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Jesus Christ – The Course Preview

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Chapter 4 – The Root of All Evil

a. Right Teaching and Right Learning

[Eine deutsche Übersetzung hierfür gibt es bei FIP Kapitel 3 VI 7] We have spoken of many different human symptoms and at this level there is almost endless variation. But there is only one cause for all of them. The authority problem is “the root of all evil”. Money is but one of its many reflections and is a reasonably representative example of the kind of thinking which stems from it. The idea of buying and selling implies precisely the kind of exchange that the Souls cannot understand at all because Their own Supply is always abundant and all Their demands are fully met. Every symptom which the ego has made involves a contradiction in terms. This is because the Mind is split between the ego and the Soul so that whatever the ego makes is incomplete and contradictory.

Consider what a “speechless professor” means as a concept. It literally means a “nonprofessing professor” or a “nonspeaking speaker”. Untenable positions such as this are the result of the authority problem which because it accepts the one inconceivable thought as its premise can only produce ideas which are inconceivable. B may claim, and has certainly done so in the past, that the professorship was thrust upon Him. This is not True. He wanted it very much and also worked hard to get it. He would not have had to work so hard either if He had not misunderstood it.

The term “profess” is used quite frequently in the Bible but in a somewhat different context. To profess is to identify with an idea and offer the idea to others to be their own. The idea does not lessen, it becomes stronger. The teacher clarifies His own ideas and strengthens them by teaching them. Teacher and pupil, therapist and patient are All alike in the learning process. They are in the same order of learning and unless They share Their lessons they will lack conviction. If a salesman must believe in the product He sells how much more must a teacher believe in the ideas which He professes. But He needs another condition: He must also believe in the students to Whom He offers His ideas.

B could not be afraid to teach unless He still believes that interaction means loss and that learning means separation. He stands guard over His own ideas because He wants to protect His thought system as it is and learning means change. Change is always fearful to the separated because they cannot conceive of it as a change toward healing the separation. They always perceive it as a change for further separation because separation was their first experience of change. Bill, Your whole fear of teaching is nothing but an example of Your own intense separation anxiety which You have handled with the usual series of mixed defenses in the combined pattern of attack on Truth and defense of error which characterizes all egothinking.

You insist that if You allow no change to enter into Your ego Your Soul will find Peace. This profound confusion is possible only if One maintains that the same thought system can stand on two foundations. Nothing can reach the Soul from the ego and nothing from the Soul can strengthen the ego or reduce the conflict within it. The ego is a contradiction. Man’s self and God’s Self are in opposition [Optional: gegenüber im Widerstand sein]. They are opposed in creation, in will and in outcome. They are fundamentally irreconcilable because the Soul cannot perceive and the ego cannot know. They are therefore not in communication and can never be in communication.

Nevertheless the ego can learn because its Maker can be misguided but cannot make the totally lifeless out of the Lifegiven. The Soul need not be taught but the ego must. The ultimate reason why learning or teaching is perceived as frightening is because True learning does lead to the relinquishment, not destruction, of the ego to the Light of the Soul. This is the change the ego must fear because it does not share My charity. My lesson was like Yours. And because I learned it I can teach it. I never attack Your egos in spite of H’s strange beliefs to the contrary but I do try to teach them how their thought systems have arisen. When I remind You of Your True Creation Your egos cannot but respond with fear.

Bill, teaching and learning are Your greatest strengths now because You must change Your mind and help others change theirs. It is pointless [aussichtslos] to refuse to tolerate change or changing because You believe that You can demonstrate by doing so that the separation never occurred. The Dreamer Who doubts the Reality of His dream while He is still dreaming it is not really healing the levelsplit. You have dreamed of a separated ego and You have believed in a world which rested upon it. This is very real to You. You cannot undo this by doing nothing and not changing.

If You are willing to renounce the role of guardians of Your thought systems and open them to Me I will correct them very gently and lead You Home. Every good Teacher hopes to give His students so much of His own thinking that They will one day no longer need Him. This is the one real goal of the parent, teacher and therapist. This goal will not be achieved by Those Who believe that They will lose Their child, or pupil, or patient if They succeed. It is impossible to convince the ego of this because it goes against all of its own laws. But remember that laws are set up to protect the continuity of the system in which the lawmaker believes. It is natural enough for the ego to try to protect itself once You have made it. But it is not natural for You to want to obey its laws unless You believe in them.

The ego cannot make this choice because of the nature of its origin. But You can because of the nature of Yours. Egos can clash in any situation but Souls cannot clash at all. If You perceive a teacher as merely a “larger ego” You will be afraid because to enlarge an ego is to increase separation anxiety. Do not engage in this foolishness, Bill. I will teach with You and live with You if You will think with Me. But My goal will always be to absolve You finally from the need for a teacher. This is the opposite of the egooriented teacher’s goal. He is concerned with the effect of His ego on other egos and He therefore interprets their interaction as a means of ego preservation. This is no less True if He is afraid to teach than if He is frankly out to dominate through teaching. The form of the symptom is only a reflection of His particular way of handling the separation anxiety.

All separation anxiety is a symptom of a continuing will to remain separated. This cannot be repeated too often because You have not learned it. Bill, You are afraid to teach only because You are afraid of the impression Your image of Yourself will make on other images. You believe that Their approval of Your image will exalt it but also that Your separation anxiety will be increased. You also believe that Their disapproval of it will lessen the separation anxiety but at the cost of depression. I would not be able to devote Myself to teaching if I believed either of these ideas and You will not be a devoted teacher Yourself as long as You maintain them. I am constantly being perceived as a teacher either to be exalted or rejected but I do not accept either perception for Myself.

Your own worth is not established by Your teaching. Your worth was established by God. As long as You dispute this everything You do will be fearful and particularly any situation which lends itself easily to the superiorinferior fallacy. Teachers must be patient and repeat Their lessons until they are learned. I am willing to do so because I have no right to set Your learning limits for You. Once again – nothing You do, or think, or will, or make is necessary to establish Your worth. This point is not debatable except in delusions. Your ego is never at stake because God did not create it. Your Soul is never at stake because He did. Any confusion on this point is a delusion and no form of devotion is possible as long as this delusion lasts.

Bill, if You will to be a devoted teacher rather than an egocentric One You will not be afraid. The teaching situation is fearful if it is misused as an ego involvement. If You become afraid it is because You are using it this way. But the devoted teacher perceives the situation as it is and not as He wills it. He does not see it as dangerous because He is not exploiting it. The ego tries to exploit all situations into forms of praise for itself in order to overcome its doubts. It will be doubtful forever, or better as long as You believe in it. You Who made it cannot trust it because You know it is not real. The only sane solution is not to try to change Reality which is indeed a fearful attempt but to see it as it is. You are part of Reality which stands unchanged beyond the reach of Your ego but within easy reach of Your Soul.

Bill, again I tell You that when You are afraid be still and know that God is real and You are His beloved Son in Whom He is well pleased. Do not let Your ego dispute this because the ego cannot know what is as far beyond its reach as You are. God is not the author of fear. You are. You have willed therefore to create unlike Him and You have made fear for Yourselves. You are not at Peace because You are not fulfilling Your function. God gave You a very lofty responsibility which You are not meeting. You know this and You are afraid. But Your egos have chosen to be afraid instead of meeting it. When You awaken You will not be able to understand this because it is literally incredible. Do not believe the incredible now. Any attempt to increase its believableness is merely to postpone the inevitable. The word “inevitable” is fearful to the ego but joyous to the Soul. God is inevitable and You cannot avoid Him any more than He can avoid You.

The ego is afraid of the Soul’s Joy because once You have experienced this You will withdraw all protection from Your ego and become totally without investment in fear. Your investment is great now because fear is a witness to the separation and Your ego rejoices when You witness to it. Leave it behind. Do not listen to it and do not preserve it. Listen only to God Who is as incapable of deception as are the Souls He created. As teachers and therapists release Yourselves and release others. Do not present a false and unworthy picture of Yourselves to others or accept such a picture of them Yourselves.

The ego has built a shabby and unsheltering home for You because it cannot build otherwise. Do not try to make this impoverished house stand. Its weakness is Your Strength. Only God could make a Home that was worthy of His Creations Who have chosen to leave it empty by Their own dispossession. His Home will stand forever and is ready for You when You choose to enter. Of this You can be wholly certain. God is as incapable of creating the perishable as Your ego is of making the Eternal.

Of Your egos You can do nothing to save Yourselves or others. But of Your Souls You can do everything for the Salvation of Both. Humility is a lesson for the ego not for the Soul. The Soul is beyond humility because It recognizes Its radiance and gladly sheds Its Light everywhere. The Meek shall inherit the earth because Their egos are humble and this gives Them better perception. The Kingdom of Heaven is the right of the Soul Whose beauty and dignity are beyond doubt, beyond perception and stand forever as the mark of the Love of God for His Creations Who are wholly worthy of Him and only of Him. Nothing else is sufficiently worthy to be a Gift for a Creation of God Himself.

I will substitute for Your ego if You will but never for Your Soul. A Father can safely leave a Child with an elder Brother Who has shown Himself responsible but this involves no confusion about the Child’s origin. The Brother can protect the Child’s body and His ego which are very closely associated but He does not confuse Himself with the Father although the Child may. The reason why I can be entrusted with Your body and Your egos is simply because this enables You not to be concerned with them and Me to teach You their unimportance. I could not understand their importance to You if I had not once been tempted to believe them Myself. Let Us undertake to learn this lesson Together so We can also be free of them Together.

I need devoted teachers as much as I need devoted priestesses. They Both heal the Mind and that is always My own aim. The Soul is far beyond the need of Your protection or Mine.

The biblical quotation should read:

In this world You need not have tribulation because I have overcome the world.

That is why You should

Be of good cheer.

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

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

I promise to attend Myself and You should at least credit with Me with some dependability in keeping My own Promises. I never make them lightly because I know the need My Brothers have for trust.

b. The ego and False Autonomy

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

Perceptual distortions are not abstractions. They are merely confusions. Each man makes one ego for Himself although it is subject to enormous variation because of its instability and one for Everyone He perceives which is equally variable. Their interaction is a process which literally alters both because they were not made either by or with the unalterable.

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

An extreme example is a good teaching aid, not because it is typical but because it is clear. The more complex the material the clearer the examples should be for teaching purposes. Bill, remember that for Your own course and do not avoid the dramatic. It holds the student’s interest precisely because it is so apparent that it can be readily perceived. But as We have said before, all teaching devices in the hands of good teachers are aimed at rendering themselves unnecessary. I would therefore like to use Your present state as an example of how the Mind can work provided You Both fully recognize that It need not work that way. I never forget this Myself and a good teacher shares His own ideas which He Himself believes. Otherwise He cannot really “profess” them as We used the term before.

With full recognition of its transitory nature, a recognition which I hope You Both share, H offers a very good teaching example of alternations between Soul and ego with concomitant variation between Peace and frenzy. In answer to B’s question: It is perfectly apparent that when she is egodominated she does not know her Soul. Her abstract ability which is perfectly genuine and does stem from knowledge cannot help her because she has turned to the concrete which she cannot handle abstractly. Being incapable of appropriate concreteness perceptually because her ego is not her natural home she suffers from its intrusions but not from complete lack of knowledge. The result is a kind of “double vision” which would have produced an actual diplopia if she had not settled for nearsightedness. This was an attempt to see the concrete more clearly through the ego’s eyes without the “interference” of the longer range. Her virtual lack of astigmatism is due to her real efforts at objectivity and fairness. She has not attained them or she would not be nearsighted. But she has tried to be fair with what she permitted herself to see.

Why are You surprised that something happened in the dim past when it is so clearly happening right now? You forget the Love that even animals have for their own offspring and the need they feel to protect them. This is because they regard them as part of themselves. No one disowns something he regards as a very real part of himself. Man reacts to his ego much as God does to His Souls – with Love, protection and great charity. The reaction of man to the self he made is not at all surprising. In fact it duplicates in many ways the way he will one day react to his real Creations Which are as timeless as he is. The question is not how man responds toward his ego but only what he believes he is. Again, belief is an egofunction and as long as Your origin is open to belief at all You are regarding it from an ego viewpoint. That is why the Bible quotes Me as saying:

Ye believe in God, believe also in Me.

Belief does apply to Me because I am the Teacher of the ego. When teaching is no longer necessary You will merely know God.

You will note that a lot of terms are used in the beginning that are later clarified. This is because the beginning was written by an unwilling Scribe Whose ego was in strong dominance and Whose Soul was dissociated most of the time. You may not realize what a strong testimony to Truth these notes are without remembering that. The sharp ascent upward in thought which the development of the notes shows – and it is astonishing in human terms how steadily they evolve toward Unity – is due to only one sign of assent: I asked H to take notes and she did. There have been very few real errors and perhaps I can suggest that the first book be gone over again from her notes, not all of which she read correctly. Some of the changes will be seen immediately and she will probably remember most of the others. Don’t bother now – a lot has been omitted anyway.

About the question of karma: Most theories of reincarnation are essentially magical and the whole question is not really necessary to religion at all. The chief value of the concept lies in its helpfulness in counteracting the idea of hell, a belief that is hard for the ego to relinquish. As the symbol of separation the ego cannot escape guiltfeelings and fear of punishment is inevitable. Do not dwell on these fearful thoughts. One of the main dangers of karmic theories is the tendency it induces to engage in the genetic fallacy overlooking the Truly religious fact that now is the only time.

In answer to what B mentioned: Some of the things H said before the notes started are True, some of them fact and others symbolic. On occasion she was projecting and several times she was merely being manipulative, though this was very rare and never attempted consciously. She also really tried to be honest about this even though it made her ego very fearful of being “abandoned”.

I told You I would edit the notes with You when it was helpful to do so. At present it is not needed but when We are sure what We should do with things We can consider it again. I have already told You in connection with Cayce that out of respect for His great efforts on My behalf I would not let His lifework lead to anything but Truth in the end. These notes are part of Your lifework and I will treat them with equal respect. It is True that this will lead to something quite different because the notes point only to the future. They lead to a future that You will know. There was a past but it does not matter. It does not explain the Present or account for the future. You Both went over Your childhoods in some detail and at considerable expense and it merely encouraged Your egos to become more tolerable to You. I would hardly want You to repeat that same error.

Knowledge is not won through curiosity which is an ego attribute. Knowledge can be found only if it is sought to give it to Someone else. This means that You are ready to appreciate its real value and have already accepted its worth for Yourself. That is what I meant when I told You You can not go to God with B but You can go for Him and bring knowledge back to Him. If this is in the future why would You care at all about the past except to the extent that Your ego objects to Your rightful destiny? Are You interested in healing insanity or in studying its past? That is of concern only if You believe that something that could remedy it happened in the past.

Even My personal history is of no value to You except as it teaches You that I can help You now. But no history of irreconcilable viewpoints is helpful in establishing Truth. The Soul has no history being the Same yesterday, today and always. The history of a split mind is not a constructive focus for Those Who are being trained in an integrated and True concept of Themselves. I am quite willing to take Your question up again when it no longer is of any interest to Your egos and if it is of help to Someone else. Otherwise it would be much better to devote Yourselves to knowing God. I once told You that the Atonement will not be complete until all the Children of God have come Home. We do not care about where they have been or what they have done. We would not want to evaluate their past any more than We want to evaluate them.

It is almost impossible for the Mind to look at some of Casey’s records of the past totally without judgment of any kind. That is why He Himself usually related the past to a bodily condition even though He knew that Mind was the Builder. His emphasis on gains and losses is not to be Yours. These terms are evaluative and are therefore in variance with the goals of Your course. We have discussed the separation in some detail as We have also done with its healing. The interim is of no importance. Your judgment is a real defense without any attack on Truth only when it evaluates the separation and its symbols as what they are and enjoins the withdrawal of Your belief in them. I would indeed be a poor teacher if I allowed any interference in the development of a skill which You have by no means mastered.

Belief that there is another way is the loftiest idea of which egothinking is capable. This is because it contains a hint of recognition that the ego is not the Self. Helen always had this idea but it merely confused her. B, You were more capable of a longrange view and that is why Your eyesight is good. But You were willing to see because You utilized judgment against what You saw. This gave You clearer perception than Helen’s but cut off the cognitive level more deeply. That is why You believe that You never had knowledge. Repression [Verdrängung] has been a stronger mechanism in Your own ego defense and that is why You find her shifts so hard to tolerate.

Willfulness is more characteristic of her and that is why she has less sense than You do. It is extremely fortunate temporarily that the particular strengths You will both develop and use are precisely those which the other must supply now. You Who will be the Strength of God are quite weak and You Who will be God’s Help are clearly in need of help. What better plan could have been devised to prevent the intrusion of the ego’s arrogance on the outcome?

Undermining the foundation of an ego’s thought system must be perceived as painful even though this is anything but True. Babies scream in rage if You take away a knife or a scissors even though they may well harm themselves if You do not. The speedup has placed You Both in the same position. You are not by any means prepared and in this sense You are babies. You have no sense of real selfpreservation and are very likely to decide that You need precisely what would hurt You most. Whether You know it now or not however You Both have willed to cooperate in a concerted and very commendable effort to become both harmless and helpful, two attributes which must go together. Your attitudes even toward this are necessarily conflicted because all attitudes are egobased. This will not last. Be patient awhile and remember what We have said once before: The outcome is as certain as God!

Helen used to perceive the quotation To Him that hath shall be given as a paradox that bordered on the ironic. She also had a similar reaction to another related one: Faith is the Gift of God. We have reinterpreted both of these statements before but perhaps We can make them even clearer now.

Only Those Who have a real and lasting sense of abundance can be Truly charitable. This is quite obvious when You consider the concepts involved. To be able to give anything implies that You can do without it. Even if You associate giving with sacrifice You still give only because You believe You are somehow getting something better so that You can do without the thing You give. “Giving to get” is an inescapable law of the ego which always evaluates itself in relation to others’ egos and is therefore continually preoccupied with the scarcity principle which gave rise to it. This is the meaning of Freud’s “pleasure principle”. Freud was the most accurate “ego psychologist” We ever had although He would not have preferred this description Himself. His ego was a very weak and deprived [benachteiligendes] concept which could function only as a thing in need.

The “Reality principle” of the ego is not real at all. It is forced to perceive the “Reality” of other egos because it cannot establish the Reality of itself. In fact its whole perception of other egos as real is only an attempt to convince itself that it is real. “Self esteem” [Selbstbewusstsein] in ego terms means nothing more than that the ego has deluded itself into accepting its Reality and is therefore temporarily less predatory. This “self esteem” is always vulnerable to stress, a term which really means that a condition has arisen in which the delusion of Reality of the ego is threatened. This produces either egodeflation or egoinflation resulting in either withdrawal or attack. The ego literally lives by comparisons. This means that equality is beyond its grasp and charity becomes impossible.

The ego never gives out of abundance because it was made as a substitute for it. This is why the concept of getting arose in the ego’s thought system. All appetites are “getting” mechanisms representing ego needs to confirm itself. This is as True of bodily appetites as it is of the so-called “higher” ego needs. Bodily appetites are not physical in origin because the ego regards the body as its home and does try to satisfy itself through the body. But the idea that this is possible is a decision of the ego which is completely confused about what is really possible. This accounts for its essential erraticness.

Consider the inevitable confusion which must arise from a perception of the self which responds: When I was completely on My own I “had no idea what was possible”. The ego does believe it is completely on its own which is merely another way of describing how it originated. This is such a fearful state that it can only turn to other egos and unite with them in a feeble attempt at identification. Or attack them in an equally feeble show of strength. The ego is free to complete the stem: “When I was completely on My own” in any way it chooses but it is not free to consider the validity of the premise itself because this premise is its foundation. The ego is the belief of the Mind that It is completely on Its own.

The ego’s ceaseless attempts to gain the Soul’s acknowledgement and thus establish its own existence are utterly useless. The Soul in Its knowledge is unaware of the ego. It does not attack the ego. It merely cannot conceive of it at all. While the ego is equally unaware of the Soul it does perceive itself as rejected by Something Which is greater than itself. This is why Selfesteem in ego terms must be a delusion.

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

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

The term “Salvation” does not apply to the Soul Which is not in danger and does not need to be salvaged. Salvation is nothing more that Rightmindedness which is not the Onemindedness of the Soul but which must be accomplished before Onemindedness can be restored. Rightmindedness dictates the next step automatically because right perception is uniformly without attack so that wrongmindedness is obliterated. The ego cannot survive without judgment and is laid aside accordingly. The Mind then has only one direction in which It can move.

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

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

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

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

c. Love without Conflict

When H reads this to You, Bill, try to listen very carefully. You have never understood what “The Kingdom of Heaven is within You” means. The reason You cannot understand it is because it is not understandable to the ego which interprets it as if something outside is inside which does not mean anything. The word “within” does not belong. The Kingdom of Heaven is You. What else but You did the Creator create and what else but You is His Kingdom? This is the whole message of the Atonement, a message which in its Totality transcends the sum of its parts which We have covered before. Christmas is not a time, it is a state of mind. The Christ Mind wills from the Soul, not from the ego, and the Christ Mind is Yours.

You, too, have a Kingdom which Your Soul has created. It has not ceased to create because Your ego has set You on the road of perception. Your Soul’s Creations are no more fatherless than You are. Your ego and Your Soul will never be Cocreators but Your Soul and Your Creator will always be. Be confident that Your Creations are as safe as You are.

The Kingdom is perfectly united and perfectly protected
And the ego will not prevail against it.
Amen.

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

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

Repression [Verdrängung] thus operates to conceal not only the baser impulses but also the most lofty ones from the ego’s awareness because both are threatening to the ego and being concerned primarily with its preservation in the face of threat it perceives them as the same. The threat value of the lofty is really much greater to the ego because the pull of God Himself can hardly be equated with the pull of human appetites. By perceiving them as the same the ego attempts to save itself from being swept away as it would surely be in the presence of knowledge. The upper level of the unconscious thus contains the Call of God as well as the call of the body. That is why the basic conflict between Love and fear is unconscious. The ego cannot tolerate either and represses both by resorting to inhibition. Society depends on inhibiting the former but Salvation depends on disinhibiting the latter.

The reason You need My help is because You have repressed Your own Guide and therefore need guidance. My role is to separate the True from the false in Your own unconscious so it can break through the barriers the ego has set up and shine into Your Minds. Against Our united Strength the ego cannot prevail.

It should be quite apparent to You by now why the ego regards the Soul as its “enemy”. The ego arose from the separation and its continued existence depends on Your continuing belief in the separation. Reducing the Soul impulses to the unconscious the ego has to offer You some sort of reward for maintaining this belief. All it can offer is a sense of temporary existence which begins with its own beginning and ends with its own ending. It tells You that this Life is Your existence because it is its own. Against this sense of temporary existence the Soul offers the knowledge of permanence and unshakeable being. No one who has experienced the Revelation of this can ever fully believe in the ego again. How can its meager offering to You prevail against the glorious Gift of God?

You Who identify with Your egos cannot believe that God loves You. You do not love what You have made and what You have made does not love You. Being made out of the denial of the Father the ego has no allegiance to its own Maker. You cannot conceive of the real Relationship that exists between God and His Souls because of the hatred You have for the self You have made. You project onto Your own idea of Yourself the will to separate which conflicts with the Love You also feel for what You have made because You made it. No human Love is without this ambivalence and since no ego has experienced Love without ambivalence the concept is beyond its understanding. Love will enter immediately into any Mind which Truly wants It but It must want It Truly. This means that It wants It without ambivalence and this kind of wanting is wholly without the ego’s “drive to get”.

There is a kind of experience that is so different from anything the ego can offer that You will never recover. The word is used quite literally here – You will never be able to hide again. It is necessary to repeat that Your belief in darkness and in hiding is why the Light cannot enter. The Bible has many references [bezieht sich oft auf] to the immeasurable Gifts which are for You but for which You must ask. This is not the condition as the ego sets conditions. It is the glorious condition of What You are. No force except Your own will is strong enough or worthy enough to guide You. In this You are as free as God and must remain so forever. You can never be bound except in honor and that is always voluntary. Let Us ask the Father in My name to keep You mindful of His Love for You and Yours for Him. He has never failed to answer this request because it asks only for what He has already willed. Those Who call Truly are always answered.

Note: H became very fearful here and rather vaguely thought the answer was:

Thou shalt have no other gods before Me because there are none. You still think there are.

It has never really entered Your minds to give up every idea You have ever had that opposes knowledge. You retain thousands of little scraps of meanness which prevent the Holy One from entering. Light cannot penetrate through the walls You make to block It and It is forever unwilling to destroy what You have made. No one can see through a wall but I can step around it. Watch Your minds for the scraps of meanness or You will be unable to ask Me to do so. I can help You only as Our Father Created Us. I will love You and honor You and maintain complete respect for what You have made. But I will neither love nor honor it unless it is True. I will never forsake You any more than God will. But I must wait as long as You will to forsake Yourselves.

Because I wait in Love and not in impatience You will surely ask Me Truly. I will come gladly in response to a single unequivocal call. Watch carefully and see what it is You are Truly asking for. Be very honest with Yourselves about this for We must hide nothing from Each Other. If You will really try to do this You have taken the first step toward preparing Your minds for the Holy One to enter. We will prepare for this Together and once He has come You will be ready to help Me make other minds ready for Him. How long will You deny Him His Kingdom?

In Your own unconscious, deeply repressed by the ego is the declaration of Your release. God has given You everything. This is the one fact which means that the ego does not exist and which therefore makes it profoundly afraid. In the ego’s language to have and to be are different but they are identical to the Soul. It knows that You Both have everything and are everything. Any distinction in this respect is meaningful only when the idea of getting, which implies a lack, has already been accepted. That is why We made no distinction before between having the Kingdom of God and being the Kingdom of God.

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

d. The Escape from Fear

If You cannot hear the Voice of God it is because You do not choose to listen. The fact that You do listen to the voice of Your ego is demonstrated by Your attitudes, Your feelings and Your behavior. Your attitudes are obviously conflicted. Your feelings have a narrow range on the negative side but are never purely joyous. And Your behavior is either strained [angespannt/anstrengend] or unpredictable. Yet this is what You want. This is what You are fighting to keep and what You are vigilant to save. Your minds are filled with schemes to save the face of Your egos and You do not seek the Face of God. The glass in which the ego seeks to see its face is dark indeed. How can it maintain the trick of its existence except with mirrors? But where You look to find Yourself is up to You.

We have said that You cannot change Your mind by changing Your behavior but We have also said, and many times before, that You can change Your mind. When Your mood tells You that You have willed wrongly, and this is so whenever You are not joyous, then know this need not be. In every case You have thought wrongly about some Soul that God created and are perceiving images Your ego makes in a darkened glass. Think honestly what You have thought that God would not have thought and what You have not thought that God would have You think. Search sincerely for what You have done and left undone accordingly. And then change Your minds to think with God’s. This may seem hard to You but it is much easier than trying to think against It. Your Mind is One with God’s. Denying this and thinking otherwise has held Your ego together but has literally split Your mind. As a loving Brother I am deeply concerned with Your minds and urge You to follow My example as You look at Yourselves and at Each Other and see in Both the glorious Creations of a glorious Father.

When You are sad know that this need not be. Depression always arises ultimately from a sense of being deprived of something You want and do not have. Know You are deprived of nothing except by Your own decisions and then decide otherwise. When You are anxious know that all anxiety comes from the capriciousness of the ego and need not be. You can be as vigilant against the ego’s dictates as for them. When You feel guilty know that Your ego has indeed violated the laws of God but You have not. Leave the sins of the ego to Me. That is what the Atonement is for. But until You change Your mind about Those Your ego has hurt the Atonement cannot release You. As long as You feel guilty Your ego is in command because only the ego can experience guilt. This need not be. You, Helen, have been more honest than B in really trying to see Whom Your ego has hurt and also in trying to change Your mind about Them.

H is doubtful whether this is accurately written at a time when she was very angry.

I am not unmindful of Your efforts but You still have much too much energy invested in Your ego. This need not be. Watch Your minds for the temptations of the ego and do not be deceived by it. Know it offers You nothing. You, B, have not made consistent efforts to change Your mind except through applying old habit patterns to new ideas. But You have learned, and learned it better than H, that Your mind gains control over Itself when You direct It genuinely toward perceiving Someone else Truly.

H is doubtful about accuracy here.

Your lack of vitality [Lebensfreude/Spaß am Leben] is due to Your former marked effort at solving Your needless depression and anxiety through disinterest. Because Your ego was protected by this unfortunate negative attribute You are afraid to abandon it. When You have given up this voluntary disspiriting You have already seen how Your mind can focus and rise above fatigue and heal. But You are not sufficiently vigilant against the demands of Your ego that You disengage Yourself. This need not be. The habit of engaging with God and His Creations is easily made if You refuse actively to let Your minds slip away. Your problem is not concentration it is a belief that nobody including Yourself is worth consistent effort. Side with Me consistently against this deception as We have sided against it briefly already. Do not permit this shabby belief to pull You back. The disheartened are useless to Themselves and to Me but only the ego can be disheartened.

Have You really considered how many opportunities You have to gladden Yourselves and how many of them You have refused? There is no limit to the Power of a Son of God but He Himself can limit the expression of His Power as much as He wills. Your mind and Mine can unite in shining Your ego away and releasing the Strength of God into everything You think and will and do. Do no settle for anything less than this and refuse to accept anything but this as Your goal. Watch Your minds carefully for any beliefs that hinder its accomplishment and step away from them. Judge how well You have done this by Your own feelings for this is the one right use of judgment. Judgment like any other defense can be used to attack or protect, to hurt or to heal. The ego should be brought to Your own judgment and found wanting there. Without Your own allegiance, protection and Love it cannot exist.

Judge Your ego Truly and You must withdraw allegiance, protection and Love from it. You are mirrors of Truth in which God Himself shines in perfect Light. To the ego’s dark glass You need but say: “I will not look there because I know these images are not True.” Then let Me, the Holy One, shine upon You in Peace knowing that this and only this must be! His Mind shone on You in Your Creation and brought Your mind into being. His Mind still shines on You and must shine through You. Your ego cannot prevent Him from shining on You but it can prevent You from letting Him shine through You.

The First Coming of Christ is just another name for the Creation for Christ is the Son of God. The Second Coming of Christ means nothing more than the end of the ego’s rule over part of the minds of men and the healing of the Mind. I was created like You in the First and I am reminding You that I have called You to join with Me in the Second. If You will think over Your lives You will see how carefully the preparations were made. I am in charge of the Second Coming, as I have already told You, and My judgment which is used only for Its protection cannot be wrong because it never attacks. Yours is so distorted that You believe that I was mistaken in choosing You. I assure You this is a mistake of Your own egos. Do not mistake it for humility.

Your egos are trying to convince You that they are real and I am not because if I am real I am no more real than You are. That knowledge, and I assure You that it is knowledge, means that Christ must come into Your minds and heal them. While I am not attacking Your egos I am working with Your Higher Mind whether You are asleep or awake just as Your ego does with Your lower mind. I am Your vigilance in this because You are too confused to recognize Your own hope.

I was not mistaken. Your minds will elect to join with Mine and Together We are invincible. You two will yet come Together in My name and Your sanity will be restored. I raised the dead by knowing that Life is an eternal attribute of everything that the living God Created. Why do You believe that it is harder for Me to inspire the disspirited or to stabilize the unstable? I do not believe that there is an order of difficulty in Miracles, You do. I have called and You will answer. I know that Miracles are natural because They are expressions of Love. My calling You is as natural as Your answer and as inevitable.

e. The egobody Illusion

All things work together for good. There are no exceptions except in the ego’s judgment. Control is a central factor in what the ego permits into consciousness and one to which it devotes its maximum vigilance. This is not the way a balanced Mind holds together. Its control is unconscious. The ego is further off balance by keeping its primary motivation unconscious and raising control rather than sensible judgment to predominance. It has every reason to do this according to the thought system which both gave rise to it and which it serves. Sane judgment would inevitably judge against it and must be obliterated by the ego in the interest of its selfpreservation.

A crucial source of the ego’s offbalance state is its lack of discrimination between impulses from God and from the body. Any thought system which makes this confusion must be insane. Yet this demented state is essential to the ego which judges only in terms of threat or nonthreat to itself. In one sense the ego’s fear of the idea of God is at least logical because this idea does dispel it. Fear of dissolution from the Higher Source then makes some sense in ego terms. But fear of the body with which the ego identifies so closely is more blatantly senseless. The body is the ego’s home by its own election. It is the only identification with which it feels safe because the body’s vulnerability is its own best argument that You cannot be of God.

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

Where can I go for protection?

To which the ego replies: “Turn to Me.” The Mind, and not without cause, reminds the ego that it has itself insisted that it is identified with the body so there is no point in turning to it for protection. The ego has no real answer to this because there isn’t any. But it does have a typical solution: It obliterates the question from the Mind’s awareness. Once unconscious it can and does produce uneasiness but it cannot be answered because it cannot be asked.

This is the question which must be asked:

Where am I to go for protection?

Only an insane mind fails to ask it. Even the insane ask it unconsciously but it requires real sanity to ask it consciously.

If You will remember Your dream about the recorder, which was remarkably accurate in some ways because it came partly from egorepressed knowledge, the real problem was correctly stated as:

What is the question?

Because as You very well knew the answer could be found if the question were recognized. If You remember there were a number of solutions You attempted, all egobased, not because You thought they would really work but because the question itself was obscure.

When the Bible says: “Seek and Ye shall find.” it does not mean that You should seek blindly and desperately for something You wouldn’t recognize. Meaningful seeking is consciously undertaken, consciously organized and consciously directed. B’s chief contribution to Your joint venture is His insistence that the goal be formulated clearly and kept in mind. You, Helen, are not good at doing this. You still search for many gods simultaneously and this goal confusion, given a strong will, must produce chaotic behavior. B’s behavior is not chaotic because He is not so much goaldivided as not goaloriented. Where Helen has overinvested in many goals B has underinvested in all goals. He has the advantage of potentially greater freedom from distractibility but He does not care enough to use it. Helen has the advantage of great effort but she keeps losing sight of the goal.

B has very intelligently suggested that You both should set Yourself the goal of really studying for This Course. There can be no doubt of the wisdom of this decision for any student Who wants to pass It. But knowing Your individual weaknesses as Learners and being a Teacher with some experience I must remind You that learning and wanting to learn are inseparable. All Learners learn best when They believe that what They are trying to learn is of value to Them. But values in this world are hierarchical and not everything You may want to learn has lasting value. Indeed many of the things You want to learn are chosen because their value will not last. The ego thinks it is an advantage not to commit itself to anything that is eternal because the Eternal must come from God.

Eternalness is the one function that the ego has tried to develop but has systematically failed. It may surprise You to learn that had the ego willed to do so it could have made the Eternal because as a product of the Mind it is endowed with the Power of its own Creator. But the decision to do this rather than the ability to do it is what the ego cannot tolerate. That is because the decision, from which the ability would naturally develop, would necessarily involve True perception, a state of clarity which the ego, fearful of being judged Truly, must avoid. The results of this dilemma are peculiar but no more so than the dilemma itself.

The ego has reacted characteristically here as elsewhere because mental illness which is always a form of egoinvolvement is not a problem of reliability as much as of validity. The ego compromises with the issue of the Eternal just as it does with all issues that touch on the real question in any way. By compromising in connection with all tangential questions it hopes to hide the real question and keep it out of mind. Its characteristic “business” with nonessentials is precisely for that purpose. Consider the alchemist’s ageold attempts to turn base metal into gold.

This typo was originally “God”.

The one question which the alchemist did not permit Himself to ask was

What for [Wozu]?

He could not ask this because it would immediately become apparent that there was no sense in His efforts even if He succeeded. The ego has also countenanced some strange compromises with the idea of the Eternal making odd attempts to relate the concept to the unimportant in an effort to satisfy the Mind without jeopardizing itself. Thus it has permitted many good Minds to devote Themselves to perpetual motion but not to perpetual thoughts.

Ideational preoccupations with conceptual problems set up to be incapable of solution are another favorite ego device for impeding the Strongwilled from real progress in learning. The problems of squaring the circle and carrying pi to Infinity are good examples. A more recent egoattempt is particularly noteworthy: The idea of preserving the body by suspension thus giving it the kind of limited immortality which the ego can tolerate is among its more recent appeals to the Mind. It is noticeable that in all these diversionary tactics the one question which is never asked by Those Who pursue them is

What for [Wozu]?

This is the question which You must learn to ask in connection with everything Your Mind wills to undertake. What is Your purpose? Whatever it is You cannot doubt that it will channelize Your efforts automatically. When You make a decision of purpose then You have made a decision about future effort, a decision which will remain in effect unless You change the decision.

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

These relatively minor confusions of the ego are not among its more profound misassociations although they do reflect them. Your own egos have been blocking the more important questions which Your Minds should ask. You do not understand a patient while You Yourselves are willing to limit the questions You raise about His mind because You are also accepting these limits for Yours. This makes You unable to heal Him and Yourselves. Be always unwilling to adapt to any situation in which Miraclemindedness [Wunderdenken] is unthinkable. That state in itself is enough to demonstrate that perception is wrong.

f. The Constant [gleichbleibende] State

It cannot be emphasized too often that correcting perception is merely a temporary expedient. It is necessary only because misperception is a block to knowledge while accurate perception is a steppingstone towards it. The whole value of right perception lies in the inevitable judgment which it necessarily entails: That it is unnecessary. This removes the block entirely. You may ask how this is possible as long as You appear to be living in this world. And since this is a sensible question it has a sensible answer. But You must be careful that You really understand the question.

What is the You Who are living in this world? Bill will probably have more trouble with this than You but if He will try not to close His Mind He may decide that We are not engaging in denial after all. To help Him it might be wise to review a number of the concepts with which He does not appear to have trouble except at times. He liked the idea of invisibility and was particularly open to the concept of different orders of Reality. He also found the notion of varying densities of energy appealing. While He may yet agree that these are merely teaching aids this is a good time to employ them.

Immortality is a constant [gleichbleibend] state. It is as True now as it ever was or will be because it implies no change at all. It is not a continuum and it is not understood by comparing it with any opposite. Knowledge never involves comparisons. That is its essential difference from everything else the Mind can grasp.

“A little knowledge” is not dangerous except to the ego. Vaguely the ego senses threat and being unable to realize that “a little knowledge” is a meaningless phrase because “all” and “a little” in this context are the same decides that since “all” is impossible the fear does not lie in this. “A little” however is a scarcity concept and this the ego understands well. Regarding “all” as impossible “a little” is perceived as the real threat. The essential thing to remember always is that the ego does not recognize the real Source of its perceived threat. And if You associate Yourself with the ego You do not perceive the whole situation as it really is.

Only Your allegiance to it gives the ego any Power over You. We have spoken of the ego as if it were a separate thing acting on its own. This was necessary to persuade You that You cannot dismiss [aufgeben] it lightly and must realize how much of Your thinking is egodirected. But We cannot safely leave it at that or You will regard Yourselves as necessarily conflicted as long as You are here or more properly believe that You are here. The ego is nothing more than a part of Your belief about Yourselves. Your other Life has continued without interruption and has been and always will be totally unaffected by Your attempts to dissociate. The ratio of repression and dissociation of Truth varies with the individual egoillusion.

Tell Bill that this phrase is very good.

But dissociation is always involved or You would not believe that You are here.

When I told Bill to concentrate on the phrase Here I am, Lord, I did not mean “in this world” by “Here”. I wanted Him to think of Himself as a separate consciousness capable of direct communication with the Creator of that consciousness. He, too, must begin to think of Himself as a very powerful receiving and sending channel, a description I once gave You symbolically. Remember that He understood it before You did because You are more dissociative and less repressed. Your great debt to Each Other is something You should never forget. It is exactly the same debt that You owe to Me. Whenever You react egotistically towards Each Other You are throwing away the graciousness of Your indebtedness and the Holy perception it would produce. The reason why the term “Holy” can be used here is that as You learn how much You are indebted to the whole Sonship Which includes Me You come as close to knowledge as perception ever can. This gap is so small knowledge can easily flow across it and obliterate it forever.

You have very little trust in Me as yet [bislang] but it will increase as You turn more and more often to Me instead of to Your egos for guidance. The results will convince You increasingly that Your choice in turning to Me is the only sane one You can make. No one who has learned from experience that one choice brings Peace and Joy while another brings chaos and disaster needs much conditioning. The ego cannot withstand the conditioning process because the process itself demonstrates that there is another way. The classic conditioning by rewards model has always been most effective. Howard Hunt made a very good point in this connection even though He did not understand that the real reason why conditioning through pain is not the most efficient method is because pain itself is an egoillusion and can never induce more than a temporary effect.

The Rewards of God are immediately recognized as eternal. Since this recognition is made by You and not by Your ego the recognition itself establishes that You and Your ego cannot be identical. You may believe that You have already accepted the difference but You are by no means convinced as yet. The very fact that You are preoccupied with the idea of escaping from the ego shows this. You cannot escape from the ego by humbling it or controlling it or punishing it. The ego and the Soul do not know each other. The separated mind cannot maintain the separation except by dissociating. Having done this it utilizes repression against all Truly natural impulses, not because the ego is a separate thing but because You want to believe that You are. The ego is a device for maintaining this belief but it is still only Your willingness to use the device that enables it to endure.

My trust in You is greater than Yours in Me at the moment but it will not always be that way. Your mission is very simple. You have been chosen to live so as to demonstrate that You are not an ego. I repeat that I do not choose God’s channels wrongly. The Holy One shares My trust and always approves My Atonement decisions because My will is never out of accord with His. I have told You several times that I am in charge of the whole Atonement. This is only because I completed My part in it as a man and can now complete it through other men. My chosen receiving and sending channels cannot fail because I will lend them My Strength as long as Theirs is wanting. I will go with You to the Holy One and through My perception He can bridge the little gap. Your gratitude to Each Other is the only gift I want. I will bring it to God for You knowing that to know Your Brother is to know God.

A little knowledge is an allencompassing thing. If You are grateful to Each Other You are grateful to God for What He created. Through Your gratitude You can come to know Each Other and one moment of real recognition makes all men Your Brothers because They are all of Your Father. Love does not conquer all things but It does set all things right. Because You are All the Kingdom of God I can lead You back to Your own Creations Which You do not yet know. God has kept Them very safe in His knowing while Your attention has wandered. Bill gave You a very important idea when He told You that What has been dissociated is still there. I am grateful to Him for that and I hope He will not decide that it is True only for You. Even though dissociation is much more apparent in You and repression is much more evident in Him Each of You utilizes both.

Wisdom always dictates that a therapist work through weaker defenses first. That is why I suggested to Bill that He persuade You to deal with repression first. We have only just about reached the point where dissociation means much to You because it is so important to Your misbeliefs. Bill might do well and You could help Him here to concentrate more on His dissociative tendencies and not try to deal with repression yet. I hinted at this when I remarked on His habit of disengaging Himself and when I spoke to Him about distantiation. These are all forms of dissociation and these weaker forms were always more evident in Him than in You. That is because dissociation was so extreme in Your case that You did not have to hide it because You were not aware that it was there. Bill on the other hand does dissociate more than He thinks and that is why He cannot listen. He does not need to go through the same course in repression that You did because He will give up His major misdefense after He has rid Himself of the lesser ones.

Do not disturb Yourself about repression, Bill, but do train Yourself to be alert to any tendency to withdraw from Your Brothers. Withdrawal is frightening and You do not recognize all the forms it takes in You. Helen is right that she will experience things that will cut across all her perceptions because of their stunning knowledge. You were right that this will occur when she learns to recognize what she already knows and has dissociated. You, Bill, will learn somewhat differently because You are afraid of all complete involvements and believe that they lessen You. You have learned to be so much more clearsighted about this that You should be ready to oppose it in Yourself relatively easily. As You come closer to a Brother You do approach Me. And as You withdraw from Him I become distant to You.

Your giant step forward was to insist on a collaborative venture. This does not go against the True Spirit of meditation at all. It is inherent in it. Meditation is a collaborative venture with God. It cannot be undertaken successfully by those who disengage themselves from the Sonship because they are disengaging themselves from Me. God will come to You only as You will give Him to Your Brothers. Learn first of Them and You will be ready to hear God as You hear Them. That is because the function of Love is One.

Answer to H’s question about her reactions and also B’s question: The reason for the fear reaction is quite apparent. You have not yet been able to suspend judgment and have merely succeeded in weakening Yourself over this. Since You have unfortunately the tendency to be selfpunishing You believe that control of judgment is a selfpreserving function and therefore requires it as a necessary defense of Your self. Weakening this defense deliberately is thus perceived as dangerous necessarily which frightens You. B was right that You should ask before attempting it again. It would be very unwise to try it before We can do it Together as I told You last night. I assure You I will be vigilant in identifying the right time and as I told You very clearly next time We will do it Together. I did not tell You when that will be because I don’t know. You will tell Me that but may not recognize that You have done so. That is why You need Me to relay Your own message back to You. When You are Both ready it cannot be fearful.

In answer to B’s question as to why He has so much difficulty in communication: You were right in what You said in the cab and B could not listen. However He seems to be able to listen quite carefully to the notes. Ask Him please to listen very carefully to these. If You ask Me for guidance You have signified Your willingness to give over Your own control at least to some extent. Your frequent failure to ask at all indicates that at such times You are not willing to go even that far. But when You at least ask You are acting with a cooperative thought even though it may not lack ambivalence. You are therefore entitled to a specific answer but unless You follow it without judging it You will become defensive [abwehrend] about the next steps which You will take.

You asked merely what You should do now. The answer was to tell Jack to pick You up at 3. B’s reaction to this was unfortunate and Yours was much more constructive making it particularly unfortunate that B accepted Your very correct response to His reaction with irritation. But this was inevitable because He had already given way to [nachgeben] fear. Then You reacted to His mistake with imitation and We lost Our communication for a time. Let Us try to reestablish Our communication now. B was unwise in deciding on His own that unless You went to His apartment Jack would be in trouble. This association meant that He saw only one alternative and was unable to keep an open Mind. Certainly He should be careful that way. Guidance which comes from Me will not jeopardize Anyone.

It should also be noted that He projected His misperception onto You assuming that You were counting on magic to get Jack to take You home in spite of the traffic and not realizing the situation as it is. I would like to tell Him for You that this was a misperception of His and although You have done this many times in the past You were not doing it then. As You very correctly stated but B could not listen at the time You were merely repeating a message for which You had asked and were not judging the outcome. B was. If You can continue not to evaluate My Messages and merely follow them they will lead to good for Everyone. Since this is the same area of discipline which is causing Both of You trouble with meditation to practice in this is essential.

I do not yet know what decisions Those Who are involved in what is happening later today will make but I urge You to share that whatever they may be can be utilized for good if You will let them be. Why not unburden Yourselves of the kind of responsibility which You can’t meet and devote Yourselves in Peace to the many others which You can discharge without strain? It is Their responsibility to recognize the difference. Any confusion in this respect is arrogance. Note also that I specifically told You in answer to Your own question of this being that Miracles should be offered both to Art and to Your Brother. They are urgently needed for You although this is not the Spirit in which You must undertake Them. You have hurt Yourselves and need healing. It does not matter whether the people You think have hurt You have really thought hurtfully. You have. We must undo this and Our attempts will surely be blessed.

Since Both of You have asked Me to point up errors in perceiving I would suggest that B reviews carefully His reactions to Your suggestion that You go over the case at the Neurological Institute. Even though You did not ask, which was a mistake, B immediately evaluated the suggestion in terms of His own convenience, which was another mistake. Your motives were not uncharitable even though Your failure to ask for guidance was a sign of fear. You thought that Art would be able to understand B’s going to the hospital while B could not understand Your presence at the Psychiatric Institute. B’s reaction did not take alternate possibilities into account which is one of His uses for problems. He should also train Himself to learn that alternate possibilities are better not left up to Him. Whenever He reacts as though they are He will have trouble. If You had asked where to go and B had been willing to forgo control of the decision whatever You had done would have been only benign. Could You continue the day in that Spirit? If You will to help B overcome His limitation which is totally unjustified in spite of His misperception We will not only help Him but enable Both of Us to help You. This will institute the chain of helpfulness and harmlessness which always leads to the Atonement and becomes a powerful part of its beneficence.

I offer far more than partial guidance although You do not ask for more. The uneven quality of Your skill in both asking and following My directions is due to the alternations You experience between ego and Miracle orientated perception. This is a strain but fortunately one which can be overcome along with the rest. There will never be a time when I do not will to try again. You might be gladdened by remembering that.

How can You teach Someone the value of something He has thrown away deliberately? He must have thrown it away because He did not value it. You can only show Him how miserable He is without it and bring it near very slowly so He can learn how His misery lessens as He approaches it. This conditions Him to associate His misery with its absence and to associate the opposite of misery with its presence. It gradually becomes desirable as He changes His mind about its worth. I am conditioning You to associate misery with the ego and Joy with Your Soul. You have conditioned Yourself the other way around. But a far greater Reward will break through any conditioning if it is repeatedly offered when the old habit is broken. You are still free to choose. But can You really want the rewards of the ego in the presence of the Rewards of God?

g. Creation and Communication

It should be clear that while the content of any particular egoillusion does not matter it is usually more helpful to correct it in a specific context. Bill is right that You are too abstract in this matter. Egoillusions are quite specific although they frequently change and although the Mind is naturally abstract It became concrete voluntarily as soon as It splits. However only part of It splits so only part of It is concrete. The concrete part is the same part that believes in the ego because the ego depends on the specific. It is the part that believes Your existence means You are separate. Everything the ego perceives is a separate whole without the Relationships that imply being. The ego is thus against communication except in so far as it is utilized to establish separateness rather than to abolish it.

The communication system of the ego is based on its own thought system as is everything else it dictates. Its communication is controlled by its need to protect itself and it will disrupt communication when it experiences threat. While this is always so individual egos perceive different kinds of threat which are quite specific in their own judgment. For example, although all forms of perceived demands may be classified, or judged, by the ego as coercive communication which must be disrupted the response of breaking communication will nevertheless be to a specific person, or persons. The specificity of the ego’s thinking then results in a spurious kind of generalization which is really not abstract at all. It will respond in certain specific ways to all stimuli which it perceives as related. In contrast the Soul reacts in the same way to everything It knows is True and does not respond at all to anything else. Nor does It make any attempt to establish what is True. It knows that What is True is everything that God created. It is in complete and direct communication with every aspect of Creation because It is in complete and direct communication with Its Creator. This communication is the Will of God.

Creation and communication are synonymous. God created every Mind by communicating His Mind to It thus establishing It forever as a channel for the reception of His Mind and Will. Since only beings of a like order can Truly communicate His Creations naturally communicate with Him and communicate like Him. This communication is perfectly abstract in that its quality is universal in application and not subject to any judgment, any exception or any alteration. God made You by this and for this. The Mind can distort Its functions but It cannot endow Itself with those It was not given. That is why the Mind cannot totally lose the ability to communicate even though It may refuse to utilize it on behalf of being. Existence as well as being rests on communication.

Existence is specific in how, what and with Whom communication is worth undertaking. Being is completely without these distinctions. It is a state in which the Mind is in communication with everything that is real including Its own Soul. To whatever extent You permit this state to be curtailed You are limiting Your sense of Your own Reality which becomes total only by recognizing all Reality in the glorious context of its real Relationship to You. This is Your Reality. Do not desecrate it or recoil from it. It is Your real Home, Your real Temple and Your real Self. God Who encompasses all being nevertheless created separate beings Who have everything individually but Who want to share it to increase Their Joy. Nothing that is real can be increased except by sharing it. That is why God Himself created You. Divine Abstraction takes Joy in application and that is what Creation means. How, what and to Whom are irrelevant because real Creation gives everything since It can only create like Itself. Remember that in being there is no difference between having and being as there is in existence. In the state of being the Mind gives everything always.

The Bible repeatedly states that You should praise God. This hardly means that You should tell Him how wonderful He is. He has no ego with which to accept thanks and no perceptions with which to judge Your offerings. But unless You take Your part in the Creation His Joy is not complete because Yours is incomplete. And this He does know. He knows it in His own Being and its experience of His Sons’ experience. The constant going out of His Love is blocked when His Channels are closed and He is lonely when the minds He created do not communicate fully with Him. God has kept Your Kingdom for You but He cannot share His Joy with You until You know it with Your whole Mind. Even Revelation is not enough because it is communication from God. But it is not enough until it is shared. God does not need Revelation returned to Him, which would clearly be impossible, but He does want Revelation brought to others. This cannot be done with the actual Revelation because its content cannot be expressed and it is intensely personal to the Mind which receives it. But it can still be returned by that Mind through Its attitudes to other minds which the knowledge from the Revelation brings.

God is praised whenever any mind learns to be wholly helpful. This is impossible without being wholly harmless because the two beliefs cannot coexist. The Truly Helpful are invulnerable because They are not protecting Their egos so that nothing can hurt Them. Their helpfulness is Their praise of God and He will return Their praise of Him because They are like Him and can rejoice Together. God goes out to Them and through Them and there is great Joy throughout the Kingdom. Every mind That is changed adds to this Joy with Its own individual willingness to share in it. The Truly Helpful are God’s Miracleworkers Whom I direct until We are All united in the Joy of the Kingdom. I will direct You to wherever You can be Truly helpful and to Whoever can follow My guidance through You. I arranged for Bill to attend the rehabilitation meetings for very good reasons and I want Him to know them so We can share Our goal there.

h. True Rehabilitation

Properly speaking, every mind which is split needs rehabilitation. The medical orientation emphasizes the body and the vocational orientation stresses the ego. The team approach generally leads more to confusion than anything else because it is too often misused as an expedient for sharing the ego’s dominion with other ego’s rather than as a real experiment in cooperation of Minds.

The reason why Bill needs this experience is because He needs rehabilitating Himself. How often have I answered “help Him” when You asked Me to help You? He too has asked for help and He has been helped whenever He was Truly helpful to You. He has also gained to whatever extent He could give. He will help You more Truly by going if He can remember all the time He is there that His only reason for being there is to represent Me.

Rehabilitation as a movement has been an improvement over overt neglect but it is often little more than a painful attempt on the part of the halt to lead the blind. Bill, You will see this at every meeting. But this is not why You were chosen to go. You have a fear of broken bodies because Your ego cannot tolerate them. Your ego cannot tolerate egoweakness either without ambivalence because it is afraid of its own weakness and the weakness of its chosen home.

That is really why You recoil from the demands of the dependent and from the sight of a broken body. Your ego is threatened and blocks Your natural impulse to help placing You under the strain of divided will. You withdraw to allow Your ego to recover and to regain enough strength to be helpful again on a basis limited enough not to threaten Your ego but also too limited to give You Joy. Those with broken bodies are often looked down on by the ego because of its belief that nothing but a perfect body is worthy as its own temple. A mind that recoils from a hurt body is in great need of rehabilitation itself. A damaged brain is also hardly a danger. All symptoms of hurt need True helpfulness and whenever they are met with this the Mind That so meets them heals Itself.

Rehabilitation is an attitude of praising God as He Himself knows praise. He offers praise to You and You must offer it to Others. The real limitations on clinical psychology as it is evaluated by its followers at present are not reflected by the attitudes of psychiatrists or medical boards or hospital administrators even though most of Them are sadly in need of rehabilitation Themselves. The real handicaps of the clinicians lie in their attitudes to Those Whom their egos perceive as weakened and damaged. By these evaluations they have weakened and damaged their own helpfulness and have thus set their own rehabilitation back. Rehabilitation is not concerned with the ego’s fight for control nor the ego’s need to avoid and withdraw.

[Eine deutsche Übersetzung dieses Abschnittes befindet ist bei FIP in T-2.V.A.18] Bill, You can do much on behalf of Your own rehabilitation and Helen’s and much more universally as well if You think of the Princeton meetings in this way:

I am here only to be Truly helpful.

I am here to represent Christ Who sent Me.

I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do
Because the One Who sent Me will direct Me.

I am content to be wherever He wishes
Knowing He goes there with Me.

I will be healed as I let Him teach Me to heal.

Chapter 5 – Healing and Wholeness

a. Healing as Joining

Healing is an act of thought by which two Minds perceive Their Oneness and become glad. This Gladness calls to every part of the Sonship to rejoice with Them and let God Himself go out into Them and through Them. Only the healed Mind can experience Revelation with lasting effect because Revelation is an experience of pure Joy. If You do not will to be wholly joyous Your mind cannot have what it does not will to be.

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

If You think about it You will see that while this kind of thinking is totally alien to having things even to the lower mind it is quite comprehensible in connection with ideas. If You share a physical possession You do divide its ownership. But if You share an idea You do not lessen it. All of it is still Yours although all of it has been given away. Further, if the person to Whom You give it accepts it as His He reinforces it in Your mind and thus increases it.

If You can accept the concept that the world is one of ideas the whole belief in the false association which the ego has made between giving and losing is gone. Let Us start Our process of rebirth with just a few simple concepts:

Thoughts increase by being given away.

The more Who believe in them the stronger they become.

Everything is an idea.

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

This is the invitation to the Holy Spirit. I told You that I could reach up and bring the Holy Spirit down to You. But I can bring Him to You only at Your own invitation. The Holy Spirit is nothing more than Your own Right Mind. He was also Mine. The Bible says: “May the Mind be in You That was also in Christ Jesus.” and uses this as a Blessing. It is the Blessing of Miraclemindedness. It asks that You may think as I thought joining with Me in Christthinking.

The Holy Spirit is the only part of the Holy Trinity Which is symbolic. He is referred to in the Bible as the Healer, the Comforter and the Guide. He is also described as something separate, apart from the Father and from the Son. I Myself said:

And if I go I will send You another Comforter and He will abide with You.

The Holy Spirit is a difficult concept to grasp precisely because it is symbolic and therefore open to many different interpretations. As a man, and as One of God’s Creations, My Right Thinking, which came from the universal Inspiration which is the Holy Spirit, taught Me first and foremost that this Inspiration is for All. I could not have it Myself without knowing that.

The word “know” is proper here because the Holy Inspiration is so close to knowledge that it calls forth or better allows it to come. We have spoken before of the higher, or True, perception which is so close to Truth that God Himself can flow across the little gap. Knowledge is always ready to flow everywhere but it cannot oppose. Therefore You can obstruct it although You can never lose it.

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

b. The Mind of the Atonement

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

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

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

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

Second, it is incapable of attack and is therefore Truly open. This means that although it does not engender knowledge it does not obstruct it in any way.

Third, it is an unequivocal Call to Love. Every other voice is still.

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

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

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

The Holy Spirit is the motivation for Miraclemindedness [Wunderdenken]. It is the will to heal the separation by letting it go. It is in You because God placed it in Your mind and although You can keep it asleep You cannot obliterate it. God Himself keeps it alive by transmitting it from His Mind to Yours as long as there is time. It is partly His will and partly Yours. The Miracle Itself is just this fusion, or union, of will between Father and Son.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Joy. It is the Call to return with which God blessed the minds of the separated sons. This the vocation of the Mind. It had no calling until the separation because before It had only being and would not have understood the Call to Right Thinking. The Holy Spirit was God’s Answer to the separation, the means by which the Atonement could repair until the whole mind returned to creating. The Atonement and the separation began at the same time. When man made the ego God placed in Him the Call of Joy. This Call is so strong that the ego always dissolves at its sound.

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

c. The Voice for God

It is possible even in this world to hear only that Voice and no other. It takes effort and great willingness to learn. It is the final lesson that I learned and God’s Sons are as equal as Learners as They are as Souls. The Voice of the Holy Spirit is the Call to Atonement or the restoration of the integrity of the mind. When the Atonement is complete and the whole Sonship is healed there will be no Call to return but what God creates is eternal. The Holy Spirit will remain with the Sons of God to bless Their Creations and keep Them in the Light of Joy.

You are the Kingdom of Heaven but You have let the belief in darkness enter Your minds and so You need a new Light. The Holy Spirit is the radiance that You must let banish the idea of darkness. His is the glory before which dissociation falls away and the Kingdom of Heaven breaks through into its own.

Before the separation You did not need guidance. You knew as You will know again but You do not know now. God does not guide because He can share only perfect knowledge. Guidance is evaluative because it implies that there is a right way and also a wrong way, one to be chosen and the other avoided. By choosing one You give up the other. This is a conflict state. It means that knowledge has been lost because knowledge is sure.

God is not in You, You are part of Him. When You willed to leave Him He gave You a Voice to speak for Him because He could no longer share His knowledge with You without hindrance. Direct communication was broken because You had made another voice through another will. The Holy Spirit calls You both to remember and forget. You have chosen to be in a state of opposition in which opposites are possible. As a result there are choices which You must make. In the Holy State the will is free in the sense that its creative Power is unlimited but choice itself is meaningless.

Freedom to choose is the same Power as freedom to create but its application is different. Choosing means divided will. The Holy Spirit is one way of choosing. This way is in You because there is also another way. God did not leave His Children comfortless even though they left Him. The voice they put in their minds was not the Voice of His Will for Which the Holy Spirit speaks. The Call to return is stronger than the call to depart but it speaks in a different way.

The Voice of the Holy Spirit does not command because It is incapable of arrogance. It does not demand because It does not seek control. It does not overcome because It does not attack. It merely reminds. It is compelling only because of what It reminds You of. It brings to Your mind the other way remaining quiet even in the midst of the turmoil You have made for Yourselves. The Voice for God is always quiet because It speaks of Peace. Yet Peace is stronger than war because it heals. War is division, not increase. No one gains from strife.

“What profiteth a man if He gain the whole world and lose His own Soul?” This means that if He listens to the wrong voice He has lost sight of His Soul. He cannot lose It but He can not know It. It is therefore lost to Him until He chooses right. The Holy Spirit is Your Guide in choosing. He is the part of Your mind Which always speaks for the right choice because He speaks for God. He is Your remaining communication with God which You can interrupt but cannot destroy.

The Holy Spirit is the way in which God’s Will can be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Both Heaven and earth are in You because the calls of both are in Your wills and therefore in Your minds. The Voice for God comes from Your own Altars to Him. These Altars are not things. They are devotions. But You have other devotions now. Your divided devotion has given You the two voices and You must choose at which altar You will to serve. The call You answer now is an evaluation because it is a decision. The decision itself is very simple. It is made on the basis of which call is worth more to You.

My Mind will always be like Yours because We were created as Equals. It was only My decision that gave Me all Power in Heaven and earth. My only Gift to You is to help You make the same decision for Yourself. The will for this decision is the will to share it because the decision itself is the decision to share. It is made by giving and is therefore the one act of Mind that resembles True Creation.

You understand the role of models in the learning process and the importance of the models You value and choose to follow in determining what You will to learn. I am Your Model for decision. By deciding for God I showed You that this decision can be made and that You can make it. I promised You that the Mind That made the decision for Me is also in You and that You can let It change You just as It changed Me. This Mind is unequivocal because It hears only one Voice and answers in one way.

You are the Light of the world with Me. Rest does not come from sleeping but from waking. The Holy Spirit is the Call to awake and be glad. The world is very tired because it is the idea of weariness. Our task is the joyous one of waking it to the Call for God. Everyone will answer the Call of the Holy Spirit or the Sonship cannot be as One. What better vocation could there be for any part of the Kingdom than to restore it to the perfect integration that can make it whole?

Hear only This through the Holy Spirit within You and teach Your Brothers to listen as I am teaching You. When You are tempted by the wrong voice call on Me to remind You how to heal by sharing My decision and making it stronger. As We share this goal We increase its Power to attract the whole Sonship and to bring It back into the Oneness in which It was created. Remember that “yoke” means “join Together” and “burden” means “message”. Let Us reconsider the biblical statement “My yoke is easy and My burden light” in this way: Let Us join Together for My Message is light. I came to Your minds because You had grown vaguely aware of the fact that there is another way or another Voice. Having given this invitation to the Holy Spirit I could come to provide the Model for how to think.

Psychology has become the study of behavior but no one denies the basic law that behavior is a response to motivation and motivation is will. I have enjoined You to behave as I behaved but We must respond to the same Mind to do this. This Mind is the Holy Spirit Whose will is for God always. It teaches You how to keep Me as the Model for Your thought and behave like Me as a result.

The Power of Our joint motivation is beyond belief but not beyond accomplishment. What We can accomplish Together has no limits because the Call for God is the Call to the Unlimited. Child of God, My Message is for You to hear and give away as You hear and answer the Holy Spirit within.

d. The Guide to Salvation

The way to learn to know Your Brother is by perceiving the Holy Spirit in Him. We have already said that the Holy Spirit is the bridge, or thoughttransfer, of perception to knowledge so We can use the terms as if they were related because in His Mind they are. This relationship must be in His Mind because unless it were the separation between the two ways of thinking would not be open to healing. He is part of the Holy Trinity because His Mind is partly Yours and also partly God’s. This needs clarification, not in statement since We have said this before but in experience.

The Holy Spirit is the idea of healing. Being thought the idea gains as it is shared. Being the Call for God it is also the Idea of God. If You are part of God it is also the idea of Yourself as well as of all the parts of God. The idea of the Holy Spirit shares the property of other ideas because it follows the laws of the Universe of which it is a part. Therefore it is strengthened by being given away. It increases in You as You give it to Your Brothers.

Since thoughts do not have to be conscious to exist Your Brother does not have to be aware of the Holy Spirit either in Himself or in You for this Miracle to occur. He may have dissociated the Call for God just as You have. But the dissociation is healed in Both of You as You see It in Him and thus acknowledge Its being. B, Who has made a number of vital contributions to Our joint venture, made a major one a while ago which He Himself did not appreciate or even understand. If We recognize its value Together We will be able to use it Together because it is an idea and must therefore be shared to be held.

When B said that He was determined “not to see You that way” He was speaking negatively. If He will state the same idea positively He will see the Power of what He said. He had realized that there are two ways of seeing You and also that they are diametrically opposed to one another. These two ways must be in His Mind because He was referring to Himself as the perceiver. They must also be in Yours because He was perceiving You.

What He was really saying was that He would not look at You through His ego or perceive Your ego in You. Stated positively He would see You through the Holy Spirit in His Mind and perceive It in Yours. What You acknowledge in Your Brother You are acknowledging in Yourself. What You share You strengthen. The Voice of the Holy Spirit is weak in You. That is why You must share It because It must be increased in Strength before You can hear It. It is impossible to hear It in Yourself while It is so weak in Your own mind. It is not weak in Itself but It is limited by Your unwillingness to hear It.

Will itself is an idea and is therefore strengthened by being shared. You have made the mistake of looking for the Holy Spirit in Yourselves and that is why Your meditations have frightened You. By adopting the ego’s viewpoint You undertook an egoalien journey with the ego as guide. This was bound to produce fear. B’s better idea needs to be strengthened in Both of You. Since it was His He can increase it by giving it to You. I suggest that He might care to talk to You about it and perhaps even let You take notes for Him. He has much to teach through the Holy Spirit and this might be a very good “new” beginning.

Delay is of the ego because time is its concept. Delay is obviously a time idea. Both time and delay are meaningless in Eternity. We have said before that the Holy Spirit is God’s Answer to the ego. Everything of which the Holy Spirit reminds You is in direct opposition to the ego’s notions because True and false perceptions are themselves opposed. The Holy Spirit has the task of undoing what the ego has made. It must undo it in the same realm of discourse in which the ego itself operates or the mind would be unable to understand the change. We have repeatedly emphasized the fact that one level of the mind is not understandable to another. So it is with the ego and the Soul and with time and Eternity.

Eternity is an idea of God so the Soul understands it perfectly. Time is a belief of the ego so the lower mind which is the ego’s domain accepts it without question. The only aspect of time which is really eternal is now. That is what We really mean when We say that now is the only time. The literal nature of this statement does not mean anything to the ego. It interprets it at best to mean: “Don’t worry about the future.” This is not what it really means at all.

The Holy Spirit is the mediator between the interpretations of the ego and the knowledge of the Soul. Its ability to deal with symbols enables It to work against the ego’s beliefs in its own language. Its equal ability to look beyond symbols into Eternity also enables It to understand the laws of God for which It speaks. It can thus perform the function of reinterpreting what the ego makes, not by destruction but by understanding. Understanding is Light and Light leads to knowledge. The Holy Spirit is in Light because It is in You Who are Light. But You Yourselves do not know this. It is therefore the task of the Holy Spirit to reinterpret You on behalf of God.

You cannot understand Yourselves alone. This is because You have no meaning apart from Your rightful Place in the Sonship and the rightful Place of the Sonship in God. This is Your Life, Your Eternity and Yourself. It is of This that the Holy Spirit reminds You. It is This That the Holy Spirit sees. This Vision invariably frightens the ego because it is so calm. Peace is the ego’s greatest enemy because according to its interpretation of Reality war is the guarantee of its survival. The ego becomes strong in strife because if You believe there is strife You will react viciously because the idea of danger has entered Your mind. This idea itself is an appeal to the ego.

The Holy Spirit is as vigilant as the ego to the call of danger opposing it with Its Strength just as the ego welcomes it with all its might. The Holy Spirit counters this welcome by welcoming Peace. Peace and Eternity are as closely related as are time and war. Perception, as well as knowledge, derives meaning from relationships. Those which You accept are the foundations of Your beliefs.

The separation is merely another term for a split mind. It was not an act but a thought. Therefore the idea of separation can be given away just as the idea of Unity can and either way it will be strengthened in the mind of the Giver. The ego is the symbol of the separation just as the Holy Spirit is the symbol of Peace. What You perceive in others You are strengthening in Your Self. You let Your mind misperceive but the Holy Spirit lets Your mind reinterpret its own misperceptions. The Holy Spirit is the perfect Teacher. It uses only what Your minds already understand to teach You that You do not understand it.

The Holy Spirit can deal with an unwilling Learner without going counter to His will because part of His will is still for God. Despite the ego’s attempts to conceal this part it is still much stronger than the ego even though the ego does not recognize it. The Holy Spirit recognizes it perfectly because it is Its own Dwellingplace or the Place in the mind where It is at Home. You are at Home there too because it is a Place of Peace and Peace is of God.

You Who are part of God are not at Home except in His Peace. If Peace is eternal You are at Home only in Eternity. The ego made the world as it perceives it but the Holy Spirit, the Reinterpreter of what the ego made, sees it only as a teaching device for bringing You Home. The Holy Spirit must perceive time and reinterpret it into the Timeless. The mind must be led into Eternity through time because having made time it is capable of perceiving its opposite.

The Holy Spirit must work through opposites because It must work with and for a mind that is in opposition. Correct and learn and be open to learning. You have not made Truth but Truth can still set You free. Look as the Holy Spirit looks and understand as He understands. His understanding looks back to God in Remembrance of Me. He is in Holy Communion always and He is part of You. He is Your Guide to Salvation because He holds the Remembrance of things past and to come. He holds this Gladness gently in Your minds asking only that You increase it in His name by sharing it to increase His Joy in You.

e. Therapy and Teaching

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

This does not mean that it is lost to You but it does mean that You are not aware of it. I have saved all of Your kindnesses and every loving thought You have had and I assure You You have had many. I have purified them of errors which hid their Light and have kept them for You in their own perfect radiance. They are beyond destruction and beyond guilt. They came from the Holy Spirit within You and We know that What God creates is eternal.

B once spoke of the Kingdom in this way because He yearns for What He has repressed. You are much more afraid of it because dissociation is more fearful. B’s better contact has allowed Him the strength to retain the fear in awareness and to resort to displacement which He is learning to overcome with Your help. That is because You do not perceive Him as dissociated and can help Him with His repression which does not frighten You. He on the other hand has no difficulty in seeing You dissociate and does not have to deal with repression in You which would produce fear in Him.

Joining in Atonement, which I have repeatedly asked You to do, is always a way out of fear. This does not mean that You can safely fail to acknowledge anything that is True but the Holy Spirit will not fail to help You reinterpret everything that You perceive as fearful and teach You only what is loving is True. It is beyond Your ability to destroy but entirely within Your grasp. It belongs to You because You created it. It is Yours because it is part of You just as You are part of God because He created You.

The Atonement is the guarantee of the safety of the Kingdom. Nothing good is lost because it comes from the Holy Spirit, the Voice for Creation. Nothing that is not good was ever created and therefore cannot be protected. What the ego makes it keeps to itself and so it is without Strength. Its unshared existence does not die. It was merely never born. Real birth is not a beginning it is a continuing. Everything that can continue has already been born. But it can increase as You are willing to return the part of Your mind that needs healing to the higher part and thus render Your Creating, or Creation, undivided.

You Yourself always told Your patients that the real difference between neurotic and “healthy” guilt feelings was that neurotic guilt feelings do not help Anyone. This distinction was very wise though incomplete. Let Us make the distinction a little sharper now. Neurotic guilt feelings are a device of the ego for “atoning” without sharing and for asking for pardon without changing. The ego never calls for real Atonement and cannot tolerate real forgiveness which is change.

Your concept of “healthy guilt feelings” has great merit but without the concept of the Atonement it lacked the healing potential it held. You make the distinction in terms of feelings which led to a decision not to repeat the error which is only part of healing. Your concept therefore lacked the idea of undoing it. What You were really advocating then was adopting a policy of sharing without a real foundation.

I have come to give You the foundation so Your own thoughts can make You really free. You have carried the burden of the ideas You did not share and which were therefore too weak to increase but You did not recognize how to undo their existence because You had made them. You cannot cancel out Your past errors alone. They will not disappear from Your mind without remedy. The remedy is not of Your making any more than You are.

The Atonement cannot be understood except as a pure act of sharing. That is what is meant when We said that it is possible even in this world to listen to one Voice. If You are part of God and the Sonship is One You cannot be limited to the self the ego sees. Every loving thought held in any part of the Sonship belongs to every part. It is shared because it is loving. Sharing is God’s way of creating and also Yours. Your ego can keep You in exile from the Kingdom but in the Kingdom itself it has no Power.

You have become willing to receive My Messages as I give them without interference by the ego so We can clarify an earlier point which was mentioned before. We said that You will one day teach as much as You learn and that will keep You in balance. The time is now because You have let it be now. You cannot learn except by teaching. I heard one Voice because I had learned that learning is attained by teaching. I understood that I could not atone for Myself alone.

Listening to one Voice means the will to share the Voice to hear It Yourself. The Mind that was in Me is still irresistibly drawn to every Mind created by God because God’s wholeness is the wholeness of His Son. Turning the other cheek does not mean that You should submit to violence without protest. It means that You cannot be hurt and do not want to show Your Brother anything except Your wholeness. Show Him that He cannot hurt You and hold nothing against Him or You hold it against Yourself.

Teaching is done in many ways: By formal means, by guidance and above all, by example. If You will to learn You must will to teach. Teaching is therapy because it means the sharing of ideas and the awareness that to share them is to strengthen them. The union of the Sonship is Its protection. The ego cannot prevail against the Kingdom because it is united and the ego fades away and is undone in the presence of the attraction of the parts of the Sonship which hear the Call of the Holy Spirit to be as One.

I cannot forget My need to teach what I have learned which arose in Me because I learned it. I call upon You to teach what You have learned because by so doing You can depend on it. Make it dependable in My name because My name is the name of God’s Son. What I learned I give You freely and the Mind Which was in Me rejoices as You will to hear it. The Holy Spirit atones in all of Us by undoing and thus lifts the burden You have placed in Your mind. By following Him He leads You back to God where You belong. And how can You find this way except by taking Your Brother with You?

My part in the Atonement is not complete until You join it and give it away. As You teach so shall You learn. I will never leave You or forsake You because to forsake You would be to forsake Myself and God Who created Me. You will forsake Yourselves and Your God if You forsake any of Your Brothers. You are more than Your Brother’s keeper. In fact You do not want to keep Him. You must learn to see Him as He is and know that He belongs to God as You do. How could You treat Your Brother better than by rendering unto God the ideas which are God’s?

Ideas do not leave the Mind Which thought them in order to have separate being. Nor do separate thoughts conflict with one another in space because they do not occupy space at all. Human ideas can conflict in content because they occur at different levels and include opposite thoughts at the same level. It is impossible to share opposing thoughts. The Holy Spirit does not let You forsake Your Brothers. Therefore You can really share only the parts of Your thoughts which are of Him which He also keeps for You. And of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. All the rest remains with You until He has reinterpreted them in the Light of the Kingdom making them, too, worthy of being shared. When they have been sufficiently purified He lets You give them away. The will to share them is their purification.

The Atonement gives You the Power of a healed Mind but the Power to create is of God. Therefore Those Who have been forgiven must devote Themselves first to healing because having received the idea of healing They must give it to hold it. The full Power of Creation, or Creating, cannot be expressed as long as any of God’s ideas are withholding It from the Kingdom. The joint will of all the Sonship is the only Creator That can create like the Father. That is because only the Complete can think completely and the Thinking of God lacks nothing. Everything You think that is not through the Holy Spirit is lacking.

How can You Who are so Holy suffer? All Your past except its beauty is gone and nothing is left except a Blessing. You can indeed depart in Peace because I have loved You as I loved Myself. You go with My Blessing and for My Blessing. Hold It and share It that It may always be Ours. I place the Peace of God in Your Heart and in Your Hands to hold and share. The Heart is pure to hold it and the Hands are strong to give it. We cannot lose. My judgment is as strong as the Wisdom of God in Whose Heart and Hands We have Our being. His quiet Children are His blessed Sons. The Thoughts of God are with You.

f. The Two Decisions

Perhaps this will become clearer and more personally meaningful if the ego’s use of guilt is clarified. The ego has a purpose just as the Holy Spirit has. The ego’s purpose is fear because only the fearful can be egotistic. The ego’s logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit because Your mind has all the means at Its disposal to side with Heaven or earth as It elects. But let Us again remember that both are in You.

In Heaven there is no guilt because the Kingdom is attained through the Atonement Which creates it in You. The word “create” is appropriate here because once what You have made is undone by the Holy Spirit the blessed residue is restored and therefore continues in Creation. What is Truly blessed is incapable of giving rise to guilt and must give rise to Joy. This makes It invulnerable to the ego because Its Peace is unassailable. It is invulnerable to disruption because It is whole.

Guilt is always disruptive. Anything that engenders fear is divisive because it obeys the law of division. If the ego is the symbol of the separation it is also the symbol of guilt. Guilt is more than merely not of God. It is the symbol of the attack on God. This is a totally meaningless concept except to the ego but do not underestimate the power of the ego’s belief in it. This is the belief from which all guilt really stems.

The ego is the part of the mind which believes in division. But how can part of God detach itself without believing it is attacking Him? We spoke before of the authority problem as involving the concept of usurping His power. The ego believes that this is what You did because it believes it is You. It follows then that if You identify with the ego You must perceive Yourself as guilty.

Whenever You respond to Your ego You will experience guilt and You will fear punishment. The ego is quite literally a fearful thought. And however ridiculous the idea of attacking God may be to the sane Mind never forget that the ego is not sane. It represents a delusional system and it speaks for it. Listening to the ego’s voice means that You believe it is possible to attack God. You believe that a part of Him has been torn away by You. The classic picture of fear of retaliation from without then follows because the severity of the guilt is so acute that it must be projected. Although Freud was wrong about the basic conflict itself He was very accurate in describing its effects. Whatever You accept into Your mind has Reality for You. It is however only the acceptance which makes it real.

