Lesson 285 "My holiness shines bright and clear today."

"Father, my holiness is Yours. Let me rejoice in it, and through forgiveness be restored to sanity. Your Son is still as You created him. My holiness is part of me and also part of You. And what can alter Holiness Itself?"

Lesson 232 "Be in my mind, my Father, through the day."

This is as every day should be. Today practice the end of fear. Have faith in Him Who is your Father. Trust all things to Him. Let Him reveal all things to you, and be you undismayed because you are His Son.

Lesson 346 "Today the peace of God envelops me, and I forget all things except His Love."

And when the evening comes today, we will remember nothing but the peace of God. For we will learn today what peace is ours when we forget all things except God's Love.

Section 9 - Healing as Corrected Perception

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today's idea expresses something stronger than mere determination. It gives vision priority among your desires. You may feel hesitant about using the idea on the ground that you are not sure you really mean it. This does not matter. The purpose of today's exercises is to bring the time when the idea will be wholly true a little nearer.

There may be a great temptation to believe that some sort of sacrifice is being asked of you when you say you want to see above all else. If you become uneasy by the lack of reservation involved, add:

"Vision has no cost to anyone."

If fear of loss still persists, add further:

"It can only bless."

The real question is how often will you remember? How much do you want today's idea to be true? Answer one of these two questions, and you have answered the other. You will probably miss several applications, and perhaps quite a number. Do not be disturbed by this, but do try to keep on your schedule from then on. If only once during the day you feel that you were perfectly sincere while you were repeating today's idea, you can be sure that you have saved yourself many years of effort.

Lesson 42 "God is my strength. Vision is His gift."

The idea for today combines two very powerful thoughts, both of major importance. It also sets forth a cause and effect relationship which explains why you cannot fail in your efforts to achieve the goal of the course. You will see because it is the Will of God. It is His strength, not your own, that gives you power. And it is His gift to you, rather than your own, which offers vision to you.

God is indeed your strength, and what He gives is truly given. This means that you can receive it any time and anywhere, wherever you are and in whatever circumstances you find yourself. Your passage through time and space is not random. You cannot but be in the right place at the right time. Such is the strength of God. Such are His gifts.

Begin the longer practice period by repeating the idea for today slowly, with eyes open, looking about you. Then close your eyes and repeat the idea again, quite slowly. After this, try to think of nothing except thoughts which occur to you in relation to today's idea. You might think, for example:

"Vision must be possible. God gives truly."

or,

"God's gifts to me must be mine because He gave them to me."

Whatever thought that is clearly related to the idea itself is suitable.

You may, in fact, be astonished at the amount of course-related understanding some of your own thoughts contain. Let them come without censoring unless you realize that your mind is merely wandering, and you have let obviously irrelevant thoughts intrude. You may also reach a point where no thoughts at all seem to come to mind. If such interferences occur, open your eyes and repeat the thought once more while looking slowly about; close your eyes, repeat the idea once more, and then continue to look for related thoughts in your mind.

Remember, though, that active searching is not appropriate for today's exercises. Try merely to step back and let the thoughts come. If you find this difficult, it is better to spend the practice period alternating between slow repetitions of the idea with eyes open, then closed, then open, and so on than it is to strain in order to find suitable thoughts.

There is no limit on the number of short practice periods which would be most beneficial. The idea for today is a beginning step in bringing thoughts together and teaching you that what you are studying is a unified thought system in which nothing is lacking that is needed, and nothing is included that is contradictory or irrelevant. The more often you repeat the idea during the day, the more often you will be reminding yourself that the goal of the course is important to you, and that you have not forgotten it.

Section 2 - Is Psychotherapy a Profession

Strictly speaking the answer is no. How could a separate profession be one in which everyone is engaged? And how could any limits be laid on an interaction in which everyone is both patient and therapist in every relationship into which he enters? Yet practically speaking, it can still be said that there are those who devote themselves primarily to healing of one sort or another as their chief function. And it is to them that a large number of others turn for help. That, in effect, is the practice of therapy. These are therefore "officially" helpers. They are devoted to certain kinds of needs in their professional activities, although they may be far more able teachers outside of them. These people need no special rules, of course, but they may be called upon to use special applications of the general principles of healing.

First, the professional therapist is in an excellent position to demonstrate that there is no order of difficulty in healing. For this, however, he needs special training, because the curriculum by which he became a therapist probably taught him little or nothing about the real principles of healing. In fact, it probably tried to teach him how to make healing impossible. Most of the world's training follows a curriculum in judgment, with the aim of making the therapist a judge.

Even this the Holy Spirit can use, and will use, given the slightest invitation. The unhealed healer may be arrogant, selfish, unconcerned, and actually dishonest. He may be disinterested and unconcerned with healing as his major goal. Yet something happened to him, however slight it may have been, when he chose to be a healer, however misguided the direction he may have chosen. That "something" is enough. Sooner or later that something will rise in awareness and grow; a patient will touch his heart, and the therapist will silently ask him for help. He has himself found a therapist. He has asked the Holy Spirit to enter the relationship and heal it. He has accepted the Atonement for himself.

Something good must come from every meeting of patient and therapist. And that good is saved for both, against the day when they can recognize that only that was real in their relationship. At that moment it is returned to them, blessed by the Holy Spirit as a gift from their Creator as a sign of His Love. For the therapeutic relationship must become like the relationship of the Father and the Son. There is no other, for there is nothing else. The therapists of this world do not expect this outcome, and many of their patients would not be able to accept help from them if they did. Yet no therapist really sets the goal for the relationships of which he is a part. His understanding begins with recognizing this, and then goes on from there.

Once the professional therapist has realized that minds are joined, he can also recognize that order of difficulty in healing is meaningless. Yet well before he reaches this in time he can go toward it. Many holy instants can be his along the way. A goal marks the end of a journey, not the beginning, and as each goal is reached another can be dimly seen ahead. Most professional therapists are still at the very start of the beginning stage of the first journey. Even those who have begun to understand what they must do may still oppose the setting-out. Yet all the laws of healing can be theirs in just an instant. The journey is not long except in dreams.

The professional therapist has one advantage that can save enormous time if it is properly used. He has chosen a road on which there is great temptation to misuse his role. This enables him to pass by many obstacles to peace quite quickly, if he escapes the temptation to assume a function that has not been given him. To understand there is no order of difficulty in healing, he must also recognize the equality of himself and the patient. There is no halfway point in this. Either they are equal or not. The attempts of therapists to compromise in this respect are strange indeed. Some utilize the relationship merely to collect bodies to worship at their shrine, and this they regard as healing. Many patients, too, consider this strange procedure as salvation. Yet at each meeting there is One Who says, "My brother, choose again."

Do not forget that any form of specialness must be defended, and will be. The defenseless therapist has the strength of God with him, but the defensive therapist has lost sight of the Source of his salvation. He does not see and he does not hear. How, then, can he teach? Because it is the Will of God that he take his place in the plan for salvation. Because it is the Will of God that his patients be helped to join with him there. Because his inability to see and hear does not limit the Holy Spirit in any way. Except in time. In time there can be a great lag between the offering and the acceptance of healing. This is the veil across the Face of Christ. Yet it can be but an illusion, because time does not exist and the Will of God has always been exactly as it is.

Section 4 - God's Witnesses

Condemn your Savior not because he thinks he is a body. Far beyond his dreams is his reality. But he must learn he is a Savior first, before he can remember what he is. And he must save who would BE saved. On saving YOU depends his happiness. For who is Savior, but the one who GIVES salvation? Thus he learns it must be his to give. UNLESS he gives, he will not know he HAS, for giving is the proof of having. Only those who think that God is lessened by their strength could fail to understand this must be so. For who COULD give unless he has, and who could lose by giving what must be INCREASED thereby?

Think you the Father LOST Himself when He created you? Was HE made weak because He shared His Love? Was He made incomplete by YOUR perfection? Or are you the proof that He IS perfect and complete? Deny Him not His witness in the dream His Son prefers to his reality. He must be Savior FROM the dream he made, that he be free of it. He must see someone ELSE as NOT a body, one with him, without the wall the world has built to keep apart all living things who know not that they live. Within the dream of bodies and of death, is yet one theme of truth. No more, perhaps, than just a tiny spark, a space of light created in the dark, where God shines still.

There, in its place, God's Witness has set forth the gentle way of kindness to God's Son. Whom you forgive is GIVEN power to forgive you your illusions. By your gift of freedom is it given unto YOU. Make way for love which you did not create, but which you CAN extend. On earth this means forgive your brother, that the darkness may be lifted from YOUR mind. When light has come to him through your forgiveness, he will not forget his Savior, leaving him unsaved. For it was in YOUR face he saw the light that he would keep beside him, as he walks through darkness to the everlasting Light.

Lesson 68 "Love holds no grievances."

You who were created by Love like Itself can hold no grievances and know your Self. To hold a grievance is to forget who you are. To hold a grievance is to see yourself as a body. It is the decision to let the ego rule your mind, and to condemn the body to death. Perhaps you do not yet fully realize just what holding grievances does to your awareness. It seems to split you off from your Source, and make you unlike Him. It makes you believe that He is like what you think you have become, for no one can conceive of his Creator as unlike himself.

It is as sure that those who hold grievances will redefine God in their own image as it is certain that God created them like Himself and defined them as part of Him. It is as sure that those who hold grievances will suffer guilt as it is certain that those who forgive will find peace. It is as sure that those who hold grievances will forget who they are as it is certain that those who forgive will remember.

