirit the decision for blamelessness. The power of decision is all that is yours. What you can decide BETWEEN is fixed, because there are no alternatives, EXCEPT truth and illusion. And there is no overlap between them, because they are opposites which CANNOT be reconciled, and CANNOT both be true. You are guilty OR guiltless, bound OR free, happy OR unhappy.

No penalty is ever asked of God's Son, except BY himself and OF himself. Every chance given to him to heal, is another opportunity to replace darkness with light, and fear with love. If he refuses it, he binds himself TO darkness because he did not choose to free his brother, and enter light WITH him. By GIVING power to nothing, he threw away the joyous opportunity to learn that nothing HAS no power. And, by NOT DISPELLING, darkness, HE became afraid of darkness AND of light. The joy of learning darkness has no power over the Son of God, is the happy lesson the Holy Spirit teaches, and would have YOU teach WITH Him. It is HIS joy to teach it, as it will be YOURS.

The way to teach this simple lesson is merely this; guiltlessness IS invulnerability. Therefore, make your INVULNERABILITY manifest to everyone, and teach him that, WHATEVER he may try to do to you, your perfect freedom from the belief that you can BE harmed, shows him HE is guiltless. He can do NOTHING that can hurt you, and by refusing to allow him to THINK HE CAN, you teach him that the Atonement, which you have accepted for yourself, IS ALSO HIS. THERE IS NOTHING TO FORGIVE. No-one can hurt the Son of God. His guilt is WHOLLY without cause, and, being without cause, CANNOT exist.

God is the ONLY Cause, and guilt is NOT of Him. Teach no-one he has hurt you, for, if you do, you teach YOURSELF that what is NOT of God, HAS POWER OVER YOU. THE CAUSELESS CANNOT BE. Do not attest to it, and do not foster belief in it in any mind. Remember always MIND IS ONE, and CAUSE IS ONE. You will learn communication with this Oneness ONLY when you learn to DENY the causeless, and accept the Cause of God as YOURS. The power that God has given to His Son IS his, and nothing else can His Son see, or choose to look upon, without imposing on HIMSELF the penalty of guilt, IN PLACE of all the happy teaching the Holy Spirit would gladly offer him.

Whenever you decide to make decisions FOR YOURSELF, you are thinking self-destructively, and the decision WILL BE WRONG. It will hurt you, because of the CONCEPT of decision which led to it. It is not true that you can make decisions BY yourself, or FOR yourself alone. No thought of God's Son CAN be separate, or isolated in its effects. Every decision is made for the WHOLE SONSHIP, directed in and out, and influencing a constellation larger than anything you ever dreamed of. Those who accept Atonement, ARE invulnerable. But those who believe they are guilty, WILL respond to guilt, because THEY THINK IT IS SALVATION, and will NOT refuse to see it, and side WITH it. They BELIEVE that INCREASING guilt is self-PROTECTION. And they fail to understand the simple fact that, what they do NOT want, MUST hurt them.

All this arises because they do NOT believe that WHAT THEY WANT IS GOOD. Yet will was given them BECAUSE it is holy, and will bring TO them ALL that they need, coming as naturally as peace that knows no limits. There is NOTHING their wills will not provide, that offers them ANYTHING of value. But, because they do NOT understand their will, the Holy Spirit quietly understands if FOR them, and gives them what THEY will, without effort, strain, or the impossible burden of deciding WHAT THEY WANT AND NEED ALONE. It will never happen that you will have to make decisions FOR YOURSELF. You are NOT bereft of help, and HELP THAT KNOWS THE ANSWER. Would you be content with little, which is all that YOU ALONE can offer yourself, when He Who GIVES YOU EVERYTHING will simply OFFER it TO you?

He will never ask what you have done to make you worthy of the gift of God. Ask it not therefore of yourselves. Instead, accept His answer, for He KNOWS you are worthy of everything God wills FOR you. Do not try to escape the gift of God, which He so freely, and so gladly offers you. He offers you but what God gave Him FOR you. You need NOT decide whether or not you are DESERVING of it. GOD KNOWS THAT YOU ARE. Would you deny the truth of GOD'S decision, and place your pitiful appraisal of yourself, in place of His calm and unswerving value of His Son? NOTHING can shake God's conviction of the perfect purity of everything that He created, for it IS wholly pure. Do not decide AGAINST it, for being of Him it MUST be true.

Peace abides in every mind that quietly accepts the plan that GOD has set for his Atonement, RELINQUISHING HIS OWN. You know NOT of Salvation, for you do NOT understand it. Make no decisions about what it is, or where it lies, but ask of the Holy Spirit EVERYTHING, and leave ALL decisions to His gentle counsel. The One Who knows the plan, of God which God would have you follow, can teach you what it IS. Only His wisdom is capable of guiding you to follow it. Every decision you undertake alone but signifies that you would define what Salvation is, and what you would be saved FROM. The Holy Spirit KNOWS that ALL Salvation is escape from guilt. You have no other "enemy," and against this strange distortion of the purity of the Son of God, the Holy Spirit is your ONLY friend.

He is the strong protector of your innocence, which sets you free. And it is HIS decision to undo EVERYTHING that would obscure your innocence from your unclouded mind. Let Him, therefore, be the only guide that you would follow to Salvation. He knows the way, and leads you gladly on it. WITH Him, you will not fail to learn what God wills FOR you IS your will. WITHOUT His guidance, you will think you know alone, and will decide AGAINST your peace, as surely as you made the wrong decision in ever thinking that Salvation lay in you alone. Salvation is of Him to Whom God GAVE it FOR you. He has not forgotten it. Forget HIM not, and He will make EVERY decision for you, for YOUR Salvation and the peace of God in you.

Seek not to appraise the worth of God's Son, whom He created holy, for to do so is TO EVALUATE HIS FATHER, and judge AGAINST Him. And you WILL feel guilty for this imagined "crime," which no one in this world, or Heaven, CAN POSSIBLY commit. God's Spirit teaches only that the "sin" of SELF replacement on the throne of God is NOT a source of guilt. What CANNOT happen, can have no effects to fear. Be quiet in your faith in Him, Who loves you, and would lead you out of insanity. Madness may be your CHOICE, but NOT your reality. Never forget the Love of God, Who HAS remembered you. For it is quite impossible that He could ever let His Son drop from His loving Mind, wherein he was created, and where his abode was fixed in perfect peace forever.