As an extreme example of dissociating Yourself You should have little difficulty in understanding that it is perfectly possible not to accept what is in Your minds. If You enthrone the ego in it the fact that You have accepted it, or allowed it to enter, makes it Your Reality. This is because the Mind as God created It is capable of creating Reality. We said before that You must learn to think with God. To think with Him is to think like Him. This engenders Joy, not guilt, because it is natural. Guilt is a sure sign that Your thinking is unnatural. Perverted thinking will always be attended with guilt because it is the belief in sin.

The ego does not perceive sin as a lack of Love. It perceives it as a positive act of assault. This is an interpretation which is necessary to its survival because as soon as You regard it as a lack You will automatically attempt to remedy the situation. And You will also succeed. The ego regards this as doom but You must learn to regard it as freedom.

The guiltless Mind cannot suffer. Being sane It heals the body because It has been healed. The sane Mind cannot conceive of illness because It cannot conceive of attacking anything or Anyone. We said before that illness is a form of magic. It might be better to say it is a form of magical solution. The ego believes that by punishing itself it will mitigate the punishment of God. Yet even in this it is arrogant. It attributes to God a punishing intent and then takes over this intent as its own prerogative. It tries to usurp all the functions of God as it perceives them because it recognizes that only total allegiance can be trusted.

The ego cannot oppose the laws of God any more than You can. But it can interpret them according to what it wants just as You can. That is why the question

What do You want?

must be answered. You are answering it every minute and every second and each moment of decision is a judgment which is anything but ineffectual. Its effects will follow automatically until the decision is changed. This is a redundant statement because You have not learned it. But again, any decision can be unmade as well as made.

But remember that the alternatives are unalterable. The Holy Spirit, like the ego, is a decision. Together they constitute all the alternatives which Your mind can accept and obey. The ego and the Holy Spirit are the only choices which are open to You. God created One and so You cannot eradicate It. You made the other so You can. Only What God creates is irreversible and unchangeable. What You have made can always be changed because when You do not think like God You have not really thought at all. Delusional ideas are not thought but You can think that You believe in them. But You are wrong.

The function of thought comes from God and is in God. As part of His thought You cannot think apart from Him. Irrational thought is a thought disorder. God Himself orders Your Thought because Your Thought was created by Him. Guilt feelings are always a sign that You do not know this. They also show that You believe You can think apart from God and want to.

Every thought disorder is attended by guilt at its inception and maintained by guilt in its continuance. Guilt is inescapable for those who believe that they order their own thought and must therefore obey its orders. This makes them feel responsible for their mind errors without recognizing that by accepting this responsibility they are really reacting irresponsibly. If the sole responsibility of the Miracleworker is to accept the Atonement, and I assure You that it is, then the responsibility for what is atoned for cannot be Yours.

This contradiction cannot be resolved except by accepting the solution of undoing. You would be responsible for the effects of all Your wrong thinking if it could not be undone. The purpose of the Atonement is to save the past in purified form only. If You accept the remedy for a thought disorder, and a remedy whose efficacy is beyond doubt, how can its symptoms remain? You have reason to question the validity of symptom cure. But no one believes that the symptoms can remain if the underlying cause is removed.

g. Time and Eternity

The continuing will to remain separated is the only possible reason for continuing guilt feelings. We have said this before but We did not emphasize the destructive results of this decision at that time. Any decision of the mind will affect both behavior and experience. And what You will You expect. This is not delusional. Your mind does create Your future and can turn it back to full Creation at any minute if it accepts the Atonement first. It will also turn back to full Creation the instant It has done so. Having given up Its thought disorder the proper ordering of thought becomes quite apparent.

God in His knowledge is not waiting. But His Kingdom is bereft while You wait. All the Sons of God are waiting for Your return just as You are waiting for Theirs. Delay does not matter in Eternity but it is tragic in time. You have elected to be in time rather than in Eternity and have therefore changed Your belief in Your status. But election is both free and alterable. You do not belong in time. Your place is only in Eternity where God Himself placed You forever.

Guilt feelings are the preservers of time. They induce fears of future retaliation or abandonment and thus ensure that the future will remain like the past. This is the ego’s continuity and gives it a false sense of security through the belief that You cannot escape from it. But You can and must. God offers You the continuity of Eternity in exchange. When You will to make this exchange You will simultaneously exchange guilt for Peace, viciousness for Love and pain for Joy.

My role is only to unchain Your will and make it free. Your egos cannot accept this freedom and will oppose Your free decision at every possible moment and in every possible way. And as its Maker You know what it can do because You gave it the ability to do it. The Mind does indeed know Its Power because the Mind does indeed know God. Remember the Kingdom always and remember that You Who are part of it cannot be lost. The Mind that was in Me is in You for God creates with perfect fairness. Let the Holy Spirit remind You always of His fairness and let Me teach You how to share it with Your Brothers. How else can the chance to claim it for Yourself be given You?

What You do not understand is that the two voices speak for different interpretations of the same thing simultaneously, or almost simultaneously, for the ego always speaks first. Alternate interpretations are unnecessary until the first one has been made and speaking itself was unnecessary before the ego was made. The ego speaks in judgment and the Holy Spirit reverses its decisions much as the Supreme Court has the Power to reverse the lower court’s decision about the laws of this world.

The ego’s decisions are always wrong because they are based on a complete fallacy which they are made to uphold. Nothing it perceives is interpreted correctly. Not only does it cite Scripture for its purpose but it even interprets Scripture as a witness for itself. The Bible is a fearful thing to the ego because of its prejudiced judgment. Perceiving it as fearful it interprets it fearfully. Having made You afraid You do not appeal to the Higher Court because You believe Its judgment would be against You.

We need cite only a few examples to see how the ego’s interpretations have mislead You. A favorite ego quotation is: “As Ye sow so shall Ye reap.” Another is: “Vengeance is Mine, sayeth the Lord.” Still another is: “I will visit the sins of the fathers unto the third and the fourth generation.” And also: “The wicked shall perish.” There are many others but if You will let the Holy Spirit reinterpret these in Its own Light they will suffice.

“As Ye sow so shall Ye reap” merely means that what You believe to be worth cultivating You will cultivate in Yourself. Your judgment of what is worthy does make it worthy for You.

“Vengeance is Mine, sayeth the Lord” is easily explained if You remember that ideas increase only by being shared. This quotation therefore emphasizes the fact that vengeance cannot be shared. Give it therefore to the Holy Spirit Who will undo it in You because it does not belong in Your Mind Which is part of God.

“I will visit the sins of the fathers unto the third and fourth generation” as interpreted by the ego is particularly vicious. It is used in fact as an attempt to guarantee its survival beyond itself. Actually all it really means is that the Holy Spirit in later generations retains the Power to interpret correctly what former generations have thought and thus release Their thoughts from the ability to produce fear anywhere in the Sonship.

“The wicked shall perish” is merely a statement of fact if the word “perish” is properly understood. Every loveless thought must be undone. And even the word “undone” is fearful to the ego which interprets “I am undone” as “I am destroyed”. The ego will not be destroyed because it is part of Your thought. But because it is uncreative and therefore unsharing it will be reinterpreted entirely to release You from fear.

The part of Your thought which You have given to the ego will merely return to the Kingdom where Your whole Mind belongs. The ego is a form of arrest but arrest is merely delay. It does not involve the concept of police at all although the ego welcomes that interpretation. You can delay the completion of the Kingdom but You cannot introduce the concept of assault into it.

When I said: I am come as a Light into the world. I surely came to share this Light with You. Remember the symbolic reference We made before to the ego’s dark glass, and remember also that We said “Do not look there.” It is still True that “where You look to find Yourself is up to You”. The Higher Court will not condemn You. It will merely dismiss the case against You. There can be no case against a Child of God and every witness to guilt in God’s Creations is bearing false witness to God Himself.

Appeal everything You believe gladly to God’s own Higher Court because It speaks for Him and therefore speaks Truly. It will dismiss the case against You however carefully You have built it. The case may be foolproof but it is not Godproof. The Voice for God will not hear it at all because It can only witness Truly. Its verdict will always be:

Thine is the Kingdom.

because it was given You to remind You of what You are.

Your patience with Each Other is Your patience with Your Selves. Is not a Child of God worth patience? I have shown You infinite patience because My will is that of Our Father from Whom I learned of infinite patience. His Voice was in Me, as It is in You, speaking for patience towards the Sonship in the name of Its Creator. What You need to learn now is that only infinite patience can produce immediate effects. This is the way in which time is exchanged for Eternity. Infinite patience calls upon infinite Love and by producing results now renders time unnecessary.

To say that time is temporary is merely redundant. We have repeatedly said that time is a learning device which will be abolished when it is no longer useful. The Holy Spirit Who speaks for God in time also knows that time is meaningless. He reminds You of this in every passing moment of time because it is His special function to return You to Eternity and remain to bless Your Creations there. He is the only Blessing You can Truly give because He is so Truly blessed. And because He has been given You so freely by God You must give Him as You received Him.

h. The Eternal Fixation

The concept of “set” is among the better psychological percepts. Actually it is used quite frequently in the Bible, and also Here, under many different terms.

God will keep Him in perfect Peace Whose Mind is stayed, or set, on Thee because He trusteth in Thee.

The pronouns here are confusing without explanation and the attempt to shift “Thee” to “Him” is a misinterpretation. The statement means that God’s Peace is set in the Holy Spirit because it is fixed on God. It is also fixed in You. You then are fixed in the Peace of God.

The concept of “fixation” is a very helpful one which Freud understood perfectly. Unfortunately He lost His understanding because He was afraid and as You know all too well fear is incompatible with good judgment. Fear distorts thinking and therefore disorders thought. Freud’s system of thought was extremely ingenious because Freud was extremely ingenious. A mind must endow its thoughts with its own attributes. This is its inherent Strength even though it may misuse its Power.

Freud lost much of the potential value of His own thought system because, much like Cayce, He did not include Himself in it. This is a dissociated state because the Thinker cuts Himself off from His thoughts. Freud’s thought was so conflicted that He could not have retained His sanity as He saw it without dissociating. This is why the many contradictions which are quite apparent in His thinking became increasingly less apparent to Him.

A man Who knows what fixation really means and does not yield to it is terribly afraid. Fixation is the pull of God on Whom Your mind is fixed because of the Holy Spirit’s irrevocable set. “Irrevocable” means “cannot be called back or redirected”. The irrevocable nature of the Holy Spirit’s set is the basis for Its unequivocal Voice. The Holy Spirit never changes Its mind. Clarity of thought cannot occur under conditions of vacillation. Unless a mind is fixed in its purpose it is not clear. But clarity literally means the state of Light and enlightenment is understanding. It stands under perception because You have denied it as the real foundation of thought. This is the basis for all delusional systems.

The concept of fixation as Freud saw it has a number of real learning advantages:

First, it recognizes that man can be fixated at a point in development which does not accord with a point in time. This clearly could have been a means toward real release from the time belief had Freud pursued it with an open mind. But Freud suffered all His Life from refusal to allow Eternity to dawn upon His mind and enlighten it Truly. As a result He overlooked now entirely and merely saw the continuity of past and future.

Second, although He misinterpreted what the Holy Spirit told Him, or better reminded Him of, He was too honest to deny more than He had to to keep His fear in tolerable bounds as He perceived the situation. Therefore He emphasized that the point in development at which the mind is fixated is more real to itself than the external Reality with which it disagrees. This again could have been a powerful release mechanism had Freud not decided to involve it in a strong defense system because He perceived it as an attack.

Third, although Freud interpreted fixation as irrevocable danger points to which the mind can always regress the concept can also be interpreted as an irrevocable call to sanity which the mind cannot lose. Freud saw return as a threat to maturity because He did not understand prodigality. He merely interpreted it as squandering. Actually “prodigal” also means careful. This confusion between careful and careless led Him to confuse the escape from caring with something desirable. In fact He even went so far as to equate it quite literally with desire.

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

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

Do You really believe You can make a voice that can drown out His? Do You really believe that You can devise a thought system which can separate You from His? Do You really believe that You can plan for Your safety and Joy better than He can? You need be neither careful nor careless. You need merely cast all Your cares upon Him because He careth for You. You are His care because He loves You. His Voice reminds You always that all hope is Yours because of His care.

You cannot choose to escape His care because that is not His will. But You can choose to accept His care and use the infinite power of His care for all Those He created by it. There have been many healers who did not heal themselves. They have not moved mountains by their faith because their faith was not whole. Some of them have healed the sick at times but they have not raised the dead. Unless the healer heals himself he does not believe that there is no order in Miracles. He has not learned that every Mind That God created is equally worthy of being healed because God created It whole.

You are asked merely to return to God the Mind as He created It. He asks You only for What He gave knowing that this giving will heal You. Sanity is wholeness. And the sanity of Your Brothers is Yours. Why should You listen to the endless insane calls which You think are made upon You when You know the Voice of God Himself is in You? God commended His Spirit to You and asks that You commend Yours to Him. He wills to keep It in perfect Peace because You are of one Mind and Spirit with Him.

Excluding Yourself from the Atonement is the ego’s lastditch defense of its own existence. It reflects both the ego’s need to separate and Your willingness to side with its separateness. This willingness means that You do not want to be healed. When I told B that there is “just one more thing” He heard Me very well. I hope He will hear Me as well now. His intelligent mishearing of “river” as “rivet” showed that even though He wanted release He was not able to cope with it at the time. But the time is now.

You have not been asked to work out the plan of Salvation Yourselves because, as I told You before, the remedy for what You have made is not of Your own making. God Himself gave You the perfect correction for everything You have made which is not in accord with His Holy Will. I have made His plan perfectly clear and perfectly explicit to You and have also told You of Your part in His plan and how urgent it is that You fulfill it.

There is time for delay but there need not be. God weeps at the sacrifice of His Children Who believe They are lost to Him. The “one more thing” that B must learn is merely that He is not the one more. He is both one and at one. If He will learn this now He will be willing in accord with the Last Judgment which is really only the biblical reminder of the inevitability of Selfinclusion. This is what “Physician, heal Thyself” really means. B has frequently observed for Himself that this is hard to do. He has however been perfectly aware of just what You should do about it.

You might ask Him for Me whether He does not think He might be dissociating Himself from His own awareness since He is so clear about the remedy for You. You might also remind Him that to whatever extent He separates Himself from You He is separating Himself from Me. This is a collaborative venture. Let Me therefore return His own ideas to Him so that You can share them and thus help Each Other to help Me.

But let Me first remind You of something I told You Myself. Whenever You are not wholly joyous it is because You have reacted with a lack of Love to some Soul Which God created. Perceiving this as sin You become defensive because You expect attack. The decision to react in that way however was Yours and can therefore be undone. It cannot be undone by repentance in the usual sense because this implies guilt. If You allow Yourself to feel guilty You will reinforce the error rather than allowing it to be undone for You.

Decisions cannot be difficult. This is obvious if You realize that You must already have made a decision not to be wholly joyous if that is what You feel. Therefore the first step in the undoing is to recognize that You actively decided wrongly but can as actively decide otherwise. Be very firm with Yourselves in this and keep Yourselves fully aware of the fact that the undoing process which does not come from You is nevertheless within You because God placed it there. Your part is merely to return Your thinking to the point at which the error was made and give it over to the Atonement in Peace. Say to Yourselves the following as sincerely as You can remembering that the Holy Spirit will respond fully to Your slightest invitation:

I must have decided wrongly because I am not at Peace.

I made the decision Myself but I can also decide otherwise.

I will to decide otherwise because I want to be at Peace.

I do not feel guilty because the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of My wrong decision if I will let Him.

I will to let Him by allowing Him to decide for God for Me.

Chapter 6 – Attack and Fear

a. The Message of the Crucifixion

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

I told You before that You can always call on Me to share My decision and thus make it stronger. I also told You that the crucifixion was the last foolish journey that the Sonship need take and that it should mean release from fear to Anyone Who understands it. While We emphasized the Resurrection only before the purpose of the crucifixion and how it actually led to the Resurrection was not clarified at that time. Nevertheless it has a definite contribution to make to Your own lives and if You will consider it without fear it will help You understand Your own role as Teachers.

You have reacted for years as if You were being crucified. This is a marked tendency of the separated who always refuse to consider what they have done to themselves. Projection means anger, anger fosters assault and assault promotes fear. The real meaning of the crucifixion lies in the apparent intensity of the assault of some of the Sons of God upon a Brother. This of course is impossible and must be fully understood as an impossibility. In fact unless it is fully understood as only that I cannot serve as a real Model for learning.

Assault can ultimately be made only on the body. There is little doubt that one body can assault another and can even destroy it. But if destruction itself is impossible then anything that is destructible cannot be real. Therefore its destruction does not justify anger. To the extent to which You believe it does You must be accepting false premises and teaching them to others. The message which the crucifixion was intended to teach was that it is not necessary to perceive any form of assault in persecution because You cannot be persecuted. If You respond with anger You must be equating Yourself with the destructible and are therefore regarding Yourself insanely. I have made it perfectly clear that I am like You and You are like Me. But Our fundamental equality can be demonstrated only through joint decision.

You are free to perceive Yourselves as persecuted if You choose. But You might remember when You do choose to react that way that I was persecuted as the world judges and did not share this evaluation for Myself. And because I did not share it I did not strengthen it. I therefore offered a different interpretation of attack and one which I do want to share with You. If You will believe it You will help Me teach it.

We have said before: “As You teach so shall You learn.” If You react as if You are persecuted You are teaching persecution. This is not a lesson which the Sons of God should want to teach if They are to realize Their own Salvation. Rather teach Your own perfect immunity which is the Truth in You and know that it cannot be assailed. Do not protect it Yourselves or You have believed that it is assailable. You are not asked to be crucified because that was part of My own teaching contribution. You are merely asked to follow My example in the face of much less extreme temptations to misperceive and not to accept them falsely as justifications for anger.

There can be no justification for the unjustifiable. Do not believe there is and do not teach that there is. Remember always that what You believe You will teach. Believe with Me and We will become equal as Teachers. Your Resurrection is Your reawakening. I am the Model for rebirth but rebirth itself is merely the dawning on Your Minds of What is already in Them. God placed It There Himself and so It is True forever. I believed in It and therefore made It forever True for Me. Help Me to teach It to Our Brothers in the name of the Kingdom of God. But first believe that It is True for You or You will teach amiss.

My Brothers slept during the so-called “agony in the garden” but I could not be angry with them because I had learned I could not be abandoned. Peter swore he would never deny Me but he did so three times. It should be noted that he did offer to defend Me with the sword which I naturally refused not being at all in need of bodily protection. I am sorry when My Brothers do not share My decision to hear and be only one Voice because it weakens them as Teachers and Learners. But yet I know that they cannot really betray themselves or Me and that it is still on them that I must build My church. There is no choice in this because only You can be the foundation of God’s church.

A church is where an Altar is and the presence of the Altar is what makes it a church. Any church which does not inspire Love has a hidden Altar Which is not serving the purpose for Which God intended It. I must found His church on You because You Who accept Me as a Model are literally My Disciples. Disciples are Followers but if the Model They follow has chosen to save Them pain in all respects They are probably unwise not to follow Him.

I elected both for Your sake and Mine to demonstrate that the most outrageous assault as judged by the ego did not matter. As the world judges these things but not as God knows them I was betrayed, abandoned, beaten, torn and finally killed. It was perfectly clear that this was only because of the projection of others onto Me because I had not harmed Anyone and had healed Many. We are still equal as Learners even though We need not have equal experiences. The Holy Spirit is glad when You can learn enough from Mine to be reawakened by them. That was their only purpose and that is the only way in which I can be perceived as the Way, the Truth and the Light.

I promised I would edit the notes with You. You will never get a control message from Me because I speak with one Voice. When You hear only one Voice You are never called on to sacrifice. On the contrary, by enabling Yourselves to hear the Holy Spirit in Others You can learn from Their experiences and gain from them without experiencing them. That is because the Holy Spirit is One and Anyone Who listens is inevitably led to demonstrate His way for All. You are not persecuted nor was I. You are not asked to repeat My experience because the Holy Spirit Which We share makes this unnecessary. But to use My experiences constructively for Yourselves You must still follow My example in how to perceive them.

My Brothers and Yours are constantly engaged in justifying the unjustifiable. My one lesson which I must teach as I learned is that no perception which is out of accord with the judgment of the Holy Spirit can be justified. I undertook to show this was True in a very extreme case merely because this would serve as a good teaching aid to Those Whose temptations to give in to anger and assault would not be as extreme.

I will with God Himself that none of His Sons should suffer. Remember that the Holy Spirit is the communication link between God the Father and His separated Sons. If You will listen to His Voice You will know that You cannot either hurt or be hurt but that many need Your Blessing to help them hear this for themselves. When You perceive only this need in them and do not respond to any others You will have learned of Me and be as eager to share Your learning as I am. The crucifixion cannot be shared because it is the symbol of projection. But the Resurrection is the symbol of sharing because the reawakening of every Son of God is necessary to enable the Sonship to know Its wholeness. Only this is knowledge.

The message of the crucifixion is very simple and perfectly clear:

Teach only Love
For That is What You are.

If You interpret it in any other way You are using it as a weapon for assault rather than as the call to Peace for which it was intended. The apostles often misunderstood it and always for the same reason that makes anyone misunderstand anything. Their own imperfect Love made them vulnerable to projection. And out of their own fear they spoke of the wrath of God as His retaliatory weapon. They also could not speak of the crucifixion entirely without anger because their own sense of guilt had made them angry. There are two glaring examples of upside down thinking in the New Testament whose whole Gospel is only the Message of Love. These are not at all like the several slips into impatience which I made because I had learned the Atonement Prayer which I also came to teach too well to engage in upside down thinking Myself.

Comment to B: If the apostles had not felt guilty they never could have quoted Me as saying: “I come not to bring Peace but a sword.” This is clearly the exact opposite of everything I taught. Nor could they have described My reactions to Judas Iscariot as they did if they had really understood Me. They could not have believed that I could have said: “Betrayest thou the son of man with a kiss?” unless I believed in betrayal. The whole message of the crucifixion was simply that I did not. The “punishment” which I am said to have called forth upon Judas was a similar reversal. Judas was My Brother and a Son of God, as much a part of the Sonship as Myself. Was it likely that I would condemn Him when I was ready to demonstrate that condemnation is impossible?

I am very grateful to the apostles for their teaching and fully aware of the extent of their devotion to Me. But as You read their teachings remember that I told them Myself that there was much they would understand later because they were not wholly ready to follow Me at the time. I emphasize this only because I do not want You to allow any fear to enter into the Thought System toward which I am guiding You. I do not call for martyrs but for teachers.

Bill is an outstanding example of this confusion and has literally believed for years that teaching is martyrdom. This is because He thought, and still thinks at times, that teaching leads to crucifixion rather than to reawakening. The upside down nature of this association is so obvious that He could only have made it because He felt guilty. No one is “punished” for sins and the Sons of God are not sinners. Any concept of “punishment” involves the projection of blame and reinforces the idea that blame is justified. The behavior that results is a lesson in blame just as all behavior teaches the beliefs that motivate it.

The crucifixion was a complex of behaviors arising out of clearly opposed thought systems. As such it is the perfect symbol of conflict between the ego and the Son of God. It was as much intrapersonal as interpersonal then just as it is now and it is still just as real. But because it is just as real now its lesson too has equal Reality when it is learned. I do not need gratitude any more than I needed protection. But You need to develop Your weakened ability to be grateful or You cannot appreciate God. He does not need Your appreciation but You do.

You cannot love what You do not appreciate and fear makes appreciation impossible. Whenever You are afraid of what You are You do not appreciate it and will therefore reject it. As a result You will teach rejection. The Power of the Sons of God is operating all the time because They were created as Creators. Their influence on Each Other is without limit and must be used for Their joint Salvation. Each One must learn to teach that all forms of rejection are utterly meaningless.

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

b. The Uses of Projection

Any split in will must involve a rejection of part of it and this is the belief in separation. The wholeness of God which is His Peace cannot be appreciated except by a whole Mind Which recognizes the wholeness of God’s Creation and by this recognition knows Its Creator.

Exclusion and separation are synonymous. So are separation and dissociation. We have said before that the separation was and is dissociation and also that once it had occurred projection became its main defense or the device which keeps it going. The reason however may not be as clear to You as You think. What You project You disown and therefore do not believe is Yours. You are therefore excluding Yourself from it by the very statement You are making that You are different from Someone else. Since You have also judged against what You project You attack it because You have already attacked it by rejecting it. By doing this unconsciously You try to keep the fact that You must have attacked Yourself first out of awareness and thus imagine that You have made Yourself safe.

Projection will always hurt You. It reinforces Your belief in Your own split mind and its only purpose is to keep the separation going. It is solely a device of the ego to make You feel different from Your Brothers and separated from Them. The ego justifies this on the wholly spurious grounds that it makes You seem better than They are thus obscuring equality with Them still further.

Projection and attack are inevitably related because projection is always a means of justifying attack. Anger without projection is impossible. The ego uses projection only to distort Your perception of Both Yourself and Your Brothers. It begins by excluding something You think exists in You which You do not want and leads directly to Your excluding Yourself from Your Brothers.

But We know that there is another use of projection. Every ability of the ego has a better counterpart because its abilities are directed by the Mind Which has a better Voice. The Holy Spirit as well as the ego utilizes projection but since their goals are opposed so is the result. The Holy Spirit begins by perceiving You as perfect. Knowing this perfection is shared It recognizes it in Others thus strengthening it in Both. Instead of anger this arouses Love for Both because it establishes inclusion. Perceiving equality It perceives equal needs. This invites Atonement automatically because Atonement is the one need which is universal.

To perceive Yourself in this way is the only way in which You can find happiness in this world. This is because it is the acknowledgement that You are not in this world and the world is unhappy. How else can You find Joy in a joyless place except by realizing that You are not there? You cannot be anywhere that God did not put You and God created You as part of Him. That is both Where You are and What You are. This is completely unalterable. It is total inclusion. You cannot change this now or ever. It is forever True. It is not a belief but a fact.

Anything That God creates is as True as He is. Its Truth lies only in Its perfect inclusion in Him Who alone is perfect. To deny this in any way is to deny Yourself and Him because it is impossible to accept One without the Other. The perfect equality of the Holy Spirit’s perception is the counterpart of the perfect equality of God’s knowing. The ego’s perception has no counterpart in God but the Holy Spirit remains the bridge between perception and knowledge. By enabling You to use perception in a way that parallels knowledge You will ultimately meet it and know it.

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

The Holy Spirit enables You to perceive this wholeness now. You can no more pray for Yourselves alone than You can find Joy for Yourself alone. Prayer is a restatement of inclusion directed by the Holy Spirit under the laws of God. God created You to create. You cannot extend His Kingdom until You know of its wholeness. But thoughts begin in the Mind of the Thinker from Which they extend outward. This is as True of God’s Thinking as it is of Yours. Because Your minds are split You can also perceive as well as think but perception cannot escape from the basic laws of Mind. You perceive from Your Mind and extend Your perceptions outward.

Although perception of any kind is unnecessary You made it and the Holy Spirit can therefore use it well. He can inspire perception and lead it toward God by making it parallel to God’s way of thinking and thus guaranteeing their ultimate meeting. This convergence seems to be far in the future only because Your Mind is not in perfect alignment with the idea and therefore does not want it now. The Holy Spirit uses time but does not believe in it. Coming from God He uses everything for good but does not believe in what is not True.

Since the Holy Spirit is in Your minds Your minds must be able to believe only what is True. The Holy Spirit can speak only for this because He speaks for God. He tells You to return Your whole Mind to God because It has never left Him. If It has never left Him You need only perceive It as It is to be returned. The full awareness of the Atonement then is the recognition that the separation never occurred. The ego cannot prevail against this because it is an explicit statement that the ego never occurred.

The ego can accept the idea that return is necessary because it can so easily make the idea seem so difficult. But the Holy Spirit tells You that even return is unnecessary because what never happened cannot involve any problem. But it does not follow that You cannot make the idea of return both necessary and difficult. God made nothing either necessary or difficult. But You have perceived both as if they were part of His perfect Creations. Yet it is surely clear that the Perfect need nothing and cannot experience perfection as a difficult accomplishment because that is what They are.

This is the way in which You must perceive God’s Creations bringing all of Your perceptions into the one parallel line which the Holy Spirit sees. This line is the direct line of communication with God and lets Your Mind converge with His. There is no conflict anywhere in this perception because it means that all perception is guided by the Holy Spirit Whose Mind is fixed on God. Only the Holy Spirit can resolve conflict because only the Holy Spirit is conflictfree. He perceives only what is True in Your Mind and extends outward to only what is True in other minds.

The difference between the ego’s use of projection and projection as the Holy Spirit uses it is very simple: The ego projects to exclude and therefore to deceive. The Holy Spirit projects by recognizing Himself in every mind and thus perceives them as One. Nothing conflicts in this perception because what the Holy Spirit perceives is the Same. Wherever He looks He sees Himself and because He is united He offers the whole Kingdom always. This is the one Message which God gave to Him and for which He must speak because that is what He is. The Peace of God lies in that Message and so the Peace of God lies in You.

The great Peace of the Kingdom shines in Your Mind forever but it must shine outward to make You aware of it. The Holy Spirit was given You with perfect impartiality and only by perceiving Him impartially can You perceive Him at all. The ego is legion but the Holy Spirit is One. No darkness abides anywhere in the Kingdom so Your part is only to allow no darkness to abide in Your own Mind. This alignment with Light is unlimited because It is in alignment with the Light of the world. Each of Us is the Light of the world and by joining Our Minds in this Light We proclaim the Kingdom of God Together and as One.

c. The Relinquishment of Attack

We have used many words as synonyms which are not ordinarily regarded as the same. We began with having and being and recently have used others. Hearing and being is an example to which We can also add teaching and being, learning and being and above all projecting and being. This is because, as We have said before, every idea begins in the Mind of the Thinker and extends outward. Therefore what extends from the Mind is still in It and from What it extends it knows itself. This is its natural talent.

The word “knows” is correct here even though the ego does not know and is not concerned with being at all. The Holy Spirit still holds knowledge safe through Its impartial perception. By attacking nothing It presents no barrier at all to the communication of God. Therefore being is never threatened. Your Godlike Mind can never be defiled. The ego never was and never will be part of It.

But through the ego You can hear and learn and teach and project what is not True. From this which You have made You have taught Yourselves to believe You are not what You are. You cannot teach what You have not learned. And what You teach You strengthen in Yourselves because You are sharing it. Every lesson which You teach You are learning.

That is why You must teach only one lesson. If You are to be conflictfree Yourselves You must learn only from the Holy Spirit and teach only by Him. You are only Love but when You denied this You made what You are something You must learn. We said before that the message of the crucifixion was: Teach only Love for That is What You are. This is the one lesson which is perfectly unified because it is the only lesson which is One. And only by teaching it can You learn it.

“As You teach so will You learn.” If that is True, and it is True indeed, You must never forget that what You teach is teaching You. What You project You believe. The only real safety lies in projecting only the Holy Spirit because as You see His gentleness in others Your own Mind perceives Itself as totally harmless. Once It can accept this fully It does not see the need to protect Itself. The protection of God then dawns upon It assuring It that It is perfectly safe forever.

The perfectly Safe are wholly benign. They bless because They know They are blessed. Without anxiety the Mind is wholly kind and because It projects beneficence It is beneficent. Safety is the complete relinquishment of attack. No compromise is possible in this. Teach attack in any form and You have learned it and it will hurt You. But Your learning is not immortal and You can unlearn it by not teaching it. Since You cannot not teach Your Salvation lies in teaching exactly the opposite of everything the ego believes. This is how You will learn the Truth that will make You free and keep You so as others learn it of You.

The only way to have Peace is to teach Peace. By learning it through projection it becomes a part of You that You know because You cannot teach what You have dissociated. Only thus can You win back the knowledge You threw away. An idea which You share You must have. It awakens in You through the conviction of teaching. Remember that if teaching is being and learning is being then teaching is learning. Everything You teach You are learning. Teach only Love and learn that Love is Yours and You are Love.

d. The Only Answer

Remember that the Holy Spirit is the Answer, not the question. The ego always speaks first because it is capricious and does not mean its Maker well. This is because it believes, and correctly, that its Maker may withdraw His support from it at any moment. If it meant You well it would be glad as the Holy Spirit will be glad when He has brought You Home and You no longer need His guidance. The ego does not regard itself as part of You. Herein lies its primary perceptual error, the foundation of its whole thought system.

When God created You He made You part of Him. That is why attack within the Kingdom is impossible. But You made the ego without Love and so it does not love You. You could not remain within the Kingdom without Love and since the Kingdom is Love You believe You are without it. This enables the ego to regard itself as separate and outside its Maker thus speaking for the part of Your Mind that believes You are separate and outside the Mind of God.

The ego then raised the first question that was ever asked but it can never answer it. That question which was “What are You?” was the beginning of doubt. The ego has never answered any questions since though it has raised a great many. The most inventive activities of the ego have never done more than obscure the question because You have the Answer and the ego is afraid of You. You cannot really understand conflict until You fully understand one basic fact that the ego does not know. The Holy Spirit does not speak first but He always answers. Everyone has called upon Him for help at one time or another and in one way or another and has been answered. Since the Holy Spirit answers Truly He answers for all time and that means that Everyone has the Answer now.

The ego cannot hear the Holy Spirit but it does feel that part of the same Mind that made it is against it. It interprets this wholly as a justification for attacking its Maker. The ego believes that the best defense is attack and wants You to believe this. Unless You do believe it You will not side with it. And the ego feels badly in need of allies though not of Brothers.

Perceiving something alien to itself in Your Mind the ego turns to the body, not the Mind, as its ally because the body is not part of You. This makes the body the ego’s friend. But it is an alliance frankly based on separation. If You side with this alliance You will be afraid because You are siding with an alliance of fear. The ego and the body conspire against Your Minds and because they realize that their “enemy” can end them both merely by knowing they are not part of Him they join in the attack together. This is perhaps the strangest perception of all if You consider what it really involves. The ego which is not real attempts to persuade the Mind Which is real that it is Its own learning device and that the learning device is more real than It is. No one in His Right Mind could possibly believe this and no one in His Right Mind does believe it.

Hear then the one Answer of the Holy Spirit to all the questions which the ego raises: You are a Child of God, a priceless part of His Kingdom, Which He created as part of Him. Nothing else exists and only this is real. You have chosen a sleep in which You have had bad dreams but the sleep is not real and God calls You to awake. There will be nothing left of Your dream when You hear Him because You will be awake. Your dreams have contained many of the ego’s symbols and they have confused You. But that was only because You were asleep and did not know.

When You awake You will see the Truth around You and in You and You will no longer believe in dreams because they will have no Reality for You. But the Kingdom and all that You have created there will have great Reality for You because they are beautiful and True. In the Kingdom Where You are and What You are is perfectly certain. There is no doubt there because the first question was never asked. Having finally been wholly answered it has never been. Being alone lives in the Kingdom where everything lives in God without question. The time that was spent on questioning in the dream has given way to the Creation and to Its Eternity.

You are as certain as God because You are as True as He is. But what was once quite certain in Your Minds has become only the ability for certainty. The introduction of abilities into being was the beginning of uncertainty because abilities are potentials, not accomplishments. Your abilities are totally useless in the presence of God’s Accomplishments and also of Yours. Accomplishments are results which have been achieved. When they are perfect abilities are meaningless. It is curious that the Perfect must now be perfected. In fact it is impossible. But You must remember that when You put Yourselves in an impossible situation You believed that the impossible was possible.

Abilities must be developed or You cannot use them. This is not True of anything that God created but it is the kindest solution possible to what You have made. In an impossible situation You can develop Your abilities to the point where they can get You out of it. You have a Guide to how to develop them but You have no commander except Yourself. This leaves You in charge of the Kingdom with both a Guide to find it and a means to keep it. You have a Model to follow Who will strengthen Your command and never detract from it in any way. You therefore retain the central place in Your perceived enslavement, a fact which itself demonstrates that You are not enslaved.

You are in an impossible situation only because You thought it was possible to be in one. You would be in an impossible situation if God showed You Your perfection and proved to You that You were wrong. This would demonstrate that the Perfect were inadequate to bring Themselves to the awareness of Their perfection and thus side with the belief that Those Who have everything need help and are therefore helpless.

This is the kind of reasoning that the ego engages in, but God Who knows that His Creations are perfect does not insult Them. This would be as impossible as the ego’s notion that it has insulted Him. That is why the Holy Spirit never commands. To command is to assume inequality which the Holy Spirit demonstrates does not exist. Fidelity to premises is a law of the Mind and everything God created is faithful to His laws. But fidelity to other laws is also possible, not because the laws are True but because You made them.

What would be gained if God proved to You that You have thought insanely? Can God lose His own certainty? We have frequently stated that what You teach You are. Would You have God teach You that You have sinned? If He confronted the self You have made with the Truth He created for You what could You be but afraid? You would doubt Your sanity which is the one thing in which You can find the sanity He gave You. God does not teach. To teach is to imply a lack which God knows is not there. God is not conflicted. Teaching aims at change but God created only the changeless.

The separation was not a loss of perfection but a failure in communication. A harsh and strident form of communication arose as the ego’s voice. It could not shatter the Peace of God but it could shatter Yours. God did not blot it out because to eradicate it would be to attack it. Being questioned He did not question. He merely gave the Answer. God’s Answer is Your Teacher.

e. 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?

What God does know is that His communication channels are not open to Him so that He cannot impart His Joy and know that His Children are wholly joyous. This is an ongoing process, not in time but in Eternity. God’s extending outward, though not His completeness, was blocked when the Sonship did not communicate with Him as One. So He thought: My Children sleep and must be awakened.

How can You wake children better and more kindly than with a gentle Voice that will not frighten them but will merely remind them that the night is over and the Light has come? You do not inform them that the nightmares which frightened them so badly were not real because children believe in magic. You merely reassure them that they are safe now. Then You train them to recognize the difference between sleeping and waking so that they will understand they need not be afraid of dreams. Then when bad dreams come they will call on the Light themselves to dispel them.

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

The Holy Spirit never itemizes errors because He does not frighten children and those who lack wisdom are children. But He always answers their call and His dependability makes them more certain. Children do confuse fantasy and Reality and they are frightened because they do not know the difference. The Holy Spirit makes no distinction among dreams. He merely shines them away. His Light is always the Call to awake whatever You may have been dreaming. Nothing lasting lies in dreams and the Holy Spirit, shining with the Light from God Himself, speaks only for what lasts forever.

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 reinterprets 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.

Therefore do only that.

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, Helen, had taken this step and because You believed in it You taught it to Bill Who still believed in the solution of sleep. You were not consistent in teaching it but You did so often enough to enable Him to learn it. Once He learned it He could teach You how to become more consistently awake and thus begin to waken Himself. This placed Him too in command of the journey. His recognition of the direction it must take was perfectly stated when He insisted on collaboration. You, H, had taken a giant step into conflict but B turned You Both forwards toward the way out. The more He teaches this the more He will learn it.

f. To Have Peace Teach Peace to Learn It

All the separated ones have a basic fear of retaliation and abandonment. This is because they believe in attack and rejection so this is what they perceive and teach and learn. These insane concepts are clearly the result of their own dissociation and projection. What You teach You are but it is quite apparent that You can teach wrongly and therefore teach Yourselves wrong. Many thought that I was attacking them even though it is quite apparent that I was not. An insane learner learns strange lessons.

What You must understand is that when You do not share a thought system You are weakening it. Those who believe in it therefore perceive this as an attack on them. This is because Everyone identifies Himself with His thought system and every thought system centers on what You believe You are. If the center of the thought system is True only Truth extends outward from it. But if a lie is at its center only deception proceeds from it.

All good Teachers realize that only fundamental change will last. But They do not begin at that level. Strengthening motivation for change is Their first and foremost goal. It is also Their last and final one. Increasing motivation for change in the Learner is all that a Teacher need do to guarantee change. This is because a change in motivation is a change of mind and this will inevitably produce fundamental change because the Mind is fundamental.

The first step in the reversal, or undoing, process then is the undoing of the getting concept. Accordingly the Holy Spirit’s first lesson was: To have give all to All. We said that this is apt to increase conflict temporarily and We can clarify this still further now. At this point the equality of having and being is not yet perceived. Until it is having still appears to be the opposite of being. Therefore the first lesson seems to contain a contradiction because it is being learned by a conflicted mind. This means conflicting motivation and so the lesson cannot be learned consistently as yet.

Further the mind of the Learner projects its own split and therefore does not perceive consistent minds in others making Him suspicious of their motivations. This is the real reason why in many respects the first lesson is the hardest to learn. Still strongly aware of the ego in Himself and responding primarily to the ego in others He is being taught to react to both as if what He does believe is not True.

Upside down as always the ego perceives the first lesson as insane. In fact this is its only alternative here because the other one which would be much less acceptable would obviously be that it is insane. The ego’s judgment then is predetermined by what it is, though not more so than is any other product of thought. The fundamental change will still occur with the change of mind in the Thinker.

Meanwhile the increasing clarity of the Holy Spirit’s Voice makes it impossible for the Learner not to listen. For a time then He is receiving conflicting messages and accepting both. This is the classic “double bind” in communication which You wrote about Yourselves quite recently and with good examples too. It is interesting that Helen claimed at the time that she had never heard of it and did not understand it. I thought it might help both of You if You were called on to write about it together. You might remember Our Brother’s insistence on its inclusion. Helen thought he had become quite irrational on this point but it was quite strongly reinforced in his mind and so he wanted to teach it in his Text. This of course was a very good way for You to learn it.

The way out of conflict between two opposing thought systems is clearly to choose one and relinquish the other. If You identify with Your thought system, and You cannot escape this, and if You accept two thought systems which are in complete disagreement Peace of Mind is impossible. If You teach both, which You will surely do as long as You accept both, You are teaching conflict and learning it. But You do want Peace or You would not have called upon the Voice for Peace to help You. His lesson is not insane but the conflict is.

There can be no conflict between sanity and insanity because only one is True and therefore only one is real. The ego tries to persuade You that it is up to You to decide which voice is True. But the Holy Spirit teaches You that Truth was created by God and Your decision cannot change It. As You begin to realize the quiet Power of His Voice and its perfect consistency it must dawn on Your Minds that You are trying to undo a decision which was made irrevocably for You. That is why We suggested before that there was help in reminding Yourselves to allow the Holy Spirit to decide for God for You.

You are not asked to make insane decisions although You are free to think You are. But it must be insane to believe it is up to You to decide what God’s Creations are. The Holy Spirit perceives the conflict exactly as it is. Therefore His second lesson is:

To have Peace teach Peace to learn it.

This is still a preliminary step because having and being are still not equated but it is more advanced than the first step which is really only a thought reversal. The second step is a positive affirmation of what You want. This then is a step in the direction out of conflict because it means that alternatives have been considered and one has been chosen as more desirable. But the evaluation “more desirable” still implies that the desirable has degrees. Therefore, although this step is essential for the ultimate decision, it is clearly not the final one.

It should be clear that the recognition of the lack of order in Miracles has not yet been accepted because nothing is difficult that is wholly desired. To desire wholly is to create and creating cannot be difficult if God Himself created You as a Creator. The second step then is still perceptual but it is nevertheless a giant step toward the unified perception that parallels God’s knowing.

As You take this step and hold this direction You will be pushing toward the center of Your thought system where the fundamental change will occur. You are only beginning this step now but You have started on this way by realizing that only one way is possible. You do not yet realize this consistently and so Your progress is intermittent but the second step is easier than the first because it follows. The very fact that You have accepted that is a demonstration of Your growing awareness that the Holy Spirit will lead You on.

g. Be Vigilant Only for God and His Kingdom

For Your own Salvation You must be critical because Your Salvation is critical to the whole Sonship. We said before that the Holy Spirit is evaluative and must be. Yet His evaluation does not extend beyond You or You would share it. In Your mind, and Your mind only, He sorts out the True from the false and teaches You to judge every thought that You allow to enter in the Light of what God put there. Whatever is in accord with this Light He retains to strengthen the Kingdom in You. When it is partly in accord with Truth He accepts it and purifies it. But what is out of accord entirely He rejects by judging against. This is how He keeps the Kingdom perfectly consistent and perfectly unified.

But what You must remember is that what the Holy Spirit rejects the ego accepts. This is because they are in fundamental disagreement about everything because they are in fundamental disagreement about what You are. The ego’s beliefs on this crucial issue vary and that is why it promotes different moods. The Holy Spirit never varies on this point and so the one mood that He engenders is Joy. He protects this by rejecting everything that does not foster Joy and so He alone can keep You wholly joyous.

The Holy Spirit does not teach Your Mind to be critical of other minds because He does not want You to teach Your errors and learn them Yourselves. He would hardly be consistent if He allowed You to strengthen what You must learn to avoid. In the Mind of the Thinker then He is judgmental but only in order to unify It so It can perceive without judgment. This enables the Mind to teach without judgment and therefore learn to be without judgment. The undoing is necessary only in Your Mind so that You cannot project it. God Himself has established what You can project with perfect safety. Therefore the Holy Spirit’s third lesson is:

Be vigilant only for God and His Kingdom.

This is a major step toward fundamental change. Yet it is still a lesson in thought reversal because it implies that there is something You must be vigilant against. It has advanced far from the first lesson which was primarily a reversal and also from the second which was essentially the identification of what is more desirable. This step, which follows from the second as the second does from the first, emphasizes the dichotomy between the desirable and the undesirable. It therefore makes the ultimate choice inevitable. But while the first step seems to increase conflict and the second still entails it to some extent this one calls for consistent effort against it.

We said already that You can be as vigilant against the ego as for it. This lesson teaches not that You can be but that You must be. It does not concern itself with order of difficulty but with clearcut priority for vigilance. This step is unequivocal in that it teaches there must be no exceptions but it does not deny that the temptations to make exceptions will occur. Here then Your consistency is called on despite chaos. But chaos and consistency cannot coexist for long because they are mutually exclusive. As long as You must be vigilant against anything however You are not recognizing this and are holding the belief that You can choose either one.

By teaching You what to choose the Holy Spirit will ultimately be able to teach You that You need not choose at all. This will finally liberate Your will from choice and direct it towards Creation within the Kingdom. Choosing through the Holy Spirit will only lead You to it. You create by What You are but this is what You must learn. The way to learn it is inherent in the third step which brings together the lessons inherent in the others and goes beyond them towards real integration.

If You allow Yourselves to have in Your Minds only what God put There You are acknowledging Your Mind as God created It. Therefore You are accepting It as It is. And since It is whole You are teaching Peace because You have believed in it. The final step will still be taken for You by God. But by the third step the Holy Spirit has prepared You for God. He is getting You ready to translate having into being by the very nature of the steps You must take with Him. You learn first that having rests on giving and not getting. Next You learn that You learn what You teach and that You want to learn Peace. This is the condition for identifying with the Kingdom because it is the condition of the Kingdom.

But You have believed that You are without the Kingdom and have therefore excluded Yourself from it in Your belief. It is therefore essential to teach You that You must be included and the belief that You are not is the only thing that You must exclude. The third step is thus one of protection for Your Minds by allowing You to identify only with the Center Where God placed the Altar to Himself. We have already said that altars are beliefs but God and His Creations are beyond belief because They are beyond question. The Voice for God speaks only for belief beyond question but this is the preparation for being without question.

As long as belief in God and His Kingdom is assailed by any doubts in Your Minds His perfect Accomplishment is not apparent to You. This is why You must be vigilant on God’s behalf. The ego speaks against His Creation and therefore does engender doubt. You cannot go beyond belief until You believe wholly. No one can extend a lesson he has not learned fully. Transfer which is extension is the measure of learning because it is the measurable result. This however does not mean that what it transfers to is measurable. On the contrary, unless it transfers to the whole Sonship Which is immeasurable because It was created by the Immeasurable the learning itself must be incomplete.

To teach the whole Sonship without exception demonstrates that You perceive Its wholeness and have learned that It is One. Now You must be vigilant to hold Its Oneness in Your Minds because if You allow doubt to enter You will lose awareness of Its wholeness and will be unable to teach It. The wholeness of the Kingdom does not depend on Your perception but Your awareness of its wholeness does. It is only Your awareness that needs protection because Your being cannot be assailed. Yet a real sense of being cannot be Yours while You are doubtful of what You are. This is why vigilance is essential. Doubts about being must not enter Your Mind or You cannot know What You are with certainty.

Certainty is of God for You. Vigilance is not necessary for Truth but it is necessary against illusion. Truth is without illusions and therefore within the Kingdom. Everything outside the Kingdom is illusion. But You must learn to accept Truth because You threw It away. You therefore saw Yourself as if You were without It. By making another kingdom which You valued You did not keep the Kingdom of God alone in Your Minds and thus placed part of Your Mind outside of it. What You have made has thus divided Your will and given You a sick mind that must be healed. Your vigilance against this sickness is the way to heal it.

Once Your Mind is healed It radiates health and thereby teaches healing. This establishes You as a teacher Who teaches like Me. Vigilance was required of Me as much as of You. But remember that Those Who will to teach the same thing must be in agreement about what They believe. The third step then is a statement of what You want to believe and entails a willingness to relinquish everything else. I told You that You were just beginning the second step but I also told You that the third one follows it. The Holy Spirit will enable You to go on if You follow Him. Your vigilance is the sign that You want Him to guide You.

Vigilance does require effort but only to teach You that effort itself is unnecessary. You have exerted great effort to preserve what You have made because it is not True. Therefore You must now turn Your effort against it. Only this can cancel out the need for effort and call upon the being which You Both have and are. This recognition is wholly without effort because it is already True and needs no protection. It is in the perfect Safety of God. Therefore inclusion is total and Creation is without limit.

Chapter 7 – The Consistency of the Kingdom

a. Bargaining versus Healing

The ego demands reciprocal rights because it is competitive rather than loving. It is always willing to make a deal but it cannot understand that to be like another means that no deals are possible. To gain You must give, not bargain. To bargain is to limit giving and this is not God’s Will. To will with God is to create like Him. God does not limit His Gifts in any way. You are His Gifts and so Your Gifts must be like His.

Your Gifts to the Kingdom are like His to You. I gave only Love to the Kingdom because I believed That was What I was. What You believe You are determines Your gifts and if God created You by extending Himself as You You can only extend Yourself as He did. Only Joy increases forever. Joy and Eternity are inseparable. God extends outward beyond limits and beyond time and You Who are Cocreators with Him extend His Kingdom forever and beyond limit. Eternity is the indelible stamp of Creation. The Eternal are in Peace and Joy forever.

To think like God is to share His certainty of What You are. And to create like Him is to share the perfect Love He shares with You. To this the Holy Spirit leads You that Your Joy may be complete because the Kingdom of God is whole. We have said that the last step in the reawakening of knowledge is taken by God. This is True but it is hard to explain in words because words are symbols and nothing that is True needs to be explained. However, the Holy Spirit always has the task of translating the useless into the useful, the meaningless into the meaningful and the temporary into the timeless. He can therefore tell You something about this last step but this one You must know Yourself because by it You know What You are. This is Your being.

God does not take steps because His Accomplishments are not gradual. He does not teach because His Creations are changeless. He does nothing last because He created first and for always. It must be understood that the word “first” as applied to Him is not a time concept. He is first here only in the sense that He is first in the Holy Trinity Itself. He is the Prime Creator because He created His Cocreators. Because He did time applies neither to Him nor to What He created.

The “last step” that God was said to take was therefore True in the beginning, is True now and will be True forever. What is timeless is always there because its being is eternally changeless. It does not change by increase because it was forever created to increase. If You perceive it as not increasing You do not know what it is. You also do not know What created it or Who He is. God does not reveal this to You because it was never hidden. His Light was never obscured because it is His Will to share It. How can What is fully shared be withheld and then revealed?

To heal is the only kind of thinking in this world that resembles the Thought of God and because of the elements which they share can transfer to It. When a Brother perceives Himself as sick He is perceiving Himself as not whole and therefore in need. If You too see Him this way You are seeing Him as if He were absent from the Kingdom, or separated from it, thus making the Kingdom itself obscure to Both of You. Sickness and separation are not of God but the Kingdom is. If You obscure the Kingdom You are perceiving what is not of God.

b. The Laws of Mind

To heal then is to correct perception in Your Brother and Yourself by sharing the Holy Spirit with Him. This places You Both within the Kingdom and restores its wholeness in Your minds. This parallels Creation because it unifies by increasing and integrates by extending.

What You project You believe. This is an immutable law of mind in this world as well as in the Kingdom. However its content is somewhat different in this world from what it really is because the thoughts it governs are very different from the thoughts in the Kingdom. Laws must be adapted to circumstances if they are to maintain order.

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

But the argument that underlies the defense of freedom is perfectly valid. Because it is True it should not be fought for but it should be sided with. Those who are against freedom believe that its outcome will hurt them which cannot be True. But those who are for freedom, even if they are misguided in how they defend it, are siding with the one thing in this world which is True. Whenever Anyone can listen fairly to both sides of any issue He will make the right decision. This is because He has the Answer. Conflict can indeed be projected but it must be intrapersonal first.

The term “intrapersonal” is an ego term because “personal” implies of one person and not of Others. “Interpersonal” has a similar error because it implies something that exists between different individuals. When We spoke before of the extremely personal nature of Revelation We followed this statement immediately with a description of the inevitable outcomes of the Revelation in terms of sharing. A person conceives of Himself as separate largely because He perceives of Himself as bounded by a body. Only if He perceives Himself as a mind can He overcome this. Then He is free to use terms like “intramental” and “intermental” without seeing them as different and conflicting because minds can be in perfect accord.

Outside the Kingdom the law which prevails inside it is adapted to: “What You project You believe.” This is its teaching form because outside the Kingdom teaching is mandatory because learning is essential. This form of the law clearly implies that You will learn what You are from what You have projected onto others and therefore believe they are. In the Kingdom there is no teaching or learning because there is no belief. There is only certainty.

God and His Sons, in the surety of Being, know that what You project You are. That form of the law is not adapted at all being the law of Creation. God Himself created the law by creating by it. And His Sons, Who create like Him, follow it gladly knowing that the increase of the Kingdom depends on it just as Their Creation did. Laws must be communicated if they are to be helpful. In effect they must be translated for those who speak a different language. But a good translator, though He must alter the form of what He translates, never changes the meaning. In fact His whole purpose is to change the form so that the original meaning is retained.

The Holy Spirit is the translator of the laws of God to those who do not understand them. You could not do this Yourselves because conflicted minds cannot be faithful to one meaning and will therefore change the meaning to preserve the form. The Holy Spirit’s purpose in translating is naturally exactly the opposite. He translates only to preserve the original meaning in all respects and in all languages. Therefore He opposes differences in form as meaningful and emphasizes always that these differences do not matter. The meaning of His Message is always the same and only the meaning matters.

God’s law of Creation, in perfect form, does not involve the use of Truth to convince His Sons of Truth. The extension of Truth, which is the law of the Kingdom, rests only on the knowledge of what Truth is. This is Your inheritance and requires no learning at all. But when You disinherited Yourselves You became Learners. No one questions the intimate connection of learning and memory. Learning is impossible without memory because it cannot be consistent unless it is remembered.

That is why the Holy Spirit is a lesson in remembering. We said before that He teaches remembering and forgetting but the forgetting aspect is only to make the remembering consistent. You forget to remember better. You will not understand His translations while You listen to two ways of perceiving them. Therefore You must forget, or relinquish, one to understand the other. This is the only way You can learn consistency so that You can finally be consistent. What can the perfect consistency of the Kingdom mean to the confused? It must be apparent that confusion interferes with meaning and therefore prevents the Learner from appreciating it.

There is no confusion in the Kingdom because there is only one meaning. This Meaning comes from God and is God. Because it is also You You share it and extend it as Your Creator did. This needs no translation because it is perfectly understood but it does need extension because it means extension. Communication Here is perfectly direct and perfectly united. It is totally without strain because nothing discordant ever enters. That is why it is the Kingdom of God. It belongs to Him and is therefore like Him. That is its Reality and nothing can assail it.

c. The Unified Curriculum

To heal is to liberate totally. We once said there is no order in Miracles because They are all maximal expressions of Love. This has no range at all. The nonmaximal only appears to have a range. This is because it seems to be meaningful to measure it from the maximum and identify its position by how much it is not there. Actually this does not mean anything. It is like negative numbers in that the concept can be used theoretically but it has no application practically. It is True that if You put three apples on the table and then took them away the three apples are not there. But it is not True that the table is now minus three apples. If there is nothing on the table it does not matter what was there in terms of amount. The “nothing” is neither greater nor less because of what is absent.

That is why “all” and “nothing” are dichotomous without a range. This is perfectly clear in maximal test performance and for exactly the reason You emphasize. You cannot interpret at all unless You assume either maximal motivation or its complete absence. Only in these two conditions can You validly compare responses and You must assume the former because if the latter is True the subject will not do anything. Given variable motivation he will do something but You cannot understand what it is.

The results of tests are evaluated relatively assuming maximal motivation. But this is because We are dealing with abilities where degree of development is meaningful. This does not mean that what the ability is used for is necessarily either limited or divided. But one thing is certain: Abilities are potentials for learning and You will apply them to what You want to learn. Learning is effort and effort means will.

You will notice that We have used the term “abilities” as a plural which is correct. This is because abilities began with the ego which perceived them as a potential for excelling. This is how the ego still perceives them and uses them. It does not want to teach Everyone all it has learned because that would defeat its purpose in learning. Therefore it does not really learn at all. The Holy Spirit teaches You to use what the ego has made to teach the opposite of what the ego has learned. The kind of learning is as irrelevant as is the particular ability which was applied to the learning.

You could not have a better example of the Holy Spirit’s unified purpose than This Course. The Holy Spirit has taken very diversified areas of Your past learning and has applied them to a unified Curriculum. The fact that this was not the ego’s reason for learning is totally irrelevant. You made the effort to learn and the Holy Spirit has a unified goal for all effort. He adapts the ego’s potentials for excelling to potentials for equalizing. This makes them useless for the ego’s purpose but very useful for His.

If different abilities are applied long enough to one goal the abilities themselves become unified. This is because they are channelized in one direction or in one way. Ultimately then they all contribute to one result. And by so doing their similarity rather than their differences is emphasized. You can excel in many different ways but You can equalize in one way only. Equality is not a variable state by definition.

That is why We once said that papers will be easy to write when You have learned This Course. To the ego there appears to be no connection because the ego is discontinuous. But the Holy Spirit teaches one lesson and applies it to all individuals in all situations. Being conflictfree He maximizes all efforts and all results. By teaching the Power of the Kingdom of God Himself He teaches You that all Power is Yours. Its application does not matter. It is always maximal. Your vigilance does not establish it as Yours but it does enable You to use it always and in all ways.

When I said:

Behold, I am with You always.

I meant it literally. I am not absent to Anyone nor in any situation. Because I am always with You You are the Way and the Truth and the Light. You did not make this Power any more than I did. It was created to be shared and therefore cannot be meaningfully perceived as belonging to Anyone at the expense of Another. This perception makes it meaningless by eliminating, or overlooking, its real and only meaning.

d. The Recognition of Truth

God’s meaning waits in the Kingdom because that is where He placed it. It does not wait in time. It merely rests in the Kingdom because it belongs there as You do. How can You Who are God’s meaning perceive Yourselves as absent from it? You can see Yourselves as separated from Your meaning only by experiencing Yourself as unreal. This is why the ego is insane: It teaches that You are not what You are. This is so contradictory that it is clearly impossible. It is therefore a lesson which You cannot really learn and therefore cannot really teach. But You are always teaching. You must then be teaching something else as well even though the ego does not know what it is.

The ego then is always being undone and does suspect Your motives. Your mind cannot be unified in allegiance to the ego because the mind does not belong to it. But What is “treacherous” to the ego is faithful to Peace. The ego’s “enemy” is therefore Your Friend. We said before that the ego’s friend is not part of You but that is because the ego perceives itself as at war and therefore in need of allies. You Who are not at war must look for Brothers and recognize all You see as Brothers because only Equals are at Peace.

Because God’s equal Sons have everything They cannot compete. But if They perceive any of Their Brothers as anything other than Their perfect Equals the idea of competition has entered Their minds. Do not underestimate Your need to be vigilant against this idea because all Your conflicts come from it. It is the belief that conflicting interests are possible and therefore means that You have accepted the impossible as True. How is that different from saying that You are perceiving Yourself as unreal?

To be in the Kingdom is merely to focus Your full attention on it. As long as You believe that You can attend to what is not True You are accepting conflict as Your choice. Is it really a choice? It seems to be but seeming and Reality are hardly the same. You Who are the Kingdom are not concerned with seeming. Reality is Yours because You are Reality. This is how having and being are ultimately reconciled, not in the Kingdom but in Your minds. The Altar There is the only Reality. It is perfectly clear in Its thought because It is a reflection of perfect Thought. It sees only Brothers because It sees only in Its own Light.

God has lit Your minds Himself and keeps Your mind lit by His Light because His Light is What Your minds are. This is totally beyond question. And when You questioned it You were answered. The Answer merely undoes the question by establishing the fact that to question Reality is to question meaninglessly. That is why the Holy Spirit never questions. Its sole function is to undo the questionable and thus lead to certainty. The Certain are perfectly calm because They are not in doubt. They do not raise questions because nothing questionable enters Their minds. This holds Them in perfect serenity because this is what They share knowing What They are.

Healing is both an art and a science as has so often been said. It is an art because it depends on inspiration in the sense that We have already used the term. Inspiration is the opposite of disspiriting and therefore means to make joyful. The disspirited are depressed because they believe that they are literally “without the Spirit”, which is an illusion. You do not put the Spirit in them by inspiring them because that would be “magic” and therefore would not be real healing. But You do recognize the Spirit that is already there and thereby reawaken It. This is why the Healer is part of the Resurrection and the Life. The Spirit is not asleep in the minds of the sick but the part of the mind that can perceive it and be glad is.

Healing is also a science because it obeys the laws of God Whose laws are True. Because they are True they are perfectly dependable and therefore universal in application. The real aim of science is neither prediction nor control but only understanding. This is because it does not establish the laws it seeks, cannot discover them through prediction and has no control over them at all. Science is nothing more than an approach to what already is. Like inspiration it can be misunderstood as magic and will be whenever it is undertaken as separate from what already is and perceived as a means for establishing it. To believe this is possible is to believe You can do it. This can only be the voice of the ego.

Truth can only be recognized and need only be recognized. Inspiration is of the Spirit and certainty is of God according to His laws. Both therefore come from the same Source because inspiration comes from the Voice for God and certainty comes from the laws of God. Healing does not come directly from God Who knows His Creations as perfectly whole. But healing is nevertheless of God because it proceeds from His Voice and from His laws. It is their result in a state of mind which does not know Him. The state is unknown to Him and therefore does not exist. But those who sleep are stupefied, or better, unaware. And because they are unaware they do not know.

The Holy Spirit must work through You to teach You He is in You. This is an intermediary step toward the knowledge that You are in God because You are part of Him. The Miracles Which the Holy Spirit inspires can have no order because every part of Creation is of one order. This is God’s Will and Yours. The laws of God establish this and the Holy Spirit reminds You of it. When You heal You are remembering the laws of God and forgetting the laws of the ego. We said before that forgetting is merely a way of remembering better. It is therefore not the opposite of remembering when it is properly conceived. Perceived improperly it induces a perception of conflict with something else as all incorrect perception does. Properly perceived it can be used as a way out of conflict as all proper perception can.

All abilities then should be given over to the Holy Spirit Who knows how to use them properly. He can use them only for healing because He knows You only as whole. By healing You learn of wholeness and by learning of wholeness You learn to remember God. You have forgotten Him but the Holy Spirit still knows that Your forgetting must be translated into a way of remembering and not perceived as a separate ability which opposes an opposite. This is the way in which the ego tries to use all abilities because its goal is always to make You believe that You are in opposition.

The ego’s goal is as unified as the Holy Spirit’s and it is because of this that their goals can never be reconciled in any way or to any extent. The ego always seeks to divide and separate. The Holy Spirit always seeks to unify and heal. As You heal You are healed because the Holy Spirit sees no order of healing. Healing is the way to undo the belief in differences because it is the only way of perceiving the Sonship without this belief. This perception is therefore in accord with the laws of God even in a state of mind which is out of accord with His. But the strength of right perception is so great that it brings the mind into accord with His because it yields to His pull which is in All of You.

To oppose the pull, or the Will, of God is not an ability but a real delusion. The ego believes that it has this ability and can offer this ability to You as a gift. You do not want it. It is not a gift. It is nothing at all. God has given You a Gift which You Both have and are. When You do not use it You do not know You have it. By not knowing this You do not know what You are. Healing then is a way of approaching knowledge by thinking in accordance with the laws of God and recognizing their universality. Without this recognition You have made the laws themselves meaningless to You. But the laws are not meaningless because all meaning is contained by them and in them.

Seek Ye first the Kingdom of Heaven because that is where the laws of God operate Truly and they can operate only Truly because they are the laws of Truth. But seek this only because You can find nothing else. There is nothing else. God is all in All in a very literal sense. All being is in Him because He is all Being. You are therefore in Him because Your being is His. Healing is a way of forgetting the sense of danger that the ego has induced in You by not recognizing its existence in Your Brothers. This strengthens the Holy Spirit in Both of You because it is a refusal to acknowledge fear. Love needs only this invitation. It comes freely to all the Sonship because It is What the Sonship is. By Their awakening to It They merely forget what They are not. This enables Them to remember What They are.

e. Healing and the Changelessness of Mind

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

Only minds communicate. Since the ego cannot obliterate the impulse to communicate since it is also the impulse to create it can only try to teach You that the body can both communicate and create and therefore does not need the mind. The ego then tries to teach You that the body can act like the mind and therefore is selfsufficient. But We have learned that behavior is not the level for either teaching or learning. This must be so because You can act in accordance with what You do not believe. But this will weaken You as Teachers and Learners because, as has been repeatedly emphasized, You teach what You do believe. An inconsistent lesson will be poorly taught and poorly learned. If You teach both sickness and healing You are both a poor teacher and a poor learner.

Healing is the one ability which Everyone can develop, and must develop, if He is to be healed. Healing is the Holy Spirit’s form of communication and the only one He knows. He recognizes no other because He does not accept the ego’s confusion of mind and body. Minds can communicate but they cannot hurt. The body in the service of the ego can hurt other bodies but this cannot occur unless the body has already been confused with the mind. This fact too can be used either for healing or for magic but You must realize that magic is always the belief that healing is harmful. This is its totally insane premise and so it proceeds accordingly.

Healing only strengthens. Magic always tries to weaken. Healing perceives nothing in the Healer that Everyone else does not share with Him. Magic always sees something special in the healer which he believes he can offer as a gift to Someone Who does not have it. He may believe that this gift comes from God to him but it is quite evident that he does not understand God if he thinks he has something that Others do not. You might well ask why some healing can result from this kind of thinking and there is a real reason for this.

However misguided the “magical healer” may be, and however much he may be trying to strengthen his ego, he is also trying to help. He is conflicted and unstable but at times he is offering something to the Sonship and the only thing the Sonship can accept is healing. When the so-called healing “works” then the impulse both to help and be helped have coincided. This is coincidental because the healer may not be experiencing himself as Truly helpful at the time and the belief that he is, in the mind of Another, helps him.

The Holy Spirit does not work by chance and the healing that is of Him always works. And unless the healer always heals by Him the results will vary. But healing itself is consistence because only consistence is conflictfree and only the Conflictfree are whole. By accepting exceptions, and acknowledging that he can sometimes heal and sometimes not, the healer is obviously accepting inconsistency. He is therefore in conflict and teaching conflict.

Can anything of God not be for All and always? Love is incapable of any exceptions. Only if there is fear does the whole idea of exceptions of any kind seem to be meaningful. Exceptions are fearful because they were made by fear. The “fearful healer” is a contradiction in terms and is therefore a concept that only a conflicted mind could possibly perceive as meaningful. Fear does not gladden, healing does. Fear always makes exceptions, healing never does. Fear produces dissociation because it induces separation. Healing always induces harmony because it proceeds from harmony.

Healing is predictable because it can be counted on. Everything that is of God can be counted on because everything of God is wholly real. Healing can be counted on because it is inspired by His Voice and is in accord with His laws. But if healing is consistence it cannot be inconsistently understood. Understanding means consistence because God means consistence. And because that is His Meaning it is also Yours. Your meaning cannot be out of accord with His because Your whole meaning, and Your only meaning, comes from His and is like His. God cannot be out of accord with Himself and You cannot be out of accord with Him. You cannot separate Your Self from Your Creator Who created You by sharing His Being with You.

The unhealed healer wants gratitude from His Brothers but he is not grateful to Them. This is because he thinks he is giving something to Them and is not receiving something equally desirable in return. His teaching is limited because he is learning so little. His healing lesson is limited by his own ingratitude which is a lesson in sickness. Learning is constant and so vital in its power for change that a Son of God can recognize His Power in an instant and change the world in the next. That is because by changing His mind He has changed the most powerful device that was ever created for change.

This in no way contradicts the changelessness of Mind as God created It. But You think that You have changed It as long as You learn through the ego. This does place You in a position of needing to learn a lesson which seems contradictory: You must learn to change Your mind about Your mind. Only by this can You learn that It is changeless.

When You heal that is exactly what You are learning or doing. You are recognizing the changeless Mind in Your Brother by perceiving or knowing that He could not have changed His mind. That is how You perceive the Holy Spirit in Him. It is only the Holy Spirit in Him that never changes His mind. He Himself must think He can or He would not perceive Himself as sick. He therefore does not know what His Self is. If You see only the Changeless in Him You have not really changed Him at all. But by changing Your mind about His for Him You help Him undo the change His ego thinks it has made in Him.

As You can hear two voices so You can see in two ways. One way shows You an image, or better an idol which You may worship out of fear but which You will never love. The Other shows You only Truth Which You will love because You will understand it. Understanding is appreciation because what You understand You can identify with and by making it part of You You have accepted it with Love. This is how God Himself created You: In understanding, in appreciation and in Love.

The ego is totally unable to understand this because it does not understand what it makes. It does not appreciate it and it does not love it. It incorporates to take away. It literally believes that every time it deprives Someone of something it has increased. We have spoken often of the increase of the Kingdom by Your Creations Which can only be created as You were.

The whole glory and perfect Joy that is the Kingdom lies in You to give. Do You not want to give it? You cannot forget the Father because I am with You and I cannot forget Him. To forget Me is to forget Yourself and Him Who created You. Our Brothers are forgetful. That is why They need Your Remembrance of Me and Him Who created Me. Through this Remembrance You can change Their minds about Themselves as I can change Yours. Your minds are so powerful a Light that You can look into theirs and enlighten them as I enlighten Yours.

I do not want to share My body in Communion because this is to share nothing. Would I try to share an illusion with the most Holy Children of a most Holy Father? But I do want to share My Mind with You because We are of one Mind and that Mind is Ours. See only this Mind everywhere because only This is everywhere and in everything. It is everything because It encompasses all things within Itself. Blessed are You Who perceive only This because You perceive only What is True. Come therefore unto Me and learn of the Truth in You.

The Mind We share is shared by all Our Brothers and as We see Them Truly They will be healed. Let Your minds shine with Mine upon Their minds and by Our gratitude to Them make Them aware of the Light in Them. This Light will shine back upon You and on the whole Sonship because this is Your proper Gift to God. He will accept It and give It to the Sonship because It is acceptable to Him and therefore to His Sons. This is the True Communion of the Spirit Who sees the Altar of God in Everyone and by bringing It to Your appreciation calls upon You to love God and His Creation.

f. From Vigilance to Peace

You can think of the Sonship only as One. This is part of the law of Creation and therefore governs all thought. You can perceive the Sonship as fragmented but it is impossible for You to see something in part of It that You will not attribute to all of It. That is why attack is never discrete. And why attack must be relinquished entirely. If it is not relinquished entirely it is not relinquished at all. Fear and Love are equally reciprocal. They make or create depending on whether the ego or the Holy Spirit begets or inspires them but they will return to the mind of the Thinker and they will affect His total perception. That includes His perception of God, of His Creations and of His own. He will not appreciate any of These if He regards them fearfully. He will appreciate all of Them if He regards Them with Love.

The mind that accepts attack cannot love. This is because it believes that it can destroy Love and therefore does not understand what Love is. If it does not understand what Love is it cannot perceive itself as loving. This loses the awareness of being, induces feelings of unreality and results in utter confusion. Your own thinking has done this because of its Power. But Your own thinking can also save You from this because its Power is not of Your making. Your ability to direct Your thinking as You will is part of its Power. If You do not believe You can do this You have denied the Power of Your thought and thus rendered it powerless in Your belief.

The ingeniousness of the ego to preserve itself is enormous but it stems from the Power of the Mind which the ego denies. This means that the ego attacks What is preserving it and this must be a source of extreme anxiety. This is why it never knows what it is doing. This is perfectly logical though clearly insane. The ego draws upon the one source which is totally inimical to its existence for its existence. Fearful of perceiving the Power of this source it is forced to depreciate [abwerten] It. This threatens its own existence, a state which it finds intolerable.

Remaining logical but still insane the ego resolves this completely insane dilemma in a completely insane way. It does not perceive its existence as threatened by projecting the threat onto You and perceiving Your being as nonexistent. This ensures its continuance if You side with it by guaranteeing that You will not know Your own safety. The ego cannot afford to know anything. Knowledge is total and the ego does not believe in Totality. This unbelief is its own origin and while the ego does not love You it is faithful to its own antecedent begetting as it was begotten.

Mind always reproduces [gesprochen: ripro...] as it was produced. Produced by fear the ego reproduces fear. This is its allegiance and this allegiance makes it treacherous to Love because You are Love. Love is Your Power Which the ego must deny. It must also deny everything which this Power gives to You because it gives You everything. No one who has everything wants the ego. Its own Maker then does not want it. Rejection is therefore the only decision which the ego could possibly encounter if the mind which made it knew itself. And if it recognized any part of the Sonship it would know itself.

The ego therefore opposes all appreciation, all recognition, all sane perception and all knowledge. It perceives their threat as total because it senses the fact that all commitments which the mind makes are total. Forced therefore to detach itself from You, Who are mind, it is willing to attach itself to anything else. But there is nothing else. It does not follow however that the mind cannot make illusions. But it does follow that if it makes illusions it will believe in them because that is how it made them.

The Holy Spirit undoes illusions without attacking them merely because He cannot perceive them at all. They therefore do not exist for Him. He resolves the apparent conflict which they engender by perceiving conflict as meaningless. We said before that the Holy Spirit perceives the conflict exactly as it is and it is meaningless. The Holy Spirit does not want You to understand conflict. He wants You to realize that because conflict is meaningless it cannot be understood. We have already said that understanding brings appreciation and appreciation brings Love. Nothing else can be understood because nothing else is real and therefore nothing else has meaning.

If You will keep in mind what the Holy Spirit offers You You cannot be vigilant for anything but God and His Kingdom. The only reason why You find this difficult is because You think there is something else. Belief does not require vigilance unless it is conflicted. If it is there are conflicting components within it which have engendered a state of war and vigilance has therefore become essential. Vigilance has no place at all in Peace. It is necessary only against beliefs which are not True and would never have been called upon by the Holy Spirit if You had not believed the untrue Yourselves.

But You cannot deny that when You believe something You have made it True for You. When You believe what God does not know Your thought seems to contradict His and this makes it appear as if You are attacking Him. We have repeatedly emphasized that the ego does believe it can attack God and tries to persuade You that You have done this. If the mind cannot attack the ego proceeds perfectly logically to the position that You cannot be mind. By not seeing You as You are it can see itself as it wants to be. Aware of its weakness the ego wants Your allegiance but not as You really are. The ego therefore wants to engage Your mind in its own delusional system because otherwise the Light of Your understanding will dispel it.

The ego wants no part of Truth because the Truth is that it is not True. If Truth is total the untrue cannot exist. Commitment to either must be total because they cannot coexist in Your minds without splitting them. If they cannot coexist in Peace, and if You want Peace, You must give up the idea of conflict entirely and for all time. This requires vigilance only as long as You do not recognize what is True. While You believe that two totally contradictory thought systems share Truth Your need for vigilance is apparent. Your minds are dividing their allegiance between two kingdoms and You are totally committed to neither.

Your identification with the Kingdom is totally beyond question except by You when You are thinking insanely. What You are is not established by Your perception and is not influenced by it at all. All perceived problems in identification at any level are not problems of fact. But they are problems in understanding because they mean that You perceive what You can understand as up to You to decide. The ego believes this totally being fully committed to it. But it is not True. The ego is therefore totally committed to untruth perceiving in total contradiction to the Holy Spirit and to the knowledge of God.

You can be perceived with meaning only by the Holy Spirit because Your being is the knowledge of God. Any belief that You accept which is apart from this will obscure God’s Voice in You and will therefore obscure God to You. Unless You perceive His Creation Truly You cannot know the Creator because God and His Creation are not separate. The Oneness of the Creator and the Creation is Your wholeness, Your sanity and Your limitless Power. This limitless Power is God’s Gift to You because it is what You are. If You dissociate Your mind from It You are perceiving the most powerful Force in the Universe of Thought as if It were weak because You do not believe You are part of It.

Perceived without Your part in It God’s Creation is perceived as weak and those who see themselves as weakened do attack. The attack must be blind because there is nothing to attack. Therefore they make up images perceive them as unworthy and attack them for their unworthiness. That is all the world of the ego is. Nothing. It has no meaning. It does not exist. Do not try to understand it because if You do You are believing that it can be understood and therefore is capable of being appreciated and loved. This would justify it but it cannot be justified. You cannot make the meaningless meaningful. This can only be an insane attempt.

Allowing insanity to enter Your minds means that You have not judged sanity as wholly desirable. If You want something else You will make something else. But because it is something else it will attack Your thought system and divide Your allegiance. You cannot create in this divided state and You must be vigilant against this divided state because only Peace can be extended. Your divided minds are blocking the extension of the Kingdom and its extension is Your Joy. If You do not extend the Kingdom You are not thinking with Your Creator and creating as He created.

In this depressing state the Holy Spirit reminds You gently that You are sad because You are not fulfilling Your function as Cocreators with God and are therefore depriving Yourselves of Joy. This is not God’s Will but Yours. If Your will is out of accord with God’s You are willing without meaning. But because only God’s Will is unchangeable no real conflict of will is possible. This is the Holy Spirit’s perfectly consistent teaching. Creation, not separation, is Your will because It is God’s. And nothing that opposes this means anything at all. Being a perfect Accomplishment the Sonship can only accomplish perfectly extending the Joy in which It was created and identifying Itself with Both Its Creator and Its Creations knowing They are One.

g. The Total Commitment

Whenever You deny a Blessing to a Brother You will feel deprived. This is because denial is as total as Love. It is as impossible to deny part of the Sonship as it is to love It in part. Nor is it possible to love It totally at times. You cannot be totally committed sometimes. Remember a very early lesson: “Never underestimate the Power of denial.” It has no Power in itself but You can give it the Power of Your mind whose Power is without limit of any kind. If You use it to deny Reality Reality is gone for You. Reality cannot be partly appreciated. That is why denying any part of it means You have lost awareness of all of it.

