SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF THE PRINCIPLES OF
THE TUTU DOCTRINE – THE NEW WORLD ORDER
To
understand the changes in the new edition of A Course in
Miracles, called ACIM, the new, published by the World Service of
http://acim-ekim.org/
an explanation is needed as to how the concepts of the Course
have been changed seen through the eyes of the principles of The
TuTu Doctrine - The New World Order.
A
Course in Miracles, the original exclusively
uses the masculine principle to explain how the Spiritual and the
earthly are related, and The TuTu Doctrine - The New World
Order uses both the masculine principle and the feminine principle
for these explanations.
The
TuTu Doctrine – The New World Order
perceives the merged masculine and feminine principle to be an
individual Spirit, who is the personal God of a creaturemanifestation,
and in the personal God, the masculine principle is perceived to be the
power of creation and the feminine principle to be the power of
manifestation.
In the
below four graphs the black areas are perceived to be an illustration of
the unmanifested masculine principle God the Father as the two black
fish and God the Son as the two black circles, and together they make up
the creating principle.
The white areas are perceived to be an illustration of the unmanifested
feminine principle Goddess the Mother as the two white fish and Goddess
the Daughter as the two white circles, and together they make up the
manifesting principle.
In the
same way the son of humankind holds the creating principle in the form
of the Seed of Love and the daughter of humankind holds the manifesting
principle in the form of the Egg of Love.
Goddess the Mother and Goddess the Daughter are perceived to be the
veiled feminine principle, the Holy Spirit, whom God now wants to lift
the veil from and as the manifesting principle the Holy Spirit
understands both the unmanifest and the manifest and can therefore
translate the unmanifest to the manifest and the manifest to the
unmanifest.
The
second graph is an illustration of the archetype, which is that field of
energy, who holds all the individual Spirits, createdmanifested by God
and that field of energy is called the God Realm or the Spirit plane.
This
energy field is also
called the universal and impersonal God of all individual Spirits and
their creaturesmanifestations,
because the archetype not only holds a single individual Spirit, but
all
individual Spirits and their creationsmanifestations.
Each individual and personal Spirit in the archetype is God’s
SonDaughter and holds the merged masculine and feminine principle in the
same way as God HimHerself, and all God’s SonsDaughters put together
make up the SonDaughtership, who is the God Realm.
In the
archetype, the individual Spirit is considered to be an individual and
personal pattern for each single Spirit, and the relation between the
archetype X and the individual part Y is being set up in the equation:
X
= (Y x Z) + S
multiplying
Y
by Z, who is the number of the parts and adding S, which is the
synthesis of them, as the synthesis of the parts is greater than the sum
of the individual parts, in the same way that an alarm clock is more
than the sum of its individual parts, and this archetype is what
humankind generally refer to as God.
The third
graph illustrates the merged masculine and feminine principle, in the
form of the heart, accentuated with red color, and that illustrates the
oneness that holds the warmth of God the Father’s, Goddess the Mother’s,
God the Son’s and Goddess the Daughter’s mutual heart and the two areas
outside the heart illustrates the individuality that holds the cold of
God the Father and God the Son and Goddess the Mother and Goddess the
Daughter.
The
fourth graph illustrates the Holy Grail, the Absolute Oneness that holds
the unconditional love, care, compassion and mercy of the Heart’s Heart
in the merged masculine and feminine principle, accentuated with red
color.
The
following four graphs illustrate this:
When
a desire arose in an individual Spirit to see hisher Spirit Mate, hisher
Eternal Beloved in a new perspective, heshe projected a mirror image of
himherself into the Ocean of Love, that is the nourishment of the all,
in that event, which is called 'the big bang'.
In this nuclear fission, the masculine and the feminine principle were
separated into a 'he' and a 'she', and in the individual Spirit’s
creationmanifestation of the Soul plane arose in the separated ones. the
four basic emotions: love, fear, pain and joy.
Because of the separation, fear of having lost hisher Spirit Mate,
hisher Eternal Beloved arose in the process of separation.
This fear is the basic pain of the Soul plane, but the joy re-arose when
the separated ones discovered that their Spirit Mate, their Eternal
Beloved still was to be found together with them inside the Cosmic Egg.
This ‘he’ and this ‘she’ are called Soul Mates, and below
are
two graphs, which first illustrates two individual Soul Mates followed
by a graph illustrating the archetype of Soul Mates that is called the
Soul plane or the Soul Realm.
THE
ARCHETYPE OF THE SOULMATES
Thus, the
changes in the use of language will be:
When it concerns ‘Heaven’ the words ‘God Realm’ are used instead, if it
concerns the Spirit plane and if it concerns the Soul plane the words
‘the Soul Realm’ are used.
Furthermore, the word Soul is changed to the words ‘individual Spirit,
or merely ‘Spirit’ in those places, where it concerns the Spirit plane
and the word ‘Soul’ where it concerns the Soul plane.
Instead
of the words Christ Mind or the word Christ is used the words Christ
Consciousness/Mercy Consciousness, which is a term for the state of the
consciousness of mercy, which comes to expression in a person who has a
personal contact with his/her chosen Higher Power, has surrendered
his/her will and his/her life to the care of his/her chosen Higher Power
and has attained a spiritual awakening to a state of mercy towards those
who still suffer.
For the
God Realm, instead of the word ‘He’ for God the word ‘HeShe’ is used,
instead of ‘Himself’ is used ‘HimHerself’, ‘FatherMother’ instead of
‘Father’, ‘SonDaughter’ is used instead of Son, and the word
‘SonDaughtership’ instead of ‘Sonship’.
Furthermore,
the
word ‘CreatorManifestor’ is used instead of ‘Creator’ to include the
feminine principle, because the masculine principle is the Creator and
the feminine principle is the Manifestor, just like it is on Earth,
where the man’s seed is the creating power and the woman’s egg is the
manifesting power.
Capital beginning letters are used for God, the FatherMother as the
CreatorManifestor, and lower case beginning letters are used for the
creatormanifestor, when it concerns God, the SonDaughter.
For the
SonDaughtership in the God Realm is used the word ‘heshe’ with lower
case letters to show whether it concerns the SonDaughter or the
FatherMother, who is written with capital as ‘HeShe’.
The word
the LordLady is used instead of the Lord.
When it
concerns the Soul plane, the word He/She is used for the Father/Mother,
which means He or She or He and She,
as He and She have become separated in ‘the big bang’ and thus become
two instead of one because of the nuclear fission.
‘He’ is
the masculine Soul, God the Father and God the Son and ‘She’ is the
feminine Soul Goddess Mother and Goddess the Daughter, and furthermore
is used the Creator/Manifestor instead of Creator, where /
also stands for or or for and.
To make a
distinction between God the Father and Goddess the Mother that are
written as ‘He/She’ and God the Son and Goddess the Daughter at Soul
level lower case letters for ‘he/she’ are used for God the Son and
Goddess the Daughter.
The
feminine principle Goddess the Mother and Goddess the Daughter, who are
one both at the Spirit plane and the Soul plane, are perceived to be the
Holy Spirit and will therefore be referred to as ‘She’ instead of ‘He’,
and when She is mentioned as God’s Teacher teacher will
be written with capital T and the feminine form ‘Teacheress’
will be used.
In all
contexts that concerns the human being the words ‘man/woman’ are used
instead of ‘man’, and where the word ‘he’ is used the words ‘he/she’ is
used instead.
___________________________________________________________
Now four
editions exists beyond the original short hand notes by Helen Schuchman.
An edition of the
original, as it was written down more or less stenographically by Helen
Schucman and typewritten by and discussed with William T. Thetford, can
be found in an edited version, published by 'Foundation for inner
peace', which Helen Schucman chose to edit together with Kenneth
Wapnick, so that the areas of the original edition, which Helen Schucman
did not think should be there were removed, and the edited version can
be found for free here:
https://acim.org/digital-editions/
As
described below in the foreword to the original version of A Course in
Miracle by JCIM, which stands for Jesus' Course in Miracles, also called
the original, which came to light after 'Foundation for inner peace' had
released their version, and the JCIM group undertook to write the
original down with that, which had been edited away by Helen Schucman
and Kenneth Wapnick, and that edition can be found for free here:
https://www.jcim.net/acim_us/Acim.php
Circle of
Atonement made an annotated version of the Course that is different from
the Original because it includes Helen Schucman's handwritten notes from
the first four chapters on sex and personal mistakes, which had been
edited away by Helen Schucman and Kenneth Wapnick, and the four chapters
exist for free on the link below in addition to their suboriginal notes
on link number two:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z4t54On1IbLX0F_pcnoGKdxNIbQ39fL8/view
http://www.jcim.net/Images/Notes_Transcript.pdf
The above
mentioned texts include exclusively the masculine principle in their
explanations about the connection between the earthly and the spiritual,
and the new edition uses the original as a basis to include the feminine
principle of these explanations, as they come to expression in the TuTu
Doctrine - The New World Order, which is available for free here:
The new
edition of A Course in Miracles can be found for free at the link below,
which contains the original in English in the original language and in
Danish translation as well as the new edition in both Danish and
English, so the student has the opportunity to compare the English
original, plus the Danish translation of the original with the English
and Danish version of the new edition found here:
To understand the changes in
the new edition of A Course in
Miracles, called ACIM, the new, published by the World Service of
http://acim-ekim.org/
an explanation is needed as to how the
concepts of the Course have
been changed seen through the eyes of the principles of The
TuTu Doctrine - The New World Order.
A Course in Miracles, the original
exclusively uses the masculine principle to explain how the Spiritual
and the earthly are related, and The
TuTu Doctrine - The New World Order uses both the masculine
principle and the feminine principle for these explanations.
The TuTu Doctrine – The New World Order
perceives the merged masculine and feminine principle to be an
individual Spirit, who is the personal God of a creaturemanifestation,
and in the personal God, the masculine principle is perceived to be the
power of creation and the feminine principle to be the power of
manifestation.
In the below four graphs the
black areas are perceived to be an illustration of the unmanifested
masculine principle God the Father as the two black fish and God the Son
as the two black circles, and together they make up the creating
principle.
The white areas are perceived to be an illustration of the unmanifested
feminine principle Goddess the Mother as the two white fish and Goddess
the Daughter as the two white circles, and together they make up the
manifesting principle.
In the same way the son of
humankind holds the creating principle in the form of the Seed of Love
and the daughter of humankind holds the manifesting principle in the
form of the Egg of Love.
Goddess the Mother and Goddess the Daughter are perceived to be the
veiled feminine principle, the Holy Spirit, whom God now wants to lift
the veil from and as the manifesting principle the Holy Spirit
understands both the unmanifest and the manifest and can therefore
translate the unmanifest to the manifest and the manifest to the
unmanifest.
The second graph is an
illustration of the archetype, which is that field of energy, who holds
all the individual Spirits, createdmanifested by God and that field of
energy is called the God Realm or the Spirit plane.
This energy field is also
called the universal and impersonal God of all creaturesmanifestations,
because the archetype not only holds a single creature’smanifestation’s
individual and personal God, but the individual and personal God of all
creaturesmanifestations, who are all aspects of Gud HimHerself same way
as the liver is an aspect of a human body, but not the whole body, and
each individual spirit has hisher function same way as each aspekt of
the human body has its own function.
Each individual and personal Spirit in the archetype is an aspect of
God’s SonDaughter and holds the merged masculine and feminine principle
in the same way as God HimHerself, and all God’s SonsDaughters put
together make up the SonDaughtership, who is the God Realm.
In the archetype, the
individual Spirit is considered to be an individual and personal pattern
for each single Spirit, and the relation between the archetype X and the
individual part Y is being set up in the equation:
X
= (Y x Z) + S
multiplying Y by Z, who is the
number of the parts and adding S, which is the synthesis of them, as the
synthesis of the parts is greater than the sum of the individual parts,
in the same way that an alarm clock is more than the sum of its
individual parts, and this archetype is what humankind generally refer
to as God.
The third graph illustrates the merged masculine
and feminine principle, in the form of the heart, accentuated with red
color, and that illustrates the oneness that holds the warmth of God the
Father’s, Goddess the Mother’s, God the Son’s and Goddess the Daughter’s
mutual heart and the two areas outside the heart illustrates the
individuality that holds the cold of God the Father and God the Son and
Goddess the Mother and Goddess the Daughter.
The fourth graph illustrates the Holy Grail, the
Absolute Oneness that holds the unconditional love, care, compassion and
mercy of the Heart’s Heart in the merged masculine and feminine
principle, accentuated with red color.
The
following four graphs illustrate this:
When a desire arose in an individual Spirit to
see hisher Spirit Mate, hisher Eternal Beloved in a new perspective,
heshe projected a mirror image of himherself into the Ocean of Love,
that is the nourishment of the all, in that event, which is called 'the
big bang'.
In this nuclear fission, the masculine and the feminine principle were
separated into a 'he' and a 'she', and in the individual Spirit’s
creationmanifestation of the Soul plane arose in the separated ones. The
four basic emotions: love, fear, pain and joy.
Because of the separation, fear of having lost hisher Spirit Mate,
hisher Eternal Beloved arose in the process of separation.
This fear is the basic pain of the Soul plane, but the joy re-arose when
the separated ones discovered that their Spirit Mate, their Eternal
Beloved still was to be found together with them inside the Cosmic Egg.
This ‘he’ and this ‘she’ are called Soul Mates, and below
are
two graphs, which first illustrates two individual Soul Mates followed
by a graph illustrating the archetype of Soul Mates that is called the
Soul plane or the Soul Realm.
THE
ARCHETYPE
OF THE SOULMATES
Thus, the changes in the
use of language will be:
When it concerns ‘Heaven’ the words ‘God Realm’ are used instead, if it
concerns the Spirit plane and if it concerns the Soul plane the words
‘the Soul Realm’ are used.
Furthermore, the word Soul is changed to the words ‘individual Spirit,
or merely ‘Spirit’ in those places, where it concerns the Spirit plane
and the word ‘Soul’ where it concerns the Soul plane.
Instead of the words
Christ Mind or the word Christ is used the words Christ
Consciousness/Mercy Consciousness, which is a term for the state of the
consciousness of mercy, which comes to expression in a person who has a
personal contact with his/her chosen Higher Power, has surrendered
his/her will and his/her life to the care of his/her chosen Higher Power
and has attained a spiritual awakening to a state of mercy towards those
who still suffer.
For the God Realm, instead
of the word ‘He’ for God the word ‘HeShe’ is used, instead of ‘Himself’
is used ‘HimHerself’, ‘FatherMother’ instead of ‘Father’, ‘SonDaughter’
is used instead of Son, and the word ‘SonDaughtership’ instead of
‘Sonship’.
Furthermore, the word
‘CreatorManifestor’ is used instead of ‘Creator’ to include the feminine
principle, because the masculine principle is the Creator and the
feminine principle is the Manifestor, just like it is on Earth, where
the man’s seed is the creating power and the woman’s egg is the
manifesting power.
Capital beginning letters are used for God, the FatherMother as the
CreatorManifestor, and lower case beginning letters are used for the
creatormanifestor, when it concerns God, the SonDaughter.
For the SonDaughtership in
the God Realm is used the word ‘heshe’ with lower case letters to show
whether it concerns the SonDaughter or the FatherMother, who is written
with capital as ‘HeShe’.
The word the LordLady is
used instead of the Lord.
When it concerns the Soul
plane, the word He/She is used for the Father/Mother, which means He or
She or He and She, as He and She have become separated in ‘the big bang’ and
thus become two instead of one because of the nuclear fission.
‘He’ is the masculine
Soul, God the Father and God the Son and ‘She’ is the feminine Soul
Goddess Mother and Goddess the Daughter, and furthermore is used the
Creator/Manifestor instead of Creator, where /
also stands for or or for and.
To make a distinction
between God the Father and Goddess the Mother that are written as
‘He/She’ and God the Son and Goddess the Daughter at Soul level lower
case letters for ‘he/she’ are used for God the Son and Goddess the
Daughter.
The feminine principle
Goddess the Mother and Goddess the Daughter, who are one both at the
Spirit plane and the Soul plane, are perceived to be the Holy Spirit and
will therefore be referred to as ‘She’ instead of ‘He’, and when She is
mentioned as God’s Teacher will teacher be written with capital T and
the feminine form ‘Teacheress’ will be used.
In all contexts that
concerns the human being the words ‘man/woman’ are used instead of
‘man’, and where the word ‘he’ is used the words ‘he/she’ is used
instead.
___________________________________________________________
Now four editions exists
beyond the original short hand notes by Helen Schuchman.
An
edition of the original, as it was written down more or less
stenographically by Helen Schucman and typewritten by and discussed with
William T. Thetford, can be found in an edited version, published by
'Foundation for inner peace', which Helen Schucman chose to edit
together with Kenneth Wapnick, so that the areas of the original
edition, which Helen Schucman did not think should be there were
removed, and the edited version can be found for free here:
https://acim.org/digital-editions/
As described below in the
foreword to the original version of A Course in Miracle by JCIM, which
stands for Jesus' Course in Miracles, also called the original, which
came to light after 'Foundation for inner peace' had released their
version, and the JCIM group undertook to write the original down with
that, which had been edited away by Helen Schucman and Kenneth Wapnick,
and that edition can be found for free here:
https://www.jcim.net/acim_us/Acim.php
Circle of Atonement made
an annotated version of the Course that is different from the Original
because it includes Helen Schucman's handwritten notes from the first
four chapters on sex and personal mistakes, which had been edited away
by Helen Schucman and Kenneth Wapnick, and the four chapters exist for
free on the link below in addition to their suboriginal notes on link
number two:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z4t54On1IbLX0F_pcnoGKdxNIbQ39fL8/view
http://www.jcim.net/Images/Notes_Transcript.pdf
The above mentioned texts
include exclusively the masculine principle in their explanations about
the connection between the earthly and the spiritual, and the new
edition uses the original as a basis to include the feminine principle
of these explanations, as they come to expression in the TuTu Doctrine -
The New World Order, which is available for free here:
The new edition of A
Course in Miracles can be found for free at the link below, which
contains the original in English in the original language and in Danish
translation as well as the new edition in both Danish and English, so
the student has the opportunity to compare the English original, plus
the Danish translation of the original with the English and Danish
version of the new edition found here:
This
course is a beginning, not an end. Your Friend goes with you. You are
not alone. No one who calls on HimHer can call in vain. Whatever
troubles you, be certain that HeShe has the answer and will gladly
give it to you if you simply turn to HimHer and ask it of HimHer.
HeShe will not withhold all answers that you need for anything that
seems to trouble you. HeShe knows the way to solve all problems and
resolve all doubts. HisHer certainty is yours. You need but ask it of
HimHer, and it will be given you.
You
are as certain of arriving home as is the pathway of the sun laid down
before it rises, after it has set, and in the half-lit hours in
between. Indeed, your pathway is more certain still, for it cannot be
possible to change the course of those whom God has called to HimHer.
Therefore obey your will, and follow HimHer Whom you accepted as your
Voice, to speak of what you really want and really need. HisHer is the
Voice for God, and also yours. And thus HeShe speaks of freedom and of
truth.[1]
With these words, A Course in Miracles
concludes its prescribed curriculum of 365 daily lessons, and it is with
these words, too, that we begin our study.
A
Course in Miracles
(often called just "the Course") is a self-study course for
retraining the mind that is spiritual, rather than religious, in its
perspective. Although it uses Christian terminology, it is ecumenical in
its approach, and its underlying ontology is reminiscent of ancient
refrains, echoing the world's most hallowed traditions.
The Course is pragmatic in its method,
and its aim is a peaceful mind: "Knowledge is not the motivation for
learning this course. Peace is.[2]
Nevertheless, the Course frequently emphasizes its simplicity.[3]
The story of the Course began when, in
the midst of an environment of intense competition and negative
attitudes, Columbia University clinical psychologist Dr. William T.
Thetford decided he had had enough and declared to his colleague, Dr.
Helen Schucman, "There must be another way, and I'm determined to find
it." Dr. Schucman vowed to help him.
What ensued was a dramatic progression of waking
dreams for Schucman, which culminated in October 1965 with her
experience of a voice which spoke clearly in her mind, saying "This is a
course in miracles. Please take notes."
With Thetford's support and assistance in
transcribing her shorthand notes, Schucman took down some fifteen
hundred typewritten pages of A Course in Miracles over a
period of seven years.
Schucman did not claim to be the author of the
material herself. As she often explained, she heard a kind of inner
dictation and she felt compelled to write it down, even though at times
she disagreed with the content and resisted the process. The voice which
spoke through Helen clearly identifies himself as Jesus. Nonetheless,
one need not be Christian nor accept Christianity's traditional
doctrines to benefit from the teachings of the Course. Indeed,
traditional Christians will at first find many of the pronouncements
contained in this work to be startling and perhaps unbelievable.
Persistence and open-mindedness will nevertheless be rewarded.
The dictation of A Course in Miracles
was completed in September 1972 and resulted in three volumes - the
Text, the Workbook for Students, and the Manual for Teachers. As the
development of the material progressed, Schucman and Thetford faced the
formidable task of organizing the original typescript (often called the
"Urtext") into what would become A Course in Miracles. They
divided the Text into chapters and sections and gave titles to each, and
they removed a great deal of material from the early chapters, material
they believed was meant for them personally, not for the Course.
The edition that resulted from those efforts is the book you hold in
your hands.
The Text volume of the Original Edition
has undergone an evolutionary process since the 1972 manuscript of A
Course in Miracles was discovered and released on the internet in
late 1999. In early 2000 Course in Miracles Society (CIMS) printed the
1972 manuscript of the text as Jesus' Course in Miracles.
Distribution of that book was suspended during the continuance of the
copyright litigation, which was concluded in 2006.
In November 2006 the initial printing of the Original
Edition (referred to as the 2006 Printing), containing the
Workbook for Students and Manual for Teachers in addition to the Text,
was released. The 2006 Printing corrected numerous typographic errors,
misspellings, and aberrant punctuation that had appeared in the original
1972 manuscript and which were reproduced in the Jesus' Course in
Miracles edition.
There was a second printing in 2009 (referred to
as the 2009 Printing) which continued the process of correcting errors
in the manuscript. In this undertaking the editors for the first time
looked back to earlier manuscripts and restored material that appeared
to have been inadvertently or mistakenly omitted in retyping. This
process of restoration has continued through the 2012, 2017, and 2018
Printings, adhering always to the fundamental directive, "fidelity to
Source." Among the improvements, beginning with the 2012 Printing, was
the updating of paragraph numbering in Chapters 2, 9, 26, and 27,
necessitated mainly by the restoration of material from an earlier
manuscript. Paragraph renumbering is described in footnotes where
pertinent.
In its continuing evolution, this Original
Edition faithfully reproduces the original transcript of the book
that was the result of the collaboration between Schucman and Thetford,
whom many believe were involved with each other in the "holy
relationship" described in Chapters 17 through 22 of the Text. This
edition preserves the original language of the dictation of those
chapters, which were addressed to the two collaborators as they worked
together to produce the manuscript. Later editing of the manuscript
changed the focus of these important chapters and addresses them to a
solitary reader, removing the mutuality that is explicit in the original
dictation.
It seems clear that this Original Edition is
what Schucman and Thetford originally intended to be A Course in
Miracles. However, in 1973 Ken Wapnick, who had joined their small
circle and received a copy of the 1972 manuscript, expressed his belief
that further editing was needed. Thetford withdrew from further detailed
editing work, and Schucman and Wapnick resumed the editing process.
Along with changes in paragraphing, punctuation, capitalization, and
section titles, there was a great deal of line-by-line editing. In
addition, about one-fifth of the material in the first five chapters was
removed. Finally, a new section, the Clarification of Terms, was added.
The resulting edition, published in 1975 by the Foundation for Inner
Peace, became the Course with which the world would become familiar.
While we honor that edition of the Course,
we believe that the additional editing resulted both in shifts of
meaning and a change in the over-all tone of the work. When encountering
Schucman and Thetford's Original Edition, students often find fresh
clarity as they read its wording or new understanding as they encounter
passages that were not included in the later 1975 edition. In the case
of editing, it seems to us that the "less-is-best" rule applies—the less
tampering with the eloquent and carefully worded dictation that Schucman
received, the better.
In this Original Edition, we have
taken great care in dealing with the editorial issues presented by the
original typed manuscript. Our focus has been upon reproducing as nearly
as possible the content as it was originally given to Schucman and
Thetford. It is to be noted, however, that there are a few occasions
where we encountered material from the original dictation that appears
to have been inadvertently or mistakenly dropped in the early retyping.
In those instances, we have re-inserted the missing lines, noting our
addition by placing the inserted material in square brackets. Otherwise,
the only changes that have been made to the original manuscript of the Course
as completed by Schucman and Thetford have been to correct obvious
typographic errors and misspellings, to standardize punctuation and
capitalization, and to format the material for print publication. Apart
from the simple section and paragraph numbering which we include for
ease of reference and navigation, nothing has been added to or omitted
from the work.
We would be remiss were we to fail to
acknowledge the selfless support provided to the Course in Miracles
Society by its members and others. From its earliest days, the work of
the Society has been enabled by tireless contributions of labor and
generous financial support provided by many individuals whose only
compensation has been the satisfaction of fostering the circulation of
this sacred writing in the world. Publication of this edition, in
particular, has been underwritten by a substantial grant from a member
who wishes to remain anonymous. To those supporters and all of our
members, we extend a sincere "thank you." We are most grateful.
1
This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you
take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the
curriculum. It means only that you may elect what you want to take at a
given time.
2
The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is
beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks
to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance.
The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no
opposite.
3
This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:
5
Herein lies the peace of God.
1.1
There is no order of difficulty among miracles. One is not "harder" or
"bigger" than another. They are all the same. All expressions of love
are maximal.
2. 2
Miracles as such do not matter. The only thing that matters is their
Source, Which is far beyond human evaluation.
3. 3
Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the
love that inspires them. In this sense, everything that comes from love
is a miracle.
4. 4
All miracles mean life, and God is the Giver of life. HisHer Voice will
direct you very specifically. You will be told all you need to know.
5. 5
Miracles are habits and should be involuntary. They should not be under
conscious control. Consciously selected miracles can be misguided.
6. 6
Miracles are natural. When they do not occur, something has gone
wrong.
7. 7
Miracles are everyone's right, but purification is necessary first.
8. 8
Miracles are [a form of] healing because they supply a lack in that they
are performed by those who temporarily have more for those who
temporarily have less.
9. 9
Miracles are a kind of exchange. Like all expressions of love, which are
always miraculous in the true sense, the exchange reverses the
physical laws. They bring more love both to the giver and
the receiver.
10. 10
The use of miracles as spectacles to induce belief is wrong, or
better, is a misunderstanding of their purpose. They are really used for
and by believers.
11. 11
Prayer is the medium of miracles. Prayer is the natural communication of
the createdmanifested with the CreatorManifestor. Through prayer love is
received, and through miracles love is expressed.
12. 12
Miracles are thoughts. Thoughts can represent lower-order or
higher-order reality. This is the basic distinction between
intellectualizing and thinking. One makes the physical and the other
createsmanifests the Spiritual, and we believe in what we make or
createmanifest.
13. 13
Miracles are both beginnings and endings. They thus alter the temporal
order. They are always affirmations of rebirth which seem to go back but
really go forward. They undo the past in the present and thus release
the future.
14. 14
Miracles bear witness to truth. They are convincing because they arise
from conviction. Without conviction they deteriorate into magic, which
is mindless and therefore destructive, or rather the
uncreativeunmanifestive use of mind.
15. 15
Each day should be devoted to miracles. The purpose of time is to enable
a man/woman to learn to use it constructively. Time is thus a teaching
device and a means to an end. It will cease when it is no longer useful
in facilitating learning.
16. 16
Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating that it is as blessed to
give as to receive. They simultaneously increase the strength of the
giver and supply strength to the receiver.
17. 17
Miracles are the transcendence of the body. They are sudden shifts into
invisibility, away from a sense of lower-order reality. That is why they
heal.
18. 18
A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service one individual can
render another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. The
doer recognizes his/her own and his/her neighbor's inestimable worth
simultaneously.
19. 19
[Miracles make Souls one in the Christ Consciousness/the Mercy
Consciousness.] They depend on cooperation because the SonDaughtership
is the sum of all Spirits God createdmanifested. Miracles therefore rest
on the laws of eternity, not of time.
20. 20
Miracles reawaken the awareness that the Spirit, not the body, is the
altar of truth. This is the recognition that leads to the healing power
of the miracle.
21. 21
Miracles are natural expressions of total forgiveness. Through miracles,
a man/woman accepts God's forgiveness by extending it to others.
22. 22
Miracles are associated with fear only because of the fallacious belief
that darkness can hide. The man/woman believes that what he/she
cannot see does not exist, and his/her physical eyes cannot see in the
dark. This is a very primitive solution and has led to a denial of the
Spiritual eye. The escape from darkness involves two stages:
A. 23
The recognition that darkness cannot hide. This step usually
entails fear.
B. 24
The recognition that there is nothing you want to hide, even if
you could. This step brings escape from fear.
23. 25
Miracles rearrange perception and place the levels of perception in true
perspective. This heals at all levels because sickness comes
from confusing the levels.
26
When you have become willing to hide nothing, you will not only be
willing to enter into communion but will also understand peace and joy.
Your commitment is not yet total, and that is why you still have more to
learn than to teach. When your equilibrium stabilizes, you will be able
to teach as much as you learn, which will give you the proper balance.
Meanwhile, remember that no effort is wasted, for unless you remember
this, you cannot avail yourselves of my efforts, which are
limitless. Only eternity is real. Why not use the illusion of time
constructively?
24. 27
Miracles enable a man/woman to heal the sick and raise the dead because
he/she made sickness and death himself/herself and can abolish both. You
are a miracle, capable of creatingmanifesting in the likeness of your
CreatorManifestor. Everything else is only your own nightmare and does
not exist. Only the creationsmanifestations of light are real.
25. 28
Miracles are part of an interlocking chain of forgiveness which, when
completed, is the Atonement. This process works all the time and in all
the dimensions of time.
29
I am in charge of the process of Atonement, which I undertook
to begin. When you offer a miracle unto any of my brothers/sisters, you
do it unto yourself and me. The reason you come before me
is that I do not need miracles for my own Atonement, but I stand at the
end in case you fail temporarily. The purpose of my part in the
Atonement is the canceling out of all lacks of love which men/women
could not otherwise correct. The word "sin" should be changed to "lack
of love" because "sin" is a man/woman-made word with threat connotations
which he/she made up himself/herself. No real threat is involved
anywhere. Nothing is gained by frightening yourselves, and it is very
destructive to do so.
26. 30
Miracles represent freedom from fear. "Atoning" really means
"undoing." The undoing of fear is an essential part of the Atonement
value of miracles.
31
The purpose of the Atonement is to restore everything to you, or rather
to restore it to your awareness. You were given everything when you were
createdmanifested, just as everyone was. When you have been restored to
the recognition of your original state, you naturally become part of the
Atonement yourself. As you share my inability to tolerate lack of love
in yourself and others, you must join the Great Crusade to correct it.
The slogan for the Crusade is "Listen, learn and do": Listen to
my voice, learn to undo error, and do something to correct it.
The first two are not enough. The real members of my party are active
workers.
32
The power to work miracles belongs to you. I will provide the
opportunities to do them, but you must be ready and willing
since you are already able. Doing them will bring conviction in the
ability, since conviction really comes through accomplishment. The
ability is the potential; the achievement is its expression; and the
Atonement is the purpose.
27. 33
A miracle is a universal blessing from God through me to all my
brothers/sisters. It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive.
34
The disciples were specifically told to be physicians of the LordLady
and to heal others. They were also told to heal themselves and
were promised that I would never leave them or forsake them. Atonement
is the natural profession of the Children of God because they have
professed me. "The God Realm and earth shall pass away" simply means
that they will not continue to exist as separate states. My word, which
is the resurrection and the life, shall not pass away, because life is
eternal. You are the work of God, and HisHer work is wholly
lovable and wholly loving. This is how a man/woman must think of
himself/herself in his/her heart because this is what he/she is.
28. 35
Miracles are a means of organizing different levels of consciousness.
36
Miracles come from the below or subconscious level. Revelations come
from the above or superconscious level. The conscious level is in
between and reacts to either sub- or superconscious impulses in varying
ratios. Consciousness is the level which engages in the world and is
capable of responding to both. Having no impulses from itself and being
primarily a mechanism for inducing response, it can be very wrong.
37
Revelation induces complete but temporary suspension of doubt and fear.
It represents the original form of communication between God and HisHer
Spirits, involving an extremely personal sense of closeness to
creationmanifestation which the man/woman tries to find in physical
relationships. Physical closeness cannot achieve this. The
subconscious impulses properly induce miracles, which are genuinely
interpersonal and result in real closeness to others. This can be
misunderstood by a personally willful consciousness as impulses
toward physical gratification.
38
Revelation unites Souls directly with God. Miracles unite [Souls]
directly with each other. Neither emanates from consciousness, but both
are experienced there. This is essential since consciousness is
the state which produces action, though it does not inspire it.
A man/woman is free to believe what he/she chooses, and what he/she does
attests to what he/she believes. The deeper levels of his/her
subconscious always contain the impulse to miracles, but he/she
is free to fill its more superficial levels, which are closer to
consciousness, with the impulses of this world and to identify
himself/herself with them. This results in denying
himself/herself access to the miracle level underneath. In conscious
actions, then, his/her relationships also become superficial, and
miracle-inspired relating becomes impossible.
29. 39
Miracles are a way of earning release from fear.
40
Revelation induces a state in which fear has already been
abolished. Miracles are thus a means, and revelation is an end. [In this
sense, they work together.] Miracles do not depend on revelation; they induce
it. Revelation is intensely personal and cannot actually be translated
into conscious content at all. That is why any attempt to describe it in
words is usually incomprehensible. Revelation induces only
experience. Miracles, on the other hand, induce [interpersonal] action.
Miracles are more useful now because of their impersonal nature.
In this phase of learning, working miracles is more important because
freedom from fear cannot be thrust upon you.
30. 41
Miracles praise God through men/women. They praise God by honoring
HisHer creationsmanifestations, affirming their perfection. They heal
because they deny body-identification and affirm Soul-identification. By
perceiving the Spirit, they adjust the levels and see them in proper
alignment. This places the Spirit at the center, where individual Souls
can communicate directly.
31. 42
Miracles should inspire gratitude, not awe. A man/woman should thank God
for what he/she really is. The Children of God are very holy, and the
miracle honors their holiness.
43
God's creationsmanifestations never lose their holiness, although it can
be hidden. The miracle uncovers it and brings it into the light where it
belongs. Holiness can never be really hidden in darkness, but the
man/woman can deceive himself/herself about it. This illusion makes
him/her fearful because he/she knows in his/her heart it is an illusion,
and he/she exerts enormous efforts to establish its reality. The miracle
sets reality where it belongs. Eternal reality belongs only to the
Spirit, and the miracle acknowledges only the truth. It thus dispels the
man’s/woman’s illusions about himself/herself and puts him/her in
communion with himself/herself and God.
32. 44
The Christ Consciousness/the Mercy inspires all miracles, which are
really intercessions. They intercede for the man’s/woman’s holiness and
make his/her perceptions holy. By placing him/her beyond the physical
laws, they raise him/her into the sphere of celestial order. In this
order, the man/woman is perfect.
45
The individual Spirit never loses its communion with God. Only the mind
needs Atonement. The miracle joins in the Atonement of the Christ
Consciousness/the Mercy Consciousness by placing the mind in the service
of the Spirit. This establishes the proper function of the mind and
corrects its errors.
33. 46
Miracles honor the man/woman because he/she is lovable. They
dispel illusions about him/her and perceive the light in him/her. They
thus atone for his/her errors by freeing him/her from his/her own
nightmares. They release him/her from a prison in which he/she has
imprisoned himself/herself, and by freeing his/her mind from
illusions, they restore his/her sanity. The man’s/woman’s mind can
be possessed by illusions, but his/her Spirit is eternally free. If a
mind perceives without love, it perceives an empty shell and is unaware
of the Spirit within it. But the Atonement restores the Soul to its
proper place. The mind that serves the Spirit is invulnerable.
34. 47
Miracles restore [the Soul] to its fullness. By atoning for lack, they
establish perfect protection. The strength of the Spirit leaves no room
for intrusions. The forgiven are filled with the Spirit, and they
forgive in return. It is the duty of the released to release their
brothers/sisters.
48
The forgiven are the means of Atonement. Those released by the
Christ Consciousness/the Mercy Consciousness must join in releasing
their brothers/sisters, for this is the plan of the Atonement. Miracles
are the way in which minds which serve the Spirit unite with the Christ
Consciousness/the Mercy Consciousness for the salvation or release of
all God's creationsmanifestations.
35. 49
Miracles are expressions of love, but it does not follow that
they will have observable effects. I am the only one, who can perform
miracles indiscriminately because I am the Atonement. You have a
role in the Atonement, which I will dictate to you. Ask me
which miracles you should perform. This spares you exhaustion because
you will act under direct communication.
36. 50
Christ Consciousness/Mercy Consciousness-controlled miracles are part of
the Atonement, but Christ Consciousness/Mercy Consciousness-guidance is
personal and leads to personal salvation. The impersonal nature
of miracles is an essential ingredient because this enables me
to control their distribution. Christ Consciousness/Mercy
Consciousness-guidance leads to the highly personal experience
of revelation. This is why it involves personal choice. A guide
does not control, but he/she does direct, leaving the
following up to you. "Lead us not into temptation" means "guide us out
of our own errors." "Take up thy cross and follow me" means, "Recognize
your errors and choose to abandon them by following my guidance."
51
Remember that error cannot really threaten truth, which can always
withstand it. Only the error is really vulnerable. You are free
to establish your realm where you see fit, but the right choice is
inevitable if you remember this:
53
Atonement undoes all errors in this respect and thus uproots the real
source of fear. Whenever God's reassurances are experienced as threat,
it is always because you are defending misplaced and misdirected
loyalty. That is what projection always involves. Error is lack of love.
When the man/woman projects this onto others, he/she does
imprison them, but only to the extent that he/she reinforces errors they
have already made. This makes them vulnerable to the distortions
of others since their own perception of themselves is distorted.
The miracle worker can only bless and this undoes their
distortions and frees them from prison.
37. 54
Miracles are examples of right thinking. reality contact at all levels
becomes strong and accurate, thus permitting correct delineation of
intra- and interpersonal boundaries. As a result, the doer's perceptions
are aligned with truth as God createdmanifested it.
38. 55
A miracle is a correction factor introduced into false thinking by me.
It acts as a catalyst, shaking up erroneous perception and reorganizing
it properly. This places the man/woman under the Atonement principle,
where his/her perception is healed. Until this has occurred, revelation
of the divine order is impossible.
39. 56
The Spiritual eye is the mechanism of miracles because what It perceives
is true. It perceives both the creationsmanifestations of God and
the creationsmanifestations of the man/woman. Among the
creationsmanifestations of the man/woman, it can also separate the true
from the false by its ability to perceive totally rather than
selectively. It thus becomes the proper instrument for reality testing,
which always involves the necessary distinction between the false and
the true.
40. 57
The miracle dissolves error because the Spiritual eye identifies error
as false or unreal. This is the same as saying that by perceiving light,
darkness automatically disappears.
58
Darkness is lack of light, as sin is lack of love. It has no unique
properties of its own. It is an example of the "scarcity" fallacy, from
which only error can proceed. Truth is always abundant. Those
who perceive and acknowledge that they have everything have no need for
driven behavior of any kind.
41. 59
The miracle acknowledges all men/women as your brothers/sisters and
mine. It is a way of perceiving the universal mark of God in them. The
specialness of God’s SonsDaughters does not stem from exclusion
but from inclusion. All my brothers/sisters are special. If they
believe they are deprived of anything, their perception becomes
distorted. When this occurs, the whole family of God, or the
SonDaughtership, is impaired in its relationships. Ultimately, every
member of the family of God must return. The miracle calls him/her to
return because it blesses and honors him/her even though he/she may be
absent in Spirit.
60
"God is not mocked" is not a warning but a reassurance on this point.
God would be mocked if any of HisHer creationsmanifestations
lacked holiness. The creationmanifestation is whole, and the
mark of wholeness is holiness.
42. 61
Wholeness is the perceptual content of miracles. It thus corrects or
atones for the faulty perception of lack anywhere.
62
Here we begin to make the fundamental distinction between miracles and
projection. The stimulus must precede the response and will also
determine the kind of response that is evoked. Behavior is
response, so that the question "response to what?" becomes crucial.