Say to the Holy Spirit only, "Decide for me," and it is done. For His decisions are reflections of WHAT GOD KNOWS ABOUT YOU, and in this light, error of ANY kind becomes impossible. Why would you struggle so frantically to anticipate all that you CANNOT know, when ALL knowledge lies behind EVERY decision that the Holy Spirit makes FOR YOU? Learn of His wisdom and His love, and teach His answer to everyone who struggles in the dark. For you decide for THEM AND for yourself. How gracious is it to decide all things through Him, Whose equal love is given equally to all alike. He leaves you no one OUTSIDE yourself, alone WITHOUT you. And so He gives you what is yours, because your Father would have you share it WITH him.

In everything be led by Him, and do not reconsider. Trust Him to answer quickly, surely, and with love for everyone who will be touched, in any way by the decision. And EVERYONE will be. Would you take unto yourself the sole responsibility for deciding what can bring ONLY good to everyone? Would you KNOW this? You taught YOURSELVES the most unnatural habit of NOT communicating with your Creator. Yet you remain in close communication with Him, and with everything that is within Him, as it is within YOURSELF. UNlearn isolation through His loving guidance, and learn of all the happy communication that you have thrown away, but could NOT lose.

Whenever you are in doubt what you should do, think of His Presence in you, and tell yourself this, and ONLY this: "He leadeth me, and knows the way, which I know not. Yet He will never KEEP from me what He would have me LEARN. And so I trust Him to communicate to me all that He knows FOR me." Then let Him teach you quietly how to perceive your guiltlessness, which is ALREADY there.

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

Section 1 - Introduction

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

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

Section 2 - Trust

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

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

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

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

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

The next stage is indeed "a period of unsettling." Now must the teacher of God understand that he did not really know what was valuable and what was valueless. All that he really learned so far was that he did not want the valueless and that he did want the valuable. Yet his own sorting out was meaningless in teaching him the difference. The idea of sacrifice, so central to his own thought system, had made it impossible for him to judge. He thought he had learned willingness, but now he sees that he does not know what the willingness is for. And now he must attain a state that may remain impossible for a long, long time. He must learn to lay all judgment aside and ask only what he really wants in every circumstance. Were not each step in this direction so heavily reinforced, it would be hard indeed.

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

Section 3 - Honesty

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

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

Section 4 - Tolerance

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

Section 5 - Gentleness

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

Therefore God's teachers are wholly gentle. They need the strength of gentleness, for it is in this that the function of salvation becomes easy. To those who would do harm it is impossible. To those to whom harm has no meaning it is merely natural. What choice but this has meaning to the sane? Who chooses hell when he perceives a way to Heaven? And who would choose the weakness that must come from harm in place of the unfailing, all-encompassing and limitless strength of gentleness? The might of God's teachers lies in their gentleness, for they have understood their evil thoughts came neither from God's Son nor his Creator. Thus did they join their thoughts with Him Who is their Source. And so their will, which always was His Own, is free to be itself.

Section 6 - Joy

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

Section 7 - Defenselessness

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

Section 8 - Generosity

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

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

Section 9 - Patience

Those who are certain of the outcome can afford to wait, and wait without anxiety. Patience is natural to the teacher of God. All he sees is certain outcome, at a time perhaps unknown as yet, but not in doubt. The time will be as right as is the answer. And this is true for everything that happens now or in the future. The past as well held no mistakes; nothing that did not serve to benefit the world as well as him to whom it seemed to happen. Perhaps it was not understood at the time. Even so, the teacher of God is willing to reconsider all his past decisions, if they are causing pain to anyone. Patience is natural to those who trust. Sure of the ultimate interpretation of all things in time, no outcome already seen or yet to come can cause them fear.

Section 10 - Faithfulness

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

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

Section 11 - Open-Mindedness

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

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

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

Section 7 - The Loss of Certainty

Dictated without notes.

We said before that the abilities which man possesses are only shadows of his true abilities. The Soul's true functions are knowing, loving, and creating. The intrusion of the ability to perceive, which is inherently judgmental, was introduced only after the Separation. No one has been sure of anything since then. You will also remember that I made it very clear that the Resurrection was the return to knowledge, which was accomplished by the union of my will with the Father's.

Since the Separation, the words "create" and "make" are inevitably confused. When you make something, you make it first out of a sense of lack or need, and second, out of a something that already exists. Anything that is made is made for a specific purpose. It has no true generalizability. When you make something to fill a perceived lack, which is obviously why you would make anything, you are tacitly implying that you believe in the Separation. Knowing does not lead to doing, as we have frequently observed already.

What appears to be contradictory about the difference between knowing and perceiving, and Revelation and miracles, is again the fallacy that is the root cause of all subsequent errors. The miracle was associated with perception, and not with knowing. However, we also noted that prayer is the medium of miracles, and also the natural communication of the Creator and the Created. Prayer is always an affirmation of knowledge, not of accurate perception. That is why unless perception has entered into it, it calls on Revelation.

The confusion between your own creation and what you create is so profound that it has literally become impossible to know anything, because knowledge is always stable. It is quite evident that human beings are not. Nevertheless, they are perfectly stable as God created them. In this sense, when their behavior is unstable, they are obviously disagreeing with God's idea of the Creation. This is a fundamental right of man, although not one he would care to exercise if he were in his Right Mind.

Prayer is the medium of miracles, not because God created perceptions, but because God created YOU. At the beginning of this course, we said that YOU are a miracle. Therefore, the miracle worker is a miracle NOT of his own creation. Unless perception rests on some knowing basis, it is so unstable that it doesn't mean anything. Knowing is not open to interpretation, because its meaning is its own. It is possible to interpret meaning, but this is always open to error because it involves the perception of meaning. All of these wholly needless complexities are the result of man's attempt to regard himself both as separated and unseparated at the same time. It is impossible to undertake a confusion as fundamental as this without engaging in further confusion.

