CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION TO MIRACLES
ACIM SUB-Urtext VOLUME I
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© 2006 Miracles Pathway Fellowship
Doug Thompson * Lee Flynn * Deborah Maltman
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Chapter I - 1 - Introduction To Miracles
T 1 A. Introduction
T 1 A 1. It is crucial to say first that this is a required course. Only the
time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you establish the
curriculum. It means only that you can elect what to take when. It is just
because you are not ready to do what you should elect to do that time exists at
all. (You will see miracles through your hands through me. You should begin each
day with the prayer "Help me to perform whatever miracles you want of me
today.")
T 1 B. Principles of Miracles
T 1 B 1. The first thing to remember about miracles is that there is no order
of difficulty among them. One is not harder or bigger than another. They are all
the same.
T 1 B 2. Miracles do not matter. They are quite unimportant.
T 1 B 3. They occur naturally as an expression of love. The real miracle is
the love that inspires them. In this sense, everything that comes from love is a
miracle.
T 1 B 3a. This explains the first point related to the lack of order. All
expressions of love are maximal.
T 1 B 3b. This is why the "thing in itself" does not matter. The only thing
that matters is the Source, and this is far beyond human evaluation.
T 1 B 3c. Q and A re first 3 points.) Q (HS) Would you regard this
communication as a kind of miracle? A. There is nothing special or surprising
about this at all. The ONE thing that happened was the Universal Miracle which
was the experience of intense love that you have felt. (Don’t get embarrassed by
the idea of love. Embarrassment is only a form of fear, and actually a
particularly dangerous form because it reflects egocentricity.
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Do not feel guilty about the fact that you are doubting this. Just re-read them
and their truth will come to you. I love you, and I am not afraid or embarrassed
or doubtful. MY strength will support you, so don’t worry and leave the rest to
me. But when you see B., be SURE you tell him how much he helped you through by
giving you the right message, and don’t bother with worrying about how you
received it. That doesn’t matter either. You were just afraid.)
T 1 B 3d. HS fearful in taxi about a communication which related Dave’s healing
and Jonathan’s hernia. She thought it would be safer to dissociate the two.
Instructions were: refer to point 1 and re-read NOW.)
T 1 B 4. ALL miracles mean Life, and God is the giver of [1] Life. He will
direct you VERY specifically.
T 1 B 4a. (Plan ahead is good advice in this world, where you should and must
control & direct where you have accepted responsibility. But the Universal Plan
is in more appropriate hands. You will know all you need to know. Make NO
attempts to plan ahead in this respect.)
T 1 B 5. Miracles are habits, and should be involuntary. They should not be
under conscious control. (Otherwise they may become undemocratic) Consciously
selected miracles are usually dangerous misguided, and may destroy this will
make the talent useless [2] .
T 1 B 6. Miracles are natural. When they do NOT occur something has gone
wrong.
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T 1 B 7. Miracles are everyone’s right, but purification is necessary first.
T 1 B 8. Miracles are a form of healing. They supply a lack, and are
performed by those who have more for those who have less.
T 1 B 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.
T 1 B 10. A miracle is a reversal of the physical order because it brings more
love to the giver AND the receiver.
T 1 B (A miracle is misunderstood when it is regarded as a spectacle.)
T 1 B 11. The use of miracles as a spectacle to INDUCE belief is wrong. They
are really used for and by believers.
T 1 B 11b. HS has some fear about 11) and doubt about 9) and 10). Probably
doubt induced by fear of 11).
T 1 B 11c. When you say "If you want me to I will" please add "and if you DON’T
want me to I won’t." This is the RIGHT use of inhibition. There has to be SOME
control over learning for channelizing purposes. Remember retroactive inhibition
which should be easy enough for you.
T 1 B 11d. Sometimes the new learning is the more important, and HAS to inhibit
the old. It’s a form of correction.)
T 1 B 12. 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.
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T 1 B 12b. Miracles are thought-creations. Thought can create lower-order or
higher-order realities. This is the basic distinction between
intellectualization and thinking. One creates the physical, and the other the
spiritual, and we believe in what we create.