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

When a Brother acts insanely He is offering You an opportunity to bless Him. His need is Yours. You need the Blessing You can offer Him. There is no way for You to have it except by giving it. This is the law of God and it has no exceptions. What You deny You lack, not because it is lacking but because You have denied it in Another and therefore are not aware of it in You. Every response You make is determined by what You think You are. And what You want to be is what You think You are. Therefore what You want to be determines every response You make.

You do not need God’s Blessing because that You have forever. But You do need Yours. The picture You see of Yourselves is deprived, unloving and very vulnerable. You cannot love this. But You can very easily escape from it or better, leave it behind. You are not there and that is not You. Do not see this picture in Anyone or You have accepted it as You. All illusions about the Sonship are dispelled together as they were made together. Teach no one that he is what You do not want to be. Your Brother is the mirror in which You will see the image of Yourself as long as perception lasts. And perception will last until the Sonship knows Itself as whole.

You made perception and it must last as long as You want it. Illusions are investments. They will last as long as You value them. Values are relative but they are powerful because they are mental judgments. The only way to dispel illusions is to withdraw all investment from them and they will have no Life for You because You have put them out of Your mind. While You include them in it You are giving them Life. Except there is nothing there to receive Your gift.

The Gift of Life is Yours to give because it was given You. You are unaware of Your Gift because You do not give it. You cannot make nothing live because it cannot be enlivened. Therefore You have not extended the Gift You Both have and are and so You do not know Your being. All confusion comes from not extending Life because this is not the will of Your Creator. You can do nothing apart from Him and You do do nothing apart from Him. Keep His Way to remember Yourselves and teach His Ways lest You forget Yourself. Give only honor to the Sons of the living God and count Yourself among Them gladly.

Only honor is a fitting gift for Those Whom God Himself created worthy of honor and Whom He honors. Give Them the appreciation which God accords Them always because They are His Beloved Sons in Whom He is well pleased. You cannot be apart from Them because You are not apart from Him. Rest in His Love and protect Your rest by loving. But love everything He created, of which You are part, or You cannot learn of His Peace and accept His Gift for Yourself and as Yourself. You cannot know Your own perfection until You have honored all Those Who were created like You.

One Child of God is the only Teacher sufficiently worthy to teach Another. One Teacher is in all Your minds and He teaches the same lesson to All. He always teaches You the inestimable worth of every Son of God teaching it with infinite patience born of the Love of Him for Whom He speaks. Every attack is a call for His patience because only His patience can translate attack into Blessing. Those who attack do not know they are blessed. They attack because they believe they are deprived. Give therefore of Your abundance and teach them theirs. Do not share their delusions of scarcity or You will perceive Yourself as lacking.

Attack could never promote attack unless You perceived it as a means of depriving You of something You want. But You cannot lose anything unless You do not value it and therefore do not want it. This makes You feel deprived of it and by projecting Your rejection You believe that others are taking it from You. One must be fearful if he believes that his Brother is attacking him to tear the Kingdom of Heaven from him. This is the ultimate basis for all of the ego’s projection.

Being the part of Your mind which does not believe it is responsible for itself and being without allegiance to God the ego is incapable of trust. Projecting its insane belief that You have been treacherous to Your Creator it believes that Your Brothers, Who are as incapable of this as You are, are out to take God from You. Whenever a Brother attacks Another this is what He believes. Projection always sees Your will in others. If You will to separate Yourself from God that is what You will think others are doing to You.

You are the Will of God. Do not accept anything else as Your will or You are denying what You are. Deny this and You will attack because You believe You have been attacked. But see the Love of God in You and You will see It everywhere because It is everywhere. See His abundance in Everyone and You will know that You are in Him with Them. They are part of You as You are part of God. You are as lonely without understanding this as God Himself is lonely when His Sons do not know Him. The Peace of God is understanding this.

There is only one way out of the world’s thinking just as there was only one way into it. Understand totally by understanding Totality. Perceive any part of the ego’s thought system as wholly insane, wholly delusional and wholly undesirable and You have correctly evaluated all of it. This correction enables You to perceive any part of Creation as wholly real, wholly perfect and wholly desirable. Wanting this only You will have this only and giving this only You will be only this. The gifts You offer to the ego are always experienced as sacrifices. But the Gifts You offer to the Kingdom are Gifts to You. They will always be treasured by God because they belong to His Beloved Sons Who belong to Him. All Power and glory are Yours because the Kingdom is His.

h. The Defense of Conflict

We once said that without projection there can be no anger but it is also True that without projection there can be no Love. Projection is a fundamental law of the mind and therefore one which always operates. It is the law by which You create and were created. It is the law which unifies the Kingdom and keeps it in the Mind of God. To the ego the law is perceived as a way of getting rid of something it does not want. To the Holy Spirit it is the fundamental law of sharing by which You give what You value in order to keep it in Your own minds.

Projection to the Holy Spirit is the law of extension. To the ego it is the law of deprivation. It therefore produces abundance or scarcity depending on how You choose to apply it. This choice is up to You but it is not up to You to decide whether or not You will utilize projection. Every mind must project because that is how it lives and every mind is Life. The ego’s use of projection must be fully understood before the inevitable association between projection and anger can be finally unmade.

The ego always tries to preserve conflict. It is very ingenious in devising ways which seem to diminish conflict only because it does not want You to find it so intolerable that You will insist on giving it up. Therefore it tries to persuade You that it can free You of conflict lest You give it up and free Yourself. The ego, using its own warped version of the laws of God, uses the Power of the mind only to defeat the mind’s real purpose. It projects conflict from Your mind to other minds in an attempt to persuade You that You have gotten rid of it. This has a number of fallacies which may not be so apparent.

Strictly speaking conflict cannot be projected precisely because it cannot be fully shared. Any attempt to keep part of it and get rid of another part does not really mean anything. Remember that a conflicted teacher is a poor teacher and a poor learner. His lessons are confused and their transfer value severely limited by His confusion.

A second fallacy is the idea that You can get rid of something You do not want by giving it away. Giving it is how You keep it. The belief that by giving it out You have excluded it from within is a complete distortion of the power of extension. That is why those who project from the ego are vigilant for their own safety. They are afraid that their projections will return and hurt them. They do believe they have blotted them out of their own minds but they also believe they are trying to creep back into them. This is because their projections have not left their minds and this, in turn, forces them to engage in compulsive activity in order not to recognize this.

You cannot perpetuate an illusion about Another without perpetuating it about Yourself. There is no way out of this because it is impossible to fragment the mind. To fragment is to break into pieces and mind cannot attack. The belief that It can, a fallacy which the ego always makes, underlies its whole use of projection. This is because it does not understand what the mind is and therefore does not understand what You are. Yet its existence is dependent on Your mind because it is a belief. The ego is therefore a confusion in identification which never had a consistent model and never developed consistently. It is the distorted product of the misapplication of the laws of God by distorted minds which are misusing their own power.

Do not be afraid of the ego. It does depend on Your mind and as You made it by believing in it so You can dispel it by withdrawing belief from it. Do not project the responsibility for Your belief in it onto Anyone else or You will preserve the belief. When You are willing to accept sole responsibility for the ego’s existence Yourself You will have laid aside all anger and all attack because they come from an attempt to project responsibility for Your own errors. But having accepted the errors as Yours do not keep them. Give them over quickly to the Holy Spirit to be undone completely so that all their effects will vanish from Your minds and from the Sonship as a whole. He will teach You to perceive beyond belief because Truth is beyond belief and His perception is True.

The ego can be completely forgotten at any time because it was always a belief that is totally incredible. No one can keep a belief he has judged to be unbelievable. The more You learn about the ego the more You realize that it cannot be believed. The incredible cannot be understood because it is unbelievable. The utter meaninglessness of all perception which comes from the unbelievable must be apparent but it is not beyond belief because it was made by belief.

The whole purpose of This Course is to teach You that the ego is unbelievable and will forever be unbelievable. You Who made the ego by believing the unbelievable cannot make this judgment alone. But You made the wrong judgment by believing You were alone. By accepting the Atonement for Yourself You are deciding against the belief that You can be alone thus dispelling the idea of separation and affirming Your True identification with the whole Kingdom as literally part of You. This identification is as beyond doubt as it is beyond belief. Your wholeness has no limits because its being is in Infinity.

i. The Extension of the Kingdom

Only You can limit Your creative Power but God wills to release it. He no more wills You to deprive Yourselves of Your Creations than He wills to deprive Himself of His.

Do not withhold Your Gifts to the Sonship or You withhold Yourself from God. Selfishness is of the ego but Selffullness is of the Soul because that is how He created It. The Holy Spirit is the part of the mind That lies between the ego and the Soul mediating between them always in favor of the Soul. To the ego this is partiality and it therefore responds as if it were the part that is being sided against. To the Soul this is Truth because It knows Its own fullness and cannot conceive of any part from which It is excluded. The Soul knows that the consciousness of all Its Brothers is included in Its own as It is included in God. The Power of the whole Sonship and of Its Creator is therefore Its own fullness rendering Its Creation and Its Creating equally whole and equal in perfection.

The ego cannot prevail against a Totality which includes God and any Totality must include God. Everything He created is given all His Power because It is part of Him and shares His Being with Him. Creating is the opposite of loss as Blessing is the opposite of sacrifice. Being must be extended. That is how It retains the knowledge of Itself. The Soul yearns to share Its Being as Its Creator did. Created by sharing Its will is to create. It does not wish to contain God but to extend His Being.

The extension of God’s Being is the Soul’s only function. Its fullness cannot be contained any more than can the fullness of Its Creator. Fullness is extension. The ego’s whole thought system blocks extension and therefore blocks Your only function. It therefore blocks Your Joy and this is why You perceive Yourselves as unfulfilled. Unless You create You are unfulfilled. But God does not know unfulfillment and therefore You must create. You may not know Your own Creations but this can no more interfere with Their Reality than Your unawareness of Your Soul can interfere with Its being.

The Kingdom is forever extending because it is in the Mind of God. You do not know Your Joy because You do not know Your own Selffullness. Exclude any part of the Kingdom from Yourself and You are not whole. A split mind cannot perceive its fullness and needs the Miracle of its wholeness to dawn upon it and heal it. This reawakens its wholeness in it and restores it to the Kingdom because of its acceptance of wholeness. The full appreciation of its Selffullness makes selfishness impossible and extension inevitable. That is why there is perfect Peace in the Kingdom. Every Soul is fulfilling Its function and only complete fulfillment is Peace.

Insanity appears to add to Reality but no one would claim that what it adds is True. Insanity is therefore the nonextension of Truth which blocks Joy because it blocks Creation and therefore blocks Selffulfillment. The unfulfilled must be depressed because Their Selffullness is unknown to them. Your Creations are protected for You because the Holy Spirit Who is in Your minds knows of Them and can bring Them into Your awareness whenever You will let Him. They are there as part of Your own being because Your fulfillment includes Them. The Creations of every Son of God are Yours because every Creation belongs to Everyone being created for the Sonship as a whole.

You have not failed to add to the inheritance of the Sons of God and thus have not failed to secure it for Yourselves. If it was the Will of God to give it to You He gave it forever. If it was His will that You have it forever He gave You the means for keeping it and You have done so. Disobeying God’s Will is meaningful only to the insane. In Truth it is impossible.

Your Selffullness is as boundless as God’s. Like His it extends forever and in perfect Peace. Its radiance is so intense that it creates in perfect Joy and only the whole can be born of its wholeness. Be confident that You have never lost Your Identity and the Extension which maintains it in wholeness and Peace. Miracles are an expression of this confidence. They are reflections both of Your own proper identification with Your Brothers and of Your own awareness that Your identification is maintained by extension. The Miracle is a lesson in total perception. By including any part of Totality in the lesson You have included the whole.

You have said that when You write of the Kingdom and Your own Creations which belong to it You are describing what You do not know. This is True in a sense but no more True than Your failure to acknowledge the whole result of the ego’s premises. The Kingdom is the result of premises as much as this world is. You have carried the ego’s reasoning to its logical conclusion which is total confusion about everything. But You do not really believe this or You could not possibly maintain it. If You really saw this result You could not want it. The only reason why You could possibly want any part of it is because You do not see the whole of it.

You therefore are willing to look at the ego’s premises but not at their logical outcome. Is it not possible that You have done the same thing with the premises of God? Your Creations are the logical outcome of His premises. His thinking has established Them for You. They are therefore there exactly where They belong. They belong to Your mind as part of Your identification with His. But Your state of mind and Your recognition of what is in Your mind depends at any given moment on what You believe about Your mind. Whatever these beliefs may be they are the premises which will determine what You accept into Your minds.

It is surely clear that You can both accept into Your minds what is not really there and deny what is. Neither of these possibilities requires further elaboration although both are clearly indefensible even if You elect to defend them. But the function which God Himself gave Your minds through His You may deny but You cannot prevent. They are the logical outcome of what You are. The ability to see a logical outcome depends on the willingness to see it but its Truth has nothing to do with Your willingness at all. Truth is God’s Will. Share His Will and You will share what He knows. Deny His Will as Yours and You are denying His Kingdom and Yours.

The Holy Spirit will direct You only so as to avoid all pain. The undoing of pain must obviously avoid this. No one would surely object to this goal if he recognized it. The problem is not whether what He says is True but whether or not You want to listen to what He says.

j. The Confusion of Strength and Weakness

You no more recognize what is painful than You know what is joyful and are in fact very apt to confuse them. The Holy Spirit’s main function is to teach You to tell them apart.

However strange it may seem that this is necessary it obviously is. The reason is equally obvious. What is joyful to You is painful to the ego and as long as You are in doubt about what You are You will be confused about Joy and pain. This confusion is the cause of the whole idea of sacrifice. Obey the Holy Spirit and You will be giving up the ego but You will be sacrificing nothing. On the contrary, You will be gaining everything. But if You believed this there would be no conflict. That is why You need to demonstrate the obvious to Yourself. It is not obvious to You.

You really believe that doing the opposite of God’s Will can be better for You. You also believe that it is possible to do the opposite of God’s Will. Therefore You believe that an impossible choice is open to You which is both very fearful and very desirable. But God wills. He does not wish. Your will is as powerful as His because it is His. The ego’s wishes do not mean anything because the ego wishes for the impossible. You can wish for the impossible but You can only will with God. This is the ego’s weakness and Your Strength.

The Holy Spirit always sides with You and with Your Strength. As long as You avoid His guidance in any way You want to be weak. But weakness is frightening. What else then can this decision mean except that You want to be fearful? The Holy Spirit never asks for sacrifice but the ego always does. When You are confused about this very clear distinction in motivation it can only be due to projection. Projection of this kind is a confusion in motivation and, given this confusion, trust becomes impossible.

No one obeys gladly a Guide he does not trust. But this does not mean that the Guide is untrustworthy. In this case it always means that the follower is. However, this too is merely a matter of his own belief. Believing that he can betray he believes that everything can betray him. But this is only because he has elected to follow false guidance. Unable to follow this guidance without fear he associates fear with guidance and refuses to follow any guidance at all. If the result of this decision is confusion this is hardly surprising.

The Holy Spirit is perfectly trustworthy as You are. God Himself trusts You and therefore Your trustworthiness is beyond question. It will always remain beyond question however much You may question it. I trust My choices only because they are God’s Will. We said before that You are the Will of God. His Will is not an idle wish and Your identification with His Will is not optional because it is what You are. Sharing His Will with Me is not really open to choice at all though it may seem to be. The whole separation lies in this fallacy. And the only way out of the fallacy is to decide that You do not have to decide anything.

Everything has been given You by God’s decision. This is His Will and You can not undo it. Even the relinquishment of Your false decisionmaking prerogative, which the ego guards so jealously, is not accomplished by Your wish. It was accomplished for You by the Will of God Who has not left You comfortless. His Voice will teach You how to distinguish between pain and Joy and lead You out of the confusion You have made. There is no confusion in the Mind of a Son of God Whose will must be the Will of the Father because the Father’s Will is His Son.

Miracles are in accord with the Will of God Whose Will You do not know because You are confused about what You will. This means that You are confused about what You are. If You are God’s Will and do not accept His Will You can only be not accepting what You are. But if Your Joy is what You are You are denying Joy. The Miracle therefore is a lesson in what Joy is. Being a lesson in sharing It is a lesson in Love Which is Joy. Every Miracle is thus a lesson in Truth and by offering Truth You are learning the difference between pain and Joy.

k. The State of Grace

The Holy Spirit will always guide You Truly because Your Joy is His. This is His will for Everyone because He speaks for the Kingdom of God which is Joy. Following Him is therefore the easiest thing in the world and the only thing which is easy because it is not of the world and is therefore natural. The world goes against Your nature because it is out of accord with God’s laws. The world perceives orders of difficulty in everything. This is because the ego perceives nothing as wholly desirable. By demonstrating to Yourselves that there is no order of difficulty in Miracles You will convince Yourselves that in Your natural state there is no difficulty because it is a state of Grace.

Grace is the natural state of every Son of God. When He is not in a state of Grace He is out of His natural environment and does not function well. Everything He does becomes a strain because He was not created for the environment which He has made. He therefore cannot adapt to it nor can He adapt it to Him. There is no point in trying. A Son of God is happy only when He knows He is with God. That is the only environment in which He will not experience strain because that is where He belongs. It is also the only environment that is worthy of Him because His own worth is beyond anything that He can make.

Consider the kingdom which You have made and judge its worth fairly. Is it worthy to be a home for a Child of God? Does it protect His Peace and shine Love upon Him? Does it keep His Heart untouched by fear and allow Him to give always without any sense of loss? Does it teach Him that this giving is His Joy and that God Himself thanks Him for His giving?

That is the only environment in which You can be happy. You cannot make it any more than You can make Yourselves. But it has been created for You as You were created for it. God watches over His Children and denies Them nothing. But when They deny Him They do not know this because They deny Themselves everything. You Who could give the Love of God to everything You see and touch and remember are literally denying Heaven to Yourselves. I call upon You again to remember that I have chosen You to teach the Kingdom to the Kingdom. There are no exceptions to this lesson because the lack of exceptions is the lesson.

Every Son Who returns to the Kingdom with this lesson in His Heart has healed the Sonship and given thanks to God. Everyone Who learns this lesson has become the perfect Teacher because He has learned it of the Holy Spirit Who wants to teach Him everything He knows. When a mind has only Light it knows only Light. Its own radiance shines all around it and extends out into the darkness of other minds transforming them into majesty. The Majesty of God is there for You to recognize and appreciate and know.

Perceiving the Majesty of God as Your Brother is to accept Your own inheritance. God gives only equally. If You recognize His Gift to Anyone else You have acknowledged What He has given You. Nothing is as easy to perceive as Truth. This is the perception which is immediate, clear and natural. You have trained Yourselves not to see It and this has been very difficult for You. Out of Your natural environment You may well ask: “What is Truth?” Because Truth is the environment by Which and for Which You were created. You do not know Yourselves because You do not know Your Creator. You do not know Your Creations because You do not know Your Brothers Who created Them with You.

We said before that only the whole Sonship is a worthy Cocreator with God because only the whole Sonship can create like Him. Whenever You heal a Brother by recognizing His worth You are acknowledging His Power to create and Yours. He cannot have lost what You recognize and You must have the glory You see in Him. He is a Cocreator with God with You. Deny His creative Power and You are denying Yours and that of God Who created You. You cannot deny part of the Truth. You do not know Your Creations because You do not know Their Creator. You do not know Yourselves because You do not know Yours.

Your Creations cannot establish Your Reality any more than You can establish God’s. But You can know Both. Being is known by sharing. Because God shared His Being with You You can know Him. But You must also know All He created to know what They have shared. Without Your Father You will not know Your Fatherhood. The Kingdom of God includes all His Sons and Their Children Who are like the Sons as They are like the Father. Know then the Sons of God and You will know all Creation.

Chapter 8 – The Journey Back

a. The Direction of the Curriculum

Those Whom You perceive as opponents are part of Your Peace which You are giving up by attacking Them. How can You have what You give up? You share to have but You do not give it up Yourselves. When You give up Peace You are excluding Yourself from it. This is a condition which is so alien to the Kingdom that You cannot understand the state which prevails within it.

Your past learning must have taught You the wrong things simply because it has not made You happy. On this basis alone its value should be questioned. If learning aims at change, and that is always its purpose, are You satisfied with the changes Yours has brought You? Dissatisfaction with the learning outcome must be a sign of learning failure because it means that You did not get what You want. The Curriculum of the Atonement is the opposite of the curriculum You have established for Yourselves but so is Its outcome. If the outcome of Yours has made You unhappy, and if You want a different outcome, a change in the curriculum is obviously necessary.

The first change that must be introduced is a change in direction. A meaningful curriculum cannot be inconsistent. If it is planned by two teachers, each believing in diametrically opposed ideas, it cannot be integrated. If it is carried out by these two teachers simultaneously each one merely interferes with the other. This leads to fluctuation but not to change. The volatile have no direction. They cannot choose one because they cannot relinquish the others even if the others do not exist. Their conflicted curriculum teaches them that all directions exist and gives them no rationale [Grundlage] for choice.

The total senselessness of such a curriculum must be fully recognized before a real change in direction becomes possible. You cannot learn simultaneously from two teachers who are in total disagreement about everything. Their joint curriculum presents an impossible learning task. They are teaching You entirely different things in entirely different ways which would be possible except for the crucial fact that both are teaching You about Yourself. Your Reality is unaffected by both. But if You listen to both Your mind will split on what Your Reality is.

b. The Rationale [Grundlage] for Choice

There is a rationale [Grundlage] for choice. Only one Teacher knows what Your Reality is. If learning that is the purpose of the Curriculum You must learn it of Him. The ego does not know what it is trying to teach. It is trying to teach You what You are without knowing it. The ego is expert only in confusion. It does not understand anything else. As a teacher then it is totally confused and totally confusing.

Even if You could disregard the Holy Spirit entirely, which is quite impossible, You could learn nothing from the ego because the ego knows nothing. Is there any possible reason for choosing a teacher such as this? Does the total disregard of anything it teaches make anything but sense? Is this the teacher to whom a Son of God should turn to find Himself? The ego has never given You a sensible answer to anything. Simply on the grounds of Your own experience with the ego’s teaching should not this alone disqualify it as Your future teacher?

But the ego has done more harm to Your learning than this alone. Learning is joyful if it leads You along Your natural path and facilitates the development of what You have. But when You are taught against Your nature You will lose by Your learning because Your learning will imprison You. Your Will is in Your nature and therefore cannot go against it. The ego cannot teach You anything as long as Your will is free because You will not listen to it. It is not Your Will to be imprisoned because Your will is free.

That is why the ego is the denial of free will. It is never God Who coerces You because He shares His Will with You. His Voice teaches only His Will but that is not the Holy Spirit’s lesson because that is what You are. The lesson is that Your Will and God’s cannot be out of accord because they are One. This is the undoing of everything the ego tries to teach. It is not then only the direction which must be unconflicted but also the content.

The ego wants to teach You that You want to oppose God’s Will. This unnatural lesson cannot be learned but the attempt to learn it is a violation of Your own freedom and makes You afraid of Your Will because it is free. The Holy Spirit opposes any imprisoning of the Will of a Son of God knowing that the Will of the Son is the Father’s. He leads You steadily along the path of freedom teaching You how to disregard, or look beyond, everything that would hold You back.

We said before that the Holy Spirit teaches You the difference between pain and Joy. That is the same as saying that He teaches You the difference between imprisonment and freedom. You cannot make this distinction without Him. That is because You have taught Yourself that imprisonment is freedom. Believing them to be the same how can You tell them apart? Can You ask the part of Your mind that taught You to believe they are the same to teach You the difference?

The Holy Spirit’s teaching takes only one direction and has only one goal. His direction is freedom and His goal is God. But He cannot conceive of God without You because it was not God’s Will to be without You. When You have learned that Your Will is God’s You could no more will to be without Him than He could will to be without You. This is freedom and this is Joy. Deny Yourself this and You are denying God His Kingdom because He created You for this.

When We said: All Power and glory are Yours because the Kingdom is His this is what We meant: The Will of God is without limit and all Power and glory lie within it. It is boundless in Strength and in Love and in Peace. It has no boundaries because its extension is unlimited and it encompasses all things because it created all things. By creating all things it made them part of itself. You are the Will of God because this is how You were created. Because Your Creator creates only like Himself You are like Him.

You are part of Him Who is all Power and glory and are therefore as unlimited as He is. To what else except all Power and glory can the Holy Spirit appeal to restore God’s Kingdom? His appeal then is merely to what the Kingdom is and for its own acknowledgment of What it is. When You acknowledge this You bring the acknowledgment automatically to Everyone because You have acknowledged Everyone. By Your recognition You awaken Theirs and through Theirs Yours is extended. Awakening runs easily and gladly through the Kingdom in answer to the Call of God. This is the natural response of every Son of God to the Voice of His Creator because it is the Voice for His Creations and for His own Extension.

c. The Holy Encounter

Glory be to God in the highest and to You because He has so willed it. Ask and it shall be given You because it has already been given. Ask for Light and learn that You are Light. If You want understanding and enlightenment You will learn it because Your will to learn it is Your decision to listen to the Teacher Who knows of Light and can therefore teach It to You.

There is no limit on Your learning because there is no limit on Your minds. There is no limit on His Will to teach because He was created by unlimited Will in order to teach. Knowing His function perfectly He wills to fulfill it perfectly because that is His Joy and Yours. To fulfill the Will of God perfectly is the only Joy and Peace that can be fully known because it is the only function that can be fully experienced. When this is accomplished then there is no other experience. But the wish for other experience will block this because God’s Will cannot be forced upon You being an experience of total willingness.

The Holy Spirit knows how to teach this but You do not. That is why You need Him and why God gave Him to You. Only His teaching will release Your will to God’s uniting it with His Power and glory and establishing them as Yours. You will share them as He shares them because this is the natural outcome of their being. The Will of the Father and of the Son are One together by their extension. Their extension is the result of Their Oneness holding Their Unity by extending Their joint will.

This is perfect Creation by the perfectly Created in union with the Perfect Creator. The Father must give Fatherhood to His Sons because His own Fatherhood must be extended outward. You Who belong in God have the Holy function of extending His Fatherhood by placing no limits upon it. Let the Holy Spirit teach You how to do this for You will know what it means of God Himself.

When You meet Anyone remember it is a Holy encounter. As You see Him You will see Yourself. As You treat Him You will treat Yourself. As You think of Him You will think of Yourself. Never forget this for in Him You will find Yourself or lose sight of Yourself. Whenever two Sons of God meet they are given another chance at Salvation. Do not leave anyone without giving Salvation to Him and receiving it Yourself. For I am always there with You in Remembrance of You.

The goal of the Curriculum, regardless of the teacher You choose, is know Thyself. There is nothing else to learn. Everyone is looking for Himself and the Power and glory He thinks He has lost. Whenever You are with Anyone else You have another opportunity to find them. Your Power and glory are in Him because they are Yours. The ego tries to find them in Yourself because it does not know where to look. But the Holy Spirit teaches You that if You look only at Yourself You cannot find Yourself because that is not what You are.

Whenever You are with a Brother You are learning what You are because You are teaching what You are. He will respond either with pain or with Joy depending on which teacher You are following. He will be imprisoned or released according to Your decision and so will You. Never forget Your responsibility to Him because it is Your responsibility to Yourself. Give Him His Place in the Kingdom and You will have Yours. The Kingdom cannot be found alone and You Who are the Kingdom cannot find Yourselves alone.

To achieve the goal of the Curriculum then You cannot listen to the ego. Its purpose is to defeat its own goal. It does not know this because it does not know anything. But You can know this and You will know it if You are willing to look at what the ego has made of You. This is Your responsibility because once You have really done this You will accept the Atonement for Yourself. What other choice could You make?

Having made this choice You will begin to learn and understand why You have believed that when You met Someone else You have thought He was Someone else. And every Holy encounter in which You enter fully will teach You that this is not so. You can encounter only part of Yourself because You are part of God Who is everything. His Power and glory are everywhere and You cannot be excluded from them. The ego teaches that Your strength is in You alone. The Holy Spirit teaches that all strength is in God and therefore in You.

God wills no one to suffer. He does not will anyone to suffer for a wrong decision You have made including Yourself. That is why He has given You the means for undoing it. Through His Power and glory all Your wrong decisions are undone completely releasing You and Your Brothers from every imprisoning thought any part of the Sonship has accepted. Wrong decisions have no power because they are not True. The imprisonment which they seem to produce is no more True than they are.

Power and glory belong to God alone. So do You. God gives whatever belongs to Him because He gives of Himself and everything belongs to Him. Giving of Your Self is the function He gave You. Fulfilling it perfectly will teach You what You have of Him. And this will teach You what You are in Him. You cannot be powerless to do this because this is Your Power. Glory is God’s Gift to You because that is what He is. See this glory everywhere to learn what You are.

d. The Light of the World

If God’s Will for You is complete Peace and Joy unless You experience only this You must be refusing to acknowledge His Will. His Will does not vacillate being changeless forever. When You are not at Peace it can only be because You do not believe You are in Him. Yet He is all in All. His Peace is complete and You must be included in it. His laws govern You because they govern everything. You cannot exempt Yourself from His laws, although You can disobey them. But if You do, and only if You do, You will feel lonely and helpless because You are denying Yourself everything.

I am come as a Light into the world which does deny itself everything. It does this simply by dissociating itself from everything. It is therefore an illusion of isolation maintained by fear of the same loneliness which is its illusion. I have told You that I am with You always even to the end of the world. That is why I am the Light of the world. If I am with You in the loneliness of the world the loneliness is gone. You cannot maintain the illusion of loneliness if You are not alone.

My purpose then is to overcome the world. I do not attack it but My Light must dispel it because of what it is. Light does not attack darkness but It does shine it away. If My Light goes with You everywhere You shine it away with Me. The Light becomes Ours and You cannot abide in darkness any more than darkness can abide anywhere You go. The Remembrance of Me is the Remembrance of Yourself and of Him Who sent Me to You.

You were in darkness until God’s Will was done completely by any part of the Sonship. When it was it was perfectly accomplished by All. How else could it be perfectly accomplished? My mission was simply to unite the Will of the Sonship with the Will of the Father by being aware of the Father’s Will Myself. This is the awareness I came to give You and Your problem in accepting it is the problem of this world. Dispelling it is Salvation and in this sense I am the Salvation of the world.

The world must despise and reject Me because the world is the belief that Love is impossible. Your reactions to Me are the reactions of the world to God. If You will accept the fact that I am with You You are denying the world and accepting God. My Will is His and Your will to hear Me is the decision to hear His Voice and abide in His Will. As He sent Me to You so will I send You to others. But I will go to them with You so We can teach them union and Peace.

Do You not think the world needs Peace as much as You do? Do You not want to give it to the world as much as You want to receive it? For unless You do You will not receive it. If You will to have it of Me You must give it. Rehabilitation does not come from anyone else. You can have guidance from without but You must accept it from within. The guidance must become what You want or else it will be meaningless to You. That is why rehabilitation is a collaborative venture. I can tell You what to do but this will not really help You unless You collaborate by believing that I know what to do. Only then will Your mind will to follow Me.

Without Your will You cannot be rehabilitated. Motivation to be healed is the crucial factor in rehabilitation. Without this You are deciding against healing and Your veto of My will for You makes healing impossible. If healing is Our joint will unless Our wills are joined You cannot be healed. This is obvious when You consider what healing is for.

Healing is the way in which the separation is overcome. Separation is overcome by union. It cannot be overcome by separating. The will to unite must be unequivocal or the will itself is separated or not whole. Your will is the means by which You determine Your own condition because will is the mechanism of decision. It is the Power by which You separate or join and experience pain or Joy accordingly. My will cannot overcome Yours because Yours is as powerful as Mine. If it were not so the Sons of God would be unequal.

All things become possible through Our joint will. But My will alone will not help You. Your will is as free as Mine and God Himself would not go against it. I cannot will what God does not will. I can offer You My will to make Yours invincible by this sharing but I cannot oppose Yours without competing with it and thereby violating God’s Will for You. Nothing God created can oppose Your will as nothing God created can oppose His. God gave Your will its power which I can only acknowledge in honor of His.

If You want to be like Me I will help You knowing that We are alike. If You want to be different I will wait until You change Your mind. I can teach You but only You can choose to listen to My teaching. How else can it be if God’s Kingdom is freedom? Freedom cannot be learned by tyranny of any kind and the perfect equality of all God’s Sons cannot be recognized through the dominion of one will over another. God’s Sons are equal in will All being the Will of Their Father. This is the only lesson I can teach knowing that it is True.

When Your will is not Mine it is not Our Father’s. This means that You have imprisoned Yours and have not let it be free. Of Yourselves You can do nothing because of Yourselves You are nothing. I am nothing without the Father and You are nothing without Me because by denying the Father You deny Yourself. I will always remember You and in My Remembrance of You lies Your Remembrance of Yourself. In Our Remembrance of Each Other lies Our Remembrance of God. And in this Remembrance lies Your freedom because Your freedom is in Him.

Join then with Me in praise of Him and You Whom He created. This is Our gift of gratitude to Him which He will share with all His Creations to Whom He gives equally whatever is acceptable to Him. Because it is acceptable to Him it is the gift of freedom which is His Will for all His Sons. By offering freedom You will be free because freedom is the only gift which You can offer to God’s Sons being an acknowledgment of what they are and what He is.

Freedom is Creation because it is Love. What You seek to imprison You do not love. Therefore when You seek to imprison Anyone including Yourself You do not love Him and You cannot identify with Him. When You imprison Yourself You are losing sight of Your True identification because You cannot identify with Me and with the Father. Your identification is with the Father and with the Son. It cannot be with One and not the Other. If You are part of One You must be part of the Other because They are One.

The Holy Trinity is Holy because It is One. If You exclude Yourself from this union You are perceiving the Holy Trinity as separated. You must be included in It because It is everything. Unless You take Your Place in It and fulfill Your function as part of It It is as bereft as You are. No part of It can be imprisoned if Its Truth is to be known.

Can You be separated from Your identification and be at Peace? Dissociation is not a solution it is a delusion. The delusional believe that Truth will assail them and so they do not see It because they prefer the delusion. Judging Truth as something they do not want they perceive deception and block knowledge. Help them by offering them Your unified will on their behalf as I am offering You Mine on Yours. Alone We can do nothing but Together Our wills fuse into something whose Power is far beyond the Power of its separate parts.

By not being separate the Will of God is established in Ours and as Ours. This Will is invincible because It is undivided. The undivided Will of the Sonship is the perfect Creator being wholly in the likeness of God Whose Will it is. You cannot be exempt from it if You are to understand what it is and what You are. By separating Your will from Mine You are exempting Yourself from the Will of God which is Yourself.

But to heal is still to make whole. Therefore to heal is to unite with Those Who are like You because perceiving this likeness is to recognize the Father. If Your perfection is in Him, and only in Him, how can You know it without recognizing Him? The recognition of God is the recognition of Yourself. There is no separation of God and His Creation. You will learn this as You learn that there is no separation of Your will and Mine.

Let the Love of God shine upon You by Your acceptance of Me. My Reality is Yours and His. By joining Your will with Mine You are signifying Your awareness that the Will of God is One. His Oneness and Ours are not separate because His Oneness encompasses Ours. To join with Me is to restore His Power to You because We are sharing it. I offer You only the recognition of His Power in You but in that lies all Truth. As We unite We unite with Him. Glory be to the union of God and His Holy Sons because all glory lies in Them because They are united.

The Miracles We do bear witness to the Will of the Father for His Son and to Our Joy in uniting with His Will for Us. When You unite with Me You are uniting without the ego because I have renounced the ego in Myself and therefore cannot unite with Yours. Our union is therefore the way to renounce the ego in Yourselves. The Truth in Both of Us is beyond the ego. By willing that You have gone beyond it toward Truth.

Our success in transcending the ego is guaranteed by God and I can share My perfect confidence in His Promise because I know He gave Me this confidence for Both of Us and All of Us. I bring His Peace back to all His Children because I received it of Him for Us All. Nothing can prevail against Our united wills because nothing can prevail against God’s. Would Ye know the Will of God for You? Ask it of Me Who knows it for You and You will find it. I will deny You nothing as God denies Me nothing.

Ours is simply the journey back to God Who is Our Home. Whenever fear intrudes anywhere along the road to Peace it is always because the ego has attempted to join the journey with Us and cannot do so. Sensing defeat and angered by it it regards itself as rejected and becomes retaliative. You are invulnerable to its retaliation because I am with You. On this journey You have chosen Me as Your Companion instead of Your ego. Do not try to hold on to both or You will try to go in different directions and will lose the way.

The ego’s way is not Mine but it is also not Yours. The Holy Spirit has one direction for all minds and the one He taught Me is Yours. Let Us not lose sight of His direction through illusions for only illusions of another direction can obscure the one for which God’s Voice speaks in All of Us. Never accord the ego the Power to interfere with the journey because it has none and the journey is the way to what is True. Leave all deception behind and reach beyond all attempts of the ego to hold You back.

I do go before You because I am beyond the ego. Reach therefore for My Hand because You want to transcend the ego. My will will never be wanting and if You want to share it You will. I give it willingly and gladly because I need You as much as You need Me.

e. The Power of Joint Decision

We are the joint will of the Sonship Whose wholeness is for All. We begin the journey back by setting out Together and gather in Our Brothers as We continue Together.

Every gain in Our Strength is offered to All so They too can lay aside Their weakness and add Their Strength to Us. God’s Welcome waits for Us All and He will welcome Us as I am welcoming You. Forget not the Kingdom of God for anything the world has to offer. The world can add nothing to the Power and the glory of God and His Holy Sons but it can blind the Sons to the Father if they behold it. You cannot behold the world and know God. Only one is True.

I am come to tell You that the choice of which is True is not Yours. If it were You would have destroyed Yourselves. But God did not will the destruction of His Creations having created Them for Eternity. His Will has saved You, not from Yourselves but from Your illusions of Yourselves. He has saved You for Yourselves. Let Us glorify Him Whom the world denies for over His Kingdom it has no Power.

No one created by God can find Joy in anything except the Eternal. That is not because he is deprived of anything else but because nothing else is worthy of him. What God and His Sons create is eternal and in this, and this only, is their Joy. Listen to the story of the prodigal Son and learn what God’s Treasure is and Yours:

This son of a loving father left His home and thought He squandered everything for nothing of any value though he did not know its worthlessness at the time. He was ashamed to return to his father and his home because he thought he had hurt him. But when he came home the father welcomed him with Joy because only the son himself was his father’s Treasure. He wanted nothing else.

God wants only His Son because His Son is His only Treasure. You want Your Creations as He wants His. Your Creations are Your gift to the Holy Trinity created in gratitude for Your Creation. They do not leave You any more than You have left Your Creator. But They extend Your Creation as God extended Himself to You. Can the Creations of God Himself take Joy in what is not real? And what is real except the Creations of God and Those Which are created like His? Your Creations love You as Your Soul loves Your Father for the Gift of Creation. There is no other Gift that is eternal and therefore there is no other Gift that is True.

How then can You accept anything else or give anything else and expect Joy in return? And what else but Joy would You want? You made neither Yourself nor Your function. You have made only the decision to be unworthy of both. But You could not make Yourself unworthy because You are the Treasure of God. What He values is valuable. There can be no question of Its worth because Its whole value lies in God’s sharing Himself with It and establishing Its value forever. Your function is to add to God’s Treasure by creating Yours. His Will to You is His Will for You. He would not withhold Creation from You because His Joy is in It.

You cannot find Joy except as He does. His Joy lay in creating You and He extends His Fatherhood to You so that You can extend Yourself as He did. You do not understand this because You do not understand Him. No one who does not know His function can understand it. And no one can know his function unless he knows Who he is. Creation is the Will of God. His Will created You to create. Your will was not created separate from His and so it wills as He wills.

An unwilling will does not mean anything because it is a contradiction in terms which actually leaves nothing. You can make Yourself powerless only in a way that has no meaning at all. When You think You are unwilling to will with God You are not thinking. God’s Will is thought. It cannot be contradicted by thought. God does not contradict Himself. And His Sons Who are like Him cannot contradict Themselves or Him. But Their thought is so powerful that They can even imprison the Mind of God’s Son if They so choose. This choice does make the Son’s function unknown to Him but never to His Creator. And because it is not unknown to His Creator it is forever knowable to Him.

There is no question but one You should ever ask of Yourself: Do I want to know My Father’s Will for Me? He will not hide it. He has revealed it to Me because I asked it of Him and learned of what He had already given. Our function is to function Together because apart from Each Other We cannot function at all. The whole Power of God’s Son lies in All of Us but not in any of Us alone. God would not have Us be alone because He does not will to be alone. That is why He created His Son and gave Him the Power to create with Him.

Our Creations are as Holy as We are and We are the Sons of God Himself and therefore as Holy as He is. Through Our Creations We extend Our Love and thus increase the Joy of the Holy Trinity. You do not understand this for a very simple reason: You Who are God’s own Treasure do not regard Yourselves as valuable. Given this belief You cannot understand anything.

I share with God the knowledge of the value He puts upon You. My devotion to You is of Him being born of My knowledge of Myself and Him. We cannot be separated. Whom God has joined cannot be separated and God has joined all His Sons with Himself. Can You be separated from Your Life and Your being? The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of Where You are always and What You are forever. It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed.

Truth can only be experienced. It cannot be described and It cannot be explained. I can make You aware of the conditions of Truth but the experience is of God. Together We can meet Its conditions but Truth will dawn upon You of Itself. What God has willed for You is Yours. He has given His Will to His Treasure Whose Treasure It is. Your Heart lies where Your Treasure is as His does. You Who are beloved of God are wholly blessed. Learn this of Me and free the Holy Will of all Those Who are as blessed as You are.

f. Communication and the egobody Equation

Attack is always physical. When attack in any form enters Your mind You are equating Yourself with a body. This is the ego’s interpretation of the body. You do not have to attack physically to accept this interpretation You are accepting it simply by the belief that attack can get You something You want. If You did not believe this the idea of attack would have no appeal to You.

When You equate Yourself with a body You will always experience depression. When a Child of God thinks of himself in this way he is belittling himself and seeing his Brothers as similarly belittled. Since he can find himself only in Them he has cut himself off from Salvation. Remember that the Holy Spirit interprets the body only as a means of communication. Being the communication link between God and His separated Sons He interprets everything You have in the Light of what He is.

The ego separates through the body. The Holy Spirit reaches through it to others. You do not perceive Your Brothers as the Holy Spirit does because You do not interpret their bodies and Yours solely as a means of joining their minds and uniting them with Yours and Mine. This interpretation of the body will change Your mind entirely about its value. Of itself it has none. If You use it for attack it is harmful to You. But if You use it only to reach the minds of those who believe they are bodies and teach them through the body that this is not so You will begin to understand the Power of the Mind That is in Both of You. If You use the body for this, and only for this, You cannot use it for attack.

In the service of uniting it becomes a beautiful lesson in Communion which has value until Communion is. This is God’s way of making unlimited what You have limited. His Voice does not see the body as You do because He knows the only Reality that anything can have is the service it can render God on behalf of the function He has given. Communication ends separation. Attack promotes it. The body is ugly or beautiful, savage or Holy, helpful or harmful according to the use to which it is put. And in the body of Another You will see the use to which You put Yours.

If the body becomes for You a means which You give to the Holy Spirit to use on behalf of the union of the Sonship You will not see anything physical except as what it is. Use it for Truth and You will see it Truly. Misuse it and You will misunderstand it because You have already done so by misusing it. Interpret anything apart from the Holy Spirit and You will mistrust it. This will lead You to hatred and attack and loss of Peace.

But all loss comes only from Your own misunderstanding. Loss of any kind is impossible. When You look upon a Brother as a physical entity His Power and glory are lost to You and so are Yours. You have attacked Him and You must have attacked Yourself first. Do not see Him this way for Your own Salvation which must bring Him His. Do not allow Him to belittle Himself in Your mind but give Him freedom from His belief in littleness and escape from Yours. As part of You He is Holy. As part of Me You are. To communicate with part of God Himself is to reach beyond the Kingdom to its Creator through His Voice which He has established as part of You.

Rejoice then that of Yourselves You can do nothing. You are not of Yourselves. And He of Whom You are has willed Your Power and glory for You with which You can perfectly accomplish His Holy Will for You when You so will it Yourself. He has not withdrawn His Gifts from You but You have withdrawn them from Him. Let no Son of God remain hidden for His name’s sake because His name is Yours.

Remember that the Bible says: “The word, or thought, was made flesh.” Strictly speaking this is impossible since it seems to involve the translation of one order of Reality into another. Different orders of Reality merely seem to exist just as different orders of Miracles do. Thought cannot be made into flesh except by belief because thought is not physical. But thought is communication for which the body can be used. This is the only natural use to which it can be put. To use the body unnaturally is to lose sight of the Holy Spirit’s purpose and thus to confuse the goal of His Curriculum.

There is nothing so frustrating to a Learner as to place Him in a curriculum which He cannot learn. His sense of adequacy suffers and He must become depressed. Being faced with an impossible learning situation regardless of why it is impossible is the most depressing thing in the world. In fact it is ultimately why the world is depressing. The Holy Spirit’s Curriculum is never depressing because It is a Curriculum in Joy. Whenever the reaction to learning is depression it is only because the goal of the Curriculum has been lost sight of.

In the world not even the body is perceived as whole. Its purpose is seen as fragmented into many functions which bear little or no relationship to each other so that it appears to be ruled by chaos. Guided by the ego it is. Guided by the Holy Spirit it is not. It becomes only a means by which the part of the mind which You have separated from Your Soul can reach beyond its distortions and return to the Soul. The ego’s temple thus becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit where devotion to Him replaces devotion to the ego. In this sense the body does become a temple to God because His Voice abides in it by directing the use to which You put it.

Healing is the result of using the body solely for communication. Since this is natural it heals by making whole which is also natural. All mind is whole and the belief that part of it is physical, or not mind, is a fragmented, or sick, interpretation. Mind cannot be made physical but it can be made manifest through the physical if it uses the body to go beyond itself. By reaching out the mind extends itself. It does not stop at the body for if it does it is blocked in its purpose. A mind which has been blocked has allowed itself to be vulnerable to attack because it has turned against itself.

The removal of blocks then is the only way to guarantee help and healing. Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind which is working through the body but not in it. If the mind believes the body is its goal it will distort its perception of the body and by blocking its own extension beyond it will induce illness by fostering separation. Perceiving the body as a separate entity cannot but foster illness because it is not True. A medium of communication will lose its usefulness if it is used for anything else.

To use a medium of communication as a medium of attack is an obvious confusion in purpose. To communicate is to join and to attack is to separate. How can You do both simultaneously with the same thing and not suffer? Perception of the body can be unified only by one purpose. This releases the mind from the temptation to see it in many lights and gives it over entirely to the One Light in Which it can be really understood at all.

To confuse a learning device with a curriculum goal is a fundamental confusion. Learning can hardly be meaningfully arrested at its own aids and hope to understand them or its real purpose. Learning must lead beyond the body to the reestablishment of the Power of the mind in it. This can be accomplished only if the mind extends to other minds and does not arrest itself in its extension. The arrest of the mind’s extension is the cause of all illness because only extension is the mind’s function. Block this and You have blocked health because You have blocked the mind’s Joy.

The opposite of Joy is depression. When Your learning promotes depression instead of Joy You cannot be listening to God’s joyous Teacher and You must be learning amiss. To see a body as anything except a means of pure extension is to limit Your mind and hurt Yourself. Health is therefore nothing more than united purpose. If the body is brought under the purpose of the mind it becomes whole because the mind’s purpose is one.

Attack can only be an assumed goal of the body but the body apart from the mind has no purpose at all. You are not limited by the body and thought cannot be made flesh. But mind can be manifested through the body if it goes beyond it and does not interpret it as limitation. Whenever You see another as limited to, or by, the body You are imposing this limit on Yourself. Are You willing to accept this when Your whole purpose for learning should be to escape from limitations?

To conceive of the body as a means of attack of any kind and to entertain even the possibility that Joy could possibly result is a clearcut indication of a poor learner. He has accepted a learning goal in obvious contradiction to the unified purpose of the Curriculum and is interfering with His ability to accept it as His own. Joy is unified purpose and unified purpose is only God’s. When Yours is unified it is His. Interfere with His purpose and You need Salvation. You have condemned Yourself but condemnation is not of God. Therefore it is not True. No more are any of the results of Your condemnation. When You see a Brother as a body You are condemning Him because You have condemned Yourself. But if all condemnation is unreal, and it must be unreal because it is a form of attack, then it can have no results.

Do not allow Yourselves to suffer from the results of what is not True. Free Your minds from the belief that this is possible. In its complete impossibility and Your full awareness of its complete impossibility lies Your only hope for release. But what other hope would You want? Freedom from illusions lies only in not believing them. Where are they without Your belief? There is no attack but there is unlimited communication and therefore unlimited Power and wholeness. The Power of wholeness is extension. Do not arrest Your thought in this world and You will open Your mind to Creation in God.

g. The Body as Means or End

Attitudes toward the body are attitudes toward attack. The ego’s definitions of anything are childish and are always based on what it believes a thing is for. This is because it is incapable of True generalizations and equates what it sees with the function it ascribes to it. It does not equate it with what it is. To the ego the body is to attack with. Equating You with the body it teaches that You are to attack with because this is what it believes. The body then is not the source of its own health. Its condition lies solely in Your interpretation of its function.

The reason why definitions by function are inferior is merely because they may well be inaccurate. Functions are part of being since they arise from it. But the relationship is not reciprocal. The whole does define the part but the part does not define the whole. This is as True of knowledge as it is of perception. The reason why to know in part is to know entirely is merely because of the fundamental difference between knowledge and perception. In perception the whole is built up of parts which can separate and reassemble in different constellations. Knowledge never changes so that its constellation is permanent. The only areas in which partwhole relationships have any meaning are those in which change is possible. There is no difference between the whole and the part where change is impossible.

The body exists in a world which seems to contain two voices which are fighting for its possession. In this perceived constellation the body is regarded as capable of shifting its control from one to the other making the concept of both health and sickness possible. The ego makes a fundamental confusion between means and ends as it always does. Regarding the body as an end it has no real use for it at all because it is not an end. You must have noticed an outstanding characteristic of every end that the ego has accepted as its own. When You have achieved it it has not satisfied You. This is why the ego is forced to shift from one end to another without ceasing so that You will continue to hope it can offer You something.

It has been particularly difficult to overcome the ego’s belief in the body as an end because this is synonymous with attack as an end. The ego has a real investment in sickness. If You are sick how can You object to the ego’s firm belief that You are not invulnerable? This is a particularly appealing argument from the ego’s point of view because it obscures the obvious attack which underlies the sickness. If You accepted this and also decided against attack You could not give this false witness to the ego’s stand. It is hard to perceive this as a false witness because You do not realize that it is entirely out of keeping with what You want. This witness then appears to be innocent and trustworthy only because You have not seriously crossexamined him.

If You did You would not consider sickness such a strong witness on behalf of the ego’s views. A more honest statement would be as follows: Those who want the ego are predisposed to defend it. Therefore their choice of witnesses should be suspect from the beginning. The ego does not call upon witnesses who might disagree with its case nor does the Holy Spirit. We have said before that judgment is the function of the Holy Spirit and one which He is perfectly equipped to fulfill. The ego as a judge gives anything but an impartial trial or judgment. When the ego calls on a witness it has already made it an ally. It is still True that the body has no function of itself. This is because it is not an end. The ego however establishes it as an end because as such it will lose its True function.

This is the purpose of everything the ego does. Its sole aim is to lose sight of the functions of everything. A sick body does not make any sense. It could not make any sense since sickness is not what it is for. Sickness is meaningful only if the two basic premises on which the ego’s interpretation of the body rests are True. These are specifically first that the body is for attack and also that You are a body. Without this sickness is completely inconceivable. Sickness is a way of demonstrating that You can be hurt. It is a witness to Your frailty, Your vulnerability and Your extreme need to depend on external guidance. The ego uses this as its best argument for Your need for its guidance. It dictates endless prescriptions for avoiding this catastrophic outcome. The Holy Spirit, perfectly aware of the same data, does not bother to analyze it at all. If the data are meaningless there is no point in treating them at all.

The function of Truth is to collect data which are True. There is no point in trying to make sense out of meaningless data. Any way they are handled results in nothing. The more complicated the results become the harder it may be to recognize their nothingness but it is not necessary to examine all possible outcomes to which premises give rise to judge the premises Truly.

A learning device is not a teacher. It cannot tell You how You feel. You do not know how You feel because You have accepted the ego’s confusion and You think a learning device can tell You how You feel. Sickness is merely another example of Your insistence on asking for guidance of a teacher who does not know the answer. The ego is incapable of knowing how You feel. When We said that the ego does not know anything We said the one thing about the ego that is wholly True. But there is a corollary [logischer Folgesatz]: If knowledge is being and the ego has no knowledge then the ego has no being.

You might ask how the voice of something which does not exist can be so insistent. Have You ever seriously considered the distorting Power of something You want even if it is not True? You have had many instances of how what You want can distort what You see and hear. No one can doubt the ego’s skill in building up false cases. And no one can doubt Your willingness to listen until You will not to tolerate anything except Truth.

When You lay the ego aside it will be gone. The Holy Spirit’s Voice is as loud as Your willingness to listen. It cannot be louder without violating Your will which He seeks to free but never to command. He will teach You to use Your body only to reach Your Brothers so He can teach His Message through You. This will heal them and therefore heal You. Everything used in accordance with its function as He sees it cannot be sick. Everything used otherwise is.

Do not allow the body to be a mirror of a split mind. Do not let it be an image of Your own perception of littleness. Do not let it reflect Your will to attack. Health is the natural state of anything whose interpretation is left to the Holy Spirit Who perceives no attack on anything. Health is the result of relinquishing all attempts to use the body lovelessly. It is the beginning of the proper perspective on Life under the guidance of the one Teacher Who knows what Life is being the Voice for Life Itself.

h. Healing as Corrected Perception

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

Only perception can be sick because perception can be wrong. Wrong perception is distorted willing which wants things to be as they are not. The Reality of everything is totally harmless because total harmlessness is the condition of its Reality. It is also the condition of Your awareness of its Reality. You do not have to seek Reality. It will seek You and find You when You meet its conditions. Its conditions are part of what it is. And this part only is up to You. The rest is of itself. You need do so little because it is so powerful that Your little part will bring the whole to You. Accept then Your little part and let the whole be Yours. Wholeness heals because it is of the mind.

All forms of sickness, even unto death, are physical expressions of the fear of awakening. They are attempts to reinforce unconsciousness out of fear of consciousness. This is a pathetic way of trying not to know by rendering the faculties for knowing ineffectual. “Rest in Peace” is a Blessing for the Living, not the dead because rest comes from waking, not from sleeping. Sleep is withdrawing waking is joining. Dreams are illusions of joining taking on the ego’s distortions about what joining means if You are sleeping under its guidance. But the Holy Spirit too has use for sleep and can use dreams on behalf of waking if You will let Him.

How You wake is the sign of how You have used sleep. To whom did You give it? Under which teacher did You place it? Whenever You wake disspiritedly it was not of the Spirit. Only when You awaken joyously have You utilized sleep according to the Holy Spirit’s purpose. You can indeed be “drugged by sleep” but this is always because You have misused it on behalf of sickness. Sleep is no more a form of death than death is a form of unconsciousness. Unconsciousness is impossible. You can rest in Peace only because You are awake.

Healing is release from the fear of waking and the substitution of the will to wake. The will to wake is the will to love since all healing involves replacing fear with Love. The Holy Spirit cannot distinguish among degrees of error for if He taught that one form of sickness is more serious than another He would be teaching that one error can be more real than another. But His function is to distinguish only between the false and the True replacing the false with the True.

The ego which always weakens the will wants to separate the body from the mind. This is an attempt to destroy it. But the ego actually believes that it is protecting it. This is because it believes that mind is dangerous and that to make mindless is to heal. But to make mindless is impossible since it would mean to make nothing out of what God created. The ego despises weakness even though it makes every effort to induce it. It wants only what it hates. To the ego this is perfectly sensible. Believing in the power of attack it wants it.

You have begun to realize that This is a very practical Course because It means exactly what It says. So does the Bible if it is properly understood. There has been a marked tendency on the part of many of the Bible’s followers, and also its translators, to be entirely literal about fear and its effects but not about Love and Its results. Thus “hellfire” means burning but raising the dead becomes allegorical. Actually it is particularly the references to the outcomes of Love that should be taken literally because the Bible is about Love being about God.

The Bible enjoins You to be perfect, to heal all errors, to take no thought of the body as separate and to accomplish all things in My name. This is not My name alone for Ours is a shared identification. The name of God’s Son is One and You are enjoined to do the works of Love because We share this Oneness. Our Minds are whole because They are One. If You are sick You are withdrawing from Me. But You cannot withdraw from Me alone. You can only withdraw from Yourself and Me.

I would not ask You to do things which You cannot do and it is impossible that I could do things You cannot do. Given this, and given this quite literally, there can be nothing which prevents You from doing exactly what I ask and everything which argues for it. I give You no limits because God lays none upon You. When You limit Yourself We are not of one mind and that is sickness. But sickness is not of the body but of the mind. All forms of disfunction are merely signs that the mind has split and does not accept a unified purpose.

The Unification of purpose then is the Holy Spirit’s only way of healing. This is because it is the only level at which healing means anything. The reestablishing 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.

i. The Acceptance of Reality

Fear of the Will of God is one of the strangest beliefs that the human mind has ever made. This could not possibly have occurred unless the mind was already profoundly split making it possible for it to be afraid of what it really is. It is apparent that Reality cannot “threaten” anything except illusions because Reality can only uphold Truth. The very fact that the Will of God Which is what You are is perceived as fearful to You demonstrates that You are afraid of what You are. It is not then the Will of God of which You are afraid but Yours. Your Will is not the ego’s and that is why the ego is against You. What seems to be the fear of God is really only the fear of Your own Reality.

It is impossible to learn anything consistently in a state of panic. If the purpose of This Course is to learn what You are and if You have already decided that what You are is fearful then it must follow that You will not learn This Course. But You might remember that the reason for The Course is that You do not know Who You are. If You do not know Your Reality how would You know whether it is fearful or not? The association of Truth and fear, which would be highly artificial at best, is particularly inappropriate in the minds of those who do not know what Truth is. All that this kind of association means is that You are arbitrarily endowing something quite beyond Your awareness with something You do not want.

It is evident then that You are judging something of which You are totally unaware. You have set this strange situation up so that it is completely impossible to escape from it without a Guide Who does know what Your Reality is. The purpose of this Guide is merely to remind You of what You want. He is not attempting to force an alien will upon You. He is merely making every possible effort within the limits You impose upon Him to reestablish Your own Will in Your consciousness. You have imprisoned it in Your unconscious where it remains available but cannot help You. When We said that the Holy Spirit’s function is to sort out the True from the false in Your unconscious We meant that He has the Power to look into what You have hidden and perceive the Will of God there.

His perception of this Will can make it real to You because He is in Your mind and therefore He is Your Reality. If then His perception of Your mind brings its Reality to You He is teaching You what You are. The only source of fear in this whole process can only be what You think You lose. But it is only what the Holy Spirit sees that You can possibly have. We have emphasized many times that the Holy Spirit will never call upon You to sacrifice anything. But if You ask the sacrifice of Reality of Yourselves the Holy Spirit must remind You that this is not God’s Will because it is not Yours.

There is no difference between Your will and God’s. If You did not have divided wills You would recognize that willing is Salvation because it is communication. It is impossible to communicate in alien tongues. You and Your Creator can communicate through Creation because that, and only that, is Your joint Will. Divided wills do not communicate because they speak for different things to the same mind. This loses the ability to communicate simply because confused communication does not mean anything. A message cannot be said to be communicated unless it makes sense.

How sensible can Your messages be when they ask for what You don’t want? Yet as long as You are afraid of Your Will this is precisely what You will ask for. You may insist that the Holy Spirit does not answer You but it might be wiser to consider the kind of Asker You are. You do not ask only for what You want. This is solely because You are afraid You might receive it and You would. This is really why You persist in asking the teacher who could not possibly teach You Your Will. Of him You can never learn it and this gives You the illusion of safety. But You cannot be safe from Truth but only in It. Reality is the only safety.

Your Will is Your Salvation because it is the same as God’s. The separation is nothing more than the belief that it is different. No mind can believe that Its will is stronger than God’s. If then a mind believes that its will is different from His it can only decide either that there is no God or that God’s Will is fearful. The former accounts for the atheist and the latter for the martyr. Martyrdom takes many forms the category including all doctrines which hold that God demands sacrifices of any kind.

Either basic type of insane decision will induce panic because the atheist believes He is alone and the martyr believes that God is crucifying Him. Both really fear both abandonment and retaliation but the former is more reactive against abandonment and the latter against retaliation. The atheist maintains that God has left Him but He does not care. He will however become very fearful and hence very angry if Anyone suggests that God has not left Him. The martyr on the other hand is more aware of guilt and believing that punishment is inevitable attempts to teach Himself to like it.

The Truth is very simply that no one wants either abandonment or retaliation. Many people seek both but it is still True that they do not want it. Can You ask the Holy Spirit for “gifts” such as these and actually expect to receive them? The Holy Spirit is totally incapable of giving You anything that does not come from God. His task is not to make anything for You. He cannot make You want something You don’t want. When You ask the universal Giver for what You do not want You are asking for what cannot be given because it was never created. It was never created because it was never Your Will for You.

Ultimately Everyone must learn the Will of God because ultimately Everyone must recognize Himself. This recognition is the recognition that His Will and God’s are One. In the presence of Truth there are no unbelievers and no sacrifices. In the security of Reality fear is totally meaningless. To deny what is can only seem to be fearful. Fear cannot be real without a cause and God is the only Cause. God is Love and You do want Him. This is Your Will. Ask for This and You will be answered because You will be asking only for what belongs to You.

When You ask the Holy Spirit for what would hurt You He cannot answer because nothing can hurt You and so You are asking for nothing. Any desire which stems from the ego is a desire for nothing and to ask for it is not a request. It is merely a denial in the form of a request. The Holy Spirit is not concerned with form at all being aware only of meaning. The ego cannot ask the Holy Spirit for anything because there is complete communication failure between them. But You can ask for everything of the Holy Spirit because Your requests are real being of Your will. Would the Holy Spirit deny the Will of God? And could He fail to recognize it in God’s Sons?

The energy which You withdraw from Creation You expend on fear. This is not because Your energy is limited but because You have limited it. You do not recognize the enormous waste of energy which You expend in denying Truth. What would You say of Someone Who persisted in attempting the impossible and believed that to achieve it is success? The belief that You must have the impossible in order to be happy is totally at variance with the principle of Creation. God could not will that happiness depended on what You could never have.

The fact that God is Love does not require belief but it does require acceptance. It is indeed possible for You to deny facts although it is impossible for You to change them. If You hold Your hands over Your eyes You will not see because You are interfering with the laws of seeing. If You deny Love You will not know It because Your cooperation is the law of Its being. You cannot change laws You did not make and the laws of happiness were created for You, not by You.

Attempts of any kind to deny what is are fearful and if they are strong they will induce panic. Willing against Reality though impossible can be made into a very persistent goal even though You do not want it. But consider the result of this strange decision. You are devoting Your mind to what You do not want. How real can this devotion be? If You do not want it it was never created. If it was never created it is nothing. Can You really devote Yourself to nothing?

God in His devotion to You created You devoted to everything and gave You what You are devoted to. Otherwise You would not have been created perfect. Reality is everything and You therefore have everything because You are real. You cannot make the unreal because the absence of Reality is fearful and fear cannot be created. As long as You believe that fear is possible You will not create. Opposing orders of Reality make Reality meaningless and Reality is meaning.

Remember then that God’s Will is already possible and nothing else will ever be. This is the simple acceptance of Reality because only this is real. You cannot distort Reality and know what it is. And if You do distort Reality You will experience anxiety, depression and ultimately panic because You are trying to make Yourself unreal. When You feel these things do not try to look beyond Yourself for Truth for Truth can only be within You. Say therefore:

Christ is in Me
And where He is God must be
For Christ is part of Him.

j. The Answer to Prayer

Everyone Who has ever tried to use Prayer to request something has experienced what appears to be failure. This is not only True in connection with specific things which might be harmful but also in connection with requests which are strictly in line with This Course. The latter in particular might be incorrectly interpreted as “proof” that The Course does not mean what It says. But You must remember that The Course does state, and repeatedly, that Its purpose is the escape from fear.

Let Us suppose then that what You request of the Holy Spirit is what You really want but that You are still afraid of it. Should this be the case Your attainment of it would no longer be what You want even if it is. This accounts for why certain specific forms of healing are not achieved even though the state of healing is. It frequently happens that an individual asks for physical healing because he is fearful of bodily harm. However at the same time if he were healed physically the threat to his thought system would be considerably more fearful to him than its physical expression. In this case he is not really asking for release from fear but for the removal of a symptom which he has selected. This request is therefore not for healing at all.

The Bible emphasizes that all Prayers are answered and this must be True if no effort is wasted. The very fact that One has asked the Holy Spirit for anything will ensure a response. But it is equally certain that no response given by the Holy Spirit will ever be one which would increase fear. It is even possible that His Answer will not be heard at all. It is impossible however that It will be lost. There are many Answers which You have already received but have not yet heard. I assure You that They are waiting for You. It is indeed True that no effort is wasted.

If You would know Your Prayers are answered never doubt a Son of God. Do not question Him and do not confound Him for Your faith in Him is Your faith in Yourself. If You would know God and His Answer believe in Me Whose faith in You cannot be shaken. Can You ask of the Holy Spirit Truly and doubt Your Brother? Believe His words are True because of the Truth Which is in Him. You will unite with the Truth in Him and His words will be True. As You hear Him You will hear Me.

Listening to Truth is the only way You can hear It now and finally know It. The Message Your Brother gives You is up to You. What does He say to You? What would You have Him say? Your decision about Him determines the Message You receive. Remember that the Holy Spirit is in Him and His Voice speaks to You through Him. What can so Holy a Brother tell You except Truth? But are You listening to It?

Your Brother may not know Who He is but there is a Light in His Mind Which does know. This Light can shine into Yours making His words True and You able to hear them. His words are the Holy Spirit’s Answer to You. Is Your faith in Him strong enough to let You listen and hear? Salvation is of Your Brother. The Holy Spirit extends from Your mind to His and answers You. You cannot hear the Voice for God in Yourself alone because You are not alone. And His Answer is only for What You are.

You will not know the trust I have in You unless You extend it. You will not trust the guidance of the Holy Spirit or believe that it is for You unless You hear it in Others. It must be for Your Brother because it is for You. Would God have created a Voice for You alone? Could You hear His Answer except as He answers all of God’s Sons? Hear of Your Brother what You would have Me hear of You for You would not want Me to be deceived.

I love You for the Truth in You as God does. Your deceptions may deceive You but they cannot deceive Me. Knowing What You are I cannot doubt You. I hear only the Holy Spirit in You Who speaks to Me through You. If You would hear Me hear My Brothers in Whom God’s Voice speaks. The Answer to all Your Prayers lies in Them. You will be answered as You hear the Answer in Everyone. Do not listen to anything else or You will not hear Truth.

Believe in Your Brothers because I believe in You and You will learn that My belief in You is justified. Believe in Me by believing in Them for the sake of What God gave Them. They will answer You if You learn to ask Truth of Them. Do not ask for Blessings without blessing Them for only in this way can You learn how blessed You are. By following this way You are looking for the Truth in You. This is not going beyond Yourself but toward Yourself. Hear only God’s Answer in His Sons and You are answered.

To disbelieve is to side against or to attack. To believe is to accept and side with. To believe is not to be credulous but to accept and appreciate. What You do not believe You do not appreciate and You cannot be grateful for what You do not value. There is a price You will pay for judgment because judgment is the setting of price. And as You set it You will pay it.

If paying is equated with getting You will set the price low but demand a high return. But You will have forgotten that to price is to value so that Your return is in proportion to Your judgment of worth. If paying is associated with giving it cannot be perceived as loss and the reciprocal relationship of giving and receiving will be recognized. The price will then be set high because of the value of the return.

To price for getting is to lose sight of value making it inevitable that You will not value what You receive. Valuing it little You will not appreciate it and You will not want it. Never forget then that You have set the value on what You receive and have priced it by what You give. To believe that it is possible to get much for little is to believe that You can bargain with God.

God’s laws are always fair and perfectly consistent. By giving You receive. But to receive is to accept, not to get. It is impossible not to have but it is possible not to know You have. The recognition of having is the willingness for giving and only by this willingness can You recognize what You have. What You give is therefore the value You put on what You have being the exact measure of the value You put upon it. And this in turn is the measure of how much You want it.

You can ask of the Holy Spirit then only by giving to Him. And You can give to Him only where You see Him. If You see Him in Everyone consider how much You will be asking of Him and how much You will receive. He will deny You nothing because You have denied Him nothing and so You can share everything. This is the way, and the only way, to have His Answer because His Answer is all You can ask for and want. Say then to Everyone:

Because I will to know Myself
I see You as God’s Son and My Brother.

Chapter 9 – The Correction of Error

a. Sanity and Perception

When You react at all to errors You are not listening to the Holy Spirit. He has merely disregarded them and if You attend to them You are not hearing Him. If You do not hear Him You are listening to Your ego and making as little sense as the Brother whose errors You perceive. This cannot be correction. But it is more than merely lack of correction for him. It is the giving up of correction in Yourself.

When a Brother behaves insanely You can heal him only by perceiving the sanity in him. If You perceive his errors and accept them You are accepting Yours. If You want to give Yours over to the Holy Spirit You must do this with his. Unless this becomes the one way in which You handle all errors You cannot understand how all errors are undone. How is this different from telling You that what You teach You learn? Your Brother is as right as You are. And if You think he is wrong You are condemning Yourself.

You cannot correct Yourself. Is it possible then for You to correct another? But You can see him Truly because it is possible for You to see Yourself Truly. It is not up to You to change him but merely to accept him as he is. His errors do not come from the Truth That is in him and only this Truth is Yours. His errors cannot change this and can have no effect at all on the Truth in You.

To perceive errors in anyone and to react to them as if they were real is to make them real to You. You will not escape paying the price for this, not because You are being punished for it but because You are following the wrong guide and will lose Your way. Your Brother’s errors are not of him any more than Yours are of You. Accept his errors as real and You have attacked Yourself. If You would find Your way and keep it see only Truth beside You for You walk together.

The Holy Spirit in You forgives all things in You and Your Brother. His errors are forgiven with Yours. Atonement is no more separate than Love. It cannot be separate because It comes from Love. Any attempt You make to correct a Brother means that You believe correction by You is possible and this can only be the arrogance of the ego. Correction is of God Who does not know of arrogance. The Holy Spirit forgives everything because God created everything. Do not undertake His function or You will forget Yours.

Accept only the function of healing in time because that is what time is for. God gave You the function to create in Eternity. You do not need to learn this. But You do need to learn to want this and for this all learning was made. This is the Holy Spirit’s good use of an ability which You do not need but which You have made. Give it to Him, You do not know how to use it. He will teach You how to see Yourself without condemnation by learning how to look on everything without it. Condemnation will then not be real to You and all Your errors will be forgiven.

b. Atonement as a Lesson in Sharing

Atonement is for All because it is the way to undo the belief that anything is for You alone. To forgive is to overlook. Look then beyond error and do not let Your perception rest upon it for You will believe what Your perception holds. Accept as True only what Your Brother is if You would know Yourself. Perceive what he is not and You cannot know what You are because You see him falsely. Remember always that Your Identity is shared and that its sharing is its Reality.

You have a part to play in the Atonement. But the plan of the Atonement is beyond You. You do not know how to overlook errors or You would not make them. It would merely be further error to think either that You do not make them or that You can correct them without a Guide to correction. And if You do not follow this Guide Your errors will not be corrected. The plan is not Yours because of Your limited ideas about what You are. But this limitation is where all errors arise. The way to undo them is therefore not of You but for You.

The Atonement is a lesson in sharing which is given You because You have forgotten how to do it. The Holy Spirit merely reminds You of what is Your natural ability. By reinterpreting the ability to attack, which You did make, into the ability to share He translates what You have made into what God created. But if You would accomplish this through Him You cannot look on Your abilities through the eyes of the ego or You will judge them as it does. All their harmfulness lies in its judgment. All their helpfulness lies in the judgment of the Holy Spirit.

The ego has a plan of forgiveness because You are asking for one but not of the right teacher. The ego’s plan of course makes no sense and will not work. By following it You will merely place Yourself in an impossible situation to which the ego always leads You. Its plan is to have You see error clearly first and then overlook it. But how can You overlook what You have made real? By seeing it clearly You have made it real and cannot overlook it.

This is where the ego is forced into appealing to mysteries and begins to insist that You accept the meaningless to save Yourself. Many have tried to do this in My name forgetting that My Words make perfect sense because They come from God. They are as sensible now as They ever were because They speak of ideas which are eternal. Forgiveness that is learned of Me does not use fear to undo fear. Nor does it make real the unreal and then destroy it.

Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning and thus keeping it unreal for You. Do not let any belief in its realness enter Your minds at all or You will also believe that You must undo what You have made in order to be forgiven. What has no effect does not exist and to the Holy Spirit the effects of error are totally nonexistent. By steadily and consistently cancelling out all its effects, everywhere and in all respects, He teaches that the ego does not exist and proves it.

Follow His teaching in forgiveness then because forgiveness is His function and He knows how to fulfill it perfectly. That is what We meant when We once said that Miracles are natural and when They do not occur something has gone wrong. Miracles are merely the sign of Your willingness to follow His plan of Salvation in recognition of the fact that You do not know what it is. His work is not Your function and unless You accept this You cannot learn what Your function is.

The confusion of functions is so typical of the ego that You should be quite familiar with it by now. The ego believes that all functions belong to it even though it has no idea what they are. This is more than mere confusion. It is a particularly dangerous combination of grandiosity and confusion that makes it likely that the ego will attack Anyone and anything for no reason at all. This is exactly what it does. It is totally unpredictable in its responses because it has no idea what it heard.

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

Anyone Who elects a totally insane guide must be totally insane Himself. It is not True that You do not know the guide is insane. You know it because I know it and You have judged it by the same Standard as I have. The ego literally lives on borrowed time and its days are numbered. Do not fear the Last Judgment but welcome it and do not wait for the ego’s time is borrowed from Your Eternity.

This is the Second Coming which was made for You as the First was created. The Second Coming is merely the return of sense. Can this possibly be fearful? What can be fearful but fantasy and no one turns to fantasy unless he despairs of satisfaction in Reality. But it is certain that he will never find satisfaction in fantasy so that his only hope is to change his mind about Reality. Only if the decision that Reality is fearful is wrong can God be right. And I assure You that God is right.

Be glad then that You have been wrong but this was only because You did not know Who You were. Had You remembered You could no more have been wrong than God can. The impossible can happen only in fantasy. When You search for Reality in fantasies You will not find it. The symbols of fantasy are of the ego and of these You will find many. But do not look for meaning in them. They have no more meaning than the fantasies into which they are woven.

Fairy tales can be pleasant or fearful, pretty or ugly but no one calls them True. Children may believe them and so for a while they are True for them. But when Reality dawns they are gone. Reality has not gone in the meanwhile. The Second Coming is the awareness of Reality, not its return. Behold, My Children, Reality is Here. It belongs to You and Me and God and is perfectly satisfying to All of Us. Only this awareness heals because it is the awareness of Truth.

c. The Unhealed Healer

The ego’s plan for forgiveness is far more widely used than God’s. This is because it is undertaken by unhealed healers and is therefore of the ego. Let Us consider the unhealed healer more carefully now. By definition he is trying to give what he has not received. If he is a theologian he may begin with the premise [Grundannahme]: “I am a miserable sinner and so are You.” If he is a psychotherapist he is more likely to start with the equally incredible idea that he really believes in attack and so does the patient but it does not matter in either case.

We have repeatedly stated that beliefs of the ego cannot be shared and this is why they are not real. How then can uncovering them make them real? Every healer who searches fantasies for Truth must be unhealed because he does not know where to look for Truth and therefore does not have the Answer to the problem of healing. There is an advantage to bringing nightmares into awareness but only to teach that they are not real and that anything they contain is meaningless. The unhealed healer cannot do this because he does not believe it.

All unhealed healers follow the ego’s plan for forgiveness in one form or another. If they are theologians they are likely to condemn themselves teach condemnation and advocate a very fearful solution. Projecting condemnation onto God they make Him retaliative and fear His retribution. What they have done is merely to identify with the ego and by perceiving clearly what it does condemn themselves because of this profound confusion.

It is understandable that there has been a revolt against this concept but to revolt against it is still to believe in it. The form of the revolt then is different but not the content. The new form of the ego’s plan is as unhelpful as the older one because form does not matter to the Holy Spirit and therefore does not matter at all. According to the newer forms of the plan the therapist interprets the ego’s symbols in the nightmare and uses them to prove the nightmare is real. Having made it real he then attempts to dispel its effects by depreciating [abwerten] the importance of the Dreamer.

This would be a healing approach if the Dreamer were properly identified as unreal. But if the Dreamer is equated with the mind the mind’s corrective Power through the Holy Spirit is denied. It is noteworthy that this is a contradiction even in the ego’s own terms and one which it usually does note even in its confusion. If the way to counteract fear is to reduce the importance of the fearer how can this build up ego strength? These perfectly selfevident inconsistencies account for why except for certain stylized verbal accounts nobody can explain what happens in psychotherapy. Nothing Real does.

Nothing Real has happened to the unhealed healer and he learns from his own teaching. Because his ego is involved it always attempts to gain some support from the situation. Seeking to get something for himself the healer does not know how to give and consequently cannot share. He cannot correct because he is not working correctively. He believes that it is up to him to teach the patient what is real but he does not know it himself.

What then should happen? When God said: Let there be Light there was Light. Can You find Light by analyzing darkness as the psychotherapist does or like the theologian by acknowledging it in Yourself and looking for a distant Light to remove it while emphasizing the distance?

Healing is not mysterious. Nothing occurs unless You understand it since Light is understanding. A “miserable sinner” cannot be healed without magic nor can an “unimportant mind” esteem itself without magic. Both forms of the ego’s approach then must arrive at an impasse the characteristic “impossible situation” to which the ego always leads.

It can be helpful to point out to a patient where he is heading but the point is lost unless he can change his direction. The therapist cannot do this for him but he also cannot do this for himself. His only meaningful contribution is to present an example of One Whose direction has been changed for Him and Who no longer believes in nightmares of any kind. The Light in His Mind will therefore answer the questioner who must decide with God that there is Light because he sees It. And by his acknowledgment the therapist knows it is there.