Methodologically, man's mind has been very creative. But, as always occurs when method and content are separated, it has not been utilized for anything but an attempt to escape a fundamental and entirely inescapable impasse. This kind of thinking cannot result in a creative outcome, though it has resulted in considerable ingenuity. It is noteworthy, however, that this ingenuity has almost totally divorced him from knowledge.

Knowledge does not require ingenuity at all. When we say "the truth shall set you free," we mean that all this kind of thinking is a waste of time, but that you are free of the need of engaging in it.

Note again that the functions of the Soul were not referred to as abilities. This point requires clarification, because abilities are beliefs which are BASED on the scarcity fallacy, since they do not mean anything apart from within-group comparisons. As you yourself never fail to point out, "nobody has none of an ability, and nobody has all of it." That is, of course, why the curve never rests on the line. The clearest implications of relativity, which properly inheres in this statement, DEMONSTRATE that abilities are not functions of the Soul. The Soul's functions are NOT relative. They are ABSOLUTE. They are OF God and FROM God, and therefore God-like.

Prayer is a way of asking for something. When we said that prayer is the medium of miracles, we also said that the only meaningful prayer is for forgiveness, because those who have been forgiven HAVE everything. Once forgiveness has been accepted, prayer in the usual sense becomes utterly without meaning. Essentially, a prayer for forgiveness is nothing more than a request that we may be able to recognize something we already have.

In electing the ability to perceive instead of the will to know, man placed himself in a position where he could resemble his Father ONLY by perceiving miraculously. But he lost the knowledge that he HIMSELF is a miracle. MIRACULOUS CREATION was his own Source, and also his own real function. "God created man in his own image and likeness" is correct in meaning, but the words are open to considerable misinterpretation. This is avoided, however, if "image" is understood to mean "thought," and "likeness" is taken as "of a like quality." God DID create the Son in His own Thought, and of a quality like to His own. There IS nothing else.

Perception is impossible WITHOUT a belief in "more" and "less." Unless perception, at every level, involves selectivity, it is incapable of organization. In all types of perception, there is a continual process of accepting and rejecting, of organizing and reorganizing, and of shifting and changing focus. Evaluation is an essential aspect of perception, because judgment MUST be made for selection. "Lack of lack" is a concept which is meaningless to a perceiver, because the ability to perceive at all RESTS ON lack.

What happens to perceptions if there ARE no judgments, and there is nothing BUT perfect equality? Perception is automatically useless. Truth can only be KNOWN. All of it is equally true, and knowing any part of it IS to know all of it.

Only perception involves partial awareness. Knowledge transcends ALL of the laws which govern perception. Partial KNOWLEDGE is impossible. It is all One, and has no separate parts. (i.e. the parts have NOT separated.) This IS the real knowledge. You who are really one with it need but know YOURSELF and your knowledge is complete. To know God's miracle is to know Him.

Forgiveness is the healing of the perception of separation. Correct perception of EACH OTHER is necessary ONLY because minds have willed to see themselves AS separate beings. Each Soul knows God completely. This IS the miraculous power of the Soul. The fact that each Soul has this power completely is a fact that is entirely alien to human thinking, in which if any ONE has everything, there is nothing LEFT.

God's miracles are as total as His Thought, because they ARE His thoughts. God shines in them all with perfect light. If they recognize this light anywhere, they know it universally. Revelation cannot be explained, because it IS knowledge. Revelation HAPPENS. It is the only REALLY natural happening, because it reflects the nature of God.

As long as perception lasts, prayer has a place. Since perception rests on lack, those who perceive have not totally accepted the Atonement and given over themselves to truth. Perception IS a separated state, and the perceiver DOES need healing. Communion, not prayer, is the natural state of those who know. God and HIS miracles are inseparable.

All words, at best, are preparatory. THE word is really a thought. No one WORD is universally meaningful, because a word is a symbol, but thought is not divisible by creation. The original name for "thought" and "word" was the same. The quotation should read "In the beginning was the thought, and the thought was with God, and the thought WAS God." How beautiful indeed are the thoughts of God, who live in His light. Your worth is beyond perception because it is beyond doubt.

Do not perceive yourself in different lights. KNOW yourself in the One Light, where the miracle which is you is perfectly clear.

The prerequisites for therapy must include the following conditions:

1. The procedure must involve the recognition rather than the denial of the importance of thought.

2. The exact equality of everyone who is involved. This must include Me.

3. No one is either therapist or patient. (Bill should add "teacher or pupil.")

4. Above all EVERYONE involved must want to give up everything that is NOT true. The reason for the negative emphasis here is that therapy implies something HAS gone wrong. Even though the purpose is to correct, those who are ill ARE negative.

5. Therapy is EXACTLY the same as all other forms of miracle-working. It has no separate laws of its own. All of the points that were given for miracles apply to therapy because, UNLESS therapy proceeds from miracle-mindedness, it CANNOT heal.

6. The therapist (hopefully) does have the role of being the better perceiver. (This is also, again hopefully, true of the teacher.) It does not follow that he is the better knower. Temporarily, the therapist or teacher can help in straightening out twisted perceptions, which is also the only role that I would ever contribute myself. All therapy should do is try to place EVERYONE involved in the right frame of mind to help one another. It is essentially a process of true courtesy, including courtesy to Me.

Any form of mental illness can truthfully be described as an expression of viciousness. We said before that those who are afraid are apt to be vicious. If we were willing to forgive other people's misperceptions of us, they could not possibly affect us at all. There is little doubt that you can explain your present attitudes in terms of how people used to look at you, but there is no wisdom in doing so. In fact, the whole historical approach can justifiably be called doubtful.

As you have so often said, no one has adopted ALL of his parents' attitudes as his own. In every case, there has been a long process of choice, in which the individual has escaped from those he himself vetoed, while retaining those he voted FOR. Bill has not retained his parents political beliefs, in spite of the particular kind of newspapers that constituted their own reading matter in this area. The reason why he could do this was because he believed he was free in this area.

There must be some acute problem OF HIS OWN that would make him so eager to accept their misperception of his own worth. This tendency can ALWAYS be regarded as punitive. It cannot be justified by the inequality of the strengths of parents and children. This is never more than temporary, and is largely a matter of maturational and thus physical difference. It does not last unless it is held onto.

