CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION TO MIRACLES
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.
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 loves Presence,
Which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is
fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.
This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this
way:
Nothing real can be threatened
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the Peace of God.
______________________
Principles of Miracles
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. Miracles as such do not matter. The only thing that
matters is their Source, Which is far beyond human evaluation.
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. All miracles mean life, and God is the Giver of life.
His Voice will direct you very specifically. You will be told
all you need to know.
5. Miracles are habits and should be involuntary. They
should not be under conscious control. Consciously selected
miracles can be misguided.
6. Miracles are natural. When they do NOT occur something
has gone wrong.
7. Miracles are everyones right, but purification is
necessary first.
8. Miracles are healing because they supply a lack in that
they are performed by those who temporarily have more for
those who temporarily have less.
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. 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. Prayer is the medium of miracles. Prayer is the natural
communication of the created with the Creator. Through prayer
love is received, and through miracles love is expressed.
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 creates the spiritual, and we believe in what we
make or create.
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. 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 uncreative use of mind.
15. Each day should be devoted to miracles. The purpose of
time is to enable man 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. Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating that it
is more blessed to give than to receive. They simultaneously
increase the strength of the giver and supply strength to the
receiver.
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. 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 own and his
neighbors inestimable worth simultaneously.
19. Miracles make minds one in God. They depend on
cooperation, because the Sonship is the sum of all the Souls
God created. Miracles therefore rest on the laws of eternity,
not of time.
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. Miracles are natural expressions of total forgiveness.
Through miracles, man accepts Gods forgiveness by extending
it to others.
22. Miracles are associated with fear only because of the
fallacious belief that darkness can HIDE. Man believes that
what he cannot see does not exist, and his 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. The recognition that darkness CANNOT hide. This step
usually entails fear.
B. The recognition that there is nothing you WANT to
hide, even if you COULD.
This step brings ESCAPE from fear.
(*The term Spiritual eye is later replaced by the Holy
Spirit and the physical eye becomes the ego. The emphasis on
the two ways of seeing, however, remains throughout.)
23. Miracles rearrange perception, and place the levels of
perception in true perspective. This heals at ALL levels,
because sickness comes from confusing the levels.
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. Miracles enable man to heal the sick and raise the dead
because he made sickness and death himself, and can abolish
both. YOU are a miracle, capable of creating in the likeness
of your Creator. Everything else is only your own nightmare,
and does not exist. Only the Creations of Light are real.
25. 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.
I am in charge of the process of Atonement, which I
undertook to begin. When you offer a miracle unto any of my
brothers, 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 cancelling out of
all lacks of love which men could not otherwise correct. The
word sin should be changed to lack of love, because
sin is a man-made word with threat connotations which he
made up himself. No REAL threat is involved anywhere. Nothing
is gained by frightening yourselves, and it is very
destructive to do so.
26. Miracles represent FREEDOM from fear. Atoning
really means undoing. The undoing of fear is an essential
part of the Atonement value of miracles.
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 created, 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 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. A miracle is a universal blessing from God through me
to ALL my brothers. It is the privilege of the forgiven to
forgive.
The disciples were specifically told to be physicians of
the Lord 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. Heaven 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 Light, shall not pass away because Light
is eternal. YOU are the work of God, and His work is wholly
lovable and wholly loving. This is how a man MUST think of
himself in his heart, because this is what he IS.
28. Miracles are a means of organizing different levels of
consciousness.
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.
Revelation induces complete but temporary suspension of
doubt and fear. It represents the original form of
communication between God and His Souls, involving an
extremely personal sense of closeness to Creation, which man
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.
Revelation unites Souls directly with God. Miracles unite
minds directly with each other. Neither emanates from
consciousness, but both are EXPERIENCED there. This is
essential, since consciousness is the state which induces
action, though it does NOT inspire it. Man is free to believe
what he chooses, and what he DOES attests to what he believes.
The deeper levels of the subconscious ALWAYS contain the
impulse to miracles, but man is free to fill its more
superficial levels, which are closer to consciousness, with
the impulses of this world, and to identify himself with them.
This results in DENYING himself access to the miracle level
underneath. In his actions, then, his relationships also
become superficial, and miracle-inspired relating becomes
impossible.
29. Miracles are a way of EARNING release from fear.
Revelation induces a state in which fear has ALREADY been
abolished. Miracles are thus a means, and revelation is an
end. 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 ACTION. Miracles are more useful now, because of
their interpersonal nature. In this phase of learning, working
miracles is more important because freedom from fear cannot be
thrust upon you.
30. Miracles praise God through men. They praise God by
honoring His Creations, 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 Souls can communicate directly.
31. Miracles should inspire gratitude, not awe. Man should
thank God for what he really is. The Children of God are very
holy, and the miracle honors their holiness.
Gods Creations 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 man can deceive himself about it. This illusion
makes him fearful, because he knows in his heart it IS an
illusion, and he exerts enormous efforts to establish its
reality. The miracle sets reality where it belongs. Eternal
reality belongs only to the Soul, and the miracle acknowledges
only the truth. It thus dispels mans illusions about himself,
and puts him in communion with himself AND God.
32. Christ inspires all miracles, which are really
intercessions. They intercede for mans holiness, and make his
perceptions holy. By placing him beyond the physical laws,
they raise him into the sphere of celestial order. In THIS
order, man IS perfect.
The Soul never loses its communion with God. Only the mind
NEEDS Atonement. The miracle joins in the Atonement of Christ
by placing the mind in the service of the Spirit. This
establishes the proper function of the mind, and corrects its
errors.
33. Miracles honor man BECAUSE he is lovable. They dispel
illusions about him, and perceive the Light in him. They thus
atone for his errors by freeing him from his own nightmares.
They release him from a prison in which he has imprisoned
HIMSELF, and by freeing his mind from illusions, they restore
his sanity. Mans mind CAN be possessed by illusions, but his
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. Miracles restore the mind to its fullness. By atoning
for lack, they establish perfect protection. The strength of
the Soul leaves no room for intrusions. The forgiven are
filled with the Soul, and they forgive in return. It is the
duty of the released to release their brothers.
The forgiven ARE the means of Atonement. Those released by
Christ must join in releasing their brothers, for this is the
Plan of the Atonement. Miracles are the way in which minds
which serve the Spirit unite with Christ for the salvation, or
release, of all Gods Creations.
35. Miracles are expressions of love, but it does NOT
follow that they will always 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. Christ-controlled miracles are part of the Atonement,
but Christ-guidance is personal. The impersonal nature of
miracles is an essential ingredient, because this enables ME
to control their distribution. Christ-guidance leads to the
highly PERSONAL experience of Revelation. This is why it
involves PERSONAL choice. A guide does NOT control, but he
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.
Remember that error cannot really threaten truth, which can
ALWAYS withstand it. ONLY the error is really vulnerable. You
are free to establish your kingdom where you see fit, but the
right choice is inevitable if you remember this:
The Soul is in a state of grace forever.
Mans reality is ONLY his Soul.
Therefore man is in a state of grace forever.
Atonement undoes all errors in this respect, and thus
uproots the REAL source of fear. Whenever Gods 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 man
projects this onto others, he DOES imprison them, but only to
the extent that he 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 thus undoes their distortions, and
frees them from prison.
37. 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 doers perceptions are aligned
with truth as God created it.
38. 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 man
under the Atonement principle, where his perception is healed.
Until this has occurred, revelation of the Divine order is
impossible.
39. The Spiritual eye is the mechanism of miracles because
what It perceives IS true. It perceives both the Creations of
God and the creations of man. Among the creations of man, 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. 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.
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. The miracle acknowledges all men as your brothers and
mine. It is a way of perceiving the universal mark of God in
them. The specialness of Gods Sons does NOT stem from
exclusion, but from inclusion. ALL my brothers are special. If
they believe they are deprived of anything, their perception
becomes distorted. When this occurs, the whole family of God,
or the Sonship, is impaired in its relationships. Ultimately,
every member of the family of God must return. The miracle
calls him to return, because it blesses and honors him even
though he may be absent in spirit.
God is not mocked is not a warning, but a reassurance
on this point. God WOULD be mocked if any of His Creations
lacked holiness. The Creation IS whole, and the mark of
wholeness is holiness.
42. Wholeness is the perceptual content of miracles. It
thus corrects, or atones for, the faulty perception of lack
anywhere.
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:
As ye perceive
So shall ye behave.
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.
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 fate, 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 man. It is those who
have not yet changed their minds who entered the
hellfire concept into it.
I assure you that I will witness for anyone who lets me,
and to whatever extent he 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. A MAJOR contribution of miracles is their strength in
releasing man from his misplaced sense of isolation,
deprivation and lack.
Miracles are affirmations of Sonship, which is a state of
completion and abundance. Whatever is true and real is
eternal, and CANNOT change or BE changed. The Soul is
therefore unalterable because it is ALREADY perfect, but the
mind can elect the level it chooses to serve. The ONLY limit
which is put on its choice is that it CANNOT serve two
masters.
The mind, if it elects to do so, becomes a medium by which
the Soul creates along the line of its own Creation. If it
does not freely elect to do so, it retains its creative
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.
The miracle is thus a sign that the mind has chosen to be
led by Christ in His service. The abundance of Christ is the
natural result of choosing to follow Him. 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. Miracles arise from a miraculous state of mind. By
being one, this state of mind goes out to ANYONE, even without
the awareness of the miracle worker himself. The impersonal
nature of miracles is because the Atonement itself is one,
uniting all creations with their Creator.
45. The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of
Christ, and the acceptance of His Atonement. The mind is then
in a state of grace, and naturally becomes gracious, both to
the Host within and the stranger without. By bringing in the
stranger, he becomes your brother.
46. A miracle is never lost. It touches 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.
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-
controlled because of His complete awareness of the Whole
Plan. The impersonal nature of miracle-mindedness ensures YOUR
grace, but only Christ is in a position to know where grace
can be BESTOWED.
47. 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-controlled. The other two, which are the
VOLUNTARY aspects of miracle-mindedness, ARE up to you.
48. Awe is an inappropriate response to miracles.
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 Soul stands
before its Creator. Souls are perfect creations, and
experience awe only in the Presence of the Creator of
perfection.
The miracle, on the other hand, is a sign of love among
equals. Equals cannot be in awe of one another because awe
implies inequality. It is therefore an inappropriate reaction
to me. An elder brother is entitled to respect for his greater
experience, and a reasonable amount of obedience for his
greater wisdom. He is also entitled to love because he IS a
brother, and also to devotion if he is devoted. It is only my
devotion that entitles me to yours. There is nothing about me
that YOU cannot attain. I have nothing that does not come from
God. The main difference between us as yet is that I have
NOTHING ELSE. This leaves me in a state of true holiness,
which is only a POTENTIAL in you.
No man cometh unto the Father but by me is among the
most misunderstood statements in the Bible. It does NOT mean
that I am in any way separate or different from you EXCEPT IN
TIME, 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,
man stands below me and I stand below God. In the process of
rising up, I AM higher. This is because, without me, the
distance between God and man would be too great for you to
encompass.
I bridge the distance as an elder brother to man on the one
hand, and as a Son of God on the other. My devotion to my
brothers has placed me in charge of the Sonship, which I can
render complete only to the extent to which I can SHARE it.
This may appear to contradict the statement I and my Father
are one, but there are still separate parts in the
statement, in recognition that the Father 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. I can thus
BRING down to them more than they can DRAW down to themselves.
49. The Holy Spirit is the Highest Communication Medium.
Miracles do not involve this type of communication because
they are TEMPORARY communication devices. When man returns to
his 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 man open
for revelation. Revelation is not reciprocal. It is always
FROM God TO man. The miracle IS reciprocal because it involves
equality.
50. 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
Sonship appears to involve almost endless time. However, the
sudden shifts 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.
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.
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. The miracle is the only device which man has at his
immediate disposal for controlling time. Only revelation
TRANSCENDS time, having nothing to do with time at all.
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 Souls original state of direct
communication is reached, neither the body nor the miracle
serves any purpose. While he believes he is in a body,
however, man can choose between loveless and miraculous
channels of expression. He can make an empty shell, but he
CANNOT express nothing at all. He can wait, delay, paralyze
himself, reduce his creativity to almost nothing, and even
introduce a developmental arrest or even a regression. But he
CANNOT abolish his creativity. He can destroy his medium of
communication, but NOT his potential.
Man was NOT created by his own free will alone. Only what
HE creates is his 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 recognizes that every collapse of time brings all
men closer to the ultimate RELEASE from time, in which the Son
and the Father ARE one.
Equality does not imply homogeneity NOW. When everyone
recognizes that he has everything, individual contributions to
the Sonship will no longer be necessary. When the Atonement
has been completed, ALL talents will be shared by ALL the Sons
of God. God is NOT partial. All His children have His total
Love, and ALL his 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 Son in his true relationship with
the Father.
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 wants to learn it, and believes
in some way that he NEEDS it. While the concept of lack does
not exist in the Creation of God, it is VERY apparent in the
creations of man. 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.
Until the separation, which is a better term than the
fall, nothing was lacking. This meant that man had no needs
at all. If he had not deprived himself, he 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 COULD be better off is the reason why man
has this mechanism at his disposal.
Each one acts according to the particular hierarchy of
needs he establishes for himself. His hierarchy, in turn,
depends on his perception of what he IS; that is, what he
LACKS. A sense of separation from God is the ONLY lack he
really needs to correct. This sense of separation would never
have occurred if he had not distorted his perception of truth,
and thus perceived HIMSELF as lacking. The concept of ANY sort
of need hierarchy arose because, having made this fundamental
error, he had already fragmented himself into levels with
different needs. As he integrates HE becomes one, and his
needs become one accordingly.
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 man can be separated from
God, requires correction at its own level, before the error of
perceiving levels at all can be corrected. Man cannot behave
effectively while he operates at split levels. However, while
he does, correction must be introduced from the bottom UP.
This is because he 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.
The physical world exists only because man can use it to
correct his UNBELIEF, which placed him in it originally. He
can never control the effects of fear himself because he MADE
fear, and believes in what he made. In attitude, then, though
NOT in content, he resembles his own Creator, Who has perfect
faith in His creations BECAUSE He created them. Belief in a
creation produces its existence. That is why a man can believe
in what no-one else thinks is true. It is true for him because
it was made BY him.
Every aspect of fear proceeds from upside-down perception.
The more truly creative devote their efforts to correcting
perceptual distortions. The neurotic devotes his to
compromise. The psychotic tries to escape by establishing the
certain truth of his own errors. It is most difficult to free
him by ordinary means, because he is more consistent in his
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. 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.
Christ-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, Christ-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 man makes this kind of mistake. It is an
example of the foolish consistency which his own false beliefs
have engendered.
The power and strength of mans creative will must be
understood before the real meaning of denial can be
appreciated and relinquished. It is NOT mere negation. It is a
positive miscreation. While the miscreation is NECESSARILY
believed in by its maker, it does not exist at all at the
level of true creation.
53. The miracle compares what man has made with the higher
level creation, accepting what is IN ACCORD as true and
rejecting the DISCORD as false. ALL aspects of fear are untrue
because they do not exist at the higher creative level, and
therefore do not exist at all. To whatever extent a man is
willing to submit his beliefs to this test, to that extent are
perceptions corrected.
In sorting out the false from the true, the miracle
proceeds along the following lines;
If perfect love casts out fear
And if fear exists,
Then there is NOT perfect love.
But
Only perfect love REALLY exists.
If there IS fear,
It creates a state which does not exist.
Believe this, and you WILL be free. Only God can establish
this solution and THIS faith IS His gift.
Distortions of Miracle Impulses
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.
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.
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 Gods 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 with ANYTHING external.
Child of God, you were created to create 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 body best by enlarging mans perception
so he can see the REAL vision. THIS vision is invisible to the
physical eye. The ultimate purpose of the body is to render
itself unnecessary. Learning to do this is the only real
reason for its creation.
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 Sonship is the
only true goal of the miracle-minded.
NO fantasies are true. They are distortions of perception,
by definition. They are a means of making false associations,
and obtaining pleasure from them. Man can do this only because
he IS creative. But although he can perceive false
associations, he can never make them real EXCEPT TO HIMSELF.
Man believes in what he creates. If he creates miracles, he
will be equally strong in his belief in THEM. The strength of
HIS 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.
CHAPTER 2
THE ILLUSION OF SEPARATION
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.
Project (verb): to extend forward or out.
Project (noun): a plan in the mind.
World: a natural grand division.
We will refer later to projection as related to both mental
health and mental illness. We have already observed that man
can create an empty shell, but he cannot create nothing at
all. This emptiness provides the screen for the misuse of
projection.
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 man 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.
To project, as defined above, is a fundamental
attribute of God, which He gave to His Son. In the Creation,
God projected His Creative Ability from Himself to the Souls
He created, and He also imbued them with the same loving will
to create. The Soul has not only been fully created, but has
also been created perfect. There is NO emptiness in it.
Because of its likeness to its Creator, it is creative. No
Child of God can lose this ability because it is inherent in
what he IS, but he CAN use it inappropriately. Whenever
projection is used inappropriately, it ALWAYS implies that
some emptiness or lack exists, and that it is in mans ability
to put his OWN ideas there INSTEAD of truth.
If you consider carefully what this entails, the following
will become quite apparent:
First, the assumption is implicit that what God created can
be CHANGED by the mind of man.
Second, the concept that what is perfect can be rendered
imperfect, or wanting, is accepted.
Third, the belief that man can distort the Creations of
God, INCLUDING HIMSELF, is accepted.
Fourth, the idea that, since man can create himself, the
direction of his own creation is up to HIM is implied.
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 He created is like Him.
Projection, as undertaken by God, is very similar to the kind
of inner radiance which the Children of the Father inherit
from Him. 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 Son as of the
Father.
The world, in the original connotation of the term included
both the proper Creation of man by God AND the proper creation
by man in his right mind. The latter required the endowment of
man by God with free will, because ALL loving creation is
freely given. Nothing in these statements implies any sort of
level involvement, or, in fact, anything except one continuous
line of creation, in which all aspects are of the same order.
When the lies of the serpent were introduced, they were
specifically called lies because they are not true. When
man listened, all he heard was untruth. He does not have to
continue to believe what is not true unless he chooses to do
so. All of his miscreations can literally disappear in the
twinkling of an eye, because they are merely visual
misperceptions. Mans 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 nowhere is there any reference to his waking up.
The history of man in the world as he sees it has not yet
been marked by any genuine or comprehensive reawakening or
rebirth. This is impossible as long as man projects in the
spirit of miscreation. It still remains within him, however,
to project as God projected His Own Spirit to him. In reality,
this is his ONLY choice, because his free will was given him
for his own joy in creating the perfect.
All fear is ultimately reducible to the basic misperception
that man has the ability to USURP the power of God. It can
only be emphasized that he neither CAN nor HAS BEEN able to do
this. In this fact lies the real justification for his escape
from fear. The escape is brought about by his acceptance of
the Atonement, which places him in a position to realize that
his own errors never really occurred. When the deep sleep
fell upon Adam, he was in a condition to experience nightmares
BECAUSE he was asleep. If a light is suddenly turned on while
someone is dreaming a fearful dream, he may initially
interpret the light itself as a part of his own dream, and be
afraid of it. However, when he awakens, the light is correctly
perceived as the RELEASE from the dream, which is no longer
accorded reality.
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.
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.
The Reinterpretation of Defenses
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 (human) 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.
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.
God and the Souls He created are COMPLETELY dependent on
each other. The creation of the Soul has already been
perfectly accomplished, but the creation BY Souls has not. God
created Souls so He could depend on them BECAUSE He created
them perfectly. He gave them His 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 Soul.
This literally starves the Soul 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.
Justice is a temporary expedient, or an attempt to teach
man the meaning of mercy. Its judgmental side arises only
because man is capable of INjustice, if that is what his mind
creates. You are afraid of Gods Will because you have used
your own will, which He created in the likeness of His Own, to
MISCREATE. What you do NOT realize is that the mind can
miscreate 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 Sonship and the Father are One, their perfect accord IS
Heaven.
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
miscreation. 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 miscreate because it recognizes ONLY truth.