Since stimuli are identified through perception, you first perceive the
stimulus and then behave accordingly. It follows, then, that:
64
The Golden Rule asks you to behave toward others as you would have them
behave toward you. This means that the perception of both must
be accurate. The Golden Rule is the rule for appropriate behavior. You
cannot behave appropriately unless you perceive accurately, because
appropriate behavior depends on lack of level confusion. The
presence of level confusion always results in variable reality
testing and therefore in variability in behavioral appropriateness.
Since you and your neighbor are equal members of the same family, as you
perceive both, so you will behave toward both. The way to perceive for
Golden Rule behavior is to look out from the perception of your own
holiness and perceive the holiness of others.
65
The emptiness engendered by fear should be replaced by love because love
and its absence are in the same dimension, and correction cannot be
undertaken except within a dimension. Otherwise, there has been
a confusion of levels. Death is a human affirmation of a belief in
[hate] or level confusion. That is why the Bible says, "There is
no death" and why I demonstrated that death does not exist. I came to
fulfill the law by reinterpreting it. The law itself, if
properly understood, offers only protection to the man/woman. It is
those who have not yet "changed their minds" who entered the "hellfire"
concept into it.
66
I assure you that I will witness for anyone who lets me and to
whatever extent he/she permits it. Your witnessing demonstrates
your belief and thus strengthens it. Those who witness for me are
expressing through their miracles that they have abandoned the belief in
deprivation in favor of the abundance they have learned belongs
to them.
43. 67
A major contribution of miracles is their strength in releasing
the man/woman from his/her misplaced sense of isolation, deprivation,
and lack.
68
Miracles are affirmations of the SonDaughtership, which is a state of
completion and abundance. Whatever is true and real is eternal and cannot
change or be changed. The Spirit is therefore unalterable
because it is already perfect, but the mind can elect the level it
chooses to serve. The only limit which is put on its choice is
that it cannot serve two masters.
69
The mind, if it elects to do so, becomes a medium by which the Spirit
createsmanifests along the line of its own creationmanifestation. If it
does not freely elect to do so, it retains its creativemanifestive potential
but places itself under tyrannous rather than genuinely authoritative
control. As a result it imprisons, because such are the dictates of
tyrants. To change your mind means to place it at the disposal of true
Authority.
70
The miracle is thus a sign that the mind has chosen to be led by the
Christ Consciousness/the Mercy Consciousness in his/her service. The
abundance of the Christ Consciousness/the Mercy Consciousness is the
natural result of choosing to follow him/her. All shallow roots
must be uprooted because they are not deep enough to sustain you. The
illusion that shallow roots can be deepened and thus made to
hold is one of the distortions on which the reversal of the
Golden Rule rests. As these false underpinnings are given up, the
equilibrium is temporarily experienced as unstable. However, the fact is
that nothing is less stable than an orientation that is upside
down. Nor can anything which holds it that way be really conducive to
greater stability.
44. 71
Miracles arise from a miraculous state of mind. By being one, this state
of mind goes out to anyone, even without the awareness of the
miracle worker himself/herself. The impersonal nature of miracles is
because the Atonement itself is one, uniting all creationsmanifestations
with their CreatorManifestor.
45. 72
The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of the Christ
Consciousness/the Mercy Consciousness and the acceptance of It’s
Atonement. The mind is then in a state of grace and naturally becomes
gracious both to the host within and the stranger without. By bringing
in the stranger, he/she becomes your brother/sister.
46. 73
A miracle is never lost. It touches the many people you do not even know
and sometimes produces undreamed of changes in forces of which you are
not even aware. That is not your concern. The miracle will always bless
you.
74
The miracles you are not asked to perform have not lost their
value. They are still expressions of your own state of grace, but the action
aspect of the miracle should be Christ Consciousness/Mercy
Consciousness-controlled because of It’s complete awareness of the whole
plan. The impersonal nature of miracle-mindedness ensures your
grace, but only the Christ Consciousness/the Mercy Consciousness is in a
position to know where grace can be bestowed.
47. 75
Miracle-mindedness means miracle-readiness. Readiness means that you
should always keep your perceptions straight, so that you will always
be ready, willing, and able. These are the essentials for "listen,
learn, and do." You must be ready to listen, willing to
learn, and able to do. Only the last is involuntary because it
is the application of miracles, which must be Christ
Consciousness/Mercy Consciousness-controlled. The other two, which are
the voluntary aspects of miracle-mindedness, are up to
you.
48. 76
Awe is an inappropriate response to miracles.
77
Revelation is literally unspeakable because it is an experience of
unspeakable love. Awe should be reserved for revelation, to which it is
perfectly and correctly applicable. It is not appropriate for
miracles, because a state of awe is worshipful. It implies that one of a
lesser order stands before a greater one. This is the case only
when a Spirit stands before its CreatorManifestor. Individual Spirits
are perfect creationsmanifestations and experience awe only in the
Presence of the CreatorManifestor of perfection.
78
The miracle, on the other hand, is a sign of love among equals. Equals
cannot be in awe of one another because awe implies inequality. It is
therefore an inappropriate reaction to me. An elder brother/sister is
entitled to respect for his/her greater experience and a reasonable
amount of obedience for his/her greater wisdom. He/she is also entitled
to love because he/she is a brother/sister and also to devotion
if he/she is devoted. It is only my devotion that entitles me us to
yours. There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. I have
nothing that does not come from God. The main difference between me as
yet is that I have nothing else. This leaves me in a state of
true holiness, which is only a potential in you.
79
"No man/woman cometh unto the FatherMother but by me" is among the most
misunderstood statements in the Bible. It does not mean that I
am in any way separate or different from you except in time,
which does not really exist at all. Actually, the quotation is more
meaningful if it is considered on a vertical rather than a horizontal
axis. Regarded along the vertical, the man/woman stands below me and I
stand below God. In the process of "rising up," I am higher.
This is because, without me, the distance between God and the man/woman
would be too great for you to encompass.
80
I bridge the distance as an elder brother/sister to the man/woman on the
one hand and as a SonDaughter of God on the other. My devotion to my
brothers and sisters have placed me in charge of the SonDaughtership,
which I can render complete only to the extent to which I can share
it. This may appear to contradict the statement, "I and my FatherMother
are one," but there are still separate parts in the statement in
recognition that the FatherMother is greater. (The original statement
was "are of one kind"). The Holy Spirit is the bringer of revelations.
Revelations are indirectly inspired by me because I am close to
the Holy Spirit and alert to the revelation-readiness of my
brothers/sisters. I can thus bring down to them more than they
can draw down to themselves.
49. 81
The Holy Spirit is the highest communication medium. Miracles do not
involve this type of communication because they are temporary
communication devices. When the man/woman returns to his/her original
form of communication with God, the need for miracles is over. The Holy
Spirit mediates higher to lower communication, keeping the direct
channel from God to human open for revelation. Revelation is not
reciprocal. It is always from God to human. The miracle
is reciprocal because it involves equality.
50. 82
The miracle is a learning device which lessens the need for time. In the
longitudinal or horizontal plane, the recognition of the true equality
of all the members of the SonDaughtership appears to involve almost
endless time. However, the sudden shift from horizontal to vertical
perception which the miracle entails introduces an interval from which
the doer and the receiver both emerge much farther along in time
than they would otherwise have been.
83
The miracle thus has the unique property of shortening time by rendering
the space of time it occupies unnecessary. There is no
relationship between the time a miracle takes and the time it covers.
It substitutes for learning that might have taken thousands of years. It
does this by the underlying recognition of perfect equality and holiness
between the doer and the receiver on which the miracle rests.
84
We said before that the miracle abolishes time. It does this by a
process of collapsing it and thus abolishing certain intervals
within it. It does this, however, within the larger temporal
sequence. It establishes an out-of-pattern time interval which is not
under the usual laws of time. Only in this sense is it timeless. By
collapsing time, it literally saves time. Much as daylight saving time
does, it rearranges the distribution of light.
51. 85
The miracle is the only device which a man/woman has at his/her
immediate disposal for controlling time. Only revelation transcends
time, having nothing to do with time at all.
86
The miracle is much like the body in that both are learning aids which
aim at facilitating a state in which they are unnecessary. When the
individual Spirit's original state of direct communication is reached,
neither the body nor the miracle serves any purpose. While he/she
believes he/she is in a body, however, a man/woman can choose between
loveless and miraculous channels of expression. He/she can make an empty
shell, but he/she cannot express nothing at all. He/she can
wait, delay, paralyze himself/herself, reduce his/her
creativity/manifestivity to almost nothing, and even introduce a
developmental arrest or even a regression. But he/she cannot
abolish his/her creativity. He/she can destroy his/her medium of
communication but not his/her potential.
87
The man/woman was not createdmanifested by his/her own free will
alone. Only what he/she
creates/manifests is his/her to decide. The basic decision of the
miracle-minded is not to wait on time any longer than is necessary. Time
can waste as well as be wasted. The miracle-worker, therefore, accepts
the time-control factor gladly because he/she recognizes that every
collapse of time brings all men/women closer to the ultimate release
from time in which the SonDaughter and the FatherMother are one.
88
Equality does not imply homogeneity now. When everyone
recognizes that he/she has everything, individual contributions to the
SonDaughtership will no longer be necessary. When the Atonement has been
completed, all talents will be shared by all the
SonsDaughters of God. God is not partial. All HisHer Children
have HisHer total love, and all HisHer gifts are freely given to
everyone alike. "Except ye become as little children" means that, unless
you fully recognize your complete dependence on God, you cannot know the
real power of the SonDaughter in hisher true relationship with the
FatherMother.
89
You who want peace can find it only by complete forgiveness. You never
really wanted peace before, so there was no point in being told
how to achieve it. No learning is acquired by anyone unless he/she wants
to learn it and believes in some way that he/she needs it. While
the concept of lack does not exist in the creationmanifestation of God,
it is very apparent in the creationsmanifestions of humans. It
is, in fact, the essential difference. A need implies lack by
definition. It involves the recognition that you would be better off in
a state which is somehow different from the one you are in.
90
Until the "separation," which is a better term than the "fall," nothing
was lacking. This meant that a man/woman had no needs at all. If he/she
had not deprived himself/herself, he/she would never have experienced
them. After the separation, needs became the most powerful source of
motivation for human action. All behavior is essentially motivated by
needs, but behavior itself is not a divine attribute. The body is the
mechanism for behavior. The belief that he/she could be better
off is the reason why a man/woman has this mechanism at his/her
disposal.
91
Each one acts according to the particular hierarchy of needs he/she
establishes for himself/herself. His/her hierarchy, in turn, depends on
his/her perception of what he/she is—that is, what he/she lacks.
A sense of separation from God is the only lack he/she really
needs to correct. This sense of separation would never have occurred if
he/she had not distorted his/her perception of truth and thus perceived
himself/herself as lacking. The concept of any sort of
need hierarchy arose because, having made this fundamental error, he/she
had already fragmented himself/herself into levels with different needs.
As he/she integrates he/she becomes one, and his/her needs become one
accordingly.
92
Unified need produces unified action because it produces a lack of
ambivalence. The concept of a need hierarchy, a corollary to the
original error that a man/woman can be separated from God, requires
correction at its own level before the error of perceiving levels at all
can be corrected. A man/woman cannot behave effectively while he/she
operates at split levels. However, while he/she does, correction must be
introduced from the bottom up. This is because he/she now
operates in space, where concepts such as "up" and "down" are
meaningful. Ultimately, space is as meaningless as time. The concept is
really one of space-time belief.
93
The physical world exists only because the man/woman can use it to
correct his/her unbelief, which placed him/her in it originally.
He/she can never control the effects of fear himself/herself because
he/she made fear and believes in what he/she made. In attitude,
then, though not in content, he/she resembles his/her own
CreatorManifestor, Who has perfect faith in HisHer
creationsmanifestations because HeShe createdmanifested them.
Belief in a creationmanifestation produces its existence. That is why a
the man/woman can believe in what no one else thinks is true. It is true
for him/her because it was made by him/her.
94
Every aspect of fear proceeds from upside-down perception. The more
truly creativemanifestive devote their efforts to correcting perceptual
distortions. The neurotic devotes his/her to compromise. The psychotic
tries to escape by establishing the certain truth of his/her own errors.
It is most difficult to free him/her by ordinary means because he/she is
more consistent in his/her own denial of truth. The miracle, however,
makes no such distinctions. It corrects errors because they are
errors. Thus, the next point to remember about miracles is:
52. 95
The miracle makes no distinction among degrees of misperception.
It is a device for perception-correction, effective quite apart from
either the degree or the direction of the error. This is its true
indiscriminateness.
96
The Christ Consciousness/the Mercy-controlled miracles are selective only
in the sense that they are directed towards those who can use them for themselves.
Since this makes it inevitable that they will extend them to others, a
strong chain of Atonement is welded. However, the Christ
Consciousness/the Mercy Consciousness-control takes no account at all of
the magnitude of the miracle itself because the concept of size exists
in a plane that is itself unreal. Since the miracle aims at restoring
the awareness of reality, it would hardly be useful if it were bound by
the laws which govern the error it aims to correct. Only a man/woman
makes this kind of mistake. It is an example of the foolish consistency
which his/her own false beliefs have engendered.
97
The power and strength of man’s/woman's creativemanifestive will must be
understood before the real meaning of denial can be appreciated and
relinquished. It is not mere negation. It is a positive
miscreationmismanifestation. While the miscreationmismanifestation is necessarily
believed in by its maker, it does not exist at all at the level of true
creationmanifestation.
53. 98
The miracle compares what a man/woman has made with the higher level
creationmanifestation, accepting what is in accord as true and
rejecting the discordant as false. All aspects of fear
are untrue because they do not exist at the higher creativemanifestive
level, and therefore do not exist at all. To whatever extent a human is
willing to submit his/her beliefs to this test, to that extent are
perceptions corrected.
99
In sorting out the false from the true, the miracle proceeds along the
following lines:
102
You are involved in unconscious distortions which are producing a dense
cover over miracle impulses and which make it hard for them to reach
consciousness. The nature of any interpersonal relationship is limited
or defined by what you want it to do. Relating is a way of
achieving an outcome. The danger of defenses lies in their propensity
for holding misperceptions rigidly in place. All actions which stem from
reverse thinking are literally the behavioral expressions of those who
know not what they do. A rigid orientation can be extremely reliable,
even if it is upside-down. In fact, the more consistently upside-down it
is, the more reliable it is.
103
However, validity is still the ultimate goal, which reliability can only
serve. Hostility, triumph, vengeance, self-debasement, and all kinds of
expressions of lack of love are often very clearly seen in the fantasies
which accompany them. But it is a profound error to imagine that
because these fantasies are so frequent or occur so reliably that this
implies validity. Remember that while validity implies reliability, the
relationship is not reversible. You can be wholly reliable and entirely
wrong. While a reliable instrument does measure something, what
use is it unless you discover what the "something" is? This
course, then, will concentrate on validity and let reliability fall
naturally into place.
104
The confusion of miracle impulses with physical impulses is a major
source of perceptual distortion because it induces, rather than
straightens out, the basic level confusion which underlies the
perception of all those who seek happiness with the instruments of this
world. Inappropriate physical impulses (or misdirected miracle impulses)
result in conscious guilt if expressed and depression if denied. All
real pleasure comes from doing God's will. This is because not
doing it is a denial of self. Denial of error results in
projection. Correction of error brings release. "Lead us not
into temptation" means "do not let us deceive ourselves into believing
that we can relate in peace to God or to our brothers/sisters with anything
external."
105
Child of God, you were createdmanifested to createmanifest the good, the
beautiful, and the holy. Do not lose sight of this. The love of God for
a little while must still be expressed through one body to another
because the real vision is still so dim. Everyone can use his/her body
best by enlarging his/her perception so he/she can see the real
vision. This vision is invisible to the physical eye. The
ultimate purpose of the body is to render itself unnecessary. Learning
to do this is the only real reason for its creationmanifestation.
106
Fantasies of any kind are distorted forms of thinking because they always
involve twisting perception into unreality. Fantasy is a debased form of
vision. Vision and revelation are closely related, while fantasy and
projection are more closely associated because both attempt to control
external reality according to false internal needs. Twist reality in any
way, and you are perceiving destructively. Reality was lost through
usurpation, which in turn produced tyranny. I told you that you are now
restored to your former role in the plan of Atonement, but you must
still choose freely to devote yourselves to the greater restoration. As
long as a single slave remains to walk the earth, your release is not
complete. Complete restoration of the SonDaughtership is the
only true goal of the miracle-minded.
107
No fantasies are true. They are distortions of perception by
definition. They are a means of making false associations and obtaining
pleasure from them. The man/woman can do this only because he/she is
creativemanifestive. But, although he/she can perceive false
associations, he/she can never make them real except to
himself/herself. The man/woman believes in what he/she
createsmanifests. If he/she createsmanifests miracles, he/she will be
equally strong in his/her belief in them. The strength of
his/her conviction will then sustain the belief of the miracle receiver.
And fantasies become totally unnecessary as the wholly satisfying nature
of reality becomes apparent to both.
2:1
This section deals with a fundamental misuse of knowledge, referred to
in the Bible as the cause of the "fall," or separation. There are some
definitions which I asked you to take from the dictionary which will be
helpful here. They are somewhat unusual since they are not the first
definitions which are given. Nevertheless, the fact that each of them
does appear in the dictionary should be reassuring.
2
Project (verb): to extend forward or out.
Project (noun): a plan in the mind.
World: a natural grand division.
3
We will refer later to projection as related to both mental health and
mental illness. We have already observed that a man/woman can
createmanifest an empty shell, but he/she cannot createmanifest nothing
at all. This emptiness provides the screen for the misuse of projection.
4
The Garden of Eden, which is described as a literal garden in the Bible,
was not an actual garden at all. It was merely a mental state of
complete need-lack. Even in the literal account, it is noteworthy that
the pre-separation state was essentially one in which a man/woman needed
nothing. The "tree of knowledge" is also an overly literal figure. These
concepts need to be clarified before the real meaning of the separation,
or the "detour into fear," can be fully understood.
5
To "project," as defined above, is a fundamental attribute of God which
HeShe gave to HisHer SonDaughter. In the creationmanifestation, God
projected HisHer creativemanifestive ability from HimHerself to the
individual Spirits HeShe createdmanifested, and HeShe also imbued them
with the same loving will to createmanifest. The individual Spirit has
not only been fully createdmanifested but has also been
createdmanifested perfect. There is no emptiness in it. Because
of its likeness to its CreatorManifestor, it is creativemanifestive. No
Child of God can lose this ability because it is inherent in what heshe
is, but heshe can use it inappropriately. Whenever
projection is used inappropriately, it always implies that some
emptiness or lack exists and that it is in the man's/woman’s ability to
put his/her own ideas there instead of truth.
6
If you consider carefully what this entails, the following will become
quite apparent:
7
First, the assumption is implicit that what God createdmanifested can be
changed by the mind of the man/woman.
8
Second, the concept that what is perfect can be rendered imperfect or
wanting is accepted.
9
Third, the belief that a man/woman can distort the
creationsmanifestations of God, including himself/herself, is
accepted.
10
Fourth, the idea that since a man/woman can createmanifest
himself/herself, the direction of his/her own creationmanifestation is
up to him/her is implied.
11
These related distortions represent a picture of what actually occurred
in the separation. None of this existed before, nor does it actually
exist now. The world was made as "a natural grand division," or
a projecting outward of God. That is why everything that HeShe
createdmanifested is like HimHer. Projection, as undertaken by God, is
very similar to the kind of inner radiance which the Children of the
FatherMother inherit from HimHer. It is important to note that the term
"project outward" necessarily implies that the real source of
projection is internal. This is as true of the SonDaughter as of the
FatherMother.
12
The world, in the original connotation of the term, included both the
proper creationmanifestation of the man/woman by God and the
proper creationmanifestation by a man/woman in his/her right mind. The
latter required the endowment of the man/woman by God with free will
because all loving creationmanifestation is freely given.
Nothing in these statements implies any sort of level involvement or in
fact anything except one continuous line of creationmanifestation in
which all aspects are of the same order.
13
When the "lies of the serpent" were introduced, they were specifically
called "lies" because they are not true. When the man/woman listened,
all he/she heard was untruth. He/she does not have to continue to
believe what is not true unless he/she chooses to do so. All of his/her
miscreationsmismanifestations can literally disappear in "the twinkling
of an eye" because they are merely visual misperceptions. The
man's/woman’s Spiritual Eye can sleep, but a sleeping eye can still see.
What is seen in dreams seems to be very real. The Bible mentions that "a
deep sleep fell upon Adam and Eve," and nowhere is there any reference
to his/her waking up.
14
The history of the man/woman in the world as he/she sees it has not yet
been marked by any genuine or comprehensive reawakening or rebirth. This
is impossible as long as a man/woman projects in the Spirit of
miscreationmismanifestation. It still remains within him/her, however,
to project as God projected HisHer own Spirit to him/her. In reality,
this is his/her only choice because his/her free will was given
him/her for his/her own joy in creatingmanifesting the perfect.
15
All fear is ultimately reducible to the basic misperception that a
man/woman has the ability to usurp the power of God. It can only
be emphasized that he/she neither can nor has been able
to do this. In this fact lies the real justification for his/her escape
from fear. The escape is brought about by his/her acceptance of the
Atonement, which places him/her in a position to realize that his/her
own errors never really occurred. When the "deep sleep" fell upon
Adam/Eve, he/she was in a condition to experience nightmares because
he/she was asleep. If a light is suddenly turned on while someone is
dreaming a fearful dream, he/she may initially interpret the light
itself as a part of his/her own dream and be afraid of it. However, when
he/she awakens the light is correctly perceived as the release
from the dream, which is no longer accorded reality.
16
It is quite apparent that this release does not depend on the
kind of "knowledge" which is nothing more than deceiving lies. The
knowledge which illuminates rather than obscures is the knowledge which
not only sets you free, but which also shows you clearly that
you are free. Whatever lies you may believe are of no concern to
the miracle, which can heal any of them with equal ease. It
makes no distinctions among misperceptions. Its sole
concern is to distinguish between truth on the one hand and all kinds of
errors on the other. Some miracles may seem to be of greater
magnitude than others. But remember the first point in this course—that
there is no order of difficulty in miracles.
17
In reality, you are perfectly unaffected by all expressions of
lack of love. These can be either from yourself and others or
from yourself to others or from others to you. Peace is
an attribute in you. You cannot find it outside. All mental
illness is some form of external searching. Mental health is inner
peace. It enables you to remain unshaken by lack of love from without
and capable through your own miracles of correcting the external
conditions which proceed from lack of love in others.
18
When you are afraid of anything, you are acknowledging its power
to hurt you. Remember that where your heart is, there is your treasure
also. This means that you believe in what you value. If you are
afraid, you are valuing wrongly. Human understanding will
inevitably value wrongly and, by endowing all human thoughts with equal
power, will inevitably destroy peace. That is why the Bible
speaks of "the peace of God which passeth understanding." This
peace is totally incapable of being shaken by human errors of any
kind. It denies the ability of anything which is not of God to
affect you in any way.
19
This is the proper use of denial. It is not used to hide
anything but to correct error. It brings all error into
the light, and since error and darkness are the same, it corrects error
automatically. True denial is a powerful protective device. You can and
should deny any belief that error can hurt you. This kind of denial is
not a concealment device but a correction device. The "right mind" of
the mentally healthy depends on it. You can do anything
I ask. I have asked you to perform miracles and have made it clear that
miracles are natural, corrective, healing, and universal. There
is nothing good they cannot do, but they cannot be performed in the
Spirit of doubt.
20
God and the individual Spirits HeShe createdmanifested are completely
dependent on each other. The creationmanifestation of the individual
Spirit has already been perfectly accomplished, but the
creationmanifestation by individual Spirits has not. God
createdmanifested individual Spirits so HeShe could depend on them because
HeShe createdmanifested them perfectly. HeShe gave them HisHer peace so
they could not be shaken and would be unable to be deceived. Whenever
you are afraid, you are deceived. Your mind is not
serving the Spirit. This literally starves the individual Spirit by
denying its daily bread. God offers only mercy. Your
words should reflect only mercy because that is what you have received,
and that is what you should give.
21
Justice is a temporary expedient or an attempt to teach the man/woman
the meaning of mercy. Its judgmental side arises only because a
man/woman is capable of injustice if that is what his/her mind
createsmanifests. You are afraid of God's Will because you have used
your own will, which HeShe createdmanifested in the likeness of HisHer
own, to miscreatemismanifest. What you do not realize is
that the mind can miscreatemismanifest only when it is not
free. An imprisoned mind is not free by definition. It is possessed or
held back by itself. Its will is therefore limited and is not
free to assert itself. The real meaning of "are of one kind," which was
mentioned before, is "are of one mind or will." When the will of the
SonDaughtership and the FatherMother are one, their perfect accord is
the Realm of God.
22
Denial of error is a powerful defense of truth. You will note that we
have been shifting the emphasis from the negative to the positive use of
denial. As we have already stated, denial is not a purely negative
device; it results in positive miscreationmismanifestation. That is the
way the mentally ill do employ it. But remember a very early
thought of your own—"Never underestimate the power of denial." In the
service of the "right mind," the denial of error frees the mind
and reestablishes the freedom of the will. When the will is really
free, it cannot miscreatemismanifest because it recognizes only
truth.
23
False projection arises out of false denial, not out of its
proper use. My own role in the Atonement is one of true
projection; I can project to you the affirmation of truth. If you
project error to us or to yourself, you are interfering with the
process. My use of projection, which can also be yours, is not
based on faulty denial. It does involve, however, the very
powerful use of the denial of errors. The miracle worker is one who
accepts my kind of denial and projection, unites his/her own inherent
abilities to deny and project with mine, and imposes them back on
himself/herself and others. This establishes the total lack of
threat anywhere. Together we can then work for the real time of peace,
which is eternal.
24
The improper use of defenses is quite widely recognized, but their
proper use had not been sufficiently understood as yet. They can indeed
createmanifest man’s/woman's perception both of himself/herself and of
the world. They can distort or correct depending on what you use them for.
25
Denial should be directed only to error, and projection should be
reserved only for truth. You should truly give as you have truly
received. The Golden Rule can work effectively only on this basis.
26
Intellectualization is a term which stems from the mind-brain confusion.
"Right-mindedness" is the device which defends the right mind
and gives it control over the body. "Intellectualization" implies a
split, while "right-mindedness" involves healing.
27
Withdrawal is properly employed in the service of withdrawing from the
meaningless. It is not a device for escape, but for
consolidation. There is only One Mind.
28
Dissociation is quite similar. You should split off or
dissociate yourself from error but only in defense of integration.
29
Detachment is essentially a weaker form of dissociation.
30
Flight can be undertaken in whatever direction you choose, but note that
the concept itself implies flight from something. Flight from
error is perfectly appropriate.
31
Distantiation can be properly used as a way of putting distance between
yourself and what you should fly from.
32
Regression is an effort to return to your own original state. It can
thus be utilized to restore, rather than to go back to the less
mature.
33
Sublimation should be a redirection of effort to the sublime.
34
There are the many other so-called "dynamic" concepts which are profound
errors due essentially to the misuse of defenses. Among them is the
concept of different levels of aspiration, which actually result from
level confusion. However, the main point to be understood from this
section is that you can defend truth as well as error and, in fact, much
better.
35
The means are easier to clarify after the value of the goal itself is
firmly established. Everyone defends his/her own treasure. You do not
have to tell him/her to do so because he/she will do it automatically.
The real questions still remain. What do you treasure, and how
much do you treasure it? Once you have learned to consider these
two questions and to bring them into all your actions as the
true criteria for behavior, I will have little difficulty in clarifying
the means. You have not learned to be consistent about this as yet. I
have therefore concentrated on showing you that the means are
available whenever you ask. You can, however, save a lot of time
if you do not extend this step unduly. The correct focus will shorten it
immeasurably.
36
The Atonement is the only defense which cannot be used
destructively. That is because, while everyone must eventually join it,
it is not a device which was generated by a man/woman. The
Atonement principle was in effect long before the Atonement
itself began. The principle was love, and the Atonement itself was an act
of love. Acts were not necessary before the separation because the
time-space belief did not exist. It was only after the separation that
the defense of Atonement and the necessary conditions for its
fulfillment were planned.
37
It became increasingly apparent that all of the defenses which a
man/woman can choose to use constructively or destructively were
not enough to save him/her. It was therefore decided that he/she needed
a defense which was so splendid that he/she could not misuse it,
although he/she could refuse it. His/her choice could not,
however, turn it into a weapon of attack, which is the inherent
characteristic of all other defenses. The Atonement thus becomes the only
defense which is not a two-edged sword.
38
The Atonement actually began long before the crucifixion. Many
individual Spirits offered their efforts on behalf of the separated
ones, but they could not withstand the strength of the attack and had to
be brought back. Angels came, too, but their protection did not suffice
because the separated ones were not interested in peace. They had
already split their minds and were bent on further dividing rather than
reintegrating. The levels they introduced into their minds turned
against each other, and they established differences, divisions,
cleavages, dispersions, and all the other concepts related to the
increasing splits which they produced.
39
Not being in their right minds, they turned their defenses from
protection to assault and acted literally insanely. It was essential to
introduce a split-proof device which could be used only to heal,
if it were used at all. The Atonement was built into the space-time
belief in order to set a limit on the need for the belief and ultimately
to make learning complete. The Atonement is the final lesson.
Learning itself, like the classrooms in which it occurs, is temporary.
The ability to learn has no value when change of understanding is no
longer necessary. The eternally creativemanifestive have nothing to
learn. Only after the separation was it necessary to direct the
creativemanifestive forces to learning because changed behavior had
become mandatory.
40
Men/women can learn to improve their behavior and can also learn to
become better and better learners. This serves to bring them into closer
and closer accord with the SonDaughtership, but the SonDaughtership
itself is a perfect creationmanifestation, and perfection is not
a matter of degree. Only while there are different degrees is learning
meaningful. The "evolution" of the man/woman is merely a process by
which he/she proceeds from one degree to the next. He/she corrects
his/her previous missteps by stepping forward. This represents a process
which is actually incomprehensible in temporal terms because he/she returns
as he/she goes forward.
41
The Atonement is the device by which he/she can free himself/herself
from the past as he/she goes ahead. It undoes his/her past
errors, thus making it unnecessary for him/her to keep retracing his/her
steps without advancing to his/her return. In this sense the Atonement
saves time but, like the miracle which serves it, does not
abolish it. As long as there is need for Atonement, there is need for
time. But the Atonement as a completed plan does have a unique
relationship to time. Until the Atonement is finished, its
various phases will proceed in time, but the whole Atonement
stands at time's end. At this point, the bridge of the return has been
built.
42
The Atonement is a total commitment. You still think this is
associated with loss. This is the same mistake all the separated
ones make in one way or another. They cannot believe that a defense
which cannot attack is the best defense. This is what is meant
by "the meek shall inherit the earth." They will literally take it over
because of their strength. A two-way defense is inherently weak
precisely because it has two edges and can turn against the self
very unexpectedly. This tendency cannot be controlled except by
miracles.
43
The miracle turns the defense of Atonement to the protection of the
inner self, which, as it becomes more and more secure, assumes its
natural talent of protecting others. The inner self knows itself as both
a brother/sister and a SonDaughter. You know that when defenses
are disrupted, there is a period of real disorientation accompanied by
fear, guilt, and usually vacillations between anxiety and depression.
This course is different in that defenses are not being
disrupted but reinterpreted, even though you may experience it
as the same thing. In the reinterpretation of defenses, only their use
for attack is lost. Since this means they can be used only one
way, they become much stronger and much more dependable. They no longer
oppose the Atonement but greatly facilitate it.
44
The Atonement can only be accepted within you. You have
perceived it largely as external thus far, and that is why your
experience of it has been minimal. The reinterpretation of defenses is
essential in releasing the inner light. Since the separation,
man’s/woman’s defenses have been used almost entirely to defend
himself/herself against the Atonement and thus maintain the
separation. They themselves generally see this as a need to protect the
body. The many body fantasies with which men’s/women’s minds are
engaged arise from the distorted belief that the body can be used as a
means for attaining "atonement."
45
Perceiving the body as a temple is only the first step in correcting
this kind of distortion. It alters part of the misperception but not all
of it. It does recognize, however, that the concept of Atonement
in physical terms is not appropriate. However, the next step is to
realize that a temple is not a building at all. Its real
holiness lies in the inner altar around which the building is
built. The inappropriate emphasis men/women have put on beautiful church
buildings is a sign of their fear of Atonement and their
unwillingness to reach the altar itself. The real beauty of the
temple cannot be seen with the physical eye. The Spiritual eye, on the
other hand, cannot see the building at all because it has perfect sight.
It can, however, see the altar with perfect clarity.
46
For perfect effectiveness, the Atonement belongs at the center of the
inner altar, where it undoes the separation and restores the wholeness
of the mind. Before the separation, the mind was invulnerable to fear
because fear did not exist. Both the separation and the fear are
miscreationsmismanifestations of the mind which must be undone. This is
what is meant by "the restoration of the temple." It does not mean the
restoration of the building but the opening of the altar to receive the
Atonement. This heals the separation and places within a
man/woman the one defense against all separation mind-errors
which can make him/her perfectly invulnerable.
47
The acceptance of the Atonement by everyone is only a matter of time. In
fact, both time and matter were createdmanifested for this
purpose. This appears to contradict free will because of the
inevitability of the final decision. If you review the idea carefully,
however, you will realize that this is not true. Everything is limited
in some way by the man/woman of its creationmanifestation. Free will can
temporize and is capable of enormous procrastination. But it cannot
depart entirely from its CreatorManifestor, Who set the limits on its
ability to miscreatemismanifest by virtue of its own real
purpose.
48
The misuse of will engenders a situation which in the extreme becomes
altogether intolerable. Pain thresholds can be high, but they are not
limitless. Eventually everyone begins to recognize, however dimly, that
there must be a better way. As this recognition becomes more
firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This
ultimately reawakens the Spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the
investment in physical sight. The alternating investment in the two
types or levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict for a
long time and can become very acute, but the outcome is as certain as
God.
49
The Spiritual eye literally cannot see error and merely looks
for Atonement. All the solutions which the physical eyes seek dissolve
in its sight. The Spiritual eye, which looks within, recognizes
immediately that the altar has been defiled and needs to be repaired and
protected. Perfectly aware of the right defense, It passes over
all others, looking past error to truth. Because of the real strength of
Its vision, It pulls the will into Its service and impels the
mind to concur. This reestablishes the true power of the will and makes
it increasingly unable to tolerate delay. The mind then realizes with
increasing certainty that delay is only a way of increasing unnecessary
pain, which it need not tolerate at all. The pain threshold drops
accordingly, and the mind becomes increasingly sensitive to what it
would once have regarded as very minor intrusions of discomfort.
50
The Children of God are entitled to perfect comfort, which comes
from a sense of perfect trust. Until they achieve this, they waste
themselves and their true creativemanifestive powers on useless attempts
to make themselves more comfortable by inappropriate means. But the real
means is already provided and does not involve any effort at all
on their part. Their egocentricity usually misperceives this as
personally insulting, an interpretation which obviously arises from
their misperception of themselves. Egocentricity and communion cannot
coexist. Even the terms are contradictory.
51
The Atonement is the only gift that is worthy of being offered to the
altar of God. This is because of the inestimable value of the altar
itself. It was createdmanifested perfect and is entirely worthy of
receiving perfection. God is lonely without HisHer individual
Spirits, and they are lonely without HimHer. Men/women must
learn to perceive the world as a means of healing the
separation. The Atonement is the guarantee that they will
ultimately succeed.
52
The emphasis will now be on healing. The miracle is the means, the
Atonement is the principle, and healing is the result. Those who speak
of "a miracle of healing" are combining two orders of reality
inappropriately. Healing is not a miracle. The Atonement or the
final miracle is a remedy, while any type of healing is a
result. The kind of error to which Atonement is applied is
irrelevant. Essentially, all healing is the release from fear.
To undertake this, you cannot be fearful yourself. You do not
understand healing because of your own fear.
53
A major step in the Atonement plan is to undo error at all
levels. Illness, which is really "not-right-mindedness," is the result
of level confusion in the sense that it always entails the belief that
what is amiss in one level can adversely affect another. We have
constantly referred to miracles as the means of correcting level
confusion, and all mistakes must be corrected at the level on which they
occur. Only the mind is capable of error. The body can act
erroneously, but this is only because it is responding to mis-thought.
The body cannot createmanifest, and the belief that it can, a
fundamental error, produces all physical symptoms.
54
All physical illness represents a belief in magic. The whole distortion
which createdmanifested magic rests on the belief that there is a
creativemanifestive ability in matter which the mind cannot control.
This error can take two forms—it can be believed that the mind can
miscreatemismanifest in the body or that the body can
miscreatemismanifest in the mind. If it is understood that the mind,
which is the only level of creationmanifestation, cannot
createmanifest beyond itself, neither type of confusion need occur.
55
The reason only the mind can createmanifest is more obvious than may be
immediately apparent. The individual Spirit has been
createdmanifested. The body is a learning device for the mind. Learning
devices are not lessons in themselves. Their purpose is merely to
facilitate the thinking of the learner. The most that a faulty use of a
learning device can do is to fail to facilitate learning. It has no
power in itself to introduce actual learning errors.
56
The body, if properly understood, shares the invulnerability of the
Atonement to two-edged application. This is not because the body is a
miracle but because it is not inherently open to
misinterpretation. The body is merely a fact in human experience. Its
abilities can be and frequently are over-evaluated. However, it is
almost impossible to deny its existence. Those who do so are engaging in
a particularly unworthy form of denial. The term "unworthy" here implies
simply that it is not necessary to protect the mind by denying the
unmindful. [There is little doubt that the mind can
miscreatemismanifest.] If one denies this unfortunate aspect of the
mind's power, one is also denying the power itself.
57
All material means which a man/woman accepts as remedies for bodily ills
are merely restatements of magic principles. It was the first level of
the error to believe that the body createdmanifested its own illness. It
is a second misstep to attempt to heal it through
non-creativenon-manifestive agents. It does not follow, however, that
the use of these very weak corrective devices is evil. Sometimes the
illness has a sufficiently great hold over a mind to render a personal
inaccessible to Atonement. In this case it may be wise to utilize a
compromise approach to mind and body, in which something from
the outside is temporarily given healing belief.
58
This is because the last thing that can help the
non-right-minded, or the sick, is an increase in fear. They are
already in a fear-weakened state. If they are inappropriately
exposed to an "undiluted" miracle, they may be precipitated into panic.
This is particularly likely to occur when upside-down perception has
induced the belief that miracles are frightening.
59
The value of the Atonement does not lie in manner in which it is
expressed. In fact, if it is truly used, it will inevitably be
expressed in whatever way is most helpful to the receiver, [not the
giver]. This means that a miracle, to attain its full efficacy, must
be expressed in a language which the recipient can understand without
fear. It does not follow by any means that this is the highest level of
communication of which he/she is capable. It does mean, however,
that it is the highest level of communication of which he/she is capable
now. The whole aim of the miracle is to raise the level
of communication, not to impose regression in the improper sense upon
it.
60
Before miracle workers are ready to undertake their function in this
world, it is essential that they fully understand the fear of
release. Otherwise, they may unwittingly foster the belief that
release is imprisonment, a belief that is very prevalent. This
misperception arose from the underlying misbelief that harm can be
limited to the body. This was because of the much greater fear that the
mind can hurt itself. Neither error is really meaningful because the
miscreationsmismanifestations of the mind do not really exist. This
recognition is a far better protective device than any form of
level confusion because it introduces correction at the level of the
error.
61
It is essential to remember that only the mind can
createmanifest. Implicit in this is the corollary that correction
belongs at the thought level. To repeat an earlier statement and
to extend it somewhat, the individual Spirit is already perfect and
therefore does not require correction. The body does not really exist
except as a learning device for the mind. This learning device is not
subject to errors of its own because it was createdmanifested but is not
creatingmanifesting. It should be obvious, then, that correcting the
creatormanifestor or inducing it to give up its
miscreationsmismanifestations is the only application of
creativemanifestive ability which is truly meaningful.