When B's father came to his new office and "destroyed" it, it is quite apparent that Bill MUST have been willing to let it be destroyed. The many times that he has commented on this event alone would suggest that the extreme importance of this misperception in his own distorted thinking. Why should anyone accord an obvious misperception so much power? There cannot be any real justification for it, because even Bill himself recognized the real problem by saying "How could he do this to me?" The answer is HE didn't.

Bill has a very serious question to ask himself in this connection. We said before that the purpose of the Resurrection was to "demonstrate that no amount of misperception has any influence at all on a Son of God." This demonstration EXONERATES those who misperceive, by establishing beyond doubt that they have NOT hurt anyone. B's question, which he must ask himself very honestly, is whether he is willing to demonstrate that his parents have NOT hurt him. Unless he is willing to do this, he has not forgiven them.

The essential goal of therapy is the same as that of knowledge. No one can survive independently as long as he is willing to see himself through the eyes of others. This will always put him in a position where he MUST see himself in different lights. Parents do not create the image of their children, though they may perceive images which they do create. However, as we have already said, you are not an image. If you SIDE WITH image-makers, you are merely being idolatrous.

Bill has no justification whatever for perpetuating ANY image of himself at all. He is NOT an image. Whatever is true of him is wholly benign. It is essential that he KNOW this about himself, but he cannot know it while he chooses to interpret himself as vulnerable enough to BE hurt. This is a peculiar kind of arrogance, whose narcissistic component is perfectly obvious. It endows the perceiver with sufficient unreal strength to make him over, and then acknowledges the perceiver's miscreation. There are times when this strange lack of real courtesy appears to be a form of humility. Actually, it is never more than simple spite.

Bill, your parents did misperceive you in many ways, but their ability to perceive was quite warped, and their misperceptions stood in the way of their own knowledge. There is no reason why it should stand in the way of yours. It is still true that you believe they DID something to you. This belief is extremely dangerous to your perception, and wholly destructive of your knowledge. This is not only true of your attitudes toward your parents, but also of your misuse of your friends. You still think that you MUST respond to their errors AS IF they were true. By reacting self-destructively, you are GIVING them approval for their misperceptions.

No one has the right to change himself according to different circumstances. Only his actions are capable of appropriate variation. His belief in himself is a constant, unless it rests on perceptual acuity rather than knowledge of what he is.

It is your DUTY to establish beyond doubt that you are totally unwilling to side with (identify with) anyone's misperceptions of you, including your own. If you become concerned with totally irrelevant factors, such as the physical condition of a classroom, the number of students, the hour of the course, and the many elements which you may choose to select for emphasis as a basis for misperception, you have lost the knowledge of what ANY interpersonal relationship is for. It is NOT true that the difference between pupil and teacher is lasting. They meet IN ORDER to abolish the difference. At the beginning, since we are still in time, they come together on the basis of inequality of ability and experience. The aim of the teacher is to give them more of what is temporarily his. This process has all of the miracle conditions we referred to at the beginning. The teacher (or miracle worker) gives more to those who have less, bringing them closer to equality with him, at the same time gaining for himself.

The confusion here is only because they do not gain the same things, because they do not NEED the same things. If they did, their respective, though temporary roles would not be conducive to mutual profit. Freedom from fear can be achieved by BOTH teacher and pupil ONLY if they do not compare either their needs or their positions in regard to each other in terms of higher and lower.

Presumably, children must learn from parents. What parents learn from children is merely of a different order. Ultimately, there is no difference in order, but this involves only knowledge. Neither parents nor children can be said to HAVE knowledge, or their relationships would not exist AS IF they were on different levels. The same is true of the teacher and the pupil. Children have an authority problem ONLY if they believe that their image is influenced BY the authority. This is an act of will on their part, because they are electing to misperceive the authority and GIVE him this power.

A TEACHER with an authority problem is merely a pupil who refuses to teach others. He wants to maintain HIMSELF in a position where he can be misused and misperceived. This makes him resentful of teaching, because of what he insists it has done to him.

The ONLY way out of this particular aspect of the desert is still to leave. The way this is left is to release EVERYONE involved, by ABSOLUTELY REFUSING to engage in any form of honoring error. Neither teacher nor pupil is imprisoned by learning unless he uses it as an attack. If he does this, he will be imprisoned whether he actually teaches or learns, or refuses to be engaged in the process at all.

The role of a teacher, properly conceived, is one of leading himself and others out of the desert. The value of this role can hardly be underestimated, if only because it was one to which I very gladly dedicated my own life. I have repeatedly asked MY pupils to follow me. This means that, to be effective teachers, they MUST interpret teaching as I do. I have made EVERY effort to teach you ENTIRELY without fear. If you do not listen, you will be unable to avoid the VERY obvious error of perceiving teaching as a threat.

It is hardly necessary to say that teaching is a process whose purpose is to produce learning. The ultimate purpose of ALL learning is to abolish fear. This is necessary so that knowledge can happen. The role of the teacher is NOT the role of God. This confusion is all too frequently made, by parents, teachers, therapists, and the clergy. It is a real misunderstanding of both God and His miracles. Any teacher who believes that teaching is fearful CANNOT learn because he is paralyzed. He also cannot really teach.

Bill was quite right in maintaining that this course is a prerequisite for his. However, he was really saying much more than that. The purpose of this course IS to prepare you for knowledge. So is the only real purpose of ANY legitimate course. All that is required of you as a teacher is to follow Me.

Whenever anyone decides that he can function only in SOME roles but not in others, he cannot BUT be attempting to make a compromise which will not work. If Bill is under the misbelief that he is coping with the fear problem by functioning as an administrator and as a teacher of interns, but NOT as a teacher of students, he is merely deceiving himself. He owes himself greater respect. There is nothing as tragic as the attempt to deceive one's self, because it implies that you perceive yourself as so unworthy that deception is more fitting for you than truth. Either you can function in all of the roles you have properly undertaken to fill, or you cannot function effectively in any of them. This IS an all or none decision. You CANNOT make inappropriate level distinctions within this choice. You are either capable or not. This does not mean that you can DO everything, but it DOES mean that you are either totally miracle-minded or not. This decision is open to NO compromise whatever. When Bill says that he cannot teach, he is making the same mistake that we spoke of before, when he acted as if universal laws applied to everyone except him. This is not only arrogant, but patently untrue. Universal laws MUST apply to him, unless he does not exist. We will not bother to argue about this.