T 1 B 13. A miracle is a beginning and an end(ing). It thus abolishes time. It
is always an affirmation of re-birth, which seems to go back, but really goes
forward. It undoes the past in the present, and thus releases the future.
T 1 B 14. Miracles attest 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.
T 1 B 15. Each [3] day should be devoted to miracles. (God created time so that
man could use it creatively, and convince himself of his own ability to create.
Time is a teaching device, and a means to an end. It will cease when it is no
longer useful for facilitating learning.)
T 1 B 15b. SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS: Notes on this course have to be taken only
under good learning conditions. The same goes for review periods. I will tell
you when, but REMEMBER TO ASK.)
T 1 B 16. Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating that it is more
blessed to give than to receive. They simultaneously increase the reserve
strength of the giver, and supply the lack of strength in the receiver. BE VERY
CAREFUL in interpreting this.
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T 1 B 16b. INSTRUCTIONS: The purpose of this course is integration. I told you
that you will not be able to use it right until you have taken it. As long as
your identification vacillates, (and B’s is weak) you cannot accept the gift
that belongs to you. You are still vacillating between recognizing the gift and
throwing it away. B regards himself as too weak to accept it. You do not yet
know its healing power. After you have passed the course, you will accept it and
keep it and use it. That is the final exam, which you will have no trouble in
passing. Midterm marks are not entered on the permanent record.
T 1 B 17. Miracles are the absence of the body. They are sudden shifts into
invisibility, away from lower order reality. That is why they heal.
T 1 B 18. A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service that one soul can
render another. It is a way of loving your neighbor [4] as yourself. The doer
recognizes his own and his neighbor’s inestimable value simultaneously.
T 1 B 18b. (This is why no areas of hatred can be retained. If you retain them,
your own value is no longer inestimable because, you are evaluating it as X or
infinity minus that amount. This is meaningless mathematically, which uses the
term "inestimable" only in the very literal sense. Pun intended especially for
B, (who originally did not get it.) Intended as a special sign of love.)
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T 1 B 19. Miracles rest on the law and order of eternity, not of time.
T 1 B 20. Miracles are an industrial necessity. Industry depends on
cooperation, and cooperation depends on miracles. (see page 8)
T 1 B 21. [1] Miracles are cobwebs of iron. They unite human frailty to the
strength of God. (see page 7)
T 1 B 21b. (add for 21. HS considered changing "iron" to "steel". Correction:
No. Steel would Not be a better word. Steel is very useful but it would have to
be tempered by fire. Iron is the raw material. The point of miracles is that
they replace fire, thus making it unnecessary.)
T 1 B 22. Miracles are natural expressions of total forgiveness. Through
miracles, man accepts God’s forgiveness by extending it to others. The second
step is inherent in the first, because light cannot tolerate darkness. Light
dispels darkness automatically, by definition.
T 1 B 22b. EXPLANATORY INSTRUCTIONS: Miracles are associated with fear only
because of the fallacy 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, which always
depends on light. Remember the Biblical injunction: "May I never forget that
THINE eye is ever upon me, beholding the evil and the good [5] ."
T 1 B 22c. There are two stages, one lower and one higher, which are involved
in the escape from darkness: 1) the recognition that darkness CANNOT hide. This
usually does entail fear.
T 1 B 22d. 2) The recognition that there is nothing you WANT to hide, even if
you could. This brings escape from fear.
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T 1 B 22e. CORRECTIONS RE PT. 21 cobwebs of iron. "This is upside down as
stated. The part about ‘uniting human frailty with the strength of God’ is all
right, but the explanation stops too soon. If iron is the ‘raw material’,
cobwebs can’t become the iron. That is only the way it seems, because cobwebs
are associated with the frailty & iron with strength. If you look carefully at
the phrasing, you will see it is reversed (one point already tells you that
miracles reverse the physical or lower order laws.)