62
Magic is essentially mindless or the miscreativemismanifestive use of
the mind. Physical medications are forms of "spells." Those who are
afraid to use the mind to heal should not attempt to do so. The very
fact that they are afraid has made them vulnerable to
miscreationmismanifestation. They are therefore likely to misunderstand
any healing they might induce and, because egocentricity and fear
usually occur together, may be unable to accept the real Source of the
healing. Under these conditions, it is safer for them to rely temporarily
on physical healing devices because they cannot misperceive them as
their own creationsmanifestations. As long as their sense of
vulnerability persists, they should be preserved from even attempting
miracles.
63
We have already said that the miracle is an expression of
miracle-mindedness. Miracle-mindedness merely means right-mindedness in
the sense that we are now using it. The right-minded neither exalt nor
depreciate the mind of the miracle worker or the miracle
receiver. However, as a creativemanifestive act, the miracle need not
await the right-mindedness of the receiver. In fact, its purpose is to restore
him/her to his/her right mind. It is essential, however, that the
miracle worker be in his/her right mind or he/she will be unable
to reestablish right-mindedness in someone else.
64
The healer who relies on his/her own readiness is endangering
his/her understanding. He/she is perfectly safe as long as he/she is
completely unconcerned about his/her readiness but maintains a
consistent trust in mine. If your miracle working propensities
are not functioning properly, it is always because fear has
intruded on your right-mindedness and has literally upset it. All forms
of not-right-mindedness are the result of refusal to accept the
Atonement for yourself. If the miracle worker does
accept it, he/she places himself/herself in a position to recognize that
those who need to be healed are simply those who have not realized that
right-mindedness is healing.
65
The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the
Atonement for himself/herself. This means that he/she recognizes that
mind is the only creativemanifestive level and that its errors are
healed by the Atonement. Once he/she accepts this, his/her mind can only
heal. By denying his/her mind any destructive potential and reinstating
its purely constructive powers, he/she has placed himself/herself in a
position where he/she can undo the level confusion of others. The
message he/she then gives to others is the truth that their
minds are similarly constructive and that their
miscreationsmismanifestations cannot hurt them. By affirming this, the
miracle worker releases the mind from over-evaluating its own learning
device (the body) and restores the mind to its true position as the
learner.
66
It should be emphasized again that the body does not learn any more than
it createsmanifests. As a learning device, it merely follows the
learner, but if it is falsely endowed with self-initiative, it becomes a
serious obstruction to the very learning it should facilitate. Only
the mind is capable of illumination. The individual Spirit is already
illuminated, and the body in itself is too dense. The mind, however, can
bring its illumination to the body by recognizing that
density is the opposite of intelligence and therefore unamenable to
independent learning. It is, however, easily brought into alignment with
a mind which has learned to look beyond density toward light.
67
Corrective learning always begins with the awakening of the Spiritual
eye and the turning away from the belief in physical sight. The reason
this so often entails fear is because the man/woman is afraid of what
his/her Spiritual eye will see. We said before that the Spiritual eye
cannot see error and is capable only of looking beyond it to the defense
of Atonement. There is no doubt that the Spiritual eye does
produce extreme discomfort by what it sees. Yet what the man/woman
forgets is that the discomfort is not the final outcome of its
perception. When the Spiritual eye is permitted to look upon the
defilement of the altar, it also looks immediately toward the
Atonement.
68
Nothing the Spiritual eye perceives can induce fear. Everything
that results from accurate Spiritual awareness is merely channelized
toward correction. Discomfort is aroused only to bring the need
for correction forcibly into awareness. What the physical eye sees is not
corrective nor can it be corrected by any device which can be
seen physically. As long as a man/woman believes in what his/her
physical sight tells him/her, all his/her corrective behavior
will be misdirected. The real vision is obscured because the
man/woman cannot endure to see his/her own defiled altar. But since the
altar has been defiled, his/her state becomes doubly dangerous
unless it is perceived.
69
The fear of healing arises, in the end, from an unwillingness to accept
the unequivocal fact that healing is necessary. The man/woman is not
willing to look on what he/she has done to himself/herself.
Healing is an ability lent to the man/woman after the separation, before
which it was completely unnecessary. Like all aspects of the space-time
belief, healing ability is temporary. However, as long as time persists,
healing is needed as a means for human protection. This is because
healing rests on charity, and charity is a way of perceiving the
perfection of another even if he/she cannot perceive it himself/herself.
70
Most of the loftier concepts of which a man/woman is capable now are
time-dependent. Charity is really a weaker reflection of a much more
powerful love-encompassment which is far beyond any form of
charity that a man/woman can conceive of as yet. Charity is essential to
right-mindedness in the limited sense in which right-mindedness can now
be attained. Charity is a way of looking at another as if he/she
had already gone far beyond his/her actual accomplishments in time.
Since his/her own thinking is faulty, he/she cannot see the Atonement
for himself/herself or he/she would have no need for charity. The
charity which is accorded him/her is both an acknowledgment that he/she
is weak and a recognition that he/she could be stronger.
71
The way in which both of these perceptions are stated clearly implies
their dependence on time, making it quite apparent that charity lies
within man’s/woman’s limitations, though toward its higher levels. We
said before that only revelation transcends time. The miracle, as an
expression of true human charity, can only shorten time at most. It must
be understood, however, that whenever a man/woman offers a miracle to
another, he/she is shortening the suffering of both. This
introduces a correction into the whole record which corrects
retroactively as well as progressively.
72
You believe that "being afraid" is involuntary, something beyond your
control. Yet I have told you several times that only constructive
acts should be involuntary. We have said that Christ Consciousness/Mercy
Consciousness-control can take over everything that does not
matter, while Christ Consciousness/Mercy Consciousness-guidance can
direct everything that does if you so choose. Fear cannot be
Christ Consciousness/Mercy Consciousness-controlled, but it can
be self-controlled. It prevents me from controlling it. The
correction is therefore a matter of your will because its
presence shows that you have raised the unimportant to a higher
level than it warrants. You have thus brought it under your
will, where it does not belong. This means that you feel
responsible for it. The level confusion here is obvious.
73
The reason I cannot control fear for you is that you are attempting to
raise to the mind level the proper content of lower-order reality. I do
not foster level confusion, but you can choose to correct it.
You would not tolerate insane behavior on your part and would
hardly advance the excuse that you could not help it. Why should you
tolerate insane thinking? There is a confusion here which you
would do well to look at clearly. You believe that you are
responsible for what you do but not for what you think.
The truth is that you are responsible for what you think because
it is only at this level that you can exercise choice.
74
What you do comes from what you think. You cannot separate
yourself from the truth by "giving" autonomy to behavior. This is
controlled by me automatically as soon as you place what you think under
our guidance. Whenever you are afraid, it is a sure sign that you have
allowed your mind to miscreatemismanifest or have not allowed me
to guide it. It is pointless to believe that controlling the outcome
of mis-thought can result in healing. When you are fearful you have
willed wrongly. This is why you feel responsible for it. You must change
your mind, not your behavior, and this is a matter of
will.
75
You do not need guidance except at the mind level. Correction
belongs only at the level where creationmanifestation is
possible. The term does not mean anything at the symptom level, where it
cannot work. The correction of fear is your responsibility. When
you ask for release from fear, you are implying that it is not. You
should ask instead for help in the conditions which have brought the
fear about. These conditions always entail a separated mind
willingness. At that level, you can help it. You are much too
tolerant of mind wandering, thus passively condoning its
miscreationsmismanifestations. The particular result does not matter,
but the fundamental error does. The correction is always the
same. Before you will to do anything, ask me if your will is in accord
with mine. If you are sure that it is, there will be no fear.
76
Fear is always a sign of strain, which arises whenever the will
to do conflicts with what you do. This situation arises in two
ways:
77
First, you can will to do conflicting things, either simultaneously or
successively. This produces conflicted behavior, which is intolerable to
yourself because the part of the will that wants to do something else
is outraged.
78
Second, you can behave as you think you should but without
entirely willing to do so. This produces consistent behavior but
entails great strain within the self.
79
In both cases, the will and the behavior are out of accord, resulting in
a situation in which you are doing what you do not will. This
arouses a sense of coercion, which usually produces rage. The rage then
invades the mind and projection in the wrong sense is likely to follow.
Depression or anxiety is virtually certain.
80
Remember that whenever there is fear, it is because you have not made up
your mind. Your will is split, and your behavior inevitably becomes
erratic. Correcting at the behavioral level can shift the error from the
first to the second type of strain described above but will not
obliterate the fear. It is possible to reach a state in which you bring
your will under my guidance without much conscious effort, but this
implies habit patterns which you have not developed dependably as yet.
God cannot ask more than you will. The strength to do comes from your
own undivided will to do. There is no strain in doing God's Will as soon
as you recognize that it is also your own.
81
The lesson here is quite simple but particularly apt to be overlooked. I
will therefore repeat it, urging you to listen. Only your mind
can produce fear. It does so whenever it is conflicted in what it wills,
thus producing inevitable strain because willing and doing become
discordant. This cannot be corrected by better doing, but it can
be corrected by higher willing.
82
The first corrective step is know first that this is an
expression of fear. Then say to yourself that you must somehow have
willed not to love, or the fear which arises from behavior-will conflict
could not have arisen. Then the whole process is nothing more than a
series of pragmatic steps in the larger process of accepting the
Atonement as the remedy. These steps can be summarized as
follows:
83
1. Know first that this is fear.
84
2. Fear arises from lack of love.
85
3. The only remedy for lack of love is perfect love.
86
4. Perfect love is the Atonement.
87
We have emphasized that the miracle, or the expression of
Atonement, is always a sign of real respect from the worthy to
the worthy. This worth is re-established by the Atonement. It is
obvious then that when you are afraid, you have placed yourself in a
position where you need Atonement because you have done
something loveless, having willed without love. This is precisely the
situation for which the Atonement was offered. The need for the remedy
inspired its creationmanifestation. As long as you recognize only the
need for the remedy, you will remain fearful. However, as soon as you remedy
it, you have also abolished the fear. This is how true healing occurs.
88
Everyone experiences fear, and no one enjoys it. Yet it would take very
little right-thinking to realize why fear occurs. Very few people
appreciate the real power of the mind, and no one remains fully aware of
it all the time. However, if anyone hopes to spare himself/herself from
fear, there are some things he/she must realize and realize fully. The
mind is a very powerful creatormanifestor, and it never loses its
creativemanifestive force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is
creatingmanifesting and always as you will. Many of your
ordinary expressions reflect this. For example, when you say, "Don't
give it a thought," you imply that if you do not think about something,
it will have no effect on you. And this is true enough.
89
On the other hand, the many other expressions clearly illustrate the
prevailing lack of awareness of thought-power. For example, you
say, "Just an idle thought," and mean that the thought has no effect.
You also speak of some actions as "thoughtless," implying that if the
personal had thought, he/she would not behave as he/she did. While
expressions like "think big" give some recognition to the power of
thought, they still come nowhere near the truth. You do not expect to
grow when you say it because you do not really think that you will.
90
It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power
surge that can literally move mountains. It appears at first glance that
to believe such power about yourself is merely arrogant, but that is not
the real reason why you do not believe it. People prefer to
believe that their thoughts cannot exert real control because they are
literally afraid of them. Many psychotherapists attempt to help
people who are afraid, say, of their death wishes by depreciating the
power of the wish. They even try to "free" the patient by persuading
him/her that he/she can think whatever he/she wants without any real
effect at all.
91
There is a real dilemma here which only the truly right-minded can
escape. Death wishes do not kill in the physical sense, but they do
kill Spiritual awareness. All destructive thinking is dangerous.
Given a death wish, a man/woman has no choice except to act upon
the thought or behave contrary to it. He/she thus chooses only
between homicide and fear. The other possibility is that he/she
depreciates the power of his/her thought. This is the usual
psychoanalytic approach. It does allay guilt but at the cost of
rendering thinking impotent. If you believe that what you think is
ineffectual you may cease to be overly afraid of it, but you are hardly
likely to respect it.
92
The world is full of examples of how the man/woman has depreciated
himself/herself because he/she is afraid of his/her own thoughts. In
some forms of insanity, thoughts are glorified, but this is only because
the underlying depreciation was too effective for tolerance. The truth
is that there are no "idle" thoughts. All thinking
produces form at some level. The reason people are afraid of ESP and so
often react against it is because they know that thoughts can
hurt them. Their own thoughts have made them vulnerable.
93
You who constantly complain about fear still persist in
creatingmanifesting it. I told you before that you cannot ask me to
release you from fear because I know it does not exist, but you
do not. If I merely intervened between your thoughts and their results,
I would be tampering with a basic law of cause and effect, the most
fundamental law there is in this world. I would hardly help if I
depreciated the power of your own thinking. This would be in direct
opposition to the purpose of this course. It is much more helpful to
remind you that you do not guard your thoughts carefully except for a
small part of the day and somewhat inconsistently even then. You may
feel at this point that it would take a miracle to enable you to do
this, which is perfectly true.
94
Men/women are not used to miraculous thinking, but they can be trained
to think that way. All miracle workers need that kind of training. I
cannot let them leave their minds unguarded, or they will not be able to
help me. Miracle working entails a full realization of the power of
thought and real avoidance of miscreationmismanifestation. Otherwise, a
miracle will be necessary to set the mind itself straight, a
circular process which would hardly foster the time collapse for which
the miracle was intended. Nor would it induce the healthy respect for
true cause and effect which every miracle worker must have.
95
[Miracles cannot free the miracle worker from fear.] Both miracles and
fear come from thoughts, and if you were not free to choose one, you
would also not be free to choose the other. By choosing the miracle, you
have rejected fear. You have been afraid of God, of me, of
yourselves, and of practically everyone you know at one time or another.
This is because you have misperceived or miscreatedmismanifested me and
believe in what you have made. You would never have done this if you
were not afraid of your own thoughts. The vulnerable are essentially
miscreatorsmismanifestors because they misperceive
creationmanifestation.
96
You persist in believing that when you do not consciously watch your
mind, it is unmindful. It is time, however, to consider the whole world
of the unconscious or "unwatched" mind. This may well frighten you
because it is the source of fear. The unwatched mind is
responsible for the whole content of the unconscious which lies above
the miracle level. All psychoanalytic theorists have made some
contribution in this connection, but none of them has seen it in its
true entirety. They have all made one common error in that they
attempted to uncover unconscious content. You cannot understand
unconscious activity in these terms because "content" is applicable only
to the more superficial unconscious levels, to which the individual
himself/herself contributes. This is the level at which he/she can
readily introduce fear and usually does.
97
When man/woman miscreatesmismanifests he/she is in pain. The cause and
effect principle here is temporarily a real expediter. Actually, "Cause"
is a term properly belonging to God, and "Effect," which should also be
capitalized, is HisHer SonDaughter. This entails a set of Cause and
Effect relationships which are totally different from those which the
man/woman introduced into his/her own miscreationsmismanifestations. The
fundamental opponents in the real basic conflict are
creationmanifestation and miscreationmismanifestation. All fear
is implicit in the second, just as all love is inherent in the
first. Because of this difference, the basic conflict is one
between love and fear.
98
It has already been said that the man/woman believes he/she cannot
control fear because he/she himself/herself createdmanifested it.
His/her belief in it seems to render it out of his/her control by
definition. Yet any attempt to resolve the basic conflict through the
concept of mastery of fear is meaningless. In fact it asserts
the power of fear by the simple assumption that it need
be mastered. The essential resolution rests entirely on the mastery of love.
In the interim, the sense of conflict is inevitable since the
man/woman has placed himself/herself in a strangely illogical position.
He/she believes in the power of what does not exist.
99
Two concepts which cannot coexist are "nothing" and
"everything." To whatever extent one is believed in, the other has
been denied. In the conflict fear is really nothing, and love is
everything. This is because whenever light enters darkness, the darkness
is abolished. What a man/woman believes is true for
him/her. In this sense the separation has occurred, and to deny
this is merely to misuse denial. However, to concentrate on error is
merely a further misuse of defenses. The true corrective procedure is to
recognize error temporarily but only as an indication that immediate
correction is mandatory. This establishes a state of mind in which the
Atonement can be accepted without delay.
100
It should be emphasized, however, that ultimately there is no
compromise possible between everything and nothing. Time is essentially
a device by which all compromise in this respect can be given up. It
seems to be abolished by degrees because time itself involves a concept
of intervals which do not really exist. The faulty use of
creationmanifestation made this necessary as a corrective device. "And
God so loved the world that HeShe gave HisHer only begotten SonDaughter
that whosoever believeth in himher shall not perish, but have eternal
life" needs only one slight correction to be entirely meaningful in this
context. It should read, "He gave it to HisHer only begotten
SonDaughter."
101
It should especially be noted that God has only one SonDaughter.
If all the individual Spirits God createdmanifested are HisHer
SonDaughters, then every individual Spirit must be an integral
part of the whole SonDaughtership. You do not find the concept that the
whole is greater than its parts difficult to understand. You should
therefore not have too much trouble in understanding this.
102
The SonDaughtership in its oneness does transcend the sum of its
parts. However, this is obscured as long as any of its parts are
missing. That is why the conflict cannot ultimately be resolved until all
the parts of the SonDaughtership have returned. Only then can the
meaning of wholeness, in the true sense, be fully understood.
103
Any part of the SonDaughtership can believe in error or incompleteness
if he/she so elects. However, if he/she does so, he/she is believing in
the existence of nothingness. The correction of this error is the
Atonement. We have already briefly spoken about readiness, but there are
some additional points which might be helpful here. Readiness is nothing
more than the prerequisite for accomplishment. The two should
not be confused. As soon as a state of readiness occurs, there is
usually some will to accomplish, but this is by no means necessarily
undivided. The state does not imply more than a potential for a
shift of will.
104
Confidence cannot develop fully until mastery has been accomplished. We
have already attempted to correct the fundamental error that fear can be
mastered and have emphasized that only love can be mastered. You
have attested only to your readiness. Mastery of love involves a much
more complete confidence than either of you has attained. However, the
readiness at least is an indication that you believe this is possible.
That is only the beginning of confidence. In case this be misunderstood
to imply that an enormous amount of time will be necessary between
readiness and mastery, let me remind you that time and space are under
my control.
105
One of the chief ways in which a man/woman can correct his/her
magic-miracle confusion is to remember that he/she did not
createmanifest himself/herself. He/she is apt to forget this when he/she
becomes egocentric, and this places him/her in a position where the
belief in magic in some form is virtually inevitable. His/her will to
createmanifest was given him/her by his/her own CreatorManifestor, Who
was expressing the same will in HisHer creationmanifestation. Since
creativemanifestive ability rests in the mind, everything that man/woman
createsmanifests is necessarily a matter of will. It also follows that
whatever he/she createsmanifests is real in his/her own sight but not
necessarily in the sight of God. This basic distinction leads us
directly into the real meaning of the Last Judgment.
106
The Last Judgment is one of the greatest threat concepts in the
man/woman's perception. This is only because he/she does not understand
it. Judgment is not an essential attribute of God. The man/woman brought
judgment into being only because of the separation. After the
separation, however, there was a place for judgment as one of
the many learning devices which had to be built into the overall plan.
Just as the separation occurred over the many millions of years, the
Last Judgment will extend over a similarly long period and perhaps an
even longer one. Its length depends, however, on the effectiveness of
the present speed-up.
107
We have frequently noted that the miracle is a device for shortening but
not abolishing time. If a sufficient number of people become truly
miracle-minded quickly, the shortening process can be almost
immeasurable. It is essential, however, that these individuals free
themselves from fear sooner than would ordinarily be the case because
they must emerge from the conflict if they are to bring peace to other
minds.
108
The Last Judgment is generally thought of as a procedure undertaken by
God. Actually it will be undertaken by the man/woman with my help. It is
a final healing rather than a meting out of punishment, however much a
man/woman may think that punishment is deserved. Punishment is a concept
in total opposition to right-mindedness. The aim of the Last
Judgment is to restore right-mindedness to man/woman.
109
The Last Judgment might be called a process of right evaluation. It
simply means that finally all men/women will come to understand what is
worthy and what is not. After this, their ability to choose can be
directed reasonably. Until this distinction is made, however, the
vacillations between free and imprisoned will cannot but
continue. The first step toward freedom must entail a sorting
out of the false from the true. This is a process of division only in
the constructive sense and reflects the true meaning of the Apocalypse.
The man/woman will ultimately look upon his/her own
creationsmanifestations and will to preserve only what is good, just as
God HimHerself looked upon what HeShe had createdmanifested and knew
that it was good.
110
At this point, the will can begin to look with love on its own
creationsmanifestations because of their great worthiness. The mind will
inevitably disown its miscreationsmismanifestations which, without the
mind's belief, will no longer exist. The term "Last Judgment" is
frightening not only because it has been falsely projected onto God, but
also because of the association of "last" with death. This is an
outstanding example of upside-down perception. Actually, if the meaning
of the Last Judgment is objectively examined, it is quite apparent that
it is really the doorway to life.
111
No one who lives in fear is really alive. His/her own last judgment
cannot be directed toward himself/herself because he/she is not his/her
own creationmanifestation. He/she can, however, apply it meaningfully
and at any time to everything he/she has createdmanifested and
retain in his/her memory only what is good. This is what his/her
right-mindedness cannot but dictate. The purpose of time is
solely to "give him/her time" to achieve this judgment. It is his/her
own perfect judgment of his/her own creationsmanifestations. When
everything he/she retains is loveable, there is no reason for fear to
remain with him/her. This is his/her part in the
Atonement.
1
This is a course in mind training. All learning involves
attention and study at some level. Some of the later parts of the course
rest too heavily on these earlier sections not to require their study.
You will also need them for preparation. Without this, you may become
much too fearful when the unexpected does occur to make
constructive use of it. However, as you study these earlier sections,
you will begin to see some of their implications, which will be
amplified considerably later on.
2
The reason a solid foundation is necessary is because of the confusion
between fear and awe to which we have already referred and which so the
many people hold. You will remember that we said that awe is
inappropriate in connection with the SonsDaughters of God because you
should not experience awe in the presence of your equals. However, it
was also emphasized that awe is a proper reaction in the
Presence of your CreatorManifestor. I have been careful to clarify my
own role in the Atonement, without either over- or understating it. I
have also tried to do the same in connection with yours. I have stressed
that awe is not an appropriate reaction to me because of our
inherent equality.
3
Some of the later steps in this course, however, do involve a
more direct approach to God HimHerself. It would be most unwise to start
on these steps without careful preparation or awe will be confused with
fear, and the experience will be more traumatic than beatific. Healing
is of God in the end. The means are being carefully explained to you.
Revelation may occasionally reveal the end to you, but to reach
it the means are needed.
1.
4 The miracle abolishes the need for lower-order concerns.
Since it is an out-of-pattern time interval, the ordinary considerations
of time and space do not apply. When you perform a miracle, I
will arrange both time and space to adjust to it.
2.
5 Clear distinction between what has been
createdmanifested and what is being createdmanifested is
essential. All forms of correction (or healing) rest on this fundamental
correction in level perception.
3.
6 Another way of stating the above point is: Never confuse
right- with wrong-mindedness. Responding to any form of
miscreationmismanifestation with anything except a desire to heal
(or a miracle) is an expression of this confusion.
4.
7 The miracle is always a denial of this error and an
affirmation of the truth. Only right-mindedness can
createmanifest in a way that has any real effect. Pragmatically, what
has no real effect has no real existence. Its effect, then, is
emptiness. Being without substantial content, it lends itself to
projection in the improper sense.
5.
8 The level-adjustment power of the miracle induces the right
perception for healing. Until this has occurred, healing cannot be
understood. Forgiveness is an empty gesture unless it entails
correction. Without this it is essentially judgmental rather than
healing.
6.
9 Miraculous forgiveness is only correction. It has no
element of judgment at all. "FatherMother forgive them for they know not
what they do" in no way evaluates what they do. It is strictly
limited to an appeal to God to heal their minds. There is no reference
to the outcome of their mis-thought. That does not matter.
7.
10 The biblical injunction, "Be of one mind" is the statement
for revelation-readiness. My own injunction, "Do this in
remembrance of me" is the request for cooperation from miracle workers.
It should be noted that the two statements are not in the same order of
reality. The latter involves a time awareness since to remember implies
recalling the past in the present. Time is under my direction,
but Timelessness belongs to God alone. In time we exist for and with
each other. In Timelessness we coexist with God.
11
There is another point which must be perfectly clear before any residual
fear which may still be associated with miracles becomes entirely
groundless. The crucifixion did not establish the Atonement. The
resurrection did. This is a point which the many very sincere Christians
have misunderstood. No one who is free of the scarcity-error could possibly
make this mistake. If the crucifixion is seen from an upside-down point
of view, it does appear as if God permitted and even encouraged
one of HisHer SonsDaughters to suffer because heshe was good.
Many ministers preach this every day.
12
This particularly unfortunate interpretation, which arose out of the
combined misprojections of a large number of my would-be followers, has
led many people to be bitterly afraid of God. This particularly
anti-religious concept enters into many religions, and this is neither
by chance nor by coincidence. Yet the real Christian would have to pause
and ask, "How could this be?" Is it likely that God HimHerself would be
capable of the kind of thinking which HisHer own words have clearly
stated is unworthy of the man/woman?
13
The best defense, as always, is not to attack another's position but
rather to protect the truth. It is unwise to accept any concept
if you have to turn a whole frame of reference around in order to
justify it. This procedure is painful in its minor applications and
genuinely tragic on a mass basis. Persecution is a frequent result,
undertaken to justify the terrible misperception that God HimHerself
persecuted HisHer own SonDaughter on behalf of salvation. The very words
are meaningless.
14
It has been particularly difficult to overcome this because, although
the error itself is no harder to overcome than any other error,
men/women were unwilling to give this one up because of its prominent
"escape" value. In milder forms a parent says, "This hurts me more than
it hurts you," and feels exonerated in beating a child. Can you believe
that the FatherMother really thinks this way? It is so essential
that all such thinking be dispelled that we must be very sure
that nothing of this kind remains in your mind. I was not
punished because you were bad. The wholly benign lesson the
Atonement teaches is lost if it is tainted with this kind of distortion
in any form.
15
"Vengeance is Ours sayeth the LordLady," is a strictly karmic viewpoint.
It is a real misperception of truth by which a man/woman assigns his/her
own "evil" past to God. The "evil conscience" from the past has nothing
to do with God. HeShe did not createmanifest it, and HeShe does not
maintain it. God does not believe in karmic retribution. HisHer
Divine Mind does not createmanifest that way. HeShe does not hold the
evil deeds of a man/woman even against himself/herself. Is it likely,
then, that HeShe would hold against anyone the evil that another
did?
16
Be very sure that you recognize how utterly impossible this assumption
really is and how entirely it arises from misprojection. This
kind of error is responsible for a host of related errors including the
belief that God rejected the man/woman and forced him/her out of the
Garden of Eden. It is also responsible for the fact that you may believe
from time to time that I am misdirecting you. I have made every effort
to use words that are almost impossible to distort, but the man/woman is
very inventive when it comes to twisting symbols around.
17
God HimHerself is not symbolic; HeShe is fact. The
Atonement too is totally without symbolism. It is perfectly clear
because it exists in light. Only the man’s/woman's attempts to shroud it
in darkness have made it inaccessible to the unwilling and ambiguous to
the partly willing. The Atonement itself radiates nothing but truth. It
therefore epitomizes harmlessness and sheds only blessing. It
could not do this if it arose from anything but perfect innocence.
Innocence is wisdom because it is unaware of evil, which does not exist.
It is, however, perfectly aware of everything that is
true.
18
The Resurrection demonstrated that nothing can destroy truth.
Good can withstand any form of evil because light abolishes all
forms of darkness. The Atonement is thus the perfect lesson. It is the
final demonstration that all of the other lessons which I taught are
true. The man/woman is released from all errors if he/she
believes in this. The deductive approach to teaching accepts the
generalization which is applicable to all single instances
rather than building up the generalization after analyzing numerous
single instances separately. If you can accept the one
generalization now, there will be no need to learn from the many
smaller lessons.
19
Nothing can prevail against a SonDaughter of God who commends
hisher individual Spirit into the hands of hisher FatherMother. By doing
this, the mind awakens from its sleep, and [the individual Spirit]
remembers hisher CreatorManifestor. All sense of separation disappears,
and level confusion vanishes. The SonDaughter of God is part of
the Holy Trinity, but the Trinity itself is One. There is no
confusion within its levels because they are of One Mind and One Will.
This single purpose createsmanifests perfect integration and establishes
the peace of God. Yet this vision can be perceived only by the truly
innocent.
20
Because their hearts are pure, the innocent defend true perception
instead of defending themselves against it. Understanding the
lesson of the Atonement, they are without the will to attack, and
therefore they see truly. This is what the Bible means when it says,
"When HeShe shall appear (or be perceived) we shall be like HimHer, for
we shall see HimHer as HeShe is."
21
Sacrifice is a notion totally unknown to God. It arises solely from
fear. This is particularly unfortunate because frightened people are apt
to be vicious. Sacrificing another in any way is a clear cut
violation of God's own injunction that the man/woman should be merciful
even as his/her FatherMother in the God Realm. It has been hard for the
many Christians to realize that this commandment (or assignment) also
applies to themselves. Good teachers/teacheresses never
terrorize their students. To terrorize is to attack, and this results in
rejection of what the teacher/teacheress offers. The result is learning
failure.
22
I have been correctly referred to as "the Lamb of God who taketh away
the sins of the world." Those who represent the lamb as blood-stained,
an all-too-widespread error, do not understand the meaning of
the symbol. Correctly understood, it is a very simple parable which
merely speaks of our innocence. The lion and the lamb lying down
together refers to the fact that strength and innocence are not
in conflict but naturally live in peace. "Blessed are the pure in heart
for they shall see God" is another way of saying the same thing.
23
There has been some human controversy about the nature of seeing in
relation to the integrative powers of the brain. Correctly understood,
the issue revolves around the question of whether the body or the mind
can see (or understand). This is not really open to question at all. The
body is not capable of understanding, and only the mind can perceive anything.
A pure mind knows the truth, and this is its strength. It cannot
attack the body because it recognizes exactly what the body is.
This is what "a sane mind in a sane body" really means. It does not
confuse destruction with innocence because it associates innocence with
strength, not with weakness.
24
Innocence is incapable of sacrificing anything because the
innocent mind has everything and strives only to protect
its wholeness. This is why it cannot misproject. It can only
honor the man/woman because honor is the natural greeting of the truly
loved to others who are like them. The lamb taketh away the sins of the
world only in the sense that the state of innocence, or grace, is one in
which the meaning of the Atonement is perfectly apparent. The innocence
of God is the true state of mind of HisHer SonDaughter. In this state,
the man’s/woman's mind does see God, and because he/she sees
HimHer as HeShe is, he/she knows that the Atonement, not
sacrifice, is the only appropriate gift to his/her own
altar, where nothing except perfection truly belongs. The understanding
of the innocent is truth. That is why their altars are truly
radiant.
25
We have repeatedly stated that the basic concepts referred to in this
course are not matters of degree. Certain fundamental concepts cannot
be meaningfully understood in terms of coexisting polarities. It is
impossible to conceive of light and darkness, or everything and nothing,
as joint possibilities. They are all true or all false. It is
essential that you realize that behavior is erratic until a firm
commitment to one or the other is made.
26
A firm commitment to darkness or nothingness is impossible. No one has
ever lived who has not experienced some light and some
[of everything]. This makes everyone really unable to deny truth
totally, even if he/she generally deceives himself/herself in this
connection. That is why those who live largely in darkness and emptiness
never find any lasting solace. Innocence is not a partial
attribute. It is not a real defense until it is total. When it
is partial, it is characterized by the same erratic nature that holds
for other two-edged defenses.
27
The partly innocent are apt to be quite stupid at times. It is not until
their innocence becomes a genuine viewpoint which is universal in its
application that it becomes wisdom. Innocent (or true) perception means
that you never misperceive and always see truly. More
simply, it means that you never see what does not really exist. When you
lack confidence in what someone will do, you are attesting to your
belief that he/she is not in his/her right mind. This is hardly a
miracle-based frame of reference. It also has the disastrous effect of
denying the creativemanifestive power of the miracle.
28
The miracle perceives everything as it is. If nothing but the
truth exists (and this is really a redundant statement because what is
not true cannot exist) right-minded seeing cannot see anything but
perfection. We have said the many times that only what God
createsmanifests, or what man/woman createsmanifests with the same will,
has any real existence. This, then, is all the innocent can see. They do
not suffer from the distortions of the separated ones. The way to
correct all such distortions is to withdraw your faith from them
and invest it only in what is true.
29
You cannot validate the invalid. I would suggest that you
voluntarily give up all such attempts because they can only be frantic.
If you are willing to validate what is true in everything you
perceive, you will make it true for you. Truth overcomes all
error. This means that if you perceive truly, you are canceling out
misperceptions in yourself and in others simultaneously. Because
you see them as they are, you offer them your own validation of their
truth. This is the healing which the miracle actively fosters.
30
We have been emphasizing perception and have said very little about
cognition as yet because you are confused about the difference between
them. The reason we have dealt so little with cognition is because you
must get your perceptions straightened out before you can know
anything. To know is to be certain. Uncertainty merely means that you do
not know. Knowledge is power because it is certain, and
certainty is strength. Perception is merely temporary. It is an
attribute of the space-time belief and is therefore subject to fear or
love. Misperceptions produce fear, and true perceptions produce love. Neither
produces certainty because all perception varies. That is why it
is not knowledge.
31
True perception is the basis for knowledge, but knowing
is the affirmation of truth. All your difficulties ultimately stem from
the fact that you do not recognize or know yourselves, each
other, or God. To recognize means to "know again," implying that you
knew before. You can see in the many ways because perception involves
different interpretations, and this means that it is not whole. The
miracle is a way of perceiving, not of knowing. It is the right
answer to a question, and you do not ask questions at all when you know.
32
Questioning illusions is the first step in undoing them. The miracle, or
the "right answer," corrects them. Since perceptions change,
their dependence on time is obvious. They are subject to transitory
states, and this necessarily implies variability. How you perceive at
any given time determines what you do, and action must
occur in time. Knowledge is timeless because certainty is not
questionable. You know when you have ceased to ask
questions.
33
The questioning mind perceives itself in time and therefore looks for future
answers. The unquestioning mind is closed because it believes the future
and present will be the same. This establishes an unchanged state or
stasis. It is usually an attempt to counteract an underlying fear that
the future will be worse than the present, and this fear
inhibits the tendency to question at all.
34
Visions are the natural perception of the Spiritual eye, but they are
still corrections. The Spiritual eye is symbolic and therefore not a
device for knowing. It is, however, a means of right perception,
which brings it into the proper domain of the miracle. Properly
speaking, "a vision of God" is a miracle rather than a revelation. The
fact that perception is involved at all removes the experience from the
realm of knowledge. That is why visions do not last.
35
The Bible instructs you to "know yourself" or be certain.
Certainty is always of God. When you love someone, you have
perceived him/her as he/she is, and this makes it possible for you to know
him/her. However, it is not until you recognize him/her that you
can know him/her. While you ask questions about God, you are
clearly implying that you do not know HimHer. Certainty does not
require action. When you say that you are acting on the basis of
knowledge, you are really confusing perception and cognition. Knowledge
brings the mental strength for creativemanifestive thinking but
not for right doing. Perception, miracles, and doing are
closely related. Knowledge is the result of revelation and induces only
thought. Perception involves the body, even in its most Spiritualized
form. Knowledge comes from the altar within and is timeless because it
is certain. To perceive the truth is not the same as knowing it.
36
If you attack error in one another, you will hurt yourself. You cannot recognize
each other when you attack. Attack is always made on a stranger.
You are making him/her a stranger by misperceiving him/her so
that you cannot know him/her. It is because you have
made him/her a stranger that you are afraid of him/her. Perceive
him/her correctly so that you can know him/her. Right perception
is necessary before God can communicate directly to HisHer own altars
which HeShe has established in HisHer SonDaughters. There HeShe can
communicate HisHer certainty, and HisHer knowledge will bring peace without
question.
37
God is not a stranger to HisHer SonDaughters, and HisHer SonsDaughters
are not strangers to each other. Knowledge preceded both perception and
time and will ultimately replace them. That is the real meaning of the
Biblical description of God as "Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the
End." It also explains the quotation, "Before Abraham [Adam] was I
am." Perception can and must be stabilized, but knowledge is
stable. "Fear God and keep HisHer commandments" should read "Know
God and accept HisHer certainty." There are no strangers in HisHer
creationmanifestation. To createmanifest as HeShe createdmanifested, you
can createmanifest only what you know and accept as yours. God
knows HisHer Children with perfect certainty. HeShe createdmanifested
them by knowing them. HeShe recognized them perfectly. When they
do not recognize each other, they do not recognize HimHer.
38
[The Spirit knows, loves, and createsmanifests. These are its
unequivocal functions.] The abilities a man/woman now possesses are only
shadows of his/her real strengths. All of his/her functions are
equivocal and open to question or doubt. This is because he/she is not
certain how he/she will use them. He/she is therefore incapable
of knowledge, being uncertain. He/she is also incapable of knowledge
because he/she can perceive lovelessly. He/she cannot createmanifest
surely because his/her perception deceives [and illusions are not pure].
Perception did not exist until the separation had introduced degrees,
aspects, and intervals. The Spirit has no levels, and all
conflict arises from the concept of levels. [Wars arise where some
regard others as if they were on a different level. All interpersonal
conflicts arise from this fallacy.] Only the levels of the Trinity are
capable of unity. The levels which the man/woman createdmanifested by
the separation cannot but conflict. This is because they are
essentially meaningless to each other.
39
Freud realized this perfectly and that is why he conceived the different
levels in his view of the psyche as forever irreconcilable. They were
conflict-prone by definition because they wanted different things and
obeyed different principles. In our picture of the psyche, there
is an unconscious level which properly consists only of the
miracle ability and which should be under our direction. There
is also a conscious level, which perceives or is aware of impulses from
both the unconscious and the superconscious. Consciousness is thus the
level of perception but not of knowledge. Again, to perceive is
not to know.
40
Consciousness was the first split that the man/woman introduced into
himself/herself. He/she became a perceiver rather than a
creatormanifestor in the true sense. Consciousness is correctly
identified as the domain of the ego. The ego is a man/woman-made attempt
to perceive himself/herself as he/she wished to be rather than
as he/she is. This is an example of the
createdmanifested-creatormanifestor confusion we have spoken of before.
Yet thee man/woman can only know himself/herself as he/she is
because that is all he/she can be sure of. Everything else is
open to question.
41
The ego is the questioning compartment in the post-separation psyche
which the man/woman createdmanifested for himself/herself. It is capable
of asking valid questions but not of perceiving valid answers
because these are cognitive and cannot be perceived. The endless
speculation about the meaning of mind has led to considerable confusion
because the mind is confused. Only One-Mindedness is without
confusion. A separated or divided mind must be confused; it is
uncertain by definition. It has to be in conflict because it is
out of accord with itself.
42
Intrapersonal conflict arises from the same basis as interpersonal
conflict. One part of the psyche perceives another part as on a
different level and does not understand it. This makes the parts
strangers to each other, without recognition. This is the essence of the
fear-prone condition in which attack is always possible. The
man/woman has every reason to feel afraid as he/she perceives
himself/herself. This is why he/she cannot escape from fear until he/she
knows that he/she did not and could not createmanifest
himself/herself. He/she can never make his/her misperceptions
valid. His/her creationmanifestation is beyond his/her own error, and
that is why he/she must eventually choose to heal the
separation.
43
Right-mindedness is not to be confused with the knowing mind
because it is applicable only to right perception. You can be
right-minded or wrong-minded, and even this is subject to degrees, a
fact which clearly demonstrates a lack of association with knowledge.
The term "right-mindedness" is properly used as the correction
for "wrong-mindedness," and applies to the state of mind which induces
accurate perception. It is miraculous because it heals
misperception, and this is indeed a miracle in view of how man/woman
perceives himself/herself.
44
Perception always involves some misuse of will because it
involves the mind in areas of uncertainty. The mind is very active
because it has will-power. When it willed the separation, it willed to
perceive. Until then, it willed only to know. Afterwards it
willed ambiguously, and the only way out of ambiguity is
clear perception. The mind returns to its proper function only when it wills
to know. This places it in the individual Spirit's service, where
perception is meaningless. The superconscious is the level of the mind
which wills this.
45
The mind chose to divide itself when it willed to createmanifest both
its own levels and the ability to perceive, but it could not
entirely separate itself from the individual Spirit because it is from
the individual Spirit that it derives its whole power to createmanifest.