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 me, 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 own inherent abilities to deny and
project with mine, and imposes them back on himself and
others. This establishes the total LACK of threat anywhere.
Together we can then work for the real time of peace, which is
eternal.
The improper use of defenses is quite widely recognized,
but their proper use had not been sufficiently understood as
yet. They can INDEED create mans perception, both of himself
and of the world. They can distort or correct, depending on
what you use them FOR.
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.
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.
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.
Dissociation is quite similar. You SHOULD split off or
dissociate yourself from error, but only in defense of
integration.
Detachment is essentially a weaker form of dissociation.
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.
Distantiation can be properly used as a way of putting
distance between yourself and what you SHOULD fly from.
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.
Sublimation should be a redirection of effort to the
sublime.
There are 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.
The means are easier to clarify after the value of the goal
itself is firmly established. Everyone defends his own
treasure. You do not have to tell him to do so, because he
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.
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 man. 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.
It became increasingly apparent that all of the defenses
which man can choose to use constructively OR destructively
were not enough to save him. It was therefore decided that he
needed a defense which was so splendid that he could not
misuse it, although he COULD refuse it. His 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.
The Atonement actually began long before the crucifixion.
Many Souls 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.
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 creative have nothing to
learn. Only after the separation was it necessary to direct
the creative forces to learning, because changed behavior had
become mandatory.
Men 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 Sonship, but the
Sonship Itself is a perfect Creation, and perfection is NOT a
matter of degree. Only while there are different degrees is
learning meaningful. The evolution of man is merely a
process by which he proceeds from one degree to the next. He
corrects his previous missteps by stepping forward. This
represents a process which is actually incomprehensible in
temporal terms, because he RETURNS as he goes forward.
The Atonement is the device by which he can free himself
from the past as he goes ahead. It UNDOES his past errors,
thus making it unnecessary for him to keep retracing his steps
without advancing to his 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 times end. At this point, the
bridge of the return has been built.
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.
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 AND a Son. 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.
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, mans defenses have been used almost entirely
to defend himself 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 mens
minds are engaged arise from the distorted belief that the
body can be used as a means for attaining atonement.
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 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.
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 miscreations 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 man
the one defense against ALL separation mind-errors which can
make him perfectly invulnerable.
The acceptance of the Atonement by everyone is only a
matter of time. In fact, both time AND matter were created 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 manner of its
creation. Free will can temporize, and is capable of enormous
procrastination. But it cannot depart entirely from its
Creator, Who set the limits on its ability to miscreate by
virtue of its own REAL purpose.
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.
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.
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 creative 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.
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 created perfect,
and is entirely worthy of receiving perfection. God IS lonely
without His Souls and THEY are lonely without Him. Men must
learn to perceive the world as a means of HEALING the
separation. The Atonement is the GUARANTEE that they will
ultimately succeed.
Healing as Release from Fear
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.
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 create, and the belief that it CAN, a
fundamental error, produces all physical symptoms.
All physical illness represents a belief in magic. The
whole distortion which created magic rests on the belief that
there is a creative ability in matter which the mind cannot
control. This error can take two forms; it can be believed
that the mind can miscreate IN the body, or that the body can
miscreate in the mind. If it is understood that the mind,
which is the ONLY level of creation, cannot create beyond
itself, neither type of confusion need occur.
The reason only the mind can create is more obvious than
may be immediately apparent. The Soul HAS BEEN created. 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.
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, overevaluated. 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. If one denies this unfortunate aspect of the
minds power, one is also denying the power itself.
All material means which man 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 created its
own illness. It is a second misstep to attempt to heal it
through non-creative agents. It does not follow, however, that
the use of these very weak corrective devices are evil.
Sometimes the illness has a sufficiently great hold over a
mind to render a person 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.
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.
The value of the Atonement does not lie in the 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. 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 is
capable. It DOES mean, however, that it is the highest level
of communication of which he 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.
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
miscreations 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.
It is essential to remember that ONLY the mind can create.
Implicit in this is the corollary that correction belongs at
the THOUGHT level. To repeat an earlier statement and to
extend it somewhat, the Soul 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 created,
but is NOT creating. It should be obvious, then, that
correcting the creator, or inducing it to give up its
miscreations, is the only application of creative ability
which is truly meaningful.
Magic is essentially mindless, or the miscreative 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 miscreation. 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 creations. As long as their sense of
vulnerability persists, they should be preserved from even
attempting miracles.
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 creative act,
the miracle need not await the right-mindedness of the
receiver. In fact, its purpose is to RESTORE him to his right
mind. It is essential, however, that the miracle WORKER be in
his right mind, or he will be unable to reestablish right-
mindedness in someone else.
The healer who relies on his OWN readiness is endangering
his understanding. He is perfectly safe as long as he is
completely unconcerned about HIS 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
(or turned it upside-down). 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 places
himself in a position to recognize that those who need to be
healed are simply those who have not realized that right-
mindedness IS healing.
The SOLE responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept
the Atonement for himself. This means that he recognizes that
mind is the only creative level, and that its errors ARE
healed by the Atonement. Once he accepts this, his mind can
ONLY heal. By denying his mind any destructive potential, and
reinstating its purely constructive powers, he has placed
himself in a position where he can undo the level confusion of
others. The message he then gives to others is the truth that
THEIR minds are similarly constructive, and that THEIR
miscreations cannot hurt them. By affirming this, the miracle
worker releases the mind from overevaluating its own learning
device (the body), and restores the mind to its true position
as the learner.
It should be emphasized again that the body does not learn,
any more than it creates. 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 Soul 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.
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 man is afraid of what his 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 man 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.
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 believes in what his physical sight tells him, ALL
his corrective behavior will be misdirected. The REAL vision
is obscured because man cannot endure to see his own defiled
altar. But since the altar HAS been defiled, his state becomes
doubly dangerous unless it IS perceived.
The fear of healing arises, in the end, from an
unwillingness to accept the unequivocal fact that healing is
necessary. Man is not willing to look on what he has done TO
HIMSELF. Healing is an ability lent to man 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 cannot perceive it
himself.
Most of the loftier concepts of which man 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 man 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 had already gone far beyond his
actual accomplishments in time. Since his own thinking is
faulty he cannot see the Atonement for himself, or he would
have no need for charity. The charity which is accorded him is
both an acknowledgment that he IS weak and a recognition that
he COULD BE stronger.
The way in which both of these perceptions are stated
clearly implies their dependence on time, making it quite
apparent that charity lies within the human 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 offers a miracle to
another, he is shortening the suffering of BOTH. This
introduces a correction into the whole record which corrects
retroactively as well as progressively.
Fear as Lack of Love
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-control can take over everything that does NOT
matter, while Christ-guidance can direct everything that DOES,
if you so choose. Fear cannot be Christ-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.
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.
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 my guidance. Whenever you are afraid, it
is a sure sign that you have allowed your mind to miscreate,
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.
You do not need guidance EXCEPT at the mind level.
Correction belongs ONLY at the level where creation 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 miscreations. 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.
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;
1. 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.
2. You can BEHAVE as you think you should, but without
entirely WILLING to do so. This produces consistent behavior,
but entails great strain WITHIN the self. 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.
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 Gods Will as soon as you recognize that
it is also your OWN.
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.
The Correction for Lack of Love
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:
1. Know first that this is fear.
2. Fear arises from lack of love.
3. The ONLY remedy for lack of love is perfect love.
4. Perfect love is the Atonement. 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 creation. 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.
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 from fear, there [are some]
things he must realize, and realize fully. The mind is a very
powerful [ ___ ] and it never loses its creative force. It
never sleeps. Every instant [it is] creating, and ALWAYS as
you will. Many of your ordinary expressions reflect this. For
example, when you say, Dont 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.
On the other hand, 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 person had thought, he
would not behave as he 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.
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 that he can think whatever he wants without any
REAL effect at all.
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 has no choice
except to ACT upon the thought, or behave CONTRARY to it. He
thus chooses only between homicide and fear. The other
possibility is that he depreciates the power of his 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.
The world is full of examples of how man has depreciated
himself because he is afraid of his 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.
You who constantly complain about fear still persist in
creating 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.
Men 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 miscreation. 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.
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 miscreated us, 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 miscreators because they misperceive creation.
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 contributes. This is the level at which he
can readily introduce fear, and usually does.
When man miscreates he is in pain. The cause and effect
principle here is temporarily a real expeditor. Actually,
Cause is a term properly belonging to God, and Effect,
which should also be capitalized, is His Son. This entails a
set of Cause and Effect relationships which are totally
different from those which man introduced into his own
miscreations. The fundamental opponents in the real basic
conflict are Creation and miscreation. 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.
It has already been said that man believes he CANNOT
control fear because he himself created it. His belief in it
seems to render it out of his 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 man
has placed himself in a strangely illogical position. He
believes in the power of what does not exist.
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 man believes IS true
for him. 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.
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 creation made this necessary
as a corrective device. And God so loved the world that He
gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him
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 His only begotten Son.
It should especially be noted that God has only ONE Son. If
all the Souls God created ARE His Sons, then every Soul MUST
be an integral part of the whole Sonship. 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. The Sonship 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
Sonship have returned. Only then can the meaning of wholeness,
in the true sense, be fully understood.
Any part of the Sonship can believe in error or
incompleteness, if he so elects. However, if he does so, he 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.
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 involved 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.
One of the chief ways in which man can correct his magic-
miracle confusion is to remember that he did not create
himself. He is apt to forget this when he becomes egocentric,
and this places him in a position where the belief in magic in
some form is virtually inevitable. His will to create was
given him by his own Creator, Who was expressing the same Will
in His Creation. Since creative ability rests in the mind,
everything that man creates is necessarily a matter of will.
It also follows that whatever he creates is real in his own
sight, but not necessarily in the Sight of God. This basic
distinction leads us directly into the real meaning of the
Last Judgment.
The Meaning of the Last Judgment
The Last Judgment is one of the greatest threat concepts in
mans perception. This is only because he does not understand
it. Judgment is not an essential attribute of God. Man 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 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.
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.
The Last Judgment is generally thought of as a procedure
undertaken by God. Actually it will be undertaken by man, with
my help. It is a Final Healing, rather than a meting out of
punishment, however much man 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.
The Last Judgment might be called a process of right
evaluation. It simply means that finally all men 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. Man will
ultimately look upon his own creations and will to preserve
only what is good, just as God Himself looked upon what He had
created and knew that it WAS good.
At this point, the will can begin to look with love on its
own creations because of their great worthiness. The mind will
inevitably disown its miscreations which, without the minds
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.
No-one who lives in fear is really alive. His own last
judgment cannot be directed toward himself because he is not
his own creation. He can, however, apply it meaningfully and
at ANY time to everything he has created, and retain in his
memory ONLY what is good. This is what his right-mindedness
cannot BUT dictate. The purpose of time is solely to give
him time to achieve this judgment. It is his own perfect
judgment of his own creations. When everything he retains is
loveable, there IS no reason for fear to remain with him. This
IS his part in the Atonement.
CHAPTER 3
RETRAINING THE MIND
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.
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 many people hold. You will remember
that we said that awe is inappropriate in connection with the
Sons 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 Creator. 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.
Some of the later steps in this course, however, DO involve
a more direct approach to God Himself. 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 that 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.
Special Principles for Miracle Workers
1. 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. Clear distinction between what HAS BEEN created and what
IS BEING created is essential. ALL forms of correction (or
healing) rest on this FUNDAMENTAL correction in level
perception.
3. Another way of stating the above point is: Never
confuse right with wrong-mindedness. Responding to ANY form of
miscreation with anything EXCEPT A DESIRE TO HEAL (or a
miracle) is an expression of this confusion.
4. The miracle is always a DENIAL of this error and an
affirmation of the truth. Only right-mindedness CAN create 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. 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. Miraculous forgiveness is ONLY correction. It has NO
element of judgment at all. Father 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 misthought. THAT
does not matter.
7. 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.
Atonement without Sacrifice
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
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 his Sons to suffer BECAUSE he was good. Many ministers
preach this every day.
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 Himself would
be capable of the kind of thinking which His own words have
clearly stated is unworthy of man?
The best defense, as always, is not to attack anothers
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 Himself persecuted
His own Son on behalf of salvation. The very words are
meaningless.
It has been particularly difficult to overcome this
because, although the error itself is no harder to overcome
than any other error, men 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
Father 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.
Vengeance is Mine sayeth the Lord is a strictly karmic
viewpoint. It is a real misperception of truth, by which man
assigns his own evil past to God. The evil conscience
from the past has nothing to do with God. He did not create it
and He does not maintain it. God does NOT believe in karmic
retribution. His Divine Mind does not create that way. HE does
not hold the evil deeds of a man even against himself. Is it
likely, then, that He would hold against anyone the evil that
ANOTHER did?
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 man,
and forced him 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 man is
very inventive when it comes to twisting symbols around.
God Himself is NOT symbolic; He is FACT. The Atonement,
too, is totally without symbolism. It is perfectly clear
because it exists in light. Only mans 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.
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. Man is released from
ALL errors if he 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 many smaller lessons.
NOTHING can prevail against a Son of God who commends his
Spirit into the hands of his Father. By doing this, the mind
awakens from its sleep and remembers its Creator. All sense of
separation disappears, and level confusion vanishes. The Son
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 creates perfect
integration and establishes the peace of God. Yet this Vision
can be perceived only by the truly innocent.
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 He shall appear (or be
perceived) we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He
IS.
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 clearcut violation of Gods Own injunction
that man should be merciful even as his Father in Heaven. It
has been hard for many Christians to realize that this
commandment (or assignment) also applies to THEMSELVES. Good
teachers never terrorize their students. To terrorize is to
attack, and this results in rejection of what the teacher
offers. The result is learning failure.
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 my 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.
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.
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
man, 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 His Son. In this state, mans mind DOES see God in the
sense that he sees Him as He is, and realizes that the
Atonement, NOT sacrifice, is the ONLY appropriate gift to His
Own altar, where nothing except true perfection belongs. The
understanding of the innocent is TRUTH. That is why their
altars are truly radiant.
Miracles as Accurate Perception
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.
A firm commitment to darkness or nothingness is impossible.
No-one has ever lived who has not experienced SOME light and
SOME thing. This makes everyone really unable to deny truth
totally, even if he generally deceives himself 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.
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 is
not in his right mind. This is hardly a miracle-based frame of
reference. It also has the disastrous effect of denying the
creative power of the miracle.
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 many times
that ONLY what God creates, or what man creates 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.
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 cancelling 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.
Perception versus Knowledge
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
The Bible instructs you to KNOW yourself, or BE
CERTAIN. Certainty is ALWAYS of God. When you love someone,
you have perceived him as he is, and this makes it possible
for you to KNOW him. However, it is not until you RECOGNIZE
him that you CAN know him. While you ask questions about God,
you are clearly implying that you do NOT know Him. 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
creative 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.
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 a stranger by
misperceiving him, so that you CANNOT know him. It is BECAUSE
you have made him a stranger that you are afraid of him.
PERCEIVE him correctly so that you can KNOW him. Right
perception is necessary before God can communicate directly to
His own altars, which He has established in His Sons. There He
can communicate His certainty, and HIS knowledge will bring
peace WITHOUT question.
God is not a stranger to His Sons, and His Sons 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 was I AM. Perception can and must
be stabilized, but knowledge IS stable. Fear God and keep
his commandments should read KNOW God and accept His
certainty. There are no strangers in His Creation. To create
as He created, you can create only what you KNOW and accept as
yours. God knows His Children with perfect certainty. He
created them BY knowing them. He recognized them perfectly.
When they do not recognize each other, they do not recognize
Him.
Conflict and the Ego
The abilities man now possesses are only shadows of his
real strengths. All of his functions are equivocal and open to
question or doubt. This is because he is not certain how he
will USE them. He is therefore incapable of knowledge, being
uncertain. He is also incapable of knowledge because he can
perceive lovelessly. He cannot create surely because his
perception deceives. Perception did not exist until the
separation had introduced degrees, aspects and intervals. The
Soul has no levels, and ALL conflict arises from the concept
of levels. Only the Levels of the Trinity are capable of
Unity. The levels which man created by the separation cannot
BUT conflict. This is because they are essentially meaningless
to each other.
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 MY 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.
Consciousness was the first split that man introduced into
himself. He became a PERCEIVER, rather than a creator in the
true sense. Consciousness is correctly identified as the
domain of the ego. The ego is a man-made attempt to perceive
himself as he WISHED to be, rather than as he IS. This is an
example of the created-creator confusion we have spoken of
before. Yet man can only KNOW himself as he IS because that is
all he can be SURE of. Everything else IS open to question.
The ego is the questioning compartment in the post-
separation psyche which man created for himself. 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.
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. Man has every reason to
feel afraid, as he perceives himself. This is why he cannot
escape from fear until he KNOWS that he did not and could not
create himself. He can NEVER make his misperceptions valid.
His creation is beyond his own error, and that is why he must
eventually choose to heal the separation.
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 perceives
himself.
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 Souls service, where perception is meaningless. The
superconscious is the level of the mind which wills this.
The mind chose to divide itself when it willed to create
both its own levels AND the ability to perceive, but it could
not entirely separate itself from the Soul because it is FROM
the Soul that it derives its whole power to create. Even in
miscreation will is affirming its source, or it would merely
cease to be. This is impossible because it is part of the
Soul, which God created and which is therefore eternal.
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 creation, then
permitted man to interpret the body as HIMSELF, which, though
depressing, was an attempt to escape from the conflict he 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.
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 perceives as its attack is merely
his own vague recognition of the fact that it can always be
REMEMBERED, never having been destroyed.
God and the Souls He created remain in surety, and
therefore KNOW that no miscreation exists. Truth cannot deal
with unwilling error, because it does not will to be blocked
out. I was a man who remembered the Soul 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 Creator, I
naturally remembered the Soul and its own real purpose.
I cannot unite your will with Gods FOR you, but I CAN
erase all misperceptions from your mind if you will bring it
under my 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.
The chosen ones are merely those who choose right
SOONER. This is the real meaning of the celestial speed-up.
Strong wills can do this NOW, and you WILL find rest for your
Souls. God knows you only in peace, and this IS your reality.
The Loss of Certainty
We said before that the abilities which man possesses are
only shadows of his 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 my will with
the Fathers. We can now make a distinction which will greatly
facilitate clarity in our subsequent statements.
Since the separation, the words create 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.
The confusion between your own creation and what YOU create
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 created them. In this sense, when
their behavior is unstable they are DISAGREEING with Gods
Idea of the Creation. Man can do this if he chooses, but he
would hardly WANT to do it if he were in his right mind. The
problem that bothers you most is the fundamental question
which man continually asks of himself, but which cannot
properly be directed to himself at all. He keeps asking
himself what he IS. This implies that the answer is not only
one which he knows, but is also one which is up to him to
supply.
Man CANNOT perceive himself correctly. He has no image. The
word image is always perception-related, and NOT a product
of learning. 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 mans attempt to regard himself 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.
Methodologically mans mind has been very creative, but, as
always occurs when method and content are separated, it has
not been utilized for anything but an attempt to escape a
fundamental and entirely inescapable impasse. This kind of
thinking cannot result in a creative outcome, although it has
resulted in considerable ingenuity. It is noteworthy, however,
that this ingenuity has almost totally divorced him from
knowledge. Knowledge does not REQUIRE ingenuity. 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.
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, man placed himself in a position
where he could resemble his Father ONLY by miraculously
perceiving. He has lost the knowledge that he HIMSELF is a
miracle. Miraculous creation was his Source, and also his real
function.
God created man in his Own image and likeness is
correct in meaning, but the words are open to considerable
misinterpretation. This is avoided, however, if image is
understood to mean thought and likeness is taken as
of a like quality. God DID create the Soul in His Own
Thought, and of a quality like to His 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.
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 Gods Miracle is to know Him.
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 Soul knows God
completely. That IS the miraculous power of the Soul. 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. Gods Miracles are as total
as His Thoughts because they ARE His Thoughts.
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 His Miracles ARE inseparable. How beautiful
indeed are the Thoughts of God Who live in His Light! Your
worth is beyond perception because it is beyond doubt. Do not
perceive yourself in different lights. KNOW yourself in the
One Light where the miracle that is you is perfectly clear.