That is how perception ultimately is translated into knowledge. The Miracleworker begins by perceiving Light and translates His perception into sureness by continually extending It and accepting Its acknowledgment. Its effects assure Him It is there. The therapist does not heal, he lets healing be. He can point to darkness but he cannot bring Light of himself for Light is not of him. But being for him It must be for his patient.

The Holy Spirit is the only Therapist. He makes healing perfectly clear in any situation in which He is the Guide. The human therapist can only let Him fulfill His function. He needs no help for this. He will tell You exactly what to do to help anyone He sends to You for help and will speak to him through You if You do not interfere. Remember that You are choosing a guide for helping and the wrong choice will not help. But remember also that the right one will. Trust Him for help is His function and He is of God.

As You awaken other minds to Him through Him and not Yourself You will understand that You are not obeying the laws of this world but that the laws You are obeying work. “The good is what works” is a sound though insufficient statement. Only the good can work. Nothing else works at all. This Course is a Guide to behavior. Being a very direct and very simple learning situation It provides the Guide Who tells You what to do. If You do It You will see that It works. Its results are more convincing than Its words. They will convince You that the words are True.

By following the Right Guide You will learn the simplest of all lessons:

By their fruits Ye shall know them
And they shall know themselves.

d. 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.

Because the Sonship must create as One You remember Creation whenever You recognize part of Creation. Each part You remember adds to Your wholeness because each part is whole. Wholeness is indivisible but You cannot learn Your wholeness until You see it everywhere. You can know Yourself only as God knows His Son for knowledge is shared with God. When You awake in Him You will know Your Magnitude by accepting His limitlessness as Yours. But meanwhile You will judge it as You judge Your Brothers’ and will accept it as You accept Theirs.

You are not yet awake but You can learn how to awaken. Very simply the Holy Spirit teaches You to awaken others. As You see them waken You will learn what waking means. And because You have willed to wake them their gratitude and their appreciation of what You have given them will teach You its value. They will become the witnesses to Your Reality as You were created Witnesses to God’s. But when the Sonship comes Together and accepts Its Oneness It will be known by Its Creations Who witness to Its Reality as the Son does to the Father.

Miracles have no place in Eternity because They are reparative. But while You still need healing Your Miracles are the only Witnesses to Your Reality that You can recognize. You cannot perform a Miracle for Yourself because Miracles are a way of giving acceptance and receiving it. In time the giving comes first though they are simultaneous in Eternity where they cannot be separated. When You have learned that they are the same the need for time is over. Eternity is one time its only dimension being “always”.

But this cannot mean anything to You until You remember God’s open Arms and finally know His open Mind. Like Him You are always in His Mind and with a mind like His. In Your open mind are Your Creations in perfect communication born of perfect understanding. Could You but accept One of Them You would not want anything the world has to offer. Everything else would be totally meaningless. God’s meaning is incomplete without You and You are incomplete without Your Creations.

Accept Your Brother in this world and accept nothing else for in him You will find Your Creations because he created Them with You. You will never know that You are Cocreator with God until You learn that Your Brother is a Cocreator with You.

e. Salvation and God’s Will

God’s Will is Your Salvation. Would He not have given You the means to find it? If He wills You to have it He must have made it possible and very easy to obtain it.

Your Brothers are everywhere. You do not have to seek far for Salvation. Every minute and every second gives You a chance to save Yourself. Do not lose these chances, not because they will not return but because delay of Joy is needless. God wills You perfect happiness now. Is it possible that this is not also Your will? And is it possible that this is not also the will of Your Brothers? Consider then that in this joint will You are All united and in this only. There will be disagreement on anything else but not in this. This then is where Peace abides. And You abide in Peace when You so decide.

But You cannot abide in Peace unless You accept the Atonement because the Atonement is the way to Peace. The reason is very simple and so obvious that it is often overlooked. That is because the ego is afraid of the obvious since obviousness is the essential characteristic of Reality. You cannot overlook it unless You are not looking. It is perfectly obvious that if the Holy Spirit looks with Love on all He perceives He looks with Love on You. His evaluation of You is based on His knowledge of what You are and so He evaluates You Truly. And this evaluation must be in Your mind because He is.

The ego is also in Your mind because You have accepted it there. Its evaluation of You however is the exact opposite of the Holy Spirit’s because the ego does not love You. It is unaware of What You are and wholly mistrustful of everything it perceives because its own perceptions are so shifting. The ego is therefore capable of suspiciousness at best and viciousness at worst. That is its range. It cannot exceed it because of its uncertainty. And it can never go beyond it because it can never be certain.

You then have two conflicting evaluations of Yourself in Your minds and they cannot both be True. You do not yet realize how completely different these evaluations are because You do not understand how lofty the Holy Spirit’s perception of You really is. He is not deceived by anything You do because He never forgets what You are. The ego is deceived by everything You do even when You respond to the Holy Spirit because at such times its confusion increases. The ego is therefore particularly likely to attack You when You react lovingly because it has evaluated You as unloving and You are going against its judgment.

The ego will begin to attack Your motives as soon as they become clearly out of accord with its perception of You. This is when it will shift abruptly from suspiciousness to viciousness because its uncertainty is increased. But it is surely pointless [aussichtslos] to attack in return. What can this mean except that You are agreeing with the ego’s evaluation of what You are? If You are willing to see Yourself as unloving You will not be happy. You are condemning Yourself and must therefore regard Yourself as inadequate.

Would You look to the ego to help You escape from a sense of inadequacy it has produced and must maintain for its own existence? Can You escape from its evaluation of You by using its methods for keeping this picture intact? You cannot evaluate an insane belief system from within it. Its own range precludes this. You can only go beyond it and look back from a point where sanity exists and see the contrast. Only by this contrast can insanity be judged as insane.

With the Grandeur of God in You You have chosen to be little and lament Your littleness. Within the system which dictated this choice the lament is inevitable. Your littleness is taken for granted there and You do not ask Who granted it. The question is meaningless within the ego’s thought system because it opens the whole thought system to question. We said before that the ego does not know what a real question is. Lack of knowledge of any kind is always associated with unwillingness to know and produces a total lack of knowledge simply because knowledge is total. Not to question Your littleness is therefore to deny all knowledge and keep the ego’s whole thought system intact.

You cannot retain part of a thought system because it can be questioned only at its foundation. And this must be questioned from beyond it because within it its foundation does stand. The Holy Spirit judges against the Reality of the ego’s thought system merely because He knows its foundation is not True. Therefore nothing that arises from it means anything. The Holy Spirit judges every belief You hold in terms of where it comes from. If it comes from God He knows it to be True. If it does not He knows it is meaningless.

Whenever You question Your value say:

God Himself is incomplete without Me.

Remember this when the ego speaks and You will not hear it. The Truth about You is so lofty that nothing that is unworthy of God is worthy of You. Choose then what You want in these terms and accept nothing that You would not offer to God as wholly fitting for Him for You do not want anything else. Return Your part of Him and He will give You all of Himself in exchange for Your return of What belongs to Him and renders Him complete.

f. Grandeur versus Grandiosity

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

Grandiosity is always a cover for despair. It is without hope because it is not real. It is an attempt to counteract Your littleness based on the belief that the littleness is real. Without this belief the grandiosity is meaningless and You could not possibly want it. The essence of grandiosity is competitiveness because it always involves attack. It is a delusional attempt to outdo but not to undo. We said before that the ego vacillates between suspiciousness and viciousness. It remains suspicious as long as You despair of Yourself. It switches to viciousness whenever You will not tolerate selfdebasement and seek relief. Then it offers You the delusion of attack as a solution.

The ego does not know the difference between Grandeur and grandiosity because it does not know the difference between Miracleimpulses and egoalien beliefs of its own. We once said that the ego is aware of threat but does not make distinctions between two entirely different kinds of threat to its existence. Its own profound sense of vulnerability renders it incapable of judgment except in terms of attack. When it experiences threat its only decision is whether to attack now or withdraw to attack later. If You accept its offer of grandiosity it will attack immediately. If You do not it will wait.

The ego is immobilized in the presence of God’s Grandeur because His Grandeur establishes Your freedom. Even the faintest hint of Your Reality literally drives the ego from Your mind because of the complete lack of investment in it. Grandeur is totally without illusion and because it is real it is compellingly convincing. But the conviction of Reality will not remain with You unless You do not allow the ego to attack it.

The ego will make every effort to recover and mobilize its energies against Your release. It will tell You that You are insane and argue that Grandeur cannot be a real part of You because of the littleness in which it believes. But Your Grandeur is not delusional because You did not make it. You have made grandiosity and are afraid of it because it is a form of attack. But Your Grandeur is of God Who created it out of His Love. From Your Grandeur You can only bless because Your Grandeur is Your abundance. By Blessing You hold it in Your minds protecting it from illusions and keeping Yourself in the Mind of God.

Remember always that You cannot be anywhere except in the Mind of God. When You forget this You will despair and You will attack. The ego depends solely on Your willingness to tolerate it. But if You are willing to look upon Your Grandeur You cannot despair and therefore You cannot want the ego. Your Grandeur is God’s Answer to the ego because it is True. Littleness and Grandeur cannot coexist nor is it possible for them to alternate in Your awareness. Littleness and grandiosity can and must since both are untrue and therefore on the same level. Being the level of shift it is experienced as shifting and extremes are its essential characteristic.

But Truth and littleness are denials of each other and Grandeur is Truth. Truth does not vacillate, It is always True. When Grandeur slips away from You You have replaced it with something You have made. Perhaps it is the belief in littleness, perhaps it is the belief in grandiosity. But it must be insane because it is not True. Your Grandeur will never deceive You but Your illusions always will. Illusions are deceptions.

You cannot triumph but You are exalted. And in Your exalted state You seek others like You and rejoice with them. It is easy to distinguish Grandeur from grandiosity simply because Love is returned but pride is not. Pride will not produce Miracles and therefore will deprive You of the True Witnesses to Your Reality. Truth is not obscure nor hidden but Its obviousness to You lies in the Joy You bring to Its Witnesses Who show It to You. They attest to Your Grandeur but They cannot attest to pride because pride is not shared.

God wants You to behold what He created because it is His Joy. Can Your Grandeur be arrogant when God Himself witnesses to it? And what can be real that has no Witnesses? What good can come of it? And if no good can come of it the Holy Spirit cannot use it. What He cannot transform to the Will of God does not exist at all. Grandiosity is delusional because it is used to replace Your Grandeur. Yet what God has created cannot be replaced.

God is incomplete without You simply because His Grandeur is total and You cannot be missing from it. You are altogether irreplaceable in the Mind of God. No one else can fill Your part of it and while You leave Your part of it empty Your eternal Place merely waits for Your return. God, through His Voice, reminds You of it and God Himself keeps Your Extensions safe within it. But You do not know Them until You return to Them.

You cannot replace the Kingdom and You cannot replace Yourself. God Who knows Your value would not have it so and so it is not so. Your value is in God’s Mind and therefore not in Yours alone. To accept Yourself as He created You cannot be arrogant because it is the denial of arrogance. To accept Your littleness is arrogant because it means that You believe that Your evaluation of Yourself is truer than God’s. But if Truth is indivisible then Your evaluation of Yourself must be God’s.

You did not establish Your value and it needs no defense. Nothing can attack it or prevail over it. It does not vary. It merely is. Ask the Holy Spirit what it is and He will tell You. But do not be afraid of His Answer for It comes from God. It is an exalted Answer because of Its Source. But the Source is True and so is Its Answer. Listen and do not question what You hear for God does not deceive. He would have You replace the ego’s belief in littleness with His own exalted Answer to the question of Your being so that You can cease to question it and know it for what it is.

g. The Inclusiveness of Creation

Nothing beyond Yourself can make You fearful or loving because nothing is beyond You. Time and Eternity are both in Your minds and will conflict until You perceive time solely as a means to regain Eternity. You cannot do this as long as You believe that anything that happens to You is caused by factors outside Yourself. You must learn that time is solely at Your disposal and that nothing in the world can take this responsibility from You. You can violate God’s laws in Your imagination but You cannot escape from them. They were established for Your protection and are as inviolate as Your safety.

God created nothing beside You and nothing beside You exists for You are part of Him. What except Him can exist? Nothing beyond Him can happen because nothing except Him is real. Your Creations add to Him as You do. But nothing is added that is different because everything has always been. What can upset You except the ephemeral and how can the ephemeral be real if You are God’s only Creation and He created You eternal?

Your Holy Will establishes everything that happens to You. Every response You make to everything You perceive is up to You because Your Will determines Your perception of it. God does not change His mind about You for He is not uncertain of Himself. And what He knows can be known because He does not know only for Himself. He created You for Himself but He gave You the Power to create for Your Self so You would be like Him. That is why Your Will is Holy.

Can anything exceed the Love of God? Can anything then exceed Your Will? Nothing can reach You from beyond it because being in God You encompass everything. Believe this and You will realize how much is up to You. When anything threatens Your Peace of Mind ask Yourself: Has God changed His Mind about Me? Then accept His decision for it is indeed changeless and refuse to change Your mind about Yourself. God will never decide against You or He would be deciding against Himself.

The reason You do not know Your Creations is simply that You would decide against Them as long as Your minds are split and to attack what You have created is impossible. But remember that it is as impossible for God. The law of Creation is that You love Your Creations as Yourself because They are part of You. Everything That was created is therefore perfectly safe because the laws of God protect It by His Love. Any part of Your mind that does not know this has banished itself from knowledge because it has not met its conditions.

Who could have done this but You? Recognize this gladly for in this recognition lies the realization that Your banishment is not of God and therefore does not exist. You are at Home in God dreaming of exile but perfectly capable of awakening to Reality. Is it Your will to do so? You know from Your own experience that what You see in dreams You think is real as long as You are asleep. But the instant You waken You know that everything that seemed to happen did not happen at all. You do not think this mysterious even though all the laws of what You awake to were violated while You slept.

Is it not possible that You merely shifted from one dream to another without really wakening? Would You bother to reconcile what happened in conflicting dreams or would You dismiss both together if You discovered that Reality is in accord with neither? You do not remember being awake. When You hear the Holy Spirit You merely feel better because loving seems possible to You. But You do not remember yet that it once was so and it is in this remembering that You will know it can be so again.

What is possible has not yet been accomplished. But what has once been is so now if it is eternal. When You remember You will know what You remember is eternal and therefore is now. You will remember everything the instant You desire it wholly for if to desire wholly is to create You will have willed away the separation returning Your mind simultaneously to Your Creator and Your Creations. Knowing Them You will have no wish to sleep but only the will to waken and be glad. Dreams will be impossible because You will want only Truth and being at last Your Will It will be Yours.

h. The Decision to Forget

Unless You know something You cannot dissociate it. Knowledge therefore precedes dissociation and dissociation is nothing more than a decision to forget. What has been forgotten then appears to be fearful but only because the dissociation was an attack on Truth. You are fearful because You have forgotten. And You have replaced Your knowledge by an awareness of dreams because You are afraid of Your dissociation, not of What You have dissociated. Even in this world’s therapy when dissociated material is accepted it ceases to be fearful for the laws of mind always hold.

But to give up the dissociation of Reality brings more than merely lack of fear. In this decision lie Joy and Peace and the glory of Creation. Offer the Holy Spirit only Your will to remember for He retains the knowledge of God and of You for You waiting for Your acceptance. Give up gladly everything that would stand in the way of Your remembering for God is in Your memory and His Voice will tell You that You are part of Him when You are willing to remember Him and know Your own Reality again. Let nothing in this world delay Your remembering of Him for in this remembering is the knowledge of Yourself.

To remember is merely to restore to Your mind what is already there. You do not make what You remember You merely accept again what has been made and rejected. The ability to accept Truth in this world is the perceptual counterpart of creating in the Kingdom. God will do His part if You will do Yours and His return in exchange for Yours is the exchange of knowledge for perception. Nothing is beyond His Will for You. But signify Your will to remember Him and behold! He will give You everything but for Your asking.

Whenever You attack You are denying Yourself. You are specifically teaching Yourself that You are not what You are. Your denial of Reality precludes acceptance of God’s Gift because You have accepted something else in Its place. If You understand that the misuse of defenses always constitutes an attack on Truth and Truth is God You will realize why this is always fearful. If You further recognize that You are part of God You will also understand why it is that You always attack Yourself first.

All attack is Self attack. It cannot be anything else. Arising from Your own decision not to be What You are it is an attack on Your identification. Attack is thus the way in which Your identification is lost because when You attack You must have forgotten What You are. And if Your Reality is God’s when You attack You are not remembering Him. This is not because He is gone but because You are actively willing not to remember Him.

If You realized the complete havoc this makes of Your Peace of Mind You could not make such an insane decision. You make it only because You still believe that it can get You something You want. It follows then that You want something other than Peace of Mind and You have not considered what it must be. Yet the logical outcome of Your decision is perfectly clear if You will look at it. By deciding against Your Reality You have made Yourself vigilant against God and His Kingdom. And it is this vigilance that makes You afraid to remember Him.

You have not attacked God and You do love Him. Can You change Your Reality? No one can will to destroy himself. When You think You are attacking Your Self it is a sure sign that You hate what You think You are. And this, and only this, can be attacked by You. What You think You are can be hateful, and what this strange image makes You do can be very destructive. The destruction is no more real than the image but those who make idols do worship them. The idols are nothing but their worshippers are the Sons of God in sickness.

God would have them released from their sickness and returned to His Mind. He will not limit Your Power to help them because He has given it to You. Do not be afraid of it because it is Your Salvation. What Comforter can there be for the sick Children of God except His Power through You? Remember that it does not matter Where in the Sonship He is accepted. He is always accepted for All and when Your mind receives Him the Remembrance of Him awakens throughout the Sonship.

Heal Your Brothers simply by accepting God for them. Your minds are not separate and God has only one channel for healing because He has but one Son. His remaining communication link with all His Children joins them together and them to Him. To be aware of this is to heal them because it is the awareness that no one is separate and so no one is sick. To believe that a Son of God can be sick is to believe that part of God can suffer.

Love cannot suffer because It cannot attack. The Remembrance of Love therefore brings invulnerability with it. Do not side with sickness in the presence of a Son of God even if he believes in it for Your acceptance of God in him acknowledges the Love of God Which he has forgotten. Your recognition of him as part of God teaches him the Truth about himself Which he is denying. Would You strengthen his denial of God and thus lose sight of Yourself? Or would You remind him of his wholeness and remember Your Creator with him?

To believe a Son of God is sick is to worship the same idol he does. God created Love, not idolatry. All forms of idolatry are caricatures of Creation taught by sick minds who are too divided to know that Creation shares Power and never usurps it. Sickness is idolatry because it is the belief that Power can be taken from You. But this is impossible because You are part of God Who is all Power. A sick god must be an idol made in the image of what its Maker thinks he is. And that is exactly what the ego does perceive in a Son of God: A sick god, selfcreated, selfsufficient, very vicious and very vulnerable.

Is this the idol You would worship? Is this the image You would be vigilant to save? Are You really afraid of losing this? Look calmly at the logical conclusion of the ego’s thought system and judge whether its offering is really what You want for this is what it offers You. To obtain this You are willing to attack the Divinity of Your Brothers and thus lose sight of Yours. And You are willing to keep It hidden to protect this idol which You think will save You from dangers which the idol itself stands for but which do not exist.

There are no idolaters in the Kingdom but there is great appreciation for every Soul Which God created because of the calm knowledge that Each One is part of Him. God’s Son knows no idols but He does know His Father. Health in this world is the counterpart of value in Heaven. It is not My merit that I contribute to You but My Love for You do not value Yourselves. When You do not value Yourself You become sick but My value of You can heal You because the value of God’s Son is One.

When I said: My Peace I give unto You. I meant it. Peace came from God through Me to You. It was for You but You did not ask. When a Brother is sick it is because he is not asking for Peace and therefore he does not know he has it. The acceptance of Peace is the denial of illusion and sickness is an illusion. Yet every Son of God has the Power to deny illusions Anywhere in the Kingdom merely by denying them completely in Himself.

I can heal You because I know You. I know Your value for You and it is this value that makes You whole. A whole mind is not idolatrous and does not know of conflicting laws. I will heal You merely because I have only one Message and It is True. Your faith in It will make You whole when You have faith in Me. I do not bring God’s Message with deception and You will learn this as You learn that You always receive as much as You accept. You could accept Peace now for everyone You meet and offer them perfect freedom from all illusions because You heard. But have no other gods before Him or You will not hear.

God is not jealous of the gods You make but You are. You would save them and serve them because You believe that they made You. You think they are Your father because You are projecting onto them the fearful fact that You made them to replace God. But when they seem to speak to You remember that nothing can replace God and whatever replacements You have attempted are nothing. Very simply then You may believe You are afraid of nothingness but You are really afraid of nothing. And in that awareness You are healed.

You will hear the god You listen to. You made the god of sickness and by making him You made Yourself able to hear him. But You did not create him because he is not the Will of the Father. He is therefore not eternal and will be unmade for You the instant You signify Your willingness to accept only the Eternal. If God has but one Son there is but one God. You share Reality with Him because Reality is not divided. To accept other gods before Him is to place other images before Yourself. You do not realize how much You listen to Your gods and how vigilant You are on their behalf. But they exist only because You honor them.

Place honor where it is due and Peace will be Yours. It is Your inheritance from Your real Father. You cannot make Your Father and the father You made did not make You. Honor is not due to illusions for to honor them is to honor nothing. But fear is not due them either for nothing cannot be fearful. You have chosen to fear Love because of Its perfect harmlessness. And because of this fear You have been willing to give up Your own perfect helpfulness and Your own perfect Help. Only at the Altar of God will You find Peace and this Altar is in You because God put It there. His Voice still calls You to return and He will be heard when You place no other gods before Him.

You can give up the god of sickness for Your Brothers. In fact You would have to do so if You give him up for Yourself. For if You see him anywhere You are accepting him. And if You accept him You will bow down and worship him because he was made as God’s replacement. He is the belief that there is something else. He then is the cause of Your insane belief that You can choose which God is real. Although it is perfectly clear that this has nothing to do with Reality it is equally clear that it has everything to do with Reality as You perceive it.

i. Magic versus Miracles

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

Sickness and perfection are irreconcilable. If God created You perfect You are perfect. If You believe You can be sick You have placed other gods before Him. God is not at war with the god of sickness which You made but You are. He is the symbol of willing against God and You are afraid of him because he cannot be reconciled with God’s Will. If You attack him You will make him real to You. But if You refuse to worship him in whatever form he may appear to You and wherever You think You see him he will disappear into the nothingness out of which he was made.

Reality can dawn only in an unclouded mind. It is always there to be accepted but its acceptance depends on Your willingness to have it. To know Reality must involve the willingness to judge unreality for what it is. This is the right use of selective perception. To overlook nothingness is merely to judge it correctly and because of Your ability to evaluate it Truly to let it go. Knowledge cannot dawn on a mind full of illusions because Truth and illusions are irreconcilable. Truth is whole and cannot be known by part of a mind.

The Sonship cannot be perceived as partly sick because to perceive It that way is not to perceive It at all. If the Sonship is One It is One in all respects. Oneness cannot be divided. If You perceive other gods Your mind is split and You will not be able to limit the split because the split is the sign that You have removed part of Your mind from God’s Will and this means that it is out of control. To be out of control is to be out of reason and the mind does become unreasonable without reason. This is merely a matter of definition. By defining the mind wrongly You perceive it as functioning wrongly.

God’s laws will keep Your minds at Peace because Peace is His Will and His laws are established to uphold it. His are the laws of freedom but Yours are the laws of bondage. Since freedom and bondage are irreconcilable their laws cannot be understood together. The laws of God work only for Your good and there are no other laws beside His. Everything else is merely lawless and therefore chaotic. But God Himself has protected everything He created by His laws. Therefore everything that is not under them does not exist.

“Laws of chaos” are meaningless by definition. Creation is perfectly lawful and the chaotic is without meaning because it is without God. You have given Your Peace to the gods You made but they are not there to take it from You and You are not able to give it to them. You are not free to give up freedom but only to deny it. You cannot do what God did not intend because what He did not intend does not happen. Your gods do not bring chaos. You are endowing them with chaos and accepting it of them.

All this has never been. Nothing but the laws of God has ever operated and nothing except His Will will ever be. You were created through His laws and by His Will and the manner of Your Creation established You as Creators. What You have made is so unworthy of You that You could hardly want it if You were willing to see it as it is. You will see nothing at all. And Your Vision will automatically look beyond it to What is in You and all around You. Reality cannot break through the obstructions You interpose but it will envelop You completely when You let them go.

When You have experienced the protection of God the making of idols becomes inconceivable. There are no strange images in the Mind of God and what is not in His Mind cannot be in Yours because You are of one mind and that mind belongs to Him. It is Yours because it belongs to Him for ownership is sharing to Him. And if it is so for Him it is so for You. His definitions are His laws for by them He established the Universe as what It is. No false gods You attempt to interpose between Yourself and Your Reality affect Truth at all. Peace is Yours because God created You. And He created nothing else.

The Miracle is the act of a Son of God Who has laid aside all false gods and Who calls on His Brothers to do likewise. It is an act of faith because It is the recognition that His Brother can do it. It is a Call to the Holy Spirit in his mind, a Call to him which is strengthened by this joining. Because the Miracleworker has heard him He strengthens His Voice in a sick Brother by weakening his belief in sickness which He does not share. The Power of one mind can shine into another because all the lamps of God were lit by the same spark. It is everywhere and it is eternal.

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

j. The Denial of God

The rituals of the god of sickness are strange and very demanding. Joy is never permitted for depression is the sign of allegiance to him. Depression means that You have forsworn God. Men are afraid of blasphemy but they do not know what it means. They do not realize that to deny God is to deny their own Identity and in this sense the wages of sin is death. The sense is very literal: Denial of Life perceives its opposite as all forms of denial replace what is with what is not. No one can really do this but that You can think You can and believe You have is beyond dispute.

Do not forget however that to deny God will inevitably result in projection and You will believe that others and not Yourself have done this to You. You will receive the message You give because it is the message You want. You may believe that You judge Your Brothers by the messages they give You but You have judged them by the message You give them. Do not attribute Your denial of Joy to them or You cannot see the spark in them that could bring Joy to You. It is the denial of the spark that brings depression and whenever You see Your Brothers without it You are denying God.

Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego’s religion. The god of sickness obviously demands the denial of health because health is in direct opposition to its own survival. But consider what this means to You. Unless You are sick You cannot keep the gods You made for only in sickness could You possibly want them. Blasphemy then is self-destructive, not God-destructive. It means that You are willing not to know Yourself in order to be sick. This is the offering which Your god demands because having made him out of Your insanity he is an insane idea. He has many forms but though he may seem like many different things he is but one idea: The denial of God.

Sickness and death entered the mind of God’s Son against His Will. The “attack on God” made His Son think he was fatherless and out of depression he made the god of depression. This was his alternative to Joy because he would not accept the fact that although he was a Creator he had been created. Yet the Son is helpless without the Father Who alone is his Help. We said before that of Yourselves You can do nothing but You are not of Yourselves. If You were what You have made would be True and You could never escape.

It is because You did not make Yourselves that You need be troubled [geplagt] by nothing. Your gods are nothing because Your Father did not create them. You cannot make creators who are unlike Your Creator any more than He could have created a Son who was unlike Him. If Creation is sharing It cannot create what is unlike Itself. It can share only what It is. Depression is isolation and so it could not have been created.

Son of God, You have not sinned but You have been much mistaken. But this can be corrected and God will help You knowing that You could not sin against Him. You denied Him because You loved Him knowing that if You recognized Your Love for Him You could not deny Him. Your denial therefore means that You love Him and that You know He loves You. Remember that what You deny You must have known. And if You can accept denial You can accept its undoing.

Your Father has not denied You. He does not retaliate but He does call to You to return. When You think He has not answered Your call You have not answered His. He calls to You from every part of the Sonship because of His Love for His Son. If You hear His Message He has answered You and You will learn What You are of Him if You hear aright. The Love of God is in everything He created for His Son is everywhere. Look with Peace upon Your Brothers and God will come rushing into Your Heart in gratitude for Your Gift to Him.

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

If You will accept Yourself as God created You You will be incapable of suffering. But to do this You must acknowledge Him as Your Creator. This is not because You will be punished otherwise. It is merely because Your acknowledgment of Your Father is the acknowledgment of Yourself as You are. Your Father created You wholly without sin, wholly without pain and wholly without suffering of any kind. If You deny Him You bring sin, pain and suffering into Your own mind because of the Power He gave it. Your Mind is capable of creating worlds but it can also deny what it creates because it is free.

You do not realize how much You have denied Yourself and how much God in His Love would not have it so. Yet He would not interfere with You because He would not know His Son if he were not free. To interfere with You would be to attack Himself and God is not insane. When You denied Him You were insane. Would You have Him share Your insanity? God will never cease to love His Son and His Son will never cease to love Him. That was the condition of His Son’s Creation fixed forever in the Mind of God. To know that is sanity. To deny it is insanity. God gave Himself to You in Your Creation and His Gifts are eternal. Would You deny Yourself to Him?

Out of Your Gifts to Him the Kingdom will be restored to His Son. His Son removed himself from his Gift by refusing to accept What had been created for him and what he himself had created in the name of his Father. Heaven waits for his return for it was created as the Dwellingplace of God’s Son. You are not at Home anywhere else or in any other condition. Do not deny Yourself the Joy which was created for You for the misery You have made for Yourselves. God has given You the means for undoing what You have made. Listen and You will learn What You are.

If God knows His Children as wholly sinless it is blasphemous to perceive them as guilty. If God knows His Children as wholly without pain it is blasphemous to perceive suffering anywhere. If God knows His Children to be wholly joyous it is blasphemous to feel depressed. All these illusions and the many other forms which blasphemy may take are refusals to accept Creation as It is. If God created His Son perfect that is how You must learn to see him to learn of his Reality. And as part of the Sonship that is how You must see Yourself to learn Yours.

Do not perceive anything God did not create or You are denying Him. His is the only Fatherhood and it is Yours only because He has given it to You. Your gifts to Yourself are meaningless but Your gifts to Your Creations are like His because they are given in His name. That is why Your Creations are as real as His. But the real Fatherhood must be acknowledged if the real Son is to be known. You believe that the sick things which You have made are Your real Creations because You believe that the sick images You perceive are the Sons of God.

Only if You accept the Fatherhood of God will You have anything because His Fatherhood gave You everything. That is why to deny Him is to deny Yourself. Arrogance is the denial of Love because Love shares and arrogance withholds. As long as both appear to You to be desirable the concept of choice, which is not of God, will remain with You. While this is not True in Eternity it is True in time so that while time lasts in Your minds there will be choices. Time itself was Your choice. If You would remember Eternity You must learn to look on only the Eternal. If You allow Yourselves to become preoccupied with the temporal You are living in time.

As always Your choice is determined by what You value. Time and Eternity cannot both be real because they contradict each other. If You will accept only what is timeless as real You will begin to understand Eternity and make it Yours.

Chapter 10 – God and the ego

a. Projection versus Extension

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

My Brother, You are part of God and part of Me. When You have at last looked at the ego’s foundation without shrinking You will also have looked upon Ours. I come to You from Our Father to offer You everything again. Do not refuse It to keep a dark cornerstone hidden for its protection will not save You. I give You the lamp and I will go with You. You will not take this journey alone. I will lead You to Your True Father Who hath need of You as I have. Will You not answer the Call of Love with Joy?

You have learned Your need of healing. Would You bring anything else to the Sonship knowing Your need of it for Yourself? For in this lies the beginning of knowledge, the foundation on which God will help You build again the Thought System which You share with Him. Not one stone You place upon it but will be blessed by Him. For You will be restoring the Holy Dwellingplace of His Son where He wills His Son to be and where He is. In whatever part of the mind of God’s Son You restore this Reality You restore it to Yourself. For You dwell in the Mind of God with Your Brother for God Himself did not will to be alone.

To be alone is to be separated from Infinity but how can this be if Infinity has no end? No one can be beyond the limitless because what has no limits must be everywhere. There are no beginnings and no endings in God Whose Universe is Himself. Can You exclude Yourself from the Universe or from God Who is the Universe? I and My Father are One with You for You are part of Us. Do You really believe that part of God can be missing or lost to Him?

If You were not part of God His Will would not be unified. Is this conceivable? Can part of His Mind contain nothing? If Your place in His Mind cannot be filled by anyone except You and Your filling it was Your Creation without You there would be an empty place in God’s Mind. Extension cannot be blocked and it has no voids. It continues forever however much it is denied. Your denial of its Reality arrests it in time but not in Eternity. That is why Your Creations have not ceased to be extended and why so much is waiting for Your return.

Waiting is possible only in time but time has no meaning. You Who made delay can leave time behind simply by recognizing that neither beginnings nor endings were created by the Eternal Who placed no limits on His Creation nor upon Those Who create like Him. You do not know this simply because You have tried to limit what He created and so You believe that all Creation is limited. How then could You know Your Creations having denied Infinity? The laws of the Universe do not permit contradiction. What holds for God holds for You. If You believe You are absent from God You will believe He is absent from You.

Infinity is meaningless without You and You are meaningless without God. There is no end to God and His Son for We are the Universe. God is not incomplete and He is not childless. Because He did not will to be alone He created a Son like Himself. Do not deny Him His Son for Your unwillingness to accept His Fatherhood has denied You Yours. See His Creations as His Son for Yours were created in honor of Him.

The Universe of Love does not stop because You do not see It and Your closed eyes have not lost the ability to see. Look upon the glory of His Creation and You will learn what God has kept for You. God has given You a Place in His Mind which is Yours forever. But You could keep it only by giving it as it was given to You. Could You be alone there if it was given You because God did not will to be alone? God’s Mind cannot be lessened. It can only be increased and everything He creates has the function of creating. Love does not limit and what It creates is not limited.

To give without limit is God’s Will for You because only this can bring You the Joy which is His and which He wills to share with You. Your Love is as boundless as His because It is His. Could any part of Him be without His Love and could any part of His Love be contained? God is Your heritage because His one Gift is Himself. How can You give except like Him if You would know His Gift to You? Give then without limit and without end to learn how much He has given You. Your ability to accept Him depends on Your willingness to give as He gives. Your Fatherhood and Your Father are One.

God willed to create and Your will is His. It follows then that You will to create since Your will follows from His. And being the extension of His Will Yours must be the Same. Yet what You will You do not know. This is not strange when You realize that to deny is to not know. God’s Will was that You are His Son. By denying this You denied Your own Will and therefore do not know what it is. The reason You must ask what God’s Will is in everything is merely because It is Yours. You do not know what It is but the Holy Spirit remembers It for You.

Ask Him therefore what God’s Will is for You and He will tell You Yours. It cannot be too often repeated that You do not know It. Whenever what the Holy Spirit tells You appears to be coercive it is only because You do not recognize Your own Will. The projection of the ego makes it appear as if God’s Will is outside Yourself and therefore not Yours. In this interpretation it is possible for God’s Will and Yours to conflict. God then may seem to demand of You what You do not want to give and thus deprive You of what You want. Would God Who wants only Your Will be capable of this? Your Will is His Life which He has given to You. Even in time You cannot live apart from Him for sleep is not death. What He created can sleep but it cannot die. Immortality is His Will for His Son and His Son’s Will for Himself. Yet God’s Son cannot will death for Himself because His Father is Life and His Son is like Him.

Creation is Your Will because It is His. You cannot be happy unless You do what You will Truly and You cannot change this because it is immutable. But it is immutable by God’s Will and Yours for otherwise His Will would not have been extended. You are afraid to know God’s Will because You believe It is not Yours. This belief is Your whole sickness and Your whole fear. Every symptom of sickness and fear arises here because this is the belief that makes You want not to know. Believing this You hide in darkness denying that the Light is in You.

You are asked to trust the Holy Spirit only because He speaks for You. He is the Voice for God but never forget that God did not will to be alone. He shares His Will with You He does not thrust it upon You. Always remember that what He gives He holds so that nothing He gives can contradict Him. You Who share His Life must share it to know it for sharing is knowing. Blessed are You Who learn that to hear the Will of Your Father is to know Your own. For it is Your will to be like Him Whose Will it is that it be so.

God’s Will is that His Son be One and united with Him in His Oneness. That is why healing is the beginning of the recognition that Your Will is His.

b. The Willingness for Healing

If sickness is separation the will to heal and be healed is the first step toward recognizing what You Truly want. Every attack is a step away from this and every healing thought brings it closer. The Son of God has both Father and Son because He is both Father and Son. To unite having and being is only to unite Your will with His for He wills You Himself. And You will Yourself to Him because in Your perfect understanding of Him You know there is but One Will. But when You attack any part of God and His Kingdom Your understanding is not perfect and what You will is therefore lost to You.

Healing thus becomes a lesson in understanding and the more You practice it the better teacher and learner You become. If You have denied Truth what better Witnesses to Its Reality could You have than Those Who have been healed by It? But be sure to count Yourself among Them for in Your willingness to join Them is Your healing accomplished.

Every Miracle Which You accomplish speaks to You of the Fatherhood of God. Every healing thought which You accept either from Your Brother or in Your own mind teaches You that You are God’s Son. But in every hurtful thought You hold wherever You perceive it lies the denial of God’s Fatherhood and Your Sonship. And denial is as total as Love. You cannot deny part of Yourself simply because the remainder will seem to be unintegrated and therefore without meaning. And being without meaning to You You will not understand it. To deny meaning must be to fail to understand.

You can only heal Yourself for only God’s Son needs healing. He needs it because he does not understand himself and therefore knows not what he does. Having forgotten His will he knows not what he wants. Healing is a sign that he wants to make whole. And this willingness opens his own ears to the Voice of the Holy Spirit Whose Message is wholeness. He will enable You to go far beyond the healing You would undertake for beside Your small willingness to make whole He will lay His own complete Will and make Yours whole. What can the Son of God not accomplish with the Fatherhood of God in him?

And yet the invitation must come from You for You have surely learned that whom You invite as Your guest will abide with You. The Holy Spirit cannot speak to an unwelcoming host because He will not be heard. The eternal Guest remains but His Voice grows faint in alien company. He needs Your protection but only because Your care is a sign that You want Him. Think like Him ever so slightly and the little spark becomes a blazing Light That fills Your mind so that He becomes Your only Guest.

Whenever You ask the ego to enter You lessen His Welcome. He will remain but You have allied Yourself against Him. Whatever journey You choose to take He will go with You waiting. You can safely trust His patience for He cannot leave a part of God. But You will far more than patience. You will never rest until You know Your function and fulfill it for only in this can Your will and Your Father’s be wholly joined. To have Him is to be like Him and He has given Himself to You.

You Who have God must be as God for His function became Yours with His Gift. Invite this knowledge back into Your minds and let nothing that will obscure it enter. The Guest Whom God sent You will teach You how to do this if You but recognize the little spark and are willing to let it grow. Your willingness need not be perfect because His is. If You will merely offer Him a little place He will lighten it so much that You will gladly extend it. And by this extending You will begin to remember Creation.

Would You be hostage to the ego or Host to God? You will accept only whom You invite. You are free to determine who shall be Your guest and how long He shall remain with You. But this is not real freedom for it depends on how You see it. For the Holy Spirit is there although He cannot help You without Your invitation and the ego is nothing whether You invite it in or not. Real freedom depends on welcoming Reality and of Your guests only He is real. Know then who abides with You merely by recognizing what is already there and do not be satisfied with imaginary comforters for the Comforter of God is in You.

c. From Darkness to Light

When You are weary remember You have hurt Yourself. Your Comforter will rest You but You cannot. You do not know how for if You did You could never have grown weary. Unless You have hurt Yourselves You could never suffer in any way for that is not God’s Will for His Son. Pain is not of Him for He knows no attack and His Peace surrounds You silently. God is very quiet for there is no conflict in Him. Conflict is the root of all evil for being blind it does not see Whom it attacks. But it always attacks the Son of God and the Son of God is You.

God’s Son is indeed in need of comfort for he knows not what he does believing his will is not his own. The Kingdom is his and yet he wanders homelessly. At Home in God he is lonely and amid all his Brothers he is friendless. Would God let this be real if He did not will to be alone Himself? And if Your will is His it cannot be True of You because it is not True of Him. Oh My Children, if You knew what God wills for You Your Joy would be complete! And what He wills has happened for it was always True.

When the Light comes and You have said: “God’s Will is Mine.” You will see such beauty that You will know it is not of You. Out of Your Joy You will create beauty in His name for Your Joy could no more be contained than His. The bleak little world will vanish into nothingness and Your Heart will be so filled with Joy that it will leap into Heaven and into the presence of God. I cannot tell You what this will be like for Your hearts are not ready. But I can tell You and remind You often that what God wills for Himself He wills for You and what He wills for You is Yours.

The way is not hard but it is very different. Yours is the way of pain of which God knows nothing. That way is hard indeed and very lonely. Fear and grief are Your guests and they go with You and abide with You on the way. But the dark journey is not the way of God’s Son. Walk in Light and do not see the dark companions for they are not fit companions for the Son of God Who was created of Light and in Light. The Great Light always surrounds You and shines out from You. How can You see the dark companions in a Light such as this? If You see them it is only because You are denying the Light. But deny them instead for the Light is Here and the way is clear.

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

Do not be deceived by the dark comforters and never let them enter the mind of God’s Son for they have no place in His temple. When You are tempted to deny Him remember that there are no other gods that You can place before Him and accept His Will for You in Peace. For You cannot accept It otherwise. Only God’s Comforter can comfort You. In the quiet of His Temple He waits to give You the Peace that is Yours. Give His Peace that You may enter the Temple and find it waiting for You. But be Holy in the Presence of God or You will not know that You are there. For what is unlike God cannot enter His Mind because it was not in His Thought and therefore does not belong to Him. And Your minds must be as pure as His if You would know what belongs to You.

Guard carefully His Temple for He Himself dwells there and abides in Peace. You cannot enter God’s Presence with the dark companions beside You but You also cannot enter alone. All Your Brothers must enter with You for until You have accepted them You cannot enter. For You cannot understand wholeness unless You are whole and no part of the Son can be excluded if he would know the wholeness of his Father.

In Your mind You can accept the whole Sonship and bless It with the Light Your Father gave It. Then You will be worthy to dwell in the Temple with Him because it is Your will not to be alone. God blessed His Son forever. If You will bless him in time You will be in Eternity. Time cannot separate You from God if You use it on behalf of the Eternal.

d. The Inheritance of God’s Son

Never forget that the Sonship is Your Salvation for the Sonship is Your Soul. As God’s Creation It is Yours and belonging to You It is His. Your Soul does not need Salvation but Your mind needs to learn what Salvation is. You are not saved from anything but You are saved for glory. Glory is Your inheritance given Your Soul by Its Creator that You might extend it. But if You hate part of Your own Soul all Your understanding is lost because You are looking on what God creates as Yourself without Love. And since what He created is part of Him You are denying Him His Place in His own Altar.

Could You try to make God homeless and know You are at Home? Can the Son deny the Father without believing that the Father has denied Him? God’s laws hold only for Your protection and they never hold in vain. What You experience when You deny Your Father is still for Your protection for the Power of Your will cannot be lessened without the intervention of God against it and any limitation on Your Power is not the Will of God. Therefore look only to the Power that God gave You to save You remembering that it is Yours because it is His and join with Your Brothers in His Peace.

The Peace of Your Soul lies in Its limitlessness. Limit the Peace You share and Your own Soul must be unknown to You. Every Altar to God is part of Your Soul because the Light He created is One with Him. Would You cut a Brother off from the Light that is Yours? You could not do so if You realized that You can only darken Your own mind. As You bring Him back so will Your mind return. That is the law of God for the protection of the wholeness of His Son.

Only You can deprive Yourself of anything. Do not oppose this realization for it is Truly the beginning of the dawn of Light. Remember also that the denial of this simple fact takes many forms and these You must learn to recognize and oppose steadfastly and without exception. This is a crucial step in the reawakening. The beginning phases of this reversal are often quite painful for as blame is withdrawn from without there is a strong tendency to harbor it within. It is difficult at first to realize that this is exactly the same thing for there is no distinction between within and without. If Your Brothers are part of You and You blame them for Your deprivation You are blaming Yourself. And You cannot blame Yourself without blaming them.

That is why blame must be undone not reallocated. Lay it to Yourself and You cannot know Yourself for only the ego blames at all. Selfblame is therefore egoidentification and as strong an ego defense as blaming others. You cannot enter God’s Presence if You attack His Son. When His Son lifts his voice in praise of his Creator he will hear the Voice of his Father. But the Creator cannot be praised without His Son for their glory is shared and they are glorified together. Christ is at God’s Altar waiting to welcome His Son. But come wholly without condemnation for otherwise You will believe that the door is barred and You cannot enter.

The door is not barred and it is impossible for You to be unable to enter the Place where God would have You be. But love Yourself with the Love of Christ for so does Your Father love You. You can refuse to enter but You cannot bar the door which Christ holds open. Come unto Me Who holds it open for You for while I live it cannot be shut and I live forever. God is My Life and Yours and nothing is denied by God to His Son. Remember that to deny is to refuse to accept and everything awaits only Your acceptance. At God’s Altar Christ waits for the restoration of Himself in You.

God knows His Son as wholly blameless as Himself and He is approached through the appreciation of His Son. Christ waits for Your acceptance of Him as Yourself and His Wholeness as Yours. For Christ is the Son of God Who lives in His Creator and shines with His glory. Christ is the Extension of the Love and the loveliness of God as perfect as His Creator and at Peace with Him. Blessed is the Son of God Whose radiance is of His Father and Whose glory He wills to share as His Father shares it with Him.

There is no condemnation in the Son for there is no condemnation in the Father. Sharing the perfect Love of the Father the Son must share What belongs to Him for otherwise He will not know the Father or the Son. Peace be unto You Who rest in God and in Whom the whole Sonship rests.

e. The “Dynamics” of the ego

No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them for not looking is the way they are protected. There is no need to shrink from illusions for they cannot be dangerous. We are ready to look more closely at the ego’s thought system because Together We have the lamp that will dispel it and since You realize You do not want it You must be ready. Let Us be very calm in doing this for We are merely looking honestly for Truth. The “dynamics” of the ego will be Our lesson for a while for We must look first at this to look beyond it since You have made it real. We will undo this error quietly Together and then look beyond it to Truth.

What is healing but the removal of all that stands in the way of knowledge? And how else can One dispel illusions except by looking at them directly without protecting them? Be not afraid therefore for what You will be looking at is the source of fear but You have learned surely by now that fear is not real. We have accepted the fact already that its effects can be dispelled merely by denying their Reality. The next step is obviously to recognize that what has no effects does not exist.

Laws do not operate in a vacuum and what leads to nothing has not happened. If Reality is recognized by its Extension what extends to nothing cannot be real. Do not be afraid then to look upon fear for it cannot be seen. Clarity undoes confusion by definition and to look upon darkness through Light must dispel it. Let Us begin this lesson in “ego dynamics” by understanding that the term itself does not mean anything. In fact it contains exactly the contradiction in terms that makes it meaningless. “Dynamics” implies the power to do something and the whole separation fallacy lies in the belief that the ego has the power to do anything.

The ego is fearful because You believe this. But the Truth is very simple:

All Power is of God.
What is not of Him has no Power to do anything.

When We look at the ego then We are not considering dynamics but delusions. We can surely regard a delusional system without fear for it cannot have any effects if its source is not True. Fear becomes more obviously inappropriate if One recognizes the ego’s goal which is so clearly senseless that any effort exerted on its behalf is necessarily expended on nothing.

The ego’s goal is quite explicitly ego autonomy. From the beginning then its purpose is to be separate, sufficient unto itself and independent of any power except its own. This is why it is the symbol of separation. Every idea has a purpose and its purpose is always the natural extension of what it is. Everything that stems from the ego is the natural outcome of its central belief and the way to undo its results is merely to recognize that their source is not natural being out of accord with Your True nature.

We once said that to will contrary to God is wishful thinking and not real willing. His Will is One because the Extension of His Will cannot be unlike Itself. The real conflict You experience then is between the ego’s idle wishes and the Will of God which You share. Can this be a real conflict? Yours is the independence of Creation not of autonomy. Your whole creative function lies in Your complete dependence on God Whose function He shares with You. By His willingness to share it He becomes as dependent on You as You are on Him. Do not ascribe the ego’s arrogance to Him Who wills not to be independent of You. He has included You in His Autonomy. Can You believe that autonomy is meaningful apart from Him?

The belief in ego autonomy is costing You the knowledge of Your dependence on God in which Your freedom lies. The ego sees all dependency as threatening and has twisted even Your longing for God into a means of establishing itself. But do not be deceived by its interpretation of Your conflict. The ego always attacks on behalf of separation. Believing it has the power to do this it does nothing else because its goal of autonomy is nothing else. The ego is totally confused about Reality but it does not lose sight of its goal. It is much more vigilant than You are because it is perfectly certain of its purpose. You are confused because You do not know Yours.

What You must learn to recognize is that the last thing the ego wishes You to realize is that You are afraid of it. For if the ego gives rise to fear it is diminishing Your independence and weakening Your power. Yet its one claim to Your allegiance is that it can give power to You. Without this belief You would not listen to it at all. How then can its existence continue if You realize that by accepting it You are belittling Yourself and depriving Yourself of Power?

The ego can and does allow You to regard Yourself as supercilious, unbelieving, “lighthearted”, distant, emotionally shallow, callous, uninvolved and even desperate but not really afraid. Minimizing fear but not its undoing is the ego’s constant effort and is indeed the skill at which it is very ingenious. How can it preach separation without upholding it through fear and would You listen to it if You recognized this is what it is doing?

Your recognition that whatever seems to separate You from God is only fear, regardless of the form it takes and quite apart from how the ego wants You to experience it, is therefore the basic ego threat. Its dream of autonomy is shaken to its foundation by this awareness. For though You may countenance a false idea of independence You will not accept the cost of fear if You recognize it. Yet this is the cost and the ego cannot minimize it. For if You overlook Love You are overlooking Yourself and You must fear unreality because You have denied Yourself. By believing that You have successfully attacked Truth You are believing that attack has power. Very simply then You have become afraid of Yourself. And no one wills to learn what he believes would destroy him.

If the ego’s goal of autonomy could be accomplished God’s Purpose could be defeated and this is impossible. Only by learning what fear is can You finally learn to distinguish the possible from the impossible and the false from the True. According to the ego’s teaching its goal can be accomplished and God’s Purpose can not. According to the Holy Spirit’s teaching only God’s Purpose is accomplishment and it is already accomplished.

God is as dependent on You as You are on Him because His Autonomy encompasses Yours and is therefore incomplete without it. You can only establish Your autonomy by identifying with Him and fulfilling Your function as it exists in Truth. The ego believes that to accomplish its goal is happiness. But it is given You to know that God’s function is Yours and happiness cannot be found apart from Your joint Will. Recognize only that the ego’s goal which You have pursued quite diligently has merely brought You fear and it becomes difficult to maintain that fear is happiness.

Upheld by fear this is what the ego would have You believe. Yet God’s Son is not insane and cannot believe it. Let him but recognize it and he will not accept it. For only the insane would choose fear in place of Love and only the insane could believe that Love can be gained by attack. But the Sane know that only attack could produce fear from which the Love of God completely protects Them.

The ego analyzes, the Holy Spirit accepts. The appreciation of wholeness comes only through acceptance for to analyze means to separate out. The attempt to understand Totality by breaking it up is clearly the characteristically contradictory approach of the ego to everything. Never forget that the ego believes that Power, understanding and Truth lie in separation. And to establish this belief it must attack. Unaware that the belief cannot be established and obsessed with the conviction that separation is Salvation the ego attacks everything it perceives by breaking it up into small and disconnected parts without meaningful relationships and thus without meaning. The ego will always substitute chaos for meaning for if separation is Salvation harmony is threat.

The ego’s interpretations of the laws of perception are and would have to be the exact opposite of the Holy Spirit’s. The ego focuses on error and overlooks Truth. It makes real every mistake it perceives and with characteristically circular reasoning concludes that because of the mistake consistent Truth must be meaningless. The next step then is obvious. If consistent Truth is meaningless inconsistency must be True if Truth has meaning. Holding error clearly in mind and protecting what it has made real the ego proceeds to the next step in its thought system: That error is real and Truth is error.

The ego makes no attempt to understand this and it is clearly not understandable. But the ego does make every attempt to demonstrate it and this it does constantly. Analyzing to attack meaning the ego does succeed in overlooking it and is left with a series of fragmented perceptions in which it unifies on behalf of itself. This then becomes the universe it perceives and it is this universe which in turn becomes its demonstration of its own reality.

Do not underestimate the appeal of the ego’s demonstrations to those who would listen. Selective perception chooses its witnesses carefully and its witnesses are consistent. The case for insanity is strong to the insane. For reasoning ends at its beginning and no thought system transcends its source. Yet reasoning without meaning cannot demonstrate anything and those who are convinced by it must be deluded. Can the ego teach Truly when it overlooks Truth? Can it perceive What it has denied? Its witnesses do attest to its denial but hardly to What it has denied. The ego looks straight at the Father and does not see Him for it has denied His Son.

Would You remember the Father? Accept His Son and You will remember Him. Nothing can demonstrate that His Son is unworthy for nothing can prove that a lie is True. What You see of His Son through the eyes of the ego is a demonstration that His Son does not exist yet where the Son is the Father must be. Accept What God does not deny and He will demonstrate Its Truth. The Witnesses for God stand in His Light and behold What He created. Their silence is the sign that They have beheld God’s Son and in the Presence of Christ They need demonstrate nothing for Christ speaks to Them of Himself and of His Father. They are silent because Christ speaks to Them and it is His words that They speak.

Every Brother You meet becomes a witness for Christ or for the ego depending on what You perceive in him. Everyone convinces You of what You want to perceive and of the Reality of the kingdom You have chosen for Your vigilance. Everything You perceive is a witness to the thought system You want to be True. Every Brother has the Power to release You if You will to be free. You cannot accept false witness of him unless You have evoked false witnesses against him. If he speaks not of Christ to You You spoke not of Christ to him. You hear but Your own voice and if Christ speaks through You You will hear Him.

f. 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.

Resurrection must compel Your allegiance gladly because it is the symbol of Joy. Its whole compelling Power lies in the fact that it represents what You want to be. The freedom to leave behind everything that hurts You and humbles You and frightens You cannot be thrust upon You but it can be offered You through the Grace of God. And You can accept it by His Grace for God is gracious to His Son accepting him without question as his own. Who then is Your own? The Father has given You all that is His and He Himself is Yours with them. Guard them in their Resurrection for otherwise You will not awake in God safely surrounded by what is Yours forever.

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?

You have nailed Yourself to a cross and placed a crown of thorns upon Your own head. Yet You cannot crucify God’s Son for the Will of God cannot die. His Son has been redeemed from his own crucifixion and You cannot assign to death whom God has given eternal Life. The dream of crucifixion of God’s Son still lies heavy on Your eyes but what You see in dreams is not Reality. While You perceive the Son of God as crucified You are asleep. And as long as You believe that You can crucify him You are only having nightmares. You Who are beginning to wake are still aware of dreams and have not yet forgotten them.

Forgetting of dreams and the awareness of Christ comes with the awakening of others to share Your Redemption. You will awaken to Your own Call for the Call to awake is within You. If I live in You You are awake. Yet You must see the works I do through You or You will not perceive that I have done them unto You. Do not set limits on what You believe I can do through You or You will not accept what I can do for You. For it is done already and unless You give all that You have received You will not know that Your Redeemer liveth and that You have awakened with Him. Redemption is recognized only by sharing it.

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.

g. The Problem and the Answer

The world as You perceive it cannot have been created by the Father for the world is not as You see it. God created only the Eternal and everything You see is perishable. Therefore there must be another world which You do not see. The Bible speaks of a new Heaven and a new earth yet this cannot be literally True for the Eternal are not recreated. To perceive anew is merely to perceive again implying that before You were not perceiving at all. What then is the world that awaits Your perception when You see it? Every loving thought that the Son of God ever had is eternal. Those which his mind perceived in this world are the world’s only Reality. They are perceptions because he still believes that he is separate yet they are eternal because they are loving. And being loving they are like the Father and therefore cannot die.

The real world can actually be perceived. All that is necessary is a willingness to perceive nothing else. For if You perceive both good and evil You are accepting both the false and the True and making no distinction between them. The ego sees some good but never only good. That is why its perceptions are so variable. It does not reject goodness entirely for this You could not accept but it always adds something that is not real to the Real thus confusing illusion and Reality. For perceptions cannot be partly True. If You believe in Truth and illusion You cannot tell which is True.

To establish Your personal autonomy You tried to create unlike Your Father believing what You made to be capable of being unlike Him. Yet everything in what You have made that is True is like Him. Only this is the real world and perceiving only this will lead You to the real Heaven because it will make You capable of understanding it. The perception of goodness is not knowledge but the denial of the opposite of goodness enables You to perceive a condition in which opposites do not exist. And this is the condition of knowledge. Without this awareness You have not met its conditions and until You do You will not know that it is Yours already.

You have made many ideas which You have placed between Yourselves and Your Creator and these beliefs are the world as You perceive it. Truth is not absent here but It is obscure. You do not know the difference between what You have made and what God created and so You do not know the difference between what You have made and what You have created. To believe that You can perceive the real world is to believe that You can know Yourself. You can know God because it is His Will to be known. The real world is all that the Holy Spirit has saved for You out of what You have made and to perceive only this is Salvation because it is the recognition that Reality is only what is True.

This is a very simple Course. Perhaps You do not feel that a Course Which in the end teaches nothing more than that only Reality is True is necessary. But do You believe it? When You have perceived the real world You will recognize that You did not believe it. But the swiftness with which Your new and only real perception will be translated into knowledge will leave You only an instant to realize that this judgment is True. And then everything You made will be forgotten, the good and the bad, the false and the True. For as Heaven and earth become One even the real world will vanish from Your sight. The end of the world is not its destruction but its translation into Heaven. The reinterpretation of the world is the transfer of all perception to knowledge.

The Bible tells You to become as little Children. Little Children recognize that They do not understand what They perceive and so They ask what it means. Do not make the mistake of believing that You understand what You perceive for its meaning is lost to You. But the Holy Spirit has saved its meaning for You and if You will let Him interpret it for You He will restore what You have thrown away. As long as You think You know its meaning You will see no need to ask it of Him. You do not know the meaning of anything You perceive. Not one thought You hold is wholly True.

The recognition of this is Your firm beginning. You are not misguided, You have accepted no guide at all. Instruction in perception is Your great need for You understand nothing. Recognize this but do not accept it for understanding is Your inheritance. Perceptions are learned and You are not without a Teacher. But Your willingness to learn of Him depends on Your willingness to question everything You have learned of Yourself for You Who have learned amiss should not be Your own teachers. No one can withhold Truth except from himself. Yet God will not refuse the Answer He gave You. Ask then for What is Yours but which You did not make and do not defend Yourself against Truth.

You made the problem which God has answered. Ask Yourselves therefore but one simple question: Do I want the problem or do I want the Answer? Decide for the Answer and You will have It for You will see It as It is and It is Yours already. You complain that This Course is not sufficiently specific for You to understand It and use It. Yet It has been very specific and You have not done what It specifically advocates. This is not a Course in the play of ideas but in their practical application. Nothing could be more specific than to be told very clearly that if You ask You will receive.

The Holy Spirit will answer every specific problem as long as You believe that problems are specific. His Answer is both many and One as long as You believe that the One is many. You must realize that You are afraid of His specificity for fear of what You think it will demand of You. Yet only by asking will You learn that nothing that is of God demands anything of You. God gives, He does not take. You are refusing to ask because You believe that asking is taking and You do not perceive it as sharing. The Holy Spirit will give You only what is Yours and will take nothing in return. For what is Yours is everything and You share it with God. This is its Reality. Would the Holy Spirit Who wills only to restore be capable of misinterpreting the question You must ask to learn His Answer?

You have heard the Answer but You have misunderstood the question. You have believed that to ask for guidance of the Holy Spirit is to ask for deprivation. Little children of God, You do not understand Your Father. You believe in a world that takes because You believe that You can get by taking. But by that perception You have lost sight of the real world. You are afraid of the world as You see it but the real world is still Yours for the asking. Do not deny it to Yourself for it can only free You. Nothing of God will enslave His Son whom He created free and whose freedom is protected by His Being.

Blessed are You Who will ask the Truth of God without fear for only thus can You learn that His Answer is the release from fear. Beautiful Child of God, You are asking only for what I promised You. Do You believe I would deceive You? The Kingdom of Heaven is within You. Believe that the Truth is in Me for I know that It is in You. God’s Sons have nothing which They do not share. Ask for Truth of any Son of God and You have asked It of Me. No one of Us but has the Answer in Him to give to anyone who asks It of Him. Ask anything of God’s Son and his Father will answer You for Christ is not deceived in his Father and his Father is not deceived in him.

Do not then be deceived in Your Brother and see only his loving thoughts as his Reality for by denying that his mind is split You will heal Yours. Accept him as his Father accepts him and heal him unto Christ for Christ is his healing and Yours. Christ is the Son of God Who is in no way separate from his Father, whose every thought is as loving as the Thought of his Father by Which He was created. Be not deceived in God’s Son for thereby You must be deceived in Yourself. And being deceived in Yourself You are deceived in Your Father in Whom no deceit is possible.

In the real world there is no sickness for there is no separation and no division. Only loving thoughts are recognized and because no one is without Your help the Help of God goes with You everywhere. As You become willing to accept this Help by asking for it You will give it because You want it. Nothing will be beyond Your healing Power because nothing will be denied Your simple request. What problems will not disappear in the presence of God’s Answer? Ask then to learn of the Reality of Your Brother because this is what You will perceive in him and You will see Your beauty reflected in him.

Do not accept Your Brother’s variable perception of himself for his split mind is Yours and You will not accept Your healing without his. For You share the real world as You share Heaven and his healing is Yours. To love Yourself is to heal Yourself and You cannot perceive part of You as sick and achieve Your own goal. Brother, We heal Together as We live Together and love Together. Be not deceived in God’s Son for He is One with Himself and One with His Father. Love Him Who is beloved of His Father and You will learn of the Father’s Love for You.

If You perceive offense in a Brother pluck the offense from Your mind for You are offended by Christ and are deceived in Him. Heal in Christ and be not offended by Him for there is no offense in Him. If what You perceive offends You You are offended in Yourself and are condemning God’s Son whom God condemneth not. Let the Holy Spirit remove all offense of God’s Son against himself and perceive no one but through His guidance for He would save You from all condemnation. Accept His healing Power and use it for all He sends You for He wills to heal the Son of God in whom He is not deceived.

Children perceive terrifying ghosts and monsters and dragons and they are terrified. But if they ask someone they trust for the real meaning of what they perceive and are willing to let their interpretations go in favor of Reality their fear goes with them. When a child is helped to translate his “ghost” into a curtain, his “monster” into a shadow and his “dragon” into a dream he is no longer afraid and laughs happily at his own fear. You, My Children, are afraid of Your Brothers and of Your Father and of Yourselves. But You are merely deceived in them.

Ask What they are of the Teacher of Reality and hearing His Answer You too will laugh at Your fears and replace them with Peace. For fear lies not in Reality but in the minds of children who do not understand it. It is only their lack of understanding that frightens them and when they learn to perceive Truly they are not afraid. And because of this they will ask for Truth again when they are frightened. It is not the Reality of Your Brothers or Your Father or Yourself which frightens You. You do not know What they are and so You perceive them as ghosts and monsters and dragons.

Ask of Their Reality from the One Who knows it and He will tell You What they are. For You do not understand them and because You are deceived by what You see You need Reality to dispel Your fears. Would You not exchange Your fears for Truth if the exchange is Yours for the asking? For if God is not deceived in You You can be deceived only in Yourself. But You can learn the Truth of Yourself of the Holy Spirit Who will teach You that as part of God deceit in You is impossible. When You perceive Yourself without deceit You will accept the real world in place of the false one You have made. And then Your Father will lean down to You and take the last step for You by raising You unto Himself.

Chapter 11 – God’s Plan for Salvation [Plan für die Erlösung]

a. The Judgment of the Holy Spirit

There is but one interpretation of all motivation that makes any sense and because it is the Holy Spirit’s judgment it requires no effort at all on Your part. Every loving thought is True. Everything else is an appeal for healing and help. That is what it is regardless of the form it takes. Can anyone be justified in responding with anger to a plea for help? No response can be appropriate except the willingness to give it to him for this, and only this, is what he is asking for. Offer him anything else and You are assuming the right to attack his Reality by interpreting it as You see fit.

Perhaps the danger of this to Your own mind is not yet fully apparent. But this by no means signifies that it is not perfectly clear. If You maintain that an appeal for help is something else You will react to something else and Your response will be inappropriate to Reality as it is but not to Your perception of it. This is poor Reality testing by definition. There is nothing to prevent You from recognizing all calls for help as exactly what they are except Your own perceived need to attack. It is only this that makes You willing to engage in endless “battles” with Reality in which You deny the Reality of the need for healing by making it unreal.

You would not do this except for Your unwillingness to perceive Reality which You withhold from Yourself. It is surely good advice to tell You not to judge what You do not understand. No one with a personal investment is a reliable witness for Truth to him has become what he wants It to be. If You are unwilling to perceive an appeal for help as what it is it is because You are unwilling to give help and receive it. The analysis of the ego’s “real” motivation is the modern equivalent of the inquisition. For in both a Brother’s errors are “uncovered” and he is then attacked for his own good. What can this be but projection? For his errors lay in the minds of his interpreters for which they punished him.

Whenever You fail to recognize a call for help You are refusing help. Would You maintain that You do not need it? Yet this is what You are maintaining when You refuse to recognize a Brother’s appeal. For only by answering his appeal can You be helped. Deny him Your help and You will not perceive God’s Answer to You. The Holy Spirit does not need Your help in interpreting motivation but You do need His. Only appreciation is an appropriate response to Your Brother. Gratitude is due him for both his loving thoughts and His appeals for help for both are capable of bringing Love into Your awareness if You perceive them Truly. And all Your sense of strain comes from Your attempts not to do just this.

How simple then is God’s plan for Salvation [Plan für die Erlösung]. There is but one response to Reality for Reality evokes no conflict at all. There is but one Teacher of Reality Who understands what it is. He does not change His mind about Reality because Reality does not change. Although Your interpretations of Reality are meaningless in Your divided state His remain consistently True. He gives them to You because they are for You.

Do not attempt to “help” a Brother in Your way for You cannot help Yourselves. But hear his Call for the Help of God and You will recognize Your own need for the Father. Your interpretations of Your Brother’s need is Your interpretation of Yours. By giving help You are asking for it. And if You perceive but one need in Yourself You will be healed. For You will recognize God’s Answer as You want It to be and if You want It in Truth It will be Truly Yours. Every appeal You answer in the name of Christ brings the Remembrance of Your Father closer to Your awareness. For the sake of Your need then hear every call for help as what it is so God can answer You.

By applying the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the reactions of others more and more consistently You will gain an increasing awareness that His criteria are equally applicable to You. For to recognize fear is not enough to escape from it although the recognition is necessary to demonstrate the need for escape. The Holy Spirit must still translate it into Truth. If You were left with the fear having recognized it You would have taken a step away from Reality, not towards it. Yet We have repeatedly emphasized the need to recognize fear and face it without disguise as a crucial step in the undoing of the ego. Consider how well the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the motives of others will serve You then.

Having taught You to accept only loving thoughts in others and to regard everything else as an appeal for help He has taught You that fear is an appeal for help. This is what recognizing it really means. If You do not protect it He will reinterpret it. That is the ultimate value to You in learning to perceive attack as a call for Love. We have learned surely that fear and attack are inevitably associated. If only attack produces fear and if You see attack as the call for help that it is the Reality of fear must dawn upon You. For fear is a call for Love in unconscious recognition of What has been denied.

b. The Mechanism of Miracles

Fear is a symptom of Your deep sense of loss. If when You perceive it in others You learn to supply the loss the basic cause of fear is removed. Thereby You teach Yourself that fear does not exist in You for You have in Yourself the means for removing it and have demonstrated this by giving it. Fear and Love are the only emotions of which You are capable. One is false for it was made out of denial and denial depends on the real belief in what is denied for its own existence.

By interpreting fear correctly as a positive affirmation of the underlying belief it masks You are undermining its perceived usefulness by rendering it useless. Defenses which do not work at all are automatically discarded. If You raise What fear conceals to clearcut, unequivocal predominance fear becomes meaningless. You have denied its Power to conceal Love which was its only purpose. The mask which You have drawn across the Face of Love has disappeared.

If You would look upon Love, Which is the world’s Reality, how could You do better than to recognize in every defense against It the underlying appeal for It? And how could You better learn of Its Reality than by answering the appeal for It by giving It? The Holy Spirit’s interpretation of fear does dispel it for the awareness of Truth cannot be denied. Thus does the Holy Spirit replace fear with Love and translate error into Truth. And thus will You learn of Him how to replace Your dream of separation with the fact of Unity. For the separation is only the denial of union and, correctly interpreted, attests to Your eternal knowledge that union is True.

Miracles are merely the translation of denial into Truth. If to love Oneself is to heal Oneself those who are sick do not love themselves. Therefore they are asking for the Love that would heal them but Which they are denying to themselves. If they knew the Truth about themselves they could not be sick. The task of the Miracleworker thus becomes to deny the denial of Truth. The sick must heal themselves for the Truth is in them. But having obscured It the Light in another mind must shine into theirs because that Light is theirs.

The Light in them shines as brightly regardless of the density of the fog that obscures It. If You give no Power to the fog to obscure the Light it has none for it has Power only because the Son of God gave Power to it. He must Himself withdraw that Power remembering that all Power is of God. You can remember this for all the Sonship. Do not allow Your Brother not to remember for his forgetfulness is Yours. But Your remembering is his for God cannot be remembered alone. This is what You have forgotten. To perceive the healing of Your Brother as the healing of Yourself is thus the way to remember God. For You forgot Your Brothers with Him and God’s Answer to Your forgetting is but the way to remember.

Perceive in sickness but another call for Love and offer Your Brother What he believes he cannot offer himself. Whatever the sickness there is but one remedy. You will be made whole as You make whole for to perceive in sickness the appeal for health is to recognize in hatred the call for Love. And to give a Brother What he really wants is to offer It unto Yourself. For Your Father wills You to know Your Brother as Yourself. Answer his call for Love and Yours is answered. Healing is the Love of Christ for His Father and for Himself.

You have no idea of the intensity of Your wish to get rid of each other. This does not mean that You are not strongly impelled toward each other but it does mean that Love is not the only emotion. Because Your Love has become more in awareness the conflict can no longer be “settled” by Your previous attempts to minimize the fear. The Love makes attack untenable but You still feel the fear. Instead of trying to resolve it directly You have a strong tendency to try to escape from the Love. Yet this is the last thing You would want to escape from. And even if You did You can escape from everything else but not from This. Be glad indeed that there is no escape from Salvation.

You do not realize how much You hate each other. You will not get rid of this until You do realize it for until then You will think You want to get rid of each other and keep the hatred. Yet if You are each other’s Salvation what can this mean except that You prefer attack to Salvation? Be glad that neither Your Reality nor Your Salvation is a matter of Your preference for You have much Cause for Joy. But that the Cause is not of Your making is surely obvious. You do hate and fear each other and Your Love Which is very real is totally obscured by it. How can You know the meaning of Love unless It is total?

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

Your hatred is not real but it is real to You. It hides what You really want. Surely You are willing to look upon what You do not want without fear even if it frightens You if You can thereby get rid of it. For You cannot escape Salvation and You will not escape fear until You want Salvation. Be not afraid of this journey into fear for it is not Your destination. And We will walk through it in safety for Peace is not far and You will be led in its Light.

Remember what We said about the frightening perceptions of little children which terrify them because they do not understand them. If they ask for enlightenment and accept it their fears vanish. But if they hide their nightmares they will keep them. It is easy to help an uncertain child for he recognizes that he does not know what his perceptions mean. But You believe You do know. Little children, You are hiding Your heads under the covers of the heavy blankets You have laid upon Yourselves. You are hiding Your nightmares in the darkness of Your own certainty and refusing to open Your eyes and look at them.

Let Us not save nightmares for they are not fitting offerings for Christ and so they are not fit gifts for You. Take off the covers and look at what You are afraid of. Only the anticipation will frighten You for the Reality of nothingness cannot be frightening. Let Us not delay this for Your dream of hatred will not leave You without help and help is Here. Learn to be quiet in the midst of turmoil for quietness is the end of strife and this is the journey to Peace. Look straight at every image that rises to delay You for the goal is inevitable because it is eternal.

The goal of Love is but Your right and It belongs to You despite Your preference. You still will what God wills and no nightmare can defeat a Child of God in His purpose. For Your purpose was given You by God and You must accomplish it because it is His Will. Awake and remember Your purpose for it is Your will to do so. What has been accomplished for You must be Yours. Do not let Your hatred stand in the way of Love for nothing can withstand the Love of Christ for His Father or His Father’s Love for Him.

A little while and You will see Me. For I am not hidden because You are hiding. I will awaken You as surely as I awakened Myself for I awoke for You. In My Resurrection is Your release. Our mission is to escape crucifixion, not Redemption. Trust in My Help for I did not walk alone and I will walk with You as Our Father walked with Me. Did You not know that I walked with Him in Peace? And does not that mean that Peace goes with Us on the journey?

There is no fear in perfect Love. We will but be making perfect to You what is already perfect in You. You do not fear the unknown but the known. You will not fail in Your mission because I failed not in Mine. Give Me but a little trust in the name of the complete trust I have in You and We will easily accomplish the goal of perfection Together. For perfection is and cannot be denied. To deny the denial of perfection is not so difficult as the denial of Truth. And what We can accomplish Together must be believed when You see it as accomplished. You Who have tried to banish Love have not succeeded. But You Who choose to banish fear will succeed.

The Lord is with You but You know it not. Yet Your Redeemer liveth and abideth in You in the Peace out of which He was created. Would You not exchange this awareness for the awareness of Your fear? When We have overcome fear, not by hiding it, not by minimizing it, not by denying its full import in any way this is what You will really see. You cannot lay aside the obstacle to real Vision without looking upon it for to lay aside means to judge against. If You will look the Holy Spirit will judge and will judge Truly. He cannot shine away what You keep hidden for You have not offered it to Him and He cannot take it from You.

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

c. The Investment in Reality

I once asked if You were willing to sell all You have and give to the poor and follow Me. This is what I meant: If You had no investment in anything in this world You could teach the poor where their treasure is. The poor are merely those who have invested wrongly and they are poor indeed! And because they are in need it is given to You to help them since You are among them. Consider how perfectly Your lesson would be learned if You were unwilling to share their poverty. For poverty is lack and there is but one lack since there is but one need.

Suppose a Brother insists on having You do something You think You do not want to do. The very fact of his insistence should tell You that he believes Salvation lies in it. If You insist on refusing and experience a quick response of opposition You are believing that Your Salvation lies in not doing it. You then are making the same mistake that he is and are making his error real to both of You. Insistence means investment and what You invest in is always related to Your notion of Salvation. The question is always twofold: First, what is to be saved and second, how can it be saved?

Whenever You become angry with a Brother for whatever reason You are believing that the ego is to be saved and to be saved by attack. If he attacks You are agreeing with this belief and if You attack You are reinforcing it. Remember that those who attack are poor. Their poverty asks for gifts, not for further impoverishment. You Who could help them are surely acting destructively if You accept their poverty as Yours. If You had not invested as they had it would never occur to You to overlook their need.

Recognize what does not matter and if Your Brothers ask You for something “outrageous”, do it because it does not matter. Refuse and Your opposition establishes that it does matter to You. It is only You therefore Who have made the request outrageous for nothing can be asked of You and every request of a Brother is for You. Why would You insist in denying him? For to do so is to deny Yourself and impoverish both. He is asking for Salvation as You are. Poverty is of the ego and never of God. No “outrageous” request can be made of One Who recognizes What is valuable and wants to accept nothing else.

Salvation is for the mind and it is attained through Peace. This is the only thing that can be saved and the only way to save it. Any response other than Love arises from a confusion about the “what” and the “how” of Salvation. And this is the only Answer. Never lose sight of this and never allow Yourself to believe even for an instant that there is another Answer. For You will surely place Yourself among the poor who do not understand that they dwell in abundance and that Salvation is come.

To identify with the ego is to attack Yourself and make Yourself poor. That is why everyone who identifies with the ego feels deprived. What he experiences is then depression or anger but what he did is to exchange his Selflove for Selfhate making him afraid of himself. He does not realize this. Even if he is fully aware of anxiety he does not perceive its source as his own ego identification and he always tries to handle it by making some sort of insane “arrangement” with the world. He always perceives this world as outside himself for this is crucial to his adjustment. He does not realize that he makes this world for there is no world outside him.

If only the loving Thoughts of God’s Son are the world’s Reality the real world must be in his mind and everything else must be illusion. His insane thoughts too must be in his mind but an internal conflict of this magnitude he cannot tolerate. For a split mind is endangered and the recognition that it encompasses completely opposed thoughts within itself is intolerable. Therefore the mind projects the split, not the Reality.

Everything You perceive as the outside world is merely Your attempt to maintain Your ego identification for Everyone believes that identification is Salvation. But consider what has happened for thoughts have consequences to the Thinker. You are at odds with the world as You perceive it because You think it is antagonistic to You. This is a necessary consequence of what You have done. You have projected outward what is antagonistic to what is inward and therefore You would have to perceive it this way. That is why You must realize that Your hatred is in Your mind and not outside it before You can get rid of it. And why You must get rid of it before You can perceive the world as it really is.

Long ago We said that God so loved the world that He gave it to His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should never see death. God does love the real world and Those Who perceive its Reality cannot see the world of death. For death is not of the real world in which everything is eternal. God gave You the real world in exchange for the one You made out of Your split mind and which is the symbol of death. For if You could really separate Yourselves from the Mind of God You would die. And the world You perceive is a world of separation.

You were willing to accept even death to deny Your Father. But He would not have it so and so it is not so. You still could not will against Him and that is why You have no control over the world You made. It is not a world of will because it is governed by the desire to be unlike Him. And this desire is not will. The world You made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless “laws” and without meaning of any kind. For it was made out of what You do not want projected from Your mind because You were afraid of it.

Yet this world is only in the mind of its Maker along with his real Salvation. Do not believe it is outside of Yourself for only by recognizing where it is will You gain control over it. For You do have control over Your mind for the mind is the mechanism of decision. If You will recognize that all attack which You perceive is in Your own mind and nowhere else You will at last have placed its source and where it began it must end. For in this place also lies Salvation. The Altar of God Where Christ abideth is there.