Descartes engaged in a very interesting teaching procedure, and one from which he himself learned a great deal. He began with doubting the existence of everything, except himself. He insisted that his own existence was not open to doubt, and rebuilt his entire thought system on the one premise "I think, therefore I am." It is noteworthy that he arrived at accepting the entire system he originally doubted, solely on the basis of this ONE piece of knowledge. There was, however, a distinct shift in his own perception. He no longer really questioned the reality of what he perceived, because he KNEW he was there.

We mentioned before that Bill is not too sure of this, and that is why we suggested that he concentrate on "Lord, here I am." A teacher is unlikely to be effective unless he begins with BEING THERE. B, this is not really open to question. You will lose all your fear of teaching and relating in any form once you know who you are. There is no point whatever in remaining in the prison of believing that this is up to you. You do NOT exist in different lights. It is this belief which has confused you about your own reality. Why would you want to remain so obscure to yourself?

Miracle Principle 41

Miracles are a blessing from parents to children. This is just another way of phrasing the previous point about "from those who have more to those who have less." Children do NOT belong to parents, but they DO need to share their greater abundance. If they are deprived, their perception becomes distorted. When this occurs, the whole family of God, or the Sonship, is impaired in its relationships.

Ultimately, every member of the family of God must return. The miracle calls to him to return, because it blesses and honors him even though he may be absent in spirit.

Miracle Principle 42

The miracle acknowledges all men as your brothers and Mine. It is a way of perceiving the Universal Mark of God in them.

You might add that his false idea about his own exclusion from Universal Love is fallacious in your terms, and arrogant in his. HIS real specialness does NOT stem from exclusion, but from inclusion. ALL My Brothers are special. He should stop interpreting this as "all except Bill " This is ridiculous!

Tell him that the implied lack of love that his version contains is WAY off the Mark, and misses the level of right thinking entirely. He MUST heal his perception in this respect. He MUST work a miracle on behalf of himself here (See the point about miracles as a perception corrector) before he can effect miracles as creative energizers, which they are.

(Tell B. that 50,000,000 Frenchmen CAN be wrong, because the notion is too fragmented. What CAN'T be wrong is the Universal Sonship of which he is a part.)

God WOULD be mocked if ANY of his creations lacked holiness. The Creation IS whole. The mark of Wholeness is Holiness, not holes. THE SONSHIP HAS NO HOLES ANYWHERE.

Miracle Principle 43

Wholeness is the perceptual content of the miracle. It thus corrects (or atones for) the faulty perception of lack.

We now turn to the fundamental distinction between miracles and projection. The stimulus MUST precede the response, and must also (determine) (influence) the kind of response that is evoked. The relationships of S and R are EXTREMELY intimate. (The behavioristic terminology is because this part deals with behavior.)

Behavior IS response, so that the question "response to what?" becomes crucial.

Stimuli of all kinds are identified through perception. You perceive the stimulus and behave accordingly. It follows, then, that:

As ye perceive

So will ye behave

(Helen Schucman raises point that Biblical language is hardly behavioristic terminology. Answer: No, but they needn't be OUT of accord with each other, either.)

Consider the Golden Rule again. You are asked to behave toward others as you would have them behave toward you. This means that the perception of both must be accurate, since the Golden Rule is the Order for appropriate behavior. You can't behave appropriately unless you perceive accurately, because appropriate behavior DEPENDS on lack of level confusion. The presence of level confusion ALWAYS results in variable reality testing, and hence variability in behavioral appropriateness.

All forms of self image debasement are FUNDAMENTAL perceptual distortions. They inevitably produce either self-contempt or projection, and usually both.

Since you and your neighbor are equal members of the same family, as you perceive both, so will you behave toward both. The way to perceive for Golden Rule behavior is to look out from the perception of your own holiness and perceive the holiness of others.

Bill and you need considerable clarification of the channel role. Look carefully at Mrs. Albert. She is working miracles every day, because she knows who she is. I emphasize again that your tendency to forget names is not hostility, but a fear of involvement or RECOGNITION. You had misinterpreted human encounters as opportunities for magic rather than for miracles and so you tried to PROTECT THE NAME. This is a very ancient and primitive way of trying to protect a person.

NOTE The very old Jewish practice of changing the name of a person who is very ill, so that when the list is given to the Angel of Death, the person with that name will not be found.

This is a good example of the curiously literal regression which can occur in very bright people when they become afraid. You and Bill both do it. Actually, it is a device closely related to the phobia, in the sense that they both narrow fear to a simple aspect of a much larger problem in order to enable them to avoid it.

A similar mechanism works when you get furious about a comparatively minor expression by someone to whom you are ambivalent. A good example of this is your response to Jonathan, who DOES leave things around in very strange ways. Actually, he does this because he thinks that by minor areas of disorganization he can protect his stability. I remind you that you have done this yourself for years, and should understand it very well. This should be met with great charity, rather than with great fury.

The fury comes from your awareness that you do not love Jonathan as you should, and you narrow your lack of love by centering your hate on trivial behavior in an attempt to protect him from it. You also call him Jonathan for the same reason (see previous reference).

Note that a name is a human symbol that "stands for" a person. Superstitions about names are very common for just that reason. That is also why people sometimes respond with anger when their names are spelled or pronounced incorrectly.

Actually, the Jewish superstition about changing the names was a distortion of a revelation about how to alter or avert death. What the revelation's proper content was that those "who change their mind" (not name) about destruction (or hate) do not need to die. Death is a human affirmation of a belief in hate. That is why the Bible says "There is no death," and that is why I demonstrated that death does not exist. Remember that I came to FULFILL the law by RE-INTERPRETING it. The law itself, if properly understood, offers only protection to man. Those who have not yet "changed their minds" have entered the "hellfire" concept into it.

Remember, I said before that because "nature abhors a vacuum", it does NOT follow that the vacuum is filled with hell fire. The emptiness engendered by fear should be replaced by love, because love and its absence are in the same dimension, and correction cannot be undertaken except WITHIN a dimension. Otherwise, there has been a confusion of levels.