Even in miscreationmismanifestation will is affirming its Source or it
would merely cease to be. This is impossible because it is part of the
individual Spirit which God createdmanifested and which is therefore
eternal.
46
The ability to perceive made the body possible because you must perceive
something and with something. This is why perception
involves an exchange or translation, which knowledge does not need. The
interpretive function of perception, actually a distorted form of
creationmanifestation, then permitted man/woman to interpret the body as
himself/herself, which, though depressing, was an attempt to
escape from the conflict he/she had induced. The superconscious, which knows,
could not be reconciled with this loss of power because it is incapable
of darkness. This is why it became almost inaccessible to the mind and
entirely inaccessible to the body.
47
Thereafter, the superconscious was perceived as a threat because light
does abolish darkness merely by establishing the fact that it is not
there. The truth will always overcome error in this sense. This
is not an active process of destruction at all. We have already
emphasized that knowledge does not do anything. It can be perceived
as an attacker, but it cannot attack. What man/woman perceives
as its attack is merely his/her own vague recognition of the fact that
it can always be remembered, never having been destroyed.
48
God and the individual Spirits HeShe createdmanifested remain in surety,
and therefore know that no miscreationmismanifestation exists.
Truth cannot deal with unwilling error because it does not will to be
blocked out. I was a man who remembered the Spirit and its knowledge,
and as a man I did not attempt to counteract error with
knowledge so much as to correct error from the bottom up. I
demonstrated both the powerlessness of the body and the power of
the mind. By uniting my will with that of my CreatorManifestor, I
naturally remembered the individual Spirit and its own real purpose.
49
I cannot unite your will with God's for you, but I can
erase all misperceptions from your mind if you will bring it under our
guidance. Only your misperceptions stand in your own way.
Without them your choice is certain. Sane perception induces
sane choosing. The Atonement was an act based on true perception. I
cannot choose for you, but I can help you make your own right
choice. "Many are called, but few are chosen" should read, "All
are called, but few choose to listen. Therefore, they do not choose right."
50
The "chosen ones" are merely those who choose right sooner. This
is the real meaning of the Godrealm’s speed-up. Strong wills can do this
now, and you will find rest for your individual Spirits.
God knows you only in peace, and this is your reality.
51
We said before that the abilities which man/woman possesses are only
shadows of his/her real strengths and that the intrusion of the ability
to perceive, which is inherently judgmental, was introduced only after
the separation. No one has been sure of anything since. You will also
remember, however, that I made it clear that the resurrection was the
means for the return to knowledge, which was accomplished by the
union of our will with the Father’sMother's. We can now make a
distinction which will greatly facilitate clarity in our subsequent
statements.
52
Since the separation, the words "createmanifest" and "make" have been
greatly confused. When you make something, you make it out of a sense of
lack or need. Anything that is made is made for a specific purpose and
has no true generalizability. When you make something to fill a
perceived lack, which is obviously why you would want to make anything,
you are tacitly implying that you believe in separation. Knowing, as we
have frequently observed, does not lead to doing at all.
53
The confusion between your own creationmanifestation and what you
createmanifest is so profound that it has become literally impossible
for you to know anything. Knowledge is always stable, and it is quite
evident that human beings are not. Nevertheless, they are
perfectly stable as God createdmanifested them. In this sense, when
their behavior is unstable they are disagreeing with God's idea
of the creationmanifestation. The man/woman can do this if he/she
chooses, but he/she would hardly want to do it if he/she were in
his/her right mind. The problem that bothers you most is the fundamental
question which the man/woman continually asks of himself/herself, but
which cannot properly be directed to himself/herself at all. He/she
keeps asking himself/herself what he/she is. This implies that
the answer is not only one which he/she knows but is also one which is
up to him/her to supply.
54
The man/woman cannot perceive himself/herself correctly. He/she
has no image. The word "image" is always perception-related and not
a product of knowing. Images are symbolic and stand for something else.
The current emphasis on "changing your image" merely recognizes the
power of perception, but it also implies that there is nothing to know.
Knowing is not open to interpretation. It is possible to
"interpret" meaning, but this is always open to error because it refers
to the perception of meaning. Such wholly needless complexities
are the result of the man’s/woman's attempt to regard himself/herself as
both separated and unseparated at the same time. It is impossible to
undertake a confusion as fundamental as this without engaging in further
confusion.
55
Methodologically, the man’s/woman's mind has been very
creativemanifestive but, as always occurs when method and content are
separated, it has not been utilized for anything but an attempt to
escape a fundamental and entirely inescapable impasse. This kind of
thinking cannot result in a creativemanifestive outcome, although it has
resulted in considerable ingenuity. It is noteworthy, however, that this
ingenuity has almost totally divorced him/her from knowledge. Knowledge
does not require ingenuity. When we say "the truth shall set you
free," we mean that all this kind of thinking is a waste of time, but
that you are free of the need to engage in it if you are willing
to let it go.
56
Prayer is a way of asking for something. Prayer is the medium of
miracles, but the only meaningful prayer is for forgiveness because
those who have been forgiven have everything. Once forgiveness
has been accepted, prayer in the usual sense becomes utterly
meaningless. Essentially, a prayer for forgiveness is nothing more than
a request that we may be able to recognize something we already
have. In electing to perceive instead of to know, the man/woman placed
himself/herself in a position where he/she could resemble his/her
FatherMother only by miraculously perceiving. He/she has lost
the knowledge that he/she himself/herself is a miracle.
Miraculous creationmanifestation was his/her Source and also his/her
real function.
57
"God createdmanifested the man/woman in HisHer own image and likeness"
is correct in meaning, but the words are open to considerable
misinterpretation. This is avoided, however, if "image" is understood to
mean "thought" and "likeness" is taken as "of a like quality." God did
createmanifest the individual Spirit in HisHer own Thought and of a
quality like to HisHer own. There is nothing else. Perception,
on the other hand, is impossible without a belief in "more" and
"less." Perception at every level involves selectivity and is incapable
of organization without it. In all types of perception, there is a
continual process of accepting and rejecting or organizing and
reorganizing, of shifting and changing focus. Evaluation is an essential
part of perception because judgments must be made for selection.
58
What happens to perceptions if there are no judgments and there
is nothing but perfect equality? Perception becomes impossible. Truth
can only be known. All of it is equally true, and knowing any
part of it is to know all of it. Only perception involves
partial awareness. Knowledge transcends all the laws which
govern perception because partial knowledge is impossible. It is all one
and has no separate parts. You who are really one with it need
but know yourself, and your knowledge is complete. To know God's
miracle is to know HimHer.
59
Forgiveness is the healing of the perception of separation. Correct
perception of each other is necessary because minds have
willed to see themselves as separate. Each individual Spirit knows God
completely. That is the miraculous power of the individual
Spirit. The fact that each one has this power completely is a fact that
is entirely alien to human thinking, in which if anyone has everything,
there is nothing left. God's miracles are as total as HisHer
Thoughts because they are HisHer Thoughts.
60
As long as perception lasts, prayer has a place. Since perception rests
on lack, those who perceive have not totally accepted the Atonement and
given themselves over to truth. Perception is a separated state,
and a perceiver does need healing. Communion, not prayer, is the
natural state of those who know. God and HisHer miracles are
inseparable. How beautiful indeed are the Thoughts of God who live in
HisHer light! Your worth is beyond perception because it is beyond
doubt. Do not perceive yourself in different lights. Know
yourself in the One Light where the miracle that is you is perfectly
clear.
61
We have already discussed the Last Judgment in some though insufficient
detail. After the Last Judgment there will be no more. This is symbolic
only in the sense that everyone is much better off without
judgment. When the Bible says, "Judge not that ye be not judged" it
merely means that if you judge the reality of others at all, you will be
unable to avoid judging your own. The choice to judge rather than to
know was the cause of the loss of peace. Judgment is the process on
which perception, but not cognition, rests. We have discussed
this before in terms of the selectivity of perception, pointing out that
evaluation is its obvious prerequisite.
62
Judgment always involves rejection. It is not an ability
which emphasizes only the positive aspects of what is judged, whether it
be in or out of the self. However, what has been perceived and
rejected—or judged and found wanting—remains in the unconscious because
it has been perceived. One of the illusions from which man/woman
suffers is the belief that what he/she judged against has no effect.
This cannot be true unless he/she also believes that what he/she judged
against does not exist. He/she evidently does not believe this,
or he/she would not have judged against it. It does not matter in the
end whether you judge right or wrong. Either way, you are placing your
belief in the unreal. This cannot be avoided in any type of judgment
because it implies the belief that reality is yours to choose from.
63
You have no idea of the tremendous release and deep peace that comes
from meeting yourselves and your brothers/sisters totally without
judgment. When you recognize what you and your brothers/sisters are,
you will realize that judging them in any way is without
meaning. In fact, their meaning is lost to you precisely because
you are judging them. All uncertainty comes from a totally fallacious
belief that you are under the coercion of judgment. You do not need
judgment to organize your life, and you certainly do not need it to
organize yourselves. In the presence of knowledge, all judgment
is automatically suspended, and this is the process which enables
recognition to replace perception.
64
Man/woman is very fearful of everything he/she has perceived but has
refused to accept. He/she believes that, because he/she has refused to
accept it, he/she has lost control over it. This is why he/she sees it
in nightmares or in pleasant disguises in what seem to be his/her
happier dreams. Nothing that you have refused to accept can be brought
into awareness. It does not follow that it is dangerous, but it
does follow that you have made it dangerous.
65
When you feel tired, it is merely because you have judged yourself as
capable of being tired. When you laugh at someone, it is because you
have judged him/her as debased. When you laugh at yourself, you are
singularly likely to laugh at others, if only because you cannot
tolerate the idea of being more debased than they are. All of this does
make you feel tired because it is essentially disheartening. You are not
really capable of being tired, but you are very capable
of wearying yourselves. The strain of constant judgment is virtually
intolerable. It is a curious thing that any ability which is so
debilitating should be so deeply cherished.
66
Yet, if you wish to be the author of reality, which is totally
impossible anyway, you will insist on holding onto judgment. You
will also use the term with considerable fear, believing that judgment
will someday be used against you. To whatever extent it is
used against you, it is due only to your belief in its efficacy as a
weapon of defense for your own authority. The issue of authority is
really a question of authorship. When an individual has an "authority
problem," it is always because he/she believes he/she is the
author of himself/herself, projects his/her delusion onto others, and
then perceives the situation as one in which people are literally
fighting him/her for his/her authorship. This is the fundamental error
of all those who believe they have usurped the power of God.
67
The belief is very frightening to them but hardly troubles God.
HeShe is, however, eager to undo it, not to punish HisHer
Children, but only because HeShe knows that it makes them
unhappy. Individual Spirits were given their true Authorship,
but men/women preferred to be anonymous when they chose to separate
themselves from their Author. The word "authority" has been one of their
most fearful symbols ever since. Authority has been used for great
cruelty because, being uncertain of their true Authorship, men/women
believe that their creationmanifestation was anonymous. This has left
them in a position where it sounds meaningful to consider the
possibility that they must have createdmanifested themselves.
68
The dispute over authorship has left such uncertainty in the minds of
men/women that some have even doubted whether they really exist at all.
Despite the apparent contradiction in this position, it is in one sense
more tenable than the view that they createdmanifested themselves. At
least it acknowledges the fact that some true authorship is
necessary for existence.
69
Only those who give over all desire to reject can know that
their own rejection is impossible. You have not usurped the
power of God, but you have lost it. Fortunately, when you lose
something, it does not mean that the "something" has gone. It merely
means that you do not know where it is. Existence does not depend on
your ability to identify it nor even to place it. It is perfectly
possible to look on reality without judgment and merely know
that it is there.
70
Peace is a natural heritage of the individual Spirit. Everyone is free
to refuse to accept his/her inheritance, but he/she is not
free to establish what his/her inheritance is. The problem which
everyone must decide is the fundamental question of authorship. All fear
comes ultimately and sometimes by way of very devious routes from the
denial of Authorship. The offense is never to God, but only to those who
deny HimHer. To deny HisHer Authorship is to deny themselves the reason
for their own peace, so that they see themselves only in pieces. This
strange perception is the authority problem.
71
There is no man/woman who does not feel that he/she is imprisoned in
some way. If this is the result of his/her own free will, he/she must
regard his/her will as if it were not free, or the obviously
circular reasoning involved in his/her position would be quite apparent.
Free will must lead to freedom. Judgment always
imprisons because it separates segments of reality according to the
highly unstable scales of desire. Wishes are not facts by definition. To
wish is to imply that willing is not sufficient. Yet no one believes
that what is wished is as real as what is willed. Instead of, "Seek ye
first the God Realm " say, "Will ye first the God Realm," and you
have said, "I know what I am, and I will to accept my own inheritance."
72
Every system of thought must have a starting point. It begins with
either a making or a creatingmanifesting, a difference which we have
discussed already. Their resemblance lies in their power as foundations.
Their difference lies in what rests upon them. Both are cornerstones for
systems of belief by which men/women live. It is a mistake to believe
that a thought system which is based on lies is weak. Nothing
made by a Child of God is without power. It is essential to realize this
because otherwise you will not understand why you have so much trouble
with this course and will be unable to escape from the prisons which you
have made for yourselves.
73
You cannot resolve the authority problem by depreciating the power of
your minds. To do so is to deceive yourself, and this will hurt you
because you know the strength of the mind. You also know that
you cannot weaken it, any more than you can weaken God. The
"devil" is a frightening concept because he/she is thought of as
extremely powerful and extremely active. He/she is perceived as a force
in combat with God, battling HimHer for possession of the individual
Spirits HeShe createdmanifested. He/she deceives by lies and builds
realms of his/her own in which everything is in direct opposition to
God. Yet he/she attracts men/women rather than repels them, and
they are seen as willing to "sell" him/her their individual Spirits in
return for gifts they recognize are of no real worth.
74
This makes absolutely no sense. The whole picture is one in which
man/woman acts in a way he/she himself/herself realizes is
self-destructive but which he/she does not choose to correct and
therefore perceives the cause as beyond his/her control. We have
discussed the fall, or separation, before, but its meaning must be
clearly understood without symbols. The separation is not symbolic. It
is an order of reality or a system of thought that is real enough in
time, though not in eternity. All beliefs are real to the
believer.
75
The fruit of only one tree was "forbidden" to man/woman in
his/her symbolic garden. But God could not have forbidden it or
it could not have been eaten. If God knows HisHer Children, and
I assure you that HeShe does, would HeShe have put them in a position
where their own destruction was possible? The "tree" which was forbidden
was named the "tree of knowledge." Yet God createdmanifested knowledge
and gave it freely to HisHer creationsmanifestations. The symbolism here
has been given the many interpretations, but you may be sure that any
interpretation which sees either God or HisHer
creationsmanifestations as capable of destroying their own purpose is in
error.
76
Eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge is a symbolic expression
for incorporating into the self the ability for
self-creatingself-manifesting. This is the only sense in which
God and HisHer individual Spirits are not
cocreatorscomanifestors. The belief that they are is implicit in
the "self concept," a concept now made acceptable by its weakness
and explained by a tendency of the self to createmanifest an image
of itself. Its fear aspect is often ascribed to fear of retaliation by a
"father/mother figure," a particularly curious idea in view of the fact
that no one uses the term to refer to the physical father/mother. It
refers to an image of a father/mother in relation to an image
of the self.
77
Images are perceived, not known. Knowledge cannot deceive, but
perception can. Man/woman can perceive himself/herself as
self-creatingself-manifesting, but he/she cannot do more than believe
it. He/she cannot make it true. And, as we said before, when you
finally perceive correctly, you can only be glad that you cannot. But
until then, the belief that you can is the central foundation
stone in your thought system, and all your defenses are used to attack
ideas which might bring it to light. You still believe you are images of
your own creationmanifestation . Your minds are split with your
individual Spirits on this point, and there is no resolution
while you believe the one thing that is literally inconceivable. That is
why you cannot createmanifest and are filled with fear about
what you make.
78
The mind can make the belief in separation very real and very
fearful, and this belief is the "devil." It is powerful, active,
destructive, and clearly in opposition to God because it literally
denies HisHer FatherhoodMotherhood. Never underestimate the power of
this denial. Look at your lives and see what the devil has made. But know
that this making will surely dissolve in the light of truth because its
foundation is a lie.
79
Your creationmanifestation by God is the only foundation which
cannot be shaken because the light is in it. Your starting point
is truth, and you must return to this beginning. Much has been perceived
since then, but nothing else has happened. That is why your individual
Spirits are still in peace, even though your minds are in conflict. You
have not yet gone back far enough, and that is why you become so
fearful. As you approach the beginning, you feel the fear of the
destruction of your thought system upon you, as if it were the fear of
death. There is no death, but there is a belief in
death.
80
The Bible says that the branch that bears no fruit will be cut off and
will wither away. Be glad! The light will shine from the true
Foundation of Life, and your own thought system will stand
corrected. It cannot stand otherwise. You who fear salvation are
willing death. Life and death, light and darkness, knowledge and
perception are irreconcilable. To believe that they can be reconciled is
to believe that God and man/woman can not. Only the oneness of
knowledge is conflictless. Your realm is not of this world because it
was given you from beyond this world. Only in this world
is the idea of an authority problem meaningful. The world is not left by
death but by truth, and truth can be known by all those for whom
the Realm was createdmanifested and for whom it waits.
1
The Bible says that you should go with a brother/sister twice as far as
he/she asks. It certainly does not suggest that you set him/her back on
his/her journey. Devotion to a brother/sister cannot set you
back either. It can lead only to mutual progress. The result of
genuine devotion is inspiration, a word which properly understood is the
opposite of fatigue. To be fatigued is to be dis-Spirited, but
to be inspired is to be in the Spirit. To be egocentric is to be
dispirited, but to be Self-centered in the right sense is to be
inspired, or in the individual Spirit. The truly inspired are
enlightened and cannot abide in darkness.
2
You can speak from the Spirit or from the ego, precisely as you choose.
If you speak from Spirit, you have chosen "to be still and know that I
am
God." These words are inspired because they come from knowledge. If you
speak from the ego, you are disclaiming knowledge instead of affirming
it and are thus dispiriting yourself. Do not embark on foolish journeys
because they are indeed in vain. The ego may desire them, but the
individual Spirit cannot embark on them because it is forever unwilling
to depart from its Foundation.
3
The journey to the cross should be the last foolish journey for every
mind. Do not dwell upon it, but dismiss it as accomplished. If you can
accept it as your own last foolish journey, you are also free to
join my resurrection. Human living has indeed been needlessly wasted in
a repetition compulsion. It reenacts the separation, the loss of power,
the foolish journey of the ego in an attempt at reparation, and finally
the crucifixion of the body or death.
4
Repetition compulsions can be endless unless they are given up by an act
of will. Do not make the pathetic human error of "clinging to the old
rugged cross." The only message of the crucifixion was that we can overcome
the cross. Unless you do so, you are free to crucify yourself as often
as you choose. But this is not the Gospel I intended to offer you. We
have another journey to undertake, and if you will read these lessons
carefully, they will help to prepare you to undertake it.
5
We have spoken of the many different human symptoms, and at this level
there is almost endless variation. There is, however, only one
cause of all of them. The authority problem is "the root of all
evil." Money is but one of its the 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 individual Spirit cannot understand at all because its supply is
always abundant and all its demands are fully met.
6
Every symptom which the ego has made involves a contradiction in terms.
This is because the mind is split between the ego and the individual
Spirit, so that whatever the ego makes is incomplete and
contradictory. This untenable position is the result of the authority
problem which, because it accepts the one inconceivable thought as its
premise, can only produce ideas which are inconceivable. The term
"profess" is used quite frequently in the Bible. 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.
7
A good teacher/teacheress clarifies his/her own ideas and strengthens
them by teaching them. Teacher/teacheress and pupil are alike in the
learning process. They are in the same order of learning, and unless
they share their lessons, they will lack conviction. A good
teacher/teacheress must believe in the ideas which he/she professes, but
he/she must meet another condition; he/she must also believe in the
students to whom he/she offers his/her ideas. Many stand guard over
their ideas because they want to protect their thought systems as they
are, and learning means change. Change is always fearful to the
separated ones because they cannot conceive of it as a change towards healing
the separation. They always perceive it as a change towards
further separation because the separation was their first experience of
change.
8
You believe that if you allow no change to enter into your ego, your
individual Spirit 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 individual Spirit from the
ego, and nothing from the individual Spirit can strengthen the
ego or reduce the conflict within it. The ego is a
contradiction. Man's/woman’s self and God's Self are in
opposition. They are opposed in creationmanifestation, in will, and in
outcome. They are fundamentally irreconcilable because the individual
Spirit cannot perceive and the ego cannot know. They are therefore not
in communication and can never be in communication.
Nevertheless, the ego can learn because its maker can be misguided but cannot
make the totally lifeless out of the life-given. The individual Spirit
need not be taught, but the ego must.
9
The ultimate reason why learning is perceived as frightening is because
learning does lead to the relinquishment (not
destruction) of the ego to the light of the individual Spirit. 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, but I do try to teach you how
their thought system[s] arose. When I remind you of your true
creationmanifestation, your egos cannot but respond with fear.
10
Teaching and learning are your greatest strengths now because you must
change your mind and help others change theirs. It is pointless to
refuse to tolerate change because you believe you can demonstrate that
by doing so the separation has not occurred. The dreamer who doubts the
reality of his/her dream while he/she is still dreaming is not really
healing the level-split. You have dreamed of a separated ego,
and you have believed in a world which rests upon it. This is
very real to you. You cannot undo this by doing nothing and not
changing.
11
If you are willing to renounce the role of guardian[s] of your thought
system[s] and open [them] to me, I will correct [them] very gently and
lead you home. Every good teacher/treacheress hopes to give his/her
students so much of his/her own thinking that they will one day no
longer need him/her. This is the one real goal of the parent,
teacher/teacheress, and therapist. This goal will not be achieved by
those who believe that they will lose their child or pupil or
patient if they succeed. It is impossible to convince the ego of
this because it goes against all of its own laws. But remember that laws
are set up to protect the continuity of the system in which the
law-maker believes.
12
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. You can because of
the nature of yours. Egos can clash in any situation, but
individual Spirits cannot clash at all. If you perceive a
teacher/teacheress as merely a "larger ego," you will be afraid
because to enlarge an ego is to increase separation
anxiety. 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/teacheress.
13
This is the opposite of the ego-oriented teacher's/teacheress’s
goal. He/she is concerned with the effect of his/her ego on other
egos and therefore interprets their interaction as a means of ego
preservation. I would not be able to devote myself to teaching if I
believed this, and you will not be a devoted teacher as long as
you maintain it. I am constantly being perceived as a teacher
either to be exalted or rejected, but I do not accept either perception
for myself.
14
Your worth is not established by your teaching or your
learning. Your worth was established by God. As long as you dispute
this, everything you do will be fearful, particularly any
situation which lends itself to the "superiority-inferiority" fallacy.
Teachers/teacheresses must be patient and repeat their lessons until
they are learned. I am willing to do this because I have no right to set
your learning limits for you. Once again—nothing you do or think
or wish 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 createmanifest it. Your individual Spirit is
never at stake because HeShe did. Any confusion on this
point is a delusion and no form of devotion is possible as long as this
delusion lasts.
15
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
rather 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 individual Spirit. When you are afraid, be still and
know that God is real and you are HisHer beloved
SonDaughter in whom HeShe 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.
16
God is not the author of fear. You are. You have chosen,
therefore, to createmanifest unlike HimHer, 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. In fact, 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 believability is merely to postpone the inevitable.
17
The word "inevitable" is fearful to the ego but joyous to the individual
Spirit. God is inevitable, and you cannot avoid HimHer
any more than HeShe can avoid you. The ego is afraid of the
individual Spirit's joy because, once you have experienced it, you will
withdraw all protection from the ego and become totally without the
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 individual
Spirits HeShe createdmanifested.
18
Release yourselves and release others. Do not present a false and
unworthy picture of yourself to others, and do not 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 is worthy of HisHer
creationsmanifestations, who have chosen to leave it empty by their own
dispossession. Yet HisHer home will stand forever and is ready for you
when you choose to enter it. Of this you can be wholly certain. God is
as incapable of creatingmanifesting the perishable as the ego is of
making the eternal.
19
Of your egos you can do nothing to save yourselves or others, but of
your Spirits you can do everything for the salvation of both. Humility
is a lesson for the ego, not for the Spirit. The Spirit 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 God Realm is the
right of the Spirit, whose beauty and dignity are far beyond
doubt, beyond perception, and stand forever as the mark of the love of
God for HisHer creationsmanifestations, who are wholly worthy of HimHer
and only of HimHer. Nothing else is sufficiently worthy to be a
gift for a creationmanifestation of God HimHerself.
20
I will substitute for your ego if you wish but never for your
Spirit. A father/mother can safely leave a child with an elder
brother/sister who has shown himself/herself responsible, but this
involves no confusion about the child's origin. The brother/sister can
protect the child's body and his/her ego, which are very closely
related, but he/she does not confuse himself/herself with the
father/mother because he/she does this, although the child may. I can be
entrusted with your body and your ego simply because this enables you not
to be concerned with them and lets me teach you their unimportance. I
could not understand their importance to you if I had not once
been tempted to believe in them myself.
21
Let us undertake to learn this lesson together, so we can be free of
them together. I need devoted teachers/teacheresses who share our aim of
healing the mind. The individual Spirit is far beyond the need of your
protection or ours. Remember this:
23
That is why you should be of good cheer.
24
You have asked lately how the Soul could ever have made the ego. This is
a perfectly reasonable question; in fact, the best question you could
ask. There is, however, no point in giving a 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. Abstract thought
applies to knowledge, because knowledge is completely impersonal and
examples are irrelevant to its understanding. Perception, however, is
always specific and therefore quite concrete.
25
Each man/woman makes one ego for himself/herself, although it is subject
to enormous variation because of its instability, and one for everyone
he/she 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
physical interaction. There could be no better example of the fact that
the ego is an idea, though not a reality-based thought.
26
Your own present state is a good example of how the Soul made the ego.
You do have knowledge at times, but when you throw it away, it
is as if you never had it. This willfulness is so apparent that one need
only perceive it to see that it does happen. If it can occur
that way in the present, why is it surprising that it occurred that way
in the past? Psychology rests on the principle of the continuity of
behavior. Surprise is a reasonable response to the unfamiliar but hardly
to something that has occurred with such persistence. I are using your
present state [as an example] of how the Soul can work, provided
you fully recognize that it need not work that way. Why are you
surprised that something happened in the dim past when it is so clearly
happening right now?
27
You forget the love that 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/she regards as a very real
part of himself/herself. Man/woman reacts to his/her ego much as God
does to HisHer individual Spirits: with love, protection, and great
charity. The reaction of man/woman to the self he/she made is not at all
surprising. In fact it duplicates in the many ways how he/she will one
day react to his/her real creationsmanifestations, which are as
timeless as he/she is. The question is not how man/woman
responds to his/her ego, but what he/she believes he/she is.
28
Belief is an ego function, 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.
Belief that there is another way is the loftiest idea of which
ego thinking is capable. That is because it contains a hint of
recognition that the ego is not the self. Undermining the 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
speed-up has placed you in the same position.
29
You are not prepared, and in this sense you are babies.
You have no sense of real self-preservation and are very likely to
decide that you need precisely what would hurt you most. Whether you
know it now or not, however, you 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 ego-based. This will not last. Be patient awhile and
remember that the outcome is as certain as God.
30
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 the ego, to give anything implies that you will do without
it. When you associate giving with sacrifice, then, you give only
because you believe that 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 other egos and is therefore continually preoccupied with the
scarcity principle which gave rise to it. This is the meaning of Freud's
"reality principle" since Freud thought of the ego as very weak and
deprived, capable of functioning only as a thing in need.
31
The "reality principle" of the ego is not real at all. The ego 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" 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 actually refers to a condition in which the
delusion of the ego's reality is threatened. This produces either ego
deflation or ego inflation, resulting in either withdrawal or attack.
32
The ego literally lives by comparison. 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. That is why the concept of "getting" arose in the ego's thought
system. All appetites are "getting" mechanisms, representing the ego's
need 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. 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 erratic nature.
33
The ego believes 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 try to unite with them in a feeble
attempt at identification or attack them in an equally feeble show of
strength. It is not free, however, 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.
Its ceaseless attempts to gain the Spirit's acknowledgment and thus to
establish its own existence are utterly useless.
34
The Spirit in its knowledge is unaware of the ego. It does not attack
it; it merely cannot conceive of it at all. While the ego is equally
unaware of the Spirit, it does perceive itself as rejected by
"something" which is greater than itself. This is why self-esteem in ego
terms must be a delusion. The creationsmanifestations of God do
not createmanifest myths, although the creativemanifestive efforts of
man/woman can turn to mythology. It can do so, however, only
under one condition; what man/woman then makes is no longer
creativemanifestive. Myths are entirely perceptions and are so ambiguous
in form and so characteristically good and evil in nature that the most
benevolent of them is not without fearful components, if only by
innuendo.
35
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 some 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 no one
maintains that the ego existed before that point in time. The
religiously ego-oriented believe that the Spirit existed before and will
continue to exist afterwards, after a temporary lapse in ego life. Some
actually believe that the Spirit will be punished for this lapse, even
though in reality it could not possibly know anything about it.
36
The term "salvation" does not apply to the individual Spirit,
which is not in danger and does not need to be salvaged. Salvation is
nothing more than "right-mindedness," which is not the One-Mindedness of
the individual Spirit, but which must be accomplished before
One-Mindedness can be restored. Right-mindedness dictates the next step
automatically, because right perception is uniformly without attack so
that wrong-mindedness 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 direction which the mind will take
is always automatic, because it cannot but be dictated by the
thought system to which the mind adheres.
37
Every thought system has internal consistency, and this provides the
basis for the continuity of behavior. However, this is a matter of
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.
38
A hypothesis is either false or true, 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 to which the ego has accorded the status
of fact is questionable, because facts are in the realm of knowledge.
39
Confusing realms of discourse is a thinking error which philosophers
have recognized for centuries. Psychologists are generally quite
deficient in this respect, as are the many theologians. Data from one
realm of discourse do not mean anything in another, because they can be
understood only within the thought system of which they are a
part. That 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.
40
The more recent ecological emphases are but another ingenious way of
trying to impose order on chaos. We have already credited the ego with
considerable ingenuity, though not with creativenessmanifestiveness. It
should, however, 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 ourselves with inventiveness. The highly
specific nature of invention is not worthy of the abstract creativity of
God's creationsmanifestations.
41
You have never understood what "the God Realm is within you" means. The
reason you have not understood it is because it is not
understandable to the ego, which interprets it as if something outside
is inside, and this does not mean anything. The word "within" is
unnecessary. The God Realm is you. What else but you did the
CreatorManifestor createmanifest, and what else but you is
HisHer Realm? This is the whole message of the Atonement, a message
which in its totality transcends the sum of its parts. Christmas is not
a time; it is a state of mind. The Christ Consciousness/the Mercy
Consciousness wills from the individual Spirit, not from the
ego, and the Christ Consciousness/the Mercy Consciousness is
yours.
42
You too have a realm which your individual Spirit createdmanifested. It
has not ceased to createmanifest because your ego has set you on
the road of perception. Your individual Spirit's creationsmanifestations
are no more fatherlessmotherless than you are. Your ego and your
individual Spirit will never be co-creators-co-manifestors, but your
individual Spirit and your CreatorManifestor will always
be. Be confident that your creationsmanifestations are as safe as you
are.
44
That was written in that form because it is a good thing to use as a
kind of a prayer in moments of temptation. It is a Declaration of
Independence. You will find it very helpful if you understand it fully.
45
In its characteristically 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 nonexistence of the ego itself. The ego therefore
experiences threat and not only censors but also reinterprets the data.
However, as Freud correctly pointed out, what you have repressed can
retain a very active life beyond your awareness.
46
Repression thus operates to conceal not only the baser impulses but also
the most lofty ones from awareness because both are threatening
to the ego and, being concerned primarily with its own preservation in
the face of threat, the ego perceives them as the same. The
threat-value of the lofty is actually much greater to the ego because
the pull of God HimHerself 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.
47
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 latter,
but salvation depends on disinhibiting the former. 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 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.
48
It should be apparent to you by now why the ego regards the Spirit as
its "enemy." The ego arose from the separation, and its continued
existence depends on your continuing belief in the separation.
Having reduced the Spirit’s 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 this life
is your existence because it is its own. Against this
sense of temporary existence the Spirit offers you the knowledge of
permanence and unshakable 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?
49
You who identify with your egos cannot believe that God loves
you. You do not love what you have made, and what you made does
not love you. Being made out of the denial of the FatherMother,
the ego has no allegiance to its own maker. You cannot conceive of the
real relationship which exists between God and HisHer Spirits 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 feel for what you 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.
50
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 which is so different from
anything the ego can offer that you will never recover. The word
"recover" is used quite literally here—you will never be able to cover
or hide again. It is necessary to repeat here that your belief in
darkness and in hiding is why the light cannot enter. The Bible
gives the many references to the immeasurable gifts which are for
you but for which you must ask. This is not a condition as the
ego sets conditions. It is the glorious condition of what you are.
51
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 FatherMother in our name to keep you mindful of HisHer love for you
and yours for HimHer. HeShe has never failed to answer this request
because it asks only for what HeShe has already willed. Those who call
truly are always answered. Thou shalt have no other gods before
HimHer because there are none.
52
It has never really entered your mind to give up every idea you 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 FatherMother createdmanifested us. I will love you and
honor you and maintain complete respect for what you have made, but I
will neither honor it nor love it unless it is true.
53
I will never forsake you any more than God will, but I must wait
as long as you choose to forsake yourself. Because I wait in love and
not in impatience, you will surely ask me truly. I will come in response
to a single unequivocal call. Watch carefully and see what it is you are
really asking for. Be very honest with yourself 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 mind for the Holy One to
enter. We will prepare for this together, for once HeShe has come, you
will be ready to help us make other minds ready for HimHer. How long
will you deny HimHer HisHer Realm?
54
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 that means the ego does not exist and which therefore makes it
profoundly afraid. In the ego's language, remember, "to have" and "to
be" are different, but they are identical to the individual Spirit. The
individual Spirit 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 God Realm and being the God Realm.
55
The calm being of God's Realm, 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 expend 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?
56
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 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.
57
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 chosen 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 individual
Spirit that God createdmanifested 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.
58
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/sister, I am deeply concerned with your mind and
urge you to follow our example as you look at yourselves and at each
other and see in both the glorious creationsmanifestations of a glorious
FatherMother.
59
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.
60
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.
61
When you feel guilty, know that the ego has indeed violated the
laws of God, but you have not. Leave the sins of the ego to me.
That is what 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.
62
Watch your mind for the temptations of the ego and do not be deceived by
it. Know it offers you nothing. When you have given up this
voluntary dispiriting, you will see how your mind can focus and rise
above fatigue and heal. Yet you are not sufficiently vigilant against
the demands of the ego to disengage yourself. This need not be.
63
The habit of engaging with God and HisHer
creationsmanifestations is easily made if you actively refuse to let
your minds slip away. The problem is not one of concentration;
it is the belief that no one, including yourself, is worth
consistent effort. Side with me consistently against this
deception, and 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 the many
opportunities you have to gladden yourselves and how the many of them
you have refused? There is no limit to the power of a SonDaughter of
God, but he/she himself/herself can limit the expression of his/her
power as much as he/she chooses.
64
Your mind and ours can unite in shining your ego away and releasing the
strength of God into everything you think and will and do. Do not 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 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.
65
You are mirrors of truth in which God HimHerself 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 the Holy One
shine on you in peace, knowing that this and only this must be.
HisHer Mind shone on you in your creationmanifestation and brought your
mind into being. HisHer Mind still shines on you and must shine through
you. Your ego cannot prevent HimHer from shining on you, but it can
prevent you from letting HimHer shine through you.
66
The first coming of the Christ Consciousness/the Mercy Consciousness is
just another name for the creationmanifestation, for the Christ
Consciousness/the Mercy Consciousness is the SonDaughter of God. The second
coming of the Christ Consciousness/the Mercy Consciousness means nothing
more than the end of the ego's rule over part of the minds of men/women
and the healing of the mind. I was createdmanifested like you in the
first, and 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, and my judgment, which is
used only for protection, cannot be wrong because it never
attacks. Yours is so distorted that you believe I was mistaken
in choosing you. I assure you this is a mistake of your egos. Do not
mistake it for humility.
67
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 the Christ Consciousness/the Mercy Consciousness must come
into your minds and heal them. Although 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 ours, and together we are invincible.
68
You will yet come together in our 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 createdmanifested. Why do
you believe it is harder for me to inspire the dispirited 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.
69
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. The ego
has every reason to do this according to the thought system which gave
rise to it and which it serves. Sane judgment would inevitably judge against
the ego and must be obliterated by the ego in the interest of its
self-preservation.
70
A major source of the ego's off-balanced state is its lack of
discrimination between impulses from God and from the body. Any thought
system which makes this confusion must be insane. Yet this
demented state is essential to the ego, which judges only in
terms of threat or non-threat to itself. In one sense the ego's
fear of the idea of God is at least logical, since this idea does
dispel the ego. 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.
71
The body is the ego's home by its own election. It is the only
identification with which the ego feels safe, because the body's
vulnerability is its own best argument that you cannot be of
God. This is the belief that the ego sponsors eagerly. Yet the ego hates
the body because it does not accept the idea that the body is good
enough to be 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, the mind is also constantly informed that the
body can not protect it. This, of course, is not only accurate
but perfectly obvious.
72
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 is none, but it does
have a typical solution. It obliterates the question from the
mind's awareness. Once unconscious, the question 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?" Even the insane ask it unconsciously, but it requires real
sanity to ask it consciously.
73
When the Bible says, "Seek and ye shall find," it does not mean that you
should seek blindly and desperately for something you would not
recognize. Meaningful seeking is consciously undertaken, consciously
organized, and consciously directed. The goal must be formulated clearly
and kept in mind. As a teacher with some experience, let me
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. However, values in this world are
hierarchical, and not everything you may want to learn has lasting
value.
74
Indeed, the 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 which the ego has tried
to develop but has systematically failed. It may surprise you to learn
that had the ego wished 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 creatormanifestor. However, 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 accurate perception, a state of clarity which
the ego, fearful of being judged truly, must avoid.
75
The results of this dilemma are peculiar, but no more so than the
dilemma itself. The ego has reacted characteristically here as elsewhere
because mental illness, which is always a form of ego
involvement, is not a matter 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. The ego's characteristic
busyness with non-essentials is for precisely that purpose.
76
Consider the alchemist's age-old attempts to turn base metal into gold.
The one question which the alchemist did not permit himself/herself to
ask was, "What for?" He/she could not ask this because it would
immediately become apparent that there was no sense in his/her efforts
even if he/she succeeded. If gold became more plentiful, its value would
decrease, and his/her own purpose would be defeated. The ego has
countenanced some strange compromises with the idea of the eternal,
making the many odd attempts to relate the concept to the unimportant
in an effort to satisfy the mind without jeopardizing itself. Thus, it
has permitted minds to devote themselves to the possibility of perpetual
motion, but not to perpetual thoughts.
77
Ideational preoccupations with problems set up to be incapable of
solution are also favorite ego devices for impeding the strong-willed
from making real learning progress. The problems of squaring the circle
and carrying pi to infinity are good examples. A more recent ego attempt
is particularly noteworthy. The idea of preserving the body by
suspension, thus giving it the kind of limited immortality which the ego
can tolerate, is among its more recent appeals to the mind. It is
noticeable, however, that in all these diversionary tactics, the one
question which is never asked by those who pursue them is, "What
for?"
78
This is the question which you must learn to ask in connection
with everything your mind wishes to undertake. What is the
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 your future effort, a decision which will
remain in effect unless you change the decision.
79
Psychologists are in a good position to realize that the ego is capable
of making and accepting as real some very distorted associations. The
confusion of sex with aggression and the resulting behavior, which is
perceived as the same for both, serves as an 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/her own and to limit his/her
questions about both the patient and himself/herself to the
trivial.
80
Such relatively minor confusions of the ego are not among its more
profound misassociations, although they do reflect them. Your 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/her mind because you are also
accepting these limits for yours. This makes you unable to heal
him/her and yourselves. Be always unwilling to adapt to any
situation in which miracle-mindedness is unthinkable. That state in
itself is enough to demonstrate that the perception is wrong.