Would you not be willing to relinquish your grievances if you believed all this were so? Perhaps you do not think that you can let all your grievances go. That, however, is simply a question of motivation. Today we will try to find out how you would feel without them. If you succeed even by ever so little, there will never be a problem in motivation ever again.

Begin today's extended practice period by searching your mind for those against whom you hold what you regard as major grievances. Some of these will be quite easy to find. Then think of the seemingly minor grievances you hold against those you like, and even think you love. It will quickly become apparent that there is no one against whom you do not cherish grievances of some sort. This has left you alone in all the universe in your perception of yourself.

Determine now to see all these people as friends. Say to them all, collectively, thinking of each one in turn as you do so:

"I would see you as my friend,

that I may remember you are part of me,

and come to know myself."

Spend the remainder of the practice period trying to think of yourself as completely at peace with everyone and everything, safe in a world which protects you and loves you, and which you love in return.

Try to feel safety surrounding you, hovering over you, and holding you up. Try to believe, however briefly, that nothing can harm you in any way. At the end of the practice period tell yourself:

"Love holds no grievances.

when I let all my grievances go,

I will know I am perfectly safe."

Lesson 163 "There is no death. The Son of God is free."

Death is a thought which takes on many forms, often unrecognized. It may appear as sadness, fear, anxiety or doubt; as anger, faithlessness and lack of trust; concern for bodies, envy, and all forms in which the wish to be as you are not may come to tempt you. All such thoughts are but reflections of the worshipping of death as Savior and as giver of release.

Embodiment of fear, the host of sin, god of the guilty and the lord of all illusions and deceptions, does the thought of death seem mighty. For it seems to hold all living things within its withered hand; all hopes and wishes in its blighting grasp; all goals perceived but in its sightless eyes. The frail, the helpless and the sick bow down before its image, thinking it alone is real, inevitable, worthy of their trust. For it alone will surely come.

Would you bow down to idols such as this? Here is the strength and might of God Himself perceived within an idol made of dust. Here is the opposite of God proclaimed as lord of all creation, stronger than God's Will for life, the endlessness of love and Heaven's perfect, changeless constancy. Here is the Will of Father and of Son defeated finally, and laid to rest beneath the headstone death has placed upon the body of the holy Son of God.

Unholy in defeat, he has become what death would have him be. His epitaph, which death itself has written, gives no name to him, for he has passed to dust. It says but this: "Here lies a witness God is dead." And this it writes again and still again, while all the while its worshippers agree, and kneeling down with foreheads to the ground, they whisper fearfully that it is so.

It is impossible to worship death in any form, and still select a few you would not cherish, and would yet avoid while still believing in the rest. For death is total. Either all things die, or else they live and cannot die. No compromise is possible. For here again we see an obvious position which we must accept if we be sane; what contradicts one thought entirely can not be true unless its opposite is proven false.

The idea of the death of God is so preposterous that even the insane have difficulty in believing it. For it implies that God was once alive and somehow perished, killed, apparently, by those who did not want him to survive. Their stronger will could triumph over His, and so Eternal Life gave way to death. And with the Father died the Son as well.

Death's worshippers may be afraid. And yet can thoughts like these be fearful? If they saw that it is only this which they believed, they would be instantly released. And you will show them this today. There is no death, and we renounce it now in every form, for their salvation and our own as well. God made not death. Whatever form it takes must therefore be illusion. This the stand we take today. And it is given us to look past death and see the life beyond.

"Our Father, bless our eyes today. We are Your messengers, and we would look upon the glorious reflection of Your Love which shines in everything. We live and breathe in You alone. We are not separate from Your Eternal Life. There is no death, for death is not Your Will. And we abide where You have placed us, in the Life we share with You and with all living things, to be like You and part of You forever. We accept Your Thoughts as ours, and our will is One with Yours eternally. Amen."

Lesson 109 "I rest in God."

We ask for rest today, and quietness unshaken by the world's appearances. We ask for peace and stillness in the midst of all the turmoil born of clashing dreams. We ask for safety and for happiness, although we seem to look on danger and on sorrow. And we have the thought that will answer our asking with what we request.

"I rest in God." Completely undismayed this thought will carry you through storms and strife, past misery and pain, past loss and death, and onward to the certainty of God. There is no suffering it cannot heal. There is no problem which it cannot solve. And no appearance but will turn to truth before the eyes of you who rest in God.

This is the day of peace. You rest in God, and while the world is torn by winds of hate, your rest remains completely undisturbed. Yours is the rest of truth. Appearances cannot intrude on you. You call to all to join you in your rest, and they will hear and come to you because you rest in God. They will not hear another voice but yours, because you gave your voice to God and now you rest in Him, and let Him speak through you.

In Him you have no cares and no concerns, no burdens, no anxiety, no pain, no fear of future and no past regrets. In timelessness you rest, while time goes by without its touch upon you, for your rest can never change in any way at all. You rest today. And as you close your eyes, sink into stillness. Let these periods of rest and respite reassure your mind that all its frantic fantasies were but the dreams of fever that has passed away. Let it be still and thankfully accept its healing. No more fearful dreams will come now that you rest in God. Take time today to slip away from dreams and into peace.

Each hour that you take your rest today a tired mind is suddenly made glad, a bird with broken wings begins to sing, a stream long dry begins to flow again. The world is born again each time you rest, and hourly remember that you came to bring the peace of God into the world, that it might take its rest along with you.

With each five minutes that you rest today the world is nearer waking. And the time when rest will be the only thing there is comes closer to all worn and tired minds, too weary now to go their way alone. And they will hear the bird begin to sing, and see the stream begin to flow again, with hope reborn and energy restored to walk with lightened steps along the road that suddenly seems easy as they go.

You rest within the peace of God today, and call upon your brothers from your rest, to draw them to their rest along with you. You will be faithful to your trust today, forgetting no one, bringing everyone into the boundless circle of your peace, the holy sanctuary where you rest. Open the temple doors and let them come from far across the world and near as well; your distant brothers and your closest friends; bid them all enter here and rest with you.

You rest within the peace of God today, quiet and unafraid. Each brother comes to take his rest, and offer it to you. We rest together here, for thus our rest is made complete, and what we give today we have received already. Time is not the guardian of what we give today. We give to those unborn and those passed by, to every Thought of God, and to the Mind in Which these Thoughts were born, and where they rest. And we remind them of their resting place each time we tell ourselves:

"I rest in God."

Section 5 - Dream Roles

In simplest form, it can be said attack is a response to function unfulfilled AS YOU PERCEIVE THE FUNCTION. It can be in you or someone else, but where it is perceived, it will be there it is attacked. Depression or assault must be the theme of every dream, for they are made of fear. The thin disguise of pleasure and of joy in which they may be wrapped but slightly veils the heavy lump of fear which is their core. And it is THIS the miracle perceives, and NOT the wrappings in which it is bound. When you are angry, is it not because someone has failed to fill the function YOU allotted him? And does not THIS become the "reason" your attack is justified?

The dreams you THINK you like are those in which the functions YOU have given have been filled; the needs which YOU ascribe to you are met. It does not matter if they be fulfilled, or merely wanted. It is the idea that they EXIST from which the fears arise. Dreams are not wanted more or less. They are desired or not. And each one represents some function which you have assigned; some goal which an event, or body, or a thing SHOULD represent, and SHOULD achieve for you. If it succeeds, you think you LIKE the dream. If it should fail, you think the dream is sad. But whether it succeeds or fails is not its core, but just the flimsy covering.

How happy would your dreams become, if you were NOT the one who gave the "proper" role to every figure that the dream contains. No-one can fail but your IDEA of him, and there IS no betrayal but of this. The core of dreams the Holy Spirit gives is NEVER one of fear. The coverings may not appear to change, but what they MEAN has changed BECAUSE they cover something else. Perceptions are determined by their purpose, in that they seem to BE what they are FOR. A shadow figure who attacks becomes a brother giving you a chance to help, if this becomes the FUNCTION of the dream. And dreams of sadness thus are turned to joy.

What is your brother FOR? You do not know, because YOUR function is obscure to you. Do NOT ascribe a role to him which you imagine would bring happiness to you. And do not try to hurt him, when he fails to take the part which you assigned to him in what you dream your life was meant to be. He asks for help in every dream he has, and you have Help to give him if you see the FUNCTION of the dream as He perceives its function, Who can utilize all dreams as means to serve the Function given Him. Because He loves the dreamer, NOT the dream, each dream becomes an offering of love. For at its center is His Love for you, which lights WHATEVER form it takes with love.

Section 5 - The Awareness of the Holy Spirit

How can you become increasingly aware of the Holy Spirit in you, EXCEPT by His EFFECTS? You cannot see Him with your eyes, nor hear Him with your ears. How, then, can you perceive Him at all? If you INSPIRE joy, and others react to you WITH joy, even though you are not experiencing joy yourself, there must be SOMETHING IN YOU that IS CAPABLE OF PRODUCING IT. If it is in YOU, and CAN produce joy, and if you see that it DOES produce joy in others, you MUST be dissociating it in yourself.

It seems to you that the Holy Spirit does not produce joy consistently in you, ONLY because YOU DO NOT CONSISTENTLY AROUSE JOY IN OTHERS. Their reactions to you ARE your evaluations of His consistency. When you are inconsistent, you will not always GIVE RISE to joy, and so you will not always recognize HIS consistency. What you offer to your brother, you offer to Him, because He cannot GO BEYOND your offering in HIS giving. This is NOT because HE limits His giving, but simply because YOU have limited your RECEIVING.