You have defiled the Altar but not the world. But Christ has placed the Atonement on the Altar for You. Bring Your perceptions of the world to this Altar for It is the Altar to Truth. There You will see Your vision changed and There You will learn to see Truly. From This Place Where God and His Son dwell in Peace and Where You are welcome You will look out in Peace and behold the world Truly. But to find the Place You must relinquish Your investment in the world as You have projected it allowing the Holy Spirit to project the real world to You from the Altar of God.

d. Seeking and Finding

The ego is certain that Love is dangerous and this is always its central teaching. It never puts it this way, on the contrary: Everyone Who believes that the ego is Salvation is intensely engaged in the search for Love. Yet the ego though encouraging the search very actively makes one proviso: – Do not find it. – Its dictates then can be summed up simply as: “Seek and do not find.” This is the one promise that it holds out to You and the one promise it will keep. For the ego pursues its goal with fanatic insistence and its realitytesting, though severely impaired, is completely consistent.

The search which the ego undertakes is therefore bound to be defeated. And since it also teaches that it is Your identification its guidance leads You to a journey which must end in perceived Self defeat. For the ego cannot love and in its frantic search for Love it is seeking What it is afraid to find. The search is inevitable because the ego is part of Your mind and because of its source the ego is not wholly split off or it could not be believed at all. For it is Your mind that believes in it and gives existence to it. Yet it is also Your mind that has the Power to deny its existence and You will surely do so when You realize exactly what the journey it sets You is.

It is surely obvious that no one wants to find what would utterly defeat him. Being unable to love the ego would be totally inadequate in Love’s presence for it could not respond at all. You would have to abandon its guidance for it would be quite apparent that it had not taught You the response pattern You need. The ego will therefore distort Love and teach You that Love calls forth the responses the ego can teach. Follow its teaching then and You will search for Love but will not recognize It.

But do You realize that the ego must set You on a journey that cannot but lead to a sense of futility and depression? To seek and not to find is hardly joyous. Is this the promise You would keep? The Holy Spirit offers You another Promise and one that will lead to Joy. For His Promise is always: Seek and You will find. And under His Guidance You cannot be defeated. His is the journey to accomplishment and the goal He sets before You He will give You. For He will never deceive God’s Son whom He loves with the Love of the Father.

You will undertake a journey because You are not at Home in this world. And You will search for Your Home whether You know where it is or not. If You believe it is outside Yourself the search will be futile for You will be seeking where it is not. You do not know how to look within Yourself for You do not believe Your Home is there. Yet the Holy Spirit knows it for You and He will guide You to Your Home because that is His Mission. As He fulfills His Mission He will teach You Yours. For Your Mission is the same as His. By guiding Your Brothers Home You are but following Him.

Behold the Guide Your Father gave You that You might learn You have eternal Life. For death is not Your Father’s Will, nor Yours, and whatever is True is the Will of the Father. You pay no price for Life for that was given You but You do pay a price for death and a very heavy one. If death is Your treasure You will sell everything else to purchase it. And You will believe that You have purchased it because You have sold everything else. But You cannot sell the Kingdom of Heaven. Your inheritance can neither be bought nor sold. There can be no disinherited parts of the Sonship for God is whole and all His Extensions are like Him.

The Atonement was not the price of Your wholeness but It was the price of Your awareness of Your wholeness. For what You chose to “sell” had to be kept for You since You could not “buy” it back. Yet You must invest in it, not with money but with Your Spirit. For Spirit is Will and Will is the “price” of the Kingdom. Your inheritance awaits only the recognition that You have been redeemed. The Holy Spirit guides You into Life eternal but You must relinquish Your investment in death or You will not see it though it is all around You.

e. The Sane Curriculum

Only Love is strong because It is undivided. The Strong do not attack because They see no need to do so. Before the idea of attack can enter Your mind You must have perceived Yourself as weak. Because You had attacked Yourself and believed that the attack was effective You behold Yourself as weakened. No longer perceiving Yourself and all Your Brothers as equal and regarding Yourself as weaker You attempt to “equalize” the situation You have made. You use attack to do so because You believe that attack was successful in weakening You.

That is why the recognition of Your own invulnerability is so important in the restoration of Your sanity. For if You accept Your invulnerability You are recognizing that attack has no effect. Although You have attacked Yourself, and very brutally, You will demonstrate that nothing happened. Therefore by attacking You have not done anything. Once You realize this there is no longer any sense in attack for it manifestly does not work and it cannot protect You. But the recognition of Your invulnerability has more than merely negative value.

If Your attacks on Yourself failed to weaken You You are still strong. You therefore have no need to “equalize” the situation to establish Your strength. But You will never realize the utter uselessness of attack except by recognizing that Your attack on Yourself had no effects. For others do react to attack if they perceive it and if You are trying to attack them You will be unable to avoid interpreting this as reinforcement. The only Place where You can cancel out all reinforcement is in Yourself. For You are always the first point of Your own attack and if this has never been it has no consequences.

The Holy Spirit’s Love is Your Strength for Yours is divided and therefore not real. You could not trust Your own Love when You have attacked It. You cannot learn of perfect Love with a split mind because a split mind has made itself a poor learner. You tried to make the separation eternal because You wanted to retain the characteristics of Creation with Your own content. Creation is not of You and poor learners need special teaching.

You have learning handicaps in a very literal sense. There are areas in Your learning skills that are so impaired that You can progress only under constant clearcut direction provided by a Teacher Who can transcend Your limited resources. He becomes Your Resource because of Yourself You cannot learn. The learning situation in which You place Yourself is impossible and in this situation You clearly require a special Teacher and a special Curriculum.

Poor learners are not good choices for teachers either for themselves or for anyone else. You would hardly turn to them to establish the curriculum by which they can escape their limitations. If they understood what is beyond them they would not be handicapped. You do not know the meaning of Love and this is Your handicap. Do not attempt to teach Yourselves what You do not understand and do not try to set up curriculum goals where Yours have clearly failed. For Your learning goal has been not to learn and this cannot lead to successful learning.

You cannot transfer what You have not learned and the impairment of the ability to generalize is a crucial learning failure. Would You ask those who have failed to learn what learning aids are for? They do not know. For if they could interpret the aids correctly they would have learned from them. We have said that the ego’s rule is: “Seek and do not find.” Translated into curricular terms this is the same as saying: “Try to learn but do not succeed.”

The result of this curriculum goal is obvious. Every legitimate teaching aid, every real instruction and every sensible guide to learning will be misinterpreted. For they are all for learning facilitation which this strange curriculum goal is against. If You are trying to learn how not to learn and using the aim of teaching to defeat itself what can You expect but confusion? The curriculum does not make any sense.

This kind of learning has so weakened Your mind that You cannot love. For the curriculum You have chosen is against Love and amounts to a course in how to attack Yourself. A necessary minor supplementing this major curriculum goal is in learning how not to overcome the split which made this goal believable. And You can not overcome it for all Your learning is on its behalf.

Yet Your will speaks against Your learning as Your learning speaks against Your will. And so You fight against learning and succeed for that is Your will. But You do not realize even yet that there is Something You do will to learn and that You can learn It because it is Your will to do so. You Who have tried to learn what You do not will should take heart. For though the curriculum You set Yourself is depressing indeed it is merely ridiculous if You look at it. Is it possible that the way to achieve a goal is not to attain it?

Resign now as Your own teachers. This resignation will not lead to depression. It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what You have taught Yourselves and of the learning outcomes that have resulted. Under the proper learning conditions which You can neither provide nor understand You will become excellent Learners and Teachers. But it is not so yet and will not be so until the whole learning situation as You have set it up is reversed.

Your learning potential, properly understood, is limitless because it will lead You to God. You can teach the way to Him and learn it if You will follow the Teacher Who knows it and the Curriculum for learning it. The Curriculum is totally unambiguous because the goal is not divided and the means and the end are in complete accord. You need offer only undivided attention. Everything else will be given You. For it is Your will to learn aright and nothing can oppose the Will of God’s Son. His learning is as unlimited as he is.

f. The Vision of Christ

The ego is trying to teach You how to gain the whole world and lose Your own Soul. The Holy Spirit teaches that You cannot lose Your Soul and there is no gain in the world for of itself it profits nothing. To invest in something without profit is surely to impoverish Yourself and the overhead is high. Not only is there no profit in the investment but the cost to You is enormous. For this investment costs You the world’s Reality by denying Yours and gives You nothing in return. You cannot sell Your Soul but You can sell Your awareness of It.

You cannot perceive the Soul but You will not know It while You perceive anything else as more valuable. The Holy Spirit is Your Strength because He perceives nothing but Your Soul as You. He is perfectly aware that You do not know Yourselves and perfectly aware of how to teach You What You are. Because He loves You He will gladly teach You What He loves for He wills to share It. Remembering You always He cannot let You forget Your worth. For the Father never ceases to remind Him of His Son and He never ceases to remind His Son of the Father. God is in Your memory because of Him.

You chose to forget Your Father but You did not will to do so. And therefore You can decide otherwise. As it was My decision so is it Yours. You do not want the world. The only thing of value in it is whatever part of it You look upon with Love. This gives it the only Reality it will ever have. Its value is not in itself but Yours is in You. As Self value comes from Self extension so does the perception of Self value come from the projection of loving thoughts outward.

Make the world real unto Yourself for the real world is the gift of the Holy Spirit and so it belongs to You. Correction is for all who cannot see. To open the eyes of the blind is the Holy Spirit’s mission for He knows that they have not lost their Vision but merely sleep. He would awaken them from the sleep of forgetting to the Remembering of God. Christ’s Eyes are open and He will look upon whatever You see with Love if You accept His Vision as Yours.

The Holy Spirit keeps the Vision of Christ for every Son of God who sleeps. In His Sight the Son of God is perfect and He longs to share His Vision with You. He will show You the real world because God gave You Heaven. Through Him Your Father calls His Son to remember. The awakening of His Son begins with his investment in the real world and by this he will learn to reinvest in himself. For Reality is one with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit blesses the real world in their name.

When You have seen this real world as You will surely do You will remember Us. But You must learn the cost of sleeping and refuse to pay it. Only then will You decide to awake. And then the real world will spring to Your sight for Christ has never slept. He is waiting to be seen for He has never lost Sight of You. He looks quietly on the real world which He would share with You because He knows of the Father’s Love for Him. And knowing this He would give You what is Yours.

In perfect Peace He waits for You at His Father’s Altar holding out the Father’s Love to You in the quiet Light of the Holy Spirit’s Blessing. For the Holy Spirit will lead Everyone Home to His Father Where Christ waits as His Self. Every Child of God is One in Christ for His Being is in Christ as Christ’s is in God. Christ’s Love for You is His Love for His Father Which He knows because He knows His Father’s Love for Him. When the Holy Spirit has at last led You to Christ at the Altar to His Father perception fuses into knowledge because perception has become so Holy that its transfer to Holiness is merely its natural extension.

Love transfers to Love without any interference for the situations are identical. Only the ability to make this transfer is the product of learning. As You perceive more and more common elements in all situations the transfer of Your training under the Holy Spirit’s Guidance increases and becomes generalized. Gradually You learn to apply it to Everyone and everything for its applicability is universal. When this has been accomplished perception and knowledge have become so similar that they share the Unification of the laws of God. What is One cannot be perceived as separate and the denial of the separation is the reinstatement of knowledge.

At the Altar of God the Holy perception of God’s Son becomes so enlightened that Light streams into it and the Spirit of God’s Son shines in the Mind of the Father and becomes One with It. Very gently does God shine upon Himself loving the Extension of Himself Which is His Son. The world has no purpose as it blends into the Purpose of God. For the real world has slipped quietly into Heaven where everything eternal in it has always been. There the Redeemer and the Redeemed join in perfect Love of God and of Each Other. Heaven is Your Home and being in God it must also be in You.

g. The Guide for Miracles

Miracles demonstrate that learning has occurred under the right Guidance for learning is invisible and what has been learned can be recognized only by its results. Its generalization is demonstrated as You use It in more and more situations. You will recognize that You have learned there is no order of difficulty in Miracles when You have applied Them to all situations. For there is no situation to which Miracles do not apply and by applying Them to all situations You will gain the real world. For in this Holy perception You will be made whole and the Atonement will radiate from Your acceptance of It for Yourself to Everyone the Holy Spirit sends You for Your Blessing.

In every Child of God His Blessing lies and in Your Blessing of the Children of God is His Blessing to You. Everyone in the world must play his part in the Redemption of the world to recognize that the world has been redeemed. You cannot see the invisible. But if You see its effects You know it must be there. By perceiving what it does You recognize its being. And by what it does You learn what it is. You cannot see Your abilities but You gain confidence in their existence as they enable You to act. And the results of Your actions You can see.

The Holy Spirit is invisible but You can see the results of His Presence and through them You will learn that He is there. What He enables You to do is clearly not of this world for Miracles violate every law of Reality as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control is transcended for what the Holy Spirit enables You to do is clearly beyond all of them. Perceiving His results You will learn of Him. And recognizing that He works through You You will understand Where He must be and finally know What He is.

You cannot see the Holy Spirit but You can see His manifestations. And unless You do You will not realize He is there. Miracles are His Witnesses and speak for His Presence. What You cannot see becomes real to You only through the Witnesses Who speak for It. For You can be aware of What You cannot see and It can become compellingly real to You as Its presence becomes manifest through You. Do His work for You share in His function. As Your function in Heaven is Creation so Your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with You in Heaven and the Holy Spirit shares His with You on earth.

As long as You believe You have two functions so long will You need correction. For this belief is the destruction of Peace, a goal in direct opposition to the Holy Spirit’s purpose. You see what You expect and You expect what You invite. Your perception is the result of Your invitation coming to You as You sent for it. Whose manifestations would You see? Of whose presence would You be convinced? For You will believe in what You manifest and as You look out so will You see in. Two ways of looking at the world are in Your mind and Your perception will reflect the guidance You chose.

I am the manifestation of the Holy Spirit and when You see Me it will be because You have invited Him. For He will send You His Witnesses if You will but look upon Them. Remember always that You see what You seek for what You seek You will find. The ego finds what it seeks and only that. It does not find Love for That is not what it is seeking. But seeking and finding are the same and if You seek for two goals You will find them but You will recognize neither. For You will think they are the same because You want them both. The mind always strives for integration and if it is split and wants to keep the split it will believe it has one goal by making it one.

We said before that what You project is up to You but it is not up to You to decide whether to project for projection is a law of mind. Perception is projection and You look in before You look out. As You look in You choose the guide for seeing and then look out and behold his witnesses. This is why You find what You seek. What You want in Yourself You will make manifest by projection and You will accept it from the world because You put it there by wanting it.

When You think You are projecting what You do not want it is still because You do want it. This leads directly to dissociation for it represents the acceptance of two goals each perceived in a different place, separated from each other because You made them different. The mind then sees a divided world outside itself but not within. This gives it an illusion of integrity and enables it to believe that it is pursuing one goal. As long as You perceive the world as split You are not healed. For to be healed is to pursue one goal because You have accepted only one and want but one.

When You want only Love You will see nothing else. The contradictory nature of the witnesses You perceive is merely the reflection of Your conflicting invitations. You have looked upon Your minds and accepted opposition there having sought it there. But do not then believe that the witnesses for opposition are True for they attest only to Your decision about Reality returning to You the message You gave them. Love is recognized by Its Messengers. If You make It manifest Its Messengers will come to You because You invited Them.

The Power of decision is Your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world. You can decide to see it right. What You made of it is not its Reality for its Reality is only what You gave it. You cannot really give anything but Love to anyone or anything nor can You really receive anything else from them. If You think You have received anything else it is because You have looked within and thought You saw the Power to give something else within Yourself. It was only this decision that determined what You found for it was the decision of what You sought.

You are afraid of Me because You looked within and are afraid of what You saw. Yet You could not have seen Reality for the Reality of Your mind is the loveliest of God’s Creations. Coming only from God its Power and grandeur could only bring You Peace if You really looked upon it. If You are afraid it is because You saw something that is not there. Yet in this same place You could have looked upon Me and all Your Brothers in the perfect safety of the Mind That created Us. For We are There in the Peace of the Father Who wills to project His Peace through You.

When You have accepted Your mission to project Peace You will find it. For by making it manifest You will see it. Its Holy Witnesses will surround You because You called upon Them and They will come to You. I have heard Your call and I have answered it but You will not look upon Me nor hear the Answer Which You sought. But that is only because You do not yet want only That. Yet as I become more real to You You will learn that You do want only That. And You will see Me as You look within and We will look upon the world as God created it Together. Through the Eyes of Christ only the real world exists and can be seen.

As You decide so will You see. And all that You see but witnesses to Your decision. When You look within and see Me it will be because You have decided to manifest Truth. And as You manifest It You will see It both without and within for You will see It without because You saw It first within. Everything You behold without is a judgment of what You beheld within. If it is Your judgment it will be wrong for judgment is not Your function. If it is the judgment of the Holy Spirit it will be right for judgment is His function. You share His function only by judging as He does reserving no judgment at all unto Yourselves. For You will judge against Yourselves but He will judge for You.

Remember then that whenever You look without and react unfavorably to what You see You have judged Yourself unworthy and have condemned Yourself to death. The death penalty is the ego’s ultimate goal for it fully believes that You are a criminal, as deserving of death as God knows You are deserving of Life. The death penalty never leaves the ego’s mind for that is what it always reserves for You in the end. Wanting to kill You as the final expression of its feeling for You it lets You live but to await death. It will torment You while You live but its hatred is not satisfied until You die. For Your destruction is the one end toward which it works and the only one with which it will be satisfied.

The ego is not a traitor to God to Whom treachery is impossible. But it is a traitor to You Who believe You have been treacherous to Your Father. That is why the undoing of guilt is an essential part of the Holy Spirit’s teaching. For as long as You feel guilty You are listening to the voice of the ego which tells You that You have been treacherous to God and therefore deserve death. You will think that death comes from Him and not from the ego because by confusing Yourself with the ego You believe that You want death. And from what You want God does not save You.

When You are tempted to yield to the desire for death remember that I did not die. You will realize that this is True when You look within and see Me. Would I have overcome death for Myself alone? And would eternal Life have been given Me of the Father unless He had also given it to You? When You learn to make Me manifest You will never see death. For You will have looked upon the Deathless in Yourself and You will see only the Eternal as You look out upon a world that cannot die.

h. Reality and Redemption

Do You really believe that You can kill the Son of God? For the Father has hidden His Son safely within Himself and kept him far away from Your destructive thoughts but You know neither the Father nor the Son because of them. You attack the real world every day and every hour and every minute and yet You are surprised that You cannot see it. If You seek Love to attack It You will never find It. For if Love is sharing how can You find It except through Itself? Offer It and It will come to You because It is drawn to Itself. But offer attack and It will remain hidden for It can live only in Peace.

God’s Son is as safe as his Father for the Son knows his Father’s protection and cannot fear. His Father’s Love holds him in perfect Peace and needing nothing he asks for nothing. But he is far from You Whose Self he is for You chose to attack him and he disappeared from Your sight into his Father. He did not change but You did. For a split mind and all its works were not created by the Father and could not live in the knowledge of Him.

When You made what is not True visible what is True became invisible. Yet It cannot be invisible in Itself for the Holy Spirit sees It with perfect clarity. It is invisible to You because You are looking at something else. Yet it is no more up to You to decide what is visible and what is invisible than it is up to You to decide what Reality is. What can be seen is what the Holy Spirit sees. The definition of Reality is God’s, not Yours. He created it and He knows what it is. You Who knew have forgotten. And unless He had given You a way to remember You would have condemned Yourselves to oblivion.

Because of Your Father’s Love You can never forget Him. For no one can forget What God Himself placed in his memory. You can deny It but You cannot lose It. A Voice will answer every question You ask and a Vision will correct the perception of everything You see. For What You have made invisible is the only Truth and What You have not heard is the only Answer. For God would reunite You with Yourself and did not abandon You in Your seeming distress. You are waiting only for Him and do not know it. But His Memory shines in Your minds and cannot be obliterated. It is no more past than future being forever always.

You have but to ask for this Memory and You will remember. But the Memory of God cannot shine in a mind which has made It invisible and wants to keep It so. For the Memory of God can dawn only in a mind that wills to remember and that has relinquished the insane desire to control Reality. You Who cannot even control Yourselves should hardly aspire to control the Universe. But look upon what You have made of It and rejoice that It is not so.

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

But it is not there. And Christ is invisible to You because of what You have made visible to Yourselves. Yet it does not matter how much distance You have tried to interpose between Your awareness and Truth. God’s Son can be seen because his Vision is shared. The Holy Spirit looks upon Him and sees nothing else in You. What is invisible to You is perfect in His Sight and encompasses all of it. He has remembered You because He forgot not the Father.

You looked upon the unreal and found despair. But by seeking the unreal what else could You find? The unreal world is a thing of despair for it can never be. And You Who share God’s Being with Him could never be content without Reality. What God did not give You has no Power over You and the attraction of Love for Love remains irresistible. For it is the function of Love to unite all things unto Itself and to hold all things together by extending Its wholeness.

The real world was given You by God in loving exchange for the world You made and which You see. But take it from the Hand of Christ and look upon it. Its Reality will make everything else invisible for beholding it is total perception. And as You look upon it You will remember that it was always so. Nothingness will become invisible for You will at last have seen Truly. Redeemed perception is easily translated into knowledge for only perception is capable of error. And perception has never been. Being corrected it gives place to knowledge which is forever the only Reality. The Atonement is but the way back to what was never lost. Your Father could not cease to love His Son.

i. Guiltlessness and Invulnerability

If You did not feel guilty You could not attack. For condemnation is the root of attack. It is the judgment of one mind by another as unworthy of Love and deserving of punishment. But herein lies the split. For the mind that judges perceives itself as separate from the mind being judged believing that by punishing another it will escape punishment. All this is but the delusional attempt of the mind to deny itself and escape the penalty of denial. It is not an attempt to relinquish denial but to hold on to it. For it is guilt that has obscured the Father to You and it is guilt that has driven You insane. The acceptance of guilt into the mind of God’s Son was the beginning of the separation as the acceptance of the Atonement is its end.

The world You see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world and You will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death. Children are born into it through pain and in pain. Their growth is attended by suffering and they learn of sorrow and separation and death. Their minds are trapped in their brain and its powers decline if their bodies are hurt. They seem to love yet they desert and are deserted. They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground and seem to be no more. Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel.

If this were the real world God would be cruel. For no father could subject his children to this as the price of Salvation and be loving. Love does not kill to save. For if It did attack would be Salvation and this is the ego’s interpretation, not God’s. Only the world of guilt could demand this for only the guilty could conceive of it. Adam’s “sin” could have touched none of You had You not believed that it was the Father Who drove him out of Paradise. For it is in that belief that knowledge of the Father was lost for it is only those who do not understand Him that could believe it.

This world is a picture of the crucifixion of God’s Son. And until You realize that God’s Son cannot be crucified this is the world You will see. But You will not realize this until You accept the eternal fact that God’s Son is not guilty. He deserves only Love because he has given only Love. He cannot be condemned because he has never condemned. The Atonement is the final lesson he need learn for It teaches him that never having sinned he has no need of Salvation.

Long ago We said that the Holy Spirit shares the goal of all good teachers whose ultimate aim is to make themselves unnecessary by teaching their pupils all they know. The Holy Spirit wills only this for sharing the Father’s Love for His Son He wills to remove all guilt from his mind that he may remember his Father in Peace. For Peace and guilt are antithetical and the Father can be remembered only in Peace. Love and guilt cannot coexist and to accept one is to deny the other.

Guilt hides Christ from Your sight for it is the denial of the Blamelessness of God’s Son. In this strange world which You have made the Son of God has sinned. How could You see him then? By making him invisible the world of retribution rose in the black cloud of guilt which You accepted and You hold it dear. For the Blamelessness of Christ is the proof that the ego never was and can never be. Without guilt the ego has no Life and God’s Son is without guilt.

As You look upon Yourselves and judge what You do honestly, as You have been asked to do, You may be tempted to wonder how You can be guiltless. But consider this: You are not guiltless in time but in Eternity. You have “sinned” in the past but there is no past. Always has no direction. Time seems to go in one direction but when You reach its end it will roll up like a long carpet that has spread along the past behind You and will disappear. As long as You believe the Son of God is guilty You will walk along this carpet believing that it leads to death. And the journey will seem long and cruel and senseless for so it is.

The journey which the Son of God has set himself is foolish indeed. But the journey on which his Father sets him is one of release and Joy. The Father is not cruel and His Son cannot hurt himself. The retaliation which he fears and which he sees will never touch him for although he believes in it the Holy Spirit knows it is not True. He stands at the end of time where You must be because He is with You. He has always undone everything unworthy of the Son of God for such was His mission given by God. And what God gives has always been.

You will see Me as You learn the Son of God is guiltless. He has always sought his Guiltlessness and he has found it. For everyone is seeking to escape from the prison he has made and the way to find release is not denied him. Being in him he has found it. When he finds it is only a matter of time and time is but an illusion. For the Son of God is guiltless now and the brightness of his purity shines untouched forever in God’s Mind. God’s Son will always be as he was created. Deny Your world and judge him not. For his eternal Guiltlessness is in the Mind of his Father and protects him forever.

When You have accepted the Atonement for Yourselves You will realize that there is no guilt in God’s Son. And only as You look upon him as guiltless can You understand his Oneness. For the idea of guilt brings a belief of condemnation of one by another projecting separation in place of Unity. You can condemn only Yourself and by doing so You cannot know that You are God’s Son. For You have denied the condition of his being which is his perfect Blamelessness. Out of Love he was created and in Love he abides. Goodness and mercy have always followed him for he has always extended the Love of his Father.

As You perceive the Holy Companions Who travel with You You will realize that there is no journey but only an awakening. The Son of God Who sleepeth not has kept faith with his Father for You. There is no road to travel on and no time to travel through. For God waits not for His Son in time being forever unwilling to be without him. And so it has always been. Let the Holiness of God’s Son shine away the cloud of guilt that darkens Your mind and by accepting his purity as Yours learn of him that it is Yours.

You are invulnerable because You are guiltless. You can hold on to the past only through guilt. For guilt establishes that You will be punished for what You have done and thus depends on onedimensional time proceeding from past to future. No one who believes this can understand what always means. And therefore guilt must deprive You of the appreciation of Eternity. You are invulnerable because You are immortal, You are immortal because You are eternal and always must be now. Guilt then is a way of holding past and future in Your minds to ensure the ego’s continuity. For if what it has been will be punished it’s continuity would be guaranteed.

But the guarantee of Your continuity is God’s, not the ego’s. And immortality is the opposite of time for time passes away while immortality is constant. Accepting the Atonement teaches You what immortality is for by accepting Your Guiltlessness You learn that the past has never been and so the future is needless. The future in time is always associated with expiation and only guilt could induce a sense of need for expiation. Accepting the Guiltlessness of the Son of God as Yours is therefore God’s way of reminding You of His Son and what he is in Truth. For God has never condemned His Son and being guiltless he is eternal.

You cannot dispel guilt by making it real and then atoning for it. For this is the ego’s plan which it offers instead of dispelling it. The ego believes in Atonement through attack being fully committed to the insane notion that attack is Salvation. And You Who cherish guilt must also believe it for how else but by identifying with the ego could You hold dear what You do not want?

The ego teaches You to attack Yourself because You are guilty and this must increase the guilt for guilt is the result of attack. In the ego’s teaching then there is no escape from guilt. For attack makes guilt real and if it is real there is no way to overcome it. The Holy Spirit dispels it simply through the calm recognition that it has never been. As He looks upon the guiltless Son of God He knows this is True. And being True for You You cannot attack Yourself for without guilt attack is impossible. You then are saved because God’s Son is guiltless. And being wholly pure You are invulnerable.

Chapter 12 – The Problem of Guilt

a. Crucifixion by Guilt

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

Much of the ego’s strange behavior is directly attributable to its definition of guilt. To the ego the Guiltless are guilty. Those who do not attack are its “enemies” because by not valuing its interpretation of Salvation they are in an excellent position to let it go. They have approached the darkest and deepest cornerstone in the ego’s foundation and while it can withstand Your raising all else to question it guards this one secret with its life for its existence does depend on keeping this secret. And it is this secret that We must look upon calmly for the ego cannot protect You against Truth and in Its Presence the ego is dispelled.

In the calm Light of Truth let Us recognize that You believe You have crucified God’s Son. You have not admitted this “terrible” secret because You still wish to crucify him if You could find him. But the wish has hidden him from You because it is very fearful and You are afraid to find him. You have handled this wish to kill Yourself by not knowing who You are and identifying with something else. You have projected guilt blindly and indiscriminately but You have not uncovered its source. For the ego does want to kill You and if You identify with it You must believe its goal is Yours.

We once said that the crucifixion is the symbol of the ego. When it was confronted with the real Guiltlessness of God’s Son it did attempt to kill him. And the reason it gave was that Guiltlessness is blasphemous to God. To the ego the ego is God and Guiltlessness must be interpreted as the final guilt which fully justifies murder. You do not yet understand that all Your fear of This Course stems ultimately from this interpretation, but if You will consider Your reactions to It You will become increasingly convinced that this is so.

This Course has explicitly stated that Its goal for You is happiness and Peace yet You are afraid of It. You have been told again and again that It will make You free yet You react as if It is trying to imprison You. Most of the time You dismiss It but You do not dismiss the ego’s thought system. You have seen Its results and You still lack faith in It. You must then believe that by not learning The Course You are protecting Yourself. And You do not realize that it is only Your Guiltlessness that can protect You.

The Atonement has always been interpreted as the release from guilt and this is correct if it is understood. Yet even when I have interpreted It for You You have rejected It and have not accepted It for Yourself. You have recognized the futility of the ego and its offerings but though You do not want it You will not look upon the Alternative with Gladness. You are afraid of Redemption and You believe it will kill You. Make no mistake about the depth of Your fear. For You believe that in the Presence of Truth You will turn on Yourself and destroy Yourself.

Little children, this is not so. Your “guilty secret” is nothing and if You will but bring it to Light the Light will dispel it. And then no dark cloud will remain between You and the Remembrance of Your Father. For You will remember His guiltless Son who did not die because he is immortal. And You will see that You were redeemed with him and have never been separated from him. In this understanding lies Your remembering for it is the recognition of Love without fear. There will be great Joy in Heaven on Your homecoming and the Joy will be Yours. For the redeemed son of man is the guiltless Son of God and to recognize him is Your Redemption.

b. The Fear of Redemption

You may wonder why it is so crucial that You look upon Your hatred and realize its full extent. And You may think that it would be easy enough for the Holy Spirit to show it to You and dispel it without the need for You to raise it to awareness Yourself. But there is one more complication which You have interposed between Yourself and the Atonement that You do not yet realize. We have said that no one will countenance fear if he recognizes it. But in Your disordered state You are not afraid of fear. You do not like it but it is not Your desire to attack which really frightens You. You are not seriously disturbed by Your hostility. You keep it hidden because You are more afraid of what it covers.

You could look even upon the ego’s darkest cornerstone without fear if You did not believe that without the ego You would find within Yourself something You fear even more. You are not afraid of crucifixion. Your real terror is of Redemption. Under the ego’s dark foundation is the Memory of God and it is of this that You are really afraid. For this Memory would instantly restore You to Your proper Place and it is this Place that You have sought to leave.

Your fear of attack is nothing compared to Your fear of Love. You would be willing to look upon Your savage wish to kill God’s Son if You did not believe that it saves You from Love. For this wish caused the separation. You have protected it because You do not want the separation healed and You realize that by removing the dark cloud that obscures it Your Love for Your Father would impel You to answer His Call and leap into Heaven. You believe that attack is Salvation to prevent You from this. For still deeper than the ego’s foundation and much stronger than it will ever be is Your intense and burning Love of God and His for You. This is What You really want to hide.

In honesty: Is it not harder for You to say “I love” than “I hate”? For You associate Love with weakness and hatred with Strength and Your real Power seems to You as Your real weakness. For You could not control Your joyous response to the Call of Love if You heard It and the whole world You think You control would vanish. The Holy Spirit then seems to be attacking Your fortress for You would shut out God and He does not will to be excluded.

You have built Your whole insane belief system because You think You would be helpless in God’s Presence. And You would save Yourself from His Love because You think It would crush You into nothingness. You are afraid It would sweep You away from Yourself and make You little. For You believe that Magnitude lies in defiance and attack is Grandeur. You think You have made a world that God would destroy. And by loving Him, which You do, You would throw this world away, which You would.

Therefore You have used the world to cover Your Love and the deeper You go into the blackness of the ego’s foundation the closer You come to the Love That is hidden beneath it. And it is this that frightens You. You can accept insanity because You made it. But You cannot accept Love because You did not. You would rather be slaves of the crucifixion than Sons of God in Redemption. For Your individual death is more valued than Your living Oneness and what is given You is not so dear as what You made. You are more afraid of God than of the ego and Love cannot enter where It is not welcome. But hatred can for it enters of its will and cares not for Yours.

The reason You must look upon Your delusions and not keep them hidden is that they do not rest on their own foundation. In concealment they appear to do so and thus they seem to be selfsustained. This is the fundamental illusion on which they rest. For beneath them and concealed as long as they are hidden is the loving mind that thought it made them in anger. And the pain in this mind is so apparent when it is uncovered that its need of healing cannot be denied. Not all the tricks and games that You have offered it can heal it for here is the real crucifixion of God’s Son.

And yet he is not crucified. For here is both his pain and his healing for the Holy Spirit’s Vision is merciful and His remedy is quick. Do not hide suffering from His Sight but bring it gladly to Him. Lay before His eternal sanity all Your hurt and let Him heal You. Do not leave any spot of pain hidden from His Light and search Your minds carefully for any thoughts which You may fear to uncover. For He will heal every little thought that You have kept to hurt You and cleanse it of its littleness restoring it to the Magnitude of God.

Beneath all Your grandiosity which You hold so dear is Your real call for help. For You call for Love to Your Father as Your Father calls You to Himself. In that Place Which You have hidden You will only to unite with the Father in loving Remembrance of Him. You will find this Place of Truth as You see It in Your Brothers for though they may deceive themselves like You they long for the Grandeur that is in them. And perceiving it You will welcome it and it will be Yours. For Grandeur is the right of God’s Son and no illusions can satisfy him or save him from what he is.

Only his Love is real and he will be content only with his Reality. Save him from his illusions that You may accept the Magnitude of Your Father in Peace and Joy. But exempt no one from Your Love or You will be hiding a dark place in Your minds where the Holy Spirit is not welcome. And You will exempt Yourself from His healing Power for by not offering total Love You will not be healed completely. And healing must be as complete as fear for Love cannot enter where there is one spot of fear to mar Its welcome.

You Who prefer specialness to sanity could not obtain it in Your Right Minds. You were at Peace until You asked for special favor and God did not give it. For the request was alien to Him and You could not ask this of a Father Who Truly loved His Son. Therefore You made of Him an unloving father demanding of him what only such a father could give. And the Peace of God’s Son was shattered for he no longer understood his Father. He feared what he had made but still more did he fear his real Father having attacked his glorious equality with Him.

In Peace he needed nothing and asked for nothing. In war he demanded everything and found nothing. For how could the gentleness of Love respond to his demands except by departing in Peace and returning to the Father? If the Son did not wish to remain in Peace he could not remain at all. For a darkened mind cannot live in the Light and it must seek a place of darkness where it can believe it is where it is not. God did not allow this to happen. But You demanded that it happen and therefore believed that it was so.

To single out is to make alone and thus make lonely. God did not do this to You. Could He set You apart knowing that Your Peace lies in His Oneness? He denied You only Your request for pain for suffering is not of His Creation. Having given You Creation He could not take It from You. He could but answer Your insane request with a sane Answer Which would abide with You in Your insanity. And this He did. No one who hears His Answer but will give up insanity. For His Answer is the Reference Point beyond delusions from Which You can look back on them and see them as insane. But seek This Place and You will find It for Love is in You and will lead You There. And now the reason why You are afraid of This Course should be apparent. For This is a Course on Love because It is about You.

c. Healing and Time

You have been told that Your function in this world is healing and Your function in Heaven is creating. The ego teaches that Your function on earth is destruction and that You have no function at all in Heaven. It would thus destroy You here and bury You here leaving You no inheritance except the dust out of which it thinks You were made.

While it is reasonably satisfied with You, as its reasoning goes, it offers You oblivion. When it becomes overtly savage it offers You hell. Yet neither oblivion nor hell are as unacceptable to You as Heaven. For Your definition of Heaven is hell and oblivion and the real Heaven is the greatest threat You think You could experience. For hell and oblivion are ideas which You made up and You are bent on demonstrating their Reality to establish Yours. If their Reality is questioned You believe that Yours is. For You believe that attack established Your Reality and that Your destruction is the final proof that You were right.

Under the circumstances would it not be more desirable to have been wrong even apart from the fact that You were wrong? For while it could perhaps be argued that death suggests there was Life no one would claim that it proves there is Life. And even the past Life which death might indicate could only have been futile if it must come to this and needs this to prove that it was. You question Heaven but You do not question this. You could heal and be healed if You did question it. And even though You know not Heaven might it not be more desirable than death? You have been as selective in Your questioning as in Your perception. An open mind is more honest than this.

The ego has a very strange notion of time and it is with this notion that the questioning might well begin. The ego invests heavily in the past and in the end believes that the past is the only aspect of time that is meaningful. You will remember that We said its emphasis on guilt enables it to ensure its continuity by making the future like the past and thus avoiding the Present. By the notion of paying for the past in the future the past becomes the determiner of the future making them continuous without an intervening Present. For the ego uses the Present only as a brief transition to the future in which it brings the past to the future by interpreting the Present in past terms.

Now has no meaning to the ego. The Present merely reminds it of past hurts and it reacts to the Present as if it were past. For the ego cannot tolerate release from the past and though it is no more the ego tries to preserve its image by responding as if it were present. Thus it dictates reactions to those You meet now from a past reference point obscuring their present Reality. In effect if You follow its dictates You will react to Your Brothers as though they were someone else and this will surely prevent You from perceiving them as they are. And You will receive messages from them out of Your own past because by making it real in the Present You are forbidding Yourself to let it go. You thus deny Yourself the Message of release that every Brother offers You now.

The shadowy figures from the past are precisely what You must escape. For they are not real and have no hold over You unless You bring them with You. They carry the spots of pain in Your minds directing You to attack in the Present in retaliation for a past that is no more. And this decision is one of future pain. For unless You learn that past pain is delusional You are choosing a future of delusions and losing the endless opportunities which You could find for release in the Present. For the ego would preserve Your nightmares and prevent You from awaking and understanding that they are past.

Would You recognize a Holy encounter if You are merely perceiving it as a meeting with Your own past? For You are meeting no one and the sharing of Salvation which makes the encounter Holy is excluded from Your sight. The Holy Spirit teaches that You always meet Yourself and the encounter is Holy because You are. The ego teaches that You always encounter Your past and because Your dreams were not Holy the future cannot be and the Present is without meaning. It is evident that the Holy Spirit’s perception of time is the exact opposite of the ego’s. And the reason is equally clear for they perceive the goal of time as diametrically opposed.

The Holy Spirit interprets time’s purpose as rendering the need for it unnecessary. Thus does He regard the function of time as temporary serving only His teaching function which is temporary by definition. His emphasis is therefore on the only aspect of time which can extend to the Infinite. For now is the closest approximation of Eternity that this world offers. And it is in the Reality of now without past or future that the beginning of the appreciation of Eternity lies. For only now is Here and it presents the opportunities for the Holy encounters in which Salvation can be found.

The ego on the other hand regards the function of time as one of extending itself in place of Eternity. For like the Holy Spirit the ego interprets the goal of time as its own. The continuity of past and future under its direction is the only purpose it perceives in time and it closes over the Present so that no gap in the ego’s continuity can occur. Its continuity then would keep You in time while the Holy Spirit would release You from it. And it is His interpretation of the means of Salvation that You must learn to accept if You would share His goal of Salvation for You.

You too will interpret the function of time as You interpret Yours. If You accept Your function in the world of time as healing You will emphasize only the aspect of time in which healing can occur. For healing cannot be accomplished in the past and must be accomplished in the Present to release the future. This interpretation ties the future to the Present and extends the Present rather than the past. But if You interpret Your function as destruction You will lose sight of the Present and hold on to the past to ensure a destructive future. And time will be as You interpret it for of itself it is nothing.

d. The Two Emotions

We have said that You have but two emotions: Love and fear. One is changeless but continually exchanged being offered by the Eternal to the Eternal. In this exchange It is extended for It increases as It is given. The other has many forms for the content of individual illusions differs greatly. But they have one thing in common: They are all insane. They are made of sights which are not seen and sounds which are not heard. They make up a private world which cannot be shared. For they are meaningful only to their Maker and so they have no meaning at all. In this world their Maker moves alone for only he perceives them.

Each one peoples his world with figures from his individual past and it is because of this that private worlds do differ. But the figures that he sees were never real for they are made up only of his reactions to his Brothers and do not include their reactions to him. Therefore he does not see that he made them and that they are not whole. For these figures have no witnesses being perceived in one separate mind only.

It is through these strange and shadowy figures that the insane relate to their insane world. For they see only those who remind them of these images and it is to them that they relate. Thus do they communicate with those who are not there and it is they who answer them. And no one hears their answer save him who called upon them and he alone believes they answered him. Projection makes perception and You cannot see beyond it. Again and again have men attacked each other because they saw in them a shadow figure in their private world.

And thus it is that You must attack Yourself first. For what You attack is not in others. Its only Reality is in Your own mind and by attacking others You are literally attacking what is not there. The delusional can be very destructive for they do not recognize they have condemned themselves. They do not wish to die yet they will not let condemnation go. And so they separate into their private world where everything is disordered and where what is within appears to be without. Yet what is within they do not see for the Reality of their Brothers they cannot see.

You have but two emotions yet in Your private world You react to each of them as though it were the other. For Love cannot abide in a world apart where when It comes It is not recognized. If You see Your own hatred as Your Brother You are not seeing him. Everyone draws nigh unto what he loves and recoils from what he fears. And You react with fear to Love and draw away from It. But fear attracts You and believing it is Love You call it to Yourself. Your private world is filled with the figures of fear You have invited into it. And all the Love Your Brothers offer You You do not see.

As You look with open eyes upon Your world it must occur to You that You have withdrawn into insanity. For You see what is not there and hear what is soundless. Your behavioral manifestations of emotions are the opposite of what the emotions are. You communicate with no one and You are as isolated from Reality as if You were alone in all the Universe. In Your madness You overlook Reality completely and You see only Your split mind everywhere You look. God calls You and You do not hear for You are preoccupied with Your own voice. And the Vision of Christ is not in Your sight for You look upon Yourself alone.

Little children, would You offer this to Your Father? For if You offer it to Yourself You are offering it to Him. And He will not return it for it is unworthy of You because it is unworthy of Him. But He would release You from it and set You free. His sane Answer tells You that what You have offered Yourself is not True but His offering to You has never changed. You Who know not what You do can learn what insanity is and look beyond it. It is given You to learn how to deny insanity and come forth from Your private world in Peace.

And You will see all that You denied in Your Brothers because You denied it in Yourself. For You will love them and by drawing nigh unto them You will draw them to Yourself perceiving them as witnesses to Your Reality which You share with God. For I am with them as I am with You. And We will draw them from their private world for as We are united so would We unite with them. The Father welcomes All of Us in Gladness and Gladness is what We would offer Him. For every Son of God is given You to Whom God gave Himself. And it is God whom You must offer them to recognize His Gift to You.

Vision depends on Light and You cannot see in darkness. Yet in the darkness, in the private world of sleep, You see in dreams although Your eyes are closed. And it is here that what You see You made. But let the darkness go and all You made You will no longer see for sight of it depends upon denying Vision. But from denying Vision it does not follow that You cannot see. Yet this is what denial does for by it You accept insanity believing You can make a private world and rule Your own perception. But for this Light must be excluded. Dreams disappear when Light has come and You can see.

Do not seek Vision through Your eyes. For You made Your way of seeing that You might see in darkness and in this You are deceived. Beyond this darkness and yet still within You is the Vision of Christ Who looks on all in Light. Your vision comes from fear as His from Love. And He sees for You as Your Witness to the real world. He is the Holy Spirit’s manifestation looking always on the real world and calling forth its witnesses and drawing them unto You. For He loves what He sees within You and He would extend it. And He will not return unto the Father until He has extended Your perception even unto Him. And There perception is no more for He has returned You to the Father with Him.

You have but two emotions and one You made and one was given You. Each is a way of seeing and different worlds arise from their different visions. See through the Vision that is given You for through Christ’s Vision He beholds Himself. And seeing what He is He knows His Father. Beyond Your darkest dreams He sees God’s guiltless Son within You shining in perfect radiance which is undimmed by Your dreams. And this You will see as You look with Him. For His Vision is His Gift of Love to You given Him of the Father for You.

The Holy Spirit is the Light in Which Christ stands revealed. And all who would behold Him can see Him for they have asked for Light. Nor will they see Him alone for He is no more alone than they are. Because they saw the Son they have risen in Him to the Father. And all this will they understand because they looked within and saw beyond the darkness the Christ in them and recognized Him. In the sanity of His Vision they looked upon themselves with Love seeing themselves as the Holy Spirit sees them. And with this Vision of the Truth in them came all the beauty of the world to shine upon them.

e. 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.

And yet the laws of Love are not suspended because You sleep. And You have followed them through all Your nightmares and have been faithful in Your giving for You were not alone. Even in sleep has Christ protected You ensuring the real world for You when You wake. In Your name He has given for You and given You the Gifts He gave. God’s Son is still as loving as his Father. Continuous with his Father he has no past apart from Him. So he has never ceased to be his Father’s witness and his own. Although he slept Christ’s Vision did not leave him. And so it is that he can call unto himself the witnesses that teach him that he never slept.

f. Attainment of the Real World

Sit quietly and look upon the world You see and tell Yourself:

The real world is not like this. It has no buildings and there are no streets where people walk alone and separately. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines and shines forever.

This world You see must be denied for sight of it is costing You a different kind of Vision. You cannot see both worlds for each of them involves a different kind of seeing and depends on what You cherish. The sight of one is possible because You have denied the other.

Both are not True yet either one will seem as real to You as the amount to which You hold it dear. And yet their Power is not the same because their real attraction to You is unequal. You do not really want the world You see for it has disappointed You since time began. The homes You built have never sheltered You. The roads You made have led You nowhere and no city that You built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing You made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear for it is old and tired and ready to return to dust even as You made it.

This aching world has not the Power to touch the living world at all. You could not give it that and so, although You turn in sadness from it, You cannot find in it the road that leads away from it into another world. Yet the real world has the Power to touch You even here because You love it. And what You call with Love will come to You. Love always answers being unable to deny a call for help or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to It from every part of this strange world You made but do not want. The only effort You need make to give this world away in glad exchange for what You did not make is willingness to learn the one You made is false.

You have been wrong about the world because You have misjudged Yourself. From such a twisted reference point what could You see? All vision starts with the perceiver who judges what is True and what is false. And what he judges false he does not see. You Who would judge Reality cannot see it for whenever judgment enters Reality has slipped away. The out of mind is out of sight because what is denied is there but is not recognized. Christ is still there although You know Him not. His Being does not depend upon Your recognition. He lives within You in the quiet Present and waits for You to leave the past behind and enter into the world He holds out to You in Love.

No one in this distracted [zerfahrenen] world but has not seen some glimpses of the other world about him. But while he still lays value on his own he will deny the Vision of the other world maintaining that he loves what he loves not and following not the road that Love points out. Love leads so gladly! And as You follow Him You will rejoice that You have found His Company and learned of Him the joyful journey Home. You wait but for Yourself. To give this sad world over and exchange Your errors for the Peace of God is but Your will. And Christ will always offer You the Will of God in recognition that You share It with Him.

It is God’s Will that nothing touch His Son except Himself and nothing else comes nigh unto him. He is as safe from pain as God Himself Who watches over him in everything. The world about him shines with Love because God placed him in Himself where pain is not and Love surrounds him without end or flaw. Disturbance of his Peace can never be. In perfect sanity he looks on Love for It is all about him and within him. He must deny the world of pain the instant he perceives the Arms of Love around him. And from this point of safety he looks quietly about him and recognizes that the world is one with him.

The Peace of God passeth Your understanding only in the past. Yet Here it is and You can understand it now. God loves His Son forever and His Son returns his Father’s Love forever. The real world is the way that leads You to remembrance of this one Thing that is wholly True and wholly Yours. For all else You have lent Yourself in time and it will fade. But this one Thing is always Yours being the Gift of God unto His Son. Your one Reality was given You and by it God created You as One with Him.

You will first dream of Peace and then awaken to it. Your first exchange of what You made for what You want is the exchange of nightmares for the happy dreams of Love. In these lie Your True perceptions for the Holy Spirit corrects the world of dreams where all perception is. Knowledge needs no correction. Yet the dreams of Love lead unto knowledge. In them You see nothing fearful and because of this they are the welcome that You offer knowledge. Love waits on welcome, not on time, and the real world is but Your welcome of what always was. Therefore the call of Joy is in it and Your glad response is Your awakening to what You have not lost. Praise then the Father for the perfect sanity of His most Holy Son.

Your Father knoweth that You have need of nothing. In Heaven this is so for what could You need in Eternity? In Your world You do need things because it is a world of scarcity in which You find Yourself because You are lacking. But can You find Yourself in such a world? Without the Holy Spirit the answer would be No. But because of Him the answer is a joyous Yes. As mediator between the two worlds He knows what You have need of and which will not hurt You. Ownership is a dangerous concept if it is left to You. The ego wants to have things for Salvation for possession is its law. Possession for its own sake is the ego’s fundamental creed, a basic cornerstone in the churches that it builds unto itself. And at its altar it demands You lay all of the things it bids You get leaving You no Joy in them.

Everything that the ego tells You that You need will hurt You. For although it urges You again and again to get it leaves You nothing for what You get it will demand of You. And even from the very hands that grasped it it will be wrenched and hurled into the dust. For where the ego sees Salvation it sees separation and so You lose whatever You have gotten in its name. Therefore ask not of Yourselves what You need for You know not and Your advice unto Yourself will hurt You. For what You think You need will merely serve to tighten up Your world against the Light and render You unwilling to question the value that this world can really hold for You.

Only the Holy Spirit knows what You need. For He will give You all things that do not block the way to Light. And what else could You need? In time He gives You all the things that You need have and will renew them as long as You have need of them. He will take nothing from You as long as You have any need of it. And yet He knows that everything You need is temporary and need but last until You step aside from all Your needs and learn that all of them have been fulfilled. Therefore He has no investment in the things that He supplies except to make certain that You will not use them on behalf of lingering in time. He knows that You are not at home there and He wills no delay to wait upon Your joyous homecoming.

Leave then Your needs to Him. He will supply them with no emphasis at all upon them. What comes to You of Him comes safely for He will ensure it never can become a dark spot hidden in Your mind and kept to hurt You. Under His Guidance You will travel light and journey lightly for His Sight is ever on the journey’s end which is His goal. God’s Son is not a traveler through outer worlds. However Holy his perception may become no world outside himself holds his inheritance. Within himself he has no needs for Light needs nothing but to shine in Peace. And from Itself to let the rays extend in quiet to Infinity.

Whenever You are tempted to undertake a foolish journey that would lead away from Light remember what You really want and say:

The Holy Spirit leads Me unto Christ
And where else would I go?
What need have I but to awake in Him?

Then follow Him in Joy with faith that He will lead You safely through all the dangers to Your Peace of Mind that this world sets before You. Kneel not before the altars to sacrifice and seek not what You will surely lose. Content Yourselves with what You will as surely keep and be not restless for You undertake a quiet journey to the Peace of God where He would have You be in quietness.

In Me You have already overcome every temptation that would hold You back. We walk Together on the way to quietness that is the Gift of God. Hold Me dear for what except Your Brothers can You need? We will restore to You the Peace of Mind that We must find Together. The Holy Spirit will teach You to awaken unto Us and to Yourself. This is the only real need to be fulfilled in time. Salvation from the world lies only Here. My Peace I give You. Take it of Me in glad exchange for all the world has offered but to take away. And We will spread it like a veil of Light across the world’s sad face in which We hide Our Brothers from the world and It from them.

We cannot sing Redemption’s Hymn alone. My task is not completed ’til I have lifted every voice with Mine. And yet it is not Mine for as it is My Gift to You so was it the Father’s Gift to Me given Me through His Spirit. The sound of it will banish sorrow from the mind of God’s most Holy Son where it cannot abide. Healing in time is needed for Joy cannot establish its eternal reign where sorrow dwells. You dwell not here but in Eternity. You travel but in dreams while safe at Home. Give thanks to every part of You that You have taught how to remember You. Thus does the Son of God give thanks unto his Father for his purity.

Chapter 13 – From Perception to Knowledge

a. The Role of Healing

Perfect perception then has many elements in common with knowledge making transfer to it possible. Yet the last step must be taken by God because the last step in Your Redemption which seems to be in the future was accomplished by God in Your Creation. The separation has not interrupted it. Creation cannot be interrupted. The separation is merely a faulty formulation of Reality with no effect at all. The Miracle, without a function in Heaven, is needful here. Aspects of Reality can still be seen and they will replace aspects of unreality. Aspects of Reality can be seen in everything and everywhere. Yet only God can gather them together by crowning them as one with the final Gift of Eternity.

Apart from the Father and the Son the Holy Spirit has no function. He is not separate from either being in the Mind of both and knowing that Mind is One. He is a Thought of God and God has given Him to You because He has no Thoughts He does not share. His Message speaks of Timelessness in time and that is why Christ’s Vision looks on everything with Love. Yet even Christ’s Vision is not His Reality. The golden aspects of Reality which spring to Light under His loving gaze are partial glimpses of the Heaven that lies beyond them.

This is the Miracle of Creation: That It is One forever. Every Miracle You offer to the Son of God is but the True perception of one aspect of the whole. Though every aspect is the whole You cannot know this until You see that every aspect is the same, perceived in the same Light and therefore one. Everyone seen without the past thus brings You nearer to the end of time by bringing healed and healing Sight into the darkness and enabling the world to see. For Light must come into the darkened world to make Christ’s Vision possible even here. Help Him to give His Gift of Light to all who think they wander in the darkness and let Him gather them into His quiet Sight that makes them One.

They are all the same, all beautiful and equal in their Holiness. And He will offer them unto His Father as they were offered unto Him. There is one Miracle as there is one Reality. And every Miracle You do contains Them All as every aspect of Reality You see blends quietly into the one Reality of God. The only Miracle that ever was is God’s most Holy Son created in the one Reality that is his Father. Christ’s Vision is His gift to You. His Being is His Father’s Gift to Him.

Be You content with healing for Christ’s gift You can bestow and Your Father’s Gift You cannot lose. Offer Christ’s gift to everyone and everywhere. For Miracles, offered the Son of God through the Holy Spirit, attune You to Reality. The Holy Spirit knows Your part in the Redemption and Who are seeking You and where to find Them. Knowledge is far beyond Your individual concern. You Who are part of it and all of it need only realize that it is of the Father, not of You. Your role in the Redemption leads You to it by reestablishing its oneness in Your minds.

When You have seen Your Brothers as Yourself You will be released to knowledge having learned to free Yourself of Him Who knows of freedom. Unite with Me under the Holy Banner of His Teaching and as We grow in Strength the Power of God’s Son will move in Us and We will leave no one untouched and no one left alone. And suddenly time will be over and We will All unite in the Eternity of God the Father. The Holy Light You saw outside Yourself in every Miracle You offered to Your Brothers will be returned to You. And knowing that the Light is in You Your Creations will be there with You as You are in Your Father.

As Miracles in this world join You to Your Brothers so do Your Creations establish Your Fatherhood in Heaven. You are the Witnesses to the Fatherhood of God and He has given You the Power to create the witnesses to Yours which is as His. Deny a Brother here and You deny the witnesses to Your Fatherhood in Heaven. The Miracle Which God created is perfect as are the Miracles Which You created in His name. They need no healing nor do You when You know Them.

But in this world Your perfection is unwitnessed. God knows it but You do not and so You do not share His Witness to it. Nor do You witness unto Him for Reality is witnessed to as One. God waits Your witness to His Son and to Himself. The Miracles You do on earth are lifted up to Heaven and to Him. They witness to what You do not know and as They reach the Gates of Heaven God will open them. For never would He leave His own beloved Son outside them and beyond Himself.

b. The Shadow of Guilt

Guilt remains the only thing that hides the Father for guilt is the attack upon His Son. The guilty always condemn. And having done so they will condemn linking the future to the past as is the ego’s law. Fidelity unto this law lets no Light in for it demands fidelity to darkness and forbids awakening. The ego’s laws are strict and breaches are severely punished. Therefore give no obedience to its laws for they are laws of punishment. And those who follow them believe that they are guilty and so they must condemn. Between the future and the past the laws of God must intervene if You would free Yourselves. Atonement stands between them like a lamp that shines so brightly that the chain of darkness in which You bound Yourselves will disappear.

Release from guilt is the ego’s whole undoing. Make no one fearful for his guilt is Yours and by obeying the ego’s harsh commandments You bring its condemnation on Yourself and You will not escape the punishment it offers those who obey it. The ego rewards fidelity to it with pain for faith in it is pain. And faith can be rewarded only in terms of the belief in which the faith was placed. Faith makes the Power of belief and where it is invested determines its reward. For faith is always given what is treasured and what is treasured is returned to You.

The world can give You only what You gave it for being nothing but Your own projection it has no meaning apart from what You found in it and placed Your faith in. There You think it is. Be faithful unto darkness and You will not see because Your faith will be rewarded as You gave it. You will accept Your treasure and if You place Your faith in the past the future will be like it. Whatever You hold as dear You think is Yours. The Power of Your valuing will make it so. Atonement brings a reevaluation of everything You cherish for It is the means by which the Holy Spirit can separate the false and True which You have accepted into Your minds without distinction. Therefore You cannot value one without the other and guilt has become as True for You as Innocence.

You do not believe the Son of God is guiltless because You see the past and see him not. When You condemn a Brother You are saying: “I who was guilty choose to remain so.” You have denied his freedom and by so doing You have denied the witness unto Yours. You could as easily have freed him from the past and lifted from his mind the cloud of guilt that binds him to it. And in his freedom would have been Your own. Lay not his guilt upon him for his guilt lies in his secret that he thinks that he has done this unto You. Would You then teach him that he is right in his delusion? The idea that the guiltless Son of God can attack himself and make him guilty is insane. In any form, in anyone, believe this not. For sin and condemnation are the same and the belief in one is faith in the other calling for punishment instead of Love. Nothing can justify insanity and to call for punishment upon Yourself must be insane.

See no one then as guilty and You will affirm the Truth of Guiltlessness unto Yourself. In every condemnation that You offer the Son of God lies the conviction of Your own guilt. If You would have the Holy Spirit make You free of it accept His offer of Atonement for all Your Brothers. For so You learn that It is True for You. Remember always that it is impossible to condemn the Son of God in part. Those whom You see as guilty become the witnesses to guilt in You and You will see it there for it is there until it is undone. Guilt is always in Your own mind which has condemned itself. Project it not for while You do it cannot be undone. With everyone whom You release from guilt great is the Joy in Heaven where the witnesses to Your Fatherhood rejoice.

Guilt makes You blind. For while You see one spot of guilt within You You will not see the Light. And by projecting it the world seems dark and shrouded in Your guilt. You throw a dark veil over it and cannot see it because You cannot look within. You are afraid of what You would see there but it is not there. The thing You fear is gone. If You would look within You would see only the Atonement shining in quiet and in Peace upon the Altar to Your Father. Do not be afraid to look within. The ego tells You all is black with guilt within You and bids You not to look. Instead it bids You look upon Your Brothers and see the guilt in them.

Yet this You cannot do without remaining blind. For those who see their Brothers dark and guilty in the dark in which they shroud them are too afraid to look upon the Light within. Within You is not what You believe is there and what You put Your faith in. Within You is the Holy Sign of perfect faith Your Father has in You. He does not value You as You do. He knows Himself and knows the Truth in You. He knows there is no difference for He knows not of differences. Can You see guilt where God knows there is perfect Innocence? You can deny His knowledge but You cannot change it. Look then upon the Light He placed within You and learn that what You feared was there has been replaced with Love.

c. Release and Restoration

You are accustomed to the notion that the mind can see the source of pain where it is not. The doubtful service of displacement is to hide the real source of Your guilt and keep from Your awareness the full perception that it is insane. Displacement always is maintained by the illusion that the source from which attention is diverted must be True. And must be fearful or You would not have displaced the guilt onto what You believed to be less fearful. You are therefore willing with little opposition to look upon all sorts of “sources” underneath awareness provided that they are not the deeper source to which they bear no real relationship at all. Insane ideas have no real relationships for that is why they are insane.

No real relationship can rest on guilt or even hold one spot of it to mar its purity. For all relationships which guilt has touched are used but to avoid the person and the guilt. What strange relationships You have made for this strange purpose! And You forgot that real relationships are Holy and cannot be used by You at all. They are used only by the Holy Spirit and it is that that makes them pure. If You displace Your guilt upon them the Holy Spirit cannot use them. For by preempting for Your own ends what You should have given Him He cannot use them unto Your release. No one who would unite in any way with anyone for his own Salvation will find it in that strange relationship. It is not shared and so it is not real.

In any union with a Brother in which You seek to lay Your guilt upon him or share it with him or perceive his own You will feel guilty. Nor will You find satisfaction and Peace with him because Your union with him is not real. You will see guilt in that relationship because You put it there. It is inevitable that those who suffer guilt will attempt to displace it because they do believe in it. Yet though they suffer they will not look within and let it go. They cannot know they love and cannot understand what loving is. Their main concern is to perceive the source of guilt outside themselves beyond their own control.

When You maintain that You are guilty but the source lies in the past You are not looking inward. The past is not in You. Your weird associations to it have no meaning in the Present. Yet You let them stand between You and Your Brothers with whom You find no real relationships at all. Can You expect to use Your Brothers as a means to solve the past and still to see them as they really are? Salvation is not found by those who use their Brothers to resolve problems which are not there. You wanted not Salvation in the past. Would You impose Your idle wishes on the Present and hope to find Salvation now?

Determine then to be not as You were. Use no relationship to hold You to the past but with each one, each day, be born again. A minute, even less, will be enough to free You from the past and give Your mind in Peace over to the Atonement. When everyone is welcome to You as You would have Yourself be welcome to Your Father You will see no guilt in You. For You will have accepted the Atonement Which shone within You all the while You dreamed of guilt and would not look within and see It.

As long as You believe that guilt is justified in any way, in anyone, whatever he may do, You will not look within where You would always find Atonement. The end of guilt will never come as long as You believe there is a reason for it. For You must learn that guilt is always totally insane and has no reason. The Holy Spirit seeks not to dispel Reality. If guilt were real Atonement would not be. The purpose of Atonement is to dispel illusions, not to establish them as real and then forgive them. The Holy Spirit does not keep illusions in Your mind to frighten You and show them to You fearfully to demonstrate what He has saved You from. What He has saved You from is gone.

Give no Reality to guilt and see no reason for it. The Holy Spirit does what God would have Him do and has always done so. He has seen separation but knows of union. He teaches healing but He also knows of Creation. He would have You see and teach as He does and through Him. But what He knows You do not know though it is Yours. Now it is given You to heal and teach to make what will be now. As yet it is not now. The Son of God believes that he is lost in guilt, alone in a dark world where pain is pressing everywhere upon him from without. When he has looked within and seen the radiance there he will remember how much his Father loves him. And it will seem incredible that he had ever thought his Father loved him not and looked upon him as condemned.

The moment that You realize guilt is insane, wholly unjustified and wholly without reason You will not fear to look upon Atonement and accept It wholly. You Who have been unmerciful unto Yourselves do not remember Your Father’s Love. And looking without mercy upon Your Brothers You do not remember how much You love Him. Yet it is forever True. In shining Peace within You is the perfect purity in which You were created. Fear not to look upon the lovely Truth in You. Look through the cloud of guilt that dims Your Vision and look past darkness to the Holy Place where You will see the Light.

The Altar to Your Father is as pure as He Who raised It to Himself. Nothing can keep from You what Christ would have You see. His will is like His Father’s and He offers mercy to every Child of God as He would have You do. Release from guilt as You would be released. There is no other way to look within and see the Light of Love shining as steadily and as surely as God Himself has always loved His Son. And as His Son loves Him. There is no fear in Love for Love is guiltless. You Who have always loved Your Father can have no fear for any reason to look within and see Your Holiness.

You cannot be as You believed You were. Your guilt is without reason because it is not in the Mind of God where You are. And this is reason which the Holy Spirit would restore to You. He would remove only illusions. All else He would have You see. And in Christ’s Vision He would show You the perfect purity that is forever within God’s Son. You cannot enter into real relationship with any of God’s Sons unless You love them all and equally. Love is not special. If You single out part of the Sonship for Your Love You are imposing guilt on all Your relationships and making them unreal.

You can love only as God loves. Seek not to love unlike Him for there is no Love apart from His. Until You recognize that this is True You will have no idea what Love is like. No one who condemns a Brother can see himself as guiltless in the Peace of God. If he is guiltless and in Peace and sees it not he is delusional and has not looked upon himself. To him I say: Behold the Son of God and look upon his purity and be still. In quiet look upon his Holiness and offer thanks unto his Father that no guilt has ever touched him.

No illusion that You have ever held against him has touched his Innocence in any way. His shining purity, wholly untouched by guilt and wholly loving, is bright within You. Let Us look upon him Together and love him. For in Our Love of him is Your Guiltlessness. But look upon Yourself and Gladness and appreciation for what You will see will banish guilt forever. I thank You, Father, for the purity of Your most Holy Son whom Thou hast created guiltless forever.

Like You My faith and My belief are centered on what I treasure. The difference is that I love only what God loves with Me and because of this I treasure You beyond the value that You set on Yourselves even unto the worth that God has placed upon You. I love All That He created. And all My faith and My belief I offer unto It. My faith in You is strong as all the Love I give My Father. My trust in You is without limit and without the fear that You will hear Me not. I thank the Father for Your loveliness and for the many gifts that You will let Me offer to the Kingdom in honor of its wholeness that is of God.

Praise be unto You Who make the Father One with His own Son. Alone We are All lowly but Together We shine with brightness so intense that none of Us alone can even think on it. Before the glorious radiance of the Kingdom guilt melts away and transformed into kindness will never more be what it was. Every reaction that You experience will be so purified that it is fitting as a Hymn of praise unto Your Father. See only praise of Him in What He has created for He will never cease His praise of You. United in this praise We stand before the Gates of Heaven where We will surely enter in Our Blamelessness. God loves You. Could I then lack faith in You and love Him perfectly?

Forgetfulness and sleep and even death become the ego’s best advice for how to deal with the perceived and harsh intrusion of guilt on Peace. Yet no one sees himself in conflict and ravaged by a cruel war unless he believes that both “opponents” in the war are real. Believing this he must escape for such a war would surely end his Peace of Mind and so destroy him. But if he could but realize the war is between forces that are real and unreal Powers he could look upon himself and see his freedom. No one finds himself ravaged and torn in endless battles which he himself perceives as wholly without meaning.

God would not have His Son embattled and so His Son’s imagined “enemy” which he made is totally unreal. You are but trying to escape a bitter war from which You have escaped. The war is gone. For You have heard the Hymn of freedom rising unto Heaven. Gladness and Joy belong to God for Your release because You made it not. But as You made not freedom so You made not a war that could endanger freedom. Nothing destructive ever was or will be. The war, the guilt, the past are gone as one into the unreality from whence they came.

d. 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.

Can God’s Son lose himself in dreams when God has placed within him the glad Call to awaken and be glad? He cannot separate himself from what is in him. His sleep will not withstand the Call to wake. The mission of Redemption will be fulfilled as surely as the Creation will remain unchanged throughout Eternity. You do not have to know that Heaven is Yours to make it so. It is so. But the Will of God must be accepted as Your will to know it. The Holy Spirit cannot fail to undo for You everything that You have learned that teaches You what is not True must be reconciled with Truth. This is the reconciliation which the ego would substitute for Your reconciliation unto sanity and unto Peace.

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.

e. The Testimony of Miracles

Yes, You are blessed indeed. But in this world You do not know it. Yet You have the means for learning it and seeing it quite clearly. The Holy Spirit uses logic as easily and as well as does the ego except that His conclusions are not insane. They take a direction exactly opposite pointing as clearly to Heaven as the ego points to darkness and to death. We have followed much of the ego’s logic and have seen its logical conclusions. And having seen them We have realized that they can not be seen but in delusions. For there alone their seeming clearness seems to be clearly seen. Let Us now turn away from them and follow the simple logic by which the Holy Spirit teaches You the simple conclusions that speak for Truth and only Truth.

If You are blessed and do not know it You need to learn it must be so. The knowledge is not taught but its conditions must be acquired for it is they that have been thrown away. You can learn to bless and cannot give what You have not. If then You offer Blessing it must have come first to Yourself. And You must also have accepted it as Yours for how else could You give it away? This is why Your Miracles offer You the testimony that You are blessed. If what You offer is complete forgiveness You must have let guilt go accepting the Atonement for Yourself and learning You are guiltless. How could You learn what has been done for You but which You do not know unless You do what You would have to do if it had been done unto You?

Indirect proof of Truth is needed in a world made of denial and without direction. You will perceive the need for this if You will realize that to deny is the decision not to know. The logic of the world must therefore lead to nothing for its goal is nothing. If You decide to have, and give, and be nothing except a dream You must direct Your thoughts unto oblivion. And if You have, and give, and are everything and all this has been denied Your thought system is closed off and wholly separated from the Truth. This is an insane world and do not underestimate the actual extent of its insanity. There is no area of Your perception that it has not touched and Your dream is sacred to You. That is why God placed the Holy Spirit in You where You placed the dream.

Seeing is always outward. Were Your thoughts wholly of You the thought system which You have made would be forever dark. The thoughts which the mind of God’s Son projects have all the Power that he gives them. The Thoughts he shares with God are beyond his belief but those he made are his beliefs. And it is these and not the Truth that he has chosen to defend and love. They will not be taken from him. But they can be given up by him for the source of their undoing is in him. There is nothing in the world to teach him that the logic of the world is totally insane and leads to nothing. But in him who made this insane logic there is One Who knows it leads to nothing for He knows of everything.

Any direction which will lead You where the Holy Spirit leads You not goes nowhere. Anything You deny which He knows to be True You have denied Yourself and He must therefore teach You not to deny it. Undoing is indirect as doing is. You were created only to create, neither to see nor do. These are but indirect expressions of the will to live which has been blocked by the capricious and unholy whim of death and murder that Your Father shared not with You. You have set Yourselves the task of sharing what can not be shared. And while You think it possible to learn to do this You will not believe all that is possible to learn to do.

The Holy Spirit therefore must begin His teaching by showing You what You can never learn. His Message is not indirect but He must introduce the simple Truth into a thought system which has become so twisted and so complex that You cannot see that it means nothing. He merely looks at its foundation and dismisses it. But You Who cannot undo what You have made nor escape the heavy burden of it’s dullness that lies upon Your minds cannot see through it. It deceives You because You chose to deceive Yourselves. Those who choose to be deceived will merely attack direct approaches which would seem but to encroach upon deception and strike at it.

f. The Happy Learner

The Holy Spirit needs a happy learner in whom His mission can be happily accomplished. You Who are steadfastly devoted to misery must first recognize that You are miserable and not happy. The Holy Spirit cannot teach without this contrast for You believe that misery is happiness. This has so confused You that You have undertaken to learn to do what You can never do believing that unless You learn it You will not be happy. You do not realize that the foundation on which this most peculiar learning goal depends means absolutely nothing. This does make sense to You.

Have faith in nothing and You will find the treasure that You sought. But You will add another burden to Your mind already burdened or You would not have sought another. You will believe that nothing is of value and will value it. A little piece of glass, a speck of dust, a body or a war are one to You. For if You value one thing made of nothing You have believed that nothing can be precious and that You can learn how to make the untrue True. The Holy Spirit seeing where You are but knowing You are elsewhere begins His lesson in simplicity with the fundamental teaching that Truth is True. This is the hardest lesson You will ever learn and in the end the only one.

Simplicity is very difficult for twisted minds. Consider all the distortions You have made of nothing, all the strange forms and feelings and actions and reactions that You have woven out of it. Nothing is so alien to You as the simple Truth and nothing are You less inclined to listen to. The contrast between what is True and what is not is perfectly apparent yet You do not see it. The simple and the obvious are not apparent to those who would make palaces and royal robes of nothing believing they are kings with golden crowns because of them. All this the Holy Spirit sees and teaches simply that all this is not True.

To these unhappy learners who would teach themselves nothing and delude themselves into believing that it is not nothing the Holy Spirit says with steadfast quietness:

The Truth is True. Nothing else matters, nothing else is real and everything beside It is not there. Let Me make the one distinction for You which You cannot make but need to learn. Your faith in nothing is deceiving You. Offer Your faith to Me and I will place it gently in the Holy Place Where it belongs. You will find no deception There but only the simple Truth. And You will love It because You will understand It.

Like You the Holy Spirit did not make Truth. Like God He knows It to be True. He brings the Light of Truth into the darkness and lets It shine on You. And as It shines Your Brothers see It and realizing that this Light is not what You have made they see in You more than You see. They will be happy learners of the lesson which this Light brings to them because It teaches them release from nothing and from all the works of nothing. The heavy chains which seem to bind them unto despair they do not see as nothing until You bring the Light to them. And then they see the chains have disappeared and so they must have been nothing.

And You will see it with them. Because You taught them Gladness and release they will become Your teachers in release and Gladness. When You teach anyone that Truth is True You learn it with him. And so You learn that what seemed hardest was the easiest. Learn to be happy learners. You will never learn how to make nothing everything. But see that this has been Your goal and recognize how foolish it has been. Be glad it is undone for when You look at it in simple honesty it is undone. We said before Be not content with nothing for You have believed that nothing could content You. It is not so.

If You would be a happy learner You must give everything that You have learned over to the Holy Spirit to be unlearned for You. And then begin to learn the joyous lessons that come quickly on the firm foundation that Truth is True. For what is builded There is True and built on Truth. The Universe of learning will open up before You in all its gracious simplicity. With Truth before You You will not look back. The happy learner meets the conditions of learning here as he also meets the conditions of knowledge in the Kingdom.

All this lies in the Holy Spirit’s plan to free You from the past and open up the way to freedom for You. For Truth is True. What else could ever be or ever was? This simple lesson holds the key to the dark door which You believe is locked forever. You made this door of nothing and behind it is nothing. The key is only the Light which shines away the shapes and forms and fears of nothing. Accept this key to freedom from the Hands of Christ Who gives it to You that You may join Him in the Holy task of bringing Light to darkness. For, like Your Brothers, You do not realize the Light has come and freed You from the sleep of darkness.

Behold Your Brothers in their freedom and learn of them how to be free of darkness. The Light in You will waken them and they will not leave You asleep. The Vision of Christ is given the very instant that it is perceived. Where everything is clear it is all Holy. The quietness of its simplicity is so compelling that You will realize it is impossible to deny the simple Truth. For there is nothing else. God is everywhere and His Son is in Him with everything. Can he sing the dirge of sorrow when this is True?

g. The Decision for Guiltlessness

Learning will be commensurate with motivation and the interference in Your motivation for learning is exactly the same as that which interferes with all Your thinking. The happy learner cannot feel guilty about learning. This is so essential to learning that it should never be forgotten. The guiltless learner learns so easily because his thoughts are free. But this entails the recognition that guilt is interference, not Salvation, and serves no useful function at all.

You are accustomed to using Guiltlessness merely to offset the pain of guilt and do not look upon it as having value in itself. You believe that guilt and Guiltlessness are both of value, each representing an escape from what the other does not offer You. You do not want either alone for without both You do not see Yourselves as whole and therefore happy. You are whole only in Your Guiltlessness and only in Your Guiltlessness can You be happy. There is no conflict here.

To wish for guilt in any way, in any form, will lose appreciation of the value of Your Guiltlessness and push it from Your sight. There is no compromise that You can make with guilt and escape from the pain which only Guiltlessness allays. Learning is living here as creating is being in Heaven. Whenever the pain of guilt seems to attract You remember that if You yield to it You are deciding against Your happiness and will not learn how to be happy. Say therefore to Yourself gently but with the conviction born of the Love of God and of His Son:

What I experience I will make manifest.

If I am guiltless I have nothing to fear.

I choose to testify to My acceptance of the Atonement, not for Its rejection.

I would accept My Guiltlessness by making it manifest and sharing it.

Let Me bring Peace to God’s Son from His Father.

Each day, each hour and minute – even each second – You are deciding between the crucifixion and the Resurrection, between the ego and the Holy Spirit. The ego is the choice for guilt, the Holy Spirit the decision for Blamelessness. The Power of decision is all that is Yours. What You can decide between is fixed because there are no alternatives except Truth and illusion. And there is no overlap between them because they are opposites which cannot be reconciled and cannot both be True. You are guilty or guiltless, bound or free, happy or unhappy.

The Miracle teaches You that You have chosen Guiltlessness, freedom and Joy. It is not a cause but an effect. It is the natural result of choosing right attesting to Your happiness that comes from choosing to be free of guilt. Everyone You offer healing to returns it. Everyone You attack keeps it and cherishes it by holding it against You. Whether he does this or does it not will make no difference. You will think he does. It is impossible to offer what You do not want without this penalty. The cost of giving is receiving. Either it is a penalty from which You suffer or the happy purchase of a treasure to hold dear.

No penalty is ever asked of God’s Son except by himself and of himself. Every chance given to him to heal is another opportunity to replace darkness with Light and fear with Love. If he refuses it he binds himself to darkness because he did not choose to free his Brother and enter Light with him. By giving Power to nothing he threw away the joyous opportunity to learn that nothing has no Power. And by not dispelling darkness he became afraid of darkness and of Light. The Joy of learning darkness has no Power over the Son of God is the happy lesson the Holy Spirit teaches and would have You teach with Him. It is His Joy to teach it as it will be Yours.

The way to teach this simple lesson is merely this: Guiltlessness is invulnerability. Therefore make Your invulnerability manifest to everyone and teach him that whatever he may try to do to You Your perfect freedom from the belief that You can be harmed shows him he is guiltless. He can do nothing that can hurt You and by refusing to allow him to think he can You teach him that the Atonement Which You have accepted for Yourself is also his. There is nothing to forgive. No one can hurt the Son of God. His guilt is wholly without cause and being without cause cannot exist.

God is the only Cause and guilt is not of Him. Teach no one he has hurt You for if You do You teach Yourself that what is not of God has Power over You. The causeless cannot be. Do not attest to it and do not foster belief in it in any mind. Remember always Mind is One and Cause is One. You will learn communication with this Oneness only when You learn to deny the causeless and accept the Cause of God as Yours. The Power that God has given to His Son is His and nothing else can His Son see or choose to look upon without imposing on himself the penalty of guilt in place of all the happy Teaching the Holy Spirit would gladly offer him.

Whenever You decide to make decisions for Yourself You are thinking selfdestructively and the decision will be wrong. It will hurt You because of the concept of decision which led to it. It is not True that You can make decisions by Yourself or for Yourself alone. No thought of God’s Son can be separate or isolated in its effects. Every decision is made for the whole Sonship, directed in and out, and influencing a constellation larger than anything You ever dreamed of. Those who accept Atonement are invulnerable. But those who believe they are guilty will respond to guilt because they think it is Salvation and will not refuse to see it and side with it. They believe that increasing guilt is selfprotection. And they fail to understand the simple fact that what they do not want must hurt them. All this arises because they do not believe that what they want is good.