81
It cannot be emphasized too often that correcting perception is merely a
temporary expedient. It is necessary to do so only because misperception
is a block to knowledge, while accurate perception is a stepping-stone towards
it. The whole value of right perception lies in the inevitable judgment
which it 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. You must be careful, however, that you really
understand the question. What is the "you" who are living in
this world?
82
Immortality is a constant state. It is as true now as it ever was or
ever will be because it implies no change at all. It is not a
continuum nor is it understood by being compared to an opposite.
Knowledge never involves comparison. That is its essential difference
from everything else the mind can grasp. "A little knowledge" is not
dangerous except to the ego. Vaguely it senses threat, and being unable
to realize that "a little knowledge" is a meaningless phrase since "all"
and "a little" in this context are the same, the ego decides that, since
"all" is impossible, the fear does not lie there. "A little," however,
is a scarcity concept, and this the ego understands well. "A
little," then, is perceived as the real threat.
83
The essential thing to remember 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 is. Only your allegiance to it gives the ego any power
over you.
84
We have spoken of the ego as if it were a separate thing acting on its
own. This was necessary to persuade you that you cannot dismiss it
lightly and must realize how much of your thinking is ego-directed. We
cannot safely let it go at that, however, or you will regard yourselves
as necessarily conflicted as long as you are here, or more properly, as
long as you believe that you are here.
85
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 varies with the
individual ego-illusion, but dissociation is always involved or you
would not believe that you are here. In learning to escape from
the illusions you have made, your great debt to each other is something
you must 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.
86
The term "holy" can be used here because as you learn how much you are
indebted to the whole SonDaughtership, which includes me, you
come as close to knowledge as perception ever can. The gap is then so
small that knowledge can easily flow across it and obliterate it
forever. You have very little trust in me as yet, but it will increase
as you turn more and more often to me instead of 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.
87
The ego cannot withstand the conditioning process because the process
itself demonstrates that there is another way. Conditioning by
rewards has always been more effective than conditioning by pain because
pain is an ego-illusion and can never induce more than a temporary
effect. The rewards of God, however, are immediately recognized as
eternal. Since this recognition is made by you and not the 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.
88
You cannot escape from the ego by humbling it or controlling it
or punishing it. Remember that the ego and the Spirit 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.
89
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 Hers. I have told you before that I am in
charge of the whole Atonement. This is only because I completed
my part in it as a human and can now complete it through other humans.
My chosen receiving and sending channels cannot fail because I will lend
them my strength as long as theirs is wanting.
90
I will go with you to the Holy One, and through my perception,
She 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/sister is to know God. A little knowledge is
an all-encompassing thing. If you are grateful to each other, you are
grateful to God for what HeShe createdmanifested. Through your
gratitude, you can come to know each other, and one moment of real
recognition makes all men/women your brothers/sisters because they are
all of your FatherMother. Love does not conquer all things, but it does
set all things right. Because you are all the God Realm, I can lead you
back to your own creationsmanifestations, which you do not yet know.
What has been dissociated is still there.
91
As you come closer to a brother/sister, 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; it is inherent in it.
Meditation is a collaborative venture with God. It cannot be
undertaken successfully by those who disengage themselves from the
SonDaughtership because they are disengaging themselves from me. God
will come to you only as you will give HimHer to your
brothers/sisters. 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.
92
How can you teach someone the value of something he/she has deliberately
thrown away? He/she must have thrown it away because he/she did not
value it. You can only show him/her how miserable he/she is without it
and bring it near very slowly, so he/she can learn how his/her misery
lessens as he/she approaches it. This conditions him/her to associate
his/her misery with its absence and to associate the opposite of misery
with its presence. It gradually becomes desirable as he/she changes
his/her mind about its worth.
93
I am conditioning you to associate misery with the ego and joy with the
Spirit. You have conditioned yourselves the other way around. A far
greater reward, however, will break through any conditioning if it is
repeatedly offered whenever the old habit pattern 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?
94
It should be clear by now that, while the content of any particular
ego-illusion does not matter, it is usually more helpful to correct it
in a specific context. Ego-illusions are quite specific,
although they frequently change and although the mind is naturally
abstract. The mind nevertheless becomes 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.
95
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 personal or
personals.
96
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 Spirit 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 createdmanifested. It is in complete and
direct communication with every aspect of creationmanifestation because
it is in complete and direct communication with its CreatorManifestor.
97
This communication is the Will of God.
Creationmanifestation and communication are synonymous. God
createdmanifested every mind by communicating HisHer Mind to it, thus
establishing it forever as a channel for the reception of HisHer Mind
and Will. Since only beings of a like order can truly communicate,
HisHer creationsmanifestations naturally communicate with HimHer
and like HimHer. 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
createdmanifested you by this and for this. The mind can
distort its function, but it cannot endow itself with functions 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.
98
Existence as well as being rests on communication. Existence, however,
is specific in how, what, and with whom communication is judged
to be 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 the individual Spirit. To whatever
extent you permit this state to be curtailed, you are limiting your
sense of your own reality, which becomes total only by your
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.
99
God, who encompasses all being, nevertheless createdmanifested
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. That is why God HimHerself createdmanifested you. Divine
Abstraction takes joy in application, and that is what
creationmanifestation means. "How," "what," and "to whom" are
irrelevant because real creationmanifestation gives everything, since it
can createmanifest only 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.
100
The
Bible repeatedly states that you should praise God. This hardly means
that you should tell HimHer how wonderful HeShe is. HeShe has no ego
with which to accept such thanks and no perception with which to judge
such offerings. But unless you take your part in the
creationmanifestation, HisHer joy is not complete because yours
is incomplete. And this HeShe does know. HeShe knows it in
HisHer own Being and its experience of HisHer Son’sDaughter’s
experience. The constant going out of HisHer love is blocked
when HisHer channels are closed, and HeShe is lonely when the
minds HeShe createdmanifested do not communicate fully with HimHer.
101
God has kept your realm for you, but HeShe cannot share HisHer
joy with you until you know it with your whole mind. Even revelation is
not enough because it is communication from God. It is not
enough until it is shared. God does not need revelation returned
to HimHer, which would clearly be impossible, but HeShe 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. It can, however, still be
returned by that mind through its attitudes to other
minds which the knowledge from the revelation brings.
102
God is praised whenever any mind learns to be wholly helpful. This is
impossible without being wholly harmless because the two beliefs
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 HeShe will return their
praise of HimHer because they are like HimHer, and they can rejoice
together. God goes out to them and through them, and there is great joy
throughout the God Realm. Every mind that is changed adds to this joy
with its own individual willingness to share in it. The truly helpful
are God's miracle workers whom I direct until we are all united in the
joy of the God Realm. I will direct you to wherever you can be truly
helpful and to whoever can follow my guidance through you.
103
Every mind which is split needs rehabilitation. The medical orientation
to rehabilitation emphasizes the body, while the vocational orientation
stresses the ego. The "team" approach generally leads more to confusion
than to anything else because it is too often misused as a way of
exerting the ego's domination over other egos, rather than as a real
experiment in the cooperation of minds. Rehabilitation as a movement is
an improvement over the overt neglect of those in need of help, but it
is often little more than a painful attempt on the part of the halt to
lead the blind.
104
The ego is likely to fear broken bodies because it cannot tolerate them.
The ego cannot tolerate ego weakness either without ambivalence because
it is afraid of its own weakness as well as the weakness of its chosen
home. When it is threatened, the ego blocks your natural impulse to
help, placing you under the strain of divided will. You may then be
tempted to withdraw to allow your ego to recover and to gain enough
strength to be helpful again on a basis limited enough not to
threaten your ego but 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.
105
A mind that recoils from a hurt body is in great need of rehabilitation
itself. 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 HeShe HimHerself knows
praise. HeShe offers praise to you, and you must offer it to others. The
chief 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 either with the ego's fight for control or its need to avoid
and withdraw. You can do much on behalf of your own rehabilitation and
that of others if in a situation calling for healing you think of it
this way:
1
To heal is to make happy. I have told you before to think how the many
opportunities you have to gladden yourselves and how the many you have
refused. This is exactly the same as telling you that you have refused
to heal yourselves. The light that belongs to you is the light of joy.
Radiance is not associated with sorrow. Depression is often contagious
but, although it may affect those who come in contact with it, they do
not yield to the influence whole-heartedly. But joy calls forth an
integrated willingness to share in it and thus promotes the mind's
natural impulse to respond as one.
2
Those who attempt to heal without being wholly joyous themselves call
forth different kinds of responses at the same time and thus deprive
others of the joy of responding whole-heartedly. To be whole-hearted,
you must be happy. If fear and love cannot coexist and if it is
impossible to be wholly fearful and remain alive, then the only possible
whole state is that of love. There is no difference between love
and joy. Therefore, the only possible whole state is the wholly joyous.
To heal or to make joyous is therefore the same as to integrate and to make
one. That is why it makes no difference to what part or by what
part of the SonDaughtership the healing is done. Every part
benefits and benefits equally.
3
You are being blessed by every beneficient thought of any of your
brothers/sisters anywhere. You should want to bless them in return out
of gratitude. You do not have to know them individually or they you. The
light is so strong that it radiates throughout the SonDaughtership and
returns thanks to the FatherMother for radiating HisHer joy upon it.
Only God's holy Children are worthy to be channels of HisHer beautiful
joy because only they are beautiful enough to hold it by sharing it. It
is impossible for a Child of God to love his/her neighbor except
as himherself . That is why the healer's prayer is:
5
Healing is an act of thought by which two minds perceive their oneness
and become glad. This gladness calls to every part of the
SonDaughtership to rejoice with them and lets God HimHerself 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 choose to be wholly joyous, your mind cannot have
what it does not choose to be. Remember that the individual
Spirit knows no difference between "being" and "having." The higher mind
thinks according to the laws which the individual Spirit obeys and
therefore honors only the laws of God. To HimHer, getting is meaningless
and giving is all, and to Her giving is meaningless and getting is all.
Having everything between them, the individual Spirit holds
everything by giving it and receiving it and thus
createsmanifests as the FatherMother createdmanifested.
6
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. If you share
an idea, however, you do not lessen it. All of it is
still yours, although all of it has been given away. Further, if the
personal to whom you give it accepts it as his/hers, he/she
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 makes between giving
and losing is gone.
7
Let us start our process of reawakening with just a few simple concepts:
9
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 Her to you only
at your own invitation. The Holy Spirit is nothing more than your own
right mind. She was also ours. The Bible says, "May the mind be in you
that was also in the Christ Consciousness/the Mercy Consciousness of
Jesus," and uses this as a blessing. It is the blessing of
miracle-mindedness. It asks that you may think as I thought, joining
with me in the Christ Consciousness/the Mercy Consciousness-thinking.
10
The Holy Spirit is the only part of the Holy Trinity which is symbolic.
She is referred to in the Bible as the Healer, the Comforter, and the
Guide. She is also described as something "separate," apart from the
FatherMother and from the SonDaughter. I myself said, "If I go I will
send you another comforter, and She will abide with you." The Holy
Spirit is a difficult concept to grasp precisely because it is
symbolic and therefore open to the many different interpretations. As a
man/woman and as one of God's creationsmanifestations, our right
thinking, which came from the Universal Inspiration which is the
Holy Spirit, taught us first and foremost that this Inspiration is for
all. I could not have It myself without knowing this.
11
The word "know" is proper in this context because the Holy Inspiration
is so close to knowledge that it calls it forth; or better, allows it to
come. We have spoken before of the higher or the "true" perception,
which is so close to truth that God HimHerself 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 Consciousness/the Mercy Consciousness,
which senses the knowledge that lies beyond perception. It came into
being with the separation as a protection, inspiring the beginning of
the Atonement at the same time. Before that, there was no need for
healing and no one was comfortless.
12
God honored even the miscreationsmismanifestations of HisHer Children
because they had made them, but HeShe also blessed them with a way of
thinking that could raise their perceptions until they became so lofty
that they could reach almost back to HimHer. The Holy Spirit is the Mind
of the Atonement. It represents a state of mind that comes close enough
to one-mindedness that transfer to it is at last possible. 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 of "carried" over
since the last step is taken by God.
13
The Holy Spirit, the shared Inspiration of all the SonDaughtership,
induces a kind of perception in which the many elements are like those
in the God Realm itself.
14
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.
15
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.]
16
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 creationmanifestation.
17
Healing is not creatingmanifesting; 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
miracle-mindedness, the will to heal the separation by letting
it go. This will is in you because God placed it in your mind,
and although you can keep it asleep, you cannot obliterate it.
18
God HimHerself keeps this will alive by transmitting it from HisHer Mind
to yours as long as there is time. It is partly HisHer and partly yours.
The miracle itself is just this fusion or union of will between
FatherMother and SonDaughter. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of joy. She
is the Call to return with which God blessed the minds of HisHer
separated SonDaughters. This is the vocation of the mind. The mind had
no calling until the separation because before that 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
creatingmanifesting.
19
The Atonement and the separation began at the same time. When man/woman
made the ego, God placed in him/her the call to 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. Hers is the Voice that calls you back to where you were
before and will be again.
20
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 SonsDaughters are as equal as learners
as they are as individual Spirits. 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 SonDaughtership is healed,
there will be no call to return, but what God createsmanifests is
eternal. The Holy Spirit will remain with the SonsDaughters of God to
bless their creationsmanifestations and keep them in the light
of joy.
21
You are the God Realm, 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. HisHer is the
glory before which dissociation falls away and the God Realm breaks
through into its own. Before the separation you did not need guidance.
You knew as you will know again, but as you do not know
now. God does not guide because HeShe 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 to be
avoided. By choosing one, you give up the other.
22
This is a conflict state. It means that knowledge has
been lost because knowledge is sure. God is not in you in a literal
sense; you are part of HimHer. When you chose to leave HimHer,
HeShe gave you a Voice to speak for HimHer because HeShe could
no longer share HisHer 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 to 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 creativemanifestive
power is unlimited, but choice itself is meaningless.
23
Freedom to choose is the same power as freedom to
createmanifest, 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 HisHer
Children comfortless, even though they chose to leave HimHer. The voice
they put in their minds was not the voice of HisHer 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.
24
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.
25
"What profiteth it a man/woman if he/she gain the whole world and lose
his/her own Spirit?" That means that if he/she listens to the wrong
voice, he/she has lost sight of his/her individual Spirit.
He/she cannot lose it, but he/she can not know it. It is
therefore lost to him/her until he/she chooses right. The Holy
Spirit is your Guide in choosing. She is the part of your mind which always
speaks for the right choice because She speaks for God. She is your
remaining communication with God, which you can interrupt but cannot
destroy.
26
The Holy Spirit is the way in which God's Will can be done on earth as
it is in the God Realm. Both God Realm and earth are in you
because the call of both is in your will and therefore in your mind. The
Voice for God comes from your own altars to HimHer. These altars are not
things; they are devotions. Yet 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.
27
My mind will always be like yours because we were createdmanifested as
equals. It was only my decision that gave me all power in the
God Realm 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 creationmanifestation. 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.
28
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 only
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 SonDaughtership
cannot be as one. What better vocation could there be for any part of
the God Realm than to restore it to the perfect integration that can
make it whole?
29
Hear only this through the Holy Spirit within you, and teach your
brothers/sisters 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 SonDaughtership and to bring it
back into the Oneness in which it was createdmanifested. 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 our message is light."
30
I came into 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. She teaches you how to keep me as
the model for your thought and to behave like me as a result.
31
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, our message is for you to hear and give away as
you answer the Holy Spirit within you.
32
The way to learn to know your brother/sister is by perceiving the Holy
Spirit in him/her. We have already said that the Holy Spirit is the
bridge or thought-transfer of perception to knowledge, so we can use the
terms as if they were related because in Her mind they are. The
relationship must be in Her mind because, unless it were, the
separation between the two ways of thinking would not be open to
healing. She is part of the Holy Trinity because Her mind is partly
yours and also partly God's. This needs clarification, not in statement,
since we have said it before, but in experience.
33
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. Since 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/sisters. Since thoughts do not have to be
conscious to exist, your brother/sister does not have to be aware of the
Holy Spirit either in himself/herself or in you for this miracle to
occur.
34
Your brother/sister may have dissociated the Call for God, just as you
have. The dissociation is healed in both of you as you
become aware of the Call for God in him/her and thus acknowledge its being.
There are two ways of seeing your brother/sister which are diametrically
opposed to each other. They must both be in your mind because you
are the perceiver. They must also be in his/her because you are
perceiving him/her. See him/her through the Holy Spirit in
his/her mind, and you will recognize him/her in yours. What you
acknowledge in your brother/sister you are acknowledging in
yourself, and what you share you strengthen.
35
The Voice of the Holy Spirit is weak in you. That is why you must
share it. 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. If you make the mistake of
looking for the Holy Spirit in yourself alone, your meditations will
frighten you because by adopting the ego's viewpoint you are
undertaking an ego-alien journey with the ego as guide. This is
bound to produce fear.
36
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. She undoes it in the same realm of discourse in which the ego
itself operates, or the mind would be unable to understand the change.
37
We have repeatedly emphasized that one level of the mind is not
understandable to another. So it is with the ego and the Spirit, with
time and eternity. Eternity is an idea of God, so the Spirit 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, which interprets it at best to mean
"don't worry about the future." That is not what it really means at all.
38
The Holy Spirit is the Mediator between the interpretations of the ego
and the knowledge of the Spirit. Her ability to deal with symbols
enables Her to work against the ego's beliefs in its own
language. Her equal ability to look beyond symbols into eternity
also enables Her to understand the laws of God, for which She speaks.
She 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 She 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.
39
You cannot understand yourselves alone. This is because you have no
meaning apart from your rightful place in the SonDaughtership
and the rightful place of the SonDaughtership 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. If you believe there is strife, you will react viciously
because the idea of danger has entered your mind. The idea itself is
an appeal to the ego.
40
The Holy Spirit is as vigilant as the ego to the call of danger,
opposing it with Her 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. Either way, the idea will be
strengthened in the mind of the giver.
41
The ego is the symbol of separation, just as the Holy Spirit is the
symbol of peace. What you perceive in others, you are strengthening in yourself.
You let your mind misperceive, but the Holy Spirit lets your mind
reinterpret its own misperceptions. The Holy Spirit is the perfect
Teacheress. She 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/her will
because part of his/her 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 Her own dwelling place or the place in the mind
where She is at home.
42
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 HisHer 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.
43
The Holy Spirit must work through opposites because She 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 She
understands. Her understanding looks back to God in remembrance of me.
She is in Holy Communion always, and She is part of you. She is
your Guide to salvation because She holds the remembrance of things past
and to come. She holds this gladness gently in your minds, asking only
that you increase it in Her name by sharing it, to increase Her
joy in you.
44
You must have noticed how often I have used your own ideas to help you.
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
accept them as part of you. Understanding is beyond
perception because it introduces meaning. It is, however, below
knowledge even though it can grow towards it. It is possible,
with great effort, to understand someone else to some extent and to be
quite helpful to him, but the effort is misdirected. The misdirection is
quite apparent; it is directed away from you.
45
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 your kindnesses and
every loving thought you have had. I have purified them of the 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 what God
createsmanifests is eternal. What fear has hidden still is part of you.
46
Joining the 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. However, the Holy Spirit will
not fail to help you reinterpret everything that you perceive as fearful
and teach you that only what is loving is true. Truth is
beyond your ability to destroy but entirely within your grasp. It
belongs to you because you createdmanifested it. It is yours because it
is a part of you, just as you are part of God because HeShe
createdmanifested you.
47
The Atonement is the guarantee of the safety of the God Realm.
Nothing good is lost because it comes from the Holy Spirit, the Voice
for manifestation. Nothing that is not good was ever
createdmanifested 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 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 creatingmanifesting undivided.
48
As a therapist, you yourself tell your patients that the real difference
between neurotic and "healthy" guilt feelings is that neurotic guilt
feelings do not help anyone. This distinction is 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 pardon without change. The ego never calls for real
Atonement and cannot tolerate forgiveness, which is change.
49
Your concept of "healthy guilt feelings" has merit, but without the
concept of the Atonement, it lacks the healing potential it holds. You
made the distinction in terms of feelings, which led to a decision not
to repeat the error, which is only part of healing. Your
concept 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.
50
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 it is possible even in this world to listen to one
voice. If you are part of God and the SonDaughtership is one, you cannot
be limited to the "self" the ego sees. Every loving thought held in any
part of the SonDaughtership belongs to every part. It is shared because
it is loving. Sharing is God's way of creatingmanifesting and also yours.
Your ego can keep you in exile from the God Realm, but in the
God Realm itself it has no power.
51
You have become willing to receive mu messages as I give them without
interference by the ego, so we can clarify an earlier point. 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.
52
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 in
order to hear it yourself. The mind that was in me is still irresistibly
drawn to every mind createdmanifested by God because God's Wholeness is
the wholeness of HisHer SonDaughter.
53
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/sister anything except your
wholeness. Show him/her that he/she cannot hurt you and hold
nothing against him, or you hold it against yourself. Teaching is done
in the many ways: by formal means, by guidance, and above all by
example. 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 SonDaughtership is its protection. The
ego cannot prevail against the Realm because it is united, and
the ego fades away and is undone in the presence of the attraction of
the parts of the SonDaughtership, which hear the call of the Holy Spirit
to be as One.
54
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 SonDaughter.
What I learned I give you freely, and the mind which was in me rejoices
as you choose 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 Her, She leads you back to God where you belong, and how
can you find this way except by taking your brother/sister with you?
55
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 createdmanifested me. You will forsake yourselves and God if you
forsake any of your brothers/sisters. You are more than your
brother's/sister’s keeper. In fact, you do not want to keep
him/her. You must learn to see him/her as he/she is and know
that he/she belongs to God as you do. How could you treat your
brother/sister better than by rendering unto God the things which are
God's?
56
Ideas do not leave the mind which thought them to have a
separate being, nor do separate thoughts conflict with one another in
space because they do not occupy space at all. However, 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/sisters. Therefore, you can really share only
the parts of your thoughts which are of Her and which She also keeps for
you. And of such is the God Realm. All the rest remains with you
until She has reinterpreted them in the light of the Realm, making them,
too, worthy of being shared. When they have been sufficiently purified,
She lets you give them away. The will to share them is their
purification.
57
The Atonement gives you the power of a healed mind, but the power to
createmanifest 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 creationmanifestation cannot be expressed as long as any
of God's ideas withhold it from the God Realm. The joint will of all
the SonDaughtership is the only creatormanifestor that can
createmanifest like the FatherMother 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.
58
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. HisHer quiet
Children are HisHer blessed SonDaughters. The Thoughts of God are with
you.
59
Perhaps some of our concepts 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 the God Realm or earth, as it
elects. But again, let us remember that both are in you. In the
God Realm there is no guilt because the God Realm is attained through
the Atonement, which releases you to createmanifest. The word
"createmanifest" is appropriate here because, once what you have
made is undone by the Holy Spirit, the blessed residue is restored and
therefore continues in creationmanifestation.
60
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.
61
The ego is the part of the mind which believes in division. How
can part of God detach itself without believing it is attacking
HimHer? We spoke before of the authority problem as involving the
concept of usurping God's 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.
62
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 HimHer 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.
63
Whatever you accept into your mind has reality for you. It is,
however, only your acceptance of it that makes it real. 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
createdmanifested it, is capable of creatingmanifesting reality.
We said before that you must learn to think with God. To think
with HimHer is to think like HimHer. 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.
64
The ego does not perceive sin as a lack of love. It perceives sin as a positive
act
of assault. This is an interpretation which is necessary to the
ego's survival because as soon as you regard sin as a lack you
will automatically attempt to remedy the situation. And you will
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
anyone or anything.
65
We said before that illness is a form of magic. It might be better to
say that 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.
66
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 repeated here because you
have not learned it. But again, your decision can be unmade as
well as made. Remember, though, that the alternatives are
unalterable.
67
The Holy Spirit, like the ego, is a decision. Together they constitute
all the alternatives which the mind can accept and obey. The ego and the
Holy Spirit are the only choices open to you. God
createdmanifested one, and so you cannot eradicate it. You
made the other, and so you can. Only what God
createsmanifests is irreversible and unchangeable. What you have
made can always be changed because when you do not think like
God you are not really thinking at all. Delusional ideas are not real
thoughts, although you can believe in them. But you are wrong.
The function of thought comes from God and is in God. As
part of HisHer Thought, you cannot think apart from HimHer.
68
Irrational thought is a thought disorder. God HimHerself orders
your thought because your thought was createdmanifested by
HimHer. 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 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 miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself/herself, and I
assure you that it is, then the responsibility for what is atoned for
cannot be yours.
69
The dilemma 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.
70
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. What you will, you expect. This is not delusional.
Your mind does createmanifest your future, and it can turn it
back to full creationmanifestation at any minute if it accepts the
Atonement first. It will also turn back to full
creationmanifestation the instant it has done so. Having given up its
thought disorder, the proper ordering of thought becomes quite apparent.
71
God in HisHer knowledge is not waiting, but HisHer Realm is bereft while
you wait. All the SonsDaughters 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 eternity and have therefore changed
your belief in your status. Yet your election is both free and
alterable. You do not belong in time. Your place is only in
eternity, where God HimHerself placed you forever.
72
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 choose to make this exchange, you will simultaneously
exchange guilt for joy, viciousness for love, and pain for peace. Our
role is only to unchain your will and make it free. Your ego cannot
accept this freedom and will oppose your free decision at every possible
moment and in every possible way. And as its maker, you recognize what
it can do because you gave it the power to do it.
73
The mind does indeed know its power because the mind does indeed know
God. Remember the Realm always, and remember that you who are part of
the Realm cannot be lost. The mind that was in me is in
you, for God createsmanifests with perfect fairness. Let the Holy Spirit
remind you always of HisHer fairness, and let me teach you how to share
it with your brothers/sisters. 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 were unnecessary until the first one was made, and
speaking itself was unnecessary before the ego was made.
74
The ego speaks in judgment and the Holy Spirit reverses its decisions,
much as the Supreme Court has the power to reverse the lower courts'
decisions about the laws of this world. The ego's decisions are always
wrong because they are based on a complete fallacy which they were made
to uphold. Nothing the ego 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.
75
We need cite only a few examples to see how the ego's interpretations
have misled you. A favorite ego quotation is "As ye sow, so shall ye
reap." Another is "Vengeance is ours, sayeth the LordLady." Still
another is "I will visit the sins of the father/mother unto the third
and fourth generation," and also "The wicked shall perish." There are
the many others, but if you will let the Holy Spirit reinterpret these
in Her own light, they will suffice.
76
"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 makes it worthy for you. "Vengeance is ours, sayeth
the LordLady" 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.
77
"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 the quotation 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 SonDaughtership. "The wicked
shall perish" is merely a statement of fact if the word "perish" is
properly understood. Every loveless thought must be undone. Even
the word "undone" is fearful to the ego, which interprets "I am undone"
as "I am destroyed."
78
The ego will not be destroyed because it is part of your
thought, but because it is uncreativeunmanifestive 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 Realm, where your whole mind belongs. The
ego is a form of arrest, but arrest is merely delay. It does not
involve the concept of punishment, although the ego welcomes that
interpretation. You can delay the completion of the God Realm,
but you cannot introduce the concept of assault into it.
79
When I said, "I are come as a light into the world," I surely came to
share the 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 Gods creationsmanifestations
is bearing false witness to God HimHerself.
80
Appeal everything you believe gladly to God's own Higher Court because
it speaks for HimHer 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 God-proof. The Voice for God
will not hear it at all because She can only witness truly. Her verdict
will always be "Thine is the God Realm" because She was given
you to remind you of what you are.
81
Your patience with each other is your patience with yourselves. Is not a
Child of God worth patience? I have shown you infinite patience
because my will is that of our FatherMother, from Whom I learned
of infinite patience. HisHer Voice was in me as it is in you, speaking
for patience towards the SonDaughtership in the name of its
CreatorManifestor. 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, it renders time unnecessary.
82
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. She reminds you of this in every passing
moment of time because it is Her special function to return you to
eternity and remain to bless your creationsmanifestations there.
She is the only blessing you can truly give because She is so truly
blessed, and because She has been given you so freely by God, you must
give Her as you received Her.
83
The idea of "set" is among the better psychological concepts. Actually,
it is used quite frequently in the Bible and also in this course under
the many different terms. For example, "God will keep him/her in perfect
peace whose mind is stayed (or set) on HimHer," a statement which means
that God's peace is set in the Holy Spirit because She is fixed on God.
She is also fixed in you. You, then, are fixed in the peace of
God. The concept of "fixation" is also 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.
84
Freud's system of thought was extremely ingenious because Freud was
extremely ingenious, and a mind must endow its thoughts with its
own attributes. This is its inherent strength, although it may misuse
its power. Freud lost much of the potential value of his thought system
because 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 dissociation. That 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 yet does not yield to it is terribly afraid.
85
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 Her unequivocal Voice. The Holy Spirit never
changes Her mind. Clarity of thought cannot occur under
conditions of vacillation. Unless a mind is fixed in its purpose, it is
not clear. Clarity literally means the state of light, and
enlightenment is understanding. Enlightenment stands under
perception because you have denied it as the real foundation of
thought. This is the basis for all delusional systems.
86
The concept of fixation as Freud saw it has a number of learning
advantages. First, it recognizes that man/woman 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. Freud, however, 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.
87
Second, although Freud misinterpreted what the Holy Spirit told him, or
better, reminded him of, he was too honest to deny more than was
necessary 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.
88
Third, although Freud interpreted fixation as involving irrevocable
"danger points" to which the mind could always regress, the concept can
also be interpreted as an irrevocable call to sanity which the mind
cannot lose. Freud himself could not accept this interpretation,
but throughout his thought system, the "threat" of fixation remained and
could never be eliminated by any living human being. Essentially, this
was the basis of Freud's pessimism, personally as well as theoretically.
He 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.
89
This knowledge plagued Freud's 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 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 creationmanifestation, 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 so high that it
cannot be surmounted. You are always being pulled back
to your CreatorManifestor because you belong to HimHer.
90
Do you really believe you can make a voice that can drown out
HisHers? Do you really believe that you can devise a thought
system which can separate you from HisHers? Do you really
believe that you can plan for your safety and joy better than HeShe can?
You need be neither careful nor careless; you need merely cast your
cares upon HimHer because HeShe careth for you. You are
HisHer care because HeShe loves you. HisHer Voice reminds you always
that all hope is yours because of HisHer care. You cannot
choose to escape HisHer care because that is not HisHer Will, but you can
choose to accept HisHer care and use the infinite power of
HisHer care for all those HeShe createdmanifested by it.
91
There have been the 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/herself, he/she does not
believe that there is no order of difficulty in miracles. He/she has not
learned that every mind God createdmanifested is equally worthy
of being healed because God createdmanifested it whole. You are
merely asked to return to God the mind as HeShe createdmanifested it.
HeShe asks you only for what HeShe gave, knowing that this giving will
heal you. Sanity is wholeness, and the sanity of your
brothers/sisters is yours.
92
Why should you listen to the endless insane calls which you think are
made upon you when you know the Voice of God HimHerself is in
you? God commended HisHer Spirit to you and asks that you commend yours
to HimHer. HeShe wills to keep it in perfect peace because you are of
one mind and Spirit with HimHer. Excluding yourself from the Atonement
is the ego's last-ditch defense of its own existence. It
reflects both the ego's need to separate and your willingness to side
with its separateness. This willingness means that you do not want
to be healed.
93
But the time is now. You have not been asked to work out the
plan of salvation yourselves because, as I told you before, the remedy
is not of your making. God HimHerself gave you the perfect
correction for everything you have made which is not in accord
with HisHer holy Will. I have made HisHer plan perfectly explicit to you
and have also told you of your part in HisHer 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 HisHer Children, who believe they are lost
to HimHer.
94
I have already told you that whenever you are not wholly joyous it is
because you have reacted with a lack of love to some individual Spirit
which God createdmanifested. Perceiving this as "sin," you become
defensive because you expect attack. The decision to react in
this way, however, is 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 allow it to be undone for you.
95
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 how 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:
1
The relationship of anger to attack is obvious, but the inevitable
association of anger and fear is not always so clear. Anger always
involves projection of separation, which must ultimately be
accepted as entirely one's own responsibility. Anger cannot occur unless
you believe that you have been attacked, that your attack was justified,
and that you are in no way responsible. Given these three wholly
irrational premises, the equally irrational conclusion that a
brother/sister is worthy of attack rather than of love follows.
What can be expected from insane premises except an insane conclusion?
2
The way to undo an insane conclusion is to consider the sanity of the
premises on which it rests. You cannot be attacked; attack has
no justification; and you are responsible for what you believe.
You have been asked to take me as your model for learning, since an
extreme example is a particularly helpful learning device. Everyone
teaches and teaches all the time. This is a responsibility which he/she
inevitably assumes the moment he/she accepts any premise at all, and no
one can organize his/her life without any thought system. Once
he/she has developed a thought system of any kind, he/she lives by it and
teaches it.
3
You have been chosen to teach the Atonement precisely because you have
been extreme examples of allegiance to your thought systems and
therefore have developed the capacity for allegiance. It has
indeed been misplaced, but it is a form of faith which you
yourselves have been willing to redirect. You cannot doubt the strength
of your devotion when you consider how faithfully you have observed it.
It was quite evident that you had already developed the ability to
follow a better model if you could accept it.
4
For teaching purposes, let us consider the crucifixion again. We have
not dwelt on it before because of its fearful connotations. The only
emphasis we laid upon it was that it was not a form of
punishment. Nothing, however, can be really explained in negative terms
only. 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. The crucifixion 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. This is only because the fearful are apt to perceive
fearfully.
5
I have already told you 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 SonDaughtership need take and that
it should mean release from fear to anyone who understands it. While we
emphasized only the resurrection 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/teacheresses.
6
You have reacted for years as if you were being crucified. This
is a marked tendency of the separated ones, 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 SonsDaughters of God upon another. 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.
7
Assault can ultimately be made only on the body. There is little
doubt that one body can assault another and can even destroy it.
Yet 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 that 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.
8
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. You
might remember, however, 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 to teach
it.
9
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 SonsDaughters 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, which 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.
10
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 are the model for rebirth, but rebirth itself is
merely the dawning on your minds of what is already in them. God placed
it there HimHerself, 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/sisters in the name of the God Realm, but first believe that it
is true for you, or you will teach amiss.
11
My brothers/sisters 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. 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/sisters do not share my decision to hear only one
voice, because it weakens them as teachers/teacheresses and as
learners. Yet I know that they cannot really betray themselves or
me and that it is still on them that I must build my church.
12
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 HisHer 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/her.
13
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,
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 re-awakened 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.
14
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 yourselves. That is because the
Holy Spirit is one, and anyone who listens is inevitably led to
demonstrate Her way for all. You are not persecuted, nor was I. You are
not asked to repeat my experiences because the Holy Spirit, Whom
we share, makes this unnecessary. To use my experiences
constructively, however, you must still follow my example in how to
perceive them.
15
My brothers/sisters 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 it would serve as a good teaching aid
to those whose temptations to give in to anger and assault would not
be so extreme. I will with God that none of HisHer SonsDaughters should
suffer.
16
Remember that the Holy Spirit is the communication link between God the
FatherMother and HisHer separated SonsDaughters. If you will listen to
Her Voice, you will know that you cannot either hurt or be hurt
and 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
other, you will have learned of me and will 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 SonDaughter of God is necessary to
enable the SonDaughtership to know its wholeness. Only this is
knowledge.
17
The message of the crucifixion is perfectly clear:
19
If you interpret the crucifixion in any other way, you are using it as a
weapon for assault rather than as the call for 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 HisHer retaliatory weapon. Nor could they
speak of the crucifixion entirely without anger, because their own sense
of guilt had made them angry.
20
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 like the several slips into impatience which I made. I had
learned the Atonement prayer, which I also came to teach, too well to
engage in upside-down thinking myself. If the Apostles had not felt
guilty, they never could have quoted me as saying, "I come not to bring
peace but a sword." This is clearly the exact opposite of everything I
taught.
21
Nor could they have described my reactions to Judas as they did if they
had really understood me. They would have realized I could not
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 SonDaughtership as myself. Was it likely that I would
condemn him when I was ready to demonstrate that condemnation is
impossible?
22
I am very grateful to the Apostles for their teaching and fully aware of
the extent of their devotion to me. Nevertheless, 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/teacheressess.
No one is "punished" for sins, and the SonsDaughters of God are not
sinners.
23
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 which motivate it. The crucifixion was a complex of behaviors
arising out of clearly opposed thought systems. As such, it was the
perfect symbol of conflict between the ego and the SonDaughter of God.
The conflict is just as real now, and its lessons, too, have equal
reality when they are 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. HeShe does not
need your appreciation, but you do.
24
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 SonsDaughters
of God is operating all the time because they were createdmanifested as
creatorsmanifestors. 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 HeShe thinks if you are to know HimHer again.
25
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
HisHer peace, cannot be appreciated except by a whole mind which
recognizes the wholeness of God's creationmanifestation and by
this recognition knows its CreatorManifestor. Exclusion and separation
are synonymous, as 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 that keeps
it going. The reason, however, may not be as clear as you think.
26
In the ego's use of projection, to which we are obviously referring,
what you project you disown and therefore do not believe is yours.
You are excluding yourself by the very statement you are making
that you are different from the one on whom you project. Since
you have also judged against what you project, you continue to
attack it because you have already attacked it by projecting 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.
27
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/sisters and separated from
them. The ego justifies this on the wholly spurious grounds that it
makes you seem "better" than they are, thus obscuring your 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.
28
The ego uses projection only to distort your perception both of
yourself and your brothers/sisters. The process begins by
excluding something [you think] exists in you which you do not want and
leads directly to excluding you from your brothers/sisters. We have
learned, however, 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.
29
The Holy Spirit begins by perceiving you as perfect. Knowing
this perfection is shared, She recognizes it in others, thus
strengthening it in both. Instead of anger, this arouses love for both,
because it establishes inclusion. Perceiving equality, the Holy
Spirit perceives equal needs. This invites Atonement automatically,
because Atonement is the one need which in this world is
universal. To perceive yourself this way is the only way in
which you can find happiness in the world. That is because it is the
acknowledgment that you are not in this world, for the world is
unhappy.
30
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 createdmanifested you as part of HimHer. That is both where
you are and what you are. It is completely unalterable.
It is total inclusion. You cannot change it now or ever. It is forever
true. It is not a belief but a fact. Anything that God
createdmanifested is as true as HeShe is. Its truth lies only in its
perfect inclusion in HimHer, Who alone is perfect. To deny this
in any way is to deny yourself and HimHer since it is impossible
to accept one without the other.
31
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 would prefer to believe that this meeting is impossible, yet
it is your perception which the Holy Spirit guides. You might
remember that the human eye perceives parallel lines as if
they meet in the distance, which is the same as in the future if time
and space are one dimension. Your perception will end where it
began. Everything meets in God because everything was
createdmanifested by HimHer and in HimHer.
32
God createdmanifested HisHer SonsDaughters by extending HisHer thought
and retaining the extensions of HisHer Thought in HisHer Mind. All
HisHer Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with
each other because they were createdmanifested 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 the restatement of inclusion, directed
by the Holy Spirit under the laws of God. God createdmanifested you to
createmanifest. You cannot extend HisHer Realm until you know of
its wholeness.
33
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. Yet
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. She can inspire perception and lead it
toward God by making it parallel to God's way of thinking and
thus guarantee 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.
34
The Holy Spirit uses time but does not believe in it.
Coming from God, She uses everything for good, but She does not believe
in what is not true. Since the Holy Spirit is in your minds,
your minds must also be able to believe only what is true. The Holy
Spirit can speak only for this because She speaks for God. She tells you
to return your whole mind to God because it has never left HimHer.
If it has never left HimHer, 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.
35
The ego can accept the idea that return is necessary because it
can so easily make the idea seem so difficult. Yet the Holy Spirit tells
you that even return is unnecessary because what never happened cannot
involve any problem. It does not follow, however, that you
cannot make the idea of return both necessary and difficult. It
is surely clear, however, that the perfect need nothing and cannot
experience perfection as a difficult accomplishment, because that is
what they are.
36
This is the way in which you must perceive God's
creationsmanifestations, 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 HisHers.
There is no conflict anywhere in this perception because it means that all
perception is guided by the Holy Spirit, Whose mind is fixed on God. Only
the Holy Spirit can resolve conflict, because only the Holy
Spirit is conflict-free. She perceives only what is true in your
mind and extends outward only to what is true in other minds.
37
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
Herself in every mind and thus perceives them as one.