Returning to Mrs. Albert (not Andrews), she corrected your error about her name without embarrassment and without hostility, because she has NOT made your own mistake about names.

She is not afraid, because she knows she is protected. She made the correction ONLY because you were inaccurate, and the whole question of embarrassment did not occur to her.

She was also quite unembarrassed when she told you that everything has to be done to preserve life, because you never can tell when God may come and say "Get up, Dave," and then he will.

She did not ask what YOU believed first, and afterwards merely added "and it's true, too." The RIGHT answer to the SCT item is: WHEN THEY TOLD ME WHAT TO DO, I "referred the question to the only REAL authority."

(Helen Schucman note: If you ask somebody what he believes before you tell him what you believe, then you are implying that you will say what he approves. This is not "the real authority.")

You took a lot of notes on "Those who are ashamed of Me before men, them will I be ashamed of before God." This was rather carefully clarified, even though the quotation is not quite right, but it doesn't matter.

The important thing is that elsewhere in the Bible it also says "Those who represent (or plead for) Me to men will be represented (or pleaded for) BY Me before God." (Note: This quotation is also not the correct Biblical phrasing, but it IS what it means.) Note that one who represents also "witnesses for." The quotation thus means that you represent or "witness for" the authority in whom you believe.

Your witnessing DEMONSTRATES your belief, and thus strengthens it.

I assure you that I will "witness for" anyone who lets me, and to whatever extent he himself permits it.

Those who witness for me are expressing, through their miracles, that they have abandoned deprivation in favor of the abundance they have learned BELONGS to them.

Miracle Principle 44

A MAJOR contribution of miracles is their strength in releasing man from his misplaced sense of isolation, deprivation, and lack. They are affirmations of Sonship, which is a state of completion and abundance.

B's very proper emphasis on "changing your mind" needs clarification.

Whatever is true and real is eternal, and CANNOT change or be changed. The Soul is therefore unalterable because it is ALREADY perfect, but the mind can elect the level it chooses to serve. The only limit which is put on its choice is that it CANNOT serve two masters.

While the ballot itself is a secret one, and the right to vote is fully protected, voting ALWAYS entails both election AND rejection. If two candidates are voted for, for the same position, the machine cancels the ballot automatically.

This is necessary, because a split vote does not represent ANY REAL allegiance.

Free will is the attribute of the mind, NOT the Soul. The Soul always remains changeless, because it never leaves the sight of God.

The Creation of the Soul is already fully accomplished. The mind, if it votes to do so, becomes a medium by which the Soul can create along the line of its own creation. If it does not freely elect to do so, it retains this creative ability, but places itself under tyrannous rather than authoritative control. As a result, what it creates is imprisonment, because such are the dictates of tyrants.

To "change your mind" means to place it at the disposal of True authority. The miracle is thus a sign that the mind has elected to be guided by Christ in HIS service. The abundance of Christ is the natural result of choosing to follow him.

P.S. The reason you have been late recently (for work) because you were taking dictation is merely because you didn't remember to ask me when to stop. This is an example of the "indiscriminate or uncontrolled" miracle-working we already spoke of. It is well-meant but ill-advised.

I prompted that call from Jack (taxi man - couldn't pick Helen Schucman up, etc.) to show you that this is not necessary. Also, the other man needed the money more today.

NOTE that you managed to fill your scribal role with no interruptions, and were also on time.

NOTE also that you closed the book and put it aside WITHOUT consulting me. ASK "Is that all?" ANSWER: No: add the following: These notes are serving, among other things, to replace the "handwriting on the wall" which you once saw next to your own altar, which read "You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting."

Scribes MUST learn Christ-control, to replace their former habits, which DID produce scarcity rather than abundance. From errors of this kind, the sense of deprivation IS inevitable, but very easily corrected.

The following is in relation to question about sex. Tell Bill "the one more river" is related to sex. You might even explain it to him as a "tidal wave", a term which he will understand. YOU won't.

Both of you are involved with unconscious distortions (above the miracle level), which are producing a dense cover over miracle-impulses which makes it hard for them to reach consciousness. Sex and miracles are both WAYS OF RELATING. The nature of any interpersonal relationship is limited or defined by what you want it to DO which is WHY you want it in the first place. Relating is a way of achieving an outcome.

Indiscriminate sexual impulses resemble indiscriminate miracle impulses in that both result in body image misperceptions. The first is an expression of an indiscriminate attempt to reach communion through the body. This involves not only the improper self identification, but also disrespect for the individuality of others. Self-control is NOT the whole answer to this problem, though I am by no means discouraging its use. It must be understood, however, that the underlying mechanism must be uprooted (a word you both should understand well enough by now not to regard it as frightening).

ALL shallow roots have to be uprooted, because they are not deep enough to sustain you. The illusion that shallow roots can be deepened and thus made to hold is one of the corollaries on which the reversal of the Golden Rule, referred to twice before, is balanced. As these false underpinnings are uprooted (or given up), equilibrium is experienced as unstable. But the fact is that NOTHING is less stable than an orientation which is upside down. Anything that holds it this way is hardly conducive to greater stability.

The whole danger of defenses lies in their propensity to hold misperceptions rigidly in place. This is why rigidity is regarded AS stability by those who are off the mark.

NOTE The only final solution - (no, Helen, this has nothing to do with the Nazi use of the term.) You just got frightened again. One of the more horrible examples of inverted or upside down thinking (and history is full of horrible examples of this) is the fact that the Nazis spelled their appalling error with capital letters. I shed many tears over this, but it is by no means the only time I said "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."

All actions which stem from reverse thinking are literally the behavioral expressions of those who know not what they do. Actually, Jean Dixon was right in her emphasis on "Feet on the ground and fingertips in the Heaven," though she was a bit too literal for your kind of understanding. Many people knew exactly what she meant, so her statement was the right miracle for them.