Judgment and the Authority Problem
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.
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 suffers is the belief that
what he judged against has no effect. This cannot be true
unless he also believes that what he judged against does not
exist. He evidently does NOT believe this, or he 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.
You have no idea of the tremendous release and deep peace
that comes from meeting yourselves and your brothers totally
without judgment. When you recognize what you and your
brothers 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.
Man is very fearful of everything he has perceived but has
refused to accept. He believes that, because he has refused to
accept it, he has lost control over it. This is why he sees it
in nightmares, or in pleasant disguises in what seem to be his
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.
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 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.
Yet, if you wish to be the author of reality, which is
totally impossible anyway, you WILL insist on holding on to
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 believes he is the author of himself,
projects his delusion onto others, and then perceives the
situation as one in which people are literally fighting him
for his authorship. This is the fundamental error of all those
who believe they have usurped the power of God.
The belief is very frightening to THEM, but hardly troubles
God. He is, however, eager to undo it, NOT to punish His
children, but ONLY because He knows that it makes them
unhappy. Souls were GIVEN their true Authorship, but men
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 believe that their creation was
anonymous. This has left them in a position where it SOUNDS
meaningful to consider the possibility that they must have
created themselves.
The dispute over authorship has left such uncertainty in
the minds of men 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 created themselves. At least it acknowledges the
fact that SOME true authorship is necessary for existence.
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.
Peace is a natural heritage of the Soul. Everyone is free
to refuse to ACCEPT his inheritance, but he is NOT free to
establish what his 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 Him. To deny His 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.
There is no man who does not feel that he is imprisoned in
some way. If this is the result of his own free will, he must
regard his will as if it were NOT free, or the obviously
circular reasoning involved in his 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 Kingdom of
Heaven say, WILL ye first the Kingdom of Heaven, and you
have said, I know what I am, and I will to accept my own
inheritance.
Creating versus the Self-Image
Every system of thought must have a starting point. It
begins with either a making or a creating, 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
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.
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
is thought of as extremely powerful and extremely active. He
is perceived as a force in combat with God, battling Him for
possession of the Souls He created. He deceives by lies, and
builds kingdoms of his own, in which everything is in direct
opposition to God. Yet he ATTRACTS men rather than repels
them, and they are seen as willing to sell him their Souls
in return for gifts they RECOGNIZE are of no real worth.
This makes absolutely no sense. The whole picture is one in
which man acts in a way he HIMSELF realizes is self-
destructive, but which he does not choose to correct, and
therefore perceives the cause as beyond his 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.
The fruit of only ONE tree was forbidden to man in his
symbolic garden. But GOD could not have forbidden it, or it
could not have BEEN eaten. If God knows His children, and I
assure you that He does, would He 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
created knowledge, and gave it freely to His creations. The
symbolism here has been given many interpretations, but you
may be sure that ANY interpretation which sees either God OR
His creations as capable of destroying their own Purpose is in
error.
Eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge is a symbolic
expression for incorporating into the self the ability for
self-creating. This is the ONLY sense in which God and His
Souls are NOT co-creators. 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
create an IMAGE of itself. Its fear aspect is often ascribed
to fear of retaliation by a father figure, a particularly
curious idea in view of the fact that no-one uses the term to
refer to the physical father. It refers to an IMAGE of a
father in relation to an IMAGE of the self.
Images are perceived, NOT known. Knowledge cannot deceive,
but perception CAN. Man can perceive himself as self-creating,
but he cannot do more than BELIEVE it. He 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 creation. Your minds are split with your
Souls on this point, and there is NO resolution while you
believe the one thing that is literally inconceivable. That is
why you CANNOT create, and are filled with fear about what you
make.
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 His Fatherhood. 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.
Your creation 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 Souls 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.
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 can NOT. Only the Oneness of knowledge is conflictless.
Your kingdom 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
Kingdom was created, and for whom it waits.
CHAPTER 4
THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL
The Bible says that you should go with a brother twice as
far as he asks. It certainly does not suggest that you set him
back on his journey. Devotion to a brother 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 Soul. The truly
inspired are enlightened, and cannot abide in darkness.
You can speak from the Soul or from the ego, precisely as
you choose. If you speak from the Soul, 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 Soul cannot embark on them because it is forever unwilling
to depart from its Foundation.
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 re-enacts 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.
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.
Right Teaching and Right Learning
We have spoken of 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 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 Soul
cannot understand at all, because its Supply is always
abundant and all its demands are fully met.
Every symptom which the ego has made involves a
contradiction in terms. This is because the mind is split
between the ego and the Soul, so that WHATEVER the ego makes
is incomplete and contradictory. 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.
A good teacher clarifies his own ideas, and strengthens
them by teaching them. Teacher 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 must believe in the ideas which he professes, but
he must meet another condition; he must also believe in the
students to whom he offers his 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.
You believe that, if you allow no change to enter into your
ego, your Soul will find peace. This profound confusion is
possible only if one maintains that the same thought system
can stand on two foundations. NOTHING can reach the Soul from
the ego, and nothing FROM the Soul can strengthen the ego, or
reduce the conflict within it. The ego IS a contradiction.
Mans self and Gods Self ARE in opposition. They are opposed
in creation, in will, and in outcome. They are fundamentally
irreconcilable because the Soul cannot perceive and the ego
cannot know. They are therefore NOT IN COMMUNICATION, and can
never BE in communication. Nevertheless, the ego can learn
because its maker can be misguided, but CANNOT make the
totally lifeless out of the life-given. The Soul need not be
taught, but the ego MUST.
The ultimate reason why learning is perceived as
frightening is because learning DOES lead to the
relinquishment (NOT destruction) of the ego to the Light of
the Soul. This is the change the ego MUST fear because it does
not share my charity. My lesson was like yours, and because I
learned it I can teach it. I never attack your egos, but I DO
try to teach you how their thought system arose. When I remind
you of your TRUE creation, your egos cannot BUT respond with
fear.
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 dream while he 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.
If you are willing to renounce the role of guardian of your
thought system and open it to me, I will correct it very
gently and lead you home. Every good teacher hopes to give his
students so much of his own thinking that they will one day no
longer need him. This is the one real goal of the parent,
teacher and therapist. This goal will not be achieved by those
who believe that they will LOSE their child or pupil or
patient if they succeed. It is IMPOSSIBLE to convince the ego
of this because it goes against all of its own laws. But
remember that laws are set up to protect the continuity of the
system in which the law-maker BELIEVES.
It is natural enough for the ego to try to protect itself,
once you have made it, but it is NOT natural for YOU to want
to obey its laws unless YOU believe in them. The ego cannot
make this choice because of the nature of its origin. YOU can
because of the nature of YOURS. Egos can clash in any
situation, but Souls cannot clash at all. If you perceive a
teacher as merely a larger ego, you WILL be afraid, because
to ENLARGE an ego IS to increase separation anxiety. I will
teach with you and live with you if you will think with me,
but my goal will always be to absolve you finally from the
NEED for a teacher.
This is the OPPOSITE of the ego-oriented teachers goal. He
is concerned with the effect of HIS 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.
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 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 create it. Your Soul is never at stake because He DID.
ANY confusion on this point is a delusion and no form of
devotion is possible as long as this delusion lasts.
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 Soul. When you are
afraid, be still and KNOW that God is real and YOU are His
beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. Do not let your ego
dispute this, because the ego cannot know what is as far
beyond its reach as you are.
God is NOT the author of fear. YOU are. You have chosen,
therefore, to create unlike Him, and you have made fear for
yourselves. You are not at peace because you are not
fulfilling your function. God gave you a very lofty
responsibility which you are not meeting. You KNOW this, and
you are afraid. 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
believableness is merely to postpone the inevitable.
The word inevitable is fearful to the ego, but joyous
to the Soul. God IS inevitable, and you CANNOT avoid Him any
more that He can avoid YOU. The ego is afraid of the Souls
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 Souls He created.
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 His creations, who have chosen to leave it empty
by their own dispossession. Yet His 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 creating the
perishable as the ego is of making the eternal.
Of your egos you can do nothing to save yourselves or
others, but of your Souls you can do everything for the
salvation of both. Humility is a lesson for the ego, NOT for
the Soul. The Soul is beyond humility because it recognizes
its radiance, and gladly sheds its light everywhere. The meek
shall inherit the earth because their egos are humble and this
gives them better perception. The Kingdom of Heaven is the
RIGHT of the Soul, whose beauty and dignity are far beyond
doubt, beyond perception, and stand forever as the mark of the
Love of God for His creations, who are wholly worthy of Him
and ONLY of Him. Nothing else is sufficiently worthy to be a
gift for a creation of God Himself.
I will substitute for your ego if you wish, but NEVER for
your Soul. A father can safely leave a child with an elder
brother who has shown himself responsible, but this involves
no confusion about the childs origin. The brother can protect
the childs body and his ego, which are VERY closely related,
but he does not confuse HIMSELF with the father because he
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.
Let us undertake to learn this lesson together, so we can
be free of them together. I need devoted teachers who share my
aim of healing the mind. The Soul is far beyond the need of
your protection OR mine. Remember this:
In this world you NEED not have tribulation BECAUSE I have
overcome the world.
THAT is why you should be of good cheer.
The Ego and False Autonomy
You have asked lately how the mind 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 an historical answer because the past does not matter
in human terms, and history would not exist if the same errors
were not being repeated in the present. 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.
Each man makes one ego for himself, although it is subject
to enormous variation because of its instability, and one for
everyone he perceives, which is equally variable. Their
interaction is a process which literally alters both, because
they were not made either BY or WITH the unalterable. It is
particularly important to realize that this alteration can and
does occur as readily when the interaction takes place IN THE
MIND as when it involves physical presence. THINKING about
another ego is as effective in changing relative perception as
is physical interaction. There could be no better example of
the fact that the ego is an idea, though not a reality-based
thought.
Your own present state is a good example of how the mind
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 am using your present state of how the mind 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?
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 regards as a very real part of himself. Man
reacts to his ego much as God does to His Souls; with love,
protection and great charity. The reaction of man to the self
he made is not at all surprising. In fact it duplicates, in
many ways, how he will one day react to his REAL creations,
which are as timeless as he is. The question is not HOW man
responds to his ego, but what he believes he IS.
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. 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 egos 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 scissors,
even though they may well harm themselves if you do not. The
speed-up has placed you in the same position.
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.
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 Freuds reality principle, since Freud thought of the
ego as very weak and deprived, capable of functioning ONLY as
a thing in need.
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 egos reality is threatened. This produces
either ego deflation or ego inflation, resulting in either
withdrawal or attack.
The ego literally lives by comparisons. This means that
equality is beyond its grasp, and charity becomes impossible.
The ego NEVER gives out of abundance, because it was made as a
SUBSTITUTE for it. That is why the concept of getting arose
in the egos thought system. All appetites are getting
mechanisms, representing the egos 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.
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 Souls acknowledgement, and
thus to establish its own existence, are utterly useless.
The Soul 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 Soul, 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 creations of God do not create myths, although
the creative efforts of man CAN turn to mythology. It can do
so, however, only under one condition; what man then makes is
no longer creative. 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.
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 egos 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 Soul
existed before and will continue to exist afterwards, after a
temporary lapse in ego life. Some actually believe that the
Soul will be punished for this lapse, even though in reality,
it could not possibly know anything about it.
The term salvation does NOT apply to the Soul, which is
not in danger, and does not need to be salvaged. Salvation is
nothing more than right-mindedness, which is not the One-
Mindedness of the Soul, but which must be accomplished before
the 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.
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.
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.
Confusing realms of discourse is a thinking error which
philosophers have recognized for centuries. Psychologists are
generally quite deficient in this respect, as are many
theologians. Data from one realm of discourse do not mean
anything in another because they can be understood only WITHIN
the thought 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.
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 creativeness. 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 Gods creations.
Love without Conflict
You have never understood what the Kingdom of Heaven 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 Kingdom of
Heaven IS you. What else BUT you did the Creator create, and
what else BUT you is His Kingdom? This is the whole message of
the Atonement, a message, which, in its totality, transcends
the sum of its parts. Christmas is not a time; it is a state
of mind. The Christ Mind wills from the Soul, NOT from the
ego, and the Christ Mind IS yours.
You, too, have a kingdom which your Soul created. It has
NOT ceased to create because your ego has set you on the road
of perception. Your Souls creations are no more fatherless
than YOU are. Your ego and your Soul will never be co-
creators, but your Soul and YOUR Creator will ALWAYS be. Be
confident that your creations are as safe as you are.
The Kingdom is perfectly united and perfectly protected
and the ego will NOT prevail against it, Amen.
That was written in that form because it is a good thing to
use as a kind of a prayer in moments of temptation. It is a
Declaration of Independence. You will find it very helpful if
you understand it fully.
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.
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
Himself can hardly be equated with the pull of human
appetites. By perceiving them AS the same, the ego attempts to
save itself from being swept away, as it would surely BE in
the presence of knowledge.
The upper level of the unconscious thus contains the Call
of God as well as the call of the body. That is why the basic
conflict between love and fear is unconscious; the ego cannot
tolerate either, and represses both by resorting to
inhibition. Society depends on inhibiting the 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.
It should be apparent to you by now why the ego regards the
Soul as its enemy. The ego arose from the separation, and
its continued existence depends on YOUR continuing belief in
the separation. Having reduced the Soul impulses to the
unconscious, the ego has to offer you some sort of reward for
maintaining this belief. All it CAN offer is a sense of
temporary existence, which begins with its OWN beginning and
ends with its OWN ending. It tells you this life is YOUR
existence because it IS its own. Against this sense of
temporary existence the Soul 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?
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
Father, the ego has no allegiance to its own maker. You cannot
conceive of the real relationship which exists between God and
His Souls because of the hatred you have for the self YOU have
made. You project onto your OWN idea of yourself the will to
separate, which conflicts with the love you 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.
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 egos 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 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.
No force except your own will is strong enough or worthy
enough to guide you. In this you are as free as God, and must
remain so forever. You can never be bound except in honor, and
that is always voluntary. Let us ask the Father in my name to
keep you mindful of His Love for you and yours for Him. He has
never failed to answer this request because it asks only for
what He has already willed. Those who call truly are ALWAYS
answered. Thou shalt have no other gods before Him because
there ARE none.
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 Father
created 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.
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 He has come you will be ready to help me make other minds
ready for Him. How long will you deny Him His Kingdom?
In your own unconscious, deeply repressed by the ego, is
the declaration of your release. GOD HAS GIVEN YOU EVERYTHING.
This is the one fact that means the ego does not exist, and
which therefore makes it profoundly afraid. In the egos
language, remember, to have and to be are different,
but they are identical to the Soul. The Soul knows that you
both HAVE everything and ARE everything. Any distinction in
this respect is meaningful only when the idea of getting,
which implies a lack, has ALREADY been accepted. That is why
we made no distinction before between HAVING the Kingdom of
God and BEING the Kingdom of God.
The calm being of Gods Kingdom, which in your sane mind is
perfectly conscious, is ruthlessly banished from the part of
the mind which the ego rules. The ego is desperate because it
opposes literally invincible odds, whether you are asleep or
awake. Consider how much vigilance you have been willing to
exert to protect your ego, and how little you have been
willing to 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?
The Escape from Fear
If you cannot hear the Voice of God, it is because you do
not choose to listen. The fact that you DO listen to the voice
of your ego is demonstrated by your attitudes, your feelings
and your behavior. Your attitudes are obviously conflicted,
your feelings have a narrow range on the negative side but are
never purely joyous, and your behavior is either strained or
unpredictable. Yet this is what you WANT. This is what you are
fighting to keep and what you are vigilant to save. Your minds
are filled with schemes to save the face of your egos, and you
do not seek the Face of God. The glass in which the ego seeks
to see its face is dark indeed. How can it maintain the trick
of its existence except with mirrors? But where YOU look to
find yourself is up to you.
We have said that you cannot change your mind by changing
your behavior, but we have also said, and many times before,
that you CAN change your mind. When your mood tells you that
you have 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 Soul that God created, and are
perceiving images your ego makes in a darkened glass. Think
honestly what you have thought that God would NOT have
thought, and what you have NOT thought that God would have you
think. Search sincerely for what you have done and left undone
accordingly, and then change your minds TO THINK WITH GODS.
This may seem hard to you, but it is much easier than
trying to think AGAINST It. Your mind IS one with Gods.
Denying this and thinking otherwise has held your ego
together, but has literally split your mind. As a loving
brother, I am deeply concerned with your mind, and urge you to
follow my example as you look at yourselves and at each other,
and see in both the glorious creations of a glorious Father.
When you are sad, KNOW THAT THIS NEED NOT BE. Depression
ALWAYS arises ultimately from a sense of being deprived of
something you want and do not have. KNOW you are deprived of
nothing except by your own decisions, and then decide
otherwise.
When you are anxious, KNOW that all anxiety comes from the
capriciousness of the ego, AND NEED NOT BE. You can be as
vigilant AGAINST the egos dictates as FOR them.
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.
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.
The habit of engaging WITH God and His creations 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 many opportunities you have to
gladden yourselves, and how many of them you have refused?
There is no limit to the power of a Son of God, but he himself
can limit the expression of his power as much as he chooses.
Your mind and mine can unite in shining your ego away, and
releasing the strength of God into everything you think and
will and do. Do 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.
You are mirrors of truth in which God Himself shines in
perfect Light. To the egos 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. His Mind shone on you in your
creation and brought YOUR mind into being. His Mind still
shines on you, and must shine THROUGH you. Your ego cannot
prevent HIM from shining on you, but it CAN prevent you from
letting Him shine THROUGH you.
The first coming of Christ is just another name for the
creation, for Christ is the Son of God. The SECOND coming of
Christ means nothing more than the end of the egos rule over
part of the minds of men, and the healing of the mind. I was
created 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.
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 that YOU
are. That knowledge, and I assure you that it IS knowledge,
means that Christ 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 mine, and
together we are invincible.
You will yet come together in my name and your sanity will
be restored. I raised the dead by KNOWING that life is an
eternal attribute of everything that the living God created.
Why do you believe 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.
The Ego-Body Illusion
ALL things work together for good. There are NO exceptions
except in the egos 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.
A major source of the egos 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 egos 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.
The body is the egos home by its own election. It is the
only identification with which the ego feels safe because the
bodys 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.
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 minds
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.
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.
Indeed, many of the things you want to learn are chosen
BECAUSE their value will not last. The ego thinks it is an
advantage not to commit itself to ANYTHING that is eternal
because the eternal MUST come from God. Eternalness is the one
function 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 creator. 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.
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 egos
characteristic busyness with non-essentials is for precisely
that purpose.
Consider the alchemists age-old attempts to turn base
metal into gold. The one question which the alchemist did not
permit himself to ask was, What FOR? He could not ask this,
because it would immediately become apparent that there was no
sense in his efforts even if he succeeded. If gold became more
plentiful its value would decrease, and his own purpose would
be defeated. The ego has countenanced some strange compromises
with the idea of the eternal, making 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.
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?
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.
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 psychologists ability to accept as reasonable
a compromise which is clearly senseless; to attribute it to
the mental illness of the patient, rather than his own, and to
limit his questions about both the patient AND himself to the
trivial.
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 mind, because you are also
accepting these limits for YOURS. This makes you unable to
heal him AND yourselves. Be always unwilling to adapt to ANY
situation in which miracle-mindedness is unthinkable. That
state in itself is enough to demonstrate that the perception
is wrong.
The Constant State
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?
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 comparisons. 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.
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. 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.
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 disassociate. 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.
The term holy can be used here because, as you learn
how much you ARE indebted to the whole Sonship, which INCLUDES
me, you come as close to knowledge as perception ever can. 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.
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.
You CANNOT escape from the ego by humbling it or
controlling it or punishing it. Remember that the ego and the
Soul DO NOT KNOW each other. The separated mind cannot
maintain the separation EXCEPT by dissociating. Having done
this, it utilizes repression against all truly natural
impulses, not because the EGO is a separate thing, but because
you want to believe that YOU are. The ego is a device for
maintaining this belief, but it is still only your willingness
to use the device that enables it to endure.