The will to receive is the will to accept. If your brothers ARE part of you, will you ACCEPT them? Only they can teach you what you are, and your learning is the result of what you taught THEM. What you call upon in them, you call upon in YOURSELF. And as you call upon it IN THEM, it becomes real to YOU. God has but one Son, knowing them all as One. Only God Himself is more than they, but they are not less than He is. Would you know what this means? If what you do to my brother you do to me, and if you do everything for yourself because we are PART of you, everything WE do belongs to you as well. Every Soul God created is part of you, and shares His glory WITH you.

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

Miracles have no place in eternity because they are reparative. But while you still need healing, your miracles are the only witnesses to your reality THAT YOU CAN RECOGNIZE. You cannot perform a miracle FOR YOURSELF, because miracles are a way of GIVING ACCEPTANCE AND receiving it. In TIME, the giving comes FIRST, though they are simultaneous in eternity, where they cannot BE separated. When you have learned that they ARE the same, the need for time is over. Eternity is ONE time, its ONLY dimension being "always."

But this cannot mean anything to you, until you remember God's open arms, and finally know His open Mind. Like Him, YOU are ALWAYS, in His Mind, and with a mind like His. In your open mind are YOUR creations, in perfect communication, born of perfect understanding. Could you but accept one of them, you would not want ANYTHING the world has to offer. Everything else would be totally meaningless. God's meaning is incomplete without you, and you are incomplete without your creations.

Accept your brother in this world, and accept NOTHING ELSE, for in him you will find your creations, because he created them WITH you. You will never know that you are co-creator with God, until you learn that your brother is a co-creator with YOU.

Lesson 122 "Forgiveness offers everything I want."

What could you want forgiveness cannot give? Do you want peace? Forgiveness offers it. Do you want happiness, a quiet mind, a certainty of purpose, and a sense of worth and beauty that transcends the world? Do you want care and safety, and the warmth of sure protection always? Do you want a quietness that cannot be disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep, abiding comfort, and a rest so perfect it can never be upset?

Forgiveness lets the veil be lifted up which hides the Face of Christ from those who look with unforgiving eyes upon the world. It lets you recognize the Son of God, and clears your memory of all dead thoughts so that remembrance of your Father can arise across the threshold of your mind. What would you want forgiveness cannot give? What gifts but these are worthy to be sought? What fancied value, trivial effect, or transient promise never to be kept, can hold more hope than what forgiveness brings?

Why would you seek an answer other than the answer that will answer everything? Here is the perfect answer, given to imperfect questions, meaningless requests, half-hearted willingness to hear, and less than halfway diligence and partial trust. Here is the answer! Seek for it no more. You will not find another one instead.

God's plan for your salvation cannot change, nor can it fail. Be thankful it remains exactly as He planned it. Changelessly it stands before you, like an open door with warmth and welcome calling from beyond the doorway, bidding you to enter in, and make yourself at home where you belong.

Here is the answer! Would you stand outside while all of Heaven waits for you within? Forgive and be forgiven. As you give you will receive. There is no plan but this for the salvation of the Son of God. Let us today rejoice that this is so, for here we have an answer, clear and plain, beyond deceit in its simplicity.

All of the complexities the world has spun of fragile cobwebs disappear before the power and the majesty of this extremely simple statement of the truth. Here is the answer! Do not turn away in aimless wandering again. Accept salvation now. It is the gift of God and not the world. The world can give no gifts of any value to a mind which has received what God has given as its own.

God wills salvation be received today, and that the intricacies of your dreams no longer hide their nothingness from you. Open your eyes today, and look upon a happy world of safety and of peace. Forgiveness is the means by which it comes to take the place of hell. In quietness it rises up to greet your open eyes, and fill your heart with deep tranquility as ancient truths, forever newly born, arise in your awareness. What you will remember then can never be described. Yet your forgiveness offers it to you.

Remembering the gifts forgiveness gives, we undertake our practicing today with hope and faith that this will be the day salvation will be ours. Earnestly and gladly will we seek for it today, aware we hold the key within our hands, accepting Heaven's answer to the hell we made, but where we would remain no more.

Morning and evening do we gladly give a quarter of an hour to the search in which the end of hell is guaranteed. Begin in hopefulness, for we have reached the turning point at which the road becomes far easier. And now the way is short that yet we travel. We are close indeed to the appointed ending of the dream.

Sink into happiness as you begin these practice periods, for they hold out the sure rewards of questions answered, and what your acceptance of the answer brings. Today it will be given you to feel the peace forgiveness offers, and the joy the lifting of the veil holds out to you.

Before the light you will receive today the world will fade until it disappears, and you will see another world arise you have no words to picture. Now we walk directly into light, and we receive the gifts which have been held in store for us since time began, kept waiting for today.

Forgiveness offers everything you want. Today all things you want are given you. Let not your gifts recede throughout the day, as you return again to meet a world of shifting change and bleak appearances. Retain your gifts in clear awareness as you see the changeless in the heart of change; the light of truth behind appearances.

Be tempted not to let your gifts slip by, and drift into forgetfulness but hold them firmly in your mind by your attempts to think of them at least a minute as each quarter of an hour passes by. Remind yourself how precious are these gifts with this reminder, which has power to hold your gifts in your awareness through the day:

"Forgiveness offers everything I want.

Today I have accepted this as true.

Today I have received the gifts of God."

Section 6 - The Process of Healing

Let us remember that the ones who come to us for help are bitterly afraid. What they believe will help can only harm; what they believe will harm alone can help. Progress becomes impossible until the patient is persuaded to reverse his twisted way of looking at the world; his twisted way of looking at himself. The truth is simple. Yet it must be taught to those who think it will endanger them. It must be taught to those who will attack because they feel endangered, and to those who need the lesson of defenselessness above all else, to show them what is strength.

If this world were ideal, there could perhaps be ideal therapy. And yet it would be useless in an ideal state. We speak of ideal teaching in a world in which the perfect teacher could not long remain; the perfect psychotherapist is but a glimmer of a thought not yet conceived. But still we speak of what can yet be done in helping the insane within the bounds of the attainable. While they are sick, they can and must be helped. No more than that is asked of psychotherapy; no less than all he has to give is worthy of the therapist. For God Himself holds out his brother as his Savior from the world.

Healing is holy. Nothing in the world is holier than helping one who asks for help. And two come very close to God in this attempt, however limited, however lacking in sincerity. Where two have joined for healing, God is there. And He has guaranteed that He will hear and answer them in truth. They can be sure that healing is a process He directs, because it is according to His Will. We have His Word to guide us, as we try to help our brothers. Let us not forget that we are helpless of ourselves, and lean upon a strength beyond our little scope for what to teach as well as what to learn.

A brother seeking aid can bring us gifts beyond the heights perceived in any dream. He offers us salvation, for he comes to us as Christ and Savior. What he asks is asked by God through him. And what we do for him becomes the gift we give to God. The sacred calling of God's holy Son for help in his perceived distress can be but answered by his Father. Yet He needs a voice through which to speak His holy Word; a hand to reach His Son and touch his heart. In such a process, who could not be healed? This holy interaction is the plan of God Himself, by which His Son is saved.

For two have joined. And now God's promises are kept by Him. The limits laid on both the patient and the therapist will count as nothing, for the healing has begun. What man must start his Father will complete. For He has never asked for more than just the smallest willingness, the least advance, the tiniest of whispers of His Name. To ask for help, whatever form it takes, is but to call on Him. And He will send His Answer through the therapist who best can serve His Son in all his present needs. Perhaps the answer does not seem to be a gift from Heaven. It may even seem to be a worsening and not a help. Yet let the outcome not be judged by us.

Somewhere all gifts of God must be received. In time no effort can be made in vain. It is not our perfection that is asked in our attempts to heal. We are deceived already, if we think there is a need of healing. And the truth will come to us only through one who seems to share our dream of sickness. Let us help him to forgive himself for all the trespasses with which he would condemn himself without a cause. His healing is our own. And as we see the sinlessness in him come shining through the veil of guilt that shrouds the Son of God, we will behold in him the Face of Christ, and understand that it is but our own.

Let us stand silently before God's Will, and do what It has chosen that we do. There is one way alone by which we come to where all dreams began. And it is there that we will lay them down, to come away in peace forever. Hear a brother call for help and answer him. It will be God to Whom you answer, for you called on Him. There is no other way to hear His Voice. There is no other way to seek His Son. There is no other way to find your Self. Holy is healing, for the Son of God returns to Heaven through its kind embrace. For healing tells him, in the Voice of God, that all his sins have been forgiven him.

Lesson 138 "Heaven is the decision I must make."

In this world Heaven is a choice, because here we believe there are alternatives to choose between. We think that all things have an opposite, and what we want we choose. If Heaven exists there must be hell as well, for contradiction is the way we make what we perceive and what we think is real.

Creation knows no opposite. But here is opposition part of being "real." It is this strange perception of the truth which makes the choice of Heaven seem to be the same as the relinquishment of hell. It is not really thus. Yet what is true in God's creation cannot enter here, until it is reflected in some form the world can understand. Truth cannot come where it could only be perceived with fear, for this would be the error truth can be brought to illusions. Opposition makes the truth unwelcome, and it cannot come.

Choice is the obvious escape from what appears as opposites. Decision lets one of the conflicting goals become the aim of effort and expenditure of time. Without decision time is but a waste and effort dissipated. It is spent for nothing in return. And time goes by without results. There is no sense of gain, for nothing is accomplished; nothing learned.