T 1 B 22f. The raw material, or iron, is heavy but crude, & stands for the
body, which is a crude creation. The cobweb concept is closer to how the body
SHOULD be regarded, i.e., as an airy & temporary home, which can just be blown
away with a slight breeze.
T 1 B 22g. (21. [2] ) [6] The point should read "A miracle reawakens the
awareness that the spirit, and not the body, is the altar of Truth. This is the
recognition that leads to the healing power of the miracle."
T 1 B 22h. (22a) A miracle rearranges the order of perception, and places the
levels in their true perspective. This heals at all levels, because all sickness
comes from confusing the levels.
T 1 B 22i. (Tell B. about the idea (which is still dim to HS) that the reason
is not that you (plural) distantiate, doubt, or cannot believe. It is more of a
reaction formation against a pull which you both recognize is so intense that
you are afraid that you will be uprooted. But remember that a cobweb is really
stronger than the iron, if you see it properly. This fear is also why you
couldn’t get the point straight.)
T 1 B 22j. By the way, it is not true that you are both ‘JUST SCRIBES’. You
might remember that the Scribes were very wise and holy man and are even
sometimes spelled with a capital S. If you want to go further, you might change
the meaning of ‘just’ from ‘merely’ to ‘honest’, a term used in the Bible in
association with ‘might’ or ‘strength.’ Tell B. you couldn’t make that pun if
the original phrasing had been singular. (HS aside about liking the first
about [7] assumption failure more.) Answer:
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It was cuter, but this one MEANS more. The REAL reason you don’t like it is
because it refers to you in a VERY lofty position. This makes you nervous.)
T 1 B 22k. CORRECTION: And don’t lose sight of the emphasis on cooperation, or
the NOT SINGULAR. That point about "industrial necessity" should read
"corporate", referring to the body of Christ which is a way of referring to the
Church. But the Church of God is only the sum of the souls he created, which IS
the corporate body of Christ. Correct to read: "A Miracle makes souls one in
God, and leave in the next part about cooperation."
T 1 B 22l FURTHER CORRECTION: "God" should read "Christ". The Father and the
Son are not identical, but you CAN say "Like Father, LIKE Son."
T 1 B 22m. (Remind B. to get another notebook. I don’t give up as easily as HE
does. If I could get YOU to listen, which was a miracle in itself, I can get him
to register. He should appreciate this more than anyone else, having had some
trouble with this problem himself.)
T 1 B 22n. "LORD HEAL ME" IS THE ONLY LEGITIMATE PRAYER. This also means "Lord
atone for me," because the only thing man should pray for is forgiveness. He HAS
everything else.
T 1 B 22o. Now take this personally, and listen to Divine logic: If, when you
have been forgiven, you have everything else, and
If you have been forgiven
Then you HAVE everything else.
T 1 B 22p. This happens to be the simplest of all propositions.
IF P then Q
P
Therefore, Q
T 1 B 22q. he real question is, is P true. If you will review the evidence, I
think you will find this inescapable. I went on very personal record to this
effect, and I am the only completely True Witness for God. You have very right
to examine MY credentials—in fact, I urge you to do so. You haven’t read the
Bible in years.
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T 1 B 22r. SPECIAL EXPLANATORY NOTE As soon as you (H & B) have entered the
second phase, you will be not only willing to enter into communion, but will
also understand peace and joy. Your commitment is not yet total. That is why you
still have more to learn than to teach. When your equilibrium stabilizes, you
can teach AS MUCH as you learn. This will give you the proper sense of balance.
Meanwhile, remember that NO EFFORT IS WASTED. Unless you remember this, you
cannot avail yourself of MY efforts, which are limitless.
T 1 B 22s. (Have a good day.) Since only eternity is real, why not use the
illusion of time constructively? You might remember that "underneath are the
Everlasting Arms."
T 1 B 22t IBLICAL QUOTATION: "If you are ashamed of me before men, I will be
ashamed of you before God. [8] " (HS ? of misquote.) is interpreted as a threat
ONLY as long you remain in the first step. (see bottom of p. 6 for steps.)