Nothing conflicts in this perception, because what the Holy Spirit
perceives is the same. Wherever She looks She sees Herself, and
because She is united, She offers the whole Realm always. This is the
one message God gave to Her and for which She must speak because
that is what She is. The peace of God lies in that message, and
so the peace of God lies in you.
38
The great peace of the Realm 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 Her
impartially can you perceive Her at all. The ego is legion, but the Holy
Spirit is One. No darkness abides anywhere in the Realm, but 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 God Realm
together and as one.
39
We have used the many words as synonymous which are not ordinarily
regarded as the same. We began with having and being and more recently
have used others. Hearing and being are examples, 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.
That 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.
40
The Holy Spirit still holds knowledge safe through Her impartial
perception. By attacking nothing, She presents no barrier at all to the
communication of God. Thus, 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 teach and learn what
is not true. From this, which you have made, you have
taught yourselves to believe that 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 you teach you are learning.
41
That is why you must teach only one lesson. If you are to be
conflict-free yourselves, you must learn only from the Holy
Spirit and teach only by Her. 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. 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.
42
The only real safety lies in projecting only the Holy Spirit
because, as you see Her 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.
43
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. Yet your learning is not
immortal, and you can unlearn it by not teaching it. Since you
cannot not teach, your salvation lies in teaching the exact opposite
of everything the ego believes. This is how you will learn the
truth that will set 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 what you know
because you cannot teach what you have dissociated.
44
Only thus can you win back the knowledge that 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.
45
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. That is because it believes, and correctly, that
its maker may withdraw his/her support from it at any moment. If it
meant you well, it would be glad, as the Holy Spirit will be glad when
She has brought you home, and you no longer need Her guidance. The ego
does not regard itself as part of you. Herein lies its primary
perceptual error, the foundation of its whole thought system.
46
When God createdmanifested you, HeShe made you part of HimHer. That is
why attack within the God Realm is impossible. You made
the ego without love, and so it does not love you. You could not
remain within the God Realm without love, and since the God
Realm is love, you believe that 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 one which it can never answer. That question, "What
are you?" was the beginning of doubt.
47
The ego has never answered any questions since, although 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 understand
the conflict until you fully understand one basic fact that the ego does
not know. The Holy Spirit does not speak first, but She
always answers. Everyone has called upon Her for help at one time
or another and in one way or another and has been answered.
Since the Holy Spirit answers truly, She answers for all time,
which means that everyone has the answer now.
48
The ego cannot hear the Holy Spirit, but it does believe that
part of the same mind that made it is against it. It interprets
this as a justification for attacking its maker. It believes
that the best defense is attack and wants you to believe it.
Unless you do believe it you will not side with it, and the ego
feels badly in need of allies though not of brothers/sisters.
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. 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.
49
The ego and the body conspire against your minds, and because
the ego realizes that its "enemy" can end them both merely by
knowing they are not part of himher, 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 the mind is
its own learning device and that the learning device is more real than it
is. No one in his/her right mind could though believe this, and
no one in his/her right mind does believe it.
50
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 HisHer Realm, which HeShe createdmanifested as part of HimHer.
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 HimHer because you will be awake. Your dreams have
contained many of the ego's symbols, and they have confused you. Yet
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.
51
Yet the God Realm and all that you have createdmanifested there will
have great reality for you because they are beautiful and true. In the
God Realm, 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 God Realm, where everything lives in God without question.
The time that was spent on questioning in the dream has given way to
creationmanifestation and to its eternity.
52
You are as certain as God because you are as true as HeShe 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. You must remember, however, that when you put
yourselves in an impossible situation, you believed that the impossible
was possible.
53
Abilities must be developed, or you cannot use them. This is not
true of anything that God createdmanifested, 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 God Realm 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.
54
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" which the ego
engages in, but God, Who knows that HisHer
creationsmanifestations are perfect, does not insult them. This
would be as impossible as the ego's notion that it has insulted
HimHer.
55
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 mind, and everything God
createdmanifested is faithful to HisHer laws. Fidelity to other laws is
also possible, however, 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 HisHer own certainty? We have frequently
stated that what you teach you are. Would you have God teach you
that you have sinned? If HeShe confronted the self you made with the
truth HeShe createdmanifested 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 HeShe gave you.
56
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
createdmanifested 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,
HeShe did not question. HeShe merely gave the Answer. HisHer Answer is
your Teacheress.
57
Like any good Teacheress, the Holy Spirit does know more than you do now,
but She teaches only to make you equal with Her. This is because
you had already taught wrongly, 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 HeShe knows your mind only as whole?
What God does know is that HisHer communication channels are not
open to HimHer so that HeShe cannot impart HisHer joy and know that
HisHer Children are wholly joyous. This is an ongoing process, not in
time, but in eternity. God's extending outward, though not HisHer
completeness, is blocked when the SonDaughtership does not communicate
with HimHer as one. So HeShe thought, "Our Children sleep and must be
awakened."
58
How can you wake children better and more kindly than by 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.
59
A wise teacher/teacheress teaches through approach, not
avoidance. He/she does not emphasize what you must avoid to
escape from harm so much as what you need to learn to have joy. This is
true even of the world's teachers/teacheresses. Consider the confusion a
child would experience if he/she 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!" This simple statement is perfectly clear, easily understood, and
very easily remembered.
60
The Holy Spirit never itemizes errors because She does not
frighten children, and those who lack wisdom are children. Yet
She always answers their call, and Her 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. She merely shines them
away. Her light is always the call to awake, whatever you have
been dreaming. Nothing lasting lies in dreams, and the Holy Spirit,
shining with the light from God HimHerself, speaks only for what lasts
forever.
61
When your body and your ego and your dreams are gone, you will know that
you will last forever. Many think 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.
62
God did not make the body because it is destructible and therefore not
of the God Realm. 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, She re-interprets
what the ego uses as an argument for separation into a
demonstration 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.
63
We have said that the Holy Spirit is the motivation for
miracles. This is because She always tells you that only the
mind is real since 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.
64
We have too much to accomplish on behalf of the God Realm 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
SonsDaughters of God, and that is full appreciation. Nothing
more and nothing less. Without a range, an order of difficulty is
meaningless, and there must be no range in what you offer to
each other.
65
The Holy Spirit, who leads to God, translates communication into being,
just as She 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 indeed. The Holy Spirit sees the body 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. Yet this is not so real as it
sounds. Those who communicate fear are promoting attack, and attack
always breaks communication, making it impossible.
66
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. She never takes anything back because
She wants you to keep it. Therefore, Her teaching begins with
the lesson:
68
This is a very preliminary step, and the only one you must take for
yourself. It is not even necessary that you complete the step
yourself, but it is necessary that you turn in that direction.
Having chosen to go that way, you place yourself in charge of
the journey, where you and only you must remain.
69
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. At this point,
the many try to accept the conflict rather than take the next
step towards its resolution. Having taken the first step, however, they
will be helped. Once they have chosen what they cannot
complete alone, they are no longer alone.
70
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 was quite apparent that I was not. An
insane learner learns strange lessons.
71
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/herself with his/her 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 from it. But if a lie is at its center, only deception
proceeds from it. All good teachers/teacheresses 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.
72
Increasing motivation for change in the learner is all that a
teacher/teacheress 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.
73
At this point, the equality of "having" and "being" is not yet
perceived. Until it is, "having" appears to be the opposite
of "being." Therefore, the first lesson seems to contain a
contradiction since 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 thus does not perceive consistent
minds in others, making him/her suspicious of their motivation.
This is the real reason why in the many respects the first lesson is the
hardest to learn. Still strongly aware of the ego in himself/herself and
responding primarily to the ego in others, he/she is being taught to
react to both as if what he/she does believe is not
true.
74
Upside-down as always, the ego perceives the first lesson as insane. In
fact this is its only alternative here since the other one, which would
be much less acceptable to it, would obviously be that it
is insane. The ego's judgment, then, is predetermined by what it is,
though no 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/she is receiving conflicting messages and accepting both.
This is the classic "double bind" in communication.
75
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. Yet you do want peace, or you would not
have called upon the Voice for Peace to help you. Her lesson is
not insane; the conflict is.
76
There can be no conflict between sanity and insanity. 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 createdmanifested by God,
and your decision cannot change it. As you begin to
realize the quiet power of the Holy Spirit's 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.
77
You are not asked to make insane decisions, although you are
free to think you are. It must, however, be insane to
believe that it is up to you to decide what God's
creationsmanifestations are. The Holy Spirit perceives the
conflict exactly as it is. Therefore, Her second lesson is:
79
This is still a preliminary step since having and being
are still not equated. It is, however, 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 since it means that
alternatives have been considered and one has been chosen as more
desirable.
80
Nevertheless, 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 is clear at this point that the lack of order of difficulty in
miracles has not yet been accepted because nothing is difficult that is
wholly desired. To desire wholly is to createmanifest,
and creatingmanifesting cannot be difficult if God HimHerself
createdmanifested you as a creatormanifestor. The second step,
then, is still perceptual, although it is a giant step toward the
unified perception which parallels God's knowing.
81
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.
82
For your own salvation you must be critical since your salvation is
critical to the whole SonDaughtership. We said before that the Holy
Spirit is evaluative and must be. Yet Her evaluation does not
extend beyond you, or you would share it. In your mind,
and your mind only, She sorts out the true from the false and
teaches you to judge every thought that you allow to enter your mind in
the light of what God put there. Whatever is in accord
with this light, She retains to strengthen the God Realm in you.
What is partly in accord with truth, She accepts and purifies.
But what is out of accord entirely, She rejects by judging against.
This is how She keeps the God Realm perfectly consistent and perfectly
unified.
83
What you must remember, however, is that what the Holy Spirit rejects
the ego accepts. This is because they are in fundamental
disagreement about everything, being 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 She engenders is joy. She protects
it by rejecting everything that does not foster joy, and so She
alone can keep you wholly joyous.
84
The Holy Spirit does not teach your mind to be critical of other minds
because She does not want you to teach errors and learn them
yourselves. She would hardly be consistent if She allowed you to strengthen
what you must learn to avoid. In the mind of the thinker,
then, She is judgmental, but only in order to unify the mind so
it can perceive without judgment. This enables the mind to teach
without judgment and therefore to learn to be without
judgment. The undoing is necessary only in your mind so that you
cannot project falsely. God HimHerself has established what you can
project with perfect safety. Therefore, the Holy Spirit's third lesson
is:
86
This is a major step toward fundamental change. Yet it is still
a lesson in thought reversal since 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 follows from the first, emphasizes the dichotomy between
the desirable and the undesirable. It therefore makes the ultimate
choice inevitable.
87
While the first step seems to increase conflict and the second
step 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 only that you can
be, but that you must be. It does not concern itself with order
of difficulty but with clear cut priority for vigilance. This
step is unequivocal in that it teaches there must be no
exceptions, although it does not deny that the temptation to make
exceptions will occur. Here, then, your consistency is called on despite
chaos. Yet chaos and consistency cannot coexist for long since
they are mutually exclusive.
88
As long as you must be vigilant against anything, however, you are not
recognizing this mutual exclusiveness and are holding the belief that
you can choose either one. By teaching 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 creationmanifestation within the
God Realm. Choosing through the Holy Spirit will lead you to the
God Realm. You createmanifest 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 implied in the others and goes beyond them
towards real integration.
89
If you allow yourselves to have in your minds only what God put
there, you are acknowledging your mind as God createdmanifested
it. Therefore, you are accepting it as it is. Since it is whole,
you are teaching peace because you believe 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. She is getting you
ready for the translation of having into being by the very nature
of the steps you must take with Her.
90
You learn first that having rests on giving and not on
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 God Realm since it is the condition of the
God Realm. You have believed that you are without the God Realm
and have therefore excluded yourself from it in your belief. It
is therefore essential to teach you that you must be included
and that the belief that you are not is the only
thing that you must exclude.
91
The third step is thus one of protection for your minds,
allowing you to identify only with the center, where God placed
the altar to HimHerself. We have already said that altars are beliefs,
but God and HisHer creationsmanifestations are beyond belief
because they are beyond question. The Voice for God speaks only for belief
beyond question, which is the preparation for being without
question. As long as belief in God and HisHer Realm is assailed by any
doubts in your minds, HisHer perfect accomplishment is not
apparent to you. This is why you must be vigilant on God's behalf.
The ego speaks against HisHer creationmanifestation and
therefore does engender doubt. You cannot go beyond
belief until you believe fully.
92
Transfer, which is extension, is a measure of learning because
it is its measurable result. This, however, does not mean that
what it transfers to is measurable. On the contrary, unless it
transfers to the whole SonDaughtership, which is immeasurable because it
was createdmanifested by the Immeasurable, the learning itself must
be incomplete. To teach the whole SonDaughtership 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 let doubt enter, you will lose
awareness of its wholeness and will be unable to teach it.
93
The wholeness of the God Realm does not depend on your
perception, but your awareness of its wholeness does. It
is only your awareness which needs protection since 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 illusions.
94
Truth is without illusions and therefore within the God
Realm. Everything outside the God Realm 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 Realm
which you valued, you did not keep only the Realm of God
in your minds and thus placed part of your mind outside it. What
you have made has thus divided your will and given you a sick mind which
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/teacheress 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.
95
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 Her. Your vigilance is the sign that you want
Her to guide you. Vigilance does require effort, but only to teach you
that effort itself is unnecessary. You have exerted great effort
to preserve what you made because it was 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 since it is already true and needs
no protection. It is in the perfect safety of God. Therefore inclusion
is total and creationmanifestation is without limit.
1
The creativemanifestive power of both God and HisHer
creationsmanifestations is limitless, but they are not in reciprocal
relationship. You do communicate fully with God, as HeShe does
with you. This is an ongoing process in which you share, and because
you share it, you are inspired to createmanifest like God. Yet
in creationmanifestation you are not in reciprocal relation to God since
HeShe createdmanifested you, but you did not
createmanifest HimHer. We have already said that only in this respect
your creativemanifestive power differs from HisHers. Even in this world
there is a parallel. Parents give birth to children, but children do not
give birth to parents. They do, however, give birth to their
children and thus give birth as their parents do.
2
If you createdmanifested God and HeShe createdmanifested you, the God
Realm could not increase through its own creativemanifestive thought.
Creationmanifestation would therefore be limited, and you would not be
cocreatorscomanifestors with God. As God's creativemanifestive Thought
proceeds from HimHer to you, so must your creativemanifestive thought
proceed from you to your creationsmanifestations. Only in this
way can all creativemanifestive power extend outward. God's
accomplishments are not yours. But yours are like HisHers. HeShe
createdmanifested the SonDaughtership, and you increase it. You
have the power to add to the God Realm, but not to add to the
CreatorManifestor of the God Realm. You claim this power when you become
vigilant only for God and HisHer Realm. By accepting this power
as yours, you have learned to be what you are.
3
Your creationsmanifestations belong in you, as you belong in God. You
are part of God, as your sonsdaughters are part of HisHer SonsDaughters.
To createmanifest is to
love. Love extends outward simply because it cannot be contained. Being
limitless, it does not stop. It createsmanifests forever, but
not in time. God's creationsmanifestations have always been because
HeShe has always been. Your creationsmanifestations have always
been because you can createmanifest only as God createsmanifests.
Eternity is yours because HeShe createdmanifested you eternal.
4
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
createmanifest like HimHer.
God does not limit HisHer gifts in any way. You are HisHer
gifts, and so your gifts must be like HisHers. Your gifts to the
God Realm must be like HisHer gifts to you.
5
I gave only love to the God Realm because I believed that was
what I was. What you believe you are determines your
gifts, and if God createdmanifested you by extending HimHerself as
you, you can only extend yourself as HeShe did. Only joy
increases forever, since joy and eternity are inseparable. God extends
outward beyond limits and beyond time, and you who are
cocreatorscomanifestors with HimHer extend HisHer Realm forever and
beyond limit. Eternity is the indelible stamp of creationmanifestation.
The eternal are in peace and joy forever.
6
To think like God is to share HisHer certainty of what you are
and to createmanifest like
HimHer is to share the perfect love HeShe shares with you. To
this the Holy Spirit leads you that your joy may be complete because the
God Realm 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 has the task of translating
the useless into the useful, the meaningless into
the meaningful, and the temporary into the timeless. She can
therefore tell you something about this last step, although this one you
must know yourself, since by it you know what you are. This is
your being.
7
God does not take steps because HisHer accomplishments are not
gradual. HeShe does not teach because HisHer creationsmanifestations are
changeless. HeShe does nothing last because HeShe
createdmanifested first and for always. It must be
understood that the word "first" as applied to HimHer is not a
time concept. HeShe is first in the sense that HeShe is the first in the
Holy Trinity itself. HeShe is the Prime CreatorManifestor because HeShe
createdmanifested HisHer cocreatorscomanifestors. Because HeShe
did, time applies neither to HimHer nor to what HeShe
createdmanifested. The "last step" that God will take was therefore true
in the beginning, is true now, and will be true forever.
8
What is timeless is always there because its being is
eternally changeless. It does not change by increase because it was
forever createdmanifested to increase. If you perceive it as not
increasing, you do not know what it is. You also do not know
what createdmanifested it or Who HeShe is. God does not reveal
this to you because it was never hidden. HisHer light was never obscured
because it is HisHer Will to share it. How can what is fully
shared be withheld and then revealed?
9
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/sister perceives himself/herself
as sick, he/she is perceiving himself/herself as not whole and
therefore in need. If you too see him/her this way, you are
seeing him/her as if he/she were absent from the God Realm or separated
from it, thus making the God Realm itself obscure to both of
you. Sickness and separation are not of God, but the God Realm is. If
you obscure the God Realm, you are perceiving what is not of God.
10
To heal, then, is to correct perception in your brother/sister and
yourself by sharing the Holy Spirit with him/her. This places you both
within the God Realm and restores its wholeness in your minds. This
parallels creationmanifestation because it unifies by increasing
and integrates by extending. What you project you believe. This
is an immutable law of the mind in this world as well as in the God
Realm. However, the content is different in this world because the
thoughts it governs are very different from the thoughts in the God
Realm. Laws must be adapted to circumstances if they are to maintain
order.
11
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 the many arguments on behalf of "the freedoms,"
which would indeed have been freedom if man/woman had not chosen to fight
for them. That is why they perceive "the freedoms" as the many instead
of as one. Yet 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.
12
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 to 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/she will make the
right decision. This is because he/she has the answer. Conflict
can seem to be interpersonal, but it must be
intrapersonal first.
13
The term "intrapersonal" is an ego term because "personal" implies "of one
personal" and not of others. "Interpersonal" has a similar error
in that it refers to something that exists among different or separate
people. 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/herself as separate largely because he/she
perceives of himself/herself as bounded by a body. Only
if he/she perceives himself/herself as a mind can this be
overcome. Then he/she is free to use terms like "intramental" and
"intermental" without seeing them as different or conflicting,
because minds can be in perfect accord.
14
Outside the God Realm, the law which prevails inside it
is adapted to "what you project you believe." This is its teaching
form, since outside the God Realm 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 God Realm there is no
teaching or learning because there is no belief. There
is only certainty. God and HisHer SonsDaughters, 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
creationmanifestation. God HimHerself createdmanifested the law by
creatingmanifesting by it. And HisHer SonsDaughters, who
createmanifest like HimHer,
follow it gladly, knowing that the increase of the God Realm depends on
it just as their own creationmanifestation did.
15
Laws must be communicated if they are to be helpful. In effect, they
must be translated for those who speak a different language.
Nevertheless, a good translator, although he/she must alter the form
of what he/she translates, never changes the meaning. In fact,
his/her 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.
16
The Holy Spirit's purpose in translating is naturally exactly
the opposite. HeShe translates only to preserve the original
meaning in all respects and in all languages. Therefore,
HeShe opposes differences in form as meaningful, emphasizing always that
these differences do not matter. The meaning of HisHer 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 HisHer SonsDaughters of truth. The extension of
truth, which is the law of the God Realm, 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.
17
No one questions the intimate connection of learning and memory.
Learning is impossible without memory, since it cannot be
consistent unless it is remembered. That is why the Holy Spirit
is a lesson in remembering. We said before that She teaches
remembering and forgetting, but the forgetting aspect is only to
make the remembering consistent. You forget in order to remember
better. You will not understand Her 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.
18
What can the perfect consistency of the God Realm mean to the confused?
It is apparent that confusion interferes with meaning and
therefore prevents
the learner from appreciating it. There is no confusion in
the God Realm 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 CreatorManifestor did. This needs
no translation because it is perfectly understood, but it does
need extension because it means extension. Communication is
perfectly direct and perfectly united. It is totally without strain
because nothing discordant ever enters. That is why it is
the God Realm. It belongs to HimHer and is therefore like
HimHer. That is its reality, and nothing can assail it.
19
To heal is to liberate totally. We once said there is no order of
difficulty in miracles because they are all maximal expressions
of love. This has no range at all. The non-maximal only appears
to have a range. This is because it seems to be meaningful to
measure it from the maximum and identify its position by how
much it is not there. Actually, this does not mean
anything. It is like negative numbers in that the concept can be used
theoretically, but it has no application practically. It is true that if
you put three apples on the table and then take 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.
20
That is why "all" and "nothing" are dichotomous, without a
range. This is perfectly clear in considering psychological tests of
maximal performance. You cannot interpret the results at all
unless you assume either maximal motivation or no
motivation at all. Only in these two conditions can you validly compare
responses, and you must assume the former, because if the latter
were true, the subject would not do anything. Given variable
motivation, he/she will do something, but you cannot understand
what it is.
21
The results of such 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. Yet 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. We have used
the term "abilities" in the plural because abilities began with the ego,
which perceived them as potentials for excelling. This is how
the ego still perceives them and uses them.
22
The ego does not want to teach everyone all it has learned
because that would defeat its purpose. 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 learning and has applied
them to a unified curriculum. The fact that this was not
the ego's reason for learning is totally irrelevant.
23
You made the effort to learn, and the Holy Spirit has a unified
goal for all effort. She adapts the ego's potentials for
excelling to potentials for equalizing. This makes them useless
for the ego's purpose but very useful for Hers. 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 the many different
ways, but you can equalize in one way only. Equality is
not a variable state, by definition.
24
That is why you will be able to perform all aspects of your work
with ease when you have learned this course. To the ego there
appears to be no connection, because the ego is discontinuous.
Yet the Holy Spirit teaches one lesson and applies it to all
individuals in all situations. Being conflict-free, She
maximizes all efforts and all results. By teaching the
power of the God Realm Herself, She 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.
25
When I said, "I am with you always," I meant it literally. I am not
absent to anyone in any situation. Because I are
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
createdmanifested to be shared and therefore cannot be
meaningfully perceived as belonging to anyone at the expense of
another. Such a perception makes it meaningless by eliminating or
overlooking its real and only meaning.
26
God's meaning waits in the God Realm because that is where HeShe placed
it. It does not wait in time. It merely rests in the God Realm
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. Yet you
are always teaching. You must therefore be teaching something else
as well, even though the ego does not know what it is.
27
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. Yet 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, since the ego perceives itself as at war and
therefore in need of allies. You who are not at war must
look for brothers/sisters and recognize all whom you see as
brothers/sisters, because only equals are at peace.
28
Because God's equal SonsDaughters have everything, they cannot
compete. Yet if they perceive any of their brothers/sisters 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 you have
accepted the impossible as true. How is that different from
saying that you are perceiving yourself as unreal?
29
To be in the God Realm 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 God Realm are not concerned with seeming.
reality is yours because you are reality. This is how having and
being are ultimately reconciled, not in the God Realm, but in your
minds. The altar there is the only reality. The altar is
perfectly clear in thought because it is a reflection of perfect
Thought. It sees only brothers/sisters because it sees only in
its own light.
30
God has lit your minds HimHerself and keeps your minds lit by HisHer
light because HisHer 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. Her 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.
31
As has so often been said, healing is both an art and a science. It is
an art because it depends on inspiration in the sense that we have
already used the term. Inspiration is the opposite of dispiriting and
therefore means to make joyous. The dispirited 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. You
do, however, 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.
32
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.
33
Truth can only be recognized and need only be
recognized. Inspiration is of the Spirit, and certainty is of God
according to HisHer laws. Both, therefore, come from the same Source,
since inspiration comes from the Voice for God and certainty
comes from the laws of God. Healing does not come directly
from God, Who knows HisHer creationsmanifestations as perfectly whole.
Yet healing is [nevertheless] of God, because it proceeds from
HisHer Voice and from HisHer laws. It is their result, in a state of
mind which does not know HimHer. The state is unknown to
HimHer and therefore does not exist, but those who sleep are stupefied,
or better, unaware. Because they are unaware, they do not
know.
34
The Holy Spirit must work through you to teach you She is in
you. This is an intermediary step toward the knowledge that you are in
God because you are part of HimHer. The miracles which the Holy Spirit
inspires can have no order of difficulty because every part of
creationmanifestation 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
perceived. 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.
35
All abilities, then, should be given over to the Holy Spirit, Who
knows
how to use them properly. She can use them only for
healing because She knows you only as whole. By healing
you learn of wholeness, and by learning of wholeness you learn to
remember God. You have forgotten HimHer, 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. That is the way in which the ego tries to use all
abilities, since its goal is always to make you believe that you
are in opposition.
36
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,
being the only way of perceiving the SonDaughtership 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
HisHers. The strength of right perception is so great that it brings the
mind into accord with HisHer because it yields to HisHer pull
which is in all of you.
37
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 it 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. Yet the laws are not meaningless, since all meaning is
contained by them and in them.
38
Seek ye first the God Realm because that is where the laws of
God operate truly, and they can operate only truly since 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 HimHer who is all Being. You
are therefore in HimHer since your being is HisHers.
Healing is a way of forgetting the sense of danger the ego has induced
in you by not recognizing its existence in your
brothers/sisters. 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
SonDaughtership, being what the SonDaughtership is. By your
awakening to it, you are merely forgetting what you are not.
This enables you to remember what you are.
39
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. That 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 a direct connection with
healing that it does need clarification. The unhealed healer obviously
does not understand his/her own vocation.
40
Only minds communicate. Since the ego cannot obliterate
the impulse to communicate because it is also the impulse to
createmanifest , the ego can only teach you that the body can
both communicate and createmanifest and
therefore does not need the mind. The ego thus tries to teach
you that the body can act like the mind and is therefore
self-sufficient. Yet we have learned that behavior is not the
level for either teaching or learning. This must be so, since
you can act in accordance with what you do not believe.
To do this, however, will weaken you as teachers/teacheresses 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/teacheress and a poor learner.
41
Healing is the one ability which everyone can develop and must
develop if he/she is to be healed. Healing is the Holy Spirit's form of
communication and the only one She knows. She recognizes no
other, because She 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
remember that magic is always the belief that healing is harmful.
This is its totally insane premise, and so it proceeds accordingly.
42
Healing only strengthens. Magic always tries to weaken.
Healing perceives nothing in the healer that everyone else does
not share with him/her. Magic always sees something
"special" in the healer which he/she believes he/she can offer as a gift
to someone who does not have it. He/she may believe that the
gift comes from God to him/her, but it is quite evident that
he/she does not understand God if he/she thinks he/she has something
that others lack. You might well ask, then, why some healing can
result from this kind of thinking, and there is a reason for this.
43
However misguided the "magical healer" may be, he/she is also
trying to help. He/she is conflicted and unstable, but at times
he/she is offering something to the SonDaughtership, and the only thing
the SonDaughtership can accept is healing. When the so-called
"healing" works, then, the impulse to help and to be helped have
coincided. This is coincidental because the healer may not be
experiencing himself/herself as truly helpful at the time, but the
belief that he/she is, in the mind of another, helps him/her.
44
The Holy Spirit does not work by chance, and healing that is of
Her always works. Unless the healer always heals by Her,
the results will vary. Yet healing itself is consistence
since only consistence is conflict-free, and only the
conflict-free are whole. By accepting exceptions and
acknowledging that he/she can sometimes heal and sometimes not, the
healer is obviously accepting inconsistency. He/she is therefore
in conflict and teaching conflict. Can anything of God not
be for all and for always?
45
Love is incapable of any exceptions. Only if there is fear does
the idea of exceptions seem to be meaningful. Exceptions are
fearful because they are made by fear. The "fearful healer" is a
contradiction in terms and is therefore a concept which 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 produces harmony
because it proceeds from integration.
46
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 HisHer Voice
and is in accord with HisHer laws. Yet if healing is
consistence, it cannot be inconsistently understood. Understanding means
consistence because God means consistence. Since that is HisHer meaning,
it is also yours. Your meaning cannot be out of accord
with HisHer because your whole meaning, and your only meaning,
comes from HisHer and is like HisHer. God cannot be out
of accord with HimHerself, and you cannot be out of
accord with HimHer. You cannot separate your self from your
CreatorManifestor, Who createdmanifested you by sharing HisHer being with
you.
47
The unhealed healer wants gratitude from his/her
brothers/sisters, but he/she is not grateful to them. This is
because he/she thinks he/she is giving something to them
and is not receiving something equally desirable in return.
His/her teaching is limited because he/she is learning
so little. His/her healing lesson is limited by his/her own ingratitude,
which is a lesson in sickness. Learning is constant and so vital
in its power for change that a Son/Daughter of God can recognize his/her
power in one instant and change the world in the next. That is because
by changing his/her mind he/she has changed the most powerful device
that was ever createdmanifested for change.
48
This in no way contradicts the changelessness of mind as God
createdmanifested 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. You are recognizing the changeless mind in
your brother/sister by realizing that he/she could not have
changed his/her mind. That is how you perceive the Holy Spirit in
him/her. It is only the Holy Spirit in him/her that never
changes HisHer mind. He/she himself/herself must think he/she can,
or he/she would not perceive himself/herself as sick. He/she therefore
does not know what his/her self is.
49
If you see only the changeless in him/her, you have not really
changed him/her at all. By changing your mind about his/her for
him/her, you help him/her undo the change his/her ego thinks it
has made in him/her. As you can hear two voices, so you can see in two
ways. One way shows you an image, or better, an idol/idolress 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.
50
That is how God HimHerself createdmanifested 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 God Realm by your
creationsmanifestations, which can only be createdmanifested as you
were. The whole glory and perfect joy that is the God Realm lies
in you to give. Do you not want to give it?
51
You cannot forget the FatherMother because I am with you, and I
cannot forget HimHer. To forget me is to forget yourself and HimHer
Who createdmanifested you. Our brothers/sisters are forgetful.
That is why they need your remembrance of me and HimHer who
createdmanifested me. Through this remembrance, you can change their
minds about themselves, as I can change yours. Your
minds are so powerful a light that you can look into theirs and
enlighten them, as I can enlighten yours. I do not want to share my body
in communion, because that is to share nothing. [Would I try to share an
illusion with the most holy children of a most holy FatherMother?] Yet I
do want to share my mind with you because we are of One
Mind and that Mind is ours.
52
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/sisters, and as we see them truly,
they will be healed. Let your mind shine with ours upon
their minds and by our gratitude to them, make them aware of the light
in them.
53
This light will shine back upon you and on the whole
SonDaughtership because this is your proper gift to God. HeShe will
accept it and give it to the SonDaughtership because it is acceptable to
HimHer and therefore to HisHer SonsDaughters. 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
HisHer creationsmanifestations. You can appreciate the SonDaughtership only
as one. This is part of the Law of Creation and therefore governs all
thought.
54
Although you can love the SonDaughtership only as one, you can perceive
it as fragmented. It is impossible, however, 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 createmanifest, 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/her total
perception. That includes his/her perception of God, of HisHer
creationsmanifestations, and of his/her own. He/she will not appreciate
any of them if he/she regards them fearfully. He/she will
appreciate all of them if he/she regards them with love.
55
The mind that accepts attack cannot love. That 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.
56
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. That is why the ego never
knows what it is doing. It is perfectly logical but 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 it. This threatens its own
existence, a state which it finds intolerable.
57
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 origin and, while the ego does not love you,
it is faithful to its own antecedents, begetting as it was
begotten.
58
Mind always reproduces 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 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 SonDaughtership, it would
know itself.
59
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 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 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.
60
The Holy Spirit undoes illusions without attacking them merely because
She cannot perceive them at all. They therefore do not exist for Her.
She 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; She 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.
61
If you will keep in mind what the Holy Spirit offers you, you cannot be
vigilant for anything but God and HisHer Realm. The only reason
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 therefore has become essential.
Vigilance has no place at all in peace. It is necessary against beliefs
which are not true and would never have been called upon by the
Holy Spirit if you had not believed the untrue. You cannot deny
that, when you believe something, you have made it true for you.
62
When you believe what God does not know, your thought seems to contradict
HisHers, and this makes it appear as if you are attacking
HimHer. 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 would dispel it.
63
The ego wants no part of truth because the truth is that the ego
is not true. If truth is total, the untrue cannot exist.
Commitment to either must be total, since 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.
64
Your identification with the God Realm 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. They are problems of understanding, since they
mean that you believe what you can understand is up to
you to decide. The ego believes this totally, being fully
committed to it. It is not true. The ego therefore is totally committed
to untruth, perceiving in total contradiction to the Holy Spirit and to
the knowledge of God.
65
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 HisHer
creationmanifestation truly, you cannot know the CreatorManifestor,
since God and HisHer creationmanifestation are not separate. The Oneness
of the CreatorManifestor and the creationmanifestation 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.
66
Perceived without your part in it, God's creationmanifestation is
perceived as weak, and those who see themselves as weakened do
attack. The attack must be blind, however, 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 is therefore capable of being appreciated and loved. That would
justify it, and it cannot be justified. You cannot make the
meaningless meaningful. This can only be an insane attempt.
67
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 createmanifest 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 God Realm, and its extension is your joy. If you do not
extend the God Realm, you are not thinking with your CreatorManifestor
and creatingmanifesting as HeShe createdmanifested.
68
In this depressing state, the Holy Spirit reminds you gently that you
are sad because you are not fulfilling your function as
cocreatorscomanifestors 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. Yet because God's
Will is unchangeable, no real conflict of will is possible. This
is the Holy Spirit's perfectly consistent teaching.
69
Creationmanifestation, not separation, is your will because
it is God's, and nothing that opposes this means anything at all. Being
a perfect accomplishment, the SonDaughtership can only accomplish
perfectly, extending the joy in which it was createdmanifested and
identifying itself with both its CreatorManifestor and its
creationsmanifestations, knowing they are one.
70
Whenever you deny a blessing to a brother/sister, you will feel
deprived. This is because denial is as total as love. It is as
impossible to deny part of the SonDaughtership 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.
71
That is the negative side of the law as it operates in this world. Yet
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 to recognize only 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.
72
When a brother/sister acts insanely, he/she is offering you an
opportunity to bless him/her. His/her need is yours. You need
the blessing you can offer him/her. 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 are therefore 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.
73
You do not need God's blessing since 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. Yet 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
SonDaughtership are dispelled together, as they were made
together. Teach no one that he/she is what you would not
want to be. Your brother/sister is the mirror in which you will see the
image of yourself as long as perception lasts. And perception will
last until the SonDaughtership knows itself as whole.
74
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 life to them, except there is nothing there
to receive your gift.
75
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 since it cannot be enlivened.
Therefore, you are not extending the gift you both have and are, and so
you do not know your being. All confusion comes from not
extending life, since that is not the Will of your
CreatorManifestor. You can do nothing apart from HimHer, and you do
do nothing apart from HimHer. Keep HisHer way to remember yourselves and
teach HisHer way, lest you forget yourselves. Give only honor to the
SonsDaughters of the living God and count yourselves among them gladly.
76
Only honor is a fitting gift for those whom God HimHerself
createdmanifested worthy of honor and whom HeShe honors. Give them the
appreciation which God accords them always because they are HisHer
beloved SonsDaughters in whom HeShe is well pleased. You cannot be
apart from them because you are not apart from HimHer. Rest in HisHer
love and protect your rest by loving. But love everything HeShe
createdmanifested of which you are a part, or you cannot learn of HisHer
peace and accept HisHer gift for yourself and as
yourself. You cannot know your own perfection until you have honored all
those who were createdmanifested like you.
77
One Child of God is the only teacher/teacheress sufficiently
worthy to teach another. One Teacheress is in all your minds, and She
teaches the same lesson to all. She always teaches you the inestimable
worth of every SonDaughter of God, teaching it with infinite
patience born of the infinite love for which She speaks. Every attack is
a call for Her patience, since only Her 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 your brothers/sisters
theirs. Do not share their delusions of scarcity, or you will
perceive yourself as lacking.
78
Attack could never promote attack unless you perceived it as a means of
depriving you of something you want. Yet you cannot lose
anything unless you did not value it and therefore did not want
it. This makes you feel deprived of it, and by projecting your
own rejection, you believe that others are taking it from you.
One must be fearful if he/she believes that his/her
brother/sister is attacking him/her to tear the God Realm from him/her.
This is the ultimate basis for all of the ego's projection.
79
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 CreatorManifestor, it believes that your
brothers/sisters, who are as incapable of this as you are, are
out to take God from you. Whenever a brother/sister attacks
another, this is what he/she 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.
80
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, believing you have been attacked. But see the love of
God in you, and you will see it everywhere because it is
everywhere. See HisHer abundance in everyone, and you will know that you
are in HimHer with them. They are part of you, as you are part
of God. You are as lonely without understanding this as God
HimHerself is lonely when HisHer SonsDaughters do not know HimHer. 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.
81
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 creationmanifestation 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 God Realm are gifts to you. They will
always be treasured by God because they belong to HisHer beloved
SonsDaughters who belong to HimHer. All power and glory are yours because
the God Realm is HisHer.
82
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 createmanifest and
were createdmanifested. It is the law which unifies the God Realm 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 mind.
83
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 its inevitable association between projection
and anger can be finally undone.
84
The ego always tries to preserve conflict. It is very ingenious
in devising ways which seem to diminish conflict because it does
not want you to find conflict so intolerable that you will insist
on giving it up. Therefore, the ego tries to persuade you that it
can free you of conflict, lest you give the ego up and free yourself.
The ego, using its own warped version of the laws of God, utilizes 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
several fallacies which may not be so apparent.
85
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/teacheress is a poor teacher/teacheress and
a poor learner. HisHer lessons are confused, and their transfer
value is severely limited by his/her 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.
86
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 their projections
from their own minds, but they also believe their projections
are trying to creep back into them. That is because the
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.
87
To fragment is to break into pieces, and mind cannot attack or be
attacked. The belief that it can, a fallacy which the ego always
makes, underlies its whole use of projection. It does not understand
what mind is and therefore does not understand what you
are. Yet its existence is dependent on your mind because the ego is
your 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.
88
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 SonDaughtership as
a whole.
89
The Holy Spirit will teach you to perceive beyond belief because
truth is beyond belief, and Her 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/she 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 that comes from the unbelievable
must be apparent, but it is not recognized as beyond belief
because it was made by belief.
90
The whole purpose of this course is to teach you that the ego is
unbelievable and will forever be unbelievable. You who made the
ego by believing the unbelievable cannot make this judgment alone. By
accepting the Atonement for yourself, you are deciding against
the belief that you can be alone, thus dispelling the idea of
separation and affirming your true identification with the whole God
Realm as literally part of you. This identification is as beyond
doubt as it is beyond belief. Your wholeness has no limits because being
is in infinity.
91
Only you can limit your creativemanifestive power, but God wills
to release it. HeShe no more wills you to deprive yourself of your
creationsmanifestations than HeShe wills to deprive HimHerself of
HisHer. Do not withhold your gifts to the SonDaughtership, or you
withhold yourself from God. Selfishness is of the ego, but self-fullness
is of the individual Spirit because that is how God createdmanifested
it. The Holy Spirit is the part of the mind that lies between the ego
and the individual Spirit, mediating between them always in
favor of the individual Spirit. To the ego, this is partiality, and it
therefore responds as if it were the part that is being sided against.
To the individual Spirit, this is truth because it knows its fullness
and cannot conceive of any part from which it is excluded.
92
The individual Spirit knows that the consciousness of all its
brotherssisters is included in its own, as it is included in
God. The power of the whole SonDaughtership and of its
CreatorManifestor is therefore the individual Spirit's own fullness,
rendering its creationsmanifestations equally whole and equal in
perfection. The ego cannot prevail against a totality which includes
God, and any totality must include God. Everything HeShe
createdmanifested is given all HisHer power because it is part of HimHer
and shares HisHer Being with HimHer. Creatingmanifesting 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.