For you and Bill, it would be better to consider the concept in terms of reliability and validity. A rigid orientation can be extremely reliable, even if it IS upside down. In fact, the more consistently upside down it is, the more reliable it is, because consistency always held up better mathematically than test-re-test comparisons, which were ALWAYS on shaky ground. You can check this against Jack's notes if you wish, but I assure you its true. Split-half reliability is statistically a MUCH stronger approach. The reason for this is that correlation which is the technique applied to test-re-test comparisons, measures only the EXTENT OF association, and does not consider the Direction at all.

But two halves of the same thing MUST go in the same direction, if there is to be accuracy of measurement. This simple statement is really the principle on which split half reliability, a means of estimating INTERNAL consistency, rests.

Note, however, that both approaches leave out a very important dimension. Internal consistency criteria disregard time, because the focus is on one-time measurements. Test-retest comparisons are BASED on time intervals, but they disregard direction.

It is possible, of course, to use both, by establishing internal consistency AND stability over time. You will remember that Jack once told his class that the more sophisticated statisticians are concentrating more and more on reliability, rather than validity. The rationale for this, as he said, was that a reliable instrument DOES measure something. He also said, however, that validity is still the ultimate goal, which reliability can only serve.

I submit (I'm using Jack's language in this section, because it always had a special meaning for you. So did Jack.) Your confusion of sex and statistics is an interesting example of this whole issue. Note that night you spent in the scent of roses doing a complex factorial analysis of covariance. It's a funny story to others, because they see a different kind of level confusion than the one you yourself were making. You might recall that YOU wanted that design, and Jack opposed it. One of the real reasons why that evening was so exhilarating was because it represented a "battle of intellects", (both good ones, by the way), each communicating exceptionally clearly but on opposite sides. The sexual aspects were naturally touched off in both of you, because of the sex and aggression confusion.

(It is especially interesting that after the battle ended on a note of compromise with your agreeing with Jack, he wrote in the margin of your notes "virtue is triumphant." (Helen Schucman note re submission-dominance, feminine-masculine roles, entered into this.) While this (remark) was funny to both of you at the time, you might consider its truer side. The virtue lay in the complete respect each of you offered to the other's intellect. Your mutual sexual attraction was also shared. The error lay in the word "triumphant." This had the "battle" connotation, because neither of you was respecting ALL of the other. There is a great deal more to a person than intellect and genitals. The omission was the Soul.)

I submit (after a long interruption) that if a mind (Soul) is in valid relationship with God, it CAN'T be upside down. Jack and the other very eminent methodologists have abandoned validity in favor of reliability because they have lost sight of the end and are concentrating on the means.

Remember the story about the artist who kept devoting himself to inventing better and better ways of sharpening pencils. He never created anything, but he had the sharpest pencil in town. (The language here is intentional. Sex is often utilized on behalf of very similar errors. Hostility, triumph, vengeance, self-debasement, and all sort of expressions of the lack of love are often VERY clearly seen in the accompanying fantasies. But it is a PROFOUND error to imagine that, because these fantasies are so frequent (or occur so reliably), that this implies validity. Remember that while validity implies reliability the relationship is NOT reversible. You can be wholly reliable, and ENTIRELY wrong.

While a reliable test DOES measure something, what USE is the test unless you discover what the "something" is? And if validity is more important than reliability, and is also necessarily implied BY it, why not concentrate on VALIDITY and let reliability fall naturally into place.

Intellect may be a "displacement upward", but sex can be a "displacement outward." How can man "come close" to others through the parts of him which are really invisible? The word "invisible" means "cannot be seen or perceived."What cannot be perceived is hardly the right means for improving perception.

The confusion of miracle impulse with sexual impulse is a major source of perceptual distortion, because it INDUCES rather than straightening out the basic level-confusion which underlies all those who seek happiness with the instruments of the world. A desert is a desert is a desert. You can do anything you want in it, but you CANNOT change it from what it IS. It still lacks water, which is why it IS a desert (Bring up that dream about the Bluebird. While Helen Schucman was looking for this dream, she came across another. The message was to bring both, as an excellent example of how extremely good Helen Schucman had become over the intervening 25 years at sharpening pencils. Note that the essential content hasn't changed; it's just better written.) The thing to do with a desert is to LEAVE.

Miracle Principle 45

Miracles arise from a miraculous state of mind. By being One, this state of mind goes out to ANYONE, even without the awareness of the miracle worker himself. The impersonal nature of miracles is because Atonement itself is one, uniting all creations with their Creator.

Miracle Principle 46

The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ and acceptance of his Atonement. The mind is then in a state of Grace, and naturally becomes gracious, both to the Host within and the stranger without. By bringing in the stranger, he becomes your brother.

The miracles you are told NOT to perform have not lost their value. They are still expressions of your own state of Grace, but the ACTION aspect of the miracle should be Christ-controlled, because of His complete Awareness of the Whole Plan. The impersonal nature of miracle-mindedness ensures YOUR own Grace, but only Christ is in a position to know where Grace can be BESTOWED.

Miracle Principle 47

A miracle is never lost. It touches many people you may not even know, and sometimes produces undreamed of changes in forces of which you are not even aware. This is not your concern. It will also always bless YOU. This is not your concern, either. But it IS the concern of the Record. The Record is completely unconcerned with reliability, being perfectly valid because of the way it was set up. It ALWAYS measures what it was supposed to measure.

I want to finish the instructions about sex, because this is an area the miracle worker MUST understand.

Inappropriate sex drives (or misdirected miracle-impulses) result in guilt if expressed, and depression if denied. We said before that ALL real pleasure comes from doing God's will. Whenever it is NOT done an experience of lack results. This is because NOT doing the will of God IS a lack of self.

Sex was intended as an instrument for physical creation to enable Souls to embark on new chapters in their experience, and thus improve their record. The pencil was NOT an end in itself. (See earlier section.) It was an aid to the artist in his own creative endeavors. As he made new homes for Souls and guided them through the period of their own developmental readiness, he learned the role of the father himself. The whole process was set up as a learning experience in gaining Grace.

The pleasure which is derived from sex AS SUCH is reliable only because it stems from an error which men shared. AWARENESS of the error produces the guilt. DENIAL of the error results in projection. CORRECTION of the error brings release.

The only VALID use of sex is procreation. It is NOT truly pleasurable in itself. "Lead us not into Temptation" means "Do not let us deceive ourselves into believing that we can relate in peace to God or our brothers with ANYTHING external."