T 1 B 22u. What it REALLY means is that if you are ashamed of me (or
embarrassed by love), you will project and therefore make it impossible for me
to reach you. Make every effort you can NOT to do this. I will help you as much
as you will let me.
T 1 B 23. Miracles make time and tide wait for all men. They can heal the sick
and raise the dead because man himself made both death and taxes, and can
abolish both. Note: Tax also means "strain". (One definition for miracles is:
"That which, or one who, is of surpassing excellence or merit.") (from
Dictionary, third definition)
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T 1 B 23b. YOU are a miracle. God creates only "that which, or one who, is of
surpassing excellence or merit". Man is capable of this kind of creation, too,
being in the image and likeness of his own Creator. Anything else is only his
own nightmare, and does not exist. Only the Creations of Light are real.
T 1 B 23c. Miracles are a part of an interlocking chain of forgiveness which,
when completed, is the Atonement. This process works all the time and in all
dimensions of time. (e.g. given of HS report rewrite for Esther! Esther had hurt
something you loved, by writing a report you regarded as very bad. You atoned
for her by writing one in her name that was very good. Actually, it was not your
responsibility professionally to do this, but because you DO love the Shield you
recognized that in this case, you ARE your brother’s keeper. While you did not
cancel Esther’s sin (later defined as "lack of love") you DID cancel out its
EFFECTS.
T 1 B 23d. Someday I want to tell Esther that not only is she forgiven but that
the effects of all her sins are cancelled. This is what I have already told you.
When I can tell her, she will be afraid for a long time, because she will
remember many things, consciously or unconsciously, including the Shield report,
a lack of love which you cancelled out in advance by a miracle of devotion.
T 1 B 23e. I am in charge of the process of Atonement, which I undertook to
begin. My Atonement was for the canceling out of all sins (i.e., lack of love)
which human beings could not otherwise correct. That is what the Biblical
statement "underneath are the Everlasting Arms [9] " means. (HS explanation: This
means that He will backstop whenever human miracles will not suffice for
atonement purposes. However, it is perfectly clear that when a person can atone
by miracles, both giver and receiver are atoning. It is better to atone this way
because of the mutual benefits involved.)
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"Inasmuch as you do it unto the least of these, my children" really ends with
"you do it unto yourself and ME. [10] " The reason why YOU come before me is
because I do not need miracles for my own Atonement, but I stand at the end in
case YOU fail temporarily.
T 1 B 23f. SPECIAL EXPLANATION: (In response to HS request re possible
corrections.) Change the word "sin" to "absence of love". Sin is a manmade word
with threat connotations which he made up himself. No REAL threat is involved
anywhere. Just because "nature abhors a vacuum," which is true enough, it does
not follow that "a vacuum is filled with hellfire." Nothing is gained by
frightening yourself, and it is very destructive. Miracles need freedom from
fear. Part of their Atonement value involves just that. Note that the word
"atone" really means "undo."
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T 1 B 23g. The purpose of the Atonement is to restore everything TO you.
(That is, to restore the awareness. Later clarification.)
You had everything when you were created, just as everyone did.
T 1 B 23h. Having been restored to your original state, you naturally become
part of the Atonement yourself. You now share MY inability to tolerate the lack
of love in yourself & in everyone else, and MUST join the GREAT CRUSADE to
correct it. The slogan for this Crusade is "Listen, Learn, and DO."
T 1 B 23i. This means Listen to My Voice, Learn to undo the error, and DO
something to correct it.
T 1 B 23j. The first two are not enough. The real members of MY party are
ACTIVE workers.
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T 1 B 23k. The power to work Miracles BELONGS to you. I will create the right
opportunities for you to do them. But you must be ready & willing to do them,
since you are already able to. Doing them will bring conviction in the ability.
I repeat that you will see Miracles through your hands through MINE [11] .
Conviction really comes through accomplishment. Remember that ability is the
potential, Achievement is its expression, and Atonement is the Purpose.