You need to be reminded that you think a thousand choices are confronting you when there is really only one to make. And even this but seems to be a choice. Do not confuse yourself with all the doubts that myriad decisions would induce. You make but one. And when that one is made, you will perceive it was no choice at all, for truth is true and nothing else is real. There is no opposite to choose instead. There is no contradiction to the truth.

Choosing depends on learning. But the truth cannot be learned but only recognized. In recognition its acceptance lies, and as it is accepted it is known. But knowledge is beyond the goals we seek to teach within the framework of this course. Ours are teaching goals to be attained through learning how to reach them, what they are, and what they offer you. Decisions are the outcome of your learning, for they rest on what you have accepted as the truth of what you are and what your needs must be.

In this insanely complicated world Heaven appears to take the form of choice, rather than merely being what it is. Of all the choices you have tried to make this is the simplest, most definitive, the prototype of all the rest, the one which settles all decisions. If you could decide the rest, this one remains unsolved. But when you solve this one the others are resolved with it, for all decisions but conceal this one by taking different forms. Here is the final and the only choice in which is truth accepted or denied.

So we begin today considering the choice that time was made to help us make. Such is its holy purpose, now transformed from the intent you gave it; that it be a means for demonstrating hell is real, hope changes to despair, and life itself must in the and be overcome by death. In death alone are opposites resolved, for ending opposition is to die. And thus salvation must be seen as death, for life is seen as conflict. To resolve the conflict is to end your life as well.

These mad beliefs can gain unconscious hold of great intensity, and grip the mind with terror and anxiety so strong that it will not relinquish its ideas about its own protection. It must be saved from salvation, threatened to be safe, and magically armored against truth. And these decisions are made unaware to keep them safely undisturbed, apart from question and from reason and from doubt.

Heaven is chosen consciously. The choice cannot be made until alternatives are accurately seen and understood. All that is veiled in shadows must be raised to understanding to be judged again, this time with Heaven's help, and all mistakes in judgment which the mind had made before are open to correction as the truth dismisses them as causeless. Now are they without effects. They cannot be concealed because their nothingness is recognized.

The conscious choice of Heaven is as sure as is the ending of the fear of hell, when it is raised from its protective shield of unawareness, and is brought to light. Who can decide between the clearly seen and the unrecognized? Yet who can fail to make a choice between alternatives when only one is seen as valuable; the other as a wholly worthless thing, a but imagined source of guilt and pain?

Before we close our eyes in sleep tonight we reaffirm the choice that we have made each hour in between. And now we give the last five minutes of our waking day to the decision with which we awoke. As every hour passed, we have declared our choice again in a brief quiet time devoted to maintaining sanity. And finally we close the day with this, acknowledging we chose but what we want:

"Heaven is the decision I must make.

I make it now and will not change my mind,

Because it is the only thing I want."

Section 5 - The Guarantee of Heaven

When we are all united in Heaven, you will value NOTHING that you value here. For nothing that you value here you value wholly, and so you do not value it at all. Value is where God placed it, and the value of what God esteems CANNOT BE JUDGED, for it HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED. It is WHOLLY of value. It can merely be appreciated OR NOT. To value it partially is NOT TO KNOW ITS VALUE. In Heaven is everything God values, and nothing else. Heaven is perfectly unambiguous. Everything is clear and bright, and calls forth ONE response. There is no darkness, and there is no contrast. There is no variation. There is no interruption. There is a sense of peace so deep, that no dream in this world has ever brought even a dim imagining of what it is.

Nothing in this world can give this peace, for nothing in this world is wholly shared. Perfect perception can merely show you what is CAPABLE of being wholly shared. It can also show you the RESULTS of sharing, while you still remember the results of NOT sharing. The Holy Spirit points quietly to the contrast, knowing that you will finally let Him judge the difference FOR you, allowing Him to demonstrate which MUST be true. He has perfect faith in your final judgment because He knows that HE WILL MAKE IT FOR YOU. To doubt this would be to doubt that His mission will be fulfilled. How is this possible, when His mission is of God?

You whose minds are darkened by doubt and guilt, remember this; God gave the Holy Spirit TO you, and gave HIM the mission to REMOVE all doubt, and every trace of guilt, that His dear Son has laid upon himself. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE THAT THIS MISSION FAIL. Nothing can prevent what God would HAVE accomplished from accomplishment. Whatever your reactions to the Holy Spirit's voice may be, whatever voice you choose to listen to, whatever strange thoughts may occur to you, God's Will IS done. You WILL find the peace in which He has established you, because HE does NOT change His Mind. He is invariable as the peace in which you dwell, and of which the Holy Spirit reminds you.

You will not remember change and shift in Heaven. You have need of contrast only here. Contrast and differences are necessary teaching aids, for by them you learn what to avoid, and what to seek. When you have LEARNED this, you will find the answer that makes the need for ANY differences disappear. Truth comes of its OWN will, unto its own. When you have learned that you BELONG to truth, it will flow lightly over you, without a difference of ANY kind. For you will NEED no contrast to help you realize that THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT, and ONLY this.

Fear not the Holy Spirit will fail in what your Father has given Him to do. THE WILL OF GOD CAN FAIL IN NOTHING. Have faith in only this one thing, and it will be sufficient; God wills you be in Heaven, and nothing can keep you FROM it, or IT from you. Your wildest misperceptions, your weird imaginings, your blackest nightmares all mean nothing. They will not prevail against the peace God wills for you. The Holy Spirit WILL restore your sanity, because insanity is NOT the Will of God. If that suffices Him, it is enough for you. You will NOT keep what God would have removed, because it breaks communication with you, with whom He would communicate. His voice WILL be heard.

The communication link which God Himself placed within you, joining your minds with His, CANNOT be broken. You may believe you WANT it broken, and this belief DOES interfere with the deep peace, in which the sweet and constant communication which God would SHARE with you, is known. Yet His channels of reaching out CANNOT be wholly closed, and separated FROM Him. Peace will be yours, because His peace still flows to you, from Him Whose Will IS peace. YOU HAVE IT NOW. The Holy Spirit will teach you how to USE it, and by PROJECTING it, to learn that it IS in you.

God willed you Heaven, and will ALWAYS will you nothing else. The Holy Spirit knows ONLY of His Will. There is no chance that Heaven will not be yours, for God is sure, and what He wills is sure as He is. You will learn salvation, because you will learn HOW TO SAVE. It will not be possible to exempt yourself from what the Holy Spirit wills to teach you. Salvation is as sure as God. His certainty suffices. Learn that even the darkest nightmare that disturbed the mind of God's sleeping Son, holds no power over him. He WILL learn the lesson of awaking. God watches over him, and light surrounds him.

The Holy Spirit has a very different kind of reconciliation in His mind for you, and one which HE WILL EFFECT, as surely as the ego will NOT effect what it attempts. Failure is of the ego, NOT of God. From Him you CANNOT wander, and there is no possibility that the plan the Holy Spirit offers to everyone, for the salvation OF everyone, will not be perfectly accomplished. You WILL be released, and you will NOT remember anything you made that was not created FOR you, and BY you in return. For how can you remember what was never true, or NOT remember what has always been? It is this reconciliation with truth, and ONLY truth, in which the peace of Heaven lies.

Section 5 - The Holiness of Healing

How holy are the healed! For in their sight their brothers share their healing and their love. Bringers of peace - the Holy Spirit's voice, through whom He speaks for God, Whose Voice He is - such are God's healers. They but speak for Him and never for themselves. They have no gifts but those they have from God. And these they share because they know that this is what He wills. They are not special. They are holy. They have chosen holiness, and given up all separate dreams of special attributes through which they can bestow unequal gifts on those less fortunate. Their healing has restored their wholeness so they can forgive, and join the song of prayer in which the healed sing of their union and their thanks to God.

As witness to forgiveness, aid to prayer, and the effect of mercy truly taught, healing is blessing. And the world responds in quickened chorus through the voice of prayer. Forgiveness shines its merciful reprieve upon each blade of grass and feathered wing and all the living things upon the earth. Fear has no haven here, for love has come in all its holy oneness. Time remains only to let the last embrace of prayer rest on the earth an instant, as the world is shined away. This instant is the goal of all true healers, whom the Christ has taught to see His likeness and to teach like Him.

Think what it means to help the Christ to heal! Can anything be holier than this? God thanks His healers, for He knows the Cause of healing is Himself, His Love, His Son, restored as His completion and returned to share with Him creation's holy joy. Do not ask partial healing, nor accept an idol for remembrance of Him Whose Love has never changed and never will. You are as dear to Him as is the whole of His creation, for it is in you as His eternal gift. What need have you for shifting dreams within a sorry world? Do not forget the gratitude of God. Do not forget the holy grace of prayer. Do not forget forgiveness of God's Son.

You first forgive, then pray, and you are healed. Your prayer has risen up and called to God, Who hears and answers. You have understood that you forgive yourself and pray for you and in this understanding you are healed. In prayer you have united with your Source, and understood that you have never left. This level cannot be attained until there is no hatred in your heart, and no desire to attack the Son of God. Never forget this; it is you who are God's Son, and as you choose to be to him so are you to yourself, and God to you.

Nor will your judgment fail to reach to God, for you will give the role to Him you see in His creation. Thus have you become "creator" in His place, and He becomes no longer Cause but only an effect. Now healing is impossible, for on Him lies the blame for your deception and your guilt. He Who is Love is now the source of fear, and only fear can now be justified. Vengeance is His. His great destroyer, death. And sickness, suffering and grievous loss become the lot of everyone on earth, which He abandoned to the devil's care, swearing He will deliver it no more.