My trust in you is greater than yours in me at the moment,
but it will not always be that way. Your mission is very
simple. You have been chosen to live so as to demonstrate that
you are NOT an ego. I repeat that I do not choose Gods
channels wrongly. The Holy One shares my trust, and always
approves my Atonement decisions because my will is never out
of accord with His. I have told you before that I am in charge
of the whole Atonement. This is ONLY because I completed my
part in it as a man, and can now complete it through other
men. My chosen receiving and sending channels cannot fail
because I will lend them MY strength as long as theirs is
wanting.
I will go with you to the Holy One, and through MY
perception HE can bridge the little gap. Your gratitude to
EACH OTHER is the only gift I want. I will bring it to God for
you, knowing that to know your brother IS to know God. A
little knowledge is an all-encompassing thing. If you are
grateful to each other, you are grateful to God for what He
created. Through your gratitude you can come to know each
other, and one moment of real recognition makes all men your
brothers, because they are all of your Father. Love does not
conquer all things, but it DOES set all things right. Because
you are all the Kingdom of God, I can lead you back to your
own creations, which you do not yet know. What has been
dissociated is still there.
As you come closer to a brother you DO approach me, and as
you withdraw from him, I become distant to you. Your giant
step forward was to insist on a collaborative venture. This
does not go against the true spirit of meditation; it is
inherent in it. Meditation is a collaborative venture with
God. It CANNOT be undertaken successfully by those who
disengage themselves from the Sonship, because they are
disengaging themselves from me. God will come to you ONLY as
you will give Him to your brothers. Learn first of them, and
you will be ready to hear God as you hear them. That is
because the function of love is one.
How can you teach someone the value of something he has
deliberately thrown away? He must have thrown it away because
he did not value it. You can only show him how miserable he is
without it, and bring it near very slowly, so he can learn how
his misery lessens as he approaches it. This conditions him to
associate his misery with its absence, and to associate the
opposite of misery with its presence. It gradually becomes
desirable, as he changes his mind about its worth.
I am conditioning you to associate misery with the ego and
joy with the Soul. 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?
Creation and Communication
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.
Everything the ego perceives is a separate whole, without
the relationships that imply BEING. The ego is thus AGAINST
communication, except in so far as it is utilized to ESTABLISH
separateness rather than to abolish it. The communication
system of the ego is based on its own thought system, as is
everything else it dictates. Its communication is controlled
by its need to protect itself, and it will disrupt
communication when it experiences threat. While this is always
so, individual egos perceive different kinds of threat, which
are quite specific in their own judgment. For example,
although all forms of perceived demands may be classified, or
judged, by the ego as coercive communication which must be
disrupted, the response of breaking communication will
nevertheless be to a SPECIFIC person or persons.
The specificity of the egos thinking, then, results in a
spurious kind of generalization which is really not abstract
at all. It will respond in certain specific ways to ALL
stimuli which it perceives as related. In contrast, the Soul
reacts in the same way to everything it knows is true, and
does not respond at all to anything else. Nor does it make any
attempt to ESTABLISH what is true. It knows that what is true
is everything that God created. It is in complete and direct
communication with every aspect of creation because it is in
complete and direct communication with its Creator.
THIS communication IS the Will of God. Creation and
communication are synonymous. God created every mind by
communicating His Mind to it, thus establishing it forever as
a channel for the reception of His Mind and Will. Since only
beings of a like order can truly communicate, His creations
naturally communicate WITH Him and LIKE Him. This
communication is perfectly abstract in that its quality is
universal in application, and not subject to ANY judgment, ANY
exception, or ANY alteration. God created 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.
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 Soul. To whatever extent you permit this state
to be curtailed, you are limiting your sense of your OWN
reality, which becomes total only by 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.
God, Who encompasses ALL being, nevertheless created 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 Himself created you. Divine
Abstraction takes joy in application, and that is what
creation MEANS. How, what and to whom are irrelevant
because real creation gives everything, since it can create
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.
The Bible repeatedly states that you should praise God.
This hardly means that you should tell Him how wonderful He
is. He has no ego with which to accept such thanks, and no
perception with which to judge such offerings. But unless you
take your part in the creation, His joy is not complete
because YOURS is incomplete. And THIS He does know. He knows
it in His own Being and Its experience of His Sons
experience. The constant GOING OUT of His Love is blocked when
His channels are closed, and He IS lonely when the minds He
created do not communicate fully with Him.
God HAS kept your kingdom for you, but He cannot share His
joy with you until you know it with your whole mind. Even
revelation is not enough, because it is communication FROM
God. It is not enough until it is SHARED. God does not need
revelation returned to Him, which would clearly be impossible,
but He DOES want revelation brought to others. This cannot be
done with the actual revelation because its content cannot be
expressed, and it is intensely personal to the mind which
receives it. It can, however, still be returned BY that mind
through its attitudes to OTHER minds which the knowledge from
the revelation brings.
God is praised whenever any mind learns to be wholly
helpful. This is impossible without being wholly harmless
because the two beliefs coexist. The truly helpful are
invulnerable because they are NOT protecting their egos, so
that nothing CAN hurt them. Their helpfulness IS their praise
of God, and He will return their praise of Him because they
are like Him, and they can rejoice together. God goes out to
them and through them, and there is great joy throughout the
Kingdom. Every mind that is changed adds to this joy with its
own individual willingness to share in it. The truly helpful
are Gods miracle workers, whom I direct until we are all
united in the joy of the Kingdom. I will direct you to
wherever you can be truly helpful, and to whoever can follow
my guidance through you.
True Rehabilitation
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 egos
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.
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.
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 He Himself knows praise. He 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 egos 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:
I am here ONLY to be truly helpful.
I am here to represent Christ, Who sent me.
I do NOT have to worry about what to say or what to
do
because He Who sent me will direct me.
I am content to be wherever He wishes,
knowing He goes there with me.
I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal.
CHAPTER 5
HEALING AND WHOLENESS
To heal is to make happy. I have told you before to think
how many opportunities you have to gladden yourselves, and how
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
minds natural impulse TO RESPOND AS ONE.
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 Sonship the healing is
done. EVERY part benefits, and benefits equally.
YOU are being blessed by every beneficent thought of any of
your brothers 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 Sonship, and returns thanks to the
Father for radiating His joy upon it. Only Gods holy children
are worthy to be channels of His 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 neighbor EXCEPT as
himself. That is why the healers prayer is:
Let me know this brother as I know myself.
Healing as Joining
Healing is an act of thought by which two minds perceive
their oneness and become glad. This gladness calls to every
part of the Sonship to rejoice with them, and lets God Himself
go out into them and through them. Only the healed mind can
experience revelation with lasting effect because revelation
is an experience of pure joy. If you do not choose to be
wholly joyous, your mind cannot HAVE what it does not choose
to BE. Remember that the Soul knows no difference between
being and having. The higher mind thinks according to
the laws which the Soul obeys, and therefore honors only the
laws of God. To Him, getting is meaningless and giving is all.
Having everything, the Soul HOLDS everything BY giving it, and
thus creates as the Father created.
If you think about it, you will see that, while this kind
of thinking is totally alien to having THINGS, even to the
lower mind it is quite comprehensible in connection with
IDEAS. If you share a physical possession, you DO divide its
ownership. 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 person to whom you give it accepts
it as HIS, he reinforces it in YOUR mind, and thus INCREASES
it. If you can accept the concept that the world IS one of
ideas, the whole belief in the false association which the ego
makes between giving and LOSING is gone.
Let us start our process of re-awakening with just a few
simple concepts:
Thoughts INCREASE by being given away.
The more who believe in them, the STRONGER they
become.
EVERYTHING is an idea.
How, then, is it possible that giving and losing CAN
be meaningfully associated?
This is the invitation to the Holy Spirit. I told you that
I could reach up and bring the Holy Spirit down to you, but I
can bring Him to you ONLY at your own invitation. The Holy
Spirit is nothing more than your own right mind. He was also
mine. The Bible says, May the mind be in you that was also
in Christ Jesus, and uses this as a BLESSING. It is the
blessing of miracle-mindedness. It asks that you may think as
I thought, joining with me in Christ-thinking.
The Holy Spirit is the only part of the Holy Trinity which
is symbolic. He is referred to in the Bible as the Healer, the
Comforter, and the Guide. He is also described as something
separate, apart from the Father and from the Son. I myself
said, If I go I will send you another comforter, and He will
abide with you. The Holy Spirit is a difficult concept to
grasp precisely because it IS symbolic, and therefore open to
many different interpretations. As a man and as one of Gods
creations, my right thinking, which came from the Universal
Inspiration which IS the Holy Spirit, taught me first and
foremost that this Inspiration is for all. I could not have It
myself WITHOUT knowing this.
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 Himself can flow across the little gap.
Knowledge is always ready to flow everywhere, but it cannot
oppose. Therefore, you can obstruct it, although you can never
lose it. The Holy Spirit is the Christ Mind 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.
The Mind of the Atonement
God honored even the miscreations of His Children because
they had made them, but He also blessed them with a way of
thinking that could raise their perceptions until they became
so lofty that they could reach almost back to Him. The Holy
Spirit is the Mind of the Atonement. It represents a state of
mind that comes close enough to One-Mindedness that transfer
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.
The Holy Spirit, the shared Inspiration of all the Sonship,
induces a kind of perception in which many elements are like
those in the Kingdom of Heaven itself.
First, its universality is perfectly clear, and no-one who
receives it could ever believe for one instant that sharing it
involves anything BUT gain.
Second, it is incapable of attack, and is therefore truly
open. This means that, although it does not engender
knowledge, it does not OBSTRUCT it in any way. There is a
point at which sufficient quantitative changes produce real
qualitative differences. The next point requires real
understanding because it is the point at which the shift
occurs;
Finally, it points the way BEYOND the healing which it
brings, and leads the mind beyond its own integration into the
paths of creation.
Healing is not creating; it is reparation. The Holy Spirit
promotes healing by looking BEYOND it, to what the Children of
God were before healing was needed, and will be when they have
BEEN healed. This alteration of the time sequence should be
quite familiar because it is very similar to the shift in time
perception which the miracle introduces. The Holy Spirit is
the MOTIVATION for 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.
God Himself keeps this will alive by transmitting it from
His Mind to yours as long as there is time. It is partly His
and partly yours. The miracle itself is just this fusion or
union of will between Father and Son. The Holy Spirit is the
spirit of joy. He is the Call to return with which God blessed
the minds of His separated Sons. 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 Gods Answer
to the separation, the means by which the Atonement could
repair until the whole mind returned to creating.
The Atonement and the separation began at the same time.
When man made the ego, God placed in him the call 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. His is the
Voice that calls you back to where you were before, and will
be again.
The Voice for God
It is possible, even in this world, to hear ONLY that voice
and no other. It takes effort and great willingness to learn.
It is the final lesson that I learned, and Gods Sons are as
equal as learners as they are as Souls. The Voice of the Holy
Spirit IS the call to Atonement, or the restoration of the
integrity of the mind. When the Atonement is complete and the
whole Sonship is healed, there will be no call to return, but
what God creates is eternal. The Holy Spirit will remain with
the Sons of God, to bless THEIR creations, and keep them in
the light of joy.
You ARE the Kingdom of Heaven, but you have let the belief
in darkness enter your minds, and so you need a new light. The
Holy Spirit is the radiance that you must let banish the idea
of darkness. His is the glory before which dissociation falls
away, and the Kingdom of Heaven breaks through into its own.
Before the separation you did not need guidance. You KNEW as
you will know again, but as you do NOT know now. God does not
guide because he can share only perfect knowledge. Guidance is
evaluative because it implies that there is a RIGHT way and
also a WRONG way, one to be chosen and the other to be
avoided. By choosing one, you give up the other.
This IS a conflict state. It MEANS that knowledge has been
lost because knowledge is sure. God is not in you in a literal
sense; YOU are part of HIM. When you chose to leave Him, He
gave you a Voice to speak FOR Him because He could no longer
share His knowledge with you without hindrance. Direct
communication was broken because you had made another voice
through another will. The Holy Spirit calls you both to
remember and 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 CREATIVE power is
unlimited, but choice itself is meaningless.
Freedom to choose is the same POWER as freedom to create,
but its APPLICATION is different. Choosing MEANS divided will.
The Holy Spirit is one way of choosing. This way is in you
because there is also ANOTHER way. God did not leave His
Children comfortless, even though they chose to leave Him. The
voice they put in their minds was NOT the voice of His Will,
for which the Holy Spirit speaks. The call to return is
stronger than the call to depart, but it speaks in a different
way.
The Voice of the Holy Spirit does not command because it is
incapable of arrogance. It does not demand because it does not
seek control. It does not overcome because it does not attack.
It merely REMINDS. It is compelling only because of what it
reminds you OF. It brings to your mind the OTHER way,
remaining quiet even in the midst of the turmoil you have made
for yourselves. The Voice for God is always quiet because it
speaks of peace. Yet peace is stronger than war because it
heals. War is division, not increase. No-one gains from
strife.
What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world and
lose his own Soul? That means that if he listens to the
wrong voice, he has LOST SIGHT of his Soul. He CANNOT lose it,
but he CAN not know it. It is therefore LOST TO HIM until he
chooses right. The Holy Spirit is your Guide in choosing. He
is the part of your mind which ALWAYS speaks for the right
choice because He speaks for God. He is your remaining
communication with God, which you can interrupt but cannot
destroy.
The Holy Spirit is the way in which Gods Will can be done
on earth as it is in Heaven. Both Heaven 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
Him. 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.
My mind will always be like yours because we were created
as equals. It was only my DECISION that gave me all power in
Heaven and earth. My only gift to you is to help you make the
same decision FOR YOURSELF. The will for this decision is the
will to SHARE it because the decision itself IS the decision
to share. It is MADE BY GIVING, and is therefore the ONE act
of mind that resembles true creation. You understand the role
of models in the learning process, and the importance of
the models you value and choose to follow in determining what
you will to learn. I am your model for decision. By deciding
for God I showed you that this decision CAN be made, and that
YOU can make it.
I promised you that the mind that made the decision for me
is also in YOU, and that you can let it change you just as it
changed me. This mind is unequivocal because it hears only ONE
voice and answers in 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
Sonship cannot be as one. What better vocation could there be
for any part of the Kingdom than to restore it to the perfect
integration that can make it whole?
Hear only this through the Holy Spirit within you, and
teach your brothers to listen as I am teaching you. When you
are tempted by the wrong voice, call on me to remind you how
to heal by sharing my decision AND MAKING IT STRONGER. As we
share this goal we increase its power to attract the whole
Sonship, and to bring it back into the Oneness in which it was
created. Remember that yolk (sic) means join together
and burden means message. Let us reconsider the Biblical
statement my yolk (sic) is easy and my burden light in this
way; let us join together, for my message is Light.
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. He teaches you how to
keep me as the model for your thought, and to behave like me
as a result.
The power of our joint motivation is beyond belief but NOT
beyond accomplishment. What we can accomplish together HAS no
limits because the Call for God IS the call to the unlimited.
Child of God, my message is for YOU, to hear and give away as
you answer the Holy Spirit within you.
The Guide to Salvation
The way to learn to know your brother is by perceiving the
Holy Spirit in him. We have already said that the Holy Spirit
is the bridge or thought-transfer of perception to knowledge,
so we can use the terms as if they were related because, in
His mind, they ARE. The relationship MUST be in His mind
because, unless it were, the separation between the two ways
of thinking would not be open to healing. He is part of the
Holy Trinity because His mind is partly yours and also partly
Gods. This needs clarification, not in statement since we
have said it before, but in EXPERIENCE.
The Holy Spirit is the IDEA of healing. Being thought, the
idea GAINS AS IT IS SHARED. Being the Call FOR God, it is also
the idea OF God. 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. Since
thoughts do not have to be conscious to exist, your brother
does not have to be aware of the Holy Spirit, either in
himself or in you, for this miracle to occur.
Your brother 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, and thus acknowledge
its BEING. There are two ways of seeing your brother 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
because you are perceiving HIM. See him through the Holy
Spirit in HIS mind, and you will recognize Him in YOURS. What
you acknowledge in your brother you ARE acknowledging in
yourself, and what you share you strengthen.
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 egos viewpoint, you are undertaking an ego-alien journey
with the ego as GUIDE. This is BOUND to produce fear.
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 Gods
ANSWER to the ego. Everything of which the Holy Spirit reminds
you is in direct opposition to the egos notions because true
and false perceptions are THEMSELVES opposed. The Holy Spirit
has the task of UNDOING what the ego has made. He undoes it in
the same realm of discourse in which the ego itself operates,
or the mind would be unable to understand the change.
We have repeatedly emphasized that one level of the mind is
not understandable to another. So it is with the ego and the
Soul; with time and eternity. Eternity is an idea of God, so
the Soul understands it perfectly. Time is a belief of the
ego, so the lower mind, which IS the egos 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 dont worry about the future. That is not
what it really means at all.
The Holy Spirit is the Mediator between the interpretations
of the ego and the knowledge of the Soul. His ability to deal
with symbols enables Him to work AGAINST the egos beliefs in
its own language. His equal ability to look BEYOND symbols
into eternity also enables Him to understand the laws of God,
for which He speaks. He 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 He is in you
who ARE light, but you yourselves do not know this. It is
therefore the task of the Holy Spirit to re-interpret YOU on
behalf of God.
You cannot understand yourselves alone. This is because you
have no meaning APART from your rightful place in the Sonship,
and the rightful place of the Sonship in God. This is your
life, your eternity and YOURSELF. It is of this that the Holy
Spirit reminds you. It is this that the Holy Spirit SEES. This
vision invariably frightens the ego because it is so calm.
Peace is the egos 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.
The Holy Spirit is as vigilant as the ego to the call of
danger, opposing it with His 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.
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 teacher. He
uses only what your minds ALREADY understand to teach you that
you do NOT understand it. The Holy Spirit can deal with an
unwilling learner without going counter to his will because
part of his will IS still for God. Despite the egos 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 His own dwelling place,
or the place in the mind where He is at home.
YOU are at home there, too, because it is a place of peace
and peace is of God. You who are part of God are not at home
EXCEPT in His peace. If peace is eternal, you are at home only
in eternity. The ego made the world as IT perceives it, but
the Holy Spirit, the RE-INTERPRETOR of what the ego made, sees
it only as a teaching device for bringing you home. The Holy
Spirit must perceive time and re-interpret it into the
timeless. The mind must be led into eternity THROUGH time
because, having made time, it is capable of perceiving its
opposite.
The Holy Spirit must work through opposites because He must
work with and for a mind that IS in opposition. Correct and
learn, and be open to learning. You have NOT made truth, but
truth can still set you free. Look as the Holy Spirit looks
and understand as He understands. His understanding looks back
to God in remembrance of me. He is in Holy Communion always,
and He is part of YOU. He is your Guide to salvation because
He holds the remembrance of things past and to come. He holds
this gladness gently in your minds, asking only that you
INCREASE it in His name by sharing it to increase His joy in
YOU.
Therapy and Teaching
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.
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 creates is eternal. What fear has hidden
still is part of you.
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 re-interpret
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 created it. It is yours because it is a part of
you, just as you are part of God because He created YOU.
The Atonement is the GUARANTEE of the safety of the
Kingdom. Nothing good is lost because it comes from the Holy
Spirit, the Voice for creation. Nothing that is NOT good was
ever created. And therefore CANNOT be protected. What the ego
makes it KEEPS TO ITSELF, and so it is without strength. Its
unshared existence does not die; it was merely never born.
Real birth is not a beginning; it is a CONTINUING. Everything
that can continue has BEEN born, but it can INCREASE as you
are willing to return the part of your mind that needs healing
to the higher part, and thus render your creating undivided.
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.
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.
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 Sonship is
one, you CANNOT be limited to the self the ego sees. Every
loving thought held in ANY part of the Sonship belongs to
every part. It is shared BECAUSE it is loving. Sharing is
Gods way of creating, and also YOURS. Your ego can keep you
in exile FROM the Kingdom, but in the Kingdom itself it has no
power.