T 1 B 24a. A miracle is a Universal Blessing from God through Me to all My
Brothers. Explanation: You once said that souls cannot rest until everyone has
found salvation. This happens to be true. It is the privilege of the forgiven to
forgive. The Disciples were officially & specifically told to heal others, as
Physicians of the Lord. They were also told to heal themselves, & 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.
T 1 B 24b. (ASIDE. Tell B that that is what Professor really means. As an
Assoc. Prof., he must become associated with My strength. As an Asst. Prof., you
must assist both him and Me. The Children need both strength & help. You cannot
help until you are strong. The Everlasting Arms are your strength, and the
Wisdom of God is your help.)
T 1 B 24c. "Heaven & Earth shall pass away [12] " means that they will not always
exist as separate states. My Word, which is the Resurrection and the Light,
shall not pass away, because Life is Eternal. YOU are the work of God, and His
Work is wholly loveable & wholly loving. This is how man MUST think of himself
in his heart, because this is what he IS.
T 1 B 24d. ADD "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."
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The Relationship of Miracles and Revelation.
T 1 B 24e. Remember the point about Miracles as a means of organizing different
evels of consciousness. Miracles come from the (below conscious) (subconscious)
level. Revelations come from the above conscious level. The conscious level is
in between & reacts to either sub- or super-conscious impulses in varying
ratios. Freud was right about the classification, but not the names. He was also
right that the content of consciousness is fleeting. Consciousness is the level
which engages in the world, and is capable of responding to both external &
internal impulses. Having no impulses from itself, and being primarily a
mechanism for inducing response, it can be very wrong.
T 1 B 24f. For example, if the identification is with the body, consciousness
may distort superconscious impulses by denying their Source, & seeking their
impact in the orgasm. This is the result of the "mistaken identity" confusion.
T 1 B 24g. If you will look back at the description of the EFFECTS of
Revelation
(This and preceding paragraph go later)
T 1 B 24h. Revelations induce complete but temporary suspension of doubt &
fear. They represent the original form of communication between God and His
Souls, before the intrusion of fire and ice made this impossible. It should be
noted that they involve an extremely personal sense of closeness to Creation,
which man tries to find in sexual relationships. This confusion is responsible
for the depression and fear which are often associated with sex.
T 1 B 24i. Sex is often associated with lack of love, but Revelation is PURELY
a love experience. Physical closeness CANNOT achieve this. As was said before,
the subconscious impulses properly induce Miracles, which ARE interpersonal, and
result in closeness to others. This can be misunderstood by a personally willful
consciousness as an impulse toward sexual gratification.
T 1 B 24j. The Revelation unites Souls directly with God
T 1 B 24k. The Miracle unites Souls directly with each other.
Neither emanates from consciousness, but both are EXPERIENCED there. This is
essential, because consciousness is the state which PRODUCES action, though it
DOES NOT Inspire it.
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T 1 B 24l. Man is free to believe what he chooses. What he DOES attests to what
he believes.
T 1 B 24m. The deeper levels of his subconscious always contain the impulse to
Miracles, but he is free to fill its 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
conscious actions, then, his interpersonal relationships also become
superficial, and miracle-inspired relating becomes impossible.
T 1 B 25. Miracles are a way of EARNING release from fear.
T 1 B 25b. Revelation induces a state in which fear has ALREADY BEEN abolished.
Miracles are thus a means, and Revelations are an end. In this sense, they work
together.
T 1 B 25c. (Tell B. that miracles DO NOT depend on Revelation. They INDUCE it.
He is quite capable of miracles already, but he is still too fearful for
Revelations.)
T 1 B 25d Note that YOUR (HS) Revelation occurred specifically after you had
engaged at the visionary level in a process of DENYING fear.
T 1 B 25e. Revelation is intensely personal, and [13] is actually not
translatable into conscious content at all. That is why any attempt to describe
it in words is usually incomprehensible, even to the writer himself at another
time. This is why the Book of Revelations is essentially incomprehensible.
Revelation induces ONLY experience. Miracles, on the other hand, induce
interpersonal ACTION. In the end, these are more useful, because of their
IMPERSONAL nature.