Come unto Me, My children, once again, without such twisted thoughts upon your heart. You still are holy with the Holiness which fathered you in perfect sinlessness, and still surrounds you in the arms of peace. Dream now of healing. Then arise and lay all dreaming down forever. You are he your Father loves, who never left his home, nor wandered in a savage world with feet that bleed, and with a heavy heart made hard against the Love that is the truth in you. Give all your dreams to Christ and let Him be your Guide to healing, leading you in prayer beyond the sorry reaches of the world.

He comes for Me and speaks My Word to you. I would recall My weary Son to Me from dreams of malice to the sweet embrace of everlasting Love and perfect peace. My arms are open to the Son I love, who does not understand that he is healed, and that his prayer has never ceased to sing his joyful thanks in unison with all creation, in the holiness of God. Be still an instant. Underneath the sounds of harsh and bitter striving and defeat there is a Voice that speaks to you of Me. Hear this an instant and you will be healed. Hear this an instant and you have been saved.

Listen, My child, Your Father calls to you. Do not refuse to hear the call of Love. Do not deny to Christ what is His Own. Heaven is here and Heaven is your home. Creation leans across the bars of time to lift the heavy burden from the world. Lift up your hearts to greet its advent. See the shadows fade away in gentleness; the thorns fall softly from the bleeding brow of him who is the holy Son of God. How lovely are you, Child of Holiness! How like to Me! How lovingly I hold you in My heart and in My arms. How dear is every gift that you have given Me, who healed My Son and took him from the cross.

Arise and let My thanks be given you. And with My gratitude will come the gift first of forgiveness, then eternal peace. So now return your holy voice to Me. The song of prayer is silent without you. The universe is waiting your release because it is its own. Be kind to it and to yourself, and then be kind to Me. I ask but this; that you be comforted and live no more in terror and in pain. Do not abandon Love. Remember this; whatever you may think about yourself, whatever you may think about the world, your Father needs you and will call to you until you come to Him in peace at last.

Section 8 - The Ideal Patient-Therapist Relationship

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

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

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

For this, one thing and one thing only is required: The therapist in no way confuses himself with God. All "unhealed healers" make this fundamental confusion in one form or another, because they must regard themselves as self-created rather than God-created. This confusion is rarely if ever in awareness, or the unhealed healer would instantly become a Teacher of God, devoting his life to the function of true healing. Before he reached this point, he thought he was in charge of the therapeutic process and was therefore responsible for its outcome. His patient's failures thus became his own mistakes, and guilt became the cover, dark and strong, for what should be the Holiness of Christ. Guilt is inevitable in those who use their judgment in making their decisions. Guilt is impossible in those through whom the Holy Spirit speaks.

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

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

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

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

Section 3 - The Basis of the Dream

Does not a world that seems quite real arise in dreams? But think what this world is. It is clearly NOT the world you saw BEFORE you slept. Rather, it is a DISTORTION of the world, planned solely around what you would have PREFERRED. Here, you are "free" to make over whatever SEEMED to attack you, and CHANGE it into a TRIBUTE to your ego, which was outraged by the attack. This would not be YOUR wish unless you saw yourself AS ONE with the ego, which ALWAYS looks upon itself, and therefore on you, as UNDER attack, and highly VULNERABLE to it.

Dreams are chaotic BECAUSE they are governed by your conflicting wishes. And therefore they have NO concern with what is true. They are the best example you could have of how perception can be utilized to substitute illusions for truth. You do not take them seriously on awaking, because the fact that, in them, reality is so OUTRAGEOUSLY violated, becomes apparent. Yet they ARE a way of LOOKING at the world, and CHANGING it TO SUIT THE EGO BETTER. They provide STRIKING examples, both of the ego's INABILITY to tolerate reality, and your willingness to CHANGE reality on its behalf.

Dreams are perceptual temper tantrums, in which you literally scream, 'I want it THUS!' And thus it seems to be. And yet, the dream can NOT escape its origin. Anger and fear pervade it, and in an instant the illusion of satisfaction is invaded by the illusion of terror. For the dream of your ability to CONTROL reality by substituting a world that you prefer IS terrifying. Your attempts to BLOT OUT reality are VERY fearful, but THIS you are NOT willing to accept. And so you SUBSTITUTE the fantasy that REALITY is fearful, NOT what you would DO to it. And thus is guilt MADE REAL.

Dreams show you that you HAVE the power to make a world as you would have it, and that, BECAUSE you WANT it, you SEE it. And WHILE you see it, you do NOT doubt that it is real. Yet here is a world, clearly WITHIN your mind, that SEEMS to be outside. You do NOT respond to it as though you made it, nor do you realize that the emotions which the dream produces MUST come from you. It is the FIGURES in the dream, and what THEY do that seem to MAKE THE DREAM. You do not realize that you are making them act out FOR you, for if you did, the guilt would not be theirs, and the illusion of satisfaction would be gone.

We once said that the first change, before dreams disappear, is that your dreams of fear are changed to HAPPY dreams. That is what the Holy Spirit does in your special relationship. He does NOT destroy it, nor snatch it away from you. But He does use it differently, as a help to make HIS purpose REAL to you. Your special relationships will remain, NOT as a source of pain and guilt, but as a source of joy and freedom. It will NOT be for you alone, for therein lay its misery. As its UNholiness kept it as a thing apart, its HOLINESS will become an offering to everyone.

If you but recognized His gratitude! Or mine through His! For we are joined as one in purpose, being of one mind with Him. Let not the dream take hold to close your eyes. It is not strange that dreams can make a world that is unreal. The WISH to make it IS incredible. Your relationship has become one in which the wish has been REMOVED, because its purpose has been changed from one of dreams to one of truth. You are not sure of this, because you think it may be THIS that is the dream. You are so used to choosing between dreams, you do not see that you have made, at last, the choice between the truth and ALL ILLUSIONS.

Yet Heaven IS sure. THIS IS NO DREAM. Its coming means that you have chosen truth, and it has come, because you have been willing to let your special relationship meet its conditions. In your relationship, the Holy Spirit has gently laid the real world; the world of happy dreams, from which awaking is so easy and so natural. For, as your sleeping and your waking dreams represent the same wishes in YOUR mind, so do the real world and the truth of Heaven join in the Will of God. The dream of waking is easily transferred to its reality. For this dream comes from your will, JOINED with the Will of God. And what THIS will would HAVE accomplished, has never NOT been done.

Section 7 - Experience and Perception

It is impossible not to believe what you see, but it is equally impossible to see what you do NOT believe. Perceptions are built up on the basis of experience, and experience leads to beliefs. It is not until BELIEFS are fixed that perceptions stabilize. In effect, then, what you believe you DO see. That is what I meant when I said, "Blessed are ye who have not seen and still believe," for those who believe in the resurrection WILL see it. The resurrection is the complete triumph of Christ over the ego, not by attack, but by transcendence. For Christ DOES rise above the ego and all its works, and ascends to the Father and HIS Kingdom.

Would you join in the resurrection or the crucifixion? Would you condemn your brothers or free them? Would you transcend YOUR prison and ascend to the Father? For these questions are all the same, and are answered together. There has been much confusion about what perception means, because the same word is used both for awareness and for the INTERPRETATION of awareness. Yet you cannot BE aware without interpretation, and what you perceive IS your interpretation. This course is perfectly clear. You do not see it clearly because you are interpreting AGAINST it, and therefore do not BELIEVE it. And if belief determines perception, you do NOT perceive what it means and therefore do not ACCEPT it.

Yet different experiences lead to different beliefs, and with them different perceptions. For perceptions are learned WITH beliefs, and experience teaches. I am leading you to a new kind of experience which you will become less and less willing to deny. Learning of Christ is easy, for to perceive with Him involves no strain at all. HIS perceptions are your NATURAL awareness, and it is only distortions which YOU introduce that tire you. Let the Christ in you interpret FOR you, and do not try to limit what you see by narrow little beliefs which are unworthy of God's Son. For until Christ comes into His Own, the Son of God WILL see himself as fatherless.

I am YOUR resurrection and YOUR life. You live in me because you live in God. And everyone lives in YOU, as YOU live in everyone. Can you, then, perceive unworthiness in a brother and NOT perceive it in yourself? And can you perceive it in yourself and NOT perceive it in God? Believe in the resurrection because it has BEEN accomplished, and it has been accomplished IN YOU. This is as true now as it will ever be, for the resurrection is the Will of God, Which knows no time and no exceptions. But make no exceptions yourself, or you will not perceive what has been accomplished FOR you. For we ascend unto the Father together, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, for such is the nature of God's Son as His Father created him.

Do not underestimate the power of the devotion of God's Son, nor the power of the god he worships over him. For he places HIMSELF at the altar of his god, whether it be the god he made or the God Who created him. That is why his slavery is as complete as his freedom, for he will obey ONLY the god he accepts. The god of the crucifixion demands that he crucify, and his worshippers obey. In his name they crucify THEMSELVES, believing that the power of the Son of God is born of sacrifice and pain. The God of the resurrection demands nothing, for He does not will to TAKE AWAY. He does not require obedience, for obedience implies submission. He would only have you learn your OWN will and follow it, not in the spirit of sacrifice and submission, but in the gladness of freedom.

You will not find peace until you have removed the nails from the hands of God's Son and taken the last thorn from his forehead. The Love of God surrounds His Son whom the god of the crucifixion condemns. Teach not that I died in vain. Teach rather THAT I DID NOT DIE by demonstrating that I LIVE IN YOU. For the UNDOING of the crucifixion of God's Son is the work of the redemption, in which everyone has a part of equal value. God does not judge His blameless Son. Having given HIMSELF to him, how could it be otherwise?