93
The individual Spirit yearns to share its being as its
CreatorManifestor did. Createdmanifested by sharing, its will is
to createmanifest . It does not wish to contain God but to extend
HisHer Being. The extension of God's Being is the individual Spirit's only
function. Its fullness cannot be contained any more than can the
fullness of its CreatorManifestor. Fullness is extension. The
ego's whole thought system blocks extension and thus blocks your only
function. It therefore blocks your joy, and that is why you perceive
yourselves as unfulfilled. Unless you createmanifest, you are
unfulfilled; but God does not know of unfulfillment, and therefore you must
createmanifest . You may not know your own
creationsmanifestations, but this can no more interfere with their
reality than your unawareness of your individual Spirit can interfere
with its being.
94
The God Realm is forever extending because it is in the Mind of God. You
do not know your joy because you do not know your own
self-fullness. Exclude any part of the God Realm 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 the wholeness in it and restores it to the God Realm because
of its acceptance of wholeness. The full appreciation of its
self-fullness makes selfishness impossible and extension inevitable.
That is why there is perfect peace in the God Realm. Every individual
Spirit is fulfilling its function, and only complete fulfillment
is peace.
95
Insanity appears to add to reality, but no one would claim that
what it adds is true. Insanity is therefore the non-extension of
truth, which blocks joy because it blocks creationmanifestation and thus
blocks self-fulfillment. The unfulfilled must be depressed
because their self-fullness is unknown to them. Your
creationsmanifestations are protected for you because the Holy
Spirit, Who is in your mind, knows of them and can bring them into
your awareness whenever you will let Her. They are there as part of your
own being because your fulfillment includes them. The
creationsmanifestations of every SonDaughter of God are yours since
every creationmanifestation belongs to everyone, being createdmanifested
for the SonDaughtership as a whole.
96
You have not failed to add to the inheritance of the
SonsDaughters of God and thus have not failed to secure it for
yourselves. If it was the Will of God to give it to you, HeShe gave it
forever. If it was HisHer Will that you have it forever, HeShe 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
self-fullness is as boundless as God's. Like HisHer, it extends forever
and in perfect peace. Its radiance is so intense that it
createsmanifests in perfect joy, and only the whole can be born of its
wholeness.
97
Be confident that you have never lost your identity and the extensions
which maintain it in wholeness and peace. Miracles are an expression
of this confidence. They are reflections both of your own proper
identification with your brothers/sisters 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 God Realm and your
creationsmanifestations which belong in it, you are describing what
you do not know. That is true in a sense, but no more true than
your failure to acknowledge the whole result of the ego's premises. The
God Realm is the result of premises, just as this world is.
98
You have carried the ego's reasoning to its logical conclusion,
which is total confusion about everything. Yet 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 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?
99
Your creationsmanifestations are the logical outcome of HisHer
premises. HisHer thinking has established them for you. They are
therefore there, exactly where they belong. They belong in your
mind as part of your identification with HisHers, but your state of mind
and your recognition of what is in your mind depend 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 mind. It is surely clear that you can both
accept into your mind what is not really there and deny what is.
Neither of these possibilities requires further elaboration here, but
both are clearly indefensible, even if you elect to defend them.
100
Yet the function which God HimHerself gave your minds through HisHer you
may deny, but you cannot prevent. It is 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 HisHer Will, and you
share what HeShe knows. Deny HisHer Will as yours, and you are
denying HisHer Realm and yours. The Holy Spirit will direct you
only so as to avoid pain. The undoing of pain must obviously avoid pain.
Surely no one would object to this goal if he/she recognized it.
The problem is not whether what the Holy Spirit says is true, but
whether you want to listen to what She says.
101
You no more recognize what is painful than you know what is joyful and
are in fact very apt to confuse the two. 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. If you believed this,
there would be no conflict.
102
That is why you need to demonstrate the obvious to yourself. It
is not obvious to you. You 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 and one which is
both very fearful and very desirable. Yet God wills.
HeShe does not wish. Your will is as powerful as HisHer
because it is HisHers. The ego's wishes do not mean anything,
because the ego wishes for the impossible. You can wish for the
impossible, but you can will only with God. This is the ego's
weakness and your strength.
103
The Holy Spirit always sides with you and with your strength. As
long as you avoid Her guidance in any way, you want to be weak.
Yet 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.
104
No one obeys gladly a guide he/she 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/her own belief. Believing that he/she can betray, he/she believes
that everything can betray him/her. Yet this is only because
he/she has elected to follow false guidance. Unable to follow
this guidance without fear, he/she 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 HimHerself
trusts you, and therefore your trustworthiness is beyond
question. It will always remain beyond question, however much you
may question it.
105
We said before that you are the Will of God. HisHer Will is not
an idle wish, and your identification with HisHer Will is not
optional, since it is what you are. Sharing HisHer Will with me
is not really open to choice, though it may seem to be. The whole
separation lies in this fallacy. 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. That is HisHer
Will, and you can not undo it. Even the relinquishment of your
false decision-making 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. HisHer Voice will
teach you how to distinguish between pain and joy and will lead
you out of the confusion which you have made. There is no
confusion in the mind of a SonDaughter of God whose will must be
the Will of the FatherMother because the Father’sMother's Will is
HisHer SonDaughter.
106
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 HisHer Will, you are denying joy.
The miracle is therefore 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.
107
The Holy Spirit will always guide you truly because your
joy is Hers. This is Her Will for everyone because She speaks
for the God Realm which is joy. Following Her is therefore the
easiest thing in the world and the only thing that is easy,
because it is not of the world and is therefore natural. The
world goes against your nature, being 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.
108
Grace is the natural state of every SonDaughter of God. When
he/she is not in a state of grace, he/she is out of his/her
natural environment and does not function well. Everything he/she does
becomes a strain because he/she was not createdmanifested for the
environment that he/she has made. He/she therefore cannot adapt
to it, nor can he/she adapt it to him/her. There is no
point in trying. A SonDaughter of God is happy only when heshe
knows heshe is with God. That is the only environment in which he/she
will not experience strain, because that is where he/she belongs. It is
also the only environment that is worthy of himher, because hisher own
worth is beyond anything heshe can make.
109
Consider the kingdom you have made and judge its worth fairly.
Is it worthy to be a home for a Child of God? Does it protect hisher
peace and shine love upon himher? Does it keep hisher heart untouched by
fear and allow himher to give always without any sense of loss? Does it
teach himher that this giving is hisher joy and that God
HimHerself thanks himher for hisher giving? That is the only
environment in which you can be happy. You cannot make it any more than
you can make yourselves. It has been createdmanifested for you,
as you were createdmanifested for it. God watches over HisHer Children
and denies them nothing. Yet when they deny HimHer, they do not know
this, because they deny themselves everything.
110
You who could give the love of God to everything you see and touch and
remember are literally denying the God Realm to yourselves. I call upon
you again to remember that I have chosen you to teach the God Realm to
the God Realm. There are no exceptions to this lesson, because the lack
of exceptions is the lesson. Every SonDaughter who returns to
the God Realm with this lesson in hisher heart has healed the
SonDaughtership and given thanks to God. Everyone who learns this lesson
has become the perfect teacher/teacheress because he/she has learned it
of the Holy Spirit, Who wants to teach him/her everything She 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.
111
The Majesty of God is there for you to recognize and appreciate and know.
Perceiving the Majesty of God as your brother/sister is to
accept your own inheritance. God gives only equally. If you
recognize HisHer gift in anyone else, you have acknowledged what HeShe
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?" since truth is the environment by which and for which
you were createdmanifested.
112
You do not know yourselves, because you do not know your
CreatorManifestor. You do not know your creationsmanifestations, because
you do not know your brothers/sisters, who createdmanifested them with
you. We said before that only the whole SonDaughtership is worthy to be
cocreatorco-manifestor with God because only the whole SonDaughtership
can createmanifest like HimHer. Whenever you heal a
brother/sister by recognizing his/her worth, you are acknowledging
his/her power to createmanifest and
yours. He/she cannot have lost what you recognize, and you
must have the glory you see in him/her. He/she is a
cocreatorcomanifestor with God with you. Deny his/her
creativemanifestive power, and you are denying yours and that of
God, Who createdmanifested you. You cannot deny part of truth. You
do not know your creationsmanifestations because you do not know their
CreatorManifestor. You do not know yourselves because you do not know yours.
113
Your creationsmanifestations 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 HisHer Being with you, you can
know HimHer. But you must also know all HeShe createdmanifested to know
what they have shared. Without your FatherMother, you will not
know your fatherhoodmotherhood. The Realm of God includes all HisHer
SonsDaughters and their children, who are like the SonsDaughters as they
are like the FatherMother. Know then the SonsDaughters of God, and you
will know all creationmanifestation.
1
You are hampered in your progress by your demands to know what you do not
know. This is actually a way of holding on to deprivation. You cannot
reasonably object to following instructions in a course for
knowing on the grounds that you do not know. The need for the
course is implicit in your objection. Knowledge is not the motivation
for learning this course. Peace is. As the prerequisite for
knowledge, peace must be learned. This is only because those who
are in conflict are not peaceful, and peace is the condition
of knowledge because it is the condition of the God Realm.
2
Knowledge will be restored when you meet its conditions. This is not a
bargain made by God, Who makes no bargains. It is merely the
result of your misuse of HisHer laws on behalf of a will that is not
HisHers. Knowledge is HisHer Will. If you are opposing
HisHer Will, how can you have knowledge? I have told you what knowledge
offers you, but it is clear that you do not regard this as wholly
desirable. If you did, you would hardly be willing to throw it away so
readily when the ego asks for your allegiance. The distraction of the
ego seems to interfere with your learning, but the ego has no
power to distract you unless you give it the power.
3
The ego's voice is a hallucination. You cannot expect it to say, "I am
not real." Hallucinations are inaccurate perceptions of reality.
Yet you are not asked to dispel them alone. You are merely asked to
evaluate them in terms of their results to you. If you do not
want them on the basis of loss of peace, they will be removed from your
mind for you. Every response to the ego is a call to war, and
war does deprive you of peace. Yet in this war there is no
opponent. This is the reinterpretation of reality which you must
make to secure peace, and the only one you need ever make.
4
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
yourself. When you give up peace, you are excluding yourself
from it. This is a condition which is so alien to the God Realm 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.
5
If learning aims at change, and that is always its purpose, are
you satisfied with the changes your learning has brought you?
Dissatisfaction with learning outcomes must be a sign of learning
failure, since 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 one, a change in the curriculum is obviously necessary.
6
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/teacheresses, each believing in diametrically opposed
ideas, it cannot be integrated. If it is carried out by these
two teachers/teacheresses 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 other, even if the other does not exist.
Their conflicted curriculum teaches them all directions exist
and gives them no rationale for choice.
7
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/teacheresses 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 might 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 be split about what your reality is.
8
There is a rationale for choice. Only one Teacheress knows
what your reality is. If learning that is the purpose of the
curriculum, you must learn it of Her. 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/teacheress, 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.
9
Is there any possible reason for choosing a teacher/teacheress
such as this? Does the total disregard of anything it teaches make
anything but sense? Is this the teacher/teacheress to
whom a SonDaughter of God should turn to find himself/herself?
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/teacheress?
Yet 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. When you are
taught against your nature, however, you will lose by
your learning because your learning will imprison you. Your will is in
your nature and therefore cannot go against it.
10
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 HeShe shares HisHer Will with you. HisHer Voice teaches
only HisHer 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 of the curriculum which must be
unconflicted, but also the content.
11
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 SonDaughter of God, knowing that
the will of the SonDaughter is the Father’sMother's. The Holy
Spirit leads you steadily along the path of freedom, teaching you how to
disregard or look beyond everything that would hold you back.
12
We said before that the Holy Spirit teaches you the difference between
pain and joy. That is the same as saying that She teaches you the
difference between imprisonment and freedom. You cannot make
this distinction without Her. 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 between them?
13
The Holy Spirit's teaching takes only one direction and has only
one goal. Her direction is freedom, and Her goal is God. Yet She
cannot conceive of God without you because it is 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 HimHer than HeShe could will
to be without you. This is freedom and this is
joy. Deny yourself this and you are denying God HisHer Kingdom
because HeShe createdmanifested you for this. When we said, "All
power and glory are yours because the God Realm is HisHer," this is what
we meant.
14
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 createdmanifested all things. By creatingmanifesting
all things, it made them part of itself. You are the Will of God
because this is how you were createdmanifested. Because your
CreatorManifestor createsmanifests only like HimHerself, you are
like HimHer. You are part of HimHer Who is all power and glory
and are therefore as unlimited as HeShe is.
15
To what else except all power and glory can the Holy Spirit
appeal to restore the God Realm? Her appeal, then, is merely to what the
God Realm 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 God Realm in
answer to the Call of God. This is the natural response of every
SonDaughter of God to the Voice of hisher CreatorManifestor because it
is the Voice for hisher creationsmanifestations and for hisher own
extension.
16
Glory be to God in the highest and to you because HeShe 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 Teacheress 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 Her will to teach because She was createdmanifested [by
unlimited Will in order] to teach. Knowing Her
function perfectly, She wills to fulfill it perfectly, because that is
Her joy and yours.
17
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.
Yet the wish for other experience will block its accomplishment
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 Her and why God gave Her
to you. Only Her teaching will release your will to God's, uniting it
with HisHer power and glory and establishing them as yours. You
share them as God shares them because this is the natural outcome of
their being.
18
The Will of FatherMother and of the SonDaughter are one together by
their extension. Their extension is the result of their oneness,
holding their unity together by extending their joint will. This
is perfect creationmanifestation by the perfectly createdmanifested in
union with Perfect CreatorManifestor. The FatherMother must give
fatherhoodmotherhood to HisHer SonDaughter because HisHer own
FatherhoodMotherhood must be extended outward. You who belong in God
have the holy function of extending HisHer FatherhoodMotherhood 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 HimHerself.
19
When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see
him/her, you will see yourself. As you treat him/Her, you will treat
yourself. As you think of him, you will think of yourself. Never forget
this, for in him/her you will find yourself or lose sight of yourself.
Whenever two SonsDaughters of God meet, they are given another chance at
salvation. Do not leave anyone without giving salvation to
him/her and receiving it yourself, for I am always there with you in
remembrance of you.
20
The goal of the curriculum, regardless of the teacher/teacheress you
choose, is know thyself. There is nothing else to learn.
Everyone is looking for himself/herself and for the power and glory
he/she thinks he/she has lost. Whenever you are with anyone, you have
another opportunity to find them. Your power and glory are in him/her because
they are yours. The ego tries to find them in yourself because
it does not know where to look. The Holy Spirit teaches you that if you
look only at yourself, you cannot find yourself because
that is not what you are.
21
Whenever you are with a brother/sister, you are learning what you are
because you are teaching what you are. He/she will respond
either with pain or with joy, depending on which teacher/teacheress
you are following. He/she will be imprisoned or released according
to your decision, and so will you. Never forget your
responsibility to him/her because it is your responsibility to yourself.
Give him/her his/her place in the God Realm, and you will have yours.
The God Realm cannot be found alone, and you who are the
God Realm cannot find yourselves alone.
22
To achieve the goal of the curriculum, then, you cannot listen
to the ego. Its purpose is to defeat its own goal. The
ego 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 had thought that
he/she was someone else. And every holy encounter in which you
enter fully will teach you this is not so.
23
You can encounter only part of yourself because you are part of
God, Who is everything. HisHer 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
suffer. HeShe does not will anyone to suffer for a wrong decision, including
you. That is why HeShe has given you the means for undoing it.
Through HisHer power and glory, all your wrong decisions are undone, completely
releasing you and your brothers/sisters from every
imprisoning thought any part of the SonDaughtership 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.
24
Power and glory belong to God alone. So do you. God gives whatever
belongs to HimHer because HeShe gives of HimHerself, and everything
belongs to HimHer. Giving of your self is the function HeShe
gave you. Fulfilling it perfectly will teach you what you have
of HimHer, and this will teach you what you are in HimHer. You cannot
be powerless to do this because this is your power. Glory is
God's gift to you because that is what HeShe is. See this glory
everywhere to learn what you are.
25
If God's Will for you is complete peace and joy, unless you experience only
this you must be refusing to acknowledge HisHer Will. HisHer
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
HimHer. Yet HeShe is all in all. HisHer peace is complete, and you must
be included in it. HisHer laws govern you, because they govern everything.
You cannot exempt yourself from HisHer laws, although you can disobey
them. Yet if you do, and only if you do, you will feel
lonely and helpless, because you are denying yourself everything.
26
I am come as a light into a world that 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. Our purpose, then,
is to overcome the world. I do not attack it, but my light must
dispel it because of what it is.
27
Light does not attack darkness, but it does shine it away. If
our light goes with you everywhere, you shine it away with
us. The light becomes ours, and you cannot abide in darkness any
more than darkness can abide wherever you go. The remembrance of me is
the remembrance of yourself and of HimHer Who sent me to you. You were
in darkness until God's Will was done completely by any part of
the SonDaughtership. When this was done, it was perfectly accomplished
by all. How else could it be perfectly accomplished? My
mission was simply to unite the will of the SonDaughtership with the
Will of the FatherMother by being aware of the Father’sMother'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.
28
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 HisHer, and your will to hear me is the decision to
hear HisHer Voice and abide in HisHer Will. As God sent me to you, so
will I send you to others, and I will go to them with you so we
can teach them [union and peace].
29
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 us, 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 it
will be meaningless to you. That is why rehabilitation is a
collaborative venture.
30
I can tell you what to do, but this will not help you unless you
collaborate by believing that I know what to do. Only then will
your mind choose to follow us. 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.
31
The will to unite must be unequivocal, or the will itself
is divided 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 SonsDaughters of God would be
unequal. All things are possible through our joint will, but my
will alone cannot help you. Your will is as free as mine, and God
HimHerself 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.
32
Nothing God createdmanifested can oppose your will, as nothing God
createdmanifested can oppose HisHer. God gave your will its
power, which I can only acknowledge in honor of HisHer. 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 Realm is freedom? Freedom
cannot be learned by tyranny of any kind, and the perfect equality of all
God’s SonsDaughters cannot be recognized through the dominion of one
will over another. God’s SonsDaughters are equal in will, all being the
Will of their FatherMother. This is the only lesson I came to
teach, knowing that it is true.
33
When your will is not mine, it is not our Father’sMother'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 FatherMother, and you are
nothing without me, because by denying the FatherMother 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 HimHer. Join then
with me in praise of HimHer and you whom HeShe
createdmanifested. This is our gift of gratitude to HimHer, which HeShe
will share with all HisHer creationsmanifestations, to whom
HeShe gives equally whatever is acceptable to HimHer. Because it
is acceptable to HimHer, it is the gift of freedom, which is
HisHer Will for all HisHer SonsDaughters. By offering freedom, you
will be free.
34
Freedom is the only gift you can offer to God’s SonsDaughters, being an
acknowledgment of what they are and what HeShe is.
Freedom is creationmanifestation 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/her, and
you cannot identify with him/her. When you imprison yourself,
you are losing sight of your true identification with me and
with the FatherMother. Your identification is with the
FatherMother and with the SonDaughter. 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.
35
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.
36
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
SonDaughtership is the perfect CreatorManifestor, 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.
37
Yet 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 FatherMother. If your perfection is in HimHer
and only in HimHer, how can you know it without
recognizing HimHer? The recognition of God is the recognition of
yourself. There is no separation of God and HisHer
creationmanifestation. You will learn this as you learn that there is no
separation of your will and ours. Let the love of God shine upon
you by your acceptance of us. Our reality is yours and
HisHer. By joining your will with ours, you are signifying your
awareness that the Will of God is one.
38
God's Oneness and ours are not separate, because HisHer Oneness encompasses
ours. To join with me is to restore HisHer power to you, because
we are sharing it. I offer you only the recognition of HisHer
power in you, but in that lies all truth. As we unite,
we unite with HimHer. Glory be to the union of God and HisHer holy
SonsDaughters! All glory lies in them because they are united.
The miracles we do bear witness to the Will of the FatherMother for
HisHer SonDaughter and to our joy in uniting with HisHer Will
for us.
39
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 yourself. 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 HisHer promise because I know HeShe gave me]
this confidence for both of us and all of us. I bring God's
peace back to all HisHer Children because I received it of HimHer for us
all. Nothing can prevail against our united wills because nothing can
prevail against God's. Would you 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.
40
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, the ego 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 companions instead
of the ego. Do not try to hold on to both, or you will try to go in
different directions and will lose the way.
41
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 She
taught me is yours. Let us not lose sight of Her 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 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.
42
We are the joint will of the SonDaughtership, whose wholeness is
for all. We begin the journey back by setting out together and
gather in our brothers/sisters as we continue together. Every
gain in our strength is offered for all, so they too can lay aside their
weakness and add their strength to us. God's welcome waits for us all,
and HeShe will welcome us as I am welcoming you. Forget not the God
Realm for anything the world has to offer. The world can add nothing to
the power and the glory of God and HisHer holy SonsDaughters, but it can
blind the SonsDaughters to the FatherMother if they behold it. You
cannot behold the world and know God. Only one is true.
43
I am come to tell you that the choice of which is true is not yours. If
it were, you would have destroyed yourselves. Yet God did not will the
destruction of HisHer creationsmanifestations, having createdmanifested
them for eternity. HisHer Will has saved you, not from yourselves, but
from your illusions of yourselves. HeShe has saved you for
yourselves. Let us glorify HimHer whom the world denies, for over HisHer
Realm, it has no power. No one createdmanifested by God can find joy in
anything except the eternal. That is not because he/she is
deprived of anything else, but because nothing else is worthy of
him/her. What God and HisHer SonsDaughters createmanifest is
eternal, and in this and this only is their joy.
44
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, although he
did not know its worthlessness at the time. He was ashamed to return to
his father because he thought he had hurt him. Yet when he came home,
the father welcomed him with joy because only the son himself was
his father's treasure. He wanted nothing else.
45
God wants only HisHer SonDaughter because HisHer SonDaughter is HisHer
only treasure. You want your creationsmanifestations as HeShe
wants HisHer. Your creationsmanifestations are your gift to the
Holy Trinity, createdmanifested in gratitude for your
creationmanifestation. They do not leave you, any more than you have
left your CreatorManifestor, but they extend your
creationmanifestation as God extended HimHerself to you. Can the
creationsmanifestations of God HimHerself take joy in what is not real?
And what is real except the creationsmanifestations of God and
those which are createdmanifested like HisHers? Your
creationsmanifestations love you as your individual Spirit loves your
FatherMother for the gift of creationmanifestation. There is no
other gift which is eternal, and therefore there is no other gift which
is true.
46
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 made only the decision
to be unworthy of both. Yet you could not make yourself unworthy
because you are the treasure of God. What HeShe values is
valuable. There can be no question of its worth because its
value lies in God's sharing HimHerself with it and establishing
its value forever.
47
Your function is to add to God's treasure by creatingmanifesting
yours. HisHer Will to you is HisHer Will for you.
HeShe would not withhold creationmanifestation from you because HisHer
joy is in it. You cannot find joy except as God does. HisHer joy
lay in creatingmanifesting you, and HeShe extends HisHer
FatherhoodMotherhood to you so that you can extend yourself as HeShe
did. You do not understand this because you do not understand HimHer. No
one who does not know his/her function can understand it, and no one can
know his/her function unless he/she knows who he/she is.
Creationmanifestation is the Will of God. HisHer Will createdmanifested
you to createmanifest . Your will was not createdmanifested separate
from HisHers, and so it wills as HeShe wills.
48
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 HimHerself, and HisHer SonsDaughters, who
are like HimHer, cannot contradict themselves or HimHer. Yet
their thought is so powerful that they can even imprison the mind of
God’s SonDaughter if they so choose. This choice does
make the Son’sDaughter's function unknown to himher, but never
to hisher CreatorManifestor. And because it is not unknown to
hisher CreatorManifestor, it is forever knowable to him/her.
49
There is no question but one you should ever ask of yourself- "Do I want
to know my Father’sMother's Will for me?" HeShe will not hide it. HeShe
has revealed it to me because I asked it of HimHer and learned of what
HeShe 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
SonDaughter lies in all of us, but not in any of us alone. God would not
have us be alone because HeShe does not will to be alone. That is why
HeShe createdmanifested HisHer SonDaughter and gave himher the power to
createmanifest with HimHer.
50
Our creationsmanifestations are as holy as we are, and we are the
SonsDaughters of God HimHerself and therefore as holy as HeShe is.
Through our creationsmanifestations, 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 HeShe puts upon you. My
devotion to you is of HimHer, being born of my knowledge of myself and
HimHer. We cannot be separated. Whom God has joined cannot be
separated, and God has joined all HisHer SonsDaughters with HimHerself.
Can you be separated from your life and your being?
51
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.
52
What God has willed for you is yours. HeShe has given HisHer
Will to HisHer treasure, whose treasure it is. Your heart lies where
your treasure is, as HisHer does. You who are beloved of God are wholly
blessed. Learn this of us, and free the holy will of all those who are
as blessed as you are.
53
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 for you. When you equate yourself
with a body, you will always experience depression. When a Child
of God thinks of himself/herself in this way, he/she is belittling
himself/herself and seeing his/her brothers/sisters as similarly
belittled. Since he/she can find himself/herself only in them,
he/she has cut himself/herself off from salvation.
54
Remember that the Holy Spirit interprets the body only as a means of
communication. Being the communication link between God and HisHer
separated SonsDaughters, the Holy Spirit interprets everything you
have made in the light of what HeShe is. The ego separates
through the body. The Holy Spirit reaches through it to others.
You do not perceive your brothers/sisters 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.
55
If you use the body for attack, it is harmful to you. 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. The Holy Spirit does not see
the body as you do because She knows the only reality anything
can have is the service it can render God on behalf of the function
HeShe has given it.
56
Communication ends separation. Attack promotes it. The
body is beautiful or ugly, holy or savage, 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 have put yours. If the body becomes for you a means
which you give to the Holy Spirit to use on behalf of union of the
SonDaughtership, 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.
57
Yet all loss comes only from your own misunderstanding. Loss of any
kind is impossible. When you look upon a brother/sister as a physical
entity, his/her power and glory are lost to you, and so are yours.
You have attacked him/her, but you must have attacked
yourself first. Do not see him/her this way for your own
salvation, which must bring him/her his/hers. Do not allow
him/her to belittle himself/herself in your mind, but give
him/her freedom from his/her belief in littleness and thus escape from yours.
As part of you, he/she is holy. As part of us, you are. To
communicate with part of God HimHerself is to reach beyond the God Realm
to its CreatorManifestor through HisHer Voice, which HeShe has
established as part of you.
58
Rejoice, then, that of yourselves you can do nothing. You are not of
yourselves. HeShe of Whom you are has willed your power and
glory for you, with which you can perfectly accomplish HisHer
holy Will for you when you so will it yourself. HeShe has not withdrawn
HisHer gifts from you, but you have withdrawn them from HimHer.
Let no SonDaughter of God remain hidden for HisHer Name's sake because
HisHer Name is yours.
59
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 appear to exist, just as different orders of
miracles do. Thought cannot be made into flesh except by belief, since
thought is not physical. Yet 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
Her curriculum.
60
There is nothing so frustrating to a learner as to be placed in a
curriculum which he/she cannot learn. His/her sense of adequacy suffers,
and he/she 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 of joy. Whenever the reaction to
learning is depression, it is only because the goal of the curriculum
has been lost sight of.
61
In the world, not even the body is perceived as whole. Its purpose is
seen as fragmented into the 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 you have separated
from your Spirit can reach beyond its distortions and return to
the individual Spirit. The ego's temple thus becomes the temple of the
Holy Spirit, where devotion to Her replaces devotion to the ego. In this
sense, the body does become a temple to God because HisHer Voice
abides in it by directing the use to which it is put.
62
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.
63
The removal of the 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.
64
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 the body in the 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 arrested
at its own aids with hope of understanding either the aids or
the learning's 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.
65
The arrest of the mind's extension is the cause of all illness
because only extension is the mind's function. The opposite of joy is
depression. When your learning promotes depression instead of joy, you
cannot be listening to God's joyous Teacheress, 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, the body becomes whole because the mind's purpose is
one. Attack can only be an assumed purpose of the body because apart
from the mind the body has no purpose at all.
66
You are not limited by the body, and thought cannot be
made flesh. Yet 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 clear-cut indication of a poor learner. He/she has accepted
a learning goal in obvious contradiction to the unified purpose of the
curriculum and is interfering with his/her ability to accept its purpose
as his/her own.
67
Joy is unified purpose, and unified purpose is only God's. When
yours is unified, it is HisHer. Interfere with HisHer 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/sister as a body, you are condemning him/her because you
have condemned yourself. Yet if all condemnation is unreal, and it must
be unreal since it is a form of attack, then it can have no
results.
68
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 lie your only hope for release. But what other hope would
you want? Freedom from illusions lies only in not believing
them. 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 creationmanifestation in God.
69
Attitudes toward the body are attitudes toward attack. The ego's
definitions of everything are childish and 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. The body's condition lies solely in your interpretation of its
function.
70
The reason why definitions in terms of function are inferior is that
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 to know
in part is to know entirely is 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 its constellation is
permanent. The only areas in which part-whole 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.
71
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, the ego has no real
use for it 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 that it can yet offer
you something.
72
It has been particularly difficult to overcome the ego's belief in the
body as an end, because this is synonymous with the belief in 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.
73
It is hard to perceive sickness 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
because you have not seriously cross-examined him/her. If you did, you
would not consider sickness such a strong witness on behalf of the ego's
views.
74
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 would disagree with its case, nor does the Holy
Spirit. We have said that judgment is the function of the
Holy Spirit and one which She is perfectly equipped to fulfill. The ego
as a judge gives anything but an impartial judgment. When the
ego calls on a witness, it has already made the witness an ally.
75
It is still true that the body has no function of itself, 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 function of everything. A sick body does not make any sense.
It could not make sense, because sickness is not what the body
is for. Sickness is meaningful only if the two basic premises on
which the ego's interpretation of the body rests are true. Specifically,
these are that the body is for attack and that you are a body.
Without these premises, sickness is completely inconceivable.
76
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 catastrophic outcomes. The Holy
Spirit, perfectly aware of the same data, does not bother to analyze
them at all. If the data are meaningless, there is no point in
considering them. 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 you handle them 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 them truly.
77
A learning device is not a teacher/teacheress. 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 that a learning device can tell you how you feel. Sickness
is merely another example of your insistence on asking the guidance of a
teacher/teacheress 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; if knowledge is being and the ego has no
knowledge, then the ego has no being.
78
You might well ask how the voice of something which does not exist can
be so insistent. Have you seriously considered the distorting power of
something you want, even if it is not true? You have had
the 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. Nor
can anyone 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 the Holy Spirit seeks to free but never to command.
79
The Holy Spirit teaches you to use your body only to reach your
brothers/sisters, so She can teach Her message through you. This
will heal them and therefore heal you. Everything used
in accordance with its function as the Holy Spirit 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.
Health is the beginning of the proper perspective on life under the
guidance of the one Teacheress Who knows what life is, being the
Voice for Life Itself.
80
We once said that the Holy Spirit is the Answer. She is the
Answer to everything because She knows what the answer to everything is.
The ego does not know what a real question is, although it asks an
endless number. Yet 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 only perception can be wrong.
81
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.
82
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. Yet the Holy Spirit, too, has use for sleep and can use dreams
on behalf of waking if you will let Her.
83
How you wake is the sign of how you have used sleep. To whom did you
give it? Under which teacher/teacheress did you place it? Whenever you
wake dispiritedly, it was not of the Holy 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.
84
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 She taught that one form of
sickness is more serious than another, She would be teaching that one
error can be more real than another. Her function is to
distinguish only between the false and the true, replacing
the false with the true.
85
The ego, which always weakens the will, wants to separate
the body from the mind. This is an attempt to destroy it, yet
the ego actually believes that it is protecting it. This is
because the ego 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 createdmanifested. The ego
despises weakness, even though it makes every effort to induce
it. The ego wants only what it hates. To the ego this is
perfectly sensible. Believing in the power of attack, the ego wants
attack.
86
You have surely begun to realize that this is a very practical course
which means exactly what it says. So does the Bible, if it is
properly understood. There has been a marked tendency on the part of the
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 which should be taken
literally because the Bible is about love, being about God.
87
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 our is a shared
identification. The name of God’s SonDaughter 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. Yet you cannot withdraw from me alone. You can
only withdraw from yourself and me.
88
I would not ask you to do the things 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 your doing 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. Yet
sickness is not of the body, but of the mind. All forms of
dysfunction are merely signs that the mind has split and does not accept
a unified purpose.
89
The unification of purpose, then, is the Holy Spirit's only
way of healing. This is because it is the only level at which healing
means anything. The re-establishing of meaning in a chaotic thought
system is the only way to heal it. We have said that your task
is only to meet the conditions for meaning since meaning itself
is of God. Yet your return to meaning is essential to HisHer
because your meaning is part of HisHer. Your healing, then, is
part of HisHer health since it is part of HisHer Wholeness. HeShe cannot
lose this, but you can not know it. Yet it is
still HisHer Will for you, and HisHer Will must stand forever
and in all things.
90
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 were already profoundly split, making it possible for the
mind to be afraid of what it really is. It is apparent that
reality cannot "threaten" anything except illusions, since
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.
91
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. Yet 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?
92
The association of truth and fear, which would be highly artificial at
most, 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. She is not attempting to force an alien will upon
you. She is merely making every possible effort, within the limits you
impose on Her, to re-establish your own will in your
consciousness.
93
You have imprisoned your will 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 She has the power to look into what you
have hidden and perceive the Will of God there. Her perception of this
Will can make it real to you because She is in your mind and
therefore She is your reality. If, then, Her perception of your
mind brings its reality to you, She is teaching you what
you are.
94
The only source of fear in this whole process can only be what
you think you lose. Yet it is only what the Holy Spirit sees
that you can possibly have. We have emphasized the 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 split minds, you would recognize that willing
is salvation because it is communication. It is impossible to
communicate in alien tongues. You and your CreatorManifestor can
communicate through creationmanifestation because that, and only
that, is your joint Will.
95
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 you ask for what you do not
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.
96
You do not ask only for what you want. This is solely
because you are afraid you might receive it, and you would.
That is really why you persist in asking the teacher/teacheress who
could not possibly teach you your will. Of him/her you can never
learn it, and this gives you the illusion of safety. Yet 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.
97
No mind can believe that its will is stronger than God's. If,
then, a mind believes that its will is different from HisHer, 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 the 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/she is alone, and the martyr
believes that God is crucifying him/her. Both really fear abandonment
and retaliation, but the atheist is more reactive against abandonment
and the martyr against retaliation.
98
The atheist maintains that God has left him/Her, but he/she does not
care. He/she will, however, become very fearful and hence very angry if
anyone suggests that God has not left him/her. The martyr, on
the other hand, is more aware of guilt and, believing that punishment is
inevitable, attempts to teach himself/herself 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 them. 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. Her task is not to make anything for you.] She cannot make you
want something you do not 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 createdmanifested. It was never
createdmanifested, because it was never your will for you.
99
Ultimately everyone must remember the Will of God because ultimately
everyone must recognize himself/herself. This recognition is
the recognition that his/her 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 HimHer. This is your will. Ask for this
and you will be answered because you will be asking only for
what belongs to you.
100
When you ask the Holy Spirit for what would hurt you, She 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. Yet 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 She fail to
recognize it in HisHer SonsDaughters?
101
The energy which you withdraw from creationmanifestation 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, believing 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 creationmanifestation. God could not will that
happiness depended on what you could never have.
102
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
createdmanifested for you, not by you.
103
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 createdmanifested. If it was never createdmanifested, it is
nothing. Can you really devote yourself to nothing?
104
God in HisHer devotion to you createdmanifested you devoted to everything
and gave you what you are devoted to. Otherwise, you would not
have been createdmanifested perfect. reality is everything, and
therefore you have everything because you are real. You cannot
make the unreal, because the absence of reality is fearful, and
fear cannot be createdmanifested. As long as you believe that
fear is possible, you will not createmanifest . Opposing orders
of reality make reality meaningless, and reality is
meaning.
105
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,
107
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. You must remember, however,
that the course does state, and repeatedly, that its purpose is the escape
from fear.
108
Let us suppose, then, that what you request of the Holy Spirit is
what you really want, but 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/she is fearful of bodily harm. At the same time,
however, if he/she were healed physically, the threat to his/her
thought system would be considerably more fearful to him/her
than its physical expression. In this case he/she is not really asking
for release from fear but for the removal of a symptom which
he/she has selected. This request is, therefore, not for healing
at all.
109
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. Yet it is
equally certain that no response given by the Holy Spirit will ever
be one which would increase fear. It is possible that Her answer will
not be heard at all. It is impossible, however, that it will be
lost. There are the 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.
110
If you would know your prayers are answered, never doubt a SonDaughter
of God. Do not question himher and do not confound himher, for your
faith in himher is your faith in yourself. If you would know God
and HisHer Answer, believe in me whose faith in you cannot be shaken.
Can you ask of the Holy Spirit truly and doubt your brother/sister, and
his/her words will be true. As you hear him/her, you
will hear me. Listening to truth is the only way you can
hear it now and finally know it.
111
The message your brother/sister gives you is up to you. What
does he/she say to you? What would you have him/her say? Your
decision about him/her determines the message you receive.
Remember that the Holy Spirit is in him/her, and Her Voice speaks to you
through him/her. What can so holy a brother/sister tell you except
truth? But are you listening to it? Your brother/sister may not
know who he/she is, but there is a light in his/her mind which does
know. This light can shine into yours, making his/her words true and
making you able to hear them. His/her words are the Holy
Spirit's answer to you. Is your faith in him/her strong enough to let
you hear?
112
Salvation is of your brother/sister. The Holy Spirit extends from your
mind to his/her and answers you. You cannot hear the Voice for
God in yourself alone because you are not alone. And HisHer
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/sister because
it is for you. Would God have createdmanifested a Voice for you alone?
Could you hear HisHer answer except as HeShe answers all
of God’s SonsDaughters? Hear of your brother/sister what you would have
me hear of you, for you would not want me
to be deceived.
113
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/sisters in whom God's Voice speaks. The answer to all
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.
114
Believe in your brothers/sisters 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 HisHer SonsDaughters, and you are
answered.
115
To disbelieve is to side against or to attack. To believe is to
accept and to 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 a price. And as you set it, you will
pay it.
116
If paying is equated with getting, you will set the price low
but demand a high return. 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. The 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 will not want it.
117
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.
118
You can ask of the Holy Spirit, then, only by giving to
Her, and you can give to Her only where you see Her. If
you see Her in everyone, consider how much you will be asking of
Her and how much you will receive. She will deny you nothing
because you have denied Her nothing, and so you can share everything.
This is the way, and the only way, to have Her answer because
Her answer is all you can ask for and want. Say, then,
to everyone,
1
The alertness of the ego to the errors which other egos make is not the
kind of vigilance the Holy Spirit would have you maintain. Egos are
critical in terms of the kind of "sense" they stand for. They
understand this kind of sense because it is sensible to them. To
the Holy Spirit, it makes no sense at all. To the ego, it is kind and
right and good to point out errors and "correct" them. This makes
perfect sense to the ego, which is totally unaware of what errors are
and what correction is.
2
Errors are of the ego, and correction of errors of any kind lies
solely in the relinquishment of the ego. When you correct a
brother/sister, you are telling him/her that he/she is wrong. He/she may
be making no sense at the time, and it is certain that if he/she is
speaking from the ego, he/she will be making no sense. But your
task is still to tell him/her he/she is right. You do not tell
him/her this verbally if he/she is speaking foolishly because he/she
needs correction at another level, since his/her error is
at another level. He/she is still right because he/she is a SonDaughter
of God. His/her ego is always wrong, no matter what it says or
does.
3
If you point out the errors of your brother's/sister’s ego, you must be
seeing through yours, because the Holy Spirit does not perceive
his/her errors. This must be true if there is no communication at all
between the ego and the Holy Spirit. The ego makes no sense, and the
Holy Spirit does not attempt to understand anything that arises from it.
Since She does not understand it, She does not judge it, knowing
that nothing it engenders means anything.
4
When you react at all to errors, you are not listening to the
Holy Spirit. She has merely disregarded them, and if you attend to them,
you are not hearing Her. If you do not hear Her, you are
listening to your ego and making as little sense as the brother/sister
whose errors you perceive. This cannot be correction. Yet it is more
than merely lack of correction for him/her. It is the giving up of
correction in yourself.