You have become willing to receive my messages as I give
them without interference by the ego, so we can clarify an
earlier point. We said that you will one day teach as much as
you learn, and that will keep you in balance. The time is now
because you have LET it be now. You cannot learn EXCEPT by
teaching. I heard one voice because I had learned that
learning is attained BY teaching. I understood that I COULD
NOT ATONE FOR MYSELF ALONE. Listening to one voice means the
will to SHARE the voice in order to hear it yourself. The mind
that was in me is still irresistibly drawn to every mind
created by God because Gods Wholeness IS the wholeness of His
Son.
Turning the other cheek does NOT mean that you should
submit to violence without protest. It means that you cannot
BE hurt, and do not want to show your brother anything EXCEPT
your wholeness. Show him that he CANNOT hurt you and hold
nothing against him, or you hold it against yourself. Teaching
is done in many ways, by formal means, by guidance, and
above all BY EXAMPLE. Teaching is therapy because it means the
SHARING of ideas, and the awareness that to share them is to
STRENGTHEN them. The union of the Sonship IS its protection.
The ego cannot prevail against the Kingdom BECAUSE it is
united, and the ego fades away and is undone in the presence
of the attraction of the parts of the Sonship which hear the
call of the Holy Spirit to be as One.
I cannot forget my need to teach what I have learned, which
arose in me BECAUSE I learned it. I call upon you to teach
what you have learned because, by so doing, YOU can depend on
it. Make it dependable in my name because my name is the name
of Gods Son. 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 Him, He
leads you back to God where you belong, and how can you find
this way except by taking your brother with you?
My part in the Atonement is not complete until YOU join it
and give it away. As you teach, so shall you learn. I will
never leave you or forsake you, because to forsake you would
be to forsake myself and God who created me. You will forsake
yourselves and God if you forsake ANY of your brothers. You
are more than your brothers keeper. In fact, you do not WANT
to keep him. You must learn to see him as he is, and KNOW that
he belongs to God as you do. How could you treat your brother
better than by rendering unto God the things which are Gods?
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.
Therefore, you can really share ONLY the parts of your
thoughts which are of Him, and which He also keeps for YOU.
And of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. All the rest remains
with you until He has re-interpreted them in the light of the
Kingdom, making them, too, worthy of being shared. When they
have been sufficiently purified He lets you give them away.
The will to share them IS their purification.
The Atonement gives you the power of a healed mind, but the
power to create is of God. Therefore, those who have been
forgiven must devote themselves first to healing because,
having RECEIVED the idea of healing, they must GIVE it to HOLD
it. The full power of creation cannot be expressed as long as
ANY of Gods ideas withhold it from the Kingdom. The joint
will of ALL the Sonship is the only creator that can create
like the Father, because only the complete can think
completely, and the thinking of God lacks nothing. Everything
you think that is not through the Holy Spirit IS lacking.
How can you who are so holy suffer? All your past, except
its beauty, is gone, and nothing is left except a blessing.
You can indeed depart in peace because I have loved you as I
loved myself. You go WITH my blessing and FOR my blessing.
Hold it and share it, that it may always be ours. I place the
peace of God in your heart and in your hands, to hold and
share. The heart is pure to hold it and the hands are strong
to give it. We cannot lose. My judgment is as strong as the
wisdom of God, in Whose Heart and Hands we have our being. His
quiet children are His blessed Sons. The Thoughts of God are
with you.
The Two Decisions
Perhaps some of our concepts will become clearer and more
personally meaningful if the egos use of guilt is clarified.
The ego has a purpose, just as the Holy Spirit has. The egos
purpose is FEAR, because ONLY the fearful can BE egotistic.
The egos logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit
because your mind has all the means at its disposal to side
with Heaven or earth, as it elects. But again, let us remember
that both are in YOU. In Heaven there is no guilt because the
Kingdom is attained through the Atonement, which releases you
to create. The word create is appropriate here because,
once what YOU have made is undone by the Holy Spirit, the
blessed residue is restored, and therefore continues in
creation.
What is truly blessed is incapable of giving rise to guilt,
and MUST give rise to joy. This makes it invulnerable to the
ego because its peace is unassailable. It is invulnerable to
disruption BECAUSE it is whole. Guilt is ALWAYS disruptive.
Anything that engenders fear is divisive because it obeys the
law of division. If the ego is the symbol of the separation,
it is also the symbol of guilt. Guilt is more than merely not
of God. It is the symbol of the ATTACK on God. This is a
totally meaningless concept EXCEPT to the ego, but do not
underestimate the power of the egos belief in it. This is the
belief from which ALL guilt really stems.
The ego IS the part of the mind which believes in division.
How can part of God detach itself WITHOUT believing it is
attacking Him? We spoke before of the authority problem as
involving the concept of USURPING Gods 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.
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 egos voice MEANS that you believe it is
possible to attack God. You believe that a part of Him has
been torn away by YOU. The classic picture of fear of
retaliation FROM WITHOUT then follows because the severity of
the guilt is so acute that it MUST be projected. Although
Freud was wrong about the basic conflict itself, he was very
accurate in describing its effects.
Whatever you accept INTO your mind has reality for you. It
is, however, only 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 created it, IS capable of creating reality.
We said before that you must learn to think WITH God. To think
with Him is to think LIKE Him. This engenders joy, not guilt,
because it is natural. Guilt is a sure sign that your thinking
is UNnatural. Perverted thinking will ALWAYS be attended with
guilt because it IS the belief in sin.
The ego does not perceive sin as a lack of love. It
perceives sin as a POSITIVE ACT OF ASSAULT. This is an
interpretation which is necessary to the egos 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.
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.
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.
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 created one, and so you CANNOT eradicate it. YOU made
the other, and so you CAN. ONLY what God creates is
irreversible and unchangeable. What YOU have made can always
be changed because, when you do not think LIKE God, you 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 His Thought, you cannot think APART from Him.
Irrational thought is a thought DISORDER. God Himself
orders your thought because your thought was created BY Him.
Guilt feelings are always a sign that you do not know this.
They also show that you believe you can think apart from God
AND WANT TO. Every thought disorder is attended by guilt at
its inception and maintained by guilt in its continuance.
Guilt is inescapable for those who believe 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, and
I assure you that it is, then the responsibility for what is
atoned FOR cannot BE yours.
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.
Time and Eternity
The CONTINUING will to remain separated is the only
possible reason for continuing guilt feelings. We have said
this before, but we did not emphasize the destructive results
of this decision at that time. ANY decision of the mind will
affect both behavior AND experience. What you will, you
EXPECT. This is not delusional. Your mind DOES create your
future, and it can turn it back to full creation at any
minute, IF IT ACCEPTS THE ATONEMENT FIRST. It will also turn
back to full creation the instant it has done so. Having given
up its thought disorder, the proper ordering of thought
becomes quite apparent.
God in His knowledge is not waiting, but His Kingdom is
bereft while YOU wait. All the Sons of God are waiting for
your return, just as YOU are waiting for THEIRS. Delay does
not matter in eternity, but it IS tragic in time. You have
elected to be in time rather than 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 Himself placed you forever.
Guilt feelings are the PRESERVERS of time. They induce
fears of future retaliation or abandonment, and thus ensure
that the future will remain like the past. This is the egos
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. My 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.
The mind does indeed know its power, because the mind does
indeed know God. Remember the Kingdom always, and remember
that you who are part of the Kingdom CANNOT be lost. The mind
that was in me IS in you, for God creates with perfect
fairness. Let the Holy Spirit remind you always of His
fairness, and let me teach you how to share it with your
brothers. How else can the chance to claim it for yourself be
given you? What you do not understand is that the two voices
speak for different interpretations of the same thing
simultaneously, or almost simultaneously, for the ego always
speaks first. Alternate interpretations were unnecessary until
the first one was made, and speaking itself was unnecessary
before the ego was made.
The ego speaks in judgment and the Holy Spirit reverses its
decisions, much as the Supreme Court has the power to reverse
the lower courts decisions about the laws of this world. The
egos 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.
We need cite only a few examples to see how the egos
interpretations have misled you. A favorite ego quotation is
As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Another is Vengeance is
mine, sayeth the Lord. Still another is I will visit the
sins of the father unto the third and fourth generation, and
also The wicked shall perish. There are many others, but if
you will let the Holy Spirit re-interpret these in His own
light, they will suffice.
As ye sow, so shall ye reap merely means that what you
believe to be worth cultivating you will cultivate in
yourself. Your judgment of what is worthy MAKES it worthy for
you. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord is easily explained
if you remember that ideas increase only by being shared. This
quotation therefore emphasizes the fact that vengeance CANNOT
be shared. Give it therefore to the Holy Spirit, Who will undo
it in you because it does not belong in your mind, which is
part of God.
I will visit the sins of the fathers unto the third and
fourth generation, as interpreted by the ego, is
particularly vicious. It is used, in fact, as an attempt to
guarantee its survival beyond itself. Actually, all 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 Sonship. 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.
The ego will NOT be destroyed because it is part of your
thought, but because it is uncreative, and therefore
unsharing, it WILL be re-interpreted entirely, to release you
from fear. The part of your thought which you have given to
the ego will merely return to the Kingdom where your whole
mind BELONGS. The ego is a form of arrest, but arrest is
merely delay. It does NOT involve the concept of punishment,
although the ego welcomes that interpretation. You CAN delay
the completion of the Kingdom, but you CANNOT introduce the
concept of assault into it.
When I said, I am come as a light into the world, I
surely came to share the light with you. Remember the symbolic
reference we made before to the egos 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 creations is bearing false
witness to God Himself.
Appeal everything you believe gladly to Gods Own Higher
Court because it speaks for Him, and therefore speaks truly.
It will dismiss the case against you however carefully YOU
have built it. The case may be foolproof, but it is NOT God-
proof. The Voice for God will not hear it at all because He
can only witness truly. His verdict will always be Thine is
the Kingdom because He was GIVEN you to remind you of what
you are.
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 Father,
from Whom I learned of infinite patience. His Voice was in me
as it is in you, speaking for patience towards the Sonship in
the Name of its Creator. What you need to learn now is that
only infinite patience CAN produce immediate effects. This is
the way in which time is exchanged for eternity. Infinite
patience calls upon infinite love, and by producing results
NOW it renders time unnecessary.
To say that time is temporary is merely redundant. We have
repeatedly said that time is a learning device which will be
abolished when it is no longer useful. The Holy Spirit, Who
speaks for God in time, also knows that time is meaningless.
He reminds you of this in every passing moment of time because
it is His special function to return you to eternity, and
remain to bless YOUR creations there. He is the only blessing
you can truly give because He is so truly blessed, and because
He has been given you so freely by God, you must give Him as
you received Him.
The Eternal Fixation
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 many different terms. For
example, God will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is
stayed (or set) on Him, a statement which means that Gods
peace is set in the Holy Spirit because it is fixed on God. It
is also fixed in you. You, then, ARE fixed in the peace of
God. The concept of Fixation is 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.
Freuds system of thought was extremely ingenious because
Freud was extremely ingenuous,[sic] 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. Freuds 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.
Fixation is the pull of God, on Whom your mind IS fixed
because of the Holy Spirits irrevocable set. Irrevocable
means cannot be called back or redirected. The irrevocable
nature of the Holy Spirits set is the basis for His
unequivocal Voice. The Holy Spirit NEVER changes His 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.
The concept of fixation, as Freud saw it, has a number of
learning advantages. First, it recognizes that man can be
fixated at a point in development which does NOT accord with a
point in time. This clearly could have been a means toward
real release from the time belief had Freud pursued it with an
open mind. 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.
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.
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 Freuds 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.
This knowledge plagued Freuds 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 creation, and the pull of this fixation is so
strong that you will never overcome it. The reason is
perfectly clear. The fixation is on a level so high that it
cannot BE surmounted. You are ALWAYS being pulled back to your
Creator because you BELONG to Him.
Do you REALLY believe you can make a voice that can drown
out His? Do you REALLY believe that you can devise a thought
system which can separate you from His? Do you REALLY believe
that you can plan for your safety and joy better than He can?
You need be neither careful nor careless; you need merely cast
your cares upon Him because He careth for YOU. You ARE His
care because He loves you. His Voice reminds you always that
all hope is yours BECAUSE of His care. You CANNOT choose to
escape His care because that is not His Will, but you CAN
choose to accept His care and use the infinite power OF His
care for all those He created BY it.
There have been many healers who did not heal themselves.
They have not moved mountains by their faith because their
faith was not whole. Some of them have healed the sick at
times, but they have not raised the dead. Unless the healer
heals HIMSELF he does NOT believe that there is no order of
difficulty in miracles. He has not learned that EVERY mind God
created is equally worthy of being healed BECAUSE GOD CREATED
IT WHOLE. You are merely asked to return to God the mind as HE
created it. He asks you only for what He gave, knowing that
this giving will heal you. Sanity IS wholeness, and the sanity
of your brothers IS yours.
Why should you listen to the endless insane calls which you
think are made upon you when you KNOW the Voice of God Himself
is in you? God commended His Spirit to you, and asks that you
commend yours to Him. He wills to keep it in perfect peace
because you are of one mind and Spirit with Him. Excluding
yourself from the Atonement is the egos last-ditch defense of
its OWN existence. It reflects both the egos need to
separate, and your willingness to side with its separateness.
This willingness means THAT YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE HEALED.
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 Himself gave you
the perfect correction for everything you have made which is
NOT in accord with His holy Will. I have made His plan
perfectly explicit to you, and have also told you of your part
in His plan, and how urgent it is that you fulfill it. There
is time for delay, but there need not be. God weeps at the
sacrifice of His Children who believe they are lost to Him.
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 Soul which God created. 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 RE-INFORCE the error rather than allow it to
be undone FOR you.
Decisions CANNOT be difficult. This is obvious if you
realize that you must ALREADY have made a decision NOT to be
wholly joyous if that is 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:
I must have decided wrongly because I am NOT at peace.
I made the decision myself, but I can also decide
otherwise.
I WILL to decide otherwise because I WANT to be at peace.
I do NOT feel guilty because the Holy Spirit will undo
all the consequences of my wrong decision IF I WILL LET
HIM.
I WILL to let Him by allowing Him to decide for God for
Me.
CHAPTER 6
ATTACK AND FEAR
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 ones 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 is WORTHY of attack rather than of love follows. What
can be expected from insane premises except an insane
conclusion?
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 inevitably assumes the
moment he accepts any premise at all, and no-one can organize
his life without ANY thought system. Once he has developed a
thought system of any kind, he lives by it AND TEACHES IT.
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.
The Message of the Crucifixion
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.
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
Sonship 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.
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 Sons 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.
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.
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.
We have said before, As you teach so shall you learn.
If you react as if you are persecuted, you are TEACHING
persecution. This is not a lesson which the Sons of God should
WANT to teach if they are to realize their own salvation.
Rather teach your own perfect immunity, which IS the truth in
you, and KNOW that it cannot be assailed. Do not protect it
yourselves, or you have believed that it IS assailable. You
are not asked to BE crucified, 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.
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 re-awakening. I am the model for rebirth, but rebirth
itself is merely the dawning on your minds of what is already
in them. God placed it there Himself, and so it is true
forever. I believed in it, and therefore made it forever true
for me. Help me to teach it to our brothers in the name of the
Kingdom of God, but first believe that it is true for YOU, or
you will teach amiss.
My brothers slept during the so-called agony in the
garden, but I could not be angry with them because I had
learned I could not BE abandoned. Peter swore he would never
deny me, but he did so three times. He did offer to defend me
with the sword, which I naturally refused, not being at all in
need of bodily protection. I AM sorry when my brothers do not
share my decision to hear only one voice, because it weakens
them as teachers 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.
There is no choice in this because only you can BE the
foundation of Gods church. A church is where an altar is, and
the presence of the altar is what MAKES it a church. Any
church which does not inspire love has a hidden altar which is
not serving the purpose for which God intended it. I must
found His church on you because you who accept me as a model
are literally my disciples. Disciples are followers, but if
the model they follow has chosen to save them pain in all
respects, they are probably unwise NOT to follow him.
I elected, both for your sake AND mine, to demonstrate that
the most outrageous assault, as judged by the ego, did not
matter. As the world judges these things, but NOT as God KNOWS
them, I was betrayed, abandoned, beaten, torn, and finally
killed. It was perfectly clear that this was only because of
the projection of others, 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.
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 His 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.
My brothers and yours are constantly engaged in justifying
the unjustifiable. My one lesson, which I must teach as I
learned, is that no perception which is out of accord with the
judgment of the Holy Spirit CAN be justified. I undertook to
show this was true in a very extreme case merely because 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 His Sons should suffer.
Remember that the Holy Spirit is the communication link
between God the Father and His separated Sons. If you will
listen to His Voice, you will know that you cannot either hurt
or BE hurt, 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 re-awakening of every Son of God is necessary to
enable the Sonship to know its wholeness. Only this IS
knowledge.
The message of the crucifixion is perfectly clear:
Teach ONLY love, for that is what you ARE.
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 His retaliatory weapon. Nor
could they speak of the crucifixion entirely without anger
because their own sense of guilt had MADE them angry.
There are two glaring examples of upside-down thinking in
the New Testament, whose whole gospel is ONLY the message of
love. These are not 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.
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 Sonship as myself. Was it likely that I would
condemn him when I was ready to demonstrate that condemnation
is impossible?
I am very grateful to the Apostles for their teaching and
fully aware of the extent of their devotion to me.
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. No-
one is punished for sins, and the Sons of God are not
sinners.
ANY concept of punishment involves the projection of
blame, and RE-INFORCES 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 Son 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. HE does
not need your appreciation, but YOU do.
You cannot love what you do not appreciate, and FEAR MAKES
APPRECIATION IMPOSSIBLE. Whenever you are afraid of what you
are you do NOT appreciate it, and will therefore reject it. As
a result, you will TEACH REJECTION. The power of the Sons of
God is operating all the time because they were created as
creators. Their influence on EACH OTHER is without limit, and
MUST be used for their joint salvation. Each one must learn to
teach that all forms of rejection are utterly meaningless. The
separation IS the notion of rejection. As long as you TEACH
this, you still believe it. This is NOT as God thinks, and you
must think as He thinks if you are to know Him again.
The Uses of Projection
Any split in will MUST involve a rejection of part of it,
and this IS the belief in separation. The wholeness of God,
which IS His peace, cannot be appreciated EXCEPT by a whole
mind, which recognizes the wholeness of Gods creation, and BY
this recognition, knows its Creator. 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.
In the egos 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.
Projection will ALWAYS hurt you. It re-inforces your belief
in your own split mind, and its ONLY purpose is TO KEEP THE
SEPARATION GOING. It is SOLELY a device of the ego to make you
feel DIFFERENT from your brothers, and separated from them.
The ego justifies this on the wholly spurious grounds that it
makes you seem better than they are, thus obscuring 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.
The ego uses projection ONLY to distort your perception
both of yourself AND your brothers. The process begins by
excluding something THAT exists in you which you do not want,
and leads directly to excluding you from your brothers. 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.
The Holy Spirit begins by perceiving YOU as perfect.
KNOWING this perfection is shared, He 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 acknowledgement that you are
NOT in this world, for the world IS unhappy.
How else can you find joy in a joyless place EXCEPT by
realizing that you are NOT there? You cannot be anywhere that
God did not put you, and God created you as part of Him. That
is both WHERE you are and WHAT you are. 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 created is as true as He is. Its truth lies
only in its perfect inclusion in Him Who alone IS perfect. To
deny this in any way is to deny yourself AND Him, since it is
impossible to accept one WITHOUT the other.
The perfect equality of the Holy Spirits perception is the
counterpart of the perfect equality of Gods knowing. The
egos 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
created BY Him and IN Him.
God created His Sons by extending His thought and retaining
the extensions of His Thought in His Mind. ALL His Thoughts
are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each
other because they [exist] 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 re-statement of INCLUSION,
directed by the Holy Spirit under the laws of God. God created
you to create. You cannot EXTEND His Kingdom until you know of
its wholeness.