God's Son IS saved. Bring only THIS awareness to the Sonship, and you will have a part in the redemption as valuable as mine. For your part must be LIKE mine if you learn it of me. If you believe that YOURS is limited, YOU are limiting MINE. There is no order of difficulty in miracles because all of God's Sons are of equal value, and their equality is their Oneness. The whole power of God is in every part of Him, and nothing contradictory to His Will is either great or small. What does not exist HAS no size and no measure. To God ALL things are possible. And to Christ it is given to be LIKE the Father.

Section 2 - The Picture of the Crucifixion

Whenever you consent to suffer pain, to be deprived, unfairly treated, or in need of ANYTHING, you but accuse your brother of attack upon God's Son. You hold a picture of your crucifixion before his eyes, that he may see his sins are writ in Heaven in your blood and death, and go before him, closing off the gate, and damning him to hell. Yet this is writ in hell and NOT in Heaven, where you are BEYOND attack, and prove his INNOCENCE. The picture of yourself you offer him you show YOURSELF, and give it all your faith. The Holy Spirit offers you, to give to him, a picture of yourself in which there is NO pain and NO reproach at all. And what was martyred to his guilt becomes the perfect witness to his innocence.

Sickness is but a "little" death; a form of vengeance not yet total. Yet it speaks with certainty for what it represents. The bleak and bitter picture you have sent your brother, YOU have looked upon in grief. And everything that it has shown to him have you believed, BECAUSE it witnessed to the guilt in him, which you perceived and loved. Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured. But THIS one has NOT been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at all. IT witnesses to the eternal truth that you can not BE hurt, and points BEYOND itself to both YOUR innocence and HIS.

Show THIS unto your brother, who will see that every scar is healed, and every tear is wiped away in laughter and in love. And he will look on his forgiveness there, and with healed eyes will look BEYOND it, to the innocence that he beholds in you. Here is the proof that he has NEVER sinned; that NOTHING that his madness bid him do was ever done, or ever had effects of any kind. That NO reproach he laid upon his heart was EVER justified, and NO attack can touch him with the poisoned sting of fear. Attest his innocence and NOT his guilt. YOUR healing is his comfort and HIS health. BECAUSE it proves illusions were not true.

It is not Will for Life, but wish for death, that is the motivation for this world. Its ONLY purpose is TO PROVE GUILT REAL. No worldly thought or act or feeling has a motivation other than this one. These are the witnesses that are called forth to be believed, and lend conviction to the system they speak for and represent. And each has many voices, speaking to your brother and yourself in different tongues. And yet to both the message is the same. Adornment of the body seeks to show how lovely are the witnesses for guilt. Concerns about the body demonstrate how frail and vulnerable is your life; how easily destroyed is what you love. Depression speaks of death and vanity of real concern with anything at all.

The strongest witness to futility, which bolsters all the rest and helps them paint the picture in which sin is justified, is sickness in whatever form it takes. The sick have reason for each one of their unnatural desires and strange needs. For who could live a life so soon cut short, and NOT esteem the worth of passing joys? What pleasures COULD there be that will endure? Are not the frail ENTITLED to believe that every stolen scrap of pleasure is their righteous payment for their little lives? Their death will pay the price for all of them, if they enjoy the benefits or not. The end of life must come, whatever way that life be spent. And so take pleasure in the quickly passing and ephemeral.

These are NOT sins, but witnesses unto the strange belief that sin and death are real, and innocence and sin will end alike, within the termination of the grave. If this were true, there WOULD be reason to remain content to seek for passing joys, and cherish little pleasures where you can. But in this picture is the body NOT perceived as neutral and WITHOUT a goal inherent in itself. For it becomes the symbol of reproach, the sign of guilt whose consequences still are there to see, so that the cause can NEVER be denied. Your function is to PROVE to him that sin can HAVE no cause. How futile MUST it be to see yourself a picture of the proof that what your function IS can never be.

The Holy Spirit's picture changes not the body into something it is not. It only takes away from it ALL signs of accusation and of blamefulness. Pictured WITHOUT a purpose, it is seen as neither sick nor well, nor bad nor good. No grounds are offered that it may be judged in ANY way at all. It has no life, but neither is it dead. It stands apart from ALL experience of fear OR love. For now it witnesses to NOTHING yet, its purpose being open, and the mind made free again to choose what it is FOR. Now it is not condemned, but waiting for a purpose to be GIVEN, that it may fulfill the function that it will receive.

Into this empty space, from which the GOAL of sin has been removed, is Heaven free to be remembered. Here its peace can come, and perfect healing take the place of death. The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death. Let it have healing as its PURPOSE. Then will it send forth the message it received, and by its health and loveliness proclaim the truth and value that it represents. Let it receive the power to represent an endless life, forever unattacked. And to your brother let its message be, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I live."

The simple way to let this be achieved is merely this; to let the body have no purpose from the past, when you were sure you KNEW its purpose was to foster guilt. For this insists your crippled picture is a lasting sign of what it represents. This leaves no space in which a DIFFERENT view, ANOTHER purpose, can be given it. You do NOT know its purpose. You but gave ILLUSIONS of a purpose to a thing you made to hide your function from yourself. This thing WITHOUT a purpose CANNOT hide the function that the Holy Spirit gave. Let, then, ITS purpose and YOUR function both be reconciled at last, and seen as one.

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

Like any good teacher, He DOES know more than you know NOW, but He teaches only to make you equals. This is because you had ALREADY taught wrong, having believed what was not true. YOU DID NOT BELIEVE IN YOUR OWN PERFECTION. Could God teach you that you had made a split mind when He knows your mind only as whole?

A wise teacher teaches through approach, NOT avoidance. He does not emphasize what you must avoid to escape from harm as much as what you need to learn to have joy. This is true even of the world's teachers. Consider the confusion that a child would experience if he were told, "Do not do THIS because it might hurt you and make you unsafe, but if you do THAT you will escape from harm and be safe, and then you will not be afraid." All of this could be included in only three words: "Do only that." That simple statement is perfectly clear, easily understood, and very easily remembered.

The Holy Spirit NEVER itemizes errors, because He does not frighten children, and those who lack wisdom ARE children. But He ALWAYS answers their call, and His dependability makes THEM more certain. Children DO confuse fantasy and reality, and they ARE frightened because they do not know the difference.

When your body and your ego and your dreams are gone, you will know that YOU will last forever. Many think that this is accomplished through death, but NOTHING is accomplished through death because death is nothing. EVERYTHING is accomplished through life, and life is of the mind and in the Mind. The body neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain you who ARE life. If we share the same mind, YOU CAN OVERCOME DEATH BECAUSE I DID. Death is an attempt to resolve conflict by not willing at all. Like any other impossible solution which the ego attempts, IT WILL NOT WORK.

God did not make the body, because it is destructible, and therefore not of the Kingdom. The body is the symbol of WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE. It is clearly a separation device, and therefore does not exist. The Holy Spirit, as always, takes what you have made and translates it into a learning device FOR you. Again, as always, it re-interprets what the ego uses as an argument FOR separation into an argument AGAINST it.

If the mind can heal the body, but the body cannot heal the mind, then the mind MUST BE STRONGER. Every miracle demonstrates this. We have said that the Holy Spirit is the MOTIVATION for miracles. This is because He ALWAYS tells you that ONLY the mind is real, because only the mind CAN BE SHARED. The body IS separate, and therefore CANNOT be part of you. To be of one mind is meaningful, but to be of one body is meaningless. By the laws of mind, then, the body IS meaningless.

To the Holy Spirit THERE IS NO ORDER OF DIFFICULTY IN MIRACLES. This is FAMILIAR enough to you by now, but it has not yet become believable. Therefore, you do not understand it and cannot USE it. We have too much to accomplish on behalf of the Kingdom to let this crucial concept slip away. It is a real foundation stone of the thought system I teach and want YOU to teach. You cannot perform miracles without believing it, because it is a belief in perfect equality.

Only one equal gift CAN be offered to the equal Sons of God, and that is FULL APPRECIATION. Nothing more and nothing less. Without a range, order of difficulty IS meaningless, and there must BE no range in what you offer to each other. The Holy Spirit, which leads to God, translates communication into being, just as He ultimately translates perception into knowledge.

You DO NOT LOSE WHAT YOU COMMUNICATE. The ego uses the body for attack, for pleasure, and for pride. The insanity of this perception makes it a fearful one. The Holy Spirit sees it only as a means of COMMUNICATION. And because communicating IS sharing, it becomes communion. You might argue that fear as well as love can be communicated, and therefore can be shared. But this is not so real as it sounds. Those who communicate fear are promoting attack, and attack always BREAKS communication, and therefore makes communion impossible.

Egos DO join together in temporary allegiance, but always for WHAT EACH ONE CAN GET SEPARATELY. The Holy Spirit communicates only WHAT EACH ONE CAN GIVE TO ALL. He never takes ANYTHING back, because He wants YOU to keep it. Therefore, His teaching begins with the lesson: To HAVE, GIVE all TO all.

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

This step APPEARS to exacerbate conflict rather than resolve it, because it is the BEGINNING step in reversing your perception and turning it right side up. This conflicts with the upside down perception which you have not yet abandoned, or the change in direction would not have been necessary. Some people remain at this step for a very long time, experiencing VERY acute conflict. Many try to accept the CONFLICT, rather than to take the next step toward its resolution. But having taken the first step, they WILL be helped. Having willed what they CANNOT complete alone, THEY ARE NO LONGER ALONE.