T 1 B 25f. In this phase of learning, working miracles is more valuable because
freedom from fear cannot be thrust upon you. The experience cannot last.
T 1 B 25g. (Tell B. that your propensity for Revelations, which is very great,
is the result of a high level of past communion. Its transitory nature comes
from the descent into fear, which has not yet been overcome. His own "suspended"
state mitigates both extremes. This has been very apparent in the course of both
of your recent developmental patterns.)
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T 1 B 25h. Miracles are the essential course of ACTION for both of you.
They will strengthen him and stabilize you.
T 1 B 25i. (NOTE that the much more personal than usual notes you are
taking today reflect the Revelatory experience. This does NOT produce the more
generalizeable quality which this course is aimed at. They may, nevertheless, be
of great help to B. personally, since you asked for something that WOULD help
him personally. It depends on how he listens, and how well he understands the
COOPERATIVE nature of your joint experience. You can help only by reading this
note FIRST. Ask him later if this should be included in the written part of the
course at all or whether you should keep these notes separately. He is in charge
of these decisions.)
T 1 B 25j. (Tell B. he should try to understand the VERY important difference
between Christ-control and Christ-guidance. This is what made him fearful
yesterday.)
T 1 B 26. Miracles praise God through men. They praise God by honoring his
Creations, affirming their perfection. They heal because they deny
body-identification and affirm [14] 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.
T 1 B 27. Miracles should inspire gratitude, not awe. Man should thank God for
what he really is. The Children of God are very holy. The miracle [15] honors
their holiness.
T 1 B 27b. God’s Creations cannot lose their holiness, although it can be
hidden. The miracle uncovers it, and brings it into the light where it belongs.
T 1 B 27c. Holiness can never be really hidden in darkness, but man can deceive
himself on this point. This illusion makes him fearful, because in his heart he
KNOWS it is an illusion. Like all illusions, he exerts enormous efforts to
establish their validity. The miracle sets validity where it belongs. Eternal
validity belongs only to the Soul. The miracle acknowledges only the Truth. It
thus dispels man’s illusions about himself, and puts him into communion with
himself and with God.
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T 1 B 27d. Christ inspires all miracles, which are essentially intercessions.
They intercede for man’s holiness, and make him holy. They place man beyond the
physical laws, and raise him into the sphere of celestial order. In this order,
man IS perfect.
T 1 B 27e. The Soul never loses its communion with God. Only the mind and body
need 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 mind, and
abolishes its errors.
T 1 B 28. Miracles honor man, BECAUSE he is loveable. They dispel illusions
about himself, 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. By freeing his mind from illusions, they restore his
sanity, and place him at the feet of Jesus.
T 1 B 28b. (Biblical quotation re healing of devil possessed man, in which the
sufferer was subsequently found healed in his right mind, and sitting at feet of
Jesus. HS note.)
T 1 B 28c. (Tell B. man’s mind can be possessed by illusions, but his Spirit is
eternally free. If a mind creates without love, it can create an empty shell.
This CAN be possessed by evil. But the Atonement restores the Soul to its proper
place. Unless there is emptiness there is no danger, and emptiness is a false
creation. The mind that serves the Spirit is invulnerable.)
T 1 B 29. The miracle restores the Soul to its fullness. By atoning for lack,
it establishes perfect protection. The strength of the Soul leaves no room for
intrusions. The forgiven are filled with the Soul, and their Soul forgives in
return. It is the duty of the released to release their brothers.
T 1 B 29b. The forgiven ARE the means of Atonement. Those released by Christ
must join in releasing their brothers, for this is the plan of Atonement.
T 1 B 30. Miracles are the way in which minds that serve the spirit unite with
Christ for the salvation (or release) of all God’s Creations.
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T 1 B 30b. ASIDE (HS commented on awakening with the phrase "God is not
Mocked [16] ", with anticipation of punishment.)