Thoughts begin in the mind of the thinker, from which they
reach outward. This is as true of Gods Thinking as it is of
yours. Because your minds are split, you can also perceive as
well as think. Yet perception can not escape from the basic
laws of mind. You perceive FROM your mind and extend your
perceptions outward. Although perception of any kind is
unnecessary, YOU made it, and the Holy Spirit can therefore
use it well. He can INSPIRE perception and lead it toward God
by making it [PARALLEL His] 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.
The Holy Spirit USES time, but does NOT believe in it.
Coming from God He uses everything for good, but He 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 he
speaks for God. He tells you to return your whole mind to God
because IT HAS NEVER LEFT HIM. If it has never left Him you
need only perceive it as it is to BE returned. The full
awareness of the Atonement, then, is the recognition THAT THE
SEPARATION NEVER OCCURRED. The ego cannot prevail against this
because it is an explicit statement that the EGO never
occurred.
The ego CAN accept the idea that return is necessary
because it can so easily make the idea seem so difficult. Yet
the Holy Spirit tells you that even return is unnecessary
because what never happened cannot _______ ANY problem. It
does NOT follow, however, that YOU cannot make the idea of
return 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.
This is the way in which you MUST perceive Gods creations,
bringing all of your perceptions into the one parallel line
which the Holy Spirit sees. This line is the direct line of
communication with God, and lets your mind converge with HIS.
There is no conflict anywhere in this perception because it
means that ALL perception is guided by the Holy Spirit, Whose
mind is fixed on God. ONLY the Holy Spirit can resolve
conflict because ONLY the Holy Spirit is conflict-free. He
perceives ONLY what is true in your mind, and extends outward
ONLY to what is true in other minds.
The difference between the egos use of projection and
projection as the Holy Spirit uses it is very simple. The ego
projects to EXCLUDE, and therefore to deceive. The Holy Spirit
projects by RECOGNIZING HIMSELF in every mind, and thus
perceives them as ONE. Nothing conflicts in this perception
because what the Holy Spirit perceives IS the same. Wherever
He looks He sees Himself, and because He is united, He offers
the whole Kingdom always. This is the one message God gave TO
Him, and for which He must speak because that is what He IS.
The peace of God lies in that message, and so the peace of God
lies in YOU.
The great peace of the Kingdom shines in your mind forever,
but it must shine OUTWARD to make YOU aware of it. The Holy
Spirit was given you with perfect impartiality, and only by
perceiving Him impartially can you perceive Him at all. The
ego is legion, but the Holy Spirit is One. No darkness abides
anywhere in the Kingdom, 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 Kingdom of God
together and AS ONE.
The Relinquishment of Attack
We have used 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.
The Holy Spirit still holds knowledge safe through His
impartial perception. By attacking nothing, He 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.
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 Him. You ARE only love, but when you
denied this you made what you ARE something you must LEARN. We
said before that the message of the crucifixion was, Teach
only love, for that is what you ARE. This is the ONE lesson
which is perfectly unified because it is the only lesson which
IS one. Only BY teaching it can you learn it. As you teach
so will you learn. If that is true, and it is true indeed,
you must never forget that what you teach is teaching YOU.
What you project you BELIEVE.
The only REAL safety lies in projecting only the Holy
Spirit, because as you see His gentleness in others, your OWN
mind perceives ITSELF as totally harmless. Once it can accept
this fully, it does NOT see the need to PROTECT ITSELF. The
protection of God then dawns upon it, assuring it that it is
perfectly safe forever. The perfectly safe are wholly benign.
They bless because they know they ARE blessed. Without anxiety
the mind is wholly kind, and because it PROJECTS beneficence,
it IS beneficent.
Safety is THE COMPLETE RELINQUISHMENT OF ATTACK. No
compromise is possible in this. Teach attack in ANY form, and
YOU HAVE LEARNED IT AND IT WILL HURT YOU. 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.
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, teaching is learning.
EVERYTHING you teach you are learning. Teach only love, and
learn that love is yours, and YOU are love.
The Only Answer
Remember that the Holy Spirit is the ANSWER, NOT the
question. The ego always speaks first because it is
capricious, and does NOT mean its maker well. That is because
it believes, and correctly, that its maker may withdraw his
support from it at any moment. If it meant you well it would
be glad, as the Holy Spirit will be glad when He has brought
you home, and you no longer need His guidance. The ego does
not regard itself as PART of you. Herein lies its primary
perceptual error, the foundation of its whole thought system.
When God created you, He made you part of Him. That is why
attack WITHIN the Kingdom is impossible. YOU made the ego
without love, and so it does not love YOU. You could not
remain WITHIN the Kingdom without love, and since the Kingdom
IS love, you believe 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.
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 HE ALWAYS ANSWERS. Everyone has called upon
Him for help at one time or another and in one way or another
AND HAS BEEN ANSWERED. Since the Holy Spirit answers truly, He
answers FOR ALL TIME, which means that everyone has the answer
NOW.
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. 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 egos
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.
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 him, they join in the
attack together. This is perhaps the strangest perception of
all, if you consider what it really involves. The ego, which
is NOT real, attempts to persuade the mind, which IS real,
that the mind is its own learning device, and that the
learning device is more real than IT is. No-one in his right
mind could POSSIBLY believe this, and no-one in his right mind
DOES believe it.
Hear, then, the ONE answer of the Holy Spirit to ALL the
questions which the ego raises. You are a Child of God, a
priceless part of His Kingdom, which He created as part of
Him. Nothing else exists and ONLY this is real. You have
chosen a sleep in which you have had bad dreams, but the sleep
is not real, and God calls you to awake. There will be nothing
left of your dream when you hear Him because you WILL be
awake. Your dreams have contained many of the egos 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.
Yet the Kingdom and all that you have created there will
have great reality for you because they are beautiful and
true. In the Kingdom, where you are and what you are is
perfectly certain. There is no doubt there because the first
question was never asked. Having finally been wholly answered,
IT HAS NEVER BEEN. Being alone lives in the Kingdom, where
everything lives in God without question. The time that was
spent on questioning in the dream has given way to creation
and to its eternity.
YOU are as certain as God because you are as true as He is,
but what was once quite certain in your minds has become only
the ABILITY for certainty. The introduction of abilities into
being was the beginning of UNcertainty because abilities are
potentials, NOT accomplishments. Your abilities are totally
useless in the presence of Gods 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.
Abilities must be DEVELOPED, or you cannot use them. This
is not true of anything that God created, but it is the
kindest solution possible to what YOU have made. In an
impossible situation you can develop your abilities to the
point where they can GET YOU OUT OF IT. You have a Guide to
how to develop them, but you have no COMMANDER except
yourself. This leaves YOU in charge of the Kingdom, with both
a Guide to FIND it and a means to KEEP it. You have a model to
follow who will STRENGTHEN your command, and never detract
from it in any way. You therefore retain the central place in
your perceived enslavement, a fact which ITSELF demonstrates
that you are NOT enslaved.
You are in an impossible situation only because you thought
it was possible to be in one. You WOULD be in an impossible
situation if God showed you your perfection and PROVED to you
that you were wrong. This would demonstrate that the perfect
were inadequate to bring THEMSELVES to the awareness of their
perfection, and thus side with the belief that those who have
everything need help and are therefore helpless. This is the
kind of reasoning which the ego engages in, but God, Who
KNOWS that His creations are perfect, does NOT insult them.
This would be as impossible as the egos notion that IT has
insulted HIM.
That is why the Holy Spirit NEVER commands. To command is
to assume INequality, which the Holy Spirit demonstrates does
not exist. Fidelity to premises is a law of mind, and
everything God created is faithful to His 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 His
own certainty? We have frequently stated that what you teach
you ARE. Would you have God teach you that you have sinned? If
He confronted the self you made with the truth He created for
you, what could you be but afraid? You would doubt your
sanity, which is the one thing in which you can FIND the
sanity He gave you.
God does not teach. To teach is to imply a lack which God
KNOWS is not there. God is not conflicted. Teaching aims at
change, but God created only the changeless. The separation
was not a loss of perfection, but a failure in communication.
A harsh and strident form of communication arose as the egos
voice. It could not shatter the peace of God, but it COULD
shatter YOURS. God did not blot it out, because to eradicate
it would be to attack it. Being questioned, He did not
question. He merely gave the Answer. His Answer is your
Teacher.
To Have, Give All to All
Like any good teacher, the Holy Spirit does know more than
you do NOW, but He teaches only to make you EQUAL with Him.
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 He knows your mind only as whole? What God DOES
know is that His communication channels are not open to Him,
so that He cannot impart His joy, and know that His Children
are wholly joyous. This is an ongoing process, not in time,
but in eternity. Gods extending outward, though not His
completeness, is blocked when the Sonship does not communicate
with Him as one. So He thought, My Children sleep, and must
be awakened.
How can you wake children better and more kindly than 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.
A wise teacher teaches through approach, NOT avoidance. He
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 worlds teachers. Consider the confusion a child would
experience if he were told, Do not do THIS because it might
hurt you and make you unsafe, but if you do THAT you will
escape from harm and be safe, and then you will not be
afraid. All of this could be included in only three words:
Do ONLY that! This simple statement is perfectly clear,
easily understood, and very easily remembered.
The Holy Spirit NEVER itemizes errors because He does not
frighten children, and those who lack wisdom ARE children. Yet
He ALWAYS answers their call, and His dependability makes THEM
more certain. Children DO confuse fantasy and reality, and
they ARE frightened because they do not know the difference.
The Holy Spirit makes NO distinction among dreams. He merely
shines them away. His Light is ALWAYS the call to awake,
whatever you have been dreaming. Nothing lasting lies in
dreams, and the Holy Spirit, shining with the Light from God
Himself, speaks only for what lasts forever.
When your body and your ego and your dreams are gone, you
will know that YOU will last forever. Many think this is
accomplished through death, but NOTHING is accomplished
through death because death IS nothing. EVERYTHING is
accomplished through life, and life is of the mind and IN the
Mind. The body neither lives nor dies because it cannot
contain you who ARE life. If we share the same mind, you can
overcome death BECAUSE I DID. Death is an attempt to resolve
conflict by not willing at all. Like any other impossible
solution which the ego attempts, IT WILL NOT WORK.
God did not make the body because it is destructible, and
therefore not of the Kingdom. The body is the symbol of what
you THINK you are. It is clearly a separation device, and
therefore does not exist. The Holy Spirit, as always, takes
what you have made and translates it into a learning device
FOR you. Again as always, He 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.
We have said that the Holy Spirit is the MOTIVATION for
miracles. This is because He always tells you that ONLY the
mind is real 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.
We have too much to accomplish on behalf of the Kingdom to
let this crucial concept slip away. It is a real foundation
stone of the thought system I teach and want YOU to teach. You
cannot perform miracles without believing it because it is a
belief in perfect equality. Only one equal gift CAN be offered
to the equal Sons of God, and that is FULL APPRECIATION.
Nothing more and nothing less. Without a range an order of
difficulty IS meaningless, and there must BE no range in what
you offer to each other.
The Holy Spirit, Who leads to God, translates communication
into being, just as He ultimately translates perception into
knowledge. 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.
Egos DO join together in temporary allegiance, but always
for WHAT EACH ONE CAN GET SEPARATELY. The Holy Spirit
communicates only WHAT EACH ONE CAN GIVE TO ALL. He never
takes anything back because He wants YOU to keep it.
Therefore, His teaching begins with the lesson:
To HAVE, GIVE all TO all.
This is a very preliminary step, and the only one you must
take 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.
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 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.
To Have Peace, Teach Peace to Learn It
All the separated ones have a basic fear of retaliation and
abandonment. This is because they BELIEVE in attack and
rejection, so this is what they perceive and teach and LEARN.
These insane concepts are clearly the result of their own
dissociation and projection. What you teach you are, but it is
quite apparent that you can teach wrongly, and therefore TEACH
YOURSELVES WRONG. Many thought that I was attacking them, even
though it was quite apparent that I was not. An insane learner
learns strange lessons.
What you must understand is that, when you do not SHARE a
thought system, you ARE weakening it. Those who BELIEVE in it
therefore perceive this as an attack ON THEM. This is because
everyone identifies HIMSELF with his thought system, and EVERY
thought system centers on WHAT YOU BELIEVE YOU ARE. If the
center of the thought system is true, only truth extends from
it. But if a lie is at its center, only DECEPTION proceeds
from it. All good teachers realize that only fundamental
change will last, but they do not BEGIN at that level.
Strengthening MOTIVATION for change is their first and
foremost goal. It is also their last and final one.
Increasing motivation for change IN THE LEARNER is all that
a teacher NEED do to guarantee change. This is because a
change in motivation IS a change of mind, and this will
inevitably produce fundamental change because the mind IS
fundamental. The first step in the reversal or undoing
process, then, is the undoing of the GETTING concept.
Accordingly, the Holy Spirits first lesson was To HAVE,
GIVE all TO all. We said that this is apt to increase
conflict temporarily, and we can clarify this still further
now.
At this point, the equality of having and being is
not yet perceived. Until it IS, having 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 suspicious of
THEIR motivation. This is the real reason why, in many
respects, the first lesson is the hardest to learn. Still
strongly aware of the ego in himself, and responding primarily
to the ego in others, he is being taught to react to both as
if what he DOES believe is NOT true.
Upside-down as always, the ego perceives the first lesson
as insane. In fact, this is its only alternative here, since
the other one, which would be much LESS acceptable to it,
would obviously be that IT is insane. The egos 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 Spirits Voice makes it
impossible for the learner NOT to listen. For a time, then, he
IS receiving conflicting messages, AND ACCEPTING BOTH. This is
the classic double bind in communication.
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. His LESSON is not insane; the CONFLICT is.
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 created
by God, and YOUR decision CANNOT change it. As you begin to
realize the quiet power of the Holy Spirits Voice AND ITS
PERFECT CONSISTENCY, it MUST dawn on your minds that you are
trying to undo a decision which was made irrevocably FOR you.
That is why we suggested before that there was help in
reminding yourselves to allow the Holy Spirit to decide for
God for YOU.
You are NOT asked to make insane decisions, although you
are free to THINK you are. It MUST, however, be insane to
believe that IT IS UP TO YOU to decide what Gods creations
ARE. The Holy Spirit perceives the conflict exactly as it is.
Therefore, His second lesson is:
To HAVE peace, TEACH peace to LEARN it.
This is still a preliminary step, 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.
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 CREATE, and creating CANNOT be
difficult if God Himself created you AS a creator. The second
step, then, is still perceptual, although it is a giant step
toward the unified perception which parallels Gods knowing.
As you take this step and HOLD THIS DIRECTION, you will be
pushing toward the center of your thought system, where the
FUNDAMENTAL change will occur. You are only beginning this
step now, but you have started on this way by realizing that
ONLY ONE WAY IS POSSIBLE. You do not yet realize this
consistently and so your progress is intermittent, but the
second step is easier than the first because it FOLLOWS. The
very fact that you have accepted THAT is a demonstration of
your growing awareness that the Holy Spirit WILL lead you on.
Be Vigilant Only for God and His Kingdom
For your own salvation you must be critical, since your
salvation IS critical to the whole Sonship. We said before
that the Holy Spirit is evaluative, and MUST be. Yet His
evaluation does not extend BEYOND you, or you would share it.
In YOUR mind, and your mind ONLY, He sorts out the true from
the false, and teaches you to judge every thought that you
allow to enter your mind in the light of what God PUT there.
Whatever is IN ACCORD with this light He retains, to
strengthen the Kingdom in YOU. What is PARTLY in accord with
truth He accepts and purifies. But what is OUT OF ACCORD
entirely He rejects by judging AGAINST. This is how He keeps
the Kingdom perfectly consistent and perfectly unified.
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 egos 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 He engenders is joy. He PROTECTS it by
rejecting everything that does NOT foster joy, and so He alone
can keep you wholly joyous.
The Holy Spirit does not teach your mind to be critical of
other minds because He does not want you to teach errors AND
LEARN THEM YOURSELVES. He would hardly be consistent if He
allowed you to STRENGTHEN what you must learn to AVOID. In the
mind of the THINKER, then, He IS judgmental, but only in order
to unify 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 Himself has
established what you can project with perfect safety.
Therefore, the Holy Spirits third lesson is:
Be vigilant ONLY for God and HIS Kingdom.
This is a major step toward FUNDAMENTAL change. Yet it is
still a lesson in thought reversal, 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.
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 CLEARCUT
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.
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 creation
WITHIN the Kingdom. Choosing through the Holy Spirit will lead
you TO the Kingdom. You create by what you ARE, but this is
what you must learn. The way to learn it is inherent in the
third step, which brings together the lessons implied in the
others, and goes beyond them towards real integration.
If you allow yourselves to have in your minds ONLY what God
put there, you ARE acknowledging your mind as God created it.
Therefore, you are accepting it AS IT IS. 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. He is GETTING
YOU READY for the translation of having into being by the very
nature of the steps you must take with Him.
You learn first that having rests on GIVING, and NOT 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 Kingdom, since it is the condition OF the
Kingdom. You have believed that you are WITHOUT the Kingdom,
and have therefore excluded yourself FROM it in your belief.
It is therefore essential to teach you that you must be
INCLUDED, and that the BELIEF that you are NOT is the ONLY
thing that you must exclude.
The third step is thus one of PROTECTION for your minds,
allowing you to identify ONLY with the center, where God
placed the altar to Himself. We have already said that altars
are beliefs, but God and His creations are BEYOND belief
because they are beyond question. The Voice for God speaks
only for BELIEF beyond question, which is the preparation for
BEING without question. As long as belief in God and His
Kingdom is assailed by ANY doubts in your minds, His perfect
accomplishment is NOT apparent to you. This is why you must be
vigilant ON GODS BEHALF. The ego speaks AGAINST His creation,
and therefore DOES engender doubt. You cannot go BEYOND belief
until you believe fully.
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 Sonship, which is
immeasurable because it was created BY the Immeasurable, the
learning itself MUST be incomplete. To teach the whole Sonship
WITHOUT EXCEPTION demonstrates that you PERCEIVE its
wholeness, and have learned that it IS one. Now you must be
vigilant to HOLD its oneness in your minds because, if you let
doubt enter, you will LOSE awareness of its wholeness AND WILL
BE UNABLE TO TEACH IT.
The wholeness of the Kingdom does NOT depend on your
perception, but your AWARENESS of its wholeness DOES. It is
only your awareness 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.
Truth is WITHOUT illusions, and therefore WITHIN the
Kingdom. Everything OUTSIDE the Kingdom IS illusion, but you
must learn to accept truth because you threw it away. You
therefore saw yourself AS IF you were without it. By making
another kingdom which you VALUED, you did not keep ONLY the
Kingdom 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 who teaches like
me. Vigilance was required of me as much as of you, but
remember that those who will to teach the same thing must be
in agreement about what they believe.
The third step, then, is a statement of what you WANT to
believe, and entails a willingness TO RELINQUISH EVERYTHING
ELSE. I told you that you were just beginning the second step,
but I also told you that the third one FOLLOWS it. The Holy
Spirit WILL enable you to go on, if you follow Him. Your
vigilance is the sign that you WANT Him to guide you.
Vigilance DOES require effort, but only to teach you that
effort ITSELF is unnecessary. You have exerted great effort to
preserve what you made BECAUSE it 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
creation is without limit.
CHAPTER 7
THE CONSISTENCY OF THE KINGDOM
The creative power of both God and His creations is
limitless, but they are not in reciprocal relationship. You DO
communicate fully with God, as He does with you. This is an
ongoing process in which you share, and BECAUSE you share it,
you are inspired to create LIKE God. Yet in creation you are
not in reciprocal relation to God, since He created YOU, but
You did NOT create Him. We have already said that only in this
respect your creative power differs from His. 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.
If you created God and He created you, the Kingdom could
not increase through its own creative thought. Creation would
therefore be limited, and you would not be co-creators with
God. As Gods creative Thought proceeds from Him to you, so
must your creative thought proceed from you to YOUR creations.
Only in this way can all creative power extend outward. Gods
accomplishments are not yours. But yours are LIKE His. HE
created the Sonship, and you INCREASE it. You have the power
to ADD to the Kingdom, but not to add to the CREATOR of the
Kingdom. You claim this power when you become vigilant only
for God and His Kingdom. BY ACCEPTING this power as yours, you
have learned to be what you are.