You, H., had taken a giant step INTO conflict, but Bill turned you both forwards TOWARD THE WAY OUT. The more he teaches this, the more he will learn it.

Section 2 - Rules for Decision

1. The outlook starts with this:

"Today I will make NO decisions by myself."

This means that you are choosing NOT to be the judge of what to do. But it must ALSO mean you will not judge the situations where you will be called upon to make response. For if you judge them, you HAVE set the rules for how you should react to them. And then ANOTHER answer cannot BUT produce confusion and uncertainty AND FEAR. This is your major problem now. You still make up your minds, and THEN decide to ask what you should do. And what you hear may not resolve the problem AS YOU SAW IT FIRST. This leads to fear, because it contradicts what you perceive, and so you feel attacked, AND THEREFORE ANGRY. There are rules by which this will not happen. But it does occur, at first, to everyone who listens well.

2. Throughout the day, at any time you think of it, and have a quiet moment for reflection, tell yourself again the kind of day you want; the feelings you would have, the things you WANT to happen, and the things you WOULD experience. And say,

"If I make no decisions by myself,

This is the day that will be GIVEN me."

These two procedures, practiced well, will serve to let you be directed WITHOUT fear, for opposition will not FIRST arise, and THEN become a problem in itself. But there will still be times when you have judged ALREADY. Now the answer will provoke attack, unless you quickly straighten out your mind to WANT an answer that will work. Be certain this has happened, if you feel yourself to be unwilling to sit by, and ask to have the answer GIVEN you. This means you HAVE decided by yourself, AND CANNOT SEE THE QUESTION. Now you need a quick restorative BEFORE you ask.

3. Remember once again the day you want, and recognize that something has occurred which is not part of it. Then realize that you have asked a question by yourself, and MUST have set an answer in your terms. Then say,

"I HAVE no question. I forgot what to decide."

This cancels out the terms which you have set, and lets the ANSWER show you what the question MUST have really been. Try to observe this rule without delay DESPITE your opposition. For you have ALREADY gotten angry, and your fear of being answered in a different way from what YOUR version of the question asks will gain momentum until you believe the day you want is one in which you get YOUR answer to your question. And you will not get it, for it would destroy the day by robbing you of what you REALLY want. This can be very hard to realize, when once you have decided by yourself the rules which PROMISE you a happy day. But these decisions still can be undone, by simple methods which you CAN accept.

4. If you are so unwilling to receive you cannot even let your QUESTION go, you can begin to change your mind with this:

"At least I can decide I do not LIKE what I feel now."

This much is obvious, and paves the way for the next easy step, which follows this.

5. Having decided that you do not like the way you feel, what could be easier than to continue with -

"And so I HOPE I have been wrong."

This works AGAINST the sense of opposition, and reminds you that help is not being thrust upon you, but is something that you want and that you need BECAUSE you do not like the way you feel. This tiny opening will be enough to let you go ahead with just a few more steps you need to LET yourself be helped.

6. Now you have reached the turning point, because it has occurred to you that YOU will gain, if what you have decided is NOT so. Until this point is reached, you will believe your happiness DEPENDS on being right. But this much reason have you now attained; YOU would be better off if you were WRONG. This tiny grain of wisdom will suffice to take you further. You are NOT coerced, but merely hope to have a thing you WANT. And you can say in perfect honesty,

"I WANT another way to look at this."

Now you have changed your mind about the day, and have REMEMBERED what you really want. Its PURPOSE has no longer been obscured by the insane belief you want it for the goal of being RIGHT when you are WRONG. This is the READINESS for asking, brought to your awareness, for you CANNOT be in conflict when you ask for what you want, and SEE that it is this for which you ask.

7. This final step is but acknowledgment of LACK of opposition to be helped. It is a statement of an open mind, not certain yet, but willing to be shown:

"Perhaps there IS another way to look at this.

What can I LOSE by asking?"

Thus are you made ready for a question that makes sense, and so the ANSWER will make sense as well. Nor will you fight AGAINST it, for you see that it is YOU who will be helped by it.

It MUST be clear that it is easier to have a happy day if you PREVENT unhappiness from entering at all. But this takes practice in the rules which will PROTECT you from the ravages of fear. When THIS has been achieved, the sorry dream of judgment has FOREVER been undone. But, meanwhile, you have need for practicing the rules for its undoing. Let us, then, consider once again the very first of the decisions which are offered here. We said you can begin a happy day with the determination NOT to make decisions by yourself. This SEEMS to be a free decision in itself. And yet, you CANNOT make decisions by yourself. The only question really is WITH WHAT you choose to make them. That is really all.

The first rule, then, is not coercion, but a simple statement of a simple fact. You WILL not make decisions by yourself whatever you decide. For they are made with idols or with God. And you ask help of Christ or anti-Christ, and which you choose WILL join with you, and tell you what to do. Your day is NOT at random. It is set by what you choose to live it WITH, and HOW the friend whose counsel you have sought perceives your happiness. You ALWAYS ask advice before you can decide ANYTHING. Let THIS be understood, and you can see there cannot BE coercion here, nor grounds for opposition that you may be free. There IS no freedom from what must occur. And if you think there is, you MUST be wrong.

The second rule as well is but a fact. For you and your adviser must AGREE on what you want BEFORE it can occur. It is but this AGREEMENT which permits all things to happen. NOTHING can be caused without some form of union, be it with a dream of judgment or the Voice for God. Decisions cause results BECAUSE they are not made in isolation. They are made by you and your adviser, for yourself, AND FOR THE WORLD AS WELL. The day you want you offer to the world, for it WILL be what you have asked for, and will reinforce the rule of your adviser through the world. Whose kingdom is the world for you today? What kind of day will you decide to have?

It needs but two who would have happiness this day to promise it to all the world. It needs but two to understand that they can not decide alone, to GUARANTEE the joy they asked for will be wholly shared. For they have understood the basic law which MAKES decision powerful, and gives it all effects that it will EVER have. It needs but two. These two ARE joined before there CAN be a decision. Let this be the ONE reminder that you keep in mind, and you will have the day you want, and give it to the world by having it yourselves. Your judgment has been LIFTED from the world by your decision for a happy day. And as you have received so MUST you give.

Section 4 - Littleness versus Magnitude

Be not content with littleness, but be sure you understand what littleness is, and why you could never BE content with it. Littleness is the offering you gave YOURSELF. You offered this in place of magnitude, AND ACCEPTED IT. Everything in this world is little, because it is a world made out of littleness, in the strange belief that littleness CAN content you. When you strive for anything in the world, WITH THE BELIEF THAT IT WILL BRING YOU PEACE, you are belittling yourself, and blinding yourself to glory. Littleness and glory are the choices open to your striving and your vigilance. You will ALWAYS choose one AT THE EXPENSE of the other.

But what you do not realize, each time you choose, is that your choice is your evaluation OF YOURSELF. Choose littleness, and you will NOT have peace, for you will have judged yourself UNWORTHY of it. And whatever you offer as a substitute, is much too poor a gift to satisfy you. It is essential that you accept the fact, and accept it gladly, that there is NO form of littleness that can EVER content you. You are free to try as many as you wish, but all you will be doing is to delay your homecoming. For you will be content ONLY in magnitude, which IS your home.

There is a deep responsibility you owe yourself, and one which you must learn to remember ALL the time. The lesson will seem hard at first, but you will learn to love it, when you realize that it is true, and constitutes a tribute to your power. You who have sought AND FOUND littleness, remember this: Every decision that you make stems from WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE, and represents the value that you PUT upon yourself. Believe the little can content you, and, by LIMITING yourself, you will NOT be satisfied. For your function is NOT little, and it is only by finding your function, and fulfilling it that you can ESCAPE from littleness.

There is no doubt about what your function IS, for the Holy Spirit KNOWS what it is. There is no doubt about its magnitude, for it reaches you through Him, FROM Magnitude. You do not have to strive for it, because you HAVE it. All your striving must be directed AGAINST LITTLENESS, for it DOES require vigilance to protect your magnitude in this world. To hold your magnitude in perfect awareness, in a world of littleness, is a task the little cannot undertake. Yet it is asked of you, in tribute to your magnitude, and NOT your littleness. Nor is it asked of you alone.

The power of God will support every effort you make on behalf of the magnitude of His dear Son. Search for the little, and you DENY yourself His power. God is not willing that His Son be content with less than everything. For He is not content without His Son, and His Son cannot be content with less than His Father has given him. We asked you once before, "Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God?" Let this question be asked you by the Holy Spirit in you, EVERY time you make a decision. For every decision you make DOES answer this, and invites sorrow or joy, accordingly.

When God GAVE Himself to you in your creation, He ESTABLISHED you as host to Him forever. He has NOT left you, and YOU have not left HIM. All your attempts to deny His magnitude, and make His Son hostage to the ego, CANNOT make little whom God has joined with Him. Every decision you make is made for Heaven or for hell, and will bring you AWARENESS of what you decided FOR. The Holy Spirit can hold your magnitude, clean of ALL littleness, clearly and in perfect safety in your minds, untouched by every little gift the world of littleness would offer you. But for this, you cannot side AGAINST Him in what He wills for you.