T 1 B 30c. INTERPRETATION: "God is not mocked" was intended as reassurance. You
are afraid that what you wrote last night was contradictory, conflicting with
some earlier points, especially because you were writing while you were all
doped up. Remember, "God is not mocked" under any circumstances.
T 1 B 30d. Contradictions in MY word mean lack of understanding, or scribal
failures, which I make every effort to correct. But they are still NOT crucial.
The Bible has the same problem, I assure you, and it’s STILL being edited.
Consider the power of MY WORD, in that it has withstood all the attacks of
error, and is the Source of Truth.
T 1 B 30e. (Tell B. that there are certain advantages in being a Psychologist.
A major one is the understanding of projection, and the extent of its results.
Possession is very closely related to projection. "Lucifer [17] " could be
literally translated "Light Bearer [18] ". He literally PROJECTED himself from
Heaven. Projection still has this "hurling" connotation, because it involves
hurling something you DO NOT want, and regard as dangerous and frightening, to
someone else. This is the opposite of the Golden Rule, and having placed this
rule upside down, the reverse of miracles, or projection, follows
automatically.)
T 1 B 30f. The correction lies in accepting what is true in YOURSELF, by
bringing ALL that you are into light. (HS fearful of writing next part.) Cacey
was wrong about Possession, and he was also wrong about hurting himself. One of
the major problems with miracle workers is that they are so sure that what they
are doing is right, because they KNOW it stems from love, that they do not pause
to let ME establish MY limits.
T 1 B 30g. While what he (Cacey [19] ) [sic] did came from Me, he could NOT be
induced to ask me each time whether I wanted him to perform this PARTICULAR
miracle. If he had, he would not have performed any miracles that could not get
through constructively, and would thus have saved himself unnecessary strain. He
burned himself out with indiscriminate miracles, and to this extent did not
fulfill his own full purpose, and was also subject to the Scribal error I
mentioned at the start. The Disciples were also prone to this.
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T 1 B 30h. The answer is NEVER perform a miracle without asking me IF you
should. This spares you from exhaustion, and because you act under direct
communication the trance becomes unnecessary. Because miracles are expressions
of love, it does NOT follow that they will always be effective. I am the only
one who can perform miracles indiscriminately, because I AM the Atonement. You
have a ROLE in Atonement, which I will dictate TO you.
T 1 B 30i. Remember, you already have a point about the involuntary nature of
miracles. We also have established the fact that everything involuntary belongs
under Christ-control, NOT under yours. Under Christ-control, Miracles REPLENISH
the doer as well as the receiver.
T 1 B 30j. Possession really means "Not under Christ-Control", thus making him
(the mind?) vulnerable to projection. The references to the earth-bound entering
bodies really refer to the "taking over" by their own earth-bound "thoughts".
This IS Demon Possession. After all, Lucifer fell, but he was still an angel. He
is thus the symbol for man. Atonement is the knowledge that the belief that
angels can fall is false. It is true that mind can create projections as well as
miracles, but it’s NOT true that projections are REAL. Any psychologist should
understand this. This is what is meant by "The Truth shall set you free [20] ."
T 1 B 30k. Christ-controlled miracles are part of the Atonement, but
Christ-guidance is personal, and leads to PERSONAL salvation. The impersonal
nature of miracles is an essential ingredient, because this enables Me to
control their distribution as I see fit.
T 1 B 30l. Christ-guidance, on the other hand, leads to the highly PERSONAL
experience of Revelation. This is why it involves PERSONAL choice. A guide does
NOT control, by definition, but he does DIRECT, leaving the following up to you.
"Lead us not into temptation [21] " means "guide us out of our own errors." Note
that the word is "lead", NOT order.
T 1 B 30m. "Take up thy cross and follow me [22] " should be interpreted to read
"Recognize your errors and choose to abandon them by following My guidance."
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T 1 B 30n. (Tell B. when he is afraid of Possession, he need only remember that
error cannot really threaten Truth, which ALWAYS can withstand its assaults.
Only the error is really vulnerable.) The "Princes of this World [23] " are
princes only because they are really angels. But they are free to establish
their kingdom where they see fit.