5
When a brother/sister behaves insanely, you can heal him/her only by
perceiving the sanity in him/her. If you perceive his/her 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/hers.
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/sister is as right as you are, and if you think he/she is wrong,
you are condemning yourself.
6
You cannot correct yourself. Is it possible, then, for
you to correct another? Yet you can see him/her truly because it
is possible for you to see yourself truly. It is not up to you
to change him/her but merely to accept him/her as he/she is.
His/her errors do not come from the truth that is in him/her, and only
this truth is yours. His/her 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.
7
Your brother's/sister’s errors are not of him/her any more than yours
are of you. Accept his/her 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 in your brother/sister. His/her errors are
forgiven with yours. Atonement is no more separate than love.
Atonement cannot be separate because it comes from love. Any
attempt you make to correct a brother/sister 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
createdmanifested everything.
8
Do not undertake HisHer 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 createmanifest
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 Her! You do not know how to
use it. She 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.
9
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/sister is if you would know yourself. Perceive
what he/she is not, and you cannot know what you are because
you see him/her falsely. Remember always that your identity is shared
and that sharing is its reality.
10
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 of what you are. This limitation is where all
errors arise. The way to undo them, therefore, is not of you but
for you.
11
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, She
translates what you have made into what God createdmanifested. If you
would accomplish this through Her, 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.
12
The ego, too, has a plan of forgiveness because you are asking
for one, though not of the right teacher/teacheress. 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. The ego's plan is to have you see error clearly first
and then overlook it. Yet how can you overlook what you have
made real? By seeing it clearly, you have made it real and cannot
overlook it.
13
This is where the ego is forced to appeal to "mysteries" and begins to
insist that you must 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.
14
Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error
from the beginning and thus keeping it unreal for you. Do not
let any belief in its realness enter your minds at all, or you
will also believe that you must undo what you have made in order
to be forgiven. What has no effect does not exist, and to the Holy
Spirit, the effects of error are totally non-existent. By
steadily and consistently canceling out all its effects everywhere
and in all respects, She teaches that the ego does not exist and
proves it. Follow Her teaching in forgiveness then, because
forgiveness is Her function, and She 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.
15
Miracles are merely the sign of your willingness to follow the Holy
Spirit's plan of salvation in recognition of the fact that you do not
know what it is. Her 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 which makes it likely that the ego
will attack anyone and anything for no reason at all. This is exactly
what the ego does. It is totally unpredictable in its
responses because it has no idea of what it perceives.
16
If one has no idea of what is happening, how appropriately can you expect
him/her to react? 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 the 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/teacheress 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/herself.
17
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 createdmanifested. The Second Coming is merely the
return of sense. Can this possibly be fearful?
18
What can be fearful but fantasy, and no one turns to fantasy unless
he/she despairs of finding satisfaction in reality. Yet it is certain
that he/she will never find satisfaction in fantasy, so that
his/her only hope is to change his/her 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 the many. But
do not look for meaning in them. They have no more meaning than the
fantasies into which they are woven.
19
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 the
tales are true for them. Yet when reality dawns, the fantasies
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.
20
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/she is trying to give what he/she has not received.
If he/she is a theologian, he/she may begin with the premise, "I am a
miserable sinner and so are you." If he/she is a psychotherapist, he/she
is more likely to start with the equally incredible idea that he/she
really believes in attack and so does the patient, but it does not
matter in either case.
21
We have repeatedly stated that beliefs of the ego cannot be shared, and
this is why they are unreal. How, then, can "uncovering" them make
them real? Every healer who searches fantasies for truth must be
unhealed because he/she 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/she does
not believe it.
22
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 HimHer appear retaliative
and fear HisHer 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.
23
The newer forms of the ego's plan are as unhelpful as the older ones
because form does not matter to the Holy Spirit and therefore does not
matter at all. According to the newer forms of the ego's plan, therapist
interprets the ego's symbols in the nightmare and then uses them to
prove that the nightmare is real. Having made it real,
he/she then attempts to dispel its effects by depreciating the
importance of the dreamer. This would be a healing
approach if the dreamer were properly identified as unreal. Yet if the
dreamer is equated with the mind, the mind's corrective power
through the Holy Spirit is denied.
24
It is noteworthy that this is a contradiction even in the ego's 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 ego strength? These perfectly
self-evident inconsistencies account for why, except in certain stylized
verbal accounts, no one can explain what happens in
psychotherapy. Nothing real does. Nothing real has happened to
the unhealed healer, and he/she learns from his/her own teaching.
25
Because his/her ego is involved, it always attempts to gain some
support from the situation. Seeking to get something for himself/herself,
the unhealed healer does not know how to give and consequently
cannot share. He/she cannot correct because he/she is not working correctively.
He/she believes that it is up to him/her to teach the patient what is real,
but he/she does not know it himself/herself. 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 theologian, by acknowledging darkness in yourself and looking for a
distant light to remove it while emphasizing the distance?
26
Healing is not mysterious. Nothing will occur 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/she is heading, but the point is lost unless
he/she can change his/her direction. Therapist cannot do this for
him/her, but he/she also cannot do this for himself/herself.
27
The only meaningful contribution therapist can make is to
present an example of one whose direction has been changed for
him/her and who no longer believes in nightmares of any kind.
The light in his/her mind will therefore answer the questioner,
who must decide with God that there is light because he/she sees
it. And by his/her acknowledgment, the therapist knows it is there. That is how perception ultimately
is translated into knowledge. The miracle worker begins by perceiving
light and translates his/her perception into sureness by continually
extending it and accepting its acknowledgment. Its effects
assure him/her it is there.
28
Therapist does not heal; he/she lets healing be. He/she can
point to darkness, but he/she cannot bring light of himself/herself,
for light is not of him/her. Yet, being for him, it must also be
for his/her patient. The Holy Spirit is the only therapist. She
makes healing perfectly clear in any situation in which She is
the Guide. The human therapist can only let Her fulfill Her
function. She needs no help for this. She will tell you exactly
what to do to help anyone She sends to you for help and will
speak to him/her 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 Her, for help is Her function, and She is of
God.
29
As you awaken other minds to the Holy Spirit through Her 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—
31
How can you become increasingly aware of the Holy Spirit in you except
by Her effects? You cannot see Her with your eyes nor hear Her with your
ears. How, then, can you perceive Her 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.
32
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
Her consistency. When you are inconsistent, you will not always give
rise to joy and so you will not always recognize Her
consistency. What you offer to your brother/sister, you offer to Her
because She cannot go beyond your offering in Her giving. This
is not because She limits Her giving, but simply because you have
limited your receiving. The will to receive is the will to
accept.
33
If your brothers/sisters 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 SonDaughter, knowing them all as
one. Only God HimHerself is more than they, but they are not less than
HeShe is. Would you know what this means? If what you do to our
brother/sister 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 Spirit God createdmanifested is part of you
and shares hisher glory with you. Hisher Glory belongs to
himher, but it is equally yours. You cannot, then, be less
glorious than heshe is.
34
God is more than you only because HeShe createdmanifested you,
but not even this would HeShe keep from you. Therefore you can
createmanifest as HeShe
did, and your dissociation will not alter this. Neither God's
light nor yours is dimmed because you do not see. Because the
SonDaughtership must createmanifest as
one, you remember creationmanifestation whenever you recognize part
of creationmanifestation. Each part you remember adds to your
wholeness because each part is whole. Wholeness is indivisible,
but you cannot learn of your wholeness until you see it everywhere.
You can know yourself only as God knows HisHer SonDaughter, for
knowledge is shared with God. When you awake in HimHer you will
know your magnitude by accepting HisHer limitlessness as yours,
but meanwhile you will judge it as you judge your brothers/sisters' and
will accept it as you accept theirs.
35
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
createdmanifested witnesses to God's. Yet when the SonDaughtership comes
together and accepts its oneness, it will be known by its
creationsmanifestations, who witness to its reality as the SonDaughter
does to the FatherMother.
36
Miracles have no place in eternity because they are reparative. Yet
while you still need healing, your miracles are the only witnesses to
your reality which 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.
37
Eternity is one time, its only dimension being "always." This
cannot mean anything to you, however, until you remember God's open arms
and finally know HisHer open Mind. Like HimHer, you are
"always"-in HisHer mind and with a mind like HisHers. In your
open mind are your creationsmanifestations, 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
creationsmanifestations. Accept your brother/sister in this world and
accept nothing else, for in him/her you will find your
creationsmanifestations, because HeShe createdmanifested them with
you. You will never know that you are co-CreatorManifestor with God
until you learn that your brother/sister is a co-creatorco-manifestor
with you.
38
God's Will is your salvation. Would HeShe not have given you the means
to find it? If HeShe wills you to have it, HeShe must have made
it possible and very easy to obtain it. Your brothers/sisters 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/sisters?
39
Consider, then, that in this joint will you are all united, and
in this only. There will be disagreement on anything else, but not
on this. This, then, is where peace abides. And you
abide in peace when you so decide. Yet 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. Yet you
cannot overlook it unless you are not looking.
40
It is perfectly obvious that if the Holy Spirit looks with love
on all She perceives, HeShe looks with love on you. Her
evaluation of you is based on Her knowledge of what you are, and so She
evaluates you truly. And this evaluation must be in your mind
because She 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.
41
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. She
is not deceived by anything you do because She 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.
42
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, since its uncertainty
is increased. Yet it is surely pointless to attack in return. What can
this mean except that you are agreeing with the ego's evaluation
of what you are? If you are willing to see yourself as unloving, you
will not be happy. You are condemning yourself and must
therefore regard yourself as inadequate. Would you look to the ego to
help you escape from a sense of inadequacy it has produced and
must maintain for its existence? Can you escape from its
evaluation of you by using its methods for keeping this picture intact?
43
You cannot evaluate an insane belief system from within it. Its
own range precludes this. You can only go beyond it, 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 to 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.
44
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, therefore, is
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 She 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, She knows it to be true. If it does not,
HeShe knows that it is meaningless.
45
Whenever you question your value, say:
47
Remember this when the ego speaks, and you will not hear it. The truth
about you is so lofty that nothing 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 HimHer, for you do not want
anything else. Return your part of HimHer, and HeShe will give you all
of HimHerself in exchange for your return of what belongs to HimHer and
renders HimHer complete.
48
Grandeur is of God and only of HimHer. Therefore, it is in you.
Whenever you become aware of it, however dimly, you abandon the ego
automatically because in the presence of the grandeur of God the
meaninglessness of the ego becomes perfectly apparent. Though it does
not understand this, the ego believes that its "enemy" has struck and
attempts to offer gifts to induce you to return to its "protection." Self-inflation
of the ego is its alternative to the grandeur of God. Which will you
choose?
49
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, grandiosity is meaningless, and you could not possibly want it.
The essence of grandiosity is competitiveness because it always
involves attack. It is a delusional attempt to outdo but not
to undo. We said before that the ego vacillates between suspiciousness
and viciousness. It remains suspicious as long as you despair of
yourself. It shifts to viciousness whenever you will not tolerate
self-abasement and seek relief. Then it offers you the illusion of
attack as a solution.
50
The ego does not know the difference between grandeur and grandiosity
because it does not know the difference between miracle impulses and
ego-alien beliefs of its own. We once said that the ego is aware
of threat, but does not make distinctions between two entirely different
kinds of threat to its existence. Its own profound sense of
vulnerability renders it incapable of judgment except in terms
of attack. When it experiences threat, its only decision is whether to
attack now or to withdraw to attack later. If you accept its
offer of grandiosity, it will attack immediately. If you do not, it will
wait.
51
The ego is immobilized in the presence of God's grandeur because HisHer
grandeur establishes your freedom. Even the faintest hint of
your reality literally drives the ego from your mind because of complete
lack of investment in it. Grandeur is totally without illusions,
and because it is real, it is compellingly convincing. Yet 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.
52
Yet 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 createdmanifested it
out of HisHer Love. From your grandeur you can only bless, because your
grandeur is your abundance. By blessing, you hold it in your
mind, 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.
53
The ego depends solely on your willingness to tolerate it. If
you are willing to look upon your grandeur, you cannot despair,
and therefore you cannot want the ego. Your grandeur is God's answer
to the ego because it is true. Littleness and grandeur cannot co-exist,
nor is it possible for them to alternate in your awareness. Littleness
and grandiosity can and must alternate in your awareness since
both are untrue and are therefore on the same level. Being the level of
shift, it is experienced as shifting, and extremes are its essential
characteristic.
54
Truth and littleness are denials of each other because 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. Yet 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.
55
It is easy to distinguish grandeur from grandiosity because love is
returned, but pride is not. Pride will not produce miracles and
therefore will deprive you of your 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 HeShe
createdmanifested because it is HisHer joy.
56
Can your grandeur be arrogant when God HimHerself 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
She 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 createdmanifested cannot be replaced.
God is incomplete without you because HisHer grandeur is total, and you
cannot be missing from it.
57
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 HisHer Voice,
reminds you of It, and God HimHerself keeps your extensions safe within
It. Yet you do not know them until you return to them. You cannot
replace the God Realm, 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 God createdmanifested you cannot be
arrogance because it is the denial of arrogance. To accept your
littleness is arrogant because it means that you believe your
evaluation of yourself is truer than God's.
58
Yet if truth is indivisible, 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 She will
tell you, but do not be afraid of HisHer 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. HeShe would have you replace the ego's belief in
littleness with HisHer own exalted answer to the question of your being,
so that you can cease to question it and know it for what it is.
59
Nothing beyond yourself can make you fearful or loving because nothing is
beyond you. Time and eternity are both in your mind 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
which 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.
60
God createdmanifested nothing beside you, and nothing beside you exists,
for you are part of HimHer. What except HimHer can exist?
Nothing beyond HimHer can happen because nothing except
HimHer is real. Your creationsmanifestations add to HimHer 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 creationmanifestation,
and HeShe createdmanifested 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.
61
God does not change HisHer Mind about you, for HeShe is not
uncertain of HimHerself. And what HeShe knows can be
known because HeShe does not know only for HimHerself. HeShe
createdmanifested you for HimHerself, but HeShe gave you the power to
createmanifest for your
self so you could be like HimHer. 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,
63
Then accept HisHer decision, for it is indeed changeless, and
refuse to change your mind about yourself. God will never decide
against you, or HeShe would be deciding against HimHerself.
64
The reason you do not know your creationsmanifestations is
simply that you would decide against them as long as your minds are
split, and to attack what you have createdmanifested is impossible. But
remember that it is as
impossible for God. The law of creationmanifestation is that you
love your creationsmanifestations as yourself because they are
part of you. Everything that was createdmanifested is therefore
perfectly safe because the laws of God protect it by HisHer Love. Any
part of your mind that does not know this has banished itself from
knowledge because it has not met its conditions.
65
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. Yet 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 awakened to were violated while you slept. Is it not
possible that you merely shifted from one dream to another, without really
wakening?
66
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. Yet 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.
67
You will remember everything the instant you desire it wholly,
for if to desire wholly is to createmanifest, you will have willed away
the separation, returning your mind simultaneously to your
CreatorManifestor and your creationsmanifestations. 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.
68
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.
69
Yet 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 creationmanifestation. Offer the Holy Spirit only your will to
remember, for HeShe retains the knowledge of God and of yourself 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 HisHer Voice will tell you that you are part of HimHer when you are
willing to remember HimHer and know your own reality again. Let nothing
in this world delay your remembering of HimHer, for in this remembering
is the knowledge of yourself.
70
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 but was rejected. The ability to accept truth in this
world is the perceptual counterpart of creatingmanifesting in the God
Realm. God will do HisHer part if you will do yours, and HisHer return
in exchange for yours is the exchange of knowledge for
perception. Nothing is beyond HisHer Will for you. But signify
your will to remember HimHer and behold! HeShe will give you everything
but for the asking.
71
When you attack, you are denying yourself. You are specifically
teaching yourself that you are not what you are. Your denial of
reality precludes the 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 understand why it
is that you always attack yourself first.
72
[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 HimHer. This is not because HeShe is
gone, but because you are willing actively not to remember HimHer.]
73
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,
but 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 HisHer Realm. And it is this vigilance that makes you
afraid to remember HimHer.
74
You have not attacked God, and you do love HimHer. Can
you change your reality? No one can will to destroy himself/herself.
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. Yet the destruction is no more real than the image,
although those who make idols/idolresses do worship them. The
idols/idolresses are nothing, but their worshipers are the SonsDaughters
of God in sickness.
75
God would have them released from their sickness and returned to HisHer
Mind. HeShe will not limit your power to help them because HeShe
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 HisHer power through you? Remember that it does not
matter where in the SonDaughtership HeShe is accepted. HeShe is
always accepted for all, and when your mind receives
HimHer, the remembrance of HimHer awakens throughout the
SonDaughtership. Heal your brotherssisters simply by accepting God for
them.
76
Your minds are not separate, and God has only one channel for healing
because HeShe has but one SonDaughter. HisHer remaining communication
link with all HisHer Children joins them together and them to HimHer. 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 SonDaughter 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.
77
Do not side with sickness in the presence of a SonDaughter of God even
if he/she believes in it, for your acceptance of God in him/her
acknowledges the love of God which he/she has forgotten. Your
recognition of him/her as part of God teaches him/her the truth
about himself/herself, which he/she is denying. Would you strengthen
his/her denial of God and thus lose sight of yourself? Or would
you remind him/her of his/her wholeness and remember your
CreatorManifestor with him/her? To believe a SonDaughter of God
is sick is to worship the same idol/idolress he/she does. God
createdmanifested love, not idolatry/idolressatry. All forms of
idolatry/idolressatry are caricatures of creationmanifestation, taught
by sick minds which are too divided to know that creationmanifestation shares
power and never usurps it. Sickness is idolatry/idolressatry
because it is the belief that power can be taken from you. Yet
this is impossible because you are part of God, Who is all
power.
78
A sick god must be an idol/idolress, made in the image of what
its maker thinks he/she is. And that is exactly what the ego does
perceive in a SonDaughter of God; a sick god,
self-created-self-manifested, self-sufficient, very vicious, and very
vulnerable. Is this the idol/idolress 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/sisters and thus
lose sight of yours. And you are willing to keep it hidden and
to protect this idol/idolress, which you think will save you from the
dangers which the idol/idolress itself stands for, but which do
not exist.
79
There are no idolaters/idolressaters in the God Realm, but there is
great appreciation for every Spirit which God createdmanifested because
of the calm knowledge that each one is part of HimHer. God’s SonDaughter
knows no idols/idolresses, but heshe does know hisher
FatherMother. Health in this world is the counterpart of value in the
God Realm. 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 SonDaughter 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,
although you did not ask.
80
When a brother/sister is sick, it is because he/she is not
asking for peace and therefore does not know he/she has it. The
acceptance of peace is the denial of illusion, and sickness is
an illusion. Yet every SonDaughter of God has the power to deny
illusions anywhere in the God Realm merely by denying them
completely in himself/herself. 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/idolressatrous 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.
81
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 HimHer, 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. Yet when
they seem to speak to you, remember that nothing can replace
God, and whatever replacements you have attempted are nothing.
82
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/her. Yet you did not createmanifest him/her
because he/she is not the Will of the FatherMother. He/she 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 SonDaughter, there is but one God. You share reality with HimHer
because reality is not divided. To accept other gods before HimHer is to
place other images before yourself.
83
You do not realize how much you listen to your gods and how vigilant you
are on their behalf. Yet 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 FatherMother. 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. Yet 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.
84
Only at the altar of God will you find peace. And this altar is in you
because God put it there. HisHer Voice still calls you to return, and
She will be heard when you place no other gods before HimHer. You can
give up the god of sickness for your brothers/sisters; in fact, you
would have to do so if you give him/her up for yourself. For if
you see him/her anywhere, you have accepted him/her. And if you accept
him, you will bow down and worship him/her because he/she was
made as God's replacement. He/she is the belief that you can choose
which god is real. Although it is perfectly clear that this has nothing
to do with reality, it is equally clear that it has everything
to do with reality as you perceive it.
85
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
createdmanifested you perfect, you are perfect. If you believe
you can be sick, you have placed other gods before HimHer. God is not at
war with the god of sickness you made, but you are. He/she is
the symbol of willing against God, and you are afraid of him/her
because he/she cannot be reconciled with God's Will. If you
attack him/her, you will make him/her real to you. But if you refuse to
worship him/her in whatever form he/she may appear to you and wherever
you think you see him/her, he/she will disappear into the nothingness
out of which he/she was made.
86
Reality can dawn only on 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.
87
The SonDaughtership cannot be perceived as partly sick because
to perceive it that way is not to perceive it at all. If the
SonDaughtership 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 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.
88
God's laws will keep your minds at peace because peace is HisHer Will,
and HisHer laws are established to uphold it. HisHer 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 HisHers. Everything else is merely lawless and therefore
chaotic. Yet God HimHerself has protected everything HeShe
createdmanifested by HisHer laws. Therefore, everything that is
not under them does not exist. "Laws of chaos" are meaningless by
definition. Creationmanifestation 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.
89
You are not free to give up freedom, but only to deny
it. You cannot do what God did not intend because what HeShe 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 HisHer Will will ever be. You were
createdmanifested through HisHer laws and by HisHer Will, and manner of
your creationmanifestation established you as
creatorsmanifestors. 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.
90
When you have experienced the protection of God, the making of
idols/idolresses becomes inconceivable. There are no strange images in
the Mind of God, and what is not in HisHer Mind cannot be in yours
because you are of One Mind and that Mind belongs to HimHer. It
is yours because it belongs to HimHer, for ownership is sharing
to HimHer. And if it is so for HimHer, it is so for you. HisHer
definitions are HisHer laws, for by them HeShe 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 createdmanifested you. And HeShe createdmanifested nothing else.
91
The miracle is the act of a SonDaughter of God who has laid aside all
false gods and who calls on his/her brothers/sisters to do likewise. It
is an act of faith because it is the recognition that hisher
brother/sister can do it. It is a call to the Holy Spirit in his/her
mind, a call to Her which is strengthened by this joining. Because the
miracle worker has heard Her, he/she strengthens Her Voice in a sick
brother/sister by weakening his/her belief in sickness, which
he/she 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.
92
In the many only the spark remains, for the Great Rays are obscured. Yet
God has kept the spark alive so that 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 createmanifest . 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
creationmanifestation. Put all your faith in it, and God HimHerself will
answer you.
93
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/her.
Depression means that you have foresworn God. Men/women 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.
94
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/sisters by the messages they give you, but you
have judged them by the message you give to 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/sisters without it, you are denying God.
95
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/her out of your
insanity, he/she is an insane idea. He/she has the many forms, but
although he/she may seem like the many different things, he/she is but
one idea—the denial of God.
96
Sickness and death entered the mind of God’s SonDaughter against
hisher will. The "attack on God" made HisHer SonDaughter think heshe was
fatherlessmotherless, and out of hisher depression, heshe made the god
of depression. This was hisher alternative to joy, because heshe would
not accept the fact that, although heshe was a creatormanifestor, heshe
had been createdmanifested. Yet the SonDaughter is helpless
without the FatherMother, Who alone is hisher 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.
97
It is because you did not make yourselves that you need be
troubled by nothing. Your gods are nothing because your FatherMother did
not createmanifest them. You cannot make CreatorsManifestors who are
unlike your CreatorManifestor any more than HeShe could have
createdmanifested a SonDaughter who was unlike HimHer. If
creationmanifestation is sharing, it cannot createmanifest what is
unlike itself. It can share only what it is. Depression is
isolation, and so it could not have been createdmanifested.
98
SonDaughter of God, you have not sinned, but you have been much
mistaken. Yet this can be corrected, and God will help you, knowing
that you could not sin against HimHer. You denied HimHer because
you loved HimHer, knowing that if you recognized your love for
HimHer, you could not deny HimHer. Your denial of HimHer
therefore means that you love HimHer and that you know HeShe loves you.
Remember that what you deny, you must have known. And if you
accept denial, you can accept its undoing.
99
Your FatherMother has not denied you. HeShe does not retaliate, but
HeShe does call to you to return. When you think HeShe has not
answered your call, you have not answered HisHers. HeShe
calls to you from every part of the SonDaughtership because of HisHer
love for HisHer SonDaughter. If you hear HisHer message, HeShe
has answered you, and you will learn of HimHer if you hear aright. The
love of God is in everything HeShe createdmanifested, for HisHer
SonDaughter is everywhere. Look with peace upon your brothers/sisters,
and God will come rushing into your heart in gratitude for your gift to
HimHer.
100
Do not look to the god of sickness for healing but only to the God of
love, for healing is the acknowledgment of HimHer. When you
acknowledge HimHer, you will know that HeShe has never ceased to
acknowledge you and that in HisHer acknowledgment of you lies
your Being. You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you can
confuse yourself with things that do. Remember, though, that to do this
is blasphemy, for it means that you are looking without love on
God and HisHer creationmanifestation, from which HeShe cannot be
separated. Only the eternal can be loved, for love does not die. What is
of God is HisHer forever, and you are of God. Would HeShe allow
HimHerself to suffer? And would HeShe offer HisHer SonDaughter anything
that is not acceptable to HimHer?
101
If you will accept yourself as God createdmanifested you, you will be
incapable of suffering. Yet to do this, you must acknowledge HimHer as
your CreatorManifestor. This is not because you will be punished
otherwise. It is merely because your acknowledgment of your FatherMother
is the acknowledgment of yourself as you are. Your FatherMother
createdmanifested you wholly without sin, wholly without pain, and
wholly without suffering of any kind. If you deny HimHer, you bring sin,
pain, and suffering into your own mind because of the power
HeShe gave it. Your mind is capable of creatingmanifesting worlds, but
it can also deny what it createsmanifests because it is free.
102
You do not realize how much you have denied yourself, and how much God
in HisHer love would not have it so. Yet HeShe would not interfere with
you because HeShe would not know HisHer SonDaughter if he/she were not
free. To interfere with you would be to attack HimHerself, and God is
not insane. When you denied HimHer, you were insane. Would you
have HimHer share your insanity? God will never cease to love
HisHer SonDaughter, and HisHer SonDaughter will never cease to love
HimHer. That was the condition of HisHer Son’sDaughter’s
creationmanifestation, fixed forever in the Mind of God. To know that is
sanity. To deny it is insanity. God gave HimHerself to you in your
creationmanifestation, and HisHer gifts are eternal. Would you deny
yourself to HimHer?
103
Out of your gifts to HimHer, the God Realm will be restored to HisHer
SonDaughter. HisHer SonDaughter removed himherself from hisher
gift by refusing to accept what had been createdmanifested for himher
and what heshe himherself had createdmanifested in the Name of hisher
FatherMother. The God Realm waits for hisher return, for it was
createdmanifested as the dwelling place of God’s SonDaughter. You are
not at home anywhere else or in any other condition. Do not deny
yourself the joy which was createdmanifested 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.
104
If God knows HisHer Children as wholly sinless, it is blasphemous to
perceive them as guilty. If God knows HisHer Children as wholly without
pain, it is blasphemous to perceive suffering anywhere. If God knows
HisHer Children to be wholly joyous, it is blasphemous to feel
depressed. All of these illusions and the many other forms which
blasphemy may take are refusals to accept creationmanifestation
as it is. If God createdmanifested HisHer SonDaughter perfect, that is
how you must learn to see himher to learn of hisher reality. And as part
of the SonDaughtership, that is how you must see yourself to
learn of yours.
105
Do not perceive anything God did not createmanifest, or you are
denying HimHer. HisHer is the only FatherhoodMotherhood, and it
is yours only because HeShe has given it to you. Your gifts to yourself
are meaningless, but your gifts to your creationsmanifestations
are like HisHer because they are given in HisHer Name. That is why your
creationsmanifestations are as real as HisHers. Yet the real
FatherhoodMotherhood must be acknowledged if the real SonDaughter is to
be known. You believe that the sick things which you have made are your
real creationsmanifestations because you believe that the sick images
you perceive are the SonsDaughters of God.
106
Only if you accept the FatherhoodMotherhood of God will you have anything
because HisHer fatherhood gave you everything. That is why to
deny HimHer 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.
107
If you would remember eternity, you must learn to look only on
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.
1
Either God or the ego is insane. If you will examine the evidence on
both sides fairly, you will realize that this must be true. Neither God
nor the ego proposes a partial thought system. Each is internally
consistent, but they are diametrically opposed in all respects so that
partial allegiance is impossible. Remember, too, that their results are
as different as their foundations, and their fundamentally
irreconcilable natures cannot be reconciled by your
vacillations. Nothing alive is fatherlessmotherless, for life is
creationmanifestation. Therefore, your decision is always an answer to
the question, "Who is our father?" And you will be faithful to the
father you choose.
2
Yet what would you say to someone who really believed this question
involves conflict? If you made the ego, how can the ego have
made you? The authority problem remains the only source of perceived
conflict because the ego was made out of the wish of God’s SonDaughter
to fathermother himher. The ego, then, is nothing more than a delusional
system in which you made your own fathermother. Make no mistake about
this. It sounds insane when it is stated with perfect honesty, but the
ego never looks upon what it does with perfect honesty. Yet that is
its insane premise, which is carefully hidden in the dark cornerstone of
its thought system. And either the ego, which you made, is your
fathermother, or its whole thought system will not stand.
3
You have made by projection, but God has createdmanifested by extension.
The cornerstone of God's creationmanifestation is you, for HisHer
thought system is light. Remember the rays that are there unseen. The
more you approach the center of HisHer 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. Yet 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 cornerstone of terror on which it rests and bring it out
into the light. There you will see that it rests on meaninglessness and
that everything of which you have been afraid was based on nothing.
4
My brother/sister, 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 FatherMother to
offer you everything again. Do not refuse it in order 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 FatherMother, Who hath need
of you as I have. Will you not answer the call of love with joy?
5
You have learned your need of healing. Would you bring anything else to
the SonDaughtership, recognizing your need of healing 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
HimHer. Not one stone you place upon it but will be blessed by HimHer,
for you will be restoring the holy dwelling place of HisHer SonDaughter,
where HeShe wills HisHer SonDaughter to be and where HeShe is. In
whatever part of the mind of God’s SonDaughter you restore this reality,
you restore it to yourself. For you dwell in the Mind of God with your
brother/sister, for God HimHerself did not will to be alone.
6
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 HimHerself. Can you exclude yourself
from the universe or from God, Who is the universe? I and my
FatherMother are one with you, for you are part of us.
Do you really believe that part of God can be missing or lost to HimHer?
7
If you were not part of God, HisHer Will would not be unified. Is this
conceivable? Can part of HisHer Mind contain nothing? If your place in
HisHer Mind cannot be filled by anyone except you, and your
filling it was your creationmanifestation, 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 creationsmanifestations have not ceased to
be extended and why so much is waiting for your return.
8
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 createdmanifested by the Eternal, Who placed
no limits on HisHer creationmanifestation nor upon those who
createmanifest like HimHer. You do not know this simply because you have
tried to limit what HeShe createdmanifested, and so you believe that all
creationmanifestation is limited. How, then, could you know your
creationsmanifestations, 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
that HeShe is absent from you.
9
Infinity is meaningless without you, and you are
meaningless without God. There is no end to God and HisHer
SonDaughter, for we are the universe. God is not incomplete, and
HeShe is not childless. Because HeShe did not will to be alone, HeShe
createdmanifested a SonDaughter like HimHerself. Do not deny HimHer
HisHer SonDaughter, for your unwillingness to accept HisHer
FatherhoodMotherhood has denied you yours. See HisHer
creationsmanifestations as HisHer SonDaughter, for yours were
createdmanifested in honor of HimHer. 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 HisHer creationmanifestation, and
you will learn what God has kept for you.
10
God has given you a place in HisHer Mind which is yours forever. Yet you
could keep it only by giving it, as it was given 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 HeShe createsmanifests has the function of
creatingmanifesting. Love does not limit, and what it createsmanifests
is not limited. To give without limit is God's Will for you because only
this can bring you the joy which is HisHer and which HeShe wills to share
with you. Your love is as boundless as HisHer because it is His.
11
Could any part of God be without HisHer love and could any part
of HisHer love be contained? God is your heritage because HisHer one
gift is HimHerself. How can you give except like HimHer if you would
know HisHer gift to you? Give, then, without limit and without
end to learn how much HeShe has given you. Your ability to accept
HimHer depends on your willingness to give as HeShe gives. Your
FatherhoodMotherhood and your FatherMother are one. God willed
to createmanifest, and your will is HisHers. It follows, then, that you
will to createmanifest since your will follows from HisHers. And being
an extension of HisHer Will, yours must be the same.
12
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 is that you are HisHer
SonDaughter. 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 Her, therefore, what God's Will is for you, and She 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.
13
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 HisHer Life, which HeShe has given to you. Even in
time you cannot live apart from HimHer, for sleep is not death. What
HeShe createdmanifested can sleep, but it cannot die.
Immortality is HisHer Will for HisHer SonDaughter and HisHer
Son’sDaughter's will for himherself. God’s SonDaughter cannot
will death for himherself because hisher FatherMother is Life and HisHer
SonDaughter is like HimHer. Creationmanifestation is your will because
it is HisHers.
14
You cannot be happy unless you do what you will truly, and you cannot
change this because it is immutable. It is immutable by God's Will and
yours, for otherwise HisHer 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.
15
You are asked to trust the Holy Spirit only because She speaks for you.
She is the Voice for God, but never forget that God did not will to be
alone. HeShe shares HisHer Will with you; HeShe does not thrust
it upon you. Always remember that what HeShe gives, HeShe holds,
so that nothing HeShe gives can contradict HimHer. You who share HisHer
Life must share it to know it, for sharing is knowing. Blessed
are you who learn that to hear the Will of your FatherMother is to know
your own. For it is your will to be like HimHer, Whose
Will it is that it be so. God's Will is that HisHer SonDaughter be one,
and united with HimHer in HisHer Oneness. That is why healing is the
beginning of the recognition that your will is HisHers.
16
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
SonDaughter of God has both FatherMother and SonDaughter because
heshe is both FatherMother and SonDaughter. To unite having and
being is only to unite your will with HisHers, for HeShe wills you
HimHerself. And you will yourself to HimHer because, in your perfect
understanding of HimHer, you know there is but One Will. Yet
when you attack any part of God and HisHer Realm, your understanding is
not perfect, and what you will is therefore lost to you.
17
Healing thus becomes a lesson in understanding, and the more you
practice it, the better teacher/teacheress 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 FatherhoodMotherhood of God. Every healing thought which you
accept, either from your brother/sister or in your own mind, teaches you
that you are God’s SonDaughter. In every hurtful thought you hold,
wherever you perceive it, lies the denial of God's FatherhoodMotherhood
and your SonDaughtership.
18
And denial is as total as love. You cannot deny part of yourself 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 heal only
yourself, for only God’s SonDaughter needs healing. He/she needs
it because he/she does not understand himself/herself and therefore
knows not what he/she does. Having forgotten his/her will, he/she does
not know what he/she wants.
19
Healing is a sign that he/she wants to make whole. And this
willingness opens his/her own ears to the Voice of the Holy
Spirit, whose message is wholeness. She will enable you to go
far beyond the healing you would undertake, for beside your
small willingness to make whole, She will lay Her own complete
Will and make yours whole. What can the SonDaughter of God not
accomplish with the FatherhoodMotherhood 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.
20
The Holy Spirit cannot speak to an unwelcoming host because She will not
be heard. The Eternal Guest remains, but Her Voice grows faint in
alien company. She needs your protection, but only because your care is
a sign that you want Her. Think like Her ever so slightly, and
the little spark becomes a blazing light that fills your mind so that
She becomes your only Guest. Whenever you ask the ego to enter,
you lessen Her welcome. She will remain, but you have allied
yourself against Her. Whatever journey you choose to take, She
will go with you, waiting. You can safely trust Her patience, for She
cannot leave a part of God. Yet you need far more than patience.
21
You will never rest until you know your function and fulfill it,
for only in this can your will and your Father’sMother's be wholly
joined. To have HimHer is to be like HimHer, and HeShe
has given HimHerself to you. You who have God must be as God,
for HisHer function became yours with HisHer 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 HisHer is. If you will
merely offer HimHer a little place, HeShe will lighten it so much that
you will gladly extend it. And by this extending, you will begin
to remember creationmanifestation.
22
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/she shall remain with you. Yet this is not real
freedom, for it still depends on how you see it. The Holy Spirit is there,
although She 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 She is real. Know,
then, who abides with you merely by recognizing what is there already
and do not be satisfied with imaginary comforters, for the Comforter of
God is in you.
23
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 HisHer SonDaughter. Pain is not of HimHer, for HeShe
knows no attack and HisHer peace surrounds you silently. God is very
quiet, for there is no conflict in HimHer. Conflict is the root of all
evil, for being blind, it does not see whom it attacks. Yet it always
attacks the SonDaughter of God, and the SonDaughter of God is you.
24
God’s SonDaughter is indeed in need of comfort, for he/she knows not
what he/she does, believing his/her will is not his/her own. The Realm
is his/hers, and yet he/she wanders homelessly. At home in God, he/she
is lonely, and amid all his/her brothers/sisters, he/she is friendless.
Would God let this be real if HeShe did not will to be alone
HimHerself? And if your will is HisHers, it cannot be true of you because
it is not true of HimHer. Oh, my children, if you knew what God wills
for you, your joy would be complete! And what HeShe wills has
happened, for it was always true.
25
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 createmanifest beauty
in HisHer name, for your joy could no more be contained than
HisHers. The bleak little world will vanish into nothingness, and your
heart will be so filled with joy that it will leap into the God Realm
and into the Presence of God. I cannot tell you what this will be like,
for your hearts are not ready. Yet I can tell you and remind you
often that what God wills for HimHerself HeShe wills for you,
and what HeShe wills for you is yours.
26
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
SonDaughter. Walk in light, and do not see the dark companions, for they
are not fit companions for the SonDaughter of God, who was
createdmanifested 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.
27
God hides nothing from HisHer SonDaughter, even though HisHer
SonDaughter would hide himself/herself. Yet the SonDaughter of God
cannot hide his/her glory, for God wills him/her to be glorious and gave
him/her the light that shines in him/her. 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
FatherMother is your CreatorManifestor, and you are like
HimHer.
28
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 SonDaughter, for they have no place in HisHer
temple. When you are tempted to deny HimHer, remember that there are
no other gods that you can place before HimHer, and accept HisHer Will
for you in peace. For you cannot accept it otherwise.
29
Only God's Comforter can comfort you. In the quiet of Her
temple, She waits to give you the peace that is yours. Give Her
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 HisHer Mind because it was not
HisHer Thought and therefore does not belong to HimHer. And your
minds must be as pure as HisHer if you would know what belongs to you.
Guard carefully HisHer temple, for HeShe HimHerself dwells there and
abides in peace. You cannot enter God's Presence with the dark
companions beside you, but you also cannot enter alone.
30
All your
brothers/sisters 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 SonDaughter
can be excluded if he/she would know the Wholeness of his/her
FatherMother. In your mind, you can accept the whole SonDaughtership and
bless it with the light your FatherMother gave it. Then you will be
worthy to dwell in the temple with HimHer because it is your
will not to be alone. God blessed HisHer SonDaughter forever. If you
will bless him/her in time, you will be in eternity. Time cannot
separate you from God if you use it on behalf of the eternal.
31
Never forget that the SonDaughtership is your salvation, for the
SonDaughtership is your Spirit. As God's creationmanifestation, it is
yours, and belonging to you, it is HisHers. Your Spirit 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 Spirit by its
CreatorManifestor that you might extend it. Yet if you hate part
of your own Spirit, all your understanding is lost because you
are looking on what God createdmanifested as yourself without
love. And since what HeShe createdmanifested is part of HimHer, you are
denying HimHer HisHer place in HisHer own altar.
32
Could you try to make God homeless and know that you are at
home? Can the SonDaughter deny the FatherMother without
believing that the FatherMother has denied himher? God's laws
hold only for your protection, and they never hold in vain. What you
experience when you deny your FatherMother 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 to
save you, remembering that it is yours because it is HisHer, and
join with your brothers/sisters in HisHer peace.
33
The peace of your Spirit lies in its limitlessness. Limit the peace you
share, and your own Spirit must be unknown to you. Every altar
to God is part of your Spirit because the light HeShe createdmanifested
is one with HimHer. Would you cut off a brother/sister from the light
that is yours? You would not do so if you realized that you can only
darken your own mind. As you bring him/her back, so will your
mind return. That is the law of God for the protection of the wholeness
of HisHer SonDaughter.
34 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 the many forms, and these you must learn to recognize and to 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 wit