Yet will was given them because it is Holy and will bring to them all that they need coming as naturally as Peace that knows no limits. There is nothing their wills will not provide that offers them anything of value. But because they do not understand their will the Holy Spirit quietly understands it for them and gives them what they will without effort, strain or the impossible burden of deciding what they want and need alone. It will never happen that You will have to make decisions for Yourself. You are not bereft of Help and Help that knows the Answer. Would You be content with little, which is all that You alone can offer Yourself, when He Who gives You everything will simply offer it to You?

He will never ask what You have done to make You worthy of the Gift of God. Ask it not therefore of Yourselves. Instead accept His Answer for He knows You are worthy of everything God wills for You. Do not try to escape the Gift of God Which He so freely and so gladly offers You. He offers You but what God gave Him for You. You need not decide whether or not You are deserving of it. God knows that You are. Would You deny the Truth of God’s Decision and place Your pitiful appraisal of Yourself in place of His calm and unswerving value of His Son? Nothing can shake God’s Conviction of the perfect purity of everything that He created for It is wholly pure. Do not decide against It for being of Him It must be True.

Peace abides in every mind that quietly accepts the plan that God has set for his Atonement relinquishing his own. You know not of Salvation for You do not understand it. Make no decisions about what it is or where it lies but ask of the Holy Spirit everything and leave all decisions to His gentle Counsel. The One Who knows the plan of God which God would have You follow can teach You what it is. Only His Wisdom is capable of guiding You to follow it. Every decision You undertake alone but signifies that You would define what Salvation is and what You would be saved from. The Holy Spirit knows that all Salvation is escape from guilt. You have no other “enemy” and against this strange distortion of the purity of the Son of God the Holy Spirit is Your only Friend.

He is the strong protector of Your Innocence which sets You free. And it is His decision to undo everything that would obscure Your Innocence from Your unclouded mind. Let Him therefore be the only Guide that You would follow to Salvation. He knows the way and leads You gladly on it. With Him You will not fail to learn what God wills for You is Your will. Without His Guidance You will think You know alone and will decide against Your Peace as surely as You made the wrong decision in ever thinking that Salvation lay in You alone. Salvation is of Him to Whom God gave it for You. He has not forgotten it. Forget Him not and He will make every decision for You, for Your Salvation and the Peace of God in You.

Seek not to appraise the worth of God’s Son whom He created Holy for to do so is to evaluate his Father and judge against Him. And You will feel guilty for this imagined “crime” which no one in this world or Heaven can possibly commit. God’s Spirit teaches only that the “sin” of selfreplacement on the throne of God is not a source of guilt. What cannot happen can have no effects to fear. Be quiet in Your faith in Him Who loves You and would lead You out of insanity. Madness may be Your choice but not Your Reality. Never forget the Love of God Who has remembered You. For it is quite impossible that He could ever let His Son drop from His loving Mind Wherein he was created and Where his abode was fixed in perfect Peace forever.

Say to the Holy Spirit only: Decide for Me and it is done. For His decisions are reflections of what God knows about You and in this Light error of any kind becomes impossible. Why would You struggle so frantically to anticipate all that You cannot know when all knowledge lies behind every decision that the Holy Spirit makes for You? Learn of His Wisdom and His Love and teach His Answer to everyone who struggles in the dark. For You decide for them and for Yourself. How gracious is it to decide all things through Him Whose equal Love is given equally to all alike. He leaves You no one outside Yourself, alone without You. And so He gives You what is Yours because Your Father would have You share it with him.

In everything be led by Him and do not reconsider. Trust Him to answer quickly, surely and with Love for everyone who will be touched in any way by the decision. And everyone will be. Would You take unto Yourself the sole responsibility for deciding what can bring only good to everyone? Would You know this? You taught Yourselves the most unnatural habit of not communicating with Your Creator. Yet You remain in close communication with Him and with everything that is within Him as it is within Yourself. Unlearn isolation through His loving Guidance and learn of all the happy communication that You have thrown away but could not lose.

Whenever You are in doubt what You should do think of His Presence in You and tell Yourself this, and only this:

He leadeth Me and knows the way which I know not.

Yet He will never keep from Me what He would have Me learn.

And so I trust Him to communicate to Me all that He knows for Me.

Then let Him teach You quietly how to perceive Your Guiltlessness which is already there.

h. The Way of Salvation

When You accept a Brother’s Guiltlessness You will see Atonement in him. For by proclaiming it in him You make it Yours and You will see what You sought. You will not see the symbol of Your Brother’s Guiltlessness shining within him while You still believe it is not there. His Guiltlessness is Your Atonement. Grant it to him and You will see the Truth of what You have acknowledged. Yet Truth is offered first to be received even as God gave It first to His Son. The first in time means nothing but the First in Eternity is God the Father Who is Both First and One. Beyond the First there is no other for there is no order, no second or third and nothing but the First.

You Who belong to the First Cause, created by Him like unto Himself and part of Him, are more than merely guiltless. The state of Guiltlessness is only the condition in which what is not there has been removed from the disordered mind that thought it was. This state, and only this, must You attain with God beside You. For until You do You will still think that You are separate from Him. You can feel His Presence next to You but cannot know that You are One with Him. This need not be taught. Learning applies only to the condition in which it happens of itself.

When You have let all that has obscured the Truth in Your most Holy mind be undone for You and stand in Grace before Your Father He will give Himself to You as He has always done. Giving Himself is all He knows and so it is all knowledge. For what He knows not cannot be and therefore cannot be given. Ask not to be forgiven for this has already been accomplished. Ask rather to learn how to forgive and restore what always was to Your unforgiving mind. Atonement becomes real and visible to them that use It. On earth It is Your only function and You must learn that It is all You want to learn.

You will feel guilty ’til You learn this. For in the end whatever form it takes Your guilt arises from Your failure to fulfill Your function in God’s Mind with all of Yours. Can You escape this guilt by failing to fulfill Your function here? You need not understand Creation to do what must be done before that knowledge would be meaningful to You. God breaks no barriers neither did He make them. When You release them they are gone. God will not fail, nor ever has, in anything.

Decide that God is right and You are wrong about Yourself. He created You out of Himself but still within Him. He knows what You are. Remember that there is no second to Him. There cannot therefore be anyone without His Holiness nor anyone unworthy of His perfect Love. Fail not in Your function of loving in a loveless place made out of darkness and deceit for thus are darkness and deception undone. Fail not Yourself but instead offer to God and You His blameless Son. For this small gift of appreciation for His Love God will Himself exchange Your gift for His.

Before You make any decisions for Yourself remember that You have decided against Your function in Heaven and consider carefully whether You want to make decisions here. Your function here is only to decide against deciding what You want in recognition that You do not know. How then can You decide what You should do? Leave all decisions to the One Who speaks for God and for Your function as He knows it. So will He teach You to remove the awful burden You have laid upon Yourself by loving not the Son of God and trying to teach him guilt instead of Love. Give up this frantic and insane attempt which cheats You of the Joy of living with Your God and Father and awaking gladly to His Love and Holiness Which join Together as Truth in You making You One with Him.

When You have learned how to decide with God all decisions become as easy and as right as breathing. There is no effort and You will be led as gently as if You were being carried along a quiet path in summer. Only Your own volition seems to make deciding hard. The Holy Spirit will not delay at all in answering Your every question what to do. He knows. And He will tell You and then do it for You. You Who are tired might consider whether this is not more restful than sleep. For You can bring Your guilt into sleeping but not into this.

Chapter 14 – Bringing Illusions to Truth

a. Guilt and Guiltlessness

The Guiltless and the guilty are totally incapable of understanding one another. Each perceives the other as like himself making them unable to communicate because each sees the other unlike the way he sees himself. God can communicate only to the Holy Spirit in Your mind because only He shares the knowledge of what You are with God. And only the Holy Spirit can answer God for You for only He knows what God is. Everything else that You have placed within Your mind cannot exist for what is not in communication with the Mind of God has never been. Communication with God is Life. Nothing without it is at all.

The only part of Your mind that has Reality is the part that links You still with God. Would You have all of it transformed into a radiant Message of God’s Love to share with all the lonely ones who have denied Him with You? God makes this possible. Would You deny His yearning to be known? You yearn for Him as He for You. This is forever changeless. Accept then the immutable. Leave the world of death behind and return quietly to Heaven. There is nothing of value here and everything of value there. Listen to the Holy Spirit and to God through Him. He speaks of You to You. There is no guilt in You for God is blessed in His Son as the Son is blessed in Him.

Each one of You has a special part to play in the Atonement but the Message given to each to share is always the same: God’s Son is guiltless. Each one teaches the message differently and learns it differently. But until he teaches it and learns it he will suffer the pain of dim awareness that his True function remains unfulfilled in him. The burden of guilt is heavy but God would not have You bound by it. His plan for Your awaking is as perfect as Yours is fallible. You know not what You do but He Who knows is with You. His gentleness is Yours and all the Love You share with God He holds in trust for You. He would teach You nothing except how to be happy.

Blessed Son of a wholly Blessing Father, Joy was created for You. Who can condemn whom God has blessed? There is nothing in the Mind of God that does not share His shining Innocence. Creation is the natural extension of perfect purity. Your only Calling here is to devote Yourself with active willingness to the denial of guilt in all its forms. To accuse is not to understand. The happy learners of the Atonement become the teachers of the Innocence that is the right of all that God created. Deny them not what is their due for You will not withhold it from them alone.

The inheritance of the Kingdom is the right of God’s Son given him in his Creation. Do not try to steal it from him or You will ask for guilt and will experience it. Protect his purity from every thought that would steal it away and keep it from his sight. Bring Innocence to Light in answer to the Call of the Atonement. Never allow purity to remain hidden but shine away the heavy veils of guilt within which the Son of God has hidden himself from his own sight. We are All joined in the Atonement Here and nothing else can unite Us in this world. So will the world of separation slip away and full communication be restored between the Father and the Son.

The Miracle acknowledges the Guiltlessness which must have been denied to produce need of healing. Do not withhold this glad acknowledgment for hope of happiness and release from suffering of every kind lies in it. Who is there but wishes to be free of pain? He may not yet have learned how to exchange his guilt for Innocence nor realize that only in this exchange can freedom from pain be his. Teach him that this is so. But those who have failed to learn need teaching, not attack. To attack those who have need of teaching is to fail to learn from them.

Teachers of Innocence, each in his own way, have joined together taking their part in the unified Curriculum of the Atonement. There is no Unity of learning goals apart from this. There is no conflict in this Curriculum which has one aim however it is taught. Each effort made on its behalf is offered to the single purpose of release from guilt to the eternal Glory of God and His Creation. And every Teaching that points to this points straight to Heaven and to the Peace of God. There is no pain, no trial, no fear that teaching this can fail to overcome. The Power of God Himself supports this Teaching and guarantees its limitless results.

Join Your own efforts to the Power that cannot fail and must result in Peace. No one can be untouched by Teaching such as this. You will not see Yourself beyond the Power of God if You teach only this. You will not be exempt from the effect of this most Holy Lesson which seeks but to restore what is the right of God’s Creation. From everyone whom You accord release from guilt You will inevitably learn Your Innocence. The Circle of Atonement has no end. And You will find everincreasing confidence in Your safe inclusion in what is for all in everyone You bring within Its safety and Its perfect Peace.

Peace then be unto everyone who becomes a teacher of Peace. For Peace is the acknowledgment of perfect purity from which no one is excluded. Within its Holy Circle is everyone whom God created as His Son. Joy is its unifying attribute with no one left outside to suffer guilt alone. The Power of God draws everyone to its safe embrace of Love and union. Stand quietly within this Circle and attract all tortured minds to join with You in the safety of its Peace and Holiness. Abide with Me within it as Teachers of Atonement, not of guilt.

Blessed are Ye Who teach with Me. Our Power comes not of Us but of Our Father. In Guiltlessness We know Him as He knows Us guiltless. I stand within the Circle calling You to Peace. Teach Peace with Me and stand with Me on Holy Ground. Remember for everyone Your Father’s Power that He has given them. Believe not that You cannot teach His perfect Peace. Stand not outside but join with Me within. Fail not the only purpose to which My teaching calls You. Restore to God His Son as He created him by teaching him his Innocence.

The crucifixion had no part in the Atonement. Only the Resurrection became My part in It. That is the symbol of the release from guilt by Guiltlessness. Whomever You perceive as guilty You would crucify. But You restore Guiltlessness to whomever You see as guiltless. Crucifixion is always the ego’s aim. It sees as guilty and by its condemnation it would kill. The Holy Spirit sees only Guiltlessness and in His gentleness He would release from fear and reestablish the reign of Love. The Power of Love is in His gentleness which is of God and therefore cannot crucify or suffer crucifixion. The temple You restore becomes Your altar for it was rebuilt through You. And everything You give to God is Yours. Thus He creates and thus must You restore.

Each one You see You place within the Holy Circle of Atonement or leave outside, judging him fit for crucifixion or Redemption. If You bring him into the Circle of purity You will rest there with him. If You leave him without You join him there. Judge not except in quietness which is not of You. Refuse to accept anyone as without the Blessing of Atonement and bring him into It by blessing him. Holiness must be shared for therein lies everything that makes It Holy. Come gladly to the Holy Circle and look out in Peace on all who think they are outside. Cast no one out for this is what he seeks along with You. Come let Us join him in the Holy Place of Peace which is for all of Us united as one within the Cause of Peace.

b. Out of the Darkness

The journey that We undertake Together is the change of dark for Light, of ignorance for understanding. Nothing You understand is fearful. It is only in darkness and in ignorance that You perceive the frightening and You shrink away from it to further darkness. And yet it is only the hidden that can terrify, not for what it is but for its hiddenness. The obscure is frightening because You do not understand its meaning. If You did it would be clear and You would be no longer in the dark. Nothing has hidden value for what is hidden cannot be shared and so its value is unknown. The hidden is kept apart but value always lies in joint appreciation. What is concealed cannot be loved and so it must be feared.

The quiet Light in Which the Holy Spirit dwells within You is merely perfect Openness in which nothing is hidden and therefore nothing is feared. Attack will always yield to Love if it is brought to Love, not hidden from It. There is no darkness that the Light of Love will not dispel unless it is concealed from Love’s beneficence. What is kept apart from Love cannot share Its healing Power because it has been separated off and kept in darkness. The sentinels of darkness watch over it carefully and You Who made these guardians of illusion out of nothing are now afraid of them.

Would You continue to give imagined Power to these strange ideas of safety? They are neither safe nor unsafe. They do not protect neither do they attack. They do nothing at all being nothing at all. As guardians of darkness and of ignorance look to them only for fear for what they keep obscure is fearful. But let them go and what was fearful will be so no longer. Without protection of obscurity only the Light of Love remains for only This has meaning and can live in Light. Everything else must disappear.

Death yields to Life simply because destruction is not True. The Light of Guiltlessness shines guilt away because when they are brought together the Truth of one must make the falsity of its opposite perfectly clear. Keep not guilt and Guiltlessness apart for Your belief that You can have them both is meaningless. All You have done by keeping them apart is lose their meaning by confusing them with each other. And so You do not realize that only one means anything and the other is wholly without sense of any kind.

You have interpreted the separation as a means which You have made for breaking Your communication with Your Father. The Holy Spirit reinterprets it as a means of reestablishing what has not been broken but has been made obscure. All things You made have use to Him for His most Holy purpose. He knows You are not separate from God but He perceives much in Your mind that lets You think You are. All this and nothing else would He separate from You. The Power of decision which You made in place of Power of Creation He would teach You how to use on Your behalf. You Who made it to crucify Yourselves must learn of Him how to apply it to the Holy Cause of restoration.

You Who speak in dark and devious symbols do not understand the language You have made. It has no meaning for its purpose is not communication but rather the disruption of communication. If the purpose of language is communication how can this tongue mean anything? Yet even this strange and twisted effort to communicate through not communicating holds enough of Love to make it meaningful if its Interpreter is not its Maker. You Who made it are but expressing conflict from which the Holy Spirit would release You. Leave what You would communicate to Him. He will interpret it to You with perfect clarity for He knows with Whom You are in perfect communication.

You know not what You say and so You know not what is said to You. But Your Interpreter perceives the meaning in Your alien language. He will not attempt to communicate the meaningless. But He will separate out all that has meaning dropping off all the rest and offering Your True communication to those who would communicate as Truly with You. You speak two languages at once and this must lead to unintelligibility. But if one means nothing and the other everything only that one is possible for purposes of communication. The other but interferes with it.

The Holy Spirit’s function is entirely communication. He therefore must remove whatever interferes with it in order to restore it. Therefore keep no source of interference from His Sight for He will not attack Your sentinels. But bring them to Him and let His gentleness teach You that in the Light they are not fearful and cannot serve to guard the dark doors behind which nothing at all is carefully concealed. We must open all doors and let the Light come streaming through. There are no hidden chambers in God’s Temple. Its Gates are open wide to greet His Son. No one can fail to come where God has called him if he close not the door himself upon His Father’s welcome.

c. Perception without Deceit

What do You want? Light or darkness, knowledge or ignorance are Yours but not both. Opposites must be brought together and not kept apart. For their separation is only in Your mind and they are reconciled by union as You are. In union everything that is not real must disappear for Truth is union. As darkness disappears in Light so ignorance fades away when knowledge dawns. Perception is the medium by which ignorance is brought to knowledge. But the perception must be without deceit for otherwise it becomes the messenger of ignorance rather than a helper in the search for Truth.

The search for Truth is but the honest searching out of everything that interferes with Truth. Truth is. And can be neither lost nor sought nor found. It is there wherever You are being within You. But It can be recognized or unrecognized, real or false to You. If You hide It It becomes unreal to You because You hid It and surrounded it with fear. Under each cornerstone of fear on which You have erected Your insane system of belief the Truth lies hidden. Yet You cannot know this for by hiding Truth in fear You see no reason to believe the more You look at fear the less You see it and the clearer what it conceals becomes.

It is not possible to convince the unknowing that they know. From their point of view it is not True. Yet it is True because God knows it. These are clearly opposite viewpoints of what the “unknowing” are. To God unknowing is impossible. It is therefore not a point of view at all but merely a belief in something that does not exist. It is only this belief that the unknowing have and by it they are wrong about themselves. They have defined themselves as they were not created. Their Creation was not a point of view but rather a certainty. Uncertainty brought to certainty does not retain any conviction of Reality.

You must have noticed that the emphasis has been on bringing what is undesirable to the desirable, what You do not want to what You do. You will realize that Salvation must come to You this way if You consider what dissociation is. Dissociation is a distorted process of thinking whereby two systems of belief which cannot coexist are both maintained. It has been recognized that if they were brought together their joint acceptance would become impossible. But if one is kept in darkness from the other their separation seems to keep them both alive and equal in their Reality. Their joining thus becomes the source of fear for if they meet acceptance must be withdrawn from one of them.

You cannot have them both for each denies the other. Apart this fact is lost from sight for each in a separate place can be endowed with firm belief. Bring them together and the fact of their complete incompatibility is instantly apparent. One will go because the other is seen in the same place. Light cannot enter darkness when a mind believes in darkness and will not let it go. Truth does not struggle against ignorance and Love does not attack fear. What needs no protection does not defend itself. Defense was of Your making. God knows it not.

The Holy Spirit uses defenses on behalf of Truth only because You made them against It. His perception of them according to His purpose merely changes them into a call for What You have attacked with them. Defenses, like everything You made, must be gently turned to Your own good, translated by Him from means of selfdestruction to means of preservation and release. His task is mighty but the Power of God is with Him. Therefore to Him it is so easy that it was accomplished the instant it was given Him for You.

Do not delay Yourselves in Your return to Peace by wondering how He can fulfill what God has given Him to do. Leave that to Him Who knows! You are not asked to do mighty tasks Yourself. You are merely asked to do the little He suggests You do trusting Him only to the small extent of believing that if He asks it You can do it. You will see how easily all that He asks can be accomplished. He asks of You but this: Bring to Him every secret You have locked away from Him. Open every door to Him and bid Him enter the darkness and lighten it away.

At Your request He enters gladly. He brings the Light to darkness if You make the darkness open to Him. But what You hide He cannot look upon. For He sees for You and unless You look with Him He cannot see. The Vision of Christ is not for Him alone but for Him with You. Bring therefore all Your dark and secret thoughts to Him and look upon them with Him. He holds the Light and You the darkness. They cannot coexist when Both of You Together look on them. His judgment must prevail and He will give it to You as You join Your perception to His. Joining with Him in seeing is the way in which You learn to share with Him the interpretation of perception that leads to knowledge.

You cannot see alone. Sharing perception with Him Whom God has given You teaches You how to recognize what You see. It is the recognition that nothing You see means anything alone. Seeing with Him will show You that all meaning, including Yours, comes not from double vision but from the gentle fusing of everything into one meaning, one emotion and one purpose. God has one Purpose which He shares with You. The single Vision which the Holy Spirit offers You will bring this Oneness to Your mind with clarity and brightness so intense You could not wish for all the world not to accept what God would have You have. Behold Your will accepting it as His with all His Love as Yours. All honor to You through Him and through Him unto God.

In the darkness You have obscured the glory God gave You and the Power that He bestowed upon His guiltless Son. All this lies hidden in every darkened place shrouded in guilt and in the dark denial of Innocence. Behind the dark doors which You have closed lies nothing because nothing can obscure the Gift of God. It is the closing of the doors that interferes with recognition of the Power of God that shines in You. Banish not Power from Your mind but let all that would hide Your glory be brought to the Judgment of the Holy Spirit and there undone. Whom He would save for glory is saved for it.

He has promised the Father that through Him You would be released from littleness to glory. To what He promised God He is wholly faithful for He shared with God the Promise that was given to Him to share with You. He shares it still for You. Everything that promises otherwise, great or small, however much or little valued, He will replace with the one Promise given unto Him to lay upon the Altar to Your Father and His Son. No altar stands to God without His Son. And nothing brought there that is not equally worthy of both together but will be replaced by Gifts wholly acceptable to Father and to Son.

Can You offer guilt to God? You cannot then offer it to His Son. For they are not apart and gifts to one are offered to the other. You know not God because You know not this. And yet You do know God and also this. All this is safe within You where the Holy Spirit shines. He shines not in division but in the Meetingplace where God united with His Son speaks to His Son through Him. Communication between what cannot be divided cannot cease. The Holy Meetingplace of the unseparated Father and His Son lies in the Holy Spirit and in You. All interference in the communication that God Himself wills with His Son is quite impossible Here. Unbroken and uninterrupted Love flows constantly between the Father and the Son as both would have it be. And so it is.

Let Your minds wander not through darkened corridors away from Light’s Center. You may choose to lead Yourselves astray but You can only be brought Together by the Guide appointed for You. He will surely lead You to where God and His Son await Your recognition. They are joined in giving You the Gift of Oneness before which all separation vanishes. Unite with what You are. You cannot join with anything except Reality. God’s Glory and His Son’s belong to You in Truth. They have no opposite and nothing else can You bestow upon Yourselves.

There is no substitute for Truth. And Truth will make this plain to You as You are brought into the Place where You must meet with Truth. And There You must be led through gentle understanding which can lead You nowhere else. Where God is there are You. Such is the Truth. Nothing can change the knowledge given You by God into unknowing. Everything God created knows its Creator. For this is how Creation is accomplished by the Creator and by His Creations. In the Holy Meetingplace are joined the Father and His Creations and the Creations of His Son with Them Together.

There is one link which joins Them All Together holding Them in the Oneness out of which Creation happens. The link with which the Father joins Himself to Those He gives the Power to create like Him can never be dissolved. Heaven itself is union with all of Creation and with Its one Creator. And Heaven remains the Will of God for You. Lay no gifts other than this upon Your altars for nothing can coexist beside it. Here Your meager offerings are brought together with the Gift of God and only what is worthy of the Father will be accepted by the Son for whom it was intended. To whom God gives Himself He is given. Your little gifts will vanish on the Altar Where He has placed His own.

d. The Recognition of Holiness

The Atonement does not make Holy. You were created Holy. It merely brings unholiness to Holiness or what You made to what You are. The bringing together of Truth and illusion, of the ego and God, is the Holy Spirit’s only function. Keep not Your making from Your Father for hiding it has cost You knowledge of Him and of Yourselves. The knowledge is safe but wherein is Your safety apart from it? The making of time to take the place of Timelessness lay in the decision to be not as You were. Thus Truth was made past and the Present was dedicated to illusion. And the past too was changed and interposed between what always was and now. The past that You remember never was and represents only denial of what always was.

Bringing the ego to God is but to bring error to Truth Where it stands corrected because it is the opposite of What it meets and is undone because the contradiction can no longer stand. How long can contradiction stand when its impossible nature is clearly revealed? What disappears in Light is not attacked. It merely vanishes because it is not True. Different Realities are meaningless for Reality must be one. It cannot change with time or mood or chance. Its changelessness is what makes it real. This cannot be undone. Undoing is for unreality. And this Reality will do for You.

Merely by being what It is does Truth release You from everything that It is not. The Atonement is so gentle You need but whisper to It and all Its Power will rush to Your assistance and support. You are not frail with God beside You. But without Him You are nothing. The Atonement offers You God. The Gift which You refused is held by Him in You. His Spirit holds It there for You. God has not left His Altar though His worshippers placed other gods upon It. The Temple still is Holy for the Presence that dwells within it is Holiness.

In the Temple Holiness waits quietly for the return of them that love It. For the Presence knows they will return to purity and to Grace. The Graciousness of God will take them gently in and cover all their sense of pain and loss with the immortal assurance of their Father’s Love. There fear of death will be replaced with Joy of Living. For God is Life and they abide in Life. Life is as Holy as the Holiness by Which it was created. The Presence of Holiness lives in everything that lives for Holiness created Life and leaves not what It created Holy as Itself.

In the world You can become a spotless mirror in which the Holiness of Your Creator shines forth from You to all around You. You can reflect Heaven here. But no reflections of the images of other gods must dim the mirror that would hold God’s Reflection in it. Earth can reflect Heaven or hell, God or the ego. You need but leave the mirror clean and clear of all the images of hidden darkness You have drawn upon it. God will shine upon it of Himself. Only the clear Reflection of Himself can be perceived upon it. Reflections are seen in Light. In darkness they are obscure and their meaning seems to lie only in shifting interpretations rather than in themselves.

The Reflection of God needs no interpretation. It is clear. Clear but the mirror and the Message which shines forth from What the mirror holds out for everyone to see no one will fail to understand. It is the Message that the Holy Spirit is holding to the mirror that is in Him. He recognizes It because He has been taught His need for It but knows not where to look to find It. Let Him then see It in You and share It with You. Could You but realize for a single instant the Power of healing that the Reflection of God shining in You can bring to all the world You could not wait to make the mirror of Your mind clean to receive the Image of the Holiness that heals the world.

The Image of Holiness that shines in Your mind is not obscure and will not change. Its meaning to those who look upon It is not obscure for everyone perceives It as the Same. They bring their different problems to Its healing Light but all their problems are met only with healing There. The response of Holiness to any form of error is always the same. There is no contradiction in what Holiness calls forth. Its one response is healing without any regard for what is brought to It.

Those who have learned to offer only healing because of the Reflection of Holiness in them are ready at last for Heaven. There Holiness is not a Reflection but rather the actual condition of What was but reflected to them here. God is no image and His Creations as part of Him hold Him in Them in Truth. They do not merely reflect the Truth for They are Truth.

e. The Shift to Miracles

When no perception stands between God and His Creation, or between His Children and their own, the knowledge of Creation must continue forever. The reflections that You accept into the mirror of Your minds in time but bring Eternity nearer or farther.

But Eternity itself is beyond all time. Reach out of time and touch it with the help of its Reflection in You and You will turn from time to Holiness as surely as the Reflection of Holiness calls everyone to lay all guilt aside. Reflect the Peace of Heaven here and bring this world to Heaven. For the Reflection of Truth draws everyone to Truth. And as they enter into It they leave all reflections behind. In Heaven Reality is shared and not reflected. By sharing its Reflection here its Truth becomes the only perception which the Son of God accepts. And thus Remembrance of his Father dawns on him and he can no longer be satisfied with anything but his own Reality.

You on earth have no conception of limitlessness for the world You seem to live in is a world of limits. In this world it is not True that anything without order of difficulty can occur. The Miracle therefore has a unique function and is motivated by a unique Teacher Who brings the laws of another world to this one. The Miracle is the one thing You can do that transcends order being based not on differences but on equality. Miracles are not in competition and the number You can do is limitless. They can be simultaneous and legion. This is not difficult to understand once You conceive of Them as possible at all.

What is more difficult to grasp is the lack of order of Magnitude which stamps the Miracle as something that must come from elsewhere, not from here. From the world’s viewpoint this is quite impossible. You have experienced the lack of competition among Your thoughts which even though they may conflict can occur to You together and in great numbers. You are so used to this that it can cause You little surprise. Yet You are also used to classifying some of Your thoughts as more important, larger or better, wiser or more productive and valuable than others. And this is True about the thoughts that cross the mind of those who think they live apart. For some are reflections of Heaven while others are motivated by the ego which but seems to think.

The result is a weaving, changing pattern that never rests and is never still. It shifts unceasingly across the mirror of Your mind and the reflections of Heaven last but a moment and grow dim as darkness blots them out. Where there was Light darkness removes It in an instant and alternating patterns of Light and darkness, darkness and Light sweep constantly across Your minds. The little sanity that still remains is held together by a sense of order which You establish. The very fact that You can do this and bring any order into chaos shows You that You are not an ego and that more than an ego must be in You. For the ego is chaos and if it were all of You no order at all would be possible.

But though the order which You impose upon Your minds limits the ego it also limits You. To order is to judge and to arrange by judgment. Therefore it is not Your function but the Holy Spirit’s. It will seem very difficult for You to learn that You have no basis at all for ordering Your thoughts. This lesson the Holy Spirit teaches by giving You shining examples to show You that Your way of ordering is wrong but that a better way is offered You. The Miracle offers exactly the same response to every call for help. It does not judge the call. It merely recognizes what it is and answers accordingly. It does not consider which call is louder or greater or more important.

You may wonder how You Who are still bound to judgment can be asked to do That Which requires no judgment of Your own. The answer is very simple: The Power of God and not of You engenders Miracles. The Miracle Itself is but the Witness that You have the Power of God in You. That is the reason that the Miracle gives equal Blessing to all who share in It and that is also why everyone shares in It. The Power of God is limitless. And being always maximal it offers everything to every call from anyone. There is no order here. A call for help is given help. The only judgment involved at all is in the Holy Spirit’s one division into two categories: One of Love and the other the call for Love.

You cannot safely make this division for You are much too confused either to recognize Love or to believe that everything else is nothing but a need for Love. You are too bound to form and not to content. What You consider content is not content at all. It is merely form and nothing else. For You do not respond to what a Brother really offers You but only to the particular perception of his offering by which Your ego judges it. The ego is incapable of understanding content and is totally unconcerned with it. To the ego if the form is acceptable the content must be. Otherwise it will attack the form.

You Who believe You understand something of the dynamics of the mind let Me assure You that You know nothing of it at all. For of Yourselves You could not know of it. The study of the ego is not the study of the mind. In fact the ego enjoys the study of itself and thoroughly approves the undertakings of the students who would analyze it approving its importance. Yet they but study form with meaningless content. For their teacher is senseless though careful to conceal this fact behind a lot of words that sound impressive but which lack any consistent sense when they are put together.

This is the characteristic of the ego’s judgments. Separately they seem to hold but put them together and the system of thought which arises from joining them is incoherent and utterly chaotic. For form is not enough for meaning and the underlying lack of content makes a cohesive system impossible. Separation therefore remains the ego’s chosen condition. For no one alone can judge the ego Truly. But when two or more join together in searching for Truth the ego can no longer defend its lack of content. The fact of union tells them it is not True.

It is impossible to remember God in secret and alone. For remembering Him means You are not alone and willing to remember it. Take no thought for Yourself for no thought You hold is for Yourself. If You would remember Your Father let the Holy Spirit order Your thoughts and give only the Answer with Which He answers You. Everyone seeks for Love as You do and knows It not unless he joins with You in seeking It. If You undertake the search together You bring with You a Light so powerful that what You see is given meaning. The lonely journey fails because it has excluded What it would find.

As God communicates to the Holy Spirit in You so does the Holy Spirit translate His communications through You so You can understand them. God has no secret communications for everything of Him is perfectly open and freely accessible to all being for all. Nothing lives in secret and what You would hide from the Holy Spirit is nothing. Every interpretation You would lay upon a Brother is senseless. Let the Holy Spirit show him to You and teach You both his Love and need for Love. Neither his mind nor Yours holds but these two orders of thought. The Miracle is the recognition that this is True.

Where there is Love Your Brother must give It to You because of what It is. But where there is need for Love You must give It because of What You are. Long ago We said This Course will teach You What You are restoring to You Your Identity. And We have already learned that this Identity is shared. The Miracle becomes the means of sharing it. By supplying Your Identity wherever it is not recognized You will recognize it. And God Himself Who wills to be with His Son forever will bless each recognition of His Son with all the Love He holds for him. Nor will the Power of all His Love be absent from any Miracle You offer to His Son. How then can there be any order of difficulty among Them?

f. The Test of Truth

But the essential thing is learning that You do not know. Knowledge is Power and all Power is of God. You Who have tried to keep Power for Yourselves have lost it. You still have the Power but You have interposed so much between it and Your awareness of it that You cannot use it. Everything You have taught Yourselves has made Your Power more and more obscure to You. You know not what it is nor where. You have made a semblance of Power and a show of Strength so pitiful that it must fail You. For Power is not seeming Strength and Truth is beyond a semblance of any kind.

Yet all that stands between You and the Power of God in You is but Your learning of the false and Your attempts to undo the True. Everything You have learned is false. Be willing then for all of it to be undone and be glad that You are not bound to it forever. For You have taught Yourselves how to imprison the Son of God, a lesson so unthinkable that only the insane in deepest sleep could even dream of it. Can God learn how not to be God? And can His Son given all Power by Him learn to be powerless? What have You taught Yourselves that You can possibly prefer to keep in place of what You have and what You are?

Atonement teaches You how to escape forever from everything that You have taught Yourselves in the past by showing You only what You are now. Learning has been accomplished before its effects are manifest. Learning is therefore in the past but its influence determines the Present by giving it whatever meaning it holds for You. Your learning gives the Present no meaning at all. Nothing You have ever learned can help You understand the Present or teach You how to undo the past. Your past is what You have taught Yourselves.

Let it all go. Do not attempt to understand any event or anything or anyone in its light for the light of darkness by which You try to see can only obscure. Put no confidence at all in darkness to illuminate Your understanding for if You do You contradict the Light and thereby think You see the darkness. Yet darkness cannot be seen for it is nothing more than a condition in which seeing becomes impossible. You Who have not yet brought all of the darkness You have taught Yourselves unto the Light in You can hardly judge the Truth and value of This Course. Yet God did not abandon You. And so You have another Lesson sent from Him already learned for every Child of Light by Him to Whom God gave it.

This Lesson shines with God’s Glory for in it lies His Power which He shares so gladly with His Son. Learn of His happiness which is Yours. But to accomplish this all Your dark lessons must be brought willingly to Truth and joyously laid down by hands open to receive, not closed to take. Every dark lesson that You bring to Him Who teaches Light He will accept from You because You do not want it. And He will gladly exchange each one for the bright Lesson He has learned for You. Never believe that any lesson You have learned apart from Him means anything.

You have one test as sure as God by which to recognize if what You learned is True: If You are wholly free of fear of any kind and if all those who meet or even think of You share in Your perfect Peace then You can be sure that You have learned God’s Lesson and not Yours. Unless all this is True there are dark lessons in Your minds which hurt and hinder You and everyone around You. The absence of perfect Peace means but one thing: You think You do not will for God’s Son what his Father wills for him. Every dark lesson teaches this in one form or another. And each bright Lesson with which the Holy Spirit will replace the dark ones You do not accept and hide teaches You that You will with the Father unto His Son.

Do not be concerned how You can learn a Lesson so completely different from everything You have taught Yourselves. How would You know? Your part is very simple: You need only recognize that everything You learned You do not want. Ask to be taught and do not use Your experiences to confirm what You have learned. When Your Peace is threatened or disturbed in any way say to Yourself:

I do not know what anything including this means.

And so I do not know how to respond to it.

And I will not use My own past learning as the light to guide Me now.

By this refusal to attempt to teach Yourself what You do not know the Guide Whom God has given You will speak to You. He will take His rightful Place in Your awareness the instant You abandon it and offer it to Him.

You cannot be Your guide to Miracles for it is You Who made Them necessary. And because You did the means on which You can depend for Miracles has been provided for You. God’s Son can make no needs his Father will not meet if he but turn to Him ever so little. Yet He cannot compel His Son to turn to Him and remain Himself. It is impossible that God lose His Identity for if He did You would lose Yours. And being Yours He cannot change Himself for Your Identity is changeless. The Miracle acknowledges His Changelessness by seeing His Son as he always was and not as he would make himself. The Miracle brings the effect which only Guiltlessness can bring and thus establishes the fact that Guiltlessness must be.

How can You so firmly bound to guilt and committed so to remain establish for Yourself Your Guiltlessness? This is impossible. But be sure that You are willing to acknowledge that it is impossible. It is only because You think that You can run some little part or deal with certain aspects of Your lives alone that the Guidance of the Holy Spirit is limited. Thus would You make Him undependable and use this fancied undependability as an excuse for keeping certain dark lessons from Him. And by so limiting the Guidance that You would accept You are unable to depend on Miracles to answer all Your problems for You.

Do You think that What the Holy Spirit would have You give He would withhold from You? You have no problems which He cannot solve by offering You a Miracle. Miracles are for You. And every fear or pain or trial You have has been undone. He has brought all of them to Light having accepted them instead of You and recognized that they never were. There are no dark lessons He has not already lightened for You. The lessons You would teach Yourselves He has corrected already. They do not exist in His Mind at all. For the past binds Him not and therefore binds not You.

He does not see time as You do. And each Miracle He offers You corrects Your use of time and makes it His. He Who has freed You from the past would teach You You are free of it. He would but have You accept His accomplishments as Yours because He did them for You. And because He did they are Yours. He has made You free of what You made. You can deny Him but You cannot call upon Him in vain. He always gives What He has made in place of You. He would establish His bright Teaching so firmly in Your mind that no dark lessons of guilt can abide in what He has established as Holy by His Presence.

Thank God that He is there and works through You. And all His works are Yours. He offers You a Miracle with every one You let Him do through You. God’s Son will always be indivisible. As We are held as One in God so do We learn as One in Him. God’s Teacher is as like to His Creator as is His Son and through His Teacher does God proclaim His Oneness and His Son’s. Listen in silence and do not raise Your voice against Him. For He teaches the Miracle of Oneness and before His Lesson division disappears. Teach like Him here and You will remember that You have always created like Your Father. The Miracle of Creation has never ceased having the Holy stamp of immortality upon It. This is the Will of God for all Creation and all Creation joins in willing this.

Those who remember always that they know nothing but who have become willing to learn everything will learn it. But whenever they trust themselves they will not learn. They have destroyed their motivation for learning by thinking they already know. Think not You understand anything until You pass the test of perfect Peace for Peace and understanding go together and never can be found alone. Each brings the other with it for it is the law of God that they be not separate. They are cause and effect, each to the other, so where one is absent the other cannot be.

Only those who see they cannot know unless the effects of understanding are with them can really learn at all. And for this it must be Peace they want and nothing else. Whenever You think You know Peace will depart from You because You have abandoned the Teacher of Peace. Whenever You fully realize that You know not Peace will return for You will have invited Him to do so by abandoning the ego on behalf of Him. Call not upon the ego for anything. It is only that that You need do. The Holy Spirit will of Himself fill every mind that so makes room for Him. If You want Peace You must abandon the teacher of attack.

The Teacher of Peace can never abandon You. You can desert Him but He will never reciprocate. For His faith in You is His understanding. It is as firm as is His faith in His Creator and He knows that faith in His Creator must encompass faith in Creation. In this consistency lies His Holiness Which He cannot abandon for it is not His will to do so. With Your perfection ever in His Sight He gives the Gift of Peace to everyone who perceives the need for Peace and who would have it. Make way for Peace and it will come. For understanding is in You and from it Peace must come.

The Power of God from which they both arise is Yours as surely as it is His. You think You know Him not only because alone it is impossible to know Him. But see the mighty works that He will do through You and You must be convinced You did them through Him. It is impossible to deny the Source of effects so powerful they could not be of You. Leave room for Him and You will find Yourself so filled with Power that nothing will prevail against Your Peace. And this will be the test by which You recognize that You have understood.

Chapter 15 – The Purpose of Time

a. The Uses of Time

The ego is an ally of time but not a friend. For it is as mistrustful of death as it is of Life and what it wants for You it cannot tolerate. The ego wants You dead but not itself. The outcome of its strange religion must therefore be the conviction that it can pursue You beyond the grave. And out of its unwillingness for You to find Peace, even in the death it wants for You, it offers You immortality in hell. It speaks to You of Heaven but assures You that Heaven is not for You. How can the guilty hope for Heaven?

The belief in hell is inescapable to those who identify with the ego. Their nightmares and their fears are all associated with it. The ego teaches that hell is in the future for this is what all its teaching is directed to. Hell is its goal. For although the ego aims at death and dissolution as an end it does not believe it. The goal of death which it craves for You leaves it unsatisfied. No one who follows the ego’s teaching is without the fear of death. If death were thought of merely as an end of pain would it be feared?

We have seen this strange paradox in the ego’s thought system before but never so clearly as here. For the ego must seem to keep fear from You to keep Your allegiance. Yet it must engender fear in order to maintain itself. Again the ego tries, and all too frequently succeeds, in doing both but using dissociation for holding its contradictory aims together so that they seem to be reconciled. The ego teaches thus: Death is the end as far as hope of Heaven goes. But because You and itself cannot be separated, and because it cannot conceive of its own death, it will pursue You still because Your guilt is eternal.

Such is the ego’s version of immortality. And it is this the ego’s version of time supports. The ego teaches that Heaven is here and now because the future is hell. Even when it attacks so savagely that it tries to take the life of someone who hears it temporarily as the only voice it speaks of hell even to him. For it tells him hell is here and bids him leap from hell into oblivion. The only time the ego allows anyone to look upon with some amount of equanimity is the past. And even then its only value is that it is no more.

How bleak and despairing is the ego’s use of time! And how terrifying! For underneath its fanatical insistence that the past and future be the same is hidden a far more insidious threat to Peace. The ego does not advertise its final threat for it would have its worshippers still believe that it can offer the escape from it. But the belief in guilt must lead to the belief in hell and always does. The only way in which the ego allows the fear of hell to be experienced is to bring hell here but always as a foretaste of the future. For no one who considers himself as deserving hell can believe that punishment will end in Peace.

The Holy Spirit teaches thus: There is no hell. Hell is only what the ego has made of the Present. The belief in hell is what prevents You from understanding the Present because You are afraid of it. The Holy Spirit leads as steadily to Heaven as the ego drives to hell. For the Holy Spirit Who knows only the Present uses it to undo the fear by which the ego would make the Present useless. There is no escape from fear in the ego’s use of time. For time, according to its teaching, is nothing but a teaching device for compounding guilt until it becomes allencompassing and demands vengeance forever.

The Holy Spirit would undo all of this now. Fear is not of the Present but only of the past and future which do not exist. There is no fear in the Present when each instant stands clear and separated from the past without its shadow reaching out into the future. Each instant is a clean, untarnished birth in which the Son of God emerges from the past into the Present. And the Present extends forever. It is so beautiful and so clean and free of guilt that nothing but happiness is there. No darkness is remembered and his immortality and Joy are now. This lesson takes no time. For what is time without a past and future?

It has taken time to misguide You so completely but it takes no time at all to be what You are. Begin to practice the Holy Spirit’s use of time as a teaching aid to happiness and Peace. Take this very instant now and think of it as all there is of time. Nothing can reach You Here out of the past and it is Here that You are completely absolved, completely free and wholly without condemnation. From this Holy Instant, wherein Holiness is born, You will go forth in time without fear and with no sense of change with time.

Time is inconceivable without change and Holiness does not change. Learn from this instant more than merely hell does not exist. In this redeeming instant lies Heaven. And Heaven will not change for the birth into the Holy Present is Salvation from change. And change is an illusion taught by those who could not see themselves as guiltless. There is no change in Heaven because there is no change in God.

In the Holy Instant in which You see Yourself as bright with freedom You will remember God. For remembering Him is to remember freedom. Whenever You are tempted to be dispirited by the thought of how long it would take to change Your mind so completely ask Yourself: “How long is an instant?” Could You not give so short a time to the Holy Spirit for Your Salvation? He asks no more for He has no need of more. It takes far longer to teach You how to be willing to give Him this than for Him to use this tiny instant to offer You the whole of Heaven. In exchange for this instant He stands ready to give You the Remembrance of Eternity.

You will never give this Holy Instant to the Holy Spirit on behalf of Your release while You are unwilling to give it to Your Brothers on behalf of theirs. For the Instant of Holiness is shared and cannot be Yours alone. Remember then when You are tempted to attack a Brother that his instant of release is Yours. Miracles are the instant of release You offer and will receive. They attest to Your willingness to be released and to offer time to the Holy Spirit for His use of it. How long is an instant? It is as short for Your Brothers as it is for You. Practice giving this blessed Instant of freedom to all who are enslaved by time and thus make time their friend for them.

The Holy Spirit gives their blessed Instant to You through Your giving it. As You give it He offers it to You. Be not unwilling to give what You would receive of Him for You join with Him in giving. In the crystal cleanness of the release You give is Your instantaneous escape from guilt. You must be Holy if You offer Holiness. How long is an instant? As long as it takes to reestablish perfect sanity, perfect Peace and perfect Love for everyone, for God and for Yourself. As long as it takes to remember immortality and Your immortal Creations Who share it with You. As long as it takes to exchange hell for Heaven. Long enough to transcend all of the ego’s making and ascend unto Your Father.

Time is Your friend if You leave it to the Holy Spirit to use. He needs but very little to restore God’s whole Power to You. He Who transcends time for You understands what it is for. Holiness lies not in time but in Eternity. There never was an instant in which God’s Son could lose his purity. His changeless state is beyond time for his purity remains forever beyond attack and without variability. Time stands still in his Holiness and changes not. And so it is no longer time at all. For caught in the single Instant of the eternal Sanctity of God’s Creation it is transformed into forever.

Give the eternal Instant that Eternity may be remembered for You in that shining Instant of perfect release. Offer the Miracle of the Holy Instant through the Holy Spirit and leave His giving it to You to Him.

b. Time and Eternity

The Atonement is in time but not for time. Being for You It is for the Eternal. What holds Remembrance of God cannot be bound by time. No more are You. For unless God is bound You cannot be. An instant offered to the Holy Spirit is offered to God on Your behalf and in that instant You will awaken gently in Him.

In the blessed Instant You will let go all Your past learning and the Holy Spirit will quickly offer You the whole lesson of Peace. What can take time when all the obstacles to learning it have been removed? Truth is so far beyond time that all of It happens at once. For as It was created One so Its Oneness depends not on time at all. Be not concerned with time and fear not the Instant of Holiness which will remove all fear. For the Instant of Peace is eternal because it is wholly without fear. It will come being the lesson God gives You through the Teacher He has appointed to translate time to Eternity.

Blessed is God’s Teacher Whose Joy it is to teach God’s Holy Son his Holiness. His Joy is not contained in time. His Teaching is for You because His Joy is Yours. Through Him You stand before God’s Altar Where He gently translated hell into Heaven. For it is only in Heaven God would have You be. How long can it take to be where God would have You? For You are where You have forever been and will forever be. All that You have You have forever. The blessed Instant reaches out to encompass time as God extends Himself to encompass You.

You Who have spent days, hours and even years in chaining Your Brothers to Your egos in an attempt to support it and uphold its weakness do not perceive the Source of Strength. In the Holy Instant You will unchain all of Your Brothers and refuse to support either their weakness or Your own. You do not realize how much You have misused Your Brothers by seeing them as sources of ego support. As a result they witness to the ego in Your perception and seem to provide reasons for not letting it go. Yet they are far stronger and much more compelling witnesses for the Holy Spirit. And they support His Strength.

It is therefore Your choice whether they support the ego or the Holy Spirit in You. And You will know which You have chosen by their reactions. A Son of God who has been released through the Holy Spirit in a Brother, if the release is complete, is always recognized. He cannot be denied. As long as You remain uncertain it can be only because You have not given complete release. And because of this You have not yet given one single instant completely to the Holy Spirit. For when You have You will be sure You have. You will be sure because the witness to Him will speak so clearly of Him that You will hear and understand.

You will doubt until You hear one witness whom You have wholly released through the Holy Spirit. And then You will doubt no more. The Holy Instant has not yet happened to You. But it will and You will recognize it with perfect certainty. No Gift of God is recognized in any other way. You can practice the mechanics of the Holy Instant and will learn much from doing so. But its shining and glittering brilliance which will literally blind You to this world by its own Vision You can not supply. And Here it is, all in this instant, complete, accomplished and given wholly. Start now to practice Your little part in separating out the Holy Instant. You will receive very specific instructions as You go along.

To learn to separate out this single second and begin to experience it as timeless is to begin to experience Yourself as not separate. Fear not that You will not be given Help in this. God’s Teacher and His lesson will support Your Strength. It is only Your weakness that will depart from You in this practice for it is the practice of the Power of God in You. Use it but for one instant and You will never deny it again. Who can deny the Presence of what the Universe bows to in appreciation and Gladness? Before the recognition of the Universe Which witnesses to it Your doubts must disappear.

c. 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 do so 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. Every little thing You seek and think You want defines You as little to 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.

Is it a sacrifice to leave littleness behind and wander not in vain? It is not sacrifice to wake to glory. But it is a sacrifice to accept anything less than glory. Learn that You must be worthy of the Prince of Peace born in You in honor of Him Whose Host You are. You know not what Love means because You have sought to purchase It with little gifts thus valuing It too little to be able to understand Its Magnitude. Love is not little and Love dwells in You for You are Host to Him. Before the Greatness that lives in You Your poor appreciation of Yourself and all the little offerings You have given slip into nothingness.

Holy Child of God, when will You learn that only Holiness can content You and give You Peace? Remember that You learn not for Yourself alone, no more than I did. It is because I learned for You that You can learn of Me. I would but teach You what is Yours so that Together We can replace the shabby littleness that binds the Host of God to guilt and weakness with the glad awareness of the glory that is in him. My birth in You is Your awakening to Grandeur. Welcome Me not into a manger but into the Altar to Holiness Where Holiness abides in perfect Peace.

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.

d. Practicing the Holy Instant

This Course is not beyond immediate learning unless You prefer to believe that what God wills takes time. And this means only that You would rather delay the recognition that His Will is so. The Holy Instant is this one and every one. The one You want it to be it is. The one You would not have it be is lost to You. You must decide on when it is. Delay it not. For beyond the past and future, in which You will not find it, it stands in shimmering readiness for Your acceptance.

Yet You cannot bring it into glad awareness while You do not want it for it holds the whole release from littleness. Your practice must therefore rest upon Your willingness to let all littleness go. The Instant in which Magnitude will dawn upon You is but as far away as Your desire for it. As long as You desire it not and cherish littleness instead by so much is it far from You. By so much as You want it will You bring it nearer. Think not that You can find Salvation in Your own way and have it.

Give over every plan that You have made for Your Salvation in exchange for God’s. His will content You for there is nothing else that can bring You Peace. For Peace is of God and of no one beside Him. Be humble before Him and yet great in Him. And value no plan of the ego before the plan of God. For You leave Your Place in His plan, which You must fulfill if You would join with Me, empty by Your decision to join in any plan but His. I call You to fulfill Your Holy part in the plan that He has given to the world for its release from littleness. God would have His Host abide in perfect freedom.

Every allegiance to a plan of Salvation that is apart from Him diminishes the value of His Will for You in Your own mind. And yet it is Your mind that is the Host to Him. Would You learn how perfect and immaculate is the Holy Altar on Which Your Father has placed Himself? This You will recognize in the Holy Instant in which You willingly and gladly give over every plan but His. For there lies Peace perfectly clear because You have been willing to meet its conditions.

You can claim the Holy Instant any time and anywhere You want it. In Your practice try to give over every plan You have accepted for finding Magnitude in littleness. It is not there. Use the Holy Instant only to recognize that You alone cannot know where it is and can only deceive Yourself. I stand within the Holy Instant as clear as You would have Me. And the extent to which You learn to be willing to accept Me is the measure of the time in which the Holy Instant will be Yours. I call to You to make the Holy Instant Yours at once for the release from littleness in the mind of the Host of God depends on willingness and not on time.

The reason why This Course is simple is that Truth is simple. Complexity is of the ego and is nothing more than the ego’s attempt to obscure the obvious. You could live forever in the Holy Instant beginning now and reaching to Eternity but for a very simple reason. Do not obscure the simplicity of this reason for if You do it will be only because You prefer not to recognize it and not to let it go. The simple reason stated simply as what it is is this: The Holy Instant is a time in which You receive and give perfect communication. This means however that it is a time in which Your mind is open both to receive and give. It is the recognition that all minds are in communication. It therefore seeks to change nothing but merely to accept everything.

How can You do this when You would prefer to have private thoughts and keep them? The only way You could do this is to deny the perfect communication that makes the Holy Instant what it is. You believe that it is possible to harbor thoughts You would not share and that Salvation lies in keeping Your thoughts to Yourself alone. For in private thoughts known only to Yourself You think You find a way to keep what You would have alone and share what You would share. And then You wonder why it is that You are not in full communication with those around You and with God Who surrounds all of You together.

Every thought You would keep hidden shuts communication off because You would have it so. It is impossible to recognize perfect communication while breaking communication holds value to You. Ask Yourselves honestly: “Would I want to have perfect communication and am I wholly willing to let everything that interferes with it go forever?” If the answer is “No” then the Holy Spirit’s readiness to give it to You is not enough to make it Yours for You are not ready to share it with Him. And it cannot come into a mind that has decided to oppose it. For the Holy Instant is given and received with equal willingness being the acceptance of the single Will that governs all thought.

The necessary condition for the Holy Instant does not require that You have no thoughts that are not pure. But it does require that You have none that You would keep. Innocence is not of Your making. It is given You the instant You would have it. But it would not be Atonement if there were no need for Atonement. You will not be able to accept perfect communication as long as You would hide it from Yourself. For what You would hide is hidden. In Your practice then try only to be vigilant against deception and seek not to protect the thoughts You would keep unto Yourself. Let the Holy Spirit’s purity shine them away and bring all Your awareness to the readyness for purity He offers You. Thus will He make You ready to acknowledge that You are Host to God and hostage to no one and to nothing.

e. The Holy Instant and Special Relationships

The Holy Instant is the Holy Spirit’s most useful learning device for teaching You Love’s meaning. For its purpose is to suspend judgment entirely. Judgment always rests on the past for past experience is the basis on which You judge. Judgment becomes impossible without the past for without it You do not understand anything. You would make no attempt to judge because it would be quite apparent to You that You do not know what anything means. You are afraid of this because You believe that without the ego all would be chaos. Yet I assure You that without the ego all would be Love.

The past is the ego’s chief learning device for it is in the past that You learned to define Your own needs and acquired methods for meeting them on Your own terms. We said before that to limit Love to part of the Sonship is to bring guilt into Your relationships and thus make them unreal. If You seek to separate out certain aspects of the Totality and look to them to meet Your imagined needs You are attempting to use separation to save You. How then could guilt not enter? For separation is the source of guilt and to appeal to it for Salvation is to believe You are alone.

To be alone is to be guilty. For to experience Yourself as alone is to deny the Oneness of the Father and His Son and thus to attack Reality. You cannot love parts of Reality and understand what Love means. If You would love unlike to God Who knows no special love how can You understand it? To believe that special relationships with special love can offer You Salvation is the belief that separation is Salvation. For it is the complete equality of the Atonement in which Salvation lies. How can You decide that special aspects of the Sonship can give You more than others? The past has taught You this. But the Holy Instant teaches You it is not so.

Because of guilt all special relationships have some elements of fear in them. And this is why they shift and change so frequently. They are not based on changeless Love alone. And Love where fear has entered cannot be depended on because It is not perfect. In His function as Interpreter of what You have made the Holy Spirit uses special relationships which You have chosen to support the ego as a learning experience which points to Truth. Under His Teaching every relationship becomes a lesson in Love.

The Holy Spirit knows no one is special. But He also perceives that You have made special relationships which He would purify and not let You destroy. However unholy the reason why You made them may be He can translate them into Holiness by removing as much fear as You will let Him. You can place any relationship under His Care and be sure that it will not result in pain if You offer Him Your willingness to have it serve no need but His. All the guilt in it arises from Your use of it. All the Love from His. Do not then be afraid to let Your imagined need which would destroy the relationship go. Your only need is His.

Any relationship which You would substitute for another has not been offered to the Holy Spirit for His use. There is no substitute for Love. If You would attempt to substitute one aspect of Love for another You have placed less value on one and more on another. You have not only separated them but have also judged against both. Yet You had judged against Yourself first or You would never have imagined that You needed them as they were not. Unless You had seen Yourself as without Love You could not have judged them to be like You in lack.

The ego’s use of relationships is so fragmented that it frequently goes even further: One part of one aspect suits its purposes while it prefers different parts of another. Thus does it assemble Reality to its own capricious liking offering for Your seeking a picture whose likeness does not exist. For there is nothing in Heaven or earth that it resembles and so however much You seek for its Reality You cannot find it because it is not real.

Everyone on earth has formed special relationships and although this is not so in Heaven the Holy Spirit knows how to bring a touch of Heaven to them here. In the Holy Instant no one is special for Your personal needs intrude on no one to make them different. Without the values from the past You would see them all the same and like Yourself. Nor would You see any separation between Yourself and them. In the Holy Instant You see in each relationship what it will be when You perceive only the Present.

God knows You now. He remembers nothing having always known You exactly as He knows You now. The Holy Instant parallels His knowing by bringing all perception out of the past thus removing the frame of reference You have built by which to judge Your Brothers. Once this is gone the Holy Spirit substitutes His frame of reference for it. His frame of reference is simply God. The Holy Spirit’s Timelessness lies simply Here. For in the Holy Instant, free of the past, You see that Love is in You and You have no need to look without and snatch It guiltily from where You thought It was.

All Your relationships are blessed in the Holy Instant because the Blessing is not limited. In the Holy Instant the Sonship gains as One. And united in Your Blessing It becomes One to You. The meaning of Love is the meaning God gave to It. Give to It any meaning apart from His and it is impossible to understand It. Every Brother God loves as He loves You, neither less nor more. He needs them all equally and so do You. In time You have been told to offer Miracles as Christ directs and let the Holy Spirit bring to You those who are seeking You. But in the Holy Instant You unite directly with God and all Your Brothers join in Christ.

Those who are joined in Christ are in no way separate. For Christ is the Self the Sonship shares as God shares His Self with Christ. Think You that You can judge the Self of God? God has created It beyond judgment out of His need to extend His Love. With Love in You You have no need except to extend It. In the Holy Instant there is no conflict of needs for there is only one. For the Holy Instant reaches to Eternity and to the Mind of God. And it is only There that Love has meaning and only There can It be understood.

It is impossible to use one relationship at the expense of another and not suffer guilt. And it is equally impossible to condemn part of a relationship and find Peace within it. Under the Holy Spirit’s Teaching all relationships are seen as total commitments yet they do not conflict with one another in any way. Perfect faith in each one for its ability to satisfy You completely arises only from perfect faith in Yourself. And this You cannot have while guilt remains. And there will be guilt as long as You accept the possibility and cherish it that You can make a Brother what he is not because You would have him so.

You have so little faith in Yourself because You are unwilling to accept the fact that perfect Love is in You. And so You seek without for what You cannot find without. I offer You My perfect faith in You in place of all Your doubts. But forget not that My faith must be as perfect in all Your Brothers as it is in You or it would be a limited gift to You. In the Holy Instant We share Our faith in God’s Son because We recognize Together that he is wholly worthy of it and in Our appreciation of his worth We cannot doubt his Holiness. And so We love him.

f. The Holy Instant and the Laws of God

All separation vanishes as Holiness is shared. For Holiness is Power and by sharing It It gains in Strength. If You seek for satisfaction in gratifying Your needs as You perceive them You must believe that Strength comes from another and that what You gain he loses. Someone must always lose if You perceive Yourself as weak. Yet there is another interpretation of relationships that transcends the concept of the loss of Power completely.

You do not find it difficult to believe that when another calls on God for Love Your call remains as strong. Nor do You think that by God’s Answer to him Your hope of Answer is diminished. On the contrary: You are far more inclined to regard his success as witness to the possibility of Yours. That is because You recognize, however dimly, that God is an idea and so Your faith in Him is strengthened by sharing. What You find difficult to accept is the fact that like Your Father You are an idea. And like Him You can give Yourself completely, wholly without loss and only with gain. Herein lies Peace for here there is no conflict.

In the world of scarcity Love has no meaning and Peace is impossible. For gain and loss are both accepted and so no one is aware that perfect Love is in him. In the Holy Instant You recognize the idea of Love in You and unite this idea with the mind that thought it and could not relinquish it. By holding it within itself there was no loss. The Holy Instant thus becomes a lesson in how to hold all of Your Brothers in Your mind experiencing not loss but completion. From this it follows You can only give. And this is Love for this alone is natural under the laws of God.

In the Holy Instant the laws of God prevail and only they have meaning. The laws of this world cease to hold any meaning at all. When the Son of God accepts the laws of God as what he gladly wills it is impossible that he be bound or limited in any way. In this Instant he is as free as God would have him be. For the instant that he refuses to be bound he is not bound.

In the Holy Instant nothing happens that has not always been. Only the veil that has been drawn across Reality is lifted. Nothing has changed. But the awareness of changelessness comes swiftly as the veil of time is pushed aside. No one who has not yet experienced the lifting of the veil and felt himself drawn irresistibly into the Light behind it can have faith in Love without fear. Yet the Holy Spirit gives You this faith because He offered it to Me and I accepted it.

Fear not the Holy Instant will be denied You for I denied it not. And through Me the Holy Spirit gave it unto You as You will give it. Let no need that You perceive obscure Your need of this. For in the Holy Instant You will recognize the only need the aspects of the Son of God share equally and by this recognition You will join with Me in offering what is needed. It is through Us that Peace will come. Join Me in the idea of Peace for in ideas minds can communicate.

If You would give Yourself as Your Father gives His Self You will learn to understand Selfhood [Selbstsein]. And therein is Love’s meaning understood. But remember that understanding is of the mind and only of the mind. Knowledge is therefore of the mind and its conditions are in the mind with it. If You were not only an idea and nothing else You could not be in full communication with all that ever was. But as long as You prefer to be something else, or would attempt to be nothing else and something else together, the language of communication which You know perfectly You will not remember.

In the Holy Instant God is remembered and the language of communication with all Your Brothers is remembered with Him. For communication is remembered Together as is Truth. There is no exclusion in the Holy Instant because the past is gone and with it goes the whole basis for exclusion. Without its source exclusion vanishes. And this permits Your Source and That of all Your Brothers to replace it in Your awareness. God and the Power of God will take their rightful Place in You and You will experience the full communication of ideas with ideas. Through Your ability to do this You will learn what You must be because You will begin to understand what Your Creator is and what His Creation is along with Him.

g. The Holy Instant and Communication

Beyond the poor attraction of the special love relationship and always obscured by it is the powerful attraction of the Father for His Son. There is no other Love that can satisfy You because there is no other Love. This is the only Love that is fully given and fully returned. Being complete It asks nothing. Being wholly pure everyone joined in It has everything. This is not the basis for any Love relationship in which the ego enters. For every relationship on which the ego embarks is special. The ego establishes relationships only to get something. And it would keep the Giver bound to itself through guilt.

It is impossible for the ego to enter into any relationship without anger for the ego believes that anger makes friends. This is not its statement but it is its purpose. For the ego really believes that it can get and keep by making guilty. This is its one attraction. An attraction so weak that it would have no hold at all except that no one recognizes it. For the ego always seems to attract through Love and has no attraction at all to anyone who perceives that it attracts through guilt.

The sick attraction of guilt must be recognized for what it is. For having been made real to You it is essential to look at it clearly and by withdrawing Your investment in it to learn to let it go. No one would choose to let go what he believes has value. Yet the attraction of guilt has value to You only because You have not looked at what it is and have judged it as valuable completely in the dark. As We bring it to Light Your only question will be why it was You ever wanted it. You have nothing to lose by looking openeyed at this for ugliness such as this belongs not in Your Holy mind. The Host of God can have no real investment here.

We said before that the ego attempts to maintain and increase guilt but in such a way that You do not recognize what it would do to You. For it is the ego’s fundamental doctrine that what You do to others You have escaped. The ego wishes no one well. But its survival depends on Your belief that You are exempt from its evil intentions. It counsels therefore that if You are host to it it will enable You to direct the anger that it holds outward thus protecting You. And thus it embarks on an endless, unrewarding chain of special relationships forged out of anger and dedicated to but one insane belief: That the more anger You invest outside Yourself the safer You become.

It is this chain that binds the Son of God to guilt and it is this chain the Holy Spirit would remove from his Holy mind. For the chain of savagery belongs not around the chosen Host of God who cannot make himself host to the ego. In the name of his release and in the name of Him Who would release him let Us look more closely at the relationships that the ego contrives and let the Holy Spirit judge them Truly. For it is certain that if You look at them You will offer them gladly to Him. What He can make of them You do not know but You will become willing to find out if You are willing first to perceive what You have made of them.

In one way or another every relationship which the ego makes is based on the idea that by sacrificing itself it becomes bigger. The “sacrifice”, which it regards as purification, is actually the root of its bitter resentment. For it would much prefer to attack directly and avoid delaying what it really wants. Yet the ego acknowledges “Reality” as it sees it and recognizes that no one could interpret direct attack as Love. Yet to make guilty is direct attack but does not seem to be. For the guilty expect attack and having asked for it they are attracted to it.

In these insane relationships the attraction of what You do not want seems to be much stronger than the attraction of what You do. For each one thinks that he has sacrificed something to the other and hates him for it. Yet this is what he thinks he wants. He is not in Love with the other at all, he merely believes he is in Love with sacrifice. And for this sacrifice, which he demanded of himself, he demands the other accept the guilt and sacrifice himself as well. Forgiveness becomes impossible for the ego believes that to forgive another is to lose him. For it is only by attack without forgiveness that the ego can ensure the guilt which holds all its relationships together.

Yet they only seem to be together. For relationships to the ego mean only that bodies are together. It is always physical closeness that the ego demands and it does not object where the mind goes or what it thinks for this seems unimportant. For as long as the body is there to receive its sacrifice it is content. To the ego the mind is private and only the body can be shared. Ideas are basically of no concern except as they draw the body of another closer or farther. And it is in these terms that it evaluates ideas as “good” or “bad”. What makes another guilty and holds him through guilt is “good”. What releases him from guilt is “bad” because he would no longer believe that bodies communicate and so he would be “gone”.

Suffering and sacrifice are the gifts with which the ego would “bless” all unions. And those who are united at its altar accept suffering and sacrifice as the price of union. In their angry alliances born of the fear of loneliness and yet dedicated to the continuance of loneliness they seek relief from guilt by increasing it in the other. For they believe that this decreases it in them. The other seems always to be attacking and wounding them, perhaps in little ways, perhaps “unconsciously”, yet never without demand of sacrifice. The fury of those joined at the ego’s altar far exceeds Your awareness of it. For what the ego really wants You do not realize.

Whenever You are angry You can be sure that You have formed a special relationship which the ego has “blessed” for anger is its “blessing”. Anger takes many forms but it cannot long deceive those who will learn that Love brings no guilt at all and what brings guilt cannot be Love and must be anger. All anger is nothing more than an attempt to make someone feel guilty and this attempt is the only basis which the ego accepts for special relationships. Guilt is the only need the ego has and as long as You identify with it guilt will remain attractive to You.

But remember this: To be with a body is not communication. And if You think it is You will feel guilty about communication and will be afraid to hear the Holy Spirit recognizing in His Voice Your own need to communicate. The Holy Spirit cannot teach through fear. And how can He communicate with You while You believe that to communicate is to make Yourself alone? It is clearly insane to believe that by communicating You will be abandoned. And yet You do believe it. For You think that Your minds must be kept private or You will lose them. And if Your bodies are together Your minds remain Your own.

The union of bodies thus becomes the way in which You would keep minds apart. For bodies cannot forgive. They can do only as the mind directs. The illusion of the autonomy of the body and its ability to overcome loneliness is but the working of the ego’s plan to establish its own autonomy. As long as You believe that to be with a body is companionship You will be compelled to attempt to keep Your Brother in his body held there by guilt. And You will see safety in guilt and danger in communication. For the ego will always teach that loneliness is solved by guilt and that communication is the cause of loneliness. And despite the evident insanity of this lesson You have learned it.

Forgiveness lies in communication as surely as damnation lies in guilt. It is the Holy Spirit’s teaching function to instruct those who believe that communication is damnation that communication is Salvation. And He will do so for the Power of God in Him and You is joined in real Relationship so Holy and so strong that it can overcome even this without fear. It is through the Holy Instant that what seems impossible is accomplished making it evident that it is not impossible. In the Holy Instant guilt holds no attraction since communication has been restored. And guilt, whose only purpose is to disrupt communication, has no function here.

Here there is no concealment and no private thoughts. The willingness to communicate attracts communication to it and overcomes loneliness completely. There is complete forgiveness here for there is no desire to exclude anyone from Your completion in sudden recognition of the value of his part in it. In the protection of Your wholeness all are invited and made welcome. And You understand that Your completion is God’s Whose only need is to have You be complete. For Your completion makes You His in Your awareness. And here it is that You experience Yourself as You were created and as You are.

h. The Holy Instant and Real Relationships

The Holy Instant does not replace the need for learning for the Holy Spirit must not leave You as Your Teacher until the Holy Instant has extended far beyond time. For a teaching assignment such as His He must use everything in this world for Your release. He must side with every sign or token of Your willingness to learn of Him what Truth must be. He is swift to utilize whatever You offer Him on behalf of this. His concern and care for You are limitless. In the face of Your fear of forgiveness, which He perceives as clearly as He knows forgiveness is release, He will teach You to remember always that forgiveness is not Your loss but Your Salvation. And that in complete forgiveness, in which You recognize that there is nothing to forgive, You are absolved completely.

Hear Him gladly and learn of Him that You have need of no special relationships at all. You but seek in them what You have thrown away. And through them You will never learn the value of what You have cast aside but what You still desire with all Your Hearts. Let Us join Together in making the Holy Instant all that there is by desiring that it be all that there is. God’s Son has such great need of Your willingness to strive for this that You cannot conceive of need so great. Behold the only need that God and His Son share and will to meet Together. You are not alone in this. The will of Your Creations calls to You to share Your will with Them. Turn then in Peace from guilt to God and Them.

Relate only with what will never leave You and what You cannot leave. The loneliness of God’s Son is the loneliness of his Father. Refuse not the awareness of Your completion and seek not to restore it to Yourselves. Fear not to give Redemption over to Your Redeemer’s Love. He will not fail You for He comes from One Who cannot fail. Accept Your sense of failure as nothing more than a mistake in who You were. For the Holy Host of God is beyond failure and nothing that he wills can be denied. You are forever in a Relationship so Holy that it calls to everyone to escape from loneliness and join You in Your Love. And where You are must everyone seek and find You there.

Think but an instant on this: God gave the Sonship to You to ensure Your perfect Creation. This was His Gift, for as He withheld Himself not from You He withheld not His Creation. Nothing that ever was created but is Yours. Your relationships are with the Universe. And this Universe, being of God, is far beyond the petty sum of all the separate bodies You perceive. For all Its parts are joined in God through Christ where they become like to their Father. For Christ knows of no separation from His Father Who is His one Relationship in which He gives as His Father gives to Him.

The Holy Spirit is God’s attempt to free You of what He does not understand. And because of the Source of the attempt it will succeed. The Holy Spirit asks You to respond as God does for He would teach You what You do not understand. God would respond to every need whatever form it takes. And so He has kept this Channel open to receive His communication to You and Yours to Him. God does not understand Your problem in communication for He does not share it with You. It is only You Who believe that it is understandable.

The Holy Spirit knows that it is not understandable and yet He understands it because You have made it. In Him alone lies the awareness of what God cannot know and what You do not understand. It is His Holy function to accept them both and by removing every element of disagreement to join them into one. He will do this because it is His function. Leave then what seems to You to be impossible to Him Who knows it must be possible because it is the Will of God. And let Him Whose Teaching is only of God teach You the only meaning of relationships. For God Himself created the only Relationship that has meaning and that is His Relationship with You.

As the ego would limit Your perception of Your Brothers to the body so would the Holy Spirit release Your vision and let You see the Great Rays shining from them so unlimited that They reach to God. It is this shift in vision which is accomplished in the Holy Instant. Yet it is needful for You to learn just what this shift entails so You will become willing to make it permanent. Given this willingness it will not leave You for it is permanent. For once You have accepted it as the only perception that You want it is translated into knowledge by the part that God Himself plays in the Atonement for it is the only step in It He understands. Therefore in this there will be no delay when You are ready for it. God is ready now but You are not.

Our task is but to continue as fast as possible the necessary process of looking straight at all the interference and seeing it exactly as it is. For it is impossible to recognize as wholly without gratification what You think You want. The body is the symbol of the ego as the ego is the symbol of separation. And both are nothing more than attempts to limit communication and thereby to make it impossible. For communication must be unlimited in order to have meaning. And deprived of meaning it will not satisfy You completely. Yet it remains the only means by which You can establish real relationships.

Real relationships have no limits having been established by God. In the Holy Instant where the Great Rays replace the body in awareness the recognition of relationships without limits is given You. But to see this it is necessary to give up every use the ego has for the body and to accept the fact that the ego has no purpose You would share with it. For the ego would limit everyone to a body for its purposes and while You think it has a purpose You will choose to utilize the means by which it tries to turn its purpose into accomplishment. This will never be accomplished.

Yet You have surely recognized that the ego, whose goals are altogether unattainable, will strive for them with all its might. And will do so with the Strength that You have given it. Yet it is impossible to divide Your Strength between Heaven and hell, God and the ego and release Your Power unto Creation Which is the only purpose for which it was given You. For Love would always give increase. Limits are demanded representing the ego’s demands to make little and ineffectual. Limit Your vision of a Brother to his body, which You will do as long as You would not release him from it, and You have denied his gift to You. His body cannot give it. And seek it not through Yours.

But Your minds are already continuous and their union need only be accepted and the loneliness in Heaven is gone. If You would but let the Holy Spirit tell You of the Love of God for You and the need that Your Creations have to be with You forever You would experience the attraction of the Eternal. For no one can hear Him speak of this and long remain willing to linger here. For it is Your will to be in Heaven where You are complete and quiet, in such sure and loving relationships that any limits are impossible. Would You not exchange Your little relationships for this? For the body is little and limited and only those whom You would see without the limits that the ego would impose on them can offer You the gift of freedom.

You have no conception of the limits You have placed on Your perception and no idea of all the loveliness that You could see. But this You must remember: The attraction of guilt opposes the attraction of God. His attraction for You remains unlimited but because Your Power, being His, is as great as His You can turn away from Love. What You invest in guilt You withdraw from God. And Your sight grows weak and dim and limited for You have attempted to separate the Father from the Son and limit their communication. Seek not Atonement in further separation. And limit not Your vision of God’s Son to what interferes with his release and what the Holy Spirit must undo to set him free. For his belief in limits has imprisoned him.

i. The Time of Christ

When the body ceases to attract You and when You place no value on it as a means of getting anything then there will be no interference in communication. And Your thoughts will be as free as God’s. As You let the Holy Spirit teach You how to use the body only for purposes of communication and renounce its use for separation and attack, which the ego sees in it, You will learn You have no need of a body at all. In the Holy Instant there are no bodies. And You experience only the attraction of God. Accepting it as undivided You join Him wholly in an instant. For You would place no limits on Your union with Him. The Reality of this Relationship becomes the only Truth that You could ever want. All Truth is here.

It is in Your Power in time to delay the perfect union of the Father and the Son. For in this world the attraction of guilt does stand between them. Neither time nor season means anything in Eternity. But here it is the Holy Spirit’s function to use them both not as the ego uses them. This is the season when You would celebrate My birth into this world. Yet You know not how to do it. Let the Holy Spirit teach You and let Me celebrate Your birth through Him. The only gift I can accept of You is the gift I gave You. Release Me as I willed Your release. The time of Christ We celebrate Together. For it has no meaning if We are apart.

The Holy Instant is Truly the time of Christ. For in this liberating Instant no guilt is laid upon the Son of God and his unlimited Power is thus restored to him. What other gift can You offer Me when only this I will to offer You? And to see Me is to see Me in everyone and offer everyone the gift You offer Me. I am as incapable of receiving sacrifice as God is. And every sacrifice You ask of Yourself You ask of Me. Learn now that sacrifice of any kind is nothing but a limitation imposed on giving. And by this limitation You have limited Your acceptance of the gift I offer You.

We Who are One cannot give separately. When You are willing to accept Our Relationship as real guilt will hold no attraction for You. For in Our union You will accept all of Our Brothers. The gift of union is the only gift that I was born to give. Give it to Me that You may have it. The time of Christ is the time appointed for the gift of freedom offered to everyone. And by Your acceptance of it You have offered it to everyone. It is in Your Power to make this season Holy. For it is in Your Power to make the time of Christ be now.

It is possible to do this all at once because there is but one shift in perception that is necessary. For You made but one mistake. It seems like many but it is all the same. For though the ego takes many forms it is always the same idea. What is not Love is always fear and nothing else. It is not necessary to follow fear through all the circuitous routes by which it burrows underground and hides in darkness to emerge in forms quite different from what it is. It is necessary to examine each one as long as You would retain the principle which governs all of them. But when You are willing to regard them not as separate but as different manifestations of the same idea, and one You do not want, they go together.

The idea is simply this: You believe that it is possible to be host to the ego or hostage to God. This is the choice You think You have and the decision that You believe that You must make. You see no other alternatives. For You can not accept the fact that sacrifice gets nothing. Sacrifice is so essential to Your thought system that Salvation apart from sacrifice means nothing to You. Your confusion of sacrifice and Love is so profound that You cannot conceive of Love without sacrifice. And it is this that You must look at: Sacrifice is attack, not Love. If You would accept but this one idea Your fear of Love would vanish.