The "sin of onan" was called a "sin" because it involved a related type of self-delusion; namely, that pleasure WITHOUT relating can exist.

To repeat an earlier instruction, the concept of either the self or another as a "sex-OBJECT" epitomizes this strange reversal. As Bill put it, and very correctly, too, it IS objectionable, but only because it is invalid. Upside down logic produces this kind of thinking.

Child of God, you were created to create the good, the beautiful, and the holy. Do not lose sight of this. You were right in telling Bill to invite Me to enter anywhere temptation arises. I will change the situation from one of inappropriate sexual attraction to one of impersonal miracle-working. The concept of changing the channel for libidinal expression is Freud's greatest contribution, except that he did not understand what "channel" really means.

Miracle Principle 48

The love of God, for a little while, must still be expressed through one body to another. That is because the real vision is still so dim. Everyone can use his body best by enlarging man's perception, so he can see the real VISION. THIS VISION is invisible to the physical eye. The ultimate purpose of the body is to render itself unnecessary. Learning to do this is the only real reason for its creation.

NOTE Scribes have a particular role in the Plan of Atonement, because they have the ability to EXPERIENCE revelations themselves, and also to put into words enough of the experience to serve as a basis for miracles.

(This refers to experiences at the visionary level, after which Helen Schucman wrote "If you will tell me what to do, I will to do it." She had not known that the word "to" was inserted, and had merely intended to write "I will do it." This recognition had a terrific impact on Helen Schucman.)

This is why you EXPERIENCED that revelation about "I will to do" VERY personally, but also WROTE IT: What you wrote CAN be useful to miracle workers other than yourself. We said before that prayer is the medium of miracles. The miracle prayer IS what you wrote, i.e. "If you will tell me what to do, I will to do it." *

This prayer is the door that leads out of the desert forever.

*(Correction next day. This is not a complete statement, because it does not exclude the negative. We have already told you to add "and NOT to do what you would not have me do." in connection with miracles. The distinction has also been made here between "miracle-mindedness" as a STATE, and "miracle-doing" as its expression.

The former needs YOUR careful protection, because it is a state of miracle-READINESS. This is what the Bible means in the many references to "Hold yourself ready" and other similar injunctions.

Readiness here means keep your perception right side up, (or valid), so you will ALWAYS be ready, willing, and able. These are the essentials for "listen, learn, and do." You must be

READY to listen

WILLING to learn

and ABLE to do

Only the last is involuntary, because it is the APPLICATION of miracles which must be Christ-controlled. But the other two, which are the voluntary aspects of miracle-mindedness, ARE up to you.

To channelize DOES have a "narrowing down" connotation, though NOT in the sense of lack. The underlying state of mind, or Grace is a total commitment. Only the DOING aspect involves the channel at all. This is because doing is always specific.

As Jack said, "A reliable instrument must measure something," but a channel is also valid. It must learn to do ONLY what it is supposed to do. Change the prayer to read:

If you will tell me what to do,

ONLY THAT I will to do.

NOTE Helen Schucman objects to doggerel sound of this, and regards it as very inferior poetry. ANSWER: It's hard to forget, though.

Miracle Principle 49

The Revelation is literally unspeakable, because it is an experience of unspeakable love. The word "Awe" should be reserved only for revelations, to which it is perfectly and correctly applicable. It is NOT appropriately applied to miracles, because a state of true awe is worshipful. It implies that one of a lesser order stands before the Greater One. This is the case only when a Soul stands before his Creator. Souls are perfect creations, and should be struck with awe in the presence of the Creator of Perfection.

The miracle, on the other hand, is a sign of love among equals. Equals cannot be in awe of each other, because awe ALWAYS implies inequality. Awe is not properly experienced even to me. That is why in that short introductory vision, I knelt beside you, FACING the light.

An Elder Brother is entitled to respect for his greater experience, and a reasonable amount of obedience for his greater wisdom. He is also entitled to love, because he is a brother, and also to devotion, if he is devoted. It is only my own devotion that entitles me to yours. But you will notice that I have knelt at your altar as readily as I would ever have you kneel at mine.

There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. I have nothing that does not come from God. The main difference between us as yet is that I have NOTHING ELSE. This leaves me in a state of true holiness, which is only a POTENTIAL in you.

"No man cometh to the Father but by me" is among the most misunderstood statements in the Bible. It DOES NOT mean that I am in any way separate (or different) from you, EXCEPT IN TIME. Now, we know that time does not exist. Actually, the statement is much more meaningful if it is considered on a vertical rather than a horizontal axis. Regarded along the vertical, man stands below me, and I stand below God. In the process of "rising up", I AM higher. This is because without me the distance between God and man is too great for man to encompass. I bridge the distance as an Elder Brother to man, on the one hand, and a Son of God on the other. My devotion to my brothers has placed me in charge of the Sonship, which I can render complete only to the extent I can SHARE it.

This appears to contradict another statement: "I and my Father are one." It doesn't. There are still separate parts in the statement, in recognition of the fact that the Father is GREATER. Actually, the original statement was "are of one KIND."

The Holy Spirit is the Bringer of Revelations, not miracles. Revelations are INDIRECTLY inspired by me, because I am close to the Holy Spirit, and alert to revelation-readiness in my brothers. I can thus BRING DOWN to them more than they can DRAW down to themselves. Jean Dixon's description is perhaps a better statement of my position. Because my feet are on the ground and my hands are in heaven, I can bring down the glories of Heaven to my brothers on earth.

Miracle Principle 50

The Holy Spirit is the Highest Communication Medium. Miracles do not involve this type of communication, because they are TEMPORARY communicative devices. When man can return to his original form of communication with God by direct REVELATION, the need for miracles is over. The Holy Spirit mediates higher to lower order communication, keeping the direct channel from God to man open for revelation. Revelation is NOT reciprocal. It is always FROM God TO man. This is because God and man are NOT equal. The miracle is reciprocal because it ALWAYS involves equality.

In the longitudinal (or horizontal) plane, the true equality of all men in the Sonship appears to involve almost endless time. But we know that time is only an artifact introduced as a learning aid.