Your creations belong in you, as you belong in God. You are
part of God, as your sons are part of His Sons. To create is
to love. Love extends outward simply because it cannot be
contained. Being limitless, IT DOES NOT STOP. It creates
forever, but not in time. Gods creations have always been,
because HE has always been. YOUR creations have always been,
because you can create only as God creates. Eternity is yours
because He created you eternal.
Bargaining versus Healing
The ego demands reciprocal rights, because it is
competitive rather than loving. It is always willing to make a
deal, but it cannot understand that to be LIKE another
means that NO deals are possible. To gain you must give, not
bargain. To bargain is to limit giving, and this is not Gods
Will. To will with God is to create like Him. God does not
limit His gifts in any way. YOU are His gifts, and so your
gifts must be like His. Your gifts TO the Kingdom must be like
His Gifts to YOU.
I gave ONLY love to the Kingdom because I believed that was
what I WAS. What you believe you are DETERMINES your gifts,
and if God created you by extending Himself AS you, you can
only extend YOURSELF as He did. Only joy increases forever,
since joy and eternity are inseparable. God extends outward
beyond limits and beyond time, and you, who are co-creators
with Him, extend His Kingdom forever and beyond limit.
Eternity is the indelible stamp of creation. The eternal are
in peace and joy forever.
To think like God is to share His CERTAINTY of what you
are, and to CREATE like Him is to share the perfect Love He
shares with YOU. To this the Holy Spirit leads you, that your
joy may be complete because the Kingdom of God is whole. We
have said that the last step in the re-awakening 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. He
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.
God does not TAKE steps because His accomplishments are not
gradual. He does not teach because His creations are
changeless. He does nothing LAST because He created FIRST and
FOR ALWAYS. It must be understood that the word first as
applied to Him is NOT a time concept. He is first in the sense
that He is the first in the Holy Trinity Itself. He is the
Prime Creator because He created His co-creators. BECAUSE He
did, time applies neither to Him NOR to what He created. The
last step that God will take was therefore true in the
beginning, is true now, and will be true forever.
What is timeless is ALWAYS there because its BEING is
eternally changeless. It does not change by increase because
it was forever created TO increase. If you perceive it as NOT
increasing, you do not know what it IS. You also do not know
what created it, or Who HE is. God does not REVEAL this to you
because it was never hidden. His Light was never obscured
because it is His Will to SHARE it. How can what is fully
shared be withheld, and THEN revealed?
To heal is the only kind of thinking in this world that
resembles the Thought of God, and because of the elements
which they share, can transfer TO IT. When a brother perceives
himself as sick, he is perceiving himself as NOT WHOLE, and
therefore IN NEED. If you, too, see him this way, you are
seeing him as if he were absent from the Kingdom or separated
from it, thus making the Kingdom itself obscure to BOTH of
you. Sickness and separation are not of God, but the Kingdom
is. If you obscure the Kingdom, you are perceiving what is NOT
OF GOD.
The Laws of Mind
To heal, then, is to correct perception in your brother AND
yourself by sharing the Holy Spirit with him. This placed
(sic) you BOTH within the Kingdom, and restores its wholeness
in your minds. This parallels creation because it UNIFIES BY
INCREASING and INTEGRATES BY EXTENDING. What you project you
believe. This is an immutable law of the mind in this world as
well as in the Kingdom. However, the content is different in
this world, because the thoughts it governs are very different
from the thoughts in the Kingdom. Laws must be adapted to
circumstances, if they are to maintain order.
The outstanding characteristic of the laws of mind as they
operate in this world is that by obeying them and I assure
you that you MUST obey them you can arrive at diametrically
opposed results. This is because the laws have adapted to the
circumstances of this world, in which diametrically opposed
outcomes ARE believed in. The laws of mind govern thoughts,
and you DO respond to two conflicting voices. You have heard
many arguments on behalf of the freedoms, which would
indeed have been freedom if man had not chosen to FIGHT for
them. That is why they perceive the freedoms as many,
instead of 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.
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 will make the right decision. This is because he HAS the
answer. Conflict can SEEM to be interpersonal, but it MUST be
intrapersonal first.
The term intrapersonal is an ego term, because
personal implies of ONE person, and NOT of others.
Interpersonal has a similar error, 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 as separate
largely because he perceives OF himself as bounded by a body.
ONLY if he perceives himself as a MIND can this be overcome.
Then he is free to use terms like intramental and
intermental WITHOUT seeing them as different or conflicting
because minds CAN be in perfect accord.
OUTSIDE the Kingdom, the law which prevails INSIDE it is
adapted to what you project you BELIEVE. This is its
TEACHING form, since outside the Kingdom teaching is mandatory
because LEARNING is essential. This form of the law clearly
implies that you will learn what YOU are from what you have
projected onto others, and therefore believe THEY are. IN the
Kingdom there is no teaching OR learning because there is no
BELIEF. There is only CERTAINTY. God and His Sons, in the
surety of being, KNOW that what you project you ARE. That form
of the law is not adapted at all, being the Law of Creation.
God Himself created the law by creating BY it. And His Sons,
who create like Him, follow it gladly, knowing that the
increase of the Kingdom depends on it, just as their own
creation did.
Laws must be communicated if they are to be helpful. In
effect, they must be TRANSLATED for those who speak a
different language. Nevertheless, a good translator, although
he must alter the FORM of what he translates, NEVER changes
the meaning. In fact, his whole purpose is to change the form
SO THAT the original meaning is retained. The Holy Spirit is
the TRANSLATOR of the Laws of God to those who do NOT
understand them. You could not do this yourselves because
conflicted minds CANNOT be faithful to one meaning, and will
therefore CHANGE THE MEANING TO PRESERVE THE FORM.
The Holy Spirits purpose in translating is naturally
EXACTLY the opposite. He translates only to PRESERVE the
original meaning in ALL respects and in ALL languages.
Therefore, He opposes differences in form as meaningful,
emphasizing always that THESE DIFFERENCES DO NOT MATTER. The
meaning of His message is ALWAYS the same, and ONLY the
meaning matters. Gods Law of Creation in perfect form does
not involve the USE of truth to convince His Sons OF truth.
The EXTENSION of truth, which IS the Law of the Kingdom, rests
only on the knowledge of what truth IS. This is your
inheritance and requires no learning at all, but when you
DISinherited yourselves, you BECAME learners.
No-one questions the intimate connection of learning and
memory. Learning is impossible WITHOUT memory since it cannot
be consistent UNLESS it is remembered. That is why the Holy
Spirit IS a lesson in remembering. We said before that He
teaches remembering and forgetting, but the forgetting aspect
is only TO MAKE THE REMEMBERING CONSISTENT. You forget in
order to REMEMBER BETTER. You will NOT understand His
translations while you listen to two ways of perceiving them.
Therefore, you must forget, or relinquish, one to UNDERSTAND
the other. This is the only way you CAN learn consistency, so
that you can finally BE consistent.
What can the perfect consistency of the Kingdom mean to the
confused? It is apparent that confusion INTERFERES with
meaning, and therefore PREVENTS THE LEARNER FROM APPRECIATING
it. There is NO confusion in the Kingdom, because there is
only ONE meaning. This meaning comes from God and IS God.
Because it is also YOU, you share it and EXTEND it as your
Creator did. This needs no translation because it is perfectly
understood, but it DOES need extension because it MEANS
extension. Communication is perfectly direct and perfectly
united. It is totally without strain because nothing
discordant EVER enters. That is why it IS the Kingdom of God.
It belongs to Him, and is therefore LIKE Him. That is its
reality, and nothing CAN assail it.
The Unified Curriculum
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.
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 WILL do something, but
YOU cannot understand WHAT IT IS.
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.
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 Spirits 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 egos
reason for learning is totally irrelevant.
YOU made the effort to learn, and the Holy Spirit has a
unified goal for ALL effort. He ADAPTS the egos potentials
for excelling to potentials for EQUALIZING. This makes them
USELESS for the egos purpose, but VERY useful for His. If
different abilities are applied long enough to one goal, the
abilities THEMSELVES become unified. This is because they are
channelized in one direction, or in one WAY. Ultimately, then,
they all contribute to ONE RESULT, and by so doing, their
similarity rather than their differences is emphasized. You
can EXCEL in many DIFFERENT ways, but you can EQUALIZE in ONE
WAY ONLY. Equality is NOT a variable state, by definition.
That it 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, He maximizes ALL efforts and ALL results. By
teaching the power of the Kingdom of God Himself, He teaches
you that ALL POWER IS YOURS. Its application does not matter.
It is ALWAYS maximal. Your vigilance does not ESTABLISH it as
yours, but it DOES enable you to use it ALWAYS and in ALL
WAYS.
When I said, I am with you always, I meant it
literally. I am not absent to ANYONE, in ANY situation.
BECAUSE I am always with you, YOU are the Way and the Truth
and the Light. You did not make this power any more than I
did. It was created to BE shared, and therefore cannot be
meaningfully perceived as belonging to anyone AT THE EXPENSE
of another. Such a perception makes it meaningless by
eliminating or overlooking its REAL and ONLY meaning.
The Recognition of Truth
Gods meaning waits in the Kingdom because that is where He
placed it. It does not wait in time. It merely RESTS in the
Kingdom because it BELONGS there, as You do. How can you, who
ARE Gods 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.
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 egos
enemy is therefore YOUR friend. We said before that the
egos 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 and RECOGNIZE all whom
you see AS brothers, because ONLY equals are at peace.
Because Gods equal Sons have everything, they CANNOT
compete. Yet if they perceive ANY of their brothers as
anything other than their perfect equals, the idea of
competition HAS entered their minds. Do not underestimate your
need to be vigilant AGAINST this idea, because ALL your
conflicts come from it. It is the belief that conflicting
interests are possible, and therefore you have accepted the
impossible as TRUE. How is that different from saying that you
are perceiving YOURSELF as unreal?
To be IN the Kingdom is merely to focus your full attention
ON it. As long as you believe that you can attend to what is
NOT true, you are accepting conflict as your CHOICE. Is it
REALLY a choice? It SEEMS to be, but seeming and reality are
hardly the same. You who ARE the Kingdom are not concerned
with seeming. Reality is yours because you ARE reality. This
is how having and being are ultimately reconciled, not in the
Kingdom, but IN YOUR MINDS. The altar there is the ONLY
reality. The altar is perfectly clear in thought because it is
a reflection of PERFECT Thought. It sees only brothers because
it sees ONLY in its own Light.
God has lit your minds Himself, and keeps your minds lit by
His Light because His Light is what your minds ARE. This is
TOTALLY beyond question, and when you questioned it, you WERE
answered. The answer merely UNDOES the question by
establishing the fact that to question reality is to question
meaninglessly. That is why the Holy Spirit NEVER questions.
His 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.
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.
Healing is also a science because it obeys the laws of God,
Whose laws are true. BECAUSE they are true they are perfectly
dependable, and therefore universal in application. The REAL
aim of science is neither prediction nor control, but ONLY
understanding. This is because it does NOT establish the laws
it seeks; CANNOT discover them through prediction; and has NO
control over them at all. Science is nothing more than an
approach to WHAT ALREADY IS. Like inspiration it can be
misunderstood as magic, and WILL be whenever it is undertaken
as SEPARATE from what already is, and perceived as a means for
ESTABLISHING it. To believe this is possible is to believe YOU
CAN DO IT. This can only be the voice of the ego.
Truth can only be RECOGNIZED, and NEED only be recognized.
Inspiration is of the Spirit, and certainty is of God
according to His laws. Both, therefore, come from the same
Source, 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 His creations as perfectly whole.
Yet healing is still OF God because it proceeds from His Voice
and from His laws. It is their result, in a state of mind
which does NOT know Him. The STATE is unknown to Him and
therefore does not exist, but those who sleep ARE STUPEFIED,
or better, UNAWARE. BECAUSE they are unaware, they do NOT
know.
The Holy Spirit must work THROUGH you to teach you He is IN
you. This is an intermediary step toward the knowledge that
you are in God because you are part of Him. The miracles which
the Holy Spirit inspires can have no order of difficulty
because every part of creation is of ONE order. This is Gods
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.
ALL abilities, then should be given over to the Holy Spirit
WHO KNOWS HOW TO USE THEM PROPERLY. He can use them ONLY for
healing because He knows you ONLY as whole. BY healing you
learn of wholeness, and by learning of wholeness you learn to
remember God. You HAVE forgotten Him, but the Holy Spirit
still knows that your forgetting must be translated into a way
of REMEMBERING, and NOT perceived as a separate ability which
opposes an opposite. 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.
The egos goal is as unified as the Holy Spirits, 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 Sonship
without this belief. This perception is therefore IN accord
with the laws of God even in a state of mind which is OUT of
accord with His. The strength of right perception is so great
that it brings the mind INTO accord with His because it yields
to His pull, which is in all of you.
To OPPOSE the pull or the Will of God is not an ability but
a real DELUSION. The ego believes that it HAS this ability,
and can offer 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.
Seek ye FIRST the Kingdom of Heaven 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 Him Who
IS all Being. YOU are therefore in Him since YOUR being IS
His. Healing is a way of forgetting the sense of danger the
ego has induced in YOU by NOT recognizing its existence in
your brothers. This strengthens the Holy Spirit in BOTH of you
because it is a REFUSAL to acknowledge fear. Love needs only
this invitation. It comes freely to ALL the Sonship, being
what the Sonship IS. By your awakening TO it, you are merely
forgetting what you are NOT. This enables you to remember what
you ARE.
Healing and the Changelessness of Mind
The body is nothing more than a framework for developing
abilities. It is therefore a means for developing POTENTIALS,
which is quite apart from what the potential is used FOR. THAT
is a DECISION. The effects of the egos decision in this
matter are so apparent that they need no elaboration here, but
the Holy Spirits 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 own vocation.
ONLY minds communicate. Since the ego CANNOT obliterate the
impulse to communicate because it is also the impulse to
create, the ego can only teach you that the BODY can both
communicate AND create, 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 AND learners because, as has been repeatedly
emphasized you teach what you DO believe. An inconsistent
lesson will be poorly taught AND POORLY LEARNED. If you teach
both sickness AND healing you are both a poor teacher AND a
poor learner.
Healing is the one ability which everyone can develop and
MUST develop, if he is to be healed. Healing is the Holy
Spirits form of communication, and the ONLY one He knows. He
recognizes no other because he does not accept the egos
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.
Healing only STRENGTHENS. Magic ALWAYS tries to weaken.
Healing perceives NOTHING in the healer that everyone else
does not SHARE with him. Magic ALWAYS sees something
special in the healer, which he believes he can offer as a
gift to someone who does NOT have it. He may believe that the
gift comes FROM God to Him, but it is quite evident that he
does not understand God if he thinks he has something that
others LACK. You might well ask, then, why some healing CAN
result from this kind of thinking, and there is a reason for
this:
However misguided the magical healer may be, he is ALSO
trying to help. He is conflicted and unstable, but AT TIMES he
is offering something to the Sonship, and the only thing the
Sonship can ACCEPT is healing. When the so-called healing
works, then, the impulse to help and to BE helped have
coincided. This is coincidental, because the healer may NOT be
experiencing himself as truly helpful at the time, but the
belief that he IS, in the mind of another, helps HIM.
The Holy Spirit does NOT work by chance, and healing that
is of Him ALWAYS works. Unless the healer ALWAYS heals by Him,
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 can sometimes heal and sometimes not,
the healer is OBVIOUSLY accepting inconsistency. He is
therefore IN conflict and TEACHING conflict. Can anything of
God NOT be for all and for always?
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.
Healing is predictable because it can be counted on.
EVERYTHING that is of God can be counted on, because
everything of God is wholly REAL. Healing can be counted on
BECAUSE it is inspired by His Voice, and is in accord with His
laws. Yet if healing IS consistence, it cannot be
inconsistently understood. Understanding MEANS consistence
because GOD means consistence. Since that is HIS meaning, it
is also YOURS. Your meaning cannot BE out of accord with His
because your whole meaning, and your ONLY meaning, comes FROM
His and is LIKE His. God cannot be out of accord with HIMSELF,
and YOU cannot be out of accord with Him. You cannot separate
your SELF from your Creator, Who created you by sharing HIS
Being WITH you.
The unhealed healer wants gratitude FROM his brothers, but
he is not grateful TO them. This is because he thinks he is
GIVING something TO them and is NOT receiving something
equally desirable in return. His TEACHING is limited because
he is LEARNING so little. His healing lesson is limited by his
own ingratitude, which is a lesson in SICKNESS. Learning is
constant, and so vital in its power for change that a Son of
God can recognize his power in one instant, and change the
world in the next. That is because, by changing HIS mind, he
has changed the most powerful device that was ever created FOR
change.
This in no way contradicts the changelessness of mind as
GOD created it, but you think that you HAVE changed it as long
as you learn through the ego. This DOES place you in a
position of needing to learn a lesson which seems
contradictory; you must learn to change your mind ABOUT your
mind. Only by this can you learn that it IS changeless. When
you heal, that is exactly what you ARE learning. You are
recognizing the changeless mind in your brother by realizing
that he COULD not have changed his mind. That is how you
perceive the Holy Spirit in him. It is ONLY the Holy Spirit in
him that never changes His mind. He himself must think he CAN,
or he would not perceive himself as sick. He therefore does
not know what his self IS.
If YOU see only the changeless in him, you have not really
changed him at all. By changing YOUR mind about his FOR him,
you help him UNDO the change his ego thinks it has made in
him. As you can hear two voices, so you can see in two ways.
One way shows you an image, or better, an idol, which you may
worship out of fear, but which you will never love. The other
shows you only truth, which you will love because you will
UNDERSTAND it. Understanding is APPRECIATION, because what you
understand you can IDENTIFY with, and by making it part of
YOU, you have accepted it with love.
That is how God Himself created YOU; in understanding, in
appreciation, and in love. The ego is totally unable to
understand this because it does NOT understand what it makes;
it does NOT appreciate it, and it does NOT love it. It
incorporates to TAKE AWAY. It literally believes that every
time it deprives someone of something, IT has increased. We
have spoken often of the increase of the Kingdom by YOUR
creations, which can only be created as YOU were. The whole
glory and perfect joy that IS the Kingdom lies in you to give.
Do you not WANT to give it?
You CANNOT forget the Father because I am with you, and I
cannot forget Him. To forget ME is to forget yourself and Him
who created you. Our brothers ARE forgetful. That is why they
need your remembrance of me, and Him who created me. Through
this remembrance you can change their minds about THEMSELVES,
as I can change YOURS. Your minds are so powerful a light that
you can look into theirs and enlighten them, as I can
enlighten yours. I do not want to share my BODY in communion
because that is to share nothing. Yet I do want to share my
MIND with you because we ARE of one Mind, and that MIND IS
ours.
See ONLY this MIND everywhere, because only this IS
everywhere and in everything. It IS everything because it
encompasses all things within ITSELF. Blessed are you who
perceive only this, because you perceive only what is true.
Come therefore unto me, and learn of the truth in YOU. The
Mind we share is shared by all our brothers, and as we see
them truly, they WILL be healed. Let YOUR mind shine with mine
upon their minds, and by our gratitude to them, make them
aware of the light in THEM.
This light will shine back upon YOU and on the whole
Sonship because this is your proper gift to God. He will
accept it and give it to the Sonship because it is acceptable
to Him, and therefore to His Sons. This is the true communion
of the Spirit Who sees the altar of God in everyone, and by
bringing it to YOUR appreciation, calls upon you to love God
AND His creations. You can appreciate the Sonship ONLY as one.
This is part of the law of creation, and therefore governs ALL
thought.
From Vigilance to Peace
Although you can LOVE the Sonship 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 create depending on
whether the ego or the Holy Spirit begets or inspires them,
but they WILL return to the mind of the thinker, and they WILL
affect his total perception. That includes his perception of
God, of His creations, and of his own. He will not appreciate
ANY of them if he regards them fearfully. He will appreciate
ALL of them if he regards them with love.
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.
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.
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.
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 Sonship it WOULD know itself.
The ego therefore opposes ALL appreciation, ALL
recognition, ALL sane perception and ALL knowledge. It
perceives their threat as total because it senses the fact
that ALL commitments 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.