Guilt cannot last when the idea of sacrifice has been removed. For if there must be sacrifice, as You are convinced, someone must pay and someone must get. And the only question that remains to be decided is how much is the price for getting what. As host to the ego You believe that You can give all Your guilt away, whatever You think, and purchase Peace. For the payment does not seem to be Yours. While it is obvious that the ego does demand payment it never seems to be demanding it of You. For You are unwilling to recognize that the ego, which You invited, is treacherous only to those who think they are its host.

The ego will never let You perceive this for this recognition will make it homeless. For when this recognition dawns clearly You will not be deceived by any form the ego takes to protect itself from Your sight. Each form will be recognized as but a cover for the one idea that hides behind them all: That Love demands sacrifice and is therefore inseparable from attack and fear. And that guilt is the price of Love which must be paid by fear. How fearful then has God become to You and how great a sacrifice do You believe His Love demands! For total Love would demand total sacrifice. And so the ego seems to demand less of You than God and of the two is judged as the lesser of two evils. One is to be feared a little but the other to be destroyed.

For You see Love as destructive and Your only question is who is to be destroyed, You or another? You seek to answer this question in Your special relationships in which You are both destroyer and destroyed in part but with the idea of being able to be neither completely. And this You think saves You from God Whose total Love would completely destroy You. You think that everyone outside Yourself demands Your sacrifice but You do not see that only You demand sacrifice and only of Yourself. Yet the demand of sacrifice is so savage and so fearful that You cannot accept it where it is. But the real price of not accepting this has been so great that You have given God away rather than look at it.

For if God would demand total sacrifice of You You thought it safer to project Him outward and away from You and not be Host to Him. For to Him You ascribed the ego’s treachery inviting it to take His Place and protect You from Him. And You do not recognize that it is what You invited in that would destroy You and does demand total sacrifice of You. No partial sacrifice will appease this savage guest for it is an invader who but seems to offer kindness but always to make the sacrifice complete. You will not succeed in being partial hostage to the ego for it keeps no bargains and would leave You nothing. Nor can You be partial host to it.

You will have to choose between total freedom and total bondage for there are no alternatives but these. You have tried many compromises in the attempt to avoid recognizing the one decision that must be made. And yet it is the recognition of the decision just as it is that makes the decision so easy! Salvation is simple being of God and therefore very easy to understand. But do not try to project it from You and see it outside Yourself. In You are both the question and the Answer, the demand for sacrifice and the Peace of God.

j. The End of Sacrifice

Fear not to recognize as solely of Your making the whole idea of sacrifice. And seek not safety by attempting to protect Yourself from where it is not. Your Brothers and Your Father have become very fearful to You and You would bargain with them for a few special relationships in which You think You see some scraps of safety. Do not try longer to keep apart Your thoughts and the Thought that has been given You. When they are brought together and perceived where they are the choice between them is nothing more than a gentle awakening and as simple as opening Your eyes to daylight when You have no more need of sleep.

The sign of Christmas is a Star, a Light in darkness. See It not outside of Yourself but as shining in the Heaven within and accept It as the sign the time of Christ has come. He comes demanding nothing. No sacrifice of any kind of anyone is asked by Him. In His Presence the whole idea of sacrifice loses all meaning. For He is Host to God. And You need but invite Him in Who is there already by recognizing that His Host is One. And no thought alien to His Oneness can abide with Him there. Love must be total to give Him welcome for the Presence of Holiness creates the Holiness Which surrounds It. No fear can touch the Host Who cradles God in the time of Christ. For the Host is as Holy as the Perfect Innocence that he protects and Whose Power protects him.

This Christmas give the Holy Spirit everything that would hurt You. Let Yourself be healed completely that You may join with Him in healing. And let Us celebrate Our release Together by releasing everyone with Us. Leave nothing behind for release is total and when You have accepted it with Me You will give it with Me. All pain and sacrifice and littleness will disappear in Our Relationship which is as innocent as Our Relationship with Our Father and as powerful. Pain will be brought to Us and disappear in Our Presence. And without pain there can be no sacrifice. And without sacrifice there Love must be.

You Who believe that sacrifice is Love must learn that sacrifice is separation from Love. For sacrifice brings guilt as surely as Love brings Peace. Guilt is the condition of sacrifice as Peace is the condition for the awareness of Your Relationship with God. For through guilt You exclude Your Father and Your Brothers from Yourself. And through Peace You will invite them back and realize they are where Your invitation bids them be. What You excluded from Yourself seems fearful for You endowed it with fear and tried to cast it out though it was part of You. Who can perceive part of himself as loathsome and live within himself in Peace? And who can try to resolve the perceived conflict of Heaven and hell in him by casting Heaven out and giving it the attributes of hell without experiencing himself as incomplete and lonely?

As long as You perceive the body as Your Reality so long will You perceive Yourself as lonely and deprived. And so long will You also perceive Yourself as a victim of sacrifice justified in sacrificing others. For who could thrust Heaven and its Creator aside without a sense of sacrifice and loss? And who can suffer sacrifice and loss without attempting to restore himself? Yet how could You accomplish this Yourselves when the basis of Your attempts is the belief in the Reality of the deprivation? For deprivation breeds attack being the belief that attack is justified. And as long as You would retain the deprivation attack becomes Salvation and sacrifice becomes Love.

So is it that in all Your seeking for Love You seek for sacrifice and find it. Yet You find not Love. For it is impossible to deny what Love is and still recognize It. The meaning of Love lies in what You have cast outside Yourself and It has no meaning at all apart from You. It is what You preferred to keep that has no meaning. While all that You would keep away holds all the meaning of the Universe and holds the Universe Together in Its meaning. For unless the Universe were joined in You It would be apart from God and to be without Him is to be without meaning.

In the Holy Instant the condition of Love is met for minds are joined without the body’s interference and where there is communication there is Peace. The Prince of Peace was born to reestablish the condition of Love by teaching that communication remains unbroken even if the body is destroyed provided that You see not the body as the necessary means of communication. And if You understand this lesson You will realize that to sacrifice the body is to sacrifice nothing. And communication, which must be of the mind, cannot be sacrificed. Where then is sacrifice?

The lesson I was born to teach, and still would teach to all My Brothers, is that sacrifice is nowhere and Love is everywhere. For communication embraces everything and in the Peace it reestablishes Love comes of Itself. Let no despair darken the Joy of Christmas for the time of Christ is meaningless apart from Joy. Let Us join in celebrating Peace by demanding no sacrifice of anyone for so will You offer Me the Love I offer You. What can be more joyous than to perceive We are deprived of nothing? Such is the Message of the time of Christ which I give You that You may give it and return it to the Father Who gave it to Me. For in the time of Christ communication with Him is restored and He joins Us in the celebration of His Son’s Creation.

God offers thanks to the Holy Host who would receive Him and let Him enter and abide where He would be. And by Your welcome does He welcome You into Himself. For what is contained in You Who welcome Him is returned to Him. And We but celebrate His Wholeness as We welcome Him into Ourselves. Those who receive the Father are one with Him being Host to Him Who created them. And by allowing Him to enter the Remembrance of the Father enters with Him and with Him they remember the only Relationship they ever had and ever want to have.

This is the weekend in which a new year will be born from the time of Christ. I have perfect faith in You to do all that You would accomplish. Nothing will be lacking and You will make complete and not destroy. Say and understand this:

I give You to the Holy Spirit as part of Myself.

I know that You will be released
Unless I want to use You to imprison Myself.

In the name of My freedom I will Your release
Because I recognize that We will be released Together.

So will the year begin in Joy and freedom. There is much to do and We have been long delayed. Accept the Holy Instant as this year is born and take Your Place so long left unfulfilled in the Great Awakening.

Chapter 16 – The Forgiveness of Illusions

a. True Empathy

True empathy is of Him Who knows what it is. You will learn His interpretation of it if You let Him use Your capacity for Strength and not for weakness. He will not desert You but be sure that You desert not Him. Humility is Strength in this sense only: To recognize and accept the fact that You do not know is to recognize and accept the fact that He does know. You are not sure that He will do His part because You have never yet done Yours completely. You will not know how to respond to what You do not understand. Be tempted not in this and yield not to the ego’s triumphant use of empathy for its glory. The triumph of weakness is not what You would offer to a Brother. And yet You know no triumph but this. This is not knowledge and the form of empathy that would bring it about is so distorted that it would imprison what it would release.

The unredeemed cannot redeem. Yet they have a Redeemer. Attempt to teach Him not. You are the Learner, He the Teacher. Do not confuse Your role with His for this will never bring Peace to anyone. Offer Your empathy to Him for it is His perception and His Strength that You would share. And let Him offer You His Strength and His perception to be shared through You. The meaning of Love is lost in any relationship which looks to weakness and hopes to find It there. The Power of Love, which is Its meaning, lies in the Strength of God which hovers over It and blesses It silently by enveloping It in healing wings. Let this be and do not try to substitute Your “miracle” for this.

We once said that if a Brother asks a foolish thing of You to do it. But be certain that this does not mean to do a foolish thing that would hurt either him or You for what would hurt one will hurt the other. Foolish requests are foolish for the simple reason that they conflict because they contain an element of specialness. Only the Holy Spirit recognizes foolish needs as well as real ones. And He will teach You how to meet both without losing either.

You will be able to do this only in secrecy. And You will think that by meeting the needs of one You do not jeopardize another because You keep them separate and secret from each other. This is not the way for it leads not to Light and Truth. No needs will long be left unmet if You leave them all to Him Whose function is to meet them. This is His function and not Yours. He will not meet them secretly for He would share everything You give through Him. And that is why He gives it. What You give through Him is for the whole Sonship, not for part of It. Leave Him His function for He will fulfill it if You but ask Him to enter Your relationships and bless them for You.

Make this year different by making it all the same. And let all Your relationships be made Holy for You. This is Our will.
Amen.

b. The Magnitude of Holiness

You still think Holiness is difficult because You cannot see how It can be extended to include everyone and You have learned that It must include everyone to be Holy. Concern Yourselves not with the extension of Holiness for the nature of Miracles You do not understand. Nor do You do Them. It is Their extension far beyond the limits You perceive that demonstrates You did not do Them. Why should You worry how the Miracle extends to all the Sonship when You do not understand the Miracle Itself? One attribute is no more difficult to understand than is the whole. If Miracles are at all Their attributes would have to be miraculous being part of Them.

There is a tendency to fragment and then to be concerned about the Truth of just a little part of the whole. And this is but a way of avoiding, or looking away from, the whole to what You think You might be better able to understand. And this is but another way in which You would still try to keep understanding to Yourself. A better and far more helpful way to think of Miracles is this: You do not understand Them either in part or whole. Yet You have done Them. Therefore Your understanding cannot be necessary. Yet it is still impossible to accomplish what You do not understand. And so there must be something in You that does understand.

To You the Miracle cannot seem natural because what You have done to hurt Your minds has made them so unnatural that they do not remember what is natural to them. And when You are told about it You cannot understand it. The recognition of the part as whole and of the whole in every part is perfectly natural. For it is the way God thinks and what is natural to Him is natural to You. Wholly natural perception would show You instantly that order of difficulty in Miracles is quite impossible for it involves a contradiction of what Miracles mean. And if You could understand Their meaning Their attributes could hardly cause You perplexity.

You have done Miracles but it is quite apparent that You have not done Them alone. You have succeeded whenever You have reached another mind and joined with it. When two minds join as one and share a single idea equally the first link in the awareness of the Sonship as One has been made. When You have made this joining, as the Holy Spirit bids You, and have offered it to Him to use as He knows how His natural perception of Your gift enables Him to understand it and You to use His understanding on Your behalf. It is impossible to convince You of the Reality of what has clearly been accomplished through Your willingness as long as You believe that You must understand it or else it is not real.

You think Your lack of understanding is a loss to You and so You are unwilling to believe that what has happened is True. Yet can You really believe that all that has happened, even though You do not understand it, has not happened? Yet this is Your position. You would have perfect faith in the Holy Spirit and in the effects of His Teaching if You were not afraid to acknowledge what He taught You. For this acknowledgement means that what has happened You do not understand but that You are willing to accept it because it has happened. How can faith in Reality be Yours while You are bent on making it unreal? And are You really safer in maintaining the unreality of what has happened than You would be in joyously accepting it for what it is and giving thanks for it?

Honor the Truth That has been given You and be glad You do not understand It. Miracles are natural to God and to the One Who speaks for Him. For His task is to translate the Miracle into the knowledge which It represents and which is lost to You. Let His understanding of the Miracle be enough for You and do not turn away from all the witnesses that He has given You to His Reality. No evidence will convince You of the Truth of what You do not want. Yet Your Relationship with Him is real and has been demonstrated. Regard this not with fear but with Rejoicing. The One You called upon is with You. Bid Him welcome and honor His witnesses who bring You the glad tidings that He has come.

It is True just as You fear that to acknowledge Him is to deny all that You think You know. But it was never True. What gain is there to You in clinging to it and denying the Evidence for Truth? For You have come too near to Truth to renounce It now and You will yield to Its compelling attraction. You can delay this now but only a little. The Host of God has called to You and You have heard. Never again will You be wholly willing not to listen. This is a year of Joy in which Your listening will increase and Peace will grow with its increase.

The Power of Holiness and the weakness of attack have both been brought into awareness. And this has been accomplished in minds firmly convinced that Holiness is weakness and attack is Power. Should not that be a sufficient Miracle to teach You that Your Teacher is not of You? But remember also that whenever You have listened to His interpretation the results have brought You Joy. Would You prefer the results of Your interpretation considering honestly what they have been? God wills You better. Could You not look with greater charity on whom God loves with perfect Love? Do not interpret against His Love for You. For You have many witnesses that speak of It so clearly that only the blind and deaf could fail to see and hear them.

This year determine not to deny what has been given You by God to use for Him. He has Himself reminded You of Him. Awake and share it for that is the only reason He has called to You. His Voice has spoken clearly and yet You have so little faith in what You heard because You have preferred to place still greater faith in the disaster You have made. Today let Us resolve Together to accept the joyful tidings that disaster is not real and that Reality is not disaster. Reality is safe and sure and wholly kind to everyone and everything. There is no greater Love than to accept this and be glad. For Love asks only that You be happy and will give You everything that makes for happiness.

You have never given any problem to the Holy Spirit He has not solved. Nor will You ever do so. You have never tried to solve anything Yourself and been successful. Is it not time You brought these facts together and made sense of them? This is the year for the application of the ideas that have been given You. For the ideas are mighty forces to be used and not held idly by. They have already proved their Power sufficiently for You to place Your faith in them and not in their denial. This year invest in Truth and let It work in Peace. Have faith in What has faith in You. Think What You have really seen and heard and recognize It. Can You be alone with witnesses like these?

c. The Reward of Teaching

You have taught well and yet You have not learned how to accept the comfort of Your teaching. If You will consider what You have taught and how alien it is to what You thought You knew You will be compelled to recognize that Your Teacher came from beyond Your thought system and so could look upon it fairly and perceive it was untrue. And He must have done so from the basis of a very different Thought System and one with nothing in common with Yours. For certainly what He has taught, and what You taught through Him, has nothing in common with what You taught before He came. And the results have been to bring Peace where there was pain and suffering has disappeared to be replaced by Joy.

You have taught freedom but You have not learned how to be free. We once said: By their fruits Ye shall know them and they shall know themselves. For it is certain that You judge Yourself according to Your teaching. The ego’s teaching produces immediate results because its decisions are immediately accepted as Your choice. And this acceptance means that You are willing to judge Yourself accordingly. Cause and effect are very clear in the ego’s thought system because all Your learning has been directed towards establishing the relationship between them. And would You not have faith in what You have so diligently taught Yourself to believe? But remember how much care You have exerted in choosing its witnesses and in avoiding those who spoke for the Cause of Truth and Its Effects.

Does not the fact that You have not learned what You have taught show You that You do not perceive the Sonship as One? And does it not also show You that You do not regard Yourself as One? For it is impossible to teach successfully wholly without conviction and it is equally impossible that conviction be outside You. You could never have taught freedom unless You did believe in it. And it must be that what You taught came from Yourself. And yet this Self You clearly do not know and do not recognize even though It functions. What functions must be there. And it is only if You deny what It has done that You could possibly deny Its Presence.

This is a Course in how to know Yourself. You have taught what You are but have not let what You are teach You. You have been very careful to avoid the obvious and not to see the real Cause and Effect relationship that is perfectly apparent. Yet within You is everything You taught. What can it be that has not learned it? It must be this that is really outside Yourself, not by Your own projection but in Truth. And it is this that You have taken in that is not You. What You accept into Your minds does not really change them. Illusions are but beliefs in what is not there. And the seeming conflict between Truth and illusion can only be resolved by separating Yourself from the illusion and not from Truth.

Your teaching has already done this for the Holy Spirit is part of You. Created by God He left neither God nor His Creation. He is Both God and You as You are God and Him Together. For God’s Answer to the separation added more to You than You tried to take away. He protected Both Your Creations and You Together keeping One with You what You would exclude. And They will take the place of what You took in to replace Them. They are quite real and part of the Self You do not know. And They communicate to You through the Holy Spirit and Their Power and gratitude to You for Their Creation They offer gladly to Your teaching of Your Self Who is Their Home.

You Who are Host to God are also Host to Them. For nothing Real has ever left the Mind of its Creator. And what is not real was never There. You are not two selves in conflict. What is beyond God? If You Who hold Him and Whom He holds are the Universe all else must be outside where nothing is. You have taught this and from far off in the Universe, yet not beyond Yourself, the witnesses to Your teaching have gathered to help You learn. Their gratitude has joined with Yours and God’s to strengthen Your faith in what You taught. For what You taught is True. Alone You stand outside Your teaching and apart from it. But with them You must learn that You but taught Yourself and learned from the conviction You shared with them.

This year You will begin to learn and make learning commensurate with teaching. You have chosen this by Your own willingness to teach. Though You seemed to suffer for it the Joy of teaching will yet be Yours. For the Joy of teaching is in the Learner who offers it to the Teacher in gratitude and shares it with him. As You learn Your gratitude to Your Self, Who teaches You what He is, will grow and help You honor Him. And You will learn His Power and Strength and Purity and love Him as His Father does. His Kingdom has no limits and no end and there is nothing in Him that is not perfect and eternal. All this is You and nothing outside of this is You. To Your most Holy Self all praise is due for what You are and for what He is Who created You as You are.

Sooner or later must everyone bridge the gap which he imagines exists between his selves. Each one builds this bridge which carries him across the gap as soon as he is willing to expend some little effort on behalf of bridging it. His little efforts are powerfully supplemented by the Strength of Heaven and by the united will of all who make Heaven what it is being joined within it. And so the one who would cross over is literally transported there. Your bridge is builded stronger than You think and Your foot is planted firmly on it. Have no fear that the attraction of those who stand on the other side and wait for You will not draw You safely across. For You will come where You would be and where Your Self awaits You.

d. Illusion and Reality of Love

Be not afraid to look upon the special hate relationship for freedom lies here. It would be impossible not to know the meaning of Love except for this. For the special love relationship in which the meaning of Love is lost is undertaken solely to offset this but not to let it go. Your Salvation will rise clearly before Your open eyes as You look on this. You cannot limit hate. The special love relationship will not offset it but will merely drive it underground and out of sight. It is essential to bring it into sight and to make no attempt to hide it. For it is the attempt to balance hate with Love that makes Love meaningless to You. The extent of the split that lies in this You do not realize. And until You do the split will remain unrecognized and therefore unhealed.

The symbols of hate against the symbols of Love play out a conflict that does not exist. For symbols stand for something else and the symbol of Love is without meaning if Love is everything. You will go through this last undoing quite unharmed and will emerge as Yourself. This is the last step in the readiness for God. Be not unwilling now, You are too near and You will cross the bridge in perfect safety translated quietly from war to Peace. For the illusion of Love will never satisfy You. But Its Reality, which awaits You on the other side, will give You everything.

The special love relationship is an attempt to limit the destructive effects of hate by finding a haven in the storm of guilt. It makes no attempt to rise above the storm into the Sunlight. On the contrary, it emphasizes guilt outside the haven by attempting to build barricades against it and keep within them. The special love relationship is not perceived as a value in itself but as a place of safety from which hatred is split off and kept apart. The special love partner is acceptable only as long as he serves this purpose. Hatred can enter and indeed is welcome in some aspects of the relationship but it is still held together by the illusion of Love. If the illusion goes the relationship is broken or becomes unsatisfying on the grounds of disillusionment.

Love is not an illusion. It is a fact. Where disillusionment is possible there was not Love but hate. For hate is an illusion and what can change was never Love. It is certain that those who select certain ones as partners in any aspect of living and use them for any purpose which they would not share with others are trying to live with guilt rather than die of it. This is the choice they see. And Love to them is only an escape from death. They seek It desperately but not in the Peace in which It would gladly come quietly to them. And when they find the fear of death is still upon them the “love” relationship loses the illusion that it is what it is not. For when the barricades against it are broken fear rushes in and hatred triumphs.

There are no triumphs of Love. Only hate is concerned with the triumph of Love at all. The illusion of Love can triumph over the illusion of hate but always at the price of making both illusions. As long as the illusion of hatred lasts so long will Love be an illusion to You. And then the only choice that remains possible is which illusion You prefer. There is no conflict in the choice between Truth and illusion. Seen in these terms no one would hesitate. But conflict enters the instant the choice seems to be one between illusions for this choice does not matter. Where one choice is as dangerous as the other the decision must be one of despair.

Your task is not to seek for Love but merely to seek and find all of the barriers within Yourself that You have built against It. It is not necessary to seek for what is True but it is necessary to seek for what is false. Every illusion is one of fear whatever form it takes. And the attempt to escape from one illusion into another must fail. If You seek Love outside Yourself You can be certain that You perceive hatred within and are afraid of it. Yet Peace will never come from the illusion of Love but only from Its Reality. Recognize this for it is True and Truth must be recognized if It is to be distinguished from illusion.

The special love relationship is an attempt to bring Love into separation. And as such it is nothing more than an attempt to bring Love into fear and make It real in fear. In fundamental violation of Love’s one condition the special love relationship would thus accomplish the impossible. How but in illusion could this be done? It is essential that We look very closely at exactly what it is You think You can do to solve a dilemma which seems very real to You but which does not exist. You have come very close to Truth. And only this stands between You and the bridge that leads You into It. Heaven waits silently and Your Creations are holding out Their Hands to help You cross and welcome Them.

For it is They You seek. You seek but for Your own completion and it is They Who render You complete. The special love relationship is but a shabby substitute for what makes You whole in Truth, not in illusion. Your Relationship with Them is without guilt and this enables You to look on all Your Brothers with gratitude because Your Creations were created in union with them. Acceptance of Your Creations is the acceptance of the Oneness of Creation without which You would never be complete. No specialness can offer You what God has given and what You are joined with Him in giving. Across the bridge is Your completion for You will be wholly in God, willing for nothing special but only to be wholly like unto Him, completing Him by Your completion.

Fear not to cross to the Abode of Peace and perfect Holiness. Only there is the completion of God and of His Son established forever. Seek not for this in the bleak world of illusion where nothing is certain and where everything fails to satisfy. And in the name of God be wholly willing to abandon all illusion. In any relationship in which You are wholly willing to accept completion, and only this, there is God completed and His Son with Him. The bridge that leads to union in Yourself must lead to knowledge for it was built with God beside You and will lead You straight to Him where Your completion rests wholly compatible with His.

Every illusion which You accept into Your mind by judging it to be attainable removes Your own sense of completion and thus denies the Wholeness of Your Father. Every fantasy, be it of Love or hate, deprives You of knowledge. For fantasies are the veil behind which Truth is hidden. To lift the veil which seems so dark and heavy it is only needful to value Truth beyond all fantasy and to be entirely unwilling to settle for illusion in place of Truth. Would You not go through fear to Love? For such the journey seems to be. Love calls though hate would bid You stay.

Hear not the call of hate and see no fantasies. For Your completion lies in Truth and nowhere else. See in the call of hate and in every fantasy that rises to delay You but the call for help that rises ceaselessly from You to Your Creator. Would He not answer You Whose completion is His? He loves You wholly without illusion as You must love. For Love is wholly without illusion and therefore wholly without fear. Whom God remembers must be whole. And God has never forgotten what makes Him whole. In Your completion lies the memory of His Wholeness and His Gratitude to You for His Completion.

In His link with You lie both His inability to forget and Your ability to remember. In Him are joined Your willingness to love and all the Love of God Who forgot You not. Your Father can no more forget the Truth in You than You can fail to remember It. The Holy Spirit is the bridge to Him made from Your willingness to unite with Him and created by His Joy in union with You. The journey that seemed to be endless is almost complete for what is endless is very near. You have almost recognized it. Turn with Me firmly away from all illusion now and let nothing stand in the way of Truth. We will take the last foolish journey away from Truth Together. And then, Together, We go straight to God in joyous answer to His Call for His Completion.

If special relationships of any kind would hinder God’s Completion can they have any value to You? What would interfere with God must interfere with You. Only in time does interference in God’s Completion seem to be possible. The bridge that He would carry You across lifts You from time into Eternity. Waken from time and answer fearlessly the Call of Him Who gave Eternity to You in Your Creation. On this side of the bridge to Timelessness You understand nothing. But as You step lightly across it, upheld by Timelessness, You are directed straight to the heart of knowledge. At its Center, and only there, You are safe forever because You are complete forever. There is no veil the Love of God in Us Together cannot lift. The way to Truth is open. Follow it with Me.

e. Specialness and Guilt

In looking at the special relationship it is necessary first to realize that it involves a great amount of pain. Anxiety, despair, guilt and attack all enter into it broken into by periods in which they seem to be gone. All these must be understood for what they are. Whatever form they take they are always an attack on the self to make the other guilty. We have spoken of this before but there are some aspects of what is really being attempted that We have not touched on. Very simply, the attempt to make guilty is always directed against God. For the ego would have You see Him, and Him alone, as guilty leaving the Sonship open to attack and unprotected against it.

The special love relationship is the ego’s chief weapon for keeping You from Heaven. It does not appear to be a weapon but if You consider how You value it and why You will realize what it must be. The special love relationship is the ego’s most boasted gift and the one that has the most appeal to those unwilling to relinquish guilt. The “dynamics” of the ego are clearest here for counting on the attraction of this offering the fantasies which center around this are often quite open. Here they are usually judged to be quite acceptable and even natural.

No one considers it bizarre to love and hate together and even those who believe that hate is “sin” merely feel guilty but do not correct it. This is the “natural” condition of the separation. And those who learn that it is not natural at all seem to be the unnatural ones. For this world is the opposite of Heaven having been made to be its opposite. And everything here takes a direction exactly opposite to what is True. In Heaven, where the meaning of Love is known, Love is the same as union. Here, where the illusion of Love is accepted in Its place, Love is perceived as separation and exclusion.

It is in the special relationship born of the hidden wish for special love from God that the ego’s hatred triumphs. For the special relationship is the renunciation of the Love of God and the attempt to secure for the self the specialness that He denied. And it is essential to the preservation of the ego that You believe this specialness is not hell but Heaven. For the ego would never have You see that the separation can only be loss being the one condition in which Heaven cannot be.

To everyone Heaven is completion. There can be no disagreement on this because both the ego and the Holy Spirit accept it. They are however in complete disagreement on what completion is and how it is accomplished. The Holy Spirit knows that self completion lies first in union and then in the extension of union. To the ego completion lies in triumph and in the extension of the “victory” even to the final triumph over God. In this it sees the ultimate freedom of the self for nothing would remain to interfere with it. And this is its idea of Heaven. From this it follows that union, which is a condition in which the ego cannot interfere, must be hell.

The special relationship is a strange and unnatural ego device for joining hell and Heaven and making them indistinguishable. And the attempt to find the imagined “best” of both worlds has merely led to fantasies of both and to the inability to perceive either one as it is. The special relationship is the triumph of this confusion. It is a kind of union from which union is excluded and the basis for the attempt at union rests on exclusion. What better example could there be of the ego’s maxim: “Seek and do not find?”

Most curious of all is the concept of the self which the ego fosters in the special relationship. This “self” seeks the relationship to make itself complete. Yet when it finds the special relationship in which it thinks it can accomplish this it gives itself away and tries to trade itself for the self of another. This is not union for there is no increase and no extension. Each partner tries to sacrifice the self he does not want for one he thinks he would prefer. And he feels guilty for the “sin” of taking and of giving nothing of value in return. For how much value can he place upon a self that he would give away to get a better one?

The “better” self the ego seeks is always one that is more special. And whoever seems to possess a special self is “loved” for what can be taken from him. Where both partners see this special self in each other the ego sees “a union made in Heaven”. For neither will recognize that he has asked for hell. And so he will not interfere with the ego’s illusion of Heaven which it offered him to interfere with Heaven. Yet if all illusions are of fear, and they can be of nothing else, the illusion of Heaven can be nothing more than an attractive form of fear in which the guilt is buried deep and rises in the form of “love”.

The appeal of hell lies only in the terrible attraction of guilt which the ego holds out to those who place their faith in littleness. The conviction of littleness lies in every special relationship for only the deprived could value specialness. The “demand” for specialness and the perception of the giving of specialness as an act of Love would make Love hateful. And the real purpose of the special relationship in strict accordance with the ego’s goal is to destroy Reality and substitute illusion. For the ego is itself an illusion and only illusions can be the witnesses to its Reality.

If You perceived the special relationship as a triumph over God would You want it? Let Us not think of its fearful nature nor of the guilt it must entail nor of the sadness and the loneliness. For these are only attributes of the whole religion of the separation and the total context in which it is thought to occur. The central theme in its litany to sacrifice is that God must die so You can live. And it is this theme that is acted out in the special relationship. Through the death of Your self You think You can attack another self and snatch it from the other to replace the self that You despised. And You despise it because You do not think it offers You the specialness that You demand. And hating it You have made it little and unworthy because You are afraid of it.

How can You grant unlimited Power to what You think You have attacked? For so fearful has the Truth become that unless It is weak and little and unworthy of value You would not dare to look upon It. You think it safer to endow the little self which You have made with Power You wrested from Truth, triumphing over It and leaving It helpless. See how exactly is this ritual enacted in the special relationship. An altar is erected in between two separate people on which each seeks to kill his self and on its body raise another self that takes his Power from its death.

Over and over and over this ritual is enacted. And it is never completed nor ever will be completed. For the ritual of completion cannot complete and Life arises not from death nor Heaven from hell. Whenever any form of special relationship tempts You to seek for Love in ritual remember Love is content and not form of any kind. The special relationship is a ritual of form aimed at the raising of the form to take the place of God at the expense of content. There is no meaning in the form and there will never be. The special relationship must be recognized for what it is: A senseless ritual in which Strength is extracted from the death of God and invested in His killer as the sign that form has triumphed over content and Love has lost Its meaning.

Would You want this to be possible even apart from its evident impossibility? For if it were possible You would have made Yourself helpless. God is not angry. He merely could not let this happen. You can not change His Mind. No rituals that You have set up in which the dance of death delights You can bring death to the Eternal. Nor can Your chosen substitute for the Wholeness of God have any influence at all upon it. See in the special relationship nothing more than a meaningless attempt to raise other gods before Him and by worshiping them to obscure their tininess and His Greatness.

In the name of Your completion You do not want this. And every idol that You raise to place before Him stands before You in place of what You are. Salvation lies in the simple fact that illusions are not fearful because they are not True. And they but seem to be fearful to the extent to which You fail to recognize them for what they are. And You will fail to do this to the extent to which You want them to be True. And to the same extent You are denying Truth and so are making Yourself unable to make the simple choice between Truth and illusion, fantasy and God. Remember this and You will have no difficulty in perceiving the decision as just what it is and nothing more.

The core of the separation delusion lies simply in the fantasydestruction of Love’s meaning. And unless Its meaning is restored to You You cannot know Yourself Who share Its meaning. Separation is only the decision not to know Yourself. Its whole thought system is a carefully contrived learning experience designed to lead away from Truth and into fantasy. Yet for every learning that would hurt You God offers You Correction and complete escape from all its consequences.

The decision whether or not to listen to This Course and follow It is but the choice between Truth and illusion. For Here is Truth separated from illusion and not confused with it at all. How simple does this choice become when it is perceived as only what it is. For only fantasies made confusion in choosing possible and they are totally unreal. This year is thus the time to make the easiest decision that ever confronted You and also the only one. You will cross the bridge into Reality simply because You will recognize that God is on the other side and nothing at all is here. It is impossible not to make the natural decision as this is realized.

f. The Bridge to the Real World

The search for the special relationship is the sign that You equate Your self with the ego and not with God. For the special relationship has value only to the ego. To it unless a relationship has special value it has no meaning. And it perceives all Love as special. Yet this cannot be natural for it is unlike the relationship of God and His Son and all relationships that are unlike this one must be unnatural. For God created Love as He would have It be and gave It as It is. Love has no meaning except as Its Creator defined It by His Will. It is impossible to define It otherwise and understand It.

Love is freedom. To look for It by placing Yourself in bondage is to separate Yourself from It. For the Love of God no longer seek for union in separation nor for freedom in bondage! As You release so will You be released. Forget this not or Love will be unable to find You and comfort You. There is a way in which the Holy Spirit asks Your help if You would have His. The Holy Instant is His most helpful tool in protecting You from the attraction of guilt, the real lure in the special relationship. You do not recognize that this is its real appeal for the ego has taught You that freedom lies in it. Yet the closer You look at the special relationship the more apparent it becomes that it must foster guilt and therefore must imprison.

The special relationship is totally without meaning without a body. And if You value it You must also value the body. And what You value You will keep. The special relationship is a device for limiting Your self to a body and for limiting Your perception of others to theirs. The Great Rays would establish the total lack of value of the special relationship if They were seen. For in seeing Them the body would disappear because its value would be lost. And so Your whole investment in seeing it would be withdrawn from it.

You see the world You value. On this side of the bridge You see the world of separate bodies seeking to join each other in separate unions and to become one by losing. When two individuals seek to become one they are trying to decrease their Magnitude. Each would deny his Power for the separate union excludes the Universe. Far more is left outside than would be taken in. For God is left without and nothing taken in. If one such union were made in perfect faith the Universe would enter into it. Yet the special relationship which the ego seeks does not include even one whole individual. For the ego wants but part of him and sees only this part and nothing else.

Across the bridge it is so different! For a time the body is still seen but not exclusively as it is seen here. For the little spark that holds the Great Rays within it is also visible and this spark cannot be limited long to littleness. Once You have crossed the bridge the value of the body is so diminished in Your sight that You will see no need at all to magnify it. For You will realize that the only value that the body has is to enable You to bring Your Brothers to the bridge with You. And to be released together there.

The bridge itself is nothing more than a transition in Your perspective of Reality. On this side everything You see is grossly distorted and completely out of perspective. What is little and insignificant is magnified and what is strong and powerful cut down to littleness. In the transition there is a period of confusion in which a sense of actual disorientation seems to occur. But fear it not for it means nothing more than that You have been willing to let go Your hold on the distorted frame of reference that seemed to hold Your world together. This frame of reference is built around the special relationship. Without this illusion there can be no meaning You would still seek here.

Fear not that You will be abruptly lifted up and hurled [katapultiert] into Reality. Time is kind and if You use it for Reality it will keep gentle pace with You in Your transition. The urgency is only in dislodging [lösen] Your minds from their fixed position here. This will not leave You homeless and without a frame of reference. The period of disorientation, which precedes the actual transition, is far shorter than the time it took to fix Your minds so firmly on illusions. Delay will hurt You now more than before only because You realize it is delay and that escape from pain is really possible. Find hope and comfort rather than despair in this: You could no longer find even the illusion of Love in any special relationship here. For You are no longer wholly insane and You would recognize the guilt of self betrayal for what it is.

Nothing You seek to strengthen in the special relationship is really part of You. And You cannot keep part of the thought system that taught You it was real and understand the Thought that really knows what You are. You have allowed the Thought of Your Reality to enter Your minds and because You invited It It will abide with You. Your Love for It will not allow You to betray Yourself and You could not enter into a relationship where It could not go with You for You would not be apart from It.

Be glad You have escaped the mockery of Salvation that the ego offered You and look not back with longing on the travesty it made of Your relationships. Now no one need suffer for You have come too far to yield to the illusion of the beauty and Holiness of guilt. Only the wholly insane could look on death and suffering, sickness and despair and see it thus. What guilt has wrought is ugly, fearful and very dangerous. See no illusion of Truth and beauty there. And be You thankful that there is a Place where Truth and beauty wait for You. Go on to meet them gladly and learn how much awaits You for the simple willingness to give up nothing because it is nothing.

The new perspective You will gain from crossing over will be the understanding of where Heaven is. From here it seems to be outside and across the bridge. But as You cross to join it it will join with You and become one with You. And You will think in glad astonishment that for all this You gave up nothing! The Joy of Heaven which has no limit is increased with each Light that returns to take Its rightful place within it. Wait no longer for the Love of God and You. And may the Holy Instant speed You on the way, as it will surely do, if You but let it come to You.

The Holy Spirit asks only this little help of You: Whenever Your thoughts wander to a special relationship which still attracts You enter with Him into a Holy Instant and there let Him release You. He needs only Your willingness to share His perspective to give it to You completely. And Your willingness need not be complete because His is perfect. It is His task to atone for Your unwillingness by His perfect faith. And it is His faith You share with Him there. Out of Your recognition of Your unwillingness for Your release His perfect willingness is given You. Call upon Him for Heaven is at His call. And let Him call on Heaven for You.

g. The End of Illusions

It is impossible to let the past go without relinquishing the special relationship. For the special relationship is an attempt to reenact the past and change it. Imagined slights, remembered pain, past disappointments, perceived injustices and deprivations, all enter into the special relationship which becomes a way in which You seek to restore Your wounded selfesteem. What basis would You have for choosing a special partner without the past? Every such choice is made because of something “evil” in the past to which You cling and for which must someone else “atone”.

The special relationship takes vengeance on the past. By seeking to remove suffering in the past it overlooks the Present in its preoccupation with the past and its total commitment to it. No special relationship is experienced in the Present. Shades of the past envelop it and make it what it is. It has no meaning in the Present and if it means nothing now it cannot have any real meaning at all. How can You change the past except in fantasy? And who can give You what You think the past deprived You of?

The past is nothing. Do not seek to lay the blame for deprivation on it for the past is gone. You cannot really not let go what has gone already. It must be therefore that You are maintaining the illusion that it has not gone because You think it serves some purpose that You want fulfilled. And it must also be that this purpose could not be fulfilled in the Present but only in the past. Do not underestimate the intensity of the ego’s drive for vengeance on the past. It is completely savage and completely insane. For the ego remembers everything that You have done that offended it and seeks retribution of You. The fantasies it brings to the special relationships it chooses in which to act out its hate are fantasies of Your destruction.

For the ego holds the past against You and in Your escape from it it sees itself deprived of the vengeance it believes that You so justly merit. Yet without Your alliance in Your own destruction the ego could not hold You to the past. In the special relationship You are allowing Your destruction to be. That this is insane is obvious. But what is less obvious to You is that the Present is useless to You while You pursue the ego’s goal as its ally. The past is gone. Seek not to preserve it in the special relationship which binds You to it and would teach You that Salvation is past and that You must return to the past to find Salvation. There is no fantasy that does not contain the dream of retribution for the past. Would You act out the dream or let it go?

In the special relationship it does not seem to be an acting out of vengeance that You seek. And even when the hatred and the savagery break briefly through into awareness the illusion of Love is not profoundly shaken. But the one thing that the ego never allows to reach awareness is that the special relationship is the acting out of vengeance on Yourself. Yet what else could it be? In seeking the special relationship You look not for glory in Yourself. You have denied that it is there. And the relationship becomes Your substitute for it. And vengeance becomes Your substitute for Atonement and escape from vengeance becomes Your loss.

Against the ego’s insane notion of Salvation the Holy Spirit gently lays the Holy Instant. We said before that the Holy Spirit must teach through comparisons and uses opposites to point to Truth. The Holy Instant is the opposite of the ego’s fixed belief in Salvation through vengeance for the past. In the Holy Instant it is accepted that the past is gone and with its passing the drive for vengeance has been uprooted and has disappeared. The stillness and the Peace of now enfold You in perfect gentleness. Everything is gone except the Truth.

For a time You may attempt to bring illusions into the Holy Instant to hinder Your full awareness of the complete difference in all respects between Your experience of Truth and illusion. But You will not attempt this long. In the Holy Instant the Power of the Holy Spirit will prevail because You joined Him. The illusions You bring with You will weaken the experience of Him for a while and will prevent You from keeping the experience in Your mind. Yet the Holy Instant is eternal and Your illusions of time will not prevent the Timeless from being what it is nor You from experiencing it as it is.

What God has given You is Truly given. And will be Truly received. For God’s Gifts have no Reality apart from Your receiving them. Your receiving completes His giving. You will receive because it is His Will to give. He gave the Holy Instant to be given You. And it is impossible that You receive it not because He gave it. When He willed that His Son be free His Son was free. In the Holy Instant is His reminder that His Son will always be exactly as he was created. And everything the Holy Spirit teaches You is to remind You that You have received what God has given You.

There is nothing You can hold against Reality. All that must be forgiven are the illusions You have held against Your Brothers. Their Reality has no past and only illusions can be forgiven. God holds nothing against anyone for He is incapable of illusions of any kind. Release Your Brothers from the slavery of their illusions by forgiving them for the illusions which You perceive in them. Thus will You learn that You have been forgiven for it is You Who offered them illusions. In the Holy Instant this is done for You in time to bring to You the True condition of Heaven.

Remember that You always choose between Truth and illusion, between the real Atonement that would heal and the ego’s “atonement” that would destroy. The Power of God and all His Love without limit will support You as You seek only Your place in the plan of Atonement arising from His Love. Be an ally of God and not the ego in seeking how Atonement can come to You. His Help suffices for His Messenger understands how to restore the Kingdom to You and to place all Your investment in Salvation in Your Relationship with Him.

Seek and find His Message in the Holy Instant where all illusions are forgiven. From Here the Miracle extends to bless everyone and to resolve all problems be they perceived as great or small, possible or impossible. There is nothing that will not give place to Him and to His Majesty. To join in close Relationship with Him is to accept relationships as real. And through their Reality give over all illusions for the Reality of Your Relationship with God. Praise be to Your Relationship with Him and to no other. The Truth lies Here and nowhere else. You choose This or nothing.

Forgive Us Our illusions, Father, and help Us to accept Our True Relationship with You in which there are no illusions and where none can ever enter. Our Holiness is Yours. What can there be in Us that needs forgiveness when Yours is perfect? The sleep of forgetfulness is only the unwillingness to remember Your forgiveness and Your Love. Let Us not wander into temptation for the temptation of the Son of God is not Your Will. And let Us receive only what You have given and accept but this into the minds which You created and which You love.
Amen.

Chapter 17 – Forgiveness and Healing

a. Fantasy and Distorted Perception

When You maintain that there must be order of difficulty in Miracles all You mean is that there are some things You would withhold from Truth. You believe that Truth cannot deal with them only because You would keep them from Truth. Very simply Your lack of faith in the Power that heals all pain arises from Your wish to retain some aspects of Reality for fantasy. If You but realized what this must do to Your appreciation of the whole! What You reserve unto Yourself You take away from Him Who would release You. Unless You give it back it is inevitable that Your perspective on Reality be warped and uncorrected.

As long as You would have this be so long will the illusion of order of difficulty in Miracles remain with You. For You have established this order in Reality by giving some of it to one teacher and some to another. And so You learn to deal with part of Truth in one way and in another way the other part. To fragment Truth is to destroy It by rendering It meaningless. Orders of Reality is a perspective without understanding, a frame of reference for Reality to which it cannot really be compared at all. Think You that You can bring Truth to fantasy and learn what Truth means from the perspective of illusions?

Truth has no meaning in illusion. The frame of reference for Its meaning must be Itself. When You try to bring Truth to illusions You are trying to make them real and keep them by justifying Your belief in them. But to give illusions to Truth is to enable Truth to teach that the illusions are unreal and thus enable You to escape from them. Reserve not one idea aside from Truth or You establish orders of Reality which must imprison You. There is no order in Reality because everything there is True.

Be willing then to give all You have held outside the Truth to Him Who knows the Truth and in Whom all is brought to Truth. Salvation from separation will be complete or will not be at all. Be not concerned with anything except Your willingness to have this be accomplished. He will accomplish it, not You. But forget not this: When You become disturbed and lose Your Peace of Mind because another is attempting to solve his problems through fantasy You are refusing to forgive Yourself for just this same attempt. And You are holding both of You away from Truth and from Salvation. As You forgive him You restore to Truth what was denied by both of You. And You will see forgiveness where You have given it.

b. The Forgiven World

Can You imagine how beautiful those You forgive will look to You? In no fantasy have You ever seen anything so lovely. Nothing You see here, sleeping or waking, comes near to such loveliness and nothing will You value like unto this nor hold so dear. Nothing that You remember that made Your Heart seem to sing with Joy has ever brought You even a little part of the happiness this Sight will bring You. For You will see the Son of God. You will behold the beauty that the Holy Spirit loves to look upon and that He thanks the Father for. He was created to see this for You until You learned to see it for Yourself. And all His Teaching leads to seeing it and giving thanks with Him.

This loveliness is not a fantasy. It is the real world, bright and clean and new, with everything sparkling under the open sun. Nothing is hidden here for everything has been forgiven and there are no fantasies to hide the Truth. The bridge between that world and this is so little and so easy to cross that You could not believe it is the meetingplace of worlds so different. Yet this little bridge is the strongest thing that touches on this world at all. This little step, so small it has escaped Your notice, is a stride through time into Eternity and beyond all ugliness into beauty that will enchant You and will never cease to cause You wonderment at its perfection.

This step, the smallest ever taken by anything, is still the greatest accomplishment of all in God’s plan of Atonement. All else is learned but this is given, complete and wholly perfect. No one but Him Who planned Salvation could complete it thus. The real world, in its loveliness, You learn to reach. Fantasies are all undone, no one and nothing remains still bound by them and by Your own forgiveness You are free to see. And what You see is only what You have made with the Blessing of Your forgiveness on it. And with this final Blessing of God’s Son upon himself the real perception born of the new perspective he has learned has served its purpose.

The stars will disappear in Light and the sun which opened up the world to beauty will vanish. Perception will be meaningless when it has been perfected. For everything that has been used for learning will have no function. Nothing will ever change. No shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible will occur. The perception of the real world will be so short that You will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly when You have reached the real world and have been made ready for Him.

The real world is attained simply by the complete forgiveness of the old, the world You see without forgiveness. The Great Transformer of perception will undertake with You the careful searching of the mind that made this world and uncover to You the seeming reasons for Your making it. In the Light of the real reason that He brings as You follow Him He will show You that there is no reason here at all. Each spot His reason touches grows alive with beauty. And what seemed ugly in the darkness of Your lack of reason is suddenly released to loveliness. Not even what the Son of God made in insanity could be without a hidden spark of beauty which gentleness could release.

All this beauty will rise to bless Your sight as You look upon the world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally transforms vision and lets You see the real world reaching quietly and gently across chaos, removing all illusions that had twisted Your perception and fixed it on the past. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder and a blade of grass a sign of God’s Perfection. From the forgiven world the Son of God is lifted easily to his Home. And there he knows that he has always rested there in Peace.

Even Salvation will become a dream and vanish from his mind. For Salvation is the end of dreams and with the closing of the dream will have no meaning. Who awake in Heaven could dream that there could ever be need of Salvation? How much do You want Salvation? It will give You the real world trembling with readiness to be given You. The eagerness of the Holy Spirit to give You this is so intense He would not wait although He waits in patience. Meet His patience with Your impatience at delay in meeting Him. Go out in Gladness to meet with Your Redeemer and walk with Him in trust out of this world and into the real world of beauty and forgiveness.

c. Shadows of the Past

To forgive is merely to remember only the loving thoughts You gave in the past and those that were given You. All the rest must be forgotten. Forgiveness is a selective remembering based not on Your selection. For the shadow figures You would make immortal are “enemies” of Reality. Be willing to forgive the Son of God for what he did not do. The shadow figures are the witnesses You bring with You to demonstrate he did what he did not. Because You brought them You will hear them. And You Who kept them by Your own selection do not understand how they came into Your minds and what their purpose is.

They represent the evil that You think was done to You. You bring them with You only that You may “return” evil for evil hoping that their witness will enable You to think guiltily of another and not harm Yourself. They speak so clearly for the separation that no one not obsessed with keeping separation could hear them otherwise. They offer You the “reasons” why You should enter into unholy alliances which support the ego’s goals and make Your relationships the witness to its power. It is these shadow figures which would make the ego Holy in Your sight and teach You what You do to keep it safe is really Love.

The shadow figures always speak for vengeance and all relationships into which they enter are totally insane. Without exception these relationships have as their purpose the exclusion of the Truth about the other and of Yourself. That is why You see in both what is not there and make of both the slaves of vengeance. And why whatever reminds You of Your past grievances, no matter how distorted the associations by which You arrive at the remembrance may be, attracts You and seems to You to go by the name of Love. And finally why all such relationships become the attempt at union through the body for only bodies can be seen as means for vengeance.

That bodies are central to all unholy relationships is evident. Your own experience has taught You this. But what You do not realize are all the reasons that go to make the relationship unholy. For unholiness seeks to reinforce itself by gathering to itself what it perceives as like itself, as Holiness does. In the unholy relationship it is not the body of the other with which the union is attempted but the bodies of those who are not there. Even the body of the other, already a severely limited perception of him, is not the central focus as it is, or in entirety. What can be used for fantasies of vengeance, and what can be most readily associated with those on whom vengeance is really sought, are centered on and separated off as being the only parts of value.

Every step taken in the making, the maintaining and finally the breaking off of the unholy relationship is a move toward further fragmentation and unreality. The shadow figures enter more and more and the one in whom they seem to be decreases in importance. Time is indeed unkind to the unholy relationship. For time is cruel in the ego’s hands as it is kind when used for gentleness. The attraction of the unholy relationship begins to fade and to be questioned almost at once. Once it is formed doubt must enter in because its purpose is impossible. The only such relationships which retain the fantasies which center on them are the ones which have been dreamed of but have not been made at all. Where no Reality has entered there is nothing to intrude upon the dream of happiness.

But consider what this means: The more of the Reality that enters into the unholy relationship the less satisfying it becomes. And the more the fantasies can encompass the greater the satisfaction seems to be. The “ideal” of the unholy relationship thus becomes one in which the Reality of the other does not enter at all to “spoil” the dream. And the less the other really brings to it the “better” it becomes. Thus the attempt at union becomes a way of excluding even the one with whom the union was sought. For it was formed to get him out of it and join with fantasies in uninterrupted “bliss”.

How can the Holy Spirit bring His interpretation of the body as a means of communicating into relationships whose only purpose is separation from Reality? What forgiveness is enables Him to do so. If all but loving thoughts have been forgotten what remains is eternal and the transformed past is made like the Present. No longer does the past conflict with now. This continuity extends the Present by increasing its Reality and its value in Your perception of it. In these loving thoughts is the spark of beauty hidden in the ugliness of the unholy relationship, in which the hatred is remembered yet there to come alive, as the relationship is given to Him Who gives it Life and beauty.

That is why Atonement centers on the past which is the source of separation and where it must be undone. For separation must be corrected where it was made. The ego seeks to “resolve” its problems not at their source but where they were not made. And thus it seeks to guarantee there will be no solution. The Holy Spirit wills only to make His resolutions complete and perfect. And so He seeks and finds the source of problems where it is and there undoes it. And with each step in His undoing is the separation more and more undone and union brought closer. He is not at all confused by any “reasons” for separation. All He perceives in it is that it must be undone.

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

God’s Son is one. And whom God has joined as one the ego cannot break apart. The spark of Holiness must be safe however hidden it may be in every relationship. For the Creator of the one Relationship has left no part of it without Himself. This is the only part of the Relationship the Holy Spirit sees because He knows that only this is True. You have made the Relationship unreal and therefore unholy by seeing it where it is not and as it is not. Give the past to Him Who can change Your mind about it for You. But first be sure You fully realize what You have made the past to represent and why.

In brief, the past is now Your justification for entering into a continuing unholy alliance with the ego against the Present. For the Present is forgiveness. Therefore the relationships which the unholy alliance dictates are not perceived nor felt as now. Yet the frame of reference to which the Present is referred for meaning is an illusion of the past in which those elements which fit the purpose of the unholy alliance are retained and all the rest let go. And what is thus let go is all the Truth the past could ever offer to the Present as witnesses for its Reality while what is kept but witnesses to the Reality of dreams.

It is still up to You to choose to be willing to join with Truth or illusion. But remember that to choose one is to let the other go. Which one You choose You will endow with beauty and Reality because the choice depends on which You value more. The spark of beauty or the veil of ugliness, the real world or the world of guilt and fear, Truth or illusion, freedom or slavery – it is all the same. For You can never choose except between God and the ego. Thought systems are but True or false and all their attributes come simply from what they are. Only the Thoughts of God are True. And all that follows from Them comes from what They are and is as True as is the Holy Source from Which They come.

My Holy Brothers, I would enter into all Your relationships and step between You and Your fantasies. Let My Relationship to You be real to You and let Me bring Reality to Your perception of Your Brothers. They were not created to enable You to hurt Yourselves through them. They were created to create with You. This is the Truth That I would interpose between You and Your goal of madness. Be not separate from Me and let not the Holy purpose of Atonement be lost to You in dreams of vengeance. Relationships in which such dreams are cherished have excluded Me. Let Me enter in the name of God and bring You Peace that You may offer Peace to Me.

d. Perception and the Two Worlds

God established His Relationship with You to make You happy and nothing You do which does not share His purpose can be real. The purpose God ascribed to anything is its only function. Because of His reason for creating His Relationship with You the function of relationships became forever “to make happy” and nothing else. To fulfill this function You relate to Your Creations as God to His. For nothing God created is apart from happiness and nothing God created but would extend happiness as its Creator did. Whatever fulfills this function not cannot be real.

In this world it is impossible to create. Yet it is possible to make happy. We have said repeatedly that the Holy Spirit would not deprive You of Your special relationships but would transform them. And by that all that is meant is that He will restore to them the function that was given them by God. The function You have given them is clearly not to make happy. But the Holy Relationship shares God’s purpose rather than aiming to make a substitute for it. Every special relationship that You have made is a substitute for God’s Will and glorifies Yours instead of His because of the delusion they are different.

You have very real relationships even in this world which You do not recognize simply because You have raised their substitutes to such predominance that when Truth calls to You, as It does constantly, You answer with a substitute. Every special relationship which You have ever undertaken has as its fundamental purpose the aim of occupying Your minds so completely that You will not hear the call of Truth. In a sense the special relationship was the ego’s answer to the Creation of the Holy Spirit Who was God’s Answer to the separation. For although the ego did not understand what had been created it was aware of threat.

The whole defense system that the ego evolved to protect the separation from the Holy Spirit was in response to the Gift with which God blessed it and by His Blessing enabled it to be healed. This Blessing holds within Itself the Truth about everything. And the Truth is that the Holy Spirit is in close Relationship with You because in Him is Your Relationship with God restored to You. The Relationship with Him has never been broken because the Holy Spirit has not been separate from anyone since the separation. And through Him have all Your Holy Relationships been carefully preserved to serve God’s purpose for You.

The ego is hyperalert to threat and the part of Your mind into which the ego was accepted is very anxious to preserve its reason as it sees it. It does not realize that it is totally insane. And You must realize just what this means if You would be restored to sanity. The insane protect their thought systems but they do it insanely. And all their defenses are as insane as what they are supposed to protect. The separation has nothing in it, no part, no “reason” and no attribute that is not insane. And its “protection” is part of it as insane as the whole.

The special relationship, which is its chief defense, must therefore be insane. You have but little difficulty now in realizing that the thought system it protects is but a system of delusions. You recognize, at least in general terms, that the ego is insane. But the special relationship still seems to You somehow to be different. Yet We have looked at it far closer than at many other aspects of the ego’s thought system which You have been more willing to let go. While this one remains You will not let the others go. For this one is not different. Retain this one and You have retained the whole.

It is essential to realize that all defenses do what they would defend. The underlying basis for their effectiveness is that they offer what they defend. What they defend is placed in them for safekeeping and as they operate they bring it to You. Every defense operates by giving gifts and the gift is always a miniature of the thought system the defense protects set in a golden frame. The frame is very elaborate, all set with jewels and deeply carved and polished. Its purpose is to be of value in itself and to divert Your attention from what it encloses. But the frame without the picture You cannot have. Defenses operate to make You think You can.

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

Look at the picture. Do not let the frame distract You. This gift is given You for Your damnation and if You take it You will believe that You are damned. You cannot have the frame without the picture. What You value is the frame for there You see no conflict. But the frame is only the wrapping for the gift of conflict. The frame is not the gift. Be not deceived by the most superficial aspects of this thought system for these aspects enclose the whole complete with every aspect. Death lies in this glittering gift. Let not Your gaze dwell on the hypnotic gleaming of the frame. Look at the picture and realize that death is offered You.

That is why the Holy Instant is so important in the defense of Truth. The Truth Itself needs no defense but You do need defense against Your own acceptance of the gift of death. When You Who are Truth accept an idea so dangerous to Truth You threaten Truth with destruction. And Your defense must now be undertaken to keep Truth whole. The Power of Heaven, the Love of God, the tears of Christ and the Joy of His eternal Spirit are marshalled to defend You from Your own attack. For You attack them being part of them and they must save You for they love themselves.

The Holy Instant is a miniature of Heaven sent You from Heaven. It is a picture, too, set in a frame. But if You accept this Gift You will not see the frame at all because the Gift can only be accepted through Your willingness to focus all Your attention on the picture. The Holy Instant is a miniature of Eternity. It is a picture of Timelessness set in a frame of time. If You focus on the picture You will realize that it was only the frame that made You think it was a picture. Without the frame the picture is seen as what it represents. For as the whole thought system of the ego lies in its gifts so the whole of Heaven lies in this Instant, borrowed from Eternity and set in time for You.

Two gifts are offered You. Each is complete and cannot be partially accepted. Each is a picture of all that You can have seen very differently. You cannot compare their value by comparing a picture to a frame. It must be the pictures only that You compare or the comparison is wholly without meaning. Remember that it is the picture that is the gift. And only on this basis are You really free to choose. Look at the pictures. Both of them. One is a tiny picture, hard to see at all beneath the heavy shadows of its enormous and disproportionate enclosure. The other is lightly framed and hung in Light, lovely to look upon for what it is.

You Who have tried so hard, and are still trying, to fit the better picture into the wrong frame and so combine what cannot be combined accept this and be glad: These pictures are each framed perfectly for what they represent. One is framed to be out of focus and not seen. The other is framed for perfect clarity. The picture of darkness and of death grows less convincing as You search it out amid its wrappings. As each senseless stone that seems to shine in darkness from the frame is exposed to Light it becomes dull and lifeless and ceases to distract You from the picture. And finally You look upon the picture itself seeing at last that, unprotected by its frame, it has no meaning.

The other picture is lightly framed for time cannot contain Eternity. There is no distraction Here. The picture of Heaven and Eternity grows more convincing as You look at it. And now by real comparison a transformation of both pictures can at last occur. And each is given its rightful place when both are seen in relation to each other. The dark picture brought to Light is not perceived as fearful. But the fact that it is just a picture is brought home at last. And what You see there You will recognize as what it is: A picture of what You thought was real and nothing more. For behind this picture You will see nothing.

The picture of Light, in clearcut and unmistakable contrast, is transformed into what lies beyond the picture. As You look on this You realize that it is not a picture but a Reality. This is no figured representation of a thought system but the thought itself. What it represents is there. The frame fades gently and God rises to Your remembrance offering You the whole of Creation in exchange for Your little picture, wholly without value and entirely deprived of meaning. As God ascends into His rightful Place and You to Yours You will experience again the meaning of Relationship and know it to be True.

Let Us ascend in Peace together to the Father by giving Him ascendance in Our minds. We will gain everything by giving Him the Power and the glory and keeping no illusions of where they are. They are in Us through His ascendance. What He has given is His. It shines in every part of Him as in the whole. The whole Reality of Your Relationship with Him lies in Our Relationship to One Another. The Holy Instant shines alike on all relationships for in it they are one. For Here is only healing already complete and perfect. For Here is God and Where He is only the Perfect and Complete can be.

e. The Healed Relationship

The Holy Relationship is the expression of the Holy Instant in living in this world. Like everything about Salvation the Holy Instant is a practical device witnessed by its results. The Holy Instant never fails. The experience of it is always felt. But without expression it is not remembered. The Holy Relationship is a constant reminder of the experience in which the relationship became what it is. And as the unholy relationship is a continuing hymn of hate in praise of its maker so is the Holy Relationship a happy Song of Praise to the Redeemer of relationships. The Holy Relationship, a major step toward the perception of the real world, is learned. It is the old, unholy relationship transformed and seen anew.

The Holy Relationship is a phenomenal teaching accomplishment. In all its aspects, as it begins, develops and becomes accomplished, it represents the reversal of the unholy relationship. Be comforted in this: The only difficult phase is the beginning. For here the goal of the relationship is abruptly shifted to the exact opposite of what it was. This is the first result of offering the relationship to the Holy Spirit to use for His purposes. This invitation is accepted immediately and the Holy Spirit wastes no time in introducing the practical results of asking Him to enter. At once His goal replaces Yours.

This is accomplished very rapidly. But it makes the relationship seem disturbed, disjunctive and even quite distressing. The reason is quite clear. For the relationship as it is is out of line with its own goal and clearly unsuited to the purpose which has been accepted for it. In its unholy condition Your goal was all that seemed to give it meaning. Now it seems to make no sense. Many relationships have been broken off at this point and the pursuit of the old goal reestablished in another relationship. For once the unholy relationship has accepted the goal of Holiness it can never again be what it was.

The temptation of the ego becomes extremely intense with this shift in goals. For the relationship has not as yet been changed sufficiently to make its former goal completely without attraction and its structure is “threatened” by the recognition of its inappropriateness for meeting its new purpose. The conflict between the goal and the structure of the relationship is so apparent that they cannot coexist. Yet now the goal will not be changed. Set firmly in the unholy relationship there is no course except to change the relationship to fit the goal. Until this happy solution is seen and accepted as the only way out of this conflict the relationship seems to be severely strained.

It would not be kinder to shift the goal more slowly. For the contrast would be obscured and the ego given time to reinterpret each slow step according to its liking. Only a radical shift in purpose could induce a complete change of mind about what the whole relationship is for. As this change develops and is finally accomplished it grows increasingly beneficent and joyous. But at the beginning the situation is experienced as very precarious. A relationship undertaken by two individuals for Their unholy purposes suddenly has Holiness for its goal.

As these two contemplate their relationship from the point of view of this new purpose they are inevitably appalled. Their perception of the relationship may even become quite disorganized. And yet the former organization of their perception no longer serves the purpose they have agreed to set. This is the time for faith. You let this goal be set for You. That was an act of faith. Do not abandon faith now that the rewards of faith are being introduced. If You believed the Holy Spirit was there to accept the relationship why would You now not still believe that He is there to purify what He has taken under His Guidance?

Have faith in each other in what but seems to be a trying time. The goal is set. And Your Relationship has sanity as its purpose. Now You find Yourselves in an insane relationship recognized as such in the Light of its goal. Now the ego counsels thus: Substitute for this another relationship to which Your former goal was quite appropriate. You can escape from Your distress only by getting rid of each other. You need not part entirely if You choose not to do so. But You must exclude major areas of fantasy from each other to save Your sanity.

Hear not this now! Have faith in Him Who answered You. He heard. Has He not been very explicit in His Answer? You are not now wholly insane. Can You deny that He has given a most explicit statement? Now He asks for faith a little longer even in bewilderment. For this will go and You will see the justification for Your faith emerge to bring You shining conviction. Abandon Him not now nor each other. This Relationship has been reborn as Holy. Accept with Gladness what You do not understand and let it be explained to You as You perceive its purpose work in it to make it Holy.

You will find many opportunities to blame each other for the “failure” of Your relationship. For it will seem at times to have no purpose. A sense of aimlessness will come to haunt You and to remind You of all the ways You once sought for satisfaction and thought You found it. Forget not now the misery You really found. And do not now breathe Life into Your failing egos. For Your Relationship has not been disrupted. It has been saved. You are very new in the ways of Salvation and think You have lost Your way. Your way is lost but think not this is loss.

In Your newness remember that You have started again together. And take each other’s hand to walk together along a road far more familiar than You now believe. Is it not certain that You will remember a goal unchanged throughout Eternity? For You have chosen but the goal of God from which Your True intent was never absent. Throughout the Sonship is the Song of Freedom heard in joyous echo of Your choice. You have joined with many in the Holy Instant and they have joined with You. Think not Your choice will leave You comfortless. For God Himself has blessed Your special relationship. Join in His Blessing and withhold not Yours upon it. For all it needs now is Your Blessing that You may see that in it rests Salvation.

Condemn Salvation not for it has come to You. And welcome it together for it has come to join You together in a relationship in which all the Sonship is together blessed. You undertook together to invite the Holy Spirit into Your relationship. He could not have entered otherwise. And though You have made many mistakes since then You have also made enormous efforts to help Him do His work. And He has not been lacking in appreciation for all You have done for Him nor does He see the mistakes at all.

Have You been similarly grateful to each other? Have You consistently appreciated the good efforts and overlooked mistakes? Or has Your appreciation flickered and grown dim in what seemed to be the light of the mistakes? You are now entering upon a campaign to blame each other for the discomfort of the situation in which You find Yourselves. And by this lack of thanks and gratitude You make Yourselves unable to express the Holy Instant and thus You lose sight of it. The experience of an instant, however compelling it may be, is easily forgotten if You allow time to close over it. It must be kept shining and gracious in Your awareness of time but not concealed within it. The instant remains. But where are You?

To give thanks to each other is to appreciate the Holy Instant and thus enable its results to be accepted and shared. To attack each other is not to lose the instant but to make it powerless in its effects. You have received the Holy Instant but You have established a condition in which You cannot use it. As a result You do not realize that it is with You still. And by cutting Yourself off from its expression You have denied Yourself its benefit. You reinforce this every time You attack each other for the attack must blind You to Yourself. And it is impossible to deny Yourself and recognize what has been given and received by You.

You stand together in the Holy Presence of Truth Itself. Here is the goal together with You. Think You not the goal itself will gladly arrange the means for its accomplishment? It is just this same discrepancy between the purpose which has been accepted and the means as they stand now that seems to make You suffer but which makes Heaven glad. If Heaven were outside You You could not share in its Gladness. But because it is within the Gladness too is Yours. You are joined in purpose but remain still separate and divided on the means. Yet the goal is fixed, firm and unalterable. And the means will surely fall in place because the goal is sure. And You will share the Gladness of the Sonship that it is so.

As You begin to recognize and accept the gifts You have so freely given to each other You will also accept the effects of the Holy Instant and use them to correct all Your mistakes and free You from their results. And learning this You will have also learned how to release all the Sonship and offer It in Gladness and thanksgiving to Him Who gave You Your release and Who would extend it through You.

f. Practical Forgiveness

The practical application of the Holy Spirit’s purpose is extremely simple but it is unequivocal. In fact in order to be simple it must be unequivocal. The simple is merely what is easily understood and for this it is apparent that it must be clear. The setting of the Holy Spirit’s goal is general. Now He will work with You to make it specific for application is specific. There are certain very specific guidelines He provides for any situation but remember that You do not yet realize their universal application. Therefore it is essential at this point to use them in each situation separately until You can more safely look beyond each situation in an understanding far broader than You now possess.

In any situation in which You are uncertain the first thing to consider very simply is:

What do I want to come of this?
What is it for?

The clarification of the goal belongs at the beginning for it is this that will determine the outcome. In the ego’s procedure this is reversed. The situation becomes the determiner of the outcome which can be anything. The reason for this disorganized approach is evident. The ego does not know what it wants to come of it. It is aware of what it does not want but only that. It has no positive goal at all.

Without a clearcut, positive goal set at the outset the situation just seems to happen and makes no sense until it has already happened. Then You look back at it and try to piece together what it must have meant. And You will be wrong. Not only is Your judgment in the past but You have no idea what should have happened. No goal was set with which to bring the means in line. And now the only judgment left to make is whether or not the ego likes it. Is it acceptable or does it call for vengeance? The absence of a criterion for outcome set in advance makes understanding doubtful and evaluation impossible.

The value of deciding in advance what You want to happen is simply that You will perceive the situation as a means to make it happen. You will therefore make every effort to overlook what interferes with the accomplishment of Your objective and concentrate on everything that helps You meet it. It is quite noticeable that this approach has brought You closer to the Holy Spirit’s sorting out of Truth and falsity. The “True” becomes what can be used to meet the goal. The “false” becomes the useless from this point of view. The situation now has meaning but only because the goal has made it meaningful.

The goal of Truth has further practical advantages. If the situation is used for Truth and sanity its outcome must be Peace. And this is quite apart from what the outcome is. For if Peace is the condition of Truth and sanity, and cannot be without them, where Peace is they must be. Truth comes of Itself. If You experience Peace it is because the Truth has come to You. And You will see the outcome Truly for deception can not prevail against You. And You will recognize the outcome because You are at Peace. Here again You see the opposite of the ego’s way of looking. For the ego believes the situation brings the experience. The Holy Spirit knows the situation is as the goal determines it and is experienced according to the goal.

The goal of Truth requires faith. Faith is implicit in the acceptance of the Holy Spirit’s purpose. And this faith is allinclusive. Where the goal of Truth is set there faith must be. The Holy Spirit sees the situation as a whole. The goal establishes the fact that everyone involved in it will play his part in its accomplishment. This is inevitable. No one will fail in anything. This seems to ask for faith beyond You and beyond what You can give. But this is so only from the viewpoint of the ego for the ego believes in “solving” conflicts through fragmentation and does not perceive the situation as a whole. Therefore it seeks to split off segments of the situation and deal with them separately. For it has faith in separation and not in wholeness.

Confronted with any aspect of the situation which seems to be difficult the ego will attempt to take this aspect elsewhere and resolve it there. And it will seem to be successful. Except that this attempt conflicts with Unity and must obscure the goal of Truth. And Peace will not be experienced except in fantasy. Truth has not come because faith has been denied being withheld from where it rightfully belonged. Thus do You lose the understanding of the situation the goal of Truth would bring. For fantasy solutions bring but the illusion of experience and the illusion of Peace is not the condition in which the Truth can enter.

The substitutes for aspects of the situation are the witnesses to Your lack of faith. They demonstrate that You did not believe that the Solution and the problem were in the same place. The problem was this lack of faith. And it is this You demonstrate when You remove it from its source and place it elsewhere. As a result You do not see the problem. Had You not lacked the faith it could be solved the problem would be gone. And the situation would have been meaningful to You because the interference in the way of understanding would have been removed. To remove the problem elsewhere is to keep it. For You remove Yourself from it and make it unsolvable.

g. The Need for Faith

There is no problem in any situation that faith will not solve. There is no shift in any aspect of the problem but will make solution impossible. For if You shift part of a problem elsewhere the meaning of the problem must be lost and the Solution to the problem is inherent in its meaning. Is it not possible that all Your problems have been solved but You have removed Yourself from the Solution? Yet faith must be where something has been done and where You see it done. A situation is a relationship being the joining of thoughts. If problems are perceived it is because the thoughts are judged to be in conflict. But if the goal is Truth this is impossible. Some idea of bodies must have entered for minds can not attack.

The thought of bodies is the sign of faithlessness for bodies cannot solve anything. And it is their intrusion on the relationship, an error in Your thoughts about the situation, that then became the justification for Your lack of faith. You will make this error but be not at all concerned with that. The error does not matter. But do not use the error to what seems to be to Your advantage for that does matter. Faithlessness brought to faith will never interfere with Truth. But faithlessness used against Truth will always destroy faith. If You lack faith ask that it be restored where it was lost and seek not to have it made up to You elsewhere as if You had been unjustly deprived of it.

Only what You have not given can be lacking in any situation. But remember this: The goal of Holiness was set for Your relationship and not by You. You did not set it because Holiness can not be seen except through faith and Your relationship was not Holy because Your faith in one another was so limited and little. Your faith must grow to meet the goal that has been set. The goal’s Reality will call this forth. For You will see that Peace and faith will not come separately. What situation can You be in without faith and remain faithful to each other? Every situation in which You find Yourselves is but a means to meet the purpose set for Your relationship. See it as something else and You are faithless.

Use not Your faithlessness. Let it enter and look upon it calmly but do not use it. Faithlessness is the servant of illusion and wholly faithful to its master. Use it and it will carry You straight to illusions. Be tempted not by what it offers You. It interferes not with the goal but with the value of the goal to You. Accept not the illusion of Peace it offers but look upon its offering and recognize it is illusion. The goal of illusion is as closely tied to faithlessness as faith to Truth. If You lack faith in anyone to fulfill, and perfectly, his part in any situation dedicated in advance to Truth Your dedication is divided. And so You have been faithless to each other and used Your faithlessness against each other.

No relationship is Holy unless its Holiness goes with it everywhere. As Holiness and faith go hand in hand so must Its faith go everywhere with It. The goal’s Reality will call forth and accomplish every Miracle needed for its fulfillment. Nothing too small or too enormous, nothing too insignificant or too imposing, too weak or too compelling but will be gently turned to its use and purpose. The Universe will serve It gladly as It serves the Universe. But do not interfere. The Power set in You in Whom the Holy Spirit’s goal has been established is so far beyond Your little conception of the Infinite that You have no idea how great the Strength that goes with You. And You can use this in perfect safety.

Yet for all its Might, so great it reaches past the stars and to the Universe that lies beyond them, Your little faithlessness can make it useless if You would use the faithlessness instead. But think on this and learn the cause of faithlessness: You think You hold against the other what he has done to You. But what You really blame him for is what You did to him. It is not his past but Yours You hold against him. And You lack faith in him because of what You were. Yet You are as innocent of what You were as he is. What never was is causeless and is not there to interfere with Truth. There is no cause for faithlessness but there is a cause for faith. That cause has entered any situation that shares its purpose.

The Light of Truth shines from the Center of the situation and touches everyone to whom the situation’s purpose calls. It calls to everyone. There is no situation that does not involve Your whole Relationship in every aspect and complete in every part. You can leave nothing of Yourself outside it and keep the situation Holy. For it shares the purpose of Your whole Relationship and derives its meaning from it. Enter each situation with the faith that You would give each other or You are faithless to Your own Relationship. Your faith will call the others to share Your purpose as this same purpose called forth the faith in You. And You will see the means You once employed to lead You to illusions transformed to means for Truth.

Truth calls for faith and faith makes room for Truth. When the Holy Spirit changed the purpose of Your relationship by exchanging Yours for His the goal He placed there was extended to every situation in which You entered or will ever enter. And every situation was thus made free of the past which would have made it purposeless. You call for faith because of Him Who walks with You in every situation. You are no longer wholly insane nor no longer alone. For loneliness in God must be a dream. You Whose relationship shares the Holy Spirit’s goal are set apart from loneliness because the Truth has come. Its Call for faith is strong. Use not Your faithlessness against It for It calls You to Salvation and to Peace.

h. The Conditions of Forgiveness

The Holy Instant is nothing more than a special case, or an extreme example, of what every situation is meant to be. The meaning that the Holy Spirit’s purpose has given it is also given to every situation. It calls forth just the same suspension of faithlessness, withheld and left unused, that faith might answer to the Call of Truth. The Holy Instant is the shining example, the clear and unequivocal demonstration of the meaning of every relationship and every situation seen as a whole. Faith has accepted every aspect of the situation and faithlessness has not forced any exclusion on it. It is a situation of perfect Peace simply because You have let it be what it is. This simple courtesy is all the Holy Spirit asks of You.

Let Truth be what It is. Do not intrude upon It, do not attack It, do not interrupt Its coming. Let It encompass every situation and bring You Peace. Not even faith is asked of You for Truth asks nothing. Let It enter and It will call forth and secure for You the faith You need for Peace. But rise You not against It for against Your opposition It cannot come. Would You not want to make a Holy Instant of every situation? For such is the gift of faith freely given wherever faithlessness is laid aside, unused.

And then the Power of the Holy Spirit’s purpose is free for use instead. This Power instantly transforms all situations into one sure and continuous means for establishing His purpose and demonstrating its Reality. What has been demonstrated has called for faith and has been given it. Now it becomes a fact from which faith can no longer be withheld. The strain of refusing faith to Truth is enormous and far greater than You realize. But to answer Truth with faith entails no strain at all.

To You Who have acknowledged the Call of Your Redeemer the strain of not responding to His Call seems to be greater than before. This is not so. Before the strain was there but You attributed it to something else believing that the “something else” produced it. This was never True. But what the “something else” produced was sorrow and depression, sickness and pain, darkness and dim imaginings of terror, cold fantasies of fear and fiery dreams of hell. And it was nothing but the intolerable strain of Your refusal to give faith to Truth and see Its evident Reality.

Such was the crucifixion of the Son of God. His faithlessness did this to him. Think carefully before You let Yourself use faithlessness against him. For he is risen and You have accepted the Cause of his awakening as Yours. You have assumed Your part in his Redemption and You are now fully responsible to him. Fail him not now for it has been given You to realize what Your lack of faith in him must mean to You. His Salvation is Your only purpose. See only this in every situation and it will be a means for bringing only this.

When You accepted Truth as the goal for Your Relationship You became Givers of Peace as surely as Your Father gave Peace to You. For the goal of Peace cannot be accepted apart from its conditions. And You had faith in it for no one accepts what he does not believe is real. Your purpose has not changed and will not change for You accepted what can never change. And nothing that it needs to be forever changeless can You now withhold from It. Your release is certain. Give as You have received. And demonstrate that You have risen far beyond any situation that could hold You back and keep You separate from Him Whose Call You answered.

Chapter 18 – The Dream and the Reality

a. Substitution as a Defense

You Who believe that God is fear made but one substitution. It has taken many forms because it was the substitution of fragmentation for wholeness. It has become so splintered and subdivided and divided again, over and over, that it is now almost impossible to perceive it once was One and still is what it was. That one error which brought Truth to illusion, Infinity to time and Life to death was all You ever made. Your whole world rests upon it. Everything You see reflects it. And every special relationship You ever made is part of it.

You have expressed surprise at hearing how very different is Reality from what You see. You do not realize the Magnitude of that one error. It was so vast and so completely incredible that from it a world of total unreality had to emerge. What else could come of it? Its fragmented aspects are fearful enough as You begin to look at them. But nothing You have ever seen begins to show You the Enormity of the original error which seemed to cast You out of Heaven to shatter knowledge into meaningless bits of disunited perceptions and to force You to further substitutions.

That was the first projection of error outward. The world arose to hide it and became the screen on which it was projected and drawn between You and Truth. For Truth extends inward where the idea of loss is meaningless and only increase is conceivable. Do You really think it strange that a world in which everything is backward and upsidedown arose from this? It was inevitable. For Truth brought to this could only remain within in quiet and take no part in all the mad projection by which this world was made.