Decide for God through Him. For littleness, and the belief that you can be CONTENT with littleness, are the decisions YOU have made about yourself. The power and the glory that lie in you, from God, are for all who, like you, perceive themselves as little, and have deceived themselves into believing that littleness can be blown up, BY THEM, into a sense of magnitude that can content them. Neither GIVE littleness, nor ACCEPT it. All honor is due the host of God. Your littleness deceives you, but your magnitude is of Him Who dwells in you, and in Whom you dwell. Touch no-one, then, with littleness, in the Name of Christ, eternal Host unto His Father.

In this season, which celebrates the birth of holiness into this world, join with me who decided for holiness for YOU. It is our task TOGETHER to restore the awareness of magnitude, to the host whom God appointed for Himself. It is beyond ALL your littleness to give the gift of God, but NOT beyond YOU. For God would give Himself THROUGH you. He reaches from you to everyone, and beyond everyone, to His Son's creations, but WITHOUT leaving you. Far beyond your little world, but still in you, He extends forever. Yet He brings all his extensions to you, as host to Him.

My Kingdom is not of this world, because it is in YOU. And YOU are of your Father. Let us join in honoring you, who MUST remain forever BEYOND littleness. Decide with me, who have decided to abide with you. I will as my Father wills, knowing His Will is constant, and at peace forever with Itself. You will be content with nothing BUT His Will. Accept no less, remembering that everything I learned is yours. What my Father loves, I love as He does, and I can no more accept it as what it is NOT, than He can. And no more can YOU.

When you have learned to accept what you are, you will make no more gifts to offer to yourselves, for you will know you are COMPLETE, in need of nothing, and unable to accept ANYTHING for yourself. But you will gladly give, HAVING received. The host of God need not seek to find ANYTHING. If you are wholly willing to leave Salvation to the plan of God, and UNwilling to attempt to grasp for peace YOURSELF, Salvation will be GIVEN you. But think not you can substitute YOUR plan for His. Rather, join with me in His, that we may release all those who would be bound, proclaiming together that the Son of God is host to Him.

Thus will we let no-one forget what YOU would remember. And thus WILL you remember it. Call forth in everyone ONLY the remembrance of God, and of the Heaven that is in him. For where you would help your brother be, there will you think YOU are. Hear not his call for hell and littleness, but only his call for Heaven and greatness. Forget not that his call is yours, and answer him with me. God's power is forever on the side of His host, for it protects ONLY the peace in which He dwells. Lay not littleness before His holy altar, which rises above the stars, and reaches even to Heaven, because of what is GIVEN it.

Section 6 - Finding the Present

To perceive truly is to be aware of ALL reality, through the awareness of your own. But for this, NO illusions can rise to meet your sight, for ALL reality leaves no room for ANY error. This means that you perceive a brother only AS YOU SEE HIM NOW. His past has NO reality in the present, and you CANNOT see it. Your past reactions TO him are also NOT THERE, and if it is to these that you react NOW, you see but an image of him that you made and cherish INSTEAD of him. In your questioning of delusions, ask yourself if it is REALLY sane to perceive WHAT WAS NOW. If you remember the PAST as you look upon him, you will be unable to perceive the reality that is NOW.

You consider it "natural" to use your PAST experience as the reference point from which to JUDGE the present. Yet this is UNnatural, because it is delusional. When you have learned to look upon everyone with NO REFERENCE AT ALL to the past, either his OR yours as you perceived it, you will be able to learn FROM WHAT YOU SEE NOW. For the past can cast no shadow to darken the present, UNLESS YOU ARE AFRAID OF LIGHT. And ONLY if you are, would you choose to bring this darkness WITH you, and by holding it in your minds, see it as a dark cloud that shrouds your brothers, and conceals their reality from your sight.

THIS DARKNESS IS IN YOU. The Christ revealed to you NOW has no past, for He is changeless. AND IN HIS CHANGELESSNESS LIES YOUR RELEASE. For if He is as He was created, there IS no guilt in Him. No cloud of guilt has risen to obscure Him, and He stands revealed in everyone you meet, because you see Him through HIMSELF. To be born again is to let the PAST go, and LOOK WITHOUT CONDEMNATION UPON THE PRESENT. For the cloud which obscures God's Son to you IS the past, and if you would have it past AND GONE, you must NOT SEE IT NOW. And if you see it now in your delusions, it has NOT gone from you, although it is not there.

Time can release as well as imprison, depending on whose interpretation of it you use. Past, present, and future are not continuous, UNLESS YOU FORCE CONTINUITY ON THEM. You can PERCEIVE them as continuous, and make them so FOR YOU. But do not be deceived, and then believe that this is how it IS, for to believe that reality is what you would HAVE it be, according to YOUR use for it, IS delusional. You would DESTROY time's continuity by breaking it into past, present, and future, FOR YOUR OWN PURPOSES. You would anticipate the future on the basis of your PAST experience and plan for it accordingly. And by so doing, you are ALIGNING past and future, and not allowing the miracles, which could intervene BETWEEN them, to free you to be born again.

The miracle enables you to see your brother WITHOUT his past, and so perceive him as born again. His errors ARE all past, and by perceiving him WITHOUT them, you are RELEASING him. And since his past is yours, you SHARE in this release. Let no dark cloud out of YOUR past obscure him from you, for truth lies ONLY in the present, and you WILL find it if you seek it there. You have looked for it where it is NOT, and therefore have not found it. Learn, then, to seek it where it IS, and it WILL dawn on eyes that see. Your past was made in anger, and if you use it to ATTACK the present you will NOT SEE the freedom that the present holds. Judgment and condemnation are BEHIND you, and unless you bring them WITH you, you WILL see that you are free of them.

Look lovingly upon the present, for it holds the ONLY things that are forever true. All healing lies within it, because ITS continuity is real. It extends to ALL aspects of consciousness AT THE SAME TIME, and thus enables them to REACH EACH OTHER. The present is before time WAS, and WILL BE when time is no more. In it is everything that is eternal, and they ARE one. THEIR continuity is timeless, and their communication is unbroken, for they are NOT SEPARATED by the past. Only the past CAN separate, and IT is nowhere.

The present offers you your brothers in the light that would unite you WITH them, and free YOU from the past. Would you, then, hold the past AGAINST them? For if you do, you are choosing to remain in the darkness THAT IS NOT THERE, and refusing to accept the light that is offered you. For the light of perfect vision is freely given, as it is freely received, and can be accepted only WITHOUT LIMIT. In this one, still dimension of time, which does not change, and where there is no sight of what you were, you look at Christ, and call His witnesses to shine on you, BECAUSE YOU CALLED THEM FORTH. And THEY will not deny the truth in you, because you looked for it in them, and FOUND it there.

Now is the time for salvation, for NOW is the release from time. Reach out to all your brothers, and touch them with the touch of Christ. In timeless union WITH them is YOUR continuity, unbroken because it is wholly shared. God's guiltless Son is ONLY light. There is no darkness in him ANYWHERE, for he is whole. Call all your brothers to witness to his wholeness, as I am calling you to join with me. Every voice has a part in the song of redemption, the hymn of gladness and thanksgiving for the light, to the Creator of Light. The holy light that shines forth from God's Son is the witness that his light is of his Father.

Shine on your brothers in remembrance of your Creator, and you WILL remember Him, as you call forth the witnesses to His creation. Those whom you heal bear witness to YOUR healing, for in THEIR wholeness you will see your own. And as your hymns of praise and gladness rise to your Creator, He will return your thanks, in His clear answer to your call. For it can never be that His Son called upon Him, and remained unanswered. His call to you is but your call to Him. And in Him you are answered by His peace.

Children of Light, you know not that the Light is in you. And you will find it through its witnesses. For having given light to them, THEY WILL RETURN IT. Everyone you see IN light brings YOUR light closer to your OWN awareness. Love always leads to love. The sick, who ASK for love, are grateful for it, and in their joy, they shine with holy thanks. And this they offer you, who GAVE them joy. They are your guides to joy, for having received it OF you, they would keep it. You have established them as guides to peace, for you have made it manifest in them. And SEEING it, its beauty calls you home.

There is a light which this world cannot give. Yet YOU can give it, as it was given YOU. And AS you give it, it shines forth to call you FROM the world, and follow it. For this light will attract you as nothing in this world can do. And you will lay aside the world and find another. This other world is bright with love WHICH YOU HAVE GIVEN IT. And here will everything remind you of your Father and his holy Son. Light is unlimited, and spreads across this world in quiet joy. All those you brought WITH you will shine on you, and you will shine on them in gratitude, because they brought you here. Your light will join with theirs, in power so compelling, that it will draw the others out of darkness as you look on them.

Awaking unto Christ is following the laws of love OF YOUR FREE WILL, and out of quiet recognition of the truth in them. The attraction of light must draw you willingly, and willingness is signified by GIVING. Those who accept love OF you, become your willing witnesses to the love you gave them, and it is THEY who hold it out to YOU. In sleep you are alone, and your awareness is narrowed to yourself. And that is why the nightmares come. You dream of isolation, BECAUSE your eyes are closed. You do not SEE your brothers, and, in the darkness, you cannot look upon the light you GAVE to them.

Section 7 - The Savior's Vision

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yet while you wish to stay in hell, how COULD you be the savior of the Son of God? How would you know his holiness, while you see him apart from yours? For holiness is seen through holy eyes that look upon the innocence within, and thus EXPECT to see it everywhere. And so they call it forth in everyone they look upon, that he may be what they expect of him. This is the Savior's vision; that he see HIS innocence in all he looks upon, and sees his own salvation everywhere. He holds NO concept of himself between his calm and open eyes and what he sees. He BRINGS the light to what he looks upon, that he may see it as it really is.

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

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

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

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