The Holy Spirit undoes illusions without attacking them
merely because He cannot perceive them at all. They therefore
do not exist for Him. He resolves the APPARENT conflict which
they engender by perceiving CONFLICT as meaningless. We said
before that the Holy Spirit perceives the conflict exactly as
it is, and it IS meaningless. The Holy Spirit does not want
you to UNDERSTAND conflict; He wants you to realize that
BECAUSE conflict is meaningless, it cannot BE understood. We
have already said that understanding brings appreciation, and
appreciation brings love. Nothing else CAN be understood
because nothing else is REAL, and therefore nothing else HAS
meaning.
If you will keep in mind what the Holy Spirit offers you,
you cannot be vigilant for anything BUT God and His Kingdom.
The only reason 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.
When you believe what God does not KNOW, your thought seems
to CONTRADICT His, and this makes it appear AS IF you are
attacking Him. We have repeatedly emphasized that the ego DOES
believe it can attack God, and tries to persuade you that YOU
have done this. If the mind CANNOT attack, the ego proceeds
perfectly logically to the position that you cannot BE mind.
By not seeing you as you ARE, it can see ITSELF as it WANTS to
be. Aware of its weakness the ego wants your allegiance, but
not as you really are. The ego therefore wants to engage your
mind in its OWN delusional system because otherwise the light
of YOUR understanding would dispel it.
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
co-exist in your minds WITHOUT splitting them. If they cannot
co-exist in peace, and if you WANT peace, you must give up the
idea of conflict ENTIRELY and for ALL TIME. While you believe
that two totally contradictory thought systems SHARE truth,
your need for vigilance is apparent. Your minds ARE dividing
their allegiance between two kingdoms, and you are totally
committed to neither.
Your identification with the Kingdom is totally beyond
question except by you, when you are thinking insanely. What
you are is not established by your perception, and is not
influenced BY it at all. All perceived problems in
identification at any level are NOT problems of fact. 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.
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 Gods Voice
in you, and will therefore obscure God TO you. Unless you
perceive His creation truly you cannot know the Creator, since
God and His creation are not separate. The Oneness of the
Creator and the creation is your wholeness, your sanity, and
your limitless power. This limitless power is Gods 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 as if it were weak because you do not believe YOU are
part of it.
Perceived WITHOUT your part in it Gods creation 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.
Allowing insanity to enter your minds means that you have
not judged sanity as WHOLLY DESIRABLE. If you WANT something
else you will MAKE something else, but because it IS something
else it will attack your thought system and divide your
allegiance. You cannot create in this divided state, and you
must be vigilant AGAINST this divided state because only peace
can BE extended. Your divided minds are blocking the extension
of the Kingdom, and its extension IS your joy. If you do not
extend the Kingdom, you are not thinking with your Creator and
creating as He created.
In this depressing state the Holy Spirit reminds you gently
that you are sad because you are not fulfilling your function
as co-creators with God, and are therefore depriving
yourselves of joy. This is not Gods Will, but YOURS. If your
will is out of accord with Gods, you are willing without
meaning. Yet because Gods Will is unchangeable, no REAL
conflict of will is possible. This is the Holy Spirits
perfectly consistent teaching.
Creation, NOT separation, is your will BECAUSE it is Gods,
and nothing that opposes this means anything at all. Being a
perfect accomplishment, the Sonship can only accomplish
perfectly, extending the joy in which it was created, and
identifying itself with both its Creator and its creations,
KNOWING they are One.
The Total Commitment
Whenever you deny a blessing to a brother YOU will feel
deprived. This is because denial is as total as love. It is as
impossible to deny part of the Sonship as it is to love it in
part. Nor is it possible to love it totally AT TIMES. You
cannot be TOTALLY committed SOMETIMES. Remember a very early
lesson; Never underestimate the power of denial. It has no
power in itself, but you can give it the power of YOUR mind,
whose power is without limit of any kind. If you use it to
deny reality, reality IS gone for you. REALITY CANNOT BE
PARTLY APPRECIATED. That is why denying any part of it means
you have lost awareness of ALL of it.
That is the negative side of the law, as it operates in
this world. 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
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.
When a brother acts insanely, he is offering you an
opportunity to bless him. His need is YOURS. You NEED the
blessing you can offer him. There is no way for you to have it
EXCEPT by giving it. This is the law of God, and it has NO
exceptions. What you deny you LACK, not because it IS lacking,
but because you have denied it in another, and 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.
You do not need Gods 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 Sonship are dispelled
together, as they were MADE together. Teach no-one that he is
what YOU would NOT want to be. Your brother is the mirror in
which you will see the image of yourself, as long as
perception lasts. And perception WILL last until the Sonship
knows itself as whole.
You made perception, and it must last as long as you WANT
it. Illusions are investments. They will last as long as you
value them. Values are relative, but they are powerful because
they are mental judgments. The only way to dispel illusions is
to withdraw ALL investment from them, and they will have no
life for you because you have put them OUT OF YOUR MIND. While
you include them IN it, you are GIVING life to them. Except
there is nothing there to receive your gift.
The gift of life IS yours to give, because it was given
YOU. You are unaware of your gift BECAUSE you do not give it.
You cannot make nothing live, 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
Creator. You can do nothing apart from Him, and you DO do
nothing apart from Him. Keep His way to remember yourselves,
and teach His way, lest you forget yourselves. Give only honor
to the Sons of the Living God, and count yourselves among them
gladly.
ONLY honor is a fitting gift for those whom God Himself
created worthy of honor, and whom He honors. Give them the
appreciation which God accords them always, because they are
His beloved Sons in whom He is well pleased. You cannot BE
apart from them because you are not apart from Him. Rest in
His Love, and protect your rest by loving. But love EVERYTHING
He created, of which you are a part, or you cannot learn of
His peace, and accept His gift for YOURSELF and AS yourself.
You cannot know your own perfection until you have honored all
those who were created LIKE you.
One Child of God is the ONLY teacher sufficiently worthy to
teach another. One Teacher is in all your minds, and He
teaches the same lesson to all. He always teaches you the
inestimable worth of EVERY Son of God, teaching it with
infinite patience born of the infinite Love for which he
speaks. Every attack is a call for His patience since ONLY His
patience can translate attack into blessing. Those who attack
do not KNOW they are blessed. They attack because they believe
they are DEPRIVED. Give, therefore, of YOUR abundance, and
teach your brothers THEIRS. Do not share their delusions of
scarcity, or you will perceive YOURSELF as lacking.
Attack could never promote attack unless you perceived it
as a means of depriving you of something you WANT. 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 believes
that his brother is attacking him to tear the Kingdom of
Heaven from him. This is the ultimate basis for ALL of the
egos projection.
Being the part of your mind which does not believe it is
responsible for ITSELF, and being without allegiance to God,
the ego is incapable of trust. Projecting its insane belief
that YOU have been treacherous to YOUR Creator, it believes
that your brothers, who are as incapable of this as YOU are,
are out to take God FROM you. Whenever a brother attacks
another, this IS what he believes. Projection ALWAYS sees your
will in others. If you will to separate yourself from God,
that IS what you will think others are doing TO you.
You ARE the Will of God. Do not accept anything else AS
your will, or you are denying what you are. Deny this and you
WILL attack, believing you have BEEN attacked. But see the
Love of God in you, and you will see It everywhere because it
IS everywhere. See His abundance in everyone, and you will
know that you are in Him WITH them. They are part of you, as
you are part of God. YOU are as lonely without understanding
this as God Himself is lonely when His Sons do not know Him.
The peace of God IS understanding this. There is only one way
OUT of the worlds thinking, just as there was only one way
INTO it. Understand totally by understanding TOTALITY.
Perceive ANY part of the egos thought system as wholly
insane, wholly delusional and wholly undesirable, and you have
correctly evaluated ALL of it. This correction enables you to
perceive ANY part of creation as wholly real, wholly perfect,
and WHOLLY DESIRABLE. Wanting this ONLY, you will HAVE this
only, and giving this only, you will BE only this. The gifts
you offer to the ego are ALWAYS experienced as sacrifices, but
the gifts you offer to the Kingdom are gifts to YOU. They will
always be treasured by God because they belong to His beloved
Sons, who belong to Him. All power and glory are yours BECAUSE
the Kingdom is His.
The Defense of Conflict
We once said that without projection there can be no anger,
but it is also true that without projection there can be no
love. Projection is a fundamental law of the mind, and
therefore one which ALWAYS operates. It is the law by which
you create and were created. It is the law which unifies the
Kingdom, and keeps it in the Mind of God. To the ego, the law
is perceived as a way of getting RID of something it does NOT
want. To the Holy Spirit, it is the fundamental law of sharing
by which you GIVE what you value in order to keep it in your
OWN mind.
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 egos use of projection must be fully understood
before its inevitable association between projection and anger
can be finally undone.
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 minds 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.
Strictly speaking, conflict cannot BE projected precisely
BECAUSE it cannot be fully shared. Any attempt to keep PART of
it and get rid of another part does not really mean ANYTHING.
Remember that a conflicted teacher is a poor teacher AND A
POOR LEARNER. His lessons are confused, and their transfer
value is severely limited BY his confusion. A second fallacy
is the idea the you can get RID of something you do not want
by giving it away. GIVING it is how you KEEP it. The belief
that by giving it OUT you have excluded it from WITHIN is a
complete distortion of the power of extension.
That is why those who project from the ego are vigilant for
their OWN safety. They ARE afraid that their projections will
return and hurt them. They DO believe they have blotted 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.
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.
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 egos existence YOURSELF you will have laid aside all
anger and all attack, because they COME from an attempt to
project responsibility for your OWN errors. But having
ACCEPTED the errors as yours, DO NOT KEEP THEM. Give them over
quickly to the Holy Spirit to be undone completely, so that
ALL their effects will vanish from your minds, and from the
Sonship AS A WHOLE.
The Holy Spirit will teach you to perceive BEYOND belief
because truth is beyond belief, and His perception IS true.
The ego can be completely forgotten at ANY time because it was
always a belief that is totally incredible. No-one can KEEP a
belief he has judged to be unbelievable. The more you learn
about the ego, the more you realize that it cannot BE
believed. The incredible cannot be understood because it IS
unbelievable. The utter meaninglessness of all perception that
comes from the unbelievable must be apparent, but it is not
RECOGNIZED as beyond belief because it was made BY belief.
The whole purpose of this course is to teach you that the
ego is unbelievable and will forever BE unbelievable. You who
made the ego by believing the unbelievable cannot make this
judgment alone. By accepting the Atonement for YOURSELF, you
are deciding against the belief that you can BE alone, thus
dispelling the idea of separation, and affirming your true
identification with the whole Kingdom as literally PART of
you. This identification is as beyond doubt as it is beyond
belief. Your wholeness has no limits because being is in
infinity.
The Extension of the Kingdom
Only YOU can limit your creative power, but God wills to
release it. He no more wills you to deprive yourself of your
creations than He wills to deprive Himself of His. Do not
withhold your gifts to the Sonship, or you withhold yourself
from God. Selfishness is of the ego, but self-fullness is of
the Soul because that is how God created it. The Holy Spirit
is the part of the mind that lies between the ego and the
Soul, mediating between them ALWAYS in favor of the Soul. To
the ego this is partiality, and it therefore responds as if it
were the part that is being sided AGAINST. TO the Soul this is
truth, because it knows its fullness, and cannot conceive of
any part from which it is excluded.
The Soul KNOWS that the consciousness of all its brothers
is included in its own, as IT is included in God. The power of
the whole Sonship AND of its Creator is therefore the Souls
own fullness, rendering its creations equally whole and equal
in perfection. The ego cannot prevail against a totality which
includes God, and any totality MUST include God. Everything He
created is given all His power because it is part of Him and
shares His Being with Him. Creating is the opposite of loss,
as blessing is the opposite of sacrifice. Being MUST be
extended. That is how it retains the knowledge of ITSELF.
The Soul yearns to share its being as ITS Creator did.
Created BY sharing, its will is to create. It does not wish to
CONTAIN God but to EXTEND His Being. The extension of Gods
Being is the Souls ONLY function. Its fullness cannot be
contained, any more than can the fullness of its Creator.
Fullness IS extension. The egos 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 create you ARE unfulfilled, but God
does not know of unfulfillment, and therefore you MUST create.
YOU may not know your own creations, but this can no more
interfere with their reality than your unawareness of your
Soul can interfere with its being.
The Kingdom is forever extending because it is in the Mind
of God. You do not KNOW your joy because you do not know your
own self-fullness. Exclude ANY part of the Kingdom from
yourself, and you are NOT whole. A split mind cannot perceive
its fullness, and needs the miracle of its wholeness to dawn
upon it and heal it. This reawakens the wholeness in it, and
restores it to the Kingdom 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 Kingdom. Every Soul IS
fulfilling its function, and only complete fulfillment IS
peace.
Insanity APPEARS to add to reality, but no-one would claim
that what it adds is true. Insanity is therefore the NON-
extension of truth, which blocks joy because it blocks
creation, and thus blocks self-fulfillment. The unfulfilled
MUST be depressed because their self-fullness is unknown to
them. Your creations 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 Him. They are there
as part of your own being because your fulfillment INCLUDES
them. The creations of every Son of God are yours since every
creation belongs to everyone, being created for the Sonship as
a whole.
You have NOT failed to add to the inheritance of the Sons
of God, and thus have not failed to secure it for yourselves.
If it was the Will of God to give it to you, He gave it
forever. If it was His Will that you have it forever, He gave
you the means for keeping it, AND YOU HAVE DONE SO. Disobeying
Gods Will is meaningful only to the insane. In truth it is
impossible. Your self-fullness is as boundless as Gods. Like
His, it extends forever and in perfect peace. Its radiance is
so intense that it creates in perfect joy, and only the whole
can be born of its wholeness.
Be confident that you have never lost your identity and the
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, and
of your own awareness that your identification IS maintained
by extension. The miracle is a LESSON IN TOTAL PERCEPTION. By
including ANY part of totality in the lesson, you HAVE
included the whole. You have said that, when you write of the
Kingdom and your creations 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 egos premises. The Kingdom is the result of premises,
just as this world is.
You HAVE carried the egos 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 egos premises, but NOT at their logical outcome.
Is it not possible that you have done the same thing with the
premises of God?
Your creations ARE the logical outcome of His premises. His
thinking has established them FOR you. They are therefore
there, EXACTLY where they belong. They belong in your mind as
part of your identification with His, but your state of mind
and your recognition of what is IN your mind depends, at any
given moment, on what you believe ABOUT your mind. Whatever
these beliefs may be, they are the premises which will
determine what you accept INTO your 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.
Yet the function which God Himself gave your minds through
His 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 GODS
Will. SHARE His Will, and you share what He knows. DENY His
Will as yours, and you are denying His Kingdom AND yours. The
Holy Spirit will direct you only so as to avoid pain. The
undoing of pain must obviously avoid pain. Surely no-one would
object to this goal IF HE RECOGNIZED IT. The problem is not
whether what the Holy Spirit says is true, but whether you
want to LISTEN to what He says.
The Confusion of Strength and Weakness
You no more recognize what is painful than you know what is
joyful, and are, in fact, very apt to confuse the two. The
Holy Spirits 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.
That is why you need to DEMONSTRATE the obvious to
yourselves. It is NOT obvious to you. You believe that doing
the OPPOSITE of Gods WILL can be better for you. You also
believe that it is possible to DO the opposite of Gods 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. He does NOT wish. YOUR will is as powerful as
His because it IS His. The egos 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
egos weakness, and YOUR strength.
The Holy Spirit ALWAYS sides with you and with your
strength. As long as you avoid His guidance in any way, you
WANT to be weak. 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.
No-one obeys gladly a guide he does not trust, but this
does not mean that the GUIDE is untrustworthy. In this case,
it ALWAYS means that the FOLLOWER is. However, this, too, is
merely a matter of his own belief. Believing that HE can
betray, he believes that everything can betray HIM. Yet this
is only because he has ELECTED TO FOLLOW FALSE GUIDANCE.
Unable to follow this guidance WITHOUT fear, he associates
fear WITH guidance, and refuses to follow ANY guidance at all.
The Holy Spirit is perfectly trustworthy, as YOU are. God
Himself trusts you, and therefore your trustworthiness IS
beyond question. It will always remain beyond question,
however much YOU may question it.
We said before that you ARE the Will of God. His Will is
not an idle wish, and your identification WITH His Will is not
optional since it IS what you are. Sharing His 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 GODS decision. That IS His
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. His 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
Son of God, whose will MUST be the Will of the Father because
the Fathers Will IS His Son.
Miracles are IN ACCORD with the Will of God, Whose Will you
do not know, because you are confused about what YOU will.
This means that you are confused about what you are. If you
ARE Gods Will and do not ACCEPT His 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.
The State of Grace
The Holy Spirit will ALWAYS guide you truly, because YOUR
joy is HIS. This is His Will for everyone, because He speaks
for the Kingdom of God, which IS joy. Following Him is
therefore the easiest thing in the world, and the only thing
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 Gods laws. The world perceives orders of
difficulty in everything. This is because the ego perceives
nothing as wholly desirable. By demonstrating to yourselves
that there IS no order of difficulty in miracles, you will
convince yourselves that, in your NATURAL state, there is no
difficulty because it is a state of grace.
Grace is the NATURAL state of every Son of God. When he is
NOT in a state of grace, he is out of his natural environment
and does not function well. Everything he does becomes a
strain, because he was not created for the environment that he
has made. He therefore CANNOT adapt to it, nor can he adapt IT
to HIM. There is no point in trying. A Son of God is happy
ONLY when he knows he is with God. That is the only
environment in which he will not experience strain, because
that is where he belongs. It is also the only environment that
is worthy of him, because his own worth is beyond anything he
can make.
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 his peace, and shine love upon him? Does it keep his
heart untouched by fear, and allow him to give always, without
any sense of loss? Does it teach him that this giving IS his
joy, and that God Himself thanks him for his giving? That is
the ONLY environment in which you can be happy. You cannot
make it, any more than you can make yourselves. It has been
created FOR you, as you were created for it. God watches over
His Children and denies them nothing. Yet when they deny Him
they do not know this, because they deny THEMSELVES
everything.
You who could give the Love of God to everything you see
and touch and remember are literally denying Heaven to
yourselves. I call upon you again to remember that I have
chosen you to teach the Kingdom TO the Kingdom. There are no
exceptions to this lesson because the lack of exceptions IS
the lesson. Every Son who returns to the Kingdom with this
lesson in his heart has healed the Sonship and given thanks to
God. Everyone who learns this lesson has become the perfect
teacher because he has learned it of the Holy Spirit, Who
wants to teach him everything He knows. When a mind HAS only
light, it KNOWS only light. Its own radiance shines all around
it, and extends out into the darkness of other minds,
transforming them into majesty.
The Majesty of God is there, for you to recognize and
appreciate and KNOW. Perceiving the Majesty of God AS your
brother is to accept your OWN inheritance. God gives only
equally. If you recognize His gift in anyone else, you have
acknowledged what He has given YOU. Nothing is so 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 created.
You do not know yourselves because you do not know YOUR
Creator. You do not know your creations because you do not
know your brothers, who created them WITH you. We said before
that only the whole Sonship is worthy to be co-creator with
God because only the whole Sonship can create LIKE Him.
Whenever you heal a brother by recognizing his worth, you are
acknowledging HIS power to create AND YOURS. He cannot have
lost what YOU recognize, and YOU must have the glory you see
in him. He is a co-creator with God with YOU. Deny HIS
creative power, and you are denying yours AND THAT OF GOD WHO
CREATED YOU. You cannot deny part of truth. You do not know
your creations because you do not know their creator. You do
not know yourselves because you do not know YOURS.
Your creations cannot establish your reality, any more than
you can establish Gods. But you can KNOW both. Being is known
by sharing. BECAUSE God shared His Being with you, you can
know Him. But you must also know all He created, to know what
THEY have shared. Without your Father, you will not know your
fatherhood. The Kingdom of God includes all His Sons and their
children, who are like the Sons as they are like the Father.
Know, then, the Sons of God, and you will know ALL creation.
CHAPTER 8
THE JOURN