Call it not sin but madness for such it was and so it still remains. Invest it not with guilt for guilt implies it was accomplished in Reality. And above all be not afraid of it. When You seem to see some twisted form of the original error rise to frighten You say only: God is not fear but Love. and it will disappear. The Truth will save You. It has not left You to go out into the mad world and so depart from You. Inward is sanity, insanity is outside You. You but believe it is the other way, that Truth is outside and error and guilt within.

Your little, senseless substitutions, touched with insanity and swirling lightly off on a mad course like a feather dancing insanely in the wind, have no substance. They fuse and merge and separate in shifting and totally meaningless patterns which need not be judged at all. To judge them individually is pointless. Their tiny differences in form are not real differences at all. None of them matters. That they have in common and nothing else, but what else is necessary to make them all the same? Let them go, dancing in the wind, dipping and turning ’til they disappear from sight far, far outside You. And turn You to the stately calm within where in Holy Stillness dwells the living God You never left and Who never left You.

The Holy Spirit takes You gently by the hand and retraces with You Your mad journey outside Yourself leading You gently back to the Truth and safety within. He brings all Your insane projections and Your wild substitutions which You have placed outside You to the Truth. Thus He reverses the course of insanity and restores You to reason. In Your relationship where He has taken charge of everything at Your request He has set the course inward to the Truth You share. In the mad world outside You nothing can be shared but only substituted and sharing and substituting have nothing in common in Reality.

Within Yourselves You love each other with perfect Love. Here is Holy Ground in which no substitutes can enter and where only the Truth about each other can abide. Here You are joined in God, as much together as You are with Him. The original error has not entered Here nor ever will. Here is the radiant Truth to Which the Holy Spirit submitted Your relationship. Let Him bring it Here Where You would have it be. Give Him but a little faith in each other to help Him show You that no substitute You made for Heaven can keep You from it.

In You there is no separation and no substitute can keep You from each other. Your Reality was God’s Creation and has no substitute. You are so firmly joined in Truth that only God is there. And He could never accept something else instead of You. He loves You both equally and as one. And as He loves You so You are. You are not joined together by illusions but in the Thought so Holy and so perfect that illusions cannot remain to darken the Holy Place in which You stand together. God is with You, My Brothers. Let Us join in Him in Peace and gratitude and accept His Gift of Our most Holy and perfect Reality that We share in Him.

Heaven is restored to all the Sonship through Your relationship. For in it lies the Sonship, whole and beautiful, safe in Your Love. Heaven has answered quietly for all illusions have been gently brought unto the Truth in You and Love has shined upon You blessing Your relationship with Truth. God and His whole Creation has entered it together. How lovely and how Holy is Your relationship with the Truth shining upon it! Heaven beholds it and rejoices that You have let it come to You. And God Himself is glad that Your Relationship is as it was created. The Universe within You stands with You together. And Heaven looks with Love on what is joined in it along with its Creator.

Whom God hath called should hear no substitutes. Their call is but an echo of the original error which shattered Heaven. For what became of Peace in those who heard? Return with Me to Heaven walking together out of this world and through another to the loveliness and Joy the other holds within it. Would You still further weaken and break apart what is already broken and hopeless? Is it here that You would look for happiness? Or would You not prefer to heal what has been broken and join in making whole what has been ravaged by separation and disease?

You have been called together to the most Holy function that this world contains. It is the only one that has no limits and that reaches out to every broken fragment of the Sonship with healing and uniting comfort. This is offered You in Your Holy Relationship. Accept it Here and You will give as You have accepted and received. The Peace of God is given You with the glowing purpose in which You join. The Holy Light That brought You together must extend as You accept It.

b. 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.

You do not find the differences between what You see in sleep and on awaking disturbing. You recognize that what You see on waking is blotted out in dreams, yet on awakening You do not expect it to be gone. In dreams You arrange everything. People become what You would have them be and what they do You order. No limits on substitution are laid upon You. For a time it seems as if the world were given You to make it what You will. You do not realize that You are attacking it, trying to triumph over it and make it serve You.

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. In dreams these features are not obscure.

You seem to waken and the dream is gone. But what You fail to recognize is that what caused the dream has not gone with it. Your wish to make another world that is not real remains with You. And what You seem to wake to is but another form of this same world You see in dreams. All Your time is spent in dreaming. Your sleeping and Your waking dreams have different forms and that is all. Their content is the same. They are Your protest against Reality and Your fixed and insane wish to change it.

In Your waking dreams the special relationship has a special place. It is the means by which You try to make Your sleeping dreams come True. From this You do not waken. And it is this that keeps You asleep. The special relationship is Your determination to keep Your hold on unreality and to prevent Yourself from waking. And while You see more value in sleeping than in waking You will not let go of it. The Holy Spirit, ever practical in His Wisdom, accepts Your dreams and uses them as means for waking. You would have used them to remain asleep.

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.

Your special relationship will be a means for undoing guilt in everyone blessed through Your Holy Relationship. It will be a happy dream, and one which You will share with all who come within Your sight. Through it the Blessing that the Holy Spirit has laid upon it will be extended. Think not that He has forgotten anyone in the purpose He has given You. And think not that He has forgotten You to Whom He gave this Gift. He uses everyone who calls on Him as means for the Salvation of everyone. And He will waken everyone through You Who offered Your relationship to Him.

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.

c. Light in the Dream

You Who have spent Your lives in bringing Truth to illusion, Reality to fantasy, have walked the way of dreams. For You have gone from waking to sleeping and on and on to a yet deeper sleep. Each dream has led to other dreams and every fantasy that seemed to bring a Light into the darkness but made the darkness deeper. Your goal was darkness in which no Ray of Light could enter. And You sought a blackness so complete that You could hide from Truth forever in complete insanity. What You forgot was simply that God can not destroy Himself. The Light is in You. Darkness can cover It but cannot put It out.

As the Light comes nearer You will rush to darkness shrinking from the Truth, sometimes retreating to the lesser forms of fear and sometimes to stark terror. But You will advance because Your goal is the advance from fear to Truth. You know this. The goal which You accepted is the goal of knowledge for which You signified Your willingness. Fear seems to live in darkness. When You are afraid You have stepped back. Let Us then join quickly in an Instant of Light and it will be enough to remind You that Your goal is Light. Truth has rushed to meet You since You called upon It.

If You knew Who walks beside You on this way which You have chosen fear would be impossible. You do not know because the journey into darkness has been long and cruel and You have gone deep into it. A little flicker of Your eyelids, closed so long, has not yet been sufficient to give You confidence in Yourselves, so long despised. You go toward Love still hating It and terribly afraid of Its Judgment upon You. And You do not realize that You are not afraid of Love but only of what You made of It.

You are advancing to Love’s meaning and away from all illusions in which You have surrounded It. When You retreat to the illusions Your fear increases for there is little doubt that what You think It means is fearful. But what is that to Us Who travel surely and very swiftly away from fear? You Who hold each other’s hand also hold Mine for when You joined each other You were not alone. Do You believe that I would leave You in the darkness You agreed to leave with Me? In Your relationship is this world’s Light. And fear must disappear before You now.

Be tempted not to snatch away the gift of faith You offered to each other. You will succeed only in frightening Yourselves. The gift is given forever for God Himself received it. You cannot take it back. You have accepted God. The Holiness of Your relationship is established in Heaven. You do not realize what You accepted but remember that Your understanding is not necessary. All that was necessary was merely the wish to understand. That wish was the desire to be Holy. The Will of God is granted You. For You desire the only thing You ever had or ever were.

Each instant that We spend together will teach You that this goal is possible and will strengthen Your desire to reach it. And in Your desire lies its accomplishment. Your desire is now in complete accord with all the Power of the Holy Spirit’s Will. No little, faltering footsteps that You may take can separate Your desire from His Will and from His Strength. I hold Your hand as surely as You agreed to take each other’s. You will not separate for I stand with You and walk with You in Your advance to Truth. And where We go We carry God with Us.

In Our relationship You have joined with Me in bringing Heaven to the Son of God who hid in darkness. You have been willing to bring the darkness to Light and this willingness has given Strength to everyone who would remain in darkness. Those who would see will see. And they will join with Me in carrying their Light into the darkness when the darkness in them is offered to the Light and is removed forever. My need for You, joined with Me in the Holy Light of Your relationship, is Your need for Salvation. Would I not give You what You gave to Me? For when You joined each other You answered Me.

You Who are now the Bringers of Salvation have the function of bringing Light to darkness. The darkness in You has been brought to Light. Carry It back to darkness from the Holy Instant to which You brought it. We are made whole in Our desire to make whole. Let not time worry You for all the fear that You experience is really past. Time has been readjusted to help Us do together what Your separate pasts would hinder. You have gone past fear for no two minds can join in the desire for Love without Love’s joining them.

Not one Light in Heaven but goes with You. Not one Ray that shines forever in the Mind of God but shines on You. Heaven is joined with You in Your advance to Heaven. When such Great Light has joined with You to give the little spark of Your desire the Power of God Himself can You remain in darkness? You are coming Home together after a long and meaningless journey which You undertook apart and which led nowhere. You have found each other and will light each other’s way. And from this Light will the Great Rays extend back into darkness and forward unto God to shine away the past and so make room for His eternal Presence in which everything is radiant in the Light.

d. The Little Willingness

The Holy Instant is the result of Your determination to be Holy. It is the Answer. The desire and the willingness to let it come precede its coming. You prepare Your minds for it only to the extent of recognizing that You want it above all else. It is not necessary that You do more. Indeed it is necessary that You realize that You can not do more. Do not attempt to give the Holy Spirit what He does not ask or You will add the ego unto Him and confuse the two. He asks but little. It is He Who adds the Greatness and the Might. He joins with You to make the Holy Instant far greater than You can understand.

It is Your realization that You need do so little that enables Him to give so much. Trust not Your good intentions. They are not enough. But trust implicitly Your willingness whatever else may enter. Concentrate only on this and be not disturbed that shadows surround it. That is why You came. If You could come without them You would not need the Holy Instant. Come to it not in arrogance assuming that You must achieve the state its coming brings with it. The Miracle of the Holy Instant lies in Your willingness to let it be what it is. And in Your willingness for this lies also Your acceptance of Yourself as You were meant to be.

Humility will never ask that You remain content with littleness. But it does require that You be not content with less than Greatness which comes not of You. Your difficulty with the Holy Instant arises from Your fixed conviction that You are not worthy of it. And what is this but the determination to be as You would make Yourself? God did not create His Dwellingplace unworthy of Him. And if You believe He cannot enter where He wills to be You must be interfering with His Will. You do not need the Strength of willingness to come from You but only from His Will.

The Holy Instant does not come from Your little willingness alone. It is always the result of Your small willingness combined with the unlimited Power of His Will. You have been wrong in thinking that it is needful to prepare Yourself for Him. It is impossible to make arrogant preparations for Holiness and not believe that it is up to You to establish the conditions for Peace. God has established them. They do not wait upon Your willingness for what they are. Your willingness is needed only to make it possible to teach You what they are.

If You maintain You are unworthy of learning this You are interfering with the lesson by believing that You must make the Learner different. You did not make the Learner nor can You make him different. Would You first make a Miracle Yourself and then expect One to be made for You? You merely ask the question. The Answer is given. Seek not to answer it but merely receive the Answer as It is given. In preparing for the Holy Instant do not attempt to make Yourself Holy to be ready to receive it. That is but to confuse Your role with God’s. Atonement cannot come to those who think that they must first atone but only to those who offer It nothing more than simple willingness to make way for It.

Purification is of God alone and therefore for You. Rather than seek to prepare Yourself for Him try to think thus:

I Who am Host to God am worthy of Him.

He Who established His Dwellingplace in Me created it as He would have it be.

It is not needful that I make it ready for Him but only that I do not interfere with His plan to restore to Me My own awareness of My readiness which is eternal.

I need add nothing to His plan, but to receive it I must be willing not to substitute My own in place of it.

And that is all. Add more and You will merely take away the little that is asked. Remember You made guilt and that Your plan for the escape from guilt has been to bring Atonement to it and make Salvation fearful. And it is only fear that You will add if You prepare Yourself for Love. The preparation for the Holy Instant belongs to Him Who gives it. Release Yourselves to Him Whose function is release. Do not assume His function for Him. Give Him but what He asks that You may learn how little is Your part and how great is His. It is this that makes the Holy Instant so easy and so natural.

You make it difficult because You insist there must be more that You need do. You find it difficult to accept the idea that You need give so little to receive so much. And it is very hard for You to realize that it is not personally insulting that Your contribution and the Holy Spirit’s are so extremely disproportionate. You are still convinced Your understanding is a powerful contribution to the Truth and makes It what It is. Yet We have emphasized that You need understand nothing. Salvation is easy just because it asks nothing that You cannot give right now.

Forget not that it has been Your decision to make everything that is natural and easy for You impossible. What You believe to be impossible will be if God so wills it but You will remain quite unaware of it. If You believe the Holy Instant is difficult for You it is because You have become the arbiter of what is possible and remain unwilling to give place to One Who knows. The whole belief in orders of difficulty in Miracles is centered on this. Everything God wills is not only possible but has already happened. And that is why the past has gone. It never happened in Reality. Only in Your own minds which thought it did is its undoing needful.

e. The Happy Dream

Prepare You not for the undoing of what never was. If You already understood the difference between Truth and illusion Atonement would have no meaning. The Holy Instant, Your Holy Relationship, the Holy Spirit’s Teaching and all the means by which Salvation is accomplished would have no purpose. For they are all but aspects of the plan to change Your dreams of fear to happy dreams from which You waken easily to knowledge. Put Yourself not in charge of this for You can not distinguish between advance and retreat. Some of Your greatest advances You have judged as failures and some of Your deepest retreats You have evaluated as success.

Never approach the Holy Instant after You have tried to remove all fear and hatred from Your mind. That is its function. Never attempt to overlook Your guilt before You ask the Holy Spirit’s Help. That is His function. Your part is only to offer Him a little willingness to let Him remove all fear and hatred and to be forgiven. On Your little faith joined with His understanding He will build Your part in the Atonement and make sure that You fulfill it easily. And with Him You will build a ladder planted in the solid rock of faith and rising even to Heaven. Nor will You use it to ascend to Heaven alone.

Through Your Holy Relationship, reborn and blessed in every Holy Instant which You did not arrange, thousands will rise to Heaven with You. Can You plan for this? Or could You prepare Yourselves for such a function? Yet it is possible because God wills it. Nor will He change His Mind about it. The means and purpose both belong to Him. You have accepted one, the other will be provided. A purpose such as this without the means is inconceivable. He will provide the means to anyone who shares His purpose.

Happy dreams come True, not because they are dreams but only because they are happy. And so they must be loving. Their message is: Thy will be done and not: “I want it otherwise”. The alignment of means and purpose is an undertaking impossible for You to understand. You do not even realize You have accepted the Holy Spirit’s purpose as Your own and You would merely bring unholy means to its accomplishment. The little faith it needed to change the purpose is all that is required to receive the means and use them.

It is no dream to love Your Brother as Yourself. Nor is Your Holy Relationship a dream. All that remains of dreams within it is that it is still a special relationship. Yet it is very useful to the Holy Spirit Who has a special function here. It will become the happy dream through which He can spread Joy to thousands on thousands who believe that Love is fear, not happiness. Let Him fulfill the function that He gave to Your relationship by accepting it for You. And nothing will be wanting that would make of it what He would have it be.

When You feel the Holiness of Your relationship is threatened by anything stop instantly and offer the Holy Spirit Your willingness in spite of fear to let Him exchange this instant for the Holy one which You would rather have. He will never fail in this. But forget not that Your relationship is one and so it must be that whatever threatens the Peace of one is an equal threat to the other. The Power of joining and its Blessing lies in the fact that it is now impossible for either of You to experience fear alone or to attempt to deal with it alone. Never believe that this is necessary or even possible.

But just as this is impossible so is it equally impossible that the Holy Instant come to either of You without the other. And it will come to both at the request of either. Whichever is saner at the time when threat is perceived should remember how deep is his indebtedness to the other and how much gratitude is due him. And be glad that he can pay his debt by bringing happiness to both. Let him remember this and say:

I desire this Holy Instant for Myself
That I may share it with My Brother whom I love.

It is not possible that I can have it without him nor he without Me.

Yet it is wholly possible for Us to share it now.

And so I choose this instant as the one to offer to the Holy Spirit
That His Blessing may descend on Us and keep Us both in Peace.

f. Dreams and the Body

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

What could God give but knowledge of Himself? What else is there to give? The belief that You could give and get something else, something outside Yourself, has cost You the awareness of Heaven and the loss of knowledge of Your Identity. And You have done a stranger thing than You yet realize. You have displaced Your guilt to Your bodies from Your minds. Yet a body cannot be guilty for it can do nothing of itself. You Who think You hate Your bodies deceive Yourselves. You hate Your minds for guilt has entered into them and they would remain separate which they cannot do.

Minds are joined, bodies are not. Only by assigning to the mind the properties of the body does separation seem to be possible. And it is mind that seems to be fragmented and private and alone. Its guilt, which keeps it separate, is projected to the body which suffers and dies because it is attacked to hold the separation in the mind and let it not know its Unity. Mind cannot attack but it can make fantasies and direct the body to act them out. But it is never what the body does that seems to satisfy.

Unless the mind believes the body is actually acting out its fantasies it will attack the body by increasing the projection of its guilt upon it. In this the mind is clearly delusional. It cannot attack but maintains it can and uses what it does to hurt the body to prove it can. The mind can not attack but it can deceive itself. And this is all it does when it believes it has attacked the body. It can project its guilt but it will not lose it through projection. And though it clearly can misperceive the function of the body it cannot change its function from what the Holy Spirit establishes it to be.

The body was not made by Love. But Love does not condemn it and can use it lovingly respecting what the Son of God has made and using it to save him from illusions. Would You not have the instruments of separation reinterpreted as means for Salvation and used for purposes of Love? Would You not welcome and support the shift from fantasies of vengeance to release from them? Your perception of the body can clearly be sick but project this not upon the body. For Your wish to make destructive what cannot destroy can have no real effect at all. And what God created is only what He would have It be being His Will.

You cannot make His Will destructive. You can make fantasies in which Your will conflicts with His but that is all. It is insane to use the body as the scapegoat for guilt, directing its attack and blaming it for what You wished it to do. It is impossible to act out fantasies. For it is still the fantasies You want and they have nothing to do with what the body does. It does not dream of them and they but make it a liability where it could be an asset. For fantasies have made the body Your “enemy”: Weak, vulnerable and treacherous, “worthy” of the hate which You invest in it. How has this served You?

You have identified with this thing You hate, the instrument of vengeance and the perceived source of Your guilt. You have done this to a thing that has no meaning proclaiming it to be the dwellingplace of the Son of God and turning it against him. This is the host of God that You have made. And neither God nor His most Holy Son can enter an abode which harbors hate and where You have sown the seeds of vengeance, violence and death.

This thing You made to serve Your guilt stands between You and other minds. The minds are joined but You do not identify with them. You see Yourself as locked in a separate prison, remote and unreachable, incapable of reaching out as being reached. You hate the prison that You made and would destroy it. Yet You would not escape from it leaving it unharmed without Your guilt upon it. But only thus can You escape. The home of vengeance is not Yours, the place You set aside to house Your hatred is not a prison but an illusion of Yourself.

The body is a limit imposed on the universal Communication which is an eternal property of mind. But the Communication is internal. Mind reaches to itself. It is not made up of different parts which reach each other. It does not go out. Within itself it has no limits and there is nothing outside it. It encompasses everything. It encompasses You entirely, You within it and it within You. There is nothing else anywhere or ever. The body is outside You and seems to surround You, shutting You off from others and keeping You apart from them and them from You. It is not there.

There is no barrier between God and His Son nor can His Son be separated from himself except in illusion. This is not his Reality though he believes it is. Yet this could only be if God were wrong. God would have had to create differently and to have separated Himself from His Son to make this possible. He would have had to create different things and to establish different orders of Reality, only some of which were Love. Yet Love must be forever like Itself, changeless, forever and forever without alternative. And so it is.

You cannot put a barrier around Yourself because God placed none between Himself and You. Your hand can stretch out and reach to Heaven. You, Whose hands are joined, have begun to reach beyond the body, but not outside Yourselves, to reach Your shared Identity together. Could this be outside You? Where God is not? Is He a body and did He create You as He is not and where He cannot be? You are surrounded only by Him. What limits can there be on You Whom He encompasses?

Everyone has experienced what he would call a sense of being transported beyond himself. This feeling of liberation far exceeds the dream of freedom sometimes experienced in special relationships. It is a sense of actual escape from limitations. If You will consider what this “transportation” really entails You will realize that it is a sudden unawareness of the body and a joining of Your Self and something else in which Your mind enlarges to encompass it. It becomes part of You as You unite with it. And both become whole as neither is perceived as separate.

What really happens is that You have given up the illusion of a limited awareness and lost Your fear of union. The Love that instantly replaces it extends to what has freed You and unites You with it. And while this lasts You are not uncertain of Your Identity and would not limit it. You have escaped from fear to Peace asking no questions of Reality but merely accepting it. You have accepted this instead of the body and have let Yourself be one with something beyond it simply by not letting Your mind be limited by it.

This can occur regardless of the physical distance that seems to be between You and what You join, regardless of Your respective positions in space and of Your differences in size and seeming quality. Time is not relevant, it can occur with something past, present or anticipated. The “something” can be anything and anywhere – a sound, a sight, a thought, a memory, even a more general idea without specific reference. But in every case You join it without reservation because You love it and would be with it. And so You rush to meet it letting Your limits melt away, suspending all the “laws” Your body obeys and gently setting them aside.

There is no violence at all in this escape. The body is not attacked but merely properly perceived. It does not limit You merely because You would not have it so. You are not really “lifted out” of it, it cannot contain You. You go where You would be gaining, not losing, a sense of Self. In these instants of release from physical restrictions You experience much of what happens in the Holy Instant: The lifting of the barriers of time and space, the sudden experience of Peace and Joy and, above all, the lack of awareness of the body and of the questioning whether or not all this is possible. It is possible because You want it.

The sudden expansion of the Self that takes place with Your desire for it is the irresistible appeal the Holy Instant holds. It calls to You to be Yourself within its safe embrace. There are the laws of limit lifted for You to welcome You to openness of mind and freedom. Come to this place of refuge where You can be Yourself in Peace. Not through destruction, not through a “breaking out”, but merely by a quiet “melting in”. For Peace will join You there simply because You have been willing to let go the limits You have placed on Love and joined It where It is and where It led You in answer to Its gentle Call to be at Peace.

g. I Need Do Nothing

You still have too much faith in the body as a source of Strength. What plans do You make that do not involve its comfort or protection or enjoyment in some way? This makes it an end and not a means in Your interpretation and this always means You still find sin attractive. No one accepts Atonement for himself who still accepts sin as his goal. You have thus not met Your one responsibility. Atonement is not welcomed by those who prefer pain and destruction.

You have made much progress, and are really trying to make still more, but there is one thing You have never done: Not for one instant have You utterly forgotten the body. It has faded at times from Your sight but it has not yet completely disappeared. You are not asked to let this happen for more than an instant, but it is in this instant that the Miracle of Atonement happens. Afterwards You will see the body again but never quite the same. And every instant that You spend without awareness of it gives You a different view of it when You return.

At no single instant does the body exist at all. It is always remembered or anticipated but never experienced just now. Only its past and future make it seem real. Time controls it entirely. For sin is never present. In any single instant the attraction of guilt would be experienced as pain and nothing else and would be avoided. It has no attraction now. Its whole attraction is imaginary and therefore must be thought of from the past or in the future.

It is impossible to accept the Holy Instant without reservation unless just for an instant You are willing to see no past or future. You cannot prepare for it without placing it in the future. Release is given You the instant You desire it. Many have spent a lifetime in preparation and have indeed achieved their instants of success. This Course does not attempt to teach more than they learned in time. But it does aim at saving time.

You are attempting to follow a very long road to the goal You have accepted. It is extremely difficult to reach Atonement by fighting against sin. Enormous effort is expended in the attempt to make Holy what is hated and despised. Nor is a lifetime of contemplation and long periods of meditation aimed at detachment from the body necessary. All such attempts will ultimately succeed because of their purpose. But the means are tedious and very time consuming for all of them look to the future for release from a state of present unworthiness and inadequacy.

Your way will be different. Not in purpose but in means. A Holy Relationship is a means of saving time. One instant spent together restores the Universe to both of You. You are prepared. Now You need but remember You need do nothing. It would be far more profitable now merely to concentrate on this than to consider what You should do.

When Peace comes at last to those who wrestle with temptation and fight against giving in to sin, when the Light comes at last into the mind given to contemplation or when the goal is finally achieved by anyone it always comes with just one happy realization – I need do nothing. Here is the ultimate release that everyone will one day find in his own way, at his own time. We do not need this time. Time has been saved for You because You are together. This is the special means This Course is using to save You time.

You are not making use of The Course if You insist on using means that have served others well neglecting What was made for You. Save time for Me by only this one preparation and practice doing nothing else: I need do nothing is a statement of allegiance, a Truly undivided loyalty. Believe it for just one instant and You will accomplish more than is given to a century of contemplation or of struggle against temptation.

To do anything involves the body. And if You recognize You need do nothing You have withdrawn the body’s value from Your mind. Here is the quick and open door through which You slip past centuries of effort and escape from time. This is the way in which sin loses all attraction right now. For here is time denied and past and future gone. Who need do nothing has no need for time. To do nothing is to rest and make a place within You where the activity of the body ceases to demand attention. Into this place the Holy Spirit comes and there abides.

He will remain when You forget and the body’s activities return to occupy Your conscious mind. But there will always be this place of rest to which You can return. And You will be more aware of the quiet Center of the storm than all its raging activity. This quiet Center in which You do nothing will remain with You giving You rest in the midst of every busy doing on which You are sent. For from this Center will You be directed how to use the body sinlessly. It is this Center from which the body is absent that will keep it so in Your awareness of it.

h. The Purpose of the Body

It is only the awareness of the body that makes Love seem limited. For the body is a limit on Love. The belief in limited Love was its origin and it was made to limit the unlimited. Think not that this is merely allegorical for it was made to limit You. Can You Who see Yourselves within a body know Yourself as an idea? Everything You recognize You identify by externals, something outside itself. You cannot even think of God without a body or some form You think You recognize. The body cannot know. And while You limit Your awareness to its tiny senses You will not see the Grandeur that surrounds You.

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

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

Yet neither sun nor ocean is even aware of all this strange and meaningless activity. They merely continue unaware that they are feared and hated by a tiny segment of themselves. Even that segment is not lost to them for it could not survive apart from them. And what it thinks it is in no way changes its total dependence on them for its being. Its whole existence still remains in them. Without the sun the sunbeam would be gone. The ripple without the ocean is inconceivable.

Such is the strange position in which those in a world inhabited by bodies seem to be. Each body seems to house a separate mind, a disconnected thought, living alone and in no way joined to the Thought by Which it was created. Each tiny fragment seems to be selfcontained, needing each other for some things but by no means totally dependent on their One Creator for everything and needing the whole to give them any meaning. For by themselves they do mean nothing. Nor have they any Life apart and by themselves.

Yet like the sun and ocean Your Self continues unmindful that this tiny part regards itself as You. It is not missing. It could not exist if it were separate nor would the whole be whole without it. It is not a separate kingdom ruled by an idea of separation from the rest. Nor does a fence surround it preventing it from joining with the rest and keeping it apart from its Creator. This little aspect is no different from the whole being continuous with it and at one with it. It leads no separate Life because its Life is in the Oneness in which its being was created.

Do not accept this little, fencedoff aspect as Your Self. The sun and ocean are as nothing beside what You are. The sunbeam sparkles only in the sunlight and the ripple dances as it rests upon the ocean. Yet in neither sun nor ocean is the Power that rests in You. Would You remain within Your tiny kingdom, a sorry king, a bitter ruler of all he surveys, who looks on nothing but who would still die to defend it? This little self is not Your kingdom. Arched high above it and surrounding it with Love is the glorious whole which offers all its happiness and deep content to every part. The little aspect that You think You set apart is no exception.

Love knows no bodies and reaches to everything created like Itself. Its total lack of limit is Its meaning. It is completely impartial in Its giving, encompassing only to preserve and keep complete what It would give. In Your tiny kingdom You have so little! Should it not then be there that You would call on Love to enter? Look at the desert, dry and unproductive, scorched and joyless, that makes up Your little kingdom. And realize the Life and Joy that Love would bring to it from where It comes and where It would return with You.

The Thought of God surrounds Your little kingdom waiting at the barrier You built to come in and shine upon the barren ground. See how Life springs up everywhere! The desert becomes a garden, green and deep and quiet, offering rest to those who lost their way and wander in the dust. Give them a place of refuge prepared by Love for them where once a desert was. And every one You welcome will bring Love with him from Heaven for You. They enter one by one into this Holy place but they will not depart as they had come, alone.

The Love they brought with them will stay with them as It will stay with You. And under Its beneficence Your little garden will expand and reach out to everyone who thirsts for living water but has grown too weary to go on alone. Go out and find them for they bring Your Self with them. And lead them gently to Your quiet garden and receive their Blessing there. So will it grow and stretch across the desert leaving no lonely little kingdoms locked away from Love and leaving You outside. And You will recognize Yourself and see Your little garden gently transformed into the Kingdom of Heaven with all the Love of its Creator shining upon it.

The Holy Instant is Your invitation to Love to enter into Your bleak and joyless kingdom and transform it into a garden of Peace and welcome. Love’s Answer is inevitable. It will come because You came without the body and interposed no barriers which would interfere with Its glad coming. In the Holy Instant You ask of Love only what It offers everyone, neither less nor more. Asking for everything You will receive it. And Your shining Self will lift the tiny aspect that You tried to hide from Heaven straight into Heaven. No part of Love calls on the whole in vain. No Son of God remains outside His Fatherhood.

Be sure of this: Love has entered Your special relationship and entered fully at Your weak request. You do not recognize that Love has come because You have not yet let go of all the barriers You hold against each other. And You will not be able to give Love welcome separately. You could no more know God alone than He knows You without Your Brother. But together You could no more be unaware of Love than Love could know You not or fail to recognize Itself in You.

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

i. The Delusional Thought System

You have been told to bring the darkness to the Light and guilt to Holiness. And You have also been told that error must be corrected at its source. Therefore it is the tiny part of Your Self, the little thought that seems split off and separate, that the Holy Spirit needs. The rest is fully in God’s Keeping and needs no Guide. But this wild and delusional thought needs help because in its delusions it thinks it is the Son of God, whole and omnipotent, sole ruler of the kingdom it set apart to tyrannize by madness into obedience and slavery.

This is the little part of You You think You stole from Heaven. Give it back to Heaven. Heaven has not lost it but You have lost sight of Heaven. Let the Holy Spirit remove it from the withered kingdom in which You set it up surrounded by darkness, guarded by attack and reinforced by hate. Within its barricades is still a tiny segment of the Son of God, complete and Holy, serene and unaware of what You think surrounds it. Be You not separate for the One Who does surround it has brought union to You returning Your little offering of darkness to the eternal Light.

How is this done? It is extremely simple being based on what this little kingdom really is. The barren sands, the darkness and the lifelessness are seen only through the body’s eyes. Its vision is distorted and the messages it transmits to You Who made it to limit Your awareness are little and limited, so fragmented that they are meaningless. From the world of bodies, made by insanity, insane messages seem to be returned to the mind which made it. And these messages bear witness to this world pronouncing it as True. For You sent forth these messengers to bring this back to You.

Everything these messages relay to You is quite external. There are no messages that speak of what lies underneath for it is not the body that could speak of This. Its eyes perceive It not, its senses remain quite unaware of It, its tongue can not relay Its Messages. Yet God can bring You There if You are willing to follow the Holy Spirit through seeming terror trusting Him not to abandon You and leave You there. For it is not His purpose to frighten You but only Yours. You are severely tempted to abandon Him at the outside ring of fear. But He would lead You safely through and far beyond.

The circle of fear lies just below the level the body sees and seems to be the whole foundation on which the world is based. Here are all the illusions, all the twisted thoughts, all the insane attacks, the fury, vengeance and betrayal that were made to keep the guilt in place so that the world could rise from it and keep it hidden. Its shadow rises to the surface, enough to hold its most external manifestation in darkness and to bring despair and loneliness to it and keep it joyless. But its intensity is veiled by its heavy coverings and kept apart from what was made to keep it hidden.

The body cannot see this for the body arose from this for its protection which must always depend on keeping it not seen. The body’s eyes will never look on it. Yet they will see what it dictates. The body will remain guilt’s messenger and will act as it directs as long as You believe that guilt is real. For the Reality of guilt is the illusion which seems to make it heavy and opaque, impenetrable and a real foundation for the ego’s thought system. Its thinness and transparency are not apparent until You see the Light behind it. And then You see it as a fragile veil before the Light.

This heavyseeming barrier, this artificial floor that looks like rock, is like a bank of low, dark clouds that seem to be a solid wall before the sun. Its impenetrable appearance is wholly an illusion. It gives way softly to the mountain tops that rise above it and has no Power at all to hold back anyone willing to climb above it to see the sun. It is not strong enough to stop a button’s fall nor hold a feather. Nothing can rest upon it for it is but an illusion of a foundation. Try but to touch it and it disappears, attempt to grasp it and Your hands hold nothing.

Yet in this cloud bank it is easy to see a whole world rising. A solid mountain range, a lake, a city, all arise in Your imagination and from the clouds the messengers of Your perception return to You assuring You that it is all there. Figures stand out and move about, actions seem real and forms appear and shift from loveliness to the grotesque. And back and forth they go as long as You would play the game of children’s “make believe”. Yet however long You play it and regardless of how much imagination You bring to it You do not confuse it with the world below nor seek to make it real.

So should it be with the dark clouds of guilt, no more impenetrable and no more substantial. You will not bruise Yourself against them in traveling through. Let Your Guide teach You their unsubstantial nature as He leads You past them. For beneath them is a world of Light whereon they cast no shadows. Their shadows lie upon the world beyond them, still further from the Light. But from them to the Light their shadows cannot fall. This world of Light, this Circle of brightness, is the real world where guilt meets with forgiveness. Here the world outside is seen anew without the shadow of guilt upon it.

Here are You forgiven for here You have forgiven everyone. Here is the new perception where everything is bright and shining with Innocence, washed in the waters of forgiveness and cleansed of every evil thought You laid upon it. Here there is no attack upon the Son of God and You are welcome. Here is Your Innocence waiting to clothe You and protect You and make You ready for the final step in the journey inward. Here are the dark and heavy garments of guilt laid by and gently replaced by purity and Joy. Yet even forgiveness is not the end.

Forgiveness does make lovely but it does not create. It is the source of healing but it is the messenger of Love and not Its Source. Here You are led that God Himself can take the final step unhindered. For Here does nothing interfere with Love letting It be Itself. A step beyond this Holy place of forgiveness, a step still further inward but one You cannot take, transports You to something completely different. Here is the Source of Light, nothing perceived, forgiven nor transformed. But merely known.

j. The Passing of the Dream

This Course will lead to knowledge but knowledge itself is still beyond the scope of Our Curriculum. Nor is there any need for Us to try to speak of what must forever lie beyond words. We need remember only that whoever attains the real world, beyond which learning cannot go, will go beyond it but in a different way. Where learning ends there God begins for learning ends before Him Who is complete where He begins and where there is no end.

It is not for Us to dwell on what cannot be attained. There is too much to learn. The readiness for knowledge still must be attained. Love is not learned. Its meaning lies in Itself. And learning ends when You have recognized all It is not. That is the interference, that is what needs to be undone. Love is not learned because there never was a time in which You knew It not. Learning is useless in the Presence of Your Creator Whose acknowledgment of You, and Yours of Him, so far transcends all learning that everything You learned is meaningless, replaced forever by the knowledge of Love and Its one meaning.

Your relationship has been uprooted from the world of shadows and its unholy purpose has been safely brought through the barriers of guilt, washed with forgiveness and set shining and firmly rooted in the world of Light. From there it calls to You to follow The Course it took, lifted high above the darkness and gently placed before the Gates of Heaven. The Holy Instant in which You were united is but a Messenger of Love sent from beyond forgiveness to remind You of all that lies beyond it. Yet it is through forgiveness that it will be remembered.

And when the Memory of God has come to You in the Holy place of forgiveness You will remember nothing else. And memory will be as useless as learning for Your only purpose will be creating. Yet this You cannot know until every perception has been cleansed and purified and finally removed forever. Forgiveness removes only the untrue, lifting the shadows from the world and carrying it safe and sure within its gentleness to the bright world of new and clean perception. There is Your purpose now. And it is there that Peace awaits You.

Chapter 19 – Beyond the Body

a. Healing and the Mind

The body cannot heal because it cannot make itself sick. It needs no healing. Its health, or sickness, depends entirely on how the mind perceives it and the purpose which the mind would use it for. And it is obvious that a segment of the mind can see itself as separated from the universal purpose. When this occurs the body becomes its weapon used against this purpose to demonstrate the “fact” that separation has occurred. The body thus becomes the instrument of illusion, acting accordingly, seeing what is not there, hearing what Truth has never said and behaving insanely being imprisoned by insanity.

Do not overlook Our earlier statement that faithlessness leads straight to illusions. For faithlessness is the perception of a Brother as a body and the body cannot be used for purposes of union. If then You see him as a body You have established a condition in which uniting with him becomes impossible. Your faithlessness to him has separated You from him and kept You both apart from being healed. Your faithlessness has thus opposed the Holy Spirit’s purpose and brought illusions centered on the body to stand between You. And the body will seem to be sick for You have made of it an “enemy” of healing and the opposite of Truth.

It cannot be difficult to realize that faith must be the opposite of faithlessness. But the difference in how they operate is less apparent though it follows directly from the fundamental difference in what they are. Faithlessness would always limit and attack, faith would remove all limitations and make whole. Faithlessness would destroy and separate, faith would unite and heal. Faithlessness would interpose illusions between the Son of God and his Creator, faith would remove all obstacles that seem to rise between them. Faithlessness is wholly dedicated to illusions, faith wholly to Truth.

Partial dedication is impossible. Truth is the absence of illusion, illusion the absence of Truth. Both cannot be together nor perceived in the same place. To dedicate Yourself to both is to set up a goal forever impossible to attain. For part of it is sought through the body, thought of as a means for seeking out Reality through attack. While the other part would heal and therefore calls upon the mind and not the body. The inevitable compromise is the belief that the body must be healed and not the mind. For this divided goal has given both an equal Reality and can seem to be possible only if the mind is limited to the body and divided into little parts with seeming wholeness but without connection.

This will not harm the body. But it will keep the delusional thought system in the mind. Here then is healing needed. And it is here that healing is. For God gave healing not apart from sickness nor established remedy where sickness cannot be. They are together and when they are seen together all attempts to keep both Truth and illusion in the mind, where both must be, are recognized as dedication to illusion and given up when brought to Truth and seen as totally unreconcilable with Truth in any aspect or in any way.

Truth and illusion have no connection. This will remain forever True however much You seek to connect them. But illusions are always connected as is Truth. Each is united, a complete thought system but totally disconnected to each other. Where there is no overlap there separation must be complete. And to perceive this is to recognize where separation is and where it must be healed. The result of an idea is never separate from its source.

The idea of separation produced the body and remains connected to it, making it sick because of its identification with it. You think You are protecting the body by hiding this connection. For this concealment seems to keep Your identification safe from the “attack” of Truth. If You but understood how much this strange concealment has hurt Your mind and how confused Your own identification has become to You because of it! You do not see how great the devastation wrought by Your faithlessness. For faithlessness is an attack which seems to be justified by its results. For by withholding faith You see what is unworthy of it and cannot look beyond the barrier to what is joined with You.

To have faith is to heal. It is the sign that You have accepted the Atonement for Yourself and would therefore share It. By faith You offer the gift of freedom from the past which You have received. You do not use anything Your Brother has done before to condemn him now. You freely choose to overlook his errors, looking past all barriers between Your Self and his and seeing Them as One. And in that One You see Your faith is fully justified. There is no justification for faithlessness. But faith is always justified.

Faith is the opposite of fear, as much a part of Love as fear is of attack. Faith is the acknowledgment of union. It is the gracious acknowledgment of everyone as a Son of Your most loving Father, loved by Him like You. And therefore loved by You as Yourself. It is His Love that joins You and for His Love You would keep no one separate from Yours. Each one appears just as he is perceived in the Holy Instant, united in Your purpose to be released from guilt. You saw the Christ in him and he was healed because You looked on what makes faith forever justified in everyone.

Faith is the Gift of God through Him Whom God has given You. Faithlessness looks upon the Son of God and judges him unworthy of forgiveness. But through the Eyes of faith the Son of God is seen already forgiven, free of all the guilt he laid upon himself. Faith sees him only now because it looks not to the past to judge him but would see in him only what it would see in You. It sees not through the body’s eyes nor looks to bodies for its justification. It is the Messenger of the new perception sent forth to gather witnesses unto its coming and to return their messages to You.

Faith is as easily exchanged for knowledge as is the real world. For faith arises from the Holy Spirit’s perception and is the sign You share it with Him. Faith is a gift You offer to the Son of God through Him and wholly acceptable to his Father as to him. And therefore offered You. Your Holy Relationship with its new purpose offers You faith to give unto each other. Your faithlessness had driven You apart and so You did not recognize Salvation in each other. But faith unites You in the Holiness You see, not through the body’s eyes but in the Sight of Him Who joined You and in Whom You are united.

Grace is not given to a body but to a mind. And the mind that receives it looks instantly beyond the body and sees the Holy Place where it was healed. There is the Altar Where the Grace was given in which it stands. Do You then offer Grace and Blessing to each other for You stand at the same Altar Where Grace was laid for both of You. And be You healed by Grace together that You may heal through faith.

In the Holy Instant You stand before the Altar God has raised unto Himself and both of You. Lay faithlessness aside and come to It together. There will You see the Miracle of Your Relationship as it was made again through faith. And There it is that You will realize that there is nothing faith can not forgive. No error interferes with Its calm Sight which brings the Miracle of Healing with equal ease to all of them. For what the Messengers of Love are sent to do they do. Returning the glad tidings that it was done to You Who stand before the Altar from Which they were sent forth together.

As faithlessness will keep Your little kingdoms barren and separate so will faith help the Holy Spirit prepare the ground for the most Holy Garden which He would make of it. For faith brings Peace and so it calls on Truth to enter and make lovely what has already been prepared for loveliness. Truth follows faith and Peace completing the process of making lovely which they begin. For faith is still a learning goal no longer needed when the lesson has been learned. But Truth will stay forever.

Let then Your dedication be to the Eternal. And learn how not to interfere with It and make It slave to time. For what You think You do to the Eternal You do to You. Whom God created as His Son is slave to nothing being Lord of all along with his Creator. You can enslave a body but an idea is free, incapable of being kept in prison or limited in any way except by the mind that thought it. For it remains joined to its source which is its jailor or its liberator according to which it chooses as its purpose for itself.

b. Sin versus Error

It is essential that error be not confused with “sin”. And it is this distinction which makes Salvation possible. For error can be corrected and the wrong made right. But sin, were it possible, would be irreversible. The belief in sin is necessarily based on the firm conviction that minds, not bodies, can attack. And thus the mind is guilty and will forever so remain unless a mind not part of it can give it absolution. Sin calls for punishment as error for correction. And the belief that punishment is correction is clearly insane.

Sin is not error. For sin entails an arrogance which the idea of error lacks. To sin would be to violate Reality and to succeed. Sin is the proclamation that attack is real and guilt is justified. It assumes the Son of God is guilty and has thus succeeded in losing his Innocence and making of himself what God created not. Thus is Creation seen as not eternal, the Will of God open to opposition and defeat. Sin is the “grand illusion” underlying all the ego’s grandiosity. For by it God Himself is changed and rendered incomplete.

The Son of God can be mistaken, he can deceive himself, he can even turn the Power of his mind against himself. But he can not sin. There is nothing he can do that would really change his Reality in any way nor make him really guilty. That is what sin would do for such is its purpose. Yet for all the wild insanity inherent in the whole idea of sin it is impossible. For the wages of sin is death and how can the Immortal die?

A major tenet in the ego’s insane religion is that sin is not error but Truth. And it is Innocence that would deceive. Purity is seen as arrogance and the acceptance of the Self as sinful is perceived as Holiness. And it is this doctrine that replaces the Reality of the Son of God as his Father created him and willed that he be forever. Is this humility? Or is it rather an attempt to wrest Creation away from Truth and keep It separate?

Any attempt to reinterpret sin as error is wholly indefensible to the ego. The idea of sin is wholly sacrosanct in its thought system and quite unapproachable except through reverence and awe. It is the most “holy” concept in the ego’s system, lovely and powerful, wholly True and necessarily protected with every defense at its disposal. For here lies its “best” defense which all the others serve. Here is its armor, its protection and the fundamental purpose of the special relationship in its interpretation.

It can indeed be said the ego made its world on sin. Only in such a world could everything be upsidedown. This is the strange illusion which makes the clouds of guilt seem heavy and impenetrable. The solidness this world’s foundation seems to have is found in this. For sin has changed Creation from an Idea of God to an ideal the ego wants, a world it rules made up of bodies, mindless and capable of complete corruption and decay.

If this is a mistake it can be undone easily by Truth. Any mistake can be corrected if Truth be left to judge it. But if the mistake is given the status of Truth to what can it be brought? The “holiness” of sin is kept in place by just this strange device. As Truth it is inviolate and everything is brought to it for judgment. As a mistake it must be brought to Truth. It is impossible to have faith in sin for sin is faithlessness. But it is possible to have faith that a mistake can be corrected.

There is no stone in all the ego’s embattled citadel more heavily defended than the idea that sin is real, the natural expression of what the Son of God has made himself to be and what he is. To the ego this is no mistake. For this is its Reality, this is the “truth” from which escape will always be impossible. This is his past, his Present and his future. For he has somehow managed to corrupt his Father and change His Mind completely. Mourn then the death of God Whom sin has killed! And this would be the ego’s wish which, in its madness, it thinks it has accomplished.

Would You not rather that all this be nothing more than a mistake, entirely correctable and so easily escaped from that its whole correction is like walking through a mist into the sun? For that is all it is. Perhaps You would be tempted to agree with the ego that it is far better to be sinful than mistaken. But think You carefully before You allow Yourself to make this choice. Approach it not lightly for it is the choice of hell or Heaven.

c. The Unreality of Sin

The attraction of guilt is found in sin, not error. Sin will be repeated because of this attraction. Fear can become so acute that the sin is denied the acting out but while the guilt remains attractive the mind will suffer and not let go the idea of the sin. For guilt still calls to it and the mind hears it and yearns for it making it a willing captive to its sick appeal. Sin is an idea of evil that cannot be corrected and will be forever desirable. As an essential part of what the ego thinks You are You will always want it. And only an avenger with a mind unlike Your own could stamp it out through fear.

The ego does not think it possible that Love, not fear, is really called upon by sin and always answers. For the ego brings sin to fear demanding punishment. But punishment is but another form of guilt’s protection. For what is deserving punishment must have been really done. Punishment is always the great preserver of sin, treating it with respect and honoring its enormity. What must be punished must be True. And what is True must be eternal and will be repeated endlessly. For what You think is real You want and will not let it go.

An error on the other hand is not attractive. What You see clearly as a mistake You want corrected. Sometimes a sin can be repeated over and over with obviously distressing results but without the loss of its appeal. And suddenly You change its status from a sin to a mistake. Now You will not repeat it, You will merely stop and let it go. Unless the guilt remains. For then You will but change the form of sin granting that it was an error but keeping it uncorrectable. This is not really a change in Your perception for it is sin that calls for punishment, not error.

The Holy Spirit cannot punish sin. Mistakes He recognizes and would correct them all as God entrusted Him to do. But sin He knows not nor can He recognize mistakes that cannot be corrected. For a mistake that cannot be corrected is meaningless to Him. Mistakes are for correction. They call for nothing else. What calls for punishment must call for nothing. Yet every mistake must be a call for Love. What then is sin? What could it be but a mistake You would keep hidden, a call for help that You would keep unheard and thus unanswered?

In time the Holy Spirit clearly sees the Son of God can make mistakes. On this You share His Vision. Yet You do not share His recognition of the difference between time and Eternity. And when correction is completed time is Eternity. Time is like a downward spiral that seems to travel down from a long, unbroken line along another plane but which in no way breaks the line or interferes with its smooth continuousness. Along the spiral it seems as if the line must have been broken but at the line its wholeness is apparent.

Everything seen from the spiral is misperceived but as You approach the line You realize that it was not affected by the drop into another plane at all. Yet from this plane the line seems discontinuous. And this is but an error in perception which can be easily corrected in the mind although the body’s eyes will see no change. The eyes see many things the mind corrects and You respond not to the eyes’ illusions but to the mind’s corrections. You see the line as broken and as You shift to different aspects of the spiral the line looks different. Yet in Your mind is One Who knows it is unbroken and forever changeless.

This One can teach You how to look on time differently and to see beyond it. But not while You believe in sin. In error, Yes, for this can be corrected by the mind. But sin is the belief that Your perception is unchangeable and that the mind must accept as True what it is told through it. If it does not obey the mind is judged insane. The only Power that could change perception is thus kept impotent, held to the body by the fear of changed perception which its Teacher Who is one with it would bring.

When You are tempted to believe that sin is real remember this: If sin is real both God and You are not. If Creation is extension the Creator must have extended Himself and it is impossible that what is part of Him is totally unlike the rest. If sin is real God must be at war within Himself. He must be split and torn between good and evil, partly sane and partially insane. For He must have created what wills to destroy Him and has the Power to do so. Is it not easier to believe that You have been mistaken than to believe in this?

While You believe that Your Reality or Your Brother’s is bounded by a body You will believe in sin. While You believe that bodies can unite You will find guilt attractive and believe that sin is precious. For the belief that bodies limit the mind leads to a perception of the world in which the proof of separation seems to be everywhere. And God and His Creation seem to be split apart and overthrown. For sin would prove What God created Holy could not prevail against it nor remain Itself before the Power of sin.

Sin is perceived as mightier than God before which God Himself must bow and offer His Creation to Its conqueror. Is this humility or madness? If sin were real it would forever be beyond the hope of healing. For there would be a Power beyond God’s capable of making another will which could attack His Will and overcome it. And give His Son a will apart from His and stronger. And each part of His fragmented Creation would have a different will opposed to His and in eternal opposition to Him and to each other.

Your Holy Relationship has as its purpose now the goal of proving this is impossible. Heaven has smiled upon it and the belief in sin has been uprooted in its smile of Love. You see it still because You do not realize that its foundation has gone. Its source has been removed and so it can be cherished but a little while before it vanishes. Only the habit of looking for it still remains. And yet You look with Heaven’s smile upon Your lips and Heaven’s Blessing on Your sight.

You will not see it long. For in the new perception the mind corrects it when it seems to be seen and it becomes invisible. But errors are quickly recognized and quickly given to correction to be healed, not hidden. You will be healed of sin and all its ravages the instant that You give it no Power over each other. And You will help each other overcome mistakes by joyously releasing one another from the belief in sin. In the Holy Instant You will see the smile of Heaven shining on both of You. And You will shine upon each other in glad acknowledgment of the Grace that has been given You. For sin will not prevail against a union Heaven has smiled upon.

Your perception was healed in the Holy Instant Heaven gave You. Forget what You have seen and raise Your eyes in faith to what You now can see. The barriers to Heaven will disappear before Your Holy Sight. For You Who were sightless have been given Vision and You can see. Look not for what has been removed but for the glory that has been restored for You to see. Look upon Your Redeemer and behold what He would show You in each other. And let not sin arise again to blind Your eyes. For sin would keep You separate but Your Redeemer would have You look upon each other as Yourself.

Your relationship is now a temple of healing, a place where all the weary ones can come and find rest. Here is the rest that waits for all after the journey. And it is brought nearer to all by Your relationship. As this Peace expands from deep inside Yourselves to embrace all the Sonship and give It rest it will encounter many obstacles. Some of them You will try to interpose. Others will seem to arise from elsewhere: From Your Brothers and from various aspects of the world outside. But Peace will gently cover them, extending past, completely unhindered.

The extension of the Holy Spirit’s purpose from Your relationship to others to bring them gently in has already begun. This is the way in which He will bring means and goal in line. The Peace He laid deep within both of You will quietly extend to every aspect of Your lives surrounding both of You with glowing happiness and the calm awareness of complete protection. And You will carry its Message of Love and safety and freedom to everyone who draws nigh unto Your temple where healing waits for him.

You will not wait to give him this. For You will call to him and he will answer recognizing in Your call the Call of God. And You will draw him in and give him rest as it was given You. All this will You do. But the Peace that already lies deeply within must first expand and flow across the obstacles You place before it. This it will do. For nothing undertaken with the Holy Spirit remains unfinished. You can indeed be sure of nothing You see outside You but of this You can be sure.

The Holy Spirit asks that You offer Him a resting place where You will rest in Him. He answered You and entered Your relationship. Would You not now return His graciousness and enter into a relationship with Him? For it is He Who offered Your relationship the Gift of Holiness without Which it would have been forever impossible to appreciate each other. The gratitude You owe to Him He asks but that You receive for Him. And when You look with gentle graciousness upon each other You are beholding Him. For You are looking where He is and not apart from You.

You cannot see the Holy Spirit but You can see Your Brothers Truly. And the Light in them will show You all that You need to see. When the Peace in You has been extended to encompass everyone the Holy Spirit’s function here will be accomplished. What need is there for seeing then? When God has taken the last step Himself the Holy Spirit will gather all Your thanks and gratitude that You have offered Him and lay them gently before His Creator in the name of His most Holy Son. And the Father will accept them in His name. What need is there of seeing in the presence of His Gratitude?

d. Obstacles to Peace –
i. The Desire to Get Rid of It

The first obstacle that Peace must flow across is Your desire to get rid of it. For it cannot extend unless You keep it. You are the Center from which it radiates outward to call the others in. You are its Home, its tranquil Dwellingplace from which it gently reaches out but never leaving You. If You would make it homeless how can it abide within the Son of God? If it would spread across the whole Creation it must begin with You. And from You reach to everyone who calls and bring him rest by joining You.

Why would You want Peace homeless? What do You think that it must dispossess to dwell in You? What seems to be the cost You are so unwilling to pay? The little barriers of sand still stand between You. Would You reinforce them now? You are not asked to let them go for Yourselves alone. Christ asks it of You for Himself. He would bring Peace to everyone. And how can He do this except through You? Would You let a little bank of sand, a wall of dust, a tiny seeming barrier stand between Your Brothers and Salvation?

And yet it is this little remnant of attack You cherish still against each other that is the first obstacle the Peace in You encounters in its going forth. This little wall of hatred would still oppose the Will of God and keep It limited. The Holy Spirit’s purpose rests in Peace within You. Yet You are still unwilling to let it join You wholly. You still oppose the Will of God just by a little. But that little is a limit You would place upon the whole. God’s Will is One, not many. It has no opposition for there is none beside It.

What You would still contain behind Your little barrier and keep separate from each other seems mightier than the Universe for it would hold back the Universe and Its Creator. This little wall would hide the purpose of Heaven and keep it from Heaven. Would You thrust Salvation away from the Giver of Salvation? For such have You become. Peace could no more depart from You than from God. Fear not this little obstacle. It can not contain the Will of God. Peace will flow across it and join You without hindrance.

Salvation cannot be withheld from You. It is Your purpose. You cannot will apart from this. You have no purpose apart from each other nor apart from the one You asked the Holy Spirit to share with You. The little wall will fall away so quietly beneath the wings of Peace! For it will send its Messengers from You to all the world. And barriers will fall away before their coming as easily as those which You would interpose will be surmounted. To overcome the world is no more difficult than to surmount Your little wall. For in the Miracle of Your relationship without this barrier is every Miracle contained.

There is no order of difficulty in Miracles for They are all the Same. Each is a gentle winning over from the appeal of guilt to the appeal of Love. How can this fail to be accomplished wherever it is undertaken? Guilt can raise no real barriers against It. And all that seems to stand between You must fall away because of the appeal You answered. And from You Who answered He Who answered You would call. His Home is in Your Holy Relationship. Do not attempt to stand between Him and His Holy purpose for it is Yours. But let Him quietly extend the Miracle of Your relationship to everyone contained in it as It was given.

There is a hush in Heaven, a happy expectancy, a little pause of Gladness in acknowledgment of the journey’s end. For Heaven knows You well as You know Heaven. No illusions stand between You. Look not upon the little wall of shadows. The sun has risen over it. How can a shadow keep You from the sun? No more can You be kept by shadows from the Light in Which illusions end. Every Miracle is but the end of an illusion. Such was the journey, such its ending. And in the goal of Truth which You accepted must all illusions end.

The little, insane wish to get rid of Him Whom You invited in and push Him out must produce conflict. As You look upon the world this little wish, uprooted and floating aimlessly, can land and settle briefly upon anything. For it has no purpose now. Before the Holy Spirit entered to abide with You it seemed to have a mighty purpose: The fixed and unchangeable dedication to sin and its results. Now it is aimless, wandering pointlessly, causing no more than tiny interruptions in Love’s appeal.

This feather of a wish, this tiny illusion, this microscopic remnant of the belief in sin is all that remains of what once seemed to be the world. It is no longer an unrelenting barrier to Peace. Its pointless wandering makes its results appear to be more erratic and unpredictable than before. Yet what could be more unstable than a tightly organized delusional system? Its seeming stability is its pervasive weakness which extends to everything. The variability which the little remnant induces merely indicates its limited results.

How mighty can a little feather be before the great wings of Truth? Can it oppose an eagle’s flight or hinder the advance of summer? Can it interfere with the effects of summer’s sun upon a garden covered by the snow? See but how easily this little wisp is lifted up and carried away, never to return. And part with it in Gladness, not regret. For it is nothing in itself and stood for nothing when You had greater faith in its protection. Would You not rather greet the summer sun than fix Your gaze upon a disappearing snowflake and shiver in remembrance of the winter’s cold?

e. The Attraction of Guilt

The attraction of guilt produces fear of Love. For Love would never look on guilt at all. It is the nature of Love to look upon only the Truth for There It sees Itself with Which It would unite in Holy Union and Completion. As Love must look past fear so must fear see Love not. For Love contains the end of guilt as surely as fear depends on it. Love is attracted only to Love. Overlooking guilt completely It sees no fear. Being wholly without attack It could not be afraid.

Fear is attracted to what Love sees not. And each believes that what the other looks upon does not exist. Fear looks on guilt with just the same devotion that Love looks on Itself. And each has messengers which they send forth and which return to them with messages written in the language in which their going forth was asked. Love’s Messengers are gently sent and return with Messages of Love and gentleness. The messengers of fear are harshly ordered to seek out guilt and cherish every scrap of evil and sin that they can find, losing none of them on pain of death and laying them respectfully before their lord and master.

Perception cannot obey two masters each asking for messages of different things in different languages. What fear would feed upon Love overlooks. What fear demands Love cannot even see. The fierce attraction that guilt holds for fear is wholly absent from Love’s gentle perception. What Love would look upon is meaningless to fear and quite invisible. Relationships in this world are the result of how the world is seen. And this depends on which emotion was called on to send its messengers to look upon it and return with word of what they saw.

Fear’s messengers are trained through terror and they tremble when their master calls upon them to serve him. For fear is merciless even to its friends. Its messengers steal guiltily away in hungry search of guilt for they are kept cold and starving and made very vicious by their master who allows them to feast only upon what they return to him. No little shred of guilt escapes their hungry eyes. And in their savage search for sin they pounce on any Living Thing they see and carry it screaming to their master to be devoured.

Send not these savage messengers into the world to feast upon it and to prey upon Reality. For they will bring You word of bones and skin and flesh. They have been taught to seek for the corruptible and to return with gorges filled with things decayed and rotted. To them such things are beautiful because they seem to allay their savage pangs of hunger. For they are frantic with the pain of fear and would avert the punishment of him who sends them forth by offering him what they hold dear.

The Holy Spirit has given You Love’s Messengers to send instead of those You trained through fear. They are as eager to return to You what they hold dear as are the others. If You send them forth they will see only the blameless and the beautiful, the gentle and the kind. They will be as careful to let no little act of charity, no tiny expression of forgiveness, no little breaths of Love escape their notice. And they will return with all the happy things they found to share them lovingly with You. Be not afraid of them. They offer You Salvation. Theirs are the Messages of safety. For they see the world as kind.

If You send forth only the Messengers the Holy Spirit gave You wanting no Messages but theirs You will see fear no more. The world will be transformed before Your sight, cleansed of all guilt and softly brushed with beauty. The world contains no fear that You laid not upon it. And none You cannot ask Love’s Messengers to remove from it and see it still. The Holy Spirit has given You His Messengers to send each other and return to each with what Love sees. They have been given to replace the hungry dogs of fear You sent instead. And they go forth to signify the end of fear.

Love too would set a feast before You on a table covered with a spotless cloth, set in a quiet garden where no sound but singing and a softly joyous whispering is ever heard. This is a feast which honors Your Holy Relationship and at which everyone is welcomed as an honored guest. And in a Holy Instant Grace is said by everyone together as they join in gentleness before the table of communion. And I will join You there as long ago I promised and promise still. For in Your new relationship am I made welcome and where I am made welcome there I am.

I am made welcome in the state of Grace which means You have at last forgiven Me. For I became the symbol of Your sin and so I had to die instead of You. To the ego sin means death and so Atonement is achieved through murder. Salvation is looked upon as a way by which the Son of God was killed instead of You. Yet would I offer You My body, You Whom I love, knowing its littleness? Or would I teach that bodies cannot keep Us apart? Mine was of no greater value than Yours, no better means for the communication of Salvation but not its source.

No one can die for anyone and death does not atone for sin. But You can live to show it is not real. The body does appear to be the symbol of sin while You believe that it can get You what You want. While You believe that it can give You pleasure You will also believe that it can bring You pain. To think You could be satisfied and happy with so little is to hurt Yourself. And to limit the happiness that You would have calls upon pain to fill Your meager store and make Your lives complete. This is completion as the ego sees it. For guilt creeps in where happiness has been removed and substitutes for it.

Communion is another kind of completion which goes beyond guilt because it goes beyond the body. Communion comes with Peace and Peace must transcend the body.

f. Obstacles to Peace –
ii. The Belief the Body is Valuable for What It Offers

We said that Peace must first surmount the obstacle of Your desire to get rid of it. Where the attraction of guilt holds sway Peace is not wanted. The second obstacle that Peace must flow across, and closely related to the first, is the belief that the body is valuable for what it offers. For here is the attraction of guilt made manifest in the body and seen in it.

This is the value that You think Peace would rob You of. This is what You believe that it would dispossess and leave You homeless. And it is this for which You would deny a home to Peace. This “sacrifice” You feel to be too great to make, too much to ask of You. Is it a sacrifice or a release? What has the body really given You that justifies Your strange belief that in it lies Salvation? Do You not see that this is the belief in death? Here is the focus of the perception of Atonement as murder. Here is the source of the idea that Love is fear.

The Holy Spirit’s Messengers are sent far beyond the body calling the mind to join in Holy Communion and be at Peace. Such is the Message that I gave them for You. It is only the messengers of fear that see the body for they look for what can suffer. Is it a sacrifice to be removed from what can suffer? The Holy Spirit does not demand You “sacrifice” the hope of the body’s pleasures. It has no hope of pleasure. But neither can it bring You fear of pain. Pain is the only “sacrifice” the Holy Spirit asks. And this He would remove.

Peace is extended from You only to the Eternal. And it reaches out from the Eternal in You. It flows across all else. The second obstacle is no more solid than the first. For You will neither to get rid of Peace nor to limit it. What are these obstacles that You would interpose between Peace and its going forth but barriers You place between Your will and its accomplishment? You want communion, not the feast of fear. You want Salvation, not the pain of guilt. And You want Your Father, not a little mound of clay, to be Your Home.

In Your Holy Relationship is Your Father’s Son. He has not lost communion with Him. Nor with himself. When You agreed to join each other You acknowledged this is so. This has no cost. But it has release from cost. You have paid very dearly for Your illusions. And nothing You have paid for brought You Peace. Are You not glad that Heaven can not be sacrificed? And sacrifice can not be asked of You? There is no obstacle that You can place before Our union for in Your Holy Relationship I am there already. We will surmount all obstacles together for We stand within the Gates and not outside.

How easily the Gates are opened from within to let Peace through to bless the tired world! Can it be difficult for Us to walk past barriers together when You have joined the Limitless? The end of guilt is in Your hands to give. Would You stop now to look for guilt in each other? Let Me be to You the symbol of the end of guilt and look upon each other as You would look on Me. Forgive Me for all the sins You think the Son of God committed. And in the Light of Your forgiveness he will remember who he is and forget what never was.

I ask for Your forgiveness for if You are guilty so must I be. And if I surmounted guilt and overcame the world You were with Me. Would You see in Me the symbol of guilt or of the end of guilt remembering that what I signify to You You see within Yourself? From Your Holy Relationship Truth proclaims the Truth and Love looks on Itself. Salvation flows from deep within the home You offered to My Father and to Me. And We are there together in the quiet communion in which the Father and the Son are joined.

Oh come, Ye Faithful, to the Holy union of the Father and Son in You. And keep You not apart from what is offered You in gratitude for giving Peace its home in Heaven. Send forth to all the world the joyous Message of the end of guilt and all the world will answer. Think of Your happiness as everyone offers You witness of the end of sin and shows You that its Power is gone forever. Where can guilt be when the belief in sin is gone? And where is death when its great advocate is heard no more?

Forgive Me Your illusions and release Me from punishment for what I have not done. So will You learn the freedom that I taught by teaching freedom to each other and so releasing Me. I am within Your Holy Relationship yet You would imprison Me behind the obstacles You raise to freedom and bar My way to You. Yet it is not possible to keep away one who is there already. And in him it is possible that Our communion, where We are already joined, will be the focus of the new perception that will bring Light to all the world contained in You.

g. Pleasure and Pain

Your little part is but to give the Holy Spirit the whole idea of sacrifice. And to accept the Peace He gave instead without the limits that would hold its extension back and so would limit Your awareness of it. For what He gives must be extended if You would have its limitless Power and use it for the Son of God’s release. It is not this You would be rid of and having it You cannot limit it. If Peace is homeless so are You and so am I. And He Who is Our Home is homeless with Us. Is this Your will? Would You forever be a wanderer in search of Peace? Would You invest Your hope of Peace and happiness in what must fail?

Faith in the Eternal is always justified for the Eternal is forever kind, infinite in its patience and wholly loving. It will accept You wholly and give You Peace. But it can unite only with what already is at Peace in You, immortal as itself. The body can bring You neither Peace nor turmoil, neither pain nor Joy. It is a means and not an end. It has no purpose of itself but only what is given it to do. The body will seem to be whatever is the means for reaching the goal that You assign to it.

Only the mind can set a purpose and only mind can see the means for its accomplishment and justify its use. Peace and guilt are both conditions of the mind to be attained. And these conditions are the home of the emotion that called them forth and therefore is compatible with it. But think You which it is that is compatible with You. Here is Your choice and it is free. But all that lies in it will come with it. And what You think You are can never be apart from it.

The body is the great seeming betrayer of faith. In it lies disillusionment and the seeds of faithlessness. But only if You asked of it what it cannot give. Can Your mistake be reasonable grounds for Your depression and disillusionment and for retaliative attack on what You think has failed You? Use not Your error as the justification for Your faithlessness. You have not sinned but You have been mistaken in what is faithful. And the correction of Your mistake will give You grounds for faith.

It is impossible to seek for pleasure through the body and not find pain. It is essential that this relationship be understood for it is one the ego sees as proof of sin. It is not really punitive at all. It is but the inevitable result of equating Yourself with the body which is the invitation to pain. For it invites fear to enter and become Your purpose. The attraction of guilt must enter with it and whatever fear directs the body to do is therefore painful. It will share the pain of all illusions and the illusion of pleasure will be the same as pain. Is not this inevitable?

Under fear’s orders the body will pursue guilt serving its master whose attraction to guilt maintains the whole illusion of his existence. This then is the attraction to pain. Ruled by this perception the body becomes the servant of pain, seeking it dutifully and obeying the idea that pain is pleasure. It is this idea that underlies all of the ego’s heavy investment in the body. And it is this insane relationship which it keeps hidden and yet feeds upon. To You it teaches that the body’s pleasure is happiness. But to itself it whispers: “It is death.”

Why should the body be anything to You? Certainly what it is made of is not precious. And just as certainly it has no feeling. It transmits to You the feelings that You want. Like any communication medium the body receives and sends the messages that it is given. It has no feeling for them. All of the feeling with which they are invested is given by the sender and the receiver. The ego and the Holy Spirit both recognize this. And both also recognize that here the sender and receiver are the same. The Holy Spirit tells You this with Joy. The ego hides it for it would keep You unaware of it.

Who would send messages of hatred and attack if he but understood he sends them to himself? Who would accuse, make guilty and condemn himself? The ego’s messages are always sent away from You in the belief that for Your message of attack and guilt will someone other than Yourself suffer. And even if You suffer yet someone else will suffer more. The great deceiver recognizes that this is not so but as the “enemy” of Peace it urges You to send out all Your messages of hate and free Yourself. And to convince You this is possible it bids the body search for pain in attack upon another, calling it pleasure and offering it to You as freedom from attack.

Hear not its madness and believe not the impossible is True. Forget not that the ego has dedicated the body to the goal of sin and places in it all its faith that this can be accomplished. Its sad disciples chant the body’s praise continually in solemn celebration of the ego’s rule. Not one but must believe that yielding to the attraction of guilt is the escape from pain. Not one but must regard the body as himself without which he would die and yet within which is his death equally inevitable.

It is not given to the ego’s disciples to realize that they have dedicated themselves to death. This has been offered them but they have not accepted it. And what is offered must also be received to be Truly given. For the Holy Spirit too is a communication medium receiving from the Father and offering His Messages unto the Son. Like to the ego the Holy Spirit is both the Sender and Receiver. For what is sent through Him returns to Him, seeking Itself along the way and finding what It seeks. So does the ego find the death it seeks returning it to You.

h. Obstacles to Peace –
iii. The Attraction of Death

To You, into Whose special relationship the Holy Spirit entered, it is given to release and be released from the dedication to death. For it was offered You and You accepted. But You must learn still more about this strange devotion for it contains the third of the obstacles that Peace must flow across. No one can die unless he chooses death. What seems to be the fear of death is really its attraction. Guilt too is feared and fearful. Yet it could have no hold at all except on those who are attracted to it and seek it out. So it is with death. Made by the ego its dark shadow falls across all Living Things because the ego is the “enemy” of Life. And yet a shadow cannot kill.

What is a shadow to the Living? They but walk past and it is gone. But what of those whose dedication it is not to live? The blackdraped “sinners”, the ego’s mournful chorus, plodding so heavily away from Life, dragging their chains and marching in the slow procession that honors their grim master, lord of death. Touch any one of them with the gentle hand of forgiveness and watch the chains fall away along with Yours. See him throw aside the black robe he was wearing to his funeral and hear him laugh at death. The sentence sin would lay upon him he can escape with Your forgiveness.

This is not arrogance. It is the Will of God. What is impossible to You Who choose His Will as Yours? What is death to You? Your dedication is not to death nor to its master. When You accepted the Holy Spirit’s purpose in place of the ego’s You renounced death exchanging it for Life. We know that the result of an idea leaves not its source. And death is the result of the thought We call the ego as surely as Life is the result of the Thought of God.

i. The Incorruptible Body

From the ego came sin and guilt and death in opposition to Life and Innocence and to the Will of God Himself. Where can such opposition lie but in the sick minds of the insane, dedicated to madness and set against the Peace of Heaven?

One thing is sure: God Who created neither sin nor death wills not that You be bound by them. He knows of neither sin nor its result. The shrouded figures in the funeral procession march not in honor of their Creator Whose Will it is they live. They are not following it, they are opposing it. And what is the blackdraped body they would bury? A body they dedicated to death, a symbol of corruption, a sacrifice to sin, offered to sin to feed upon and keep itself alive, a thing condemned, damned by its maker and lamented by every mourner who looks upon it as himself.

You Who believe You have condemned the Son of God to this are arrogant. But You Who would release him are but honoring the Will of his Creator. The arrogance of sin, the pride of guilt, the sepulchre of separation, all are part of Your unrecognized dedication to death. The glitter of guilt You laid upon the body would kill it. For what the ego loves it kills for its obedience. But what obeys it not it cannot kill. You have another dedication which would keep the body incorruptible and perfect as long as it is useful for Your Holy Purpose.

The body no more dies than it can feel. It does nothing. Of itself it is neither corruptible nor incorruptible. It is nothing. It is the result of a tiny, mad idea of corruption which can be corrected. For God has answered this insane idea with His own, an Answer Which left Him not and therefore brings the Creator to the awareness of every mind which heard His Answer and accepted It. You Who are dedicated to the incorruptible have been given through Your acceptance the Power to release from corruption. What better way to teach the first and fundamental principle in a Course on Miracles than by showing You the one that seems to be the hardest can be accomplished first?

The body can but serve Your purpose. As You look upon it so will it seem to be. Death, were it True, would be the final and complete disruption of communication which is the ego’s goal. Those who fear death see not how often and how loudly they call to it and bid it come to save them from communication. For death is seen as safety, the great dark savior from the Light of Truth, the answer to the Answer, the silencer of the Voice that speaks for God. Yet the retreat to death is not the end of conflict. Only God’s Answer is its end.

The obstacle of Your seeming Love for death which Peace must flow across seems to be very great. For in it lies hidden all the ego’s secrets, all its strange devices for deception, all its sick ideas and weird imaginings. Here is the final end of union, the triumph of the ego’s making over Creation, the victory of lifelessness on Life itself. Under the dusty edge of its distorted world the ego would lay the Son of God, slain by its orders, proof in his decay that God Himself is powerless before the ego’s might, unable to protect the Life that He created against the ego’s savage wish to kill.

My Brothers, Children of Our Father, this is a dream of death. There is no funeral, no dark altars, no grim commandments nor twisted rituals of condemnation to which the body leads You. Ask not release of it. But free it from the merciless and unrelenting orders You laid upon it and forgive it what You ordered it to do. In its exaltation [Verherrlichung] You commanded it to die for only death could conquer Life. And what but insanity could look upon the defeat of God and think it real?

The fear of death will go as its appeal is yielded to Love’s real attraction. The end of sin which nestles quietly in the safety of Your Relationship, protected by Your union, ready to grow into a mighty force for God, is very near. The infancy of Salvation is carefully guarded by Love, preserved from every thought that would attack it and quietly made ready to fulfill the mighty task for which it was given You. Your newborn purpose is nursed by Angels, cherished by the Holy Spirit and protected by God Himself. It needs not Your protection, it is Yours. For it is deathless and within it lies the end of death.

What danger can assail the wholly Innocent? What can attack the Guiltless? What fear can enter and disturb the Peace of Sinlessness? What has been given You, even in Its infancy, is in full communication with God and You. In Its tiny Hands It holds in perfect safety every Miracle You will perform held out to You. The Miracle of Life is ageless, born in time but nourished in Eternity. Behold this Infant to Whom You gave a resting place by Your forgiveness of each other and see in It the Will of God. Here is the babe of Bethlehem reborn. And everyone who gives Him shelter will follow Him, not to the cross but to the Resurrection and the Life.

When anything seems to You to be a source of fear, when any situation strikes You with terror and makes Your body tremble and the cold sweat of fear comes over it, remember it is always for one reason: The ego has perceived it as a symbol of fear, a sign of sin and death. Remember then that neither sign nor symbol should be confused with source for they must stand for something other than themselves. Their meaning cannot lie in them but must be sought in what they represent. And they may thus mean everything or nothing according to the Truth or falsity of the idea which they reflect.

Confronted with such seeming uncertainty of meaning judge it not. Remember the Holy Presence of the One given You to be the Source of Judgment. Give it to Him to judge for You and say:

Take this from Me and look upon it
judging it for Me.

Let Me not see it as a sign of sin and death
nor use it for destruction.

Teach Me how not to make of it an obstacle to Peace
but let You use it for Me to facilitate its coming.

j. Obstacles to Peace –
iv. The Fear of God

What would You see without the fear of death? What would You feel and think if death held no attraction for You? Very simply, You would remember Your Father. The Creator of Life, the Source of everything that lives, the Father of the Universe and of the Universe of Universes and of everything that lies even beyond Them would You remember. And as this Memory rises in Your mind Peace must still surmount a final obstacle after which is Salvation completed and the Son of God entirely restored to sanity. For here Your world does end.

The fourth obstacle to be surmounted hangs like a heavy veil before the Face of Christ. Yet as his Face rises beyond it, shining with Joy because he is in his Father’s Love, Peace will lightly brush the veil aside and run to meet him and to join with him at last. For this dark veil which seems to make the Face of Christ himself like to a leper’s and the bright Rays of his Father’s Love which light his Face with glory appear as streams of blood fades in the blazing Light beyond it when the fear of death is gone.

This is the darkest veil upheld by the belief in death and protected by its attraction. The dedication to death and to its sovereignty is but the solemn vow, the promise made in secret to the ego, never to lift this veil, not to approach it nor even to suspect that it is there. This is the secret bargain made with the ego to keep what lies beyond the veil forever blotted out and unremembered. Here is Your promise never to allow union to call You out of separation, the great amnesia in which the Memory of God seems quite forgotten, the cleavage of Your Self from You, the fear of God, the final step in Your dissociation.

See how the belief in death would seem to “save” You. For if this is gone what can You fear but Life? It is the attraction of death that makes Life seem to be ugly, cruel and tyrannical. You are no more afraid of death than of the ego. These are Your chosen friends. For in Your secret alliance with them You have agreed never to let the fear of God be lifted so You could look upon the Face of Christ and join him in his Father. Every obstacle that Peace must flow across is surmounted in just the same way: The fear that raised it yields to the Love beneath and so the fear is gone. And so it is with this.

The desire to get rid of Peace and drive the Holy Spirit from You fades in the presence of the quiet recognition that You love Him. The exaltation [Verherrlichung] of the body is given up in favor of the Spirit Which You love as You could never love the body. And the appeal of death is lost forever as Love’s attraction stirs and calls to You. From beyond each of these obstacles to Love Love Itself has called and each has been surmounted by the Power of the attraction of what lies beyond. Your wanting fear seemed to be holding them in place. Yet when You heard the Voice of Love beyond them You answered and they disappeared.

And now You stand in terror before what You swore never to look upon. Your eyes look down remembering Your promise to Your “friends”: The “loveliness” of sin, the delicate appeal of guilt, the “holy” waxen image of death and the fear of vengeance of the ego You swore in blood not to desert, all rise and bid You not to raise Your eyes. For You realize that if You look on This and let the veil be lifted they will be gone forever. All of Your “friends”, Your “protectors” and Your “home” will vanish. Nothing that You remember now will You remember.

It seems to You the world will utterly abandon You if You but raise Your eyes. Yet all that will occur is You will leave the world forever. This is the reestablishment of Your will. Lo