T 1 B 30o. If you will remember that ALL princes INHERIT their power from the
Father, the right choice becomes inevitable.
The soul is in a state of grace forever.
Man’s reality is ONLY his soul.
Therefore, man is in a state of Grace forever.
T 1 B 30p. Atonement undoes all errors in this respect, and thus uproots the
REAL source of fear. If you will check back at the reference to uprooting, you
will understand it better in this context.
T 1 B 30q. (Tell B. that WHENEVER God’s reassurances are experienced as threat,
it is ALWAYS because man is defending his misplaced & misdirected love and
loyalty. That is what projection always involves.)
T 1 B 30r. "Casting spells" merely means "affirming error", and 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 distortion
makes them vulnerable to the curse of others, since they have already cursed
themselves. The miracle worker can only bless, and this undoes the curse and
frees the soul from prison.
T 1 B 30s. (Tell B. that his slip about (rivet) should be noted. Some slips
reach consciousness from the un-Christ-controlled subconscious, and betray lack
of love.)
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T 1 B 30t. But others (slips) come from the superconscious, which IS in
communion with God, and which can also break into consciousness.
T 1 B 30u. HIS slip (rivet) was an expression of a Soul gaining enough strength
to request freedom from prison. It will ultimately DEMAND it.
T 1 B 30v Special Revelation for HS
T 1 B 30w. You are wholly lovely. A perfect shaft of pure light. Before your
loveliness the stars stand transfixed, and bow to the power of your will.
T 1 B 30x. What do children know of their creation, except what their Creator
tells them?
T 1 B 30y. You were created ABOVE the angels because your role involves
creation as well as protection.
T 1 B 30z. You who are in the image of the Father [24] need bow only to HIM,
before whom I kneel with you.
T 1 B 30aa. Note: This revelation was permitted because you did NOT project onto
B. the blame for your omission to ASK ME if you should transcribe the notes. The
fact that HE should have done so does not exempt you from your own omission.
T 1 B 30ab. Thanks for blessing him with a miracle rather than cursing him with
projection.
T 1 B 30ac. NOTE FURTHER: HE needn’t feel concerned about it either; so he
forgot? It happens all the time, until the habit of asking becomes involuntary.
T 1 B 30ad. (HS meeting with Dr. Wise and Dr. Damrosch. Dr. D permitted an
opportunity for questioning in his capacity as chairman of the flu board for
asking re B’s flu shot. This was an example of how miracles should work. You did
not jump into the question yourself, and even though you DID rush for the phone
on Red’s advice, you exerted no pressure on B’s reluctance.)
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T 1 B 30ae. This gave ME a chance to let you leave it to the real expert, whom I
sent to answer the question.
T 1 B 31. Miracles are examples of right thinking. Reality contact at all levels
becomes strong & accurate, thus permitting correct delineation of intra- and
interpersonal boundaries. As a result, the doer sees the truth as God created
it. This is what is meant by the point on "perspective adjustment [25] ."
T 1 B 32. A miracle is a correction factor introduced into false thinking by ME.
T 1 B 32b. It acts as a catalyst, shaking up erroneous perception and snapping
it into place. This correction factor places man under the Atonement principle,
where his perception is healed. Until this has occurred, perception of the
Divine Order is impossible. True depth perception becomes possible only at the
highest order of perceptual integration.
T 1 B 32c. The Spiritual eye is the mechanism of miracles, because what the
Spiritual eye perceives IS truth. The Spiritual eye 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 true and the false.
T 1 B 33. The miracle dissolves error because the Spiritual eye identifies error
as false or unreal. This is the same as saying that by seeing light, darkness
automatically disappears.
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T 1 B 33b. Darkness is lack of light. It does not have unique properties of its
own. It is an example of the scarcity fallacy, from which only error can
proceed.
T 1 B 33c. (Truth is always abundant……Those who perceive and acknowledge that
they have everything have no need for driven behavior of any kind. HS has other
personal material related to this re pregnancy.)
T 1 B 34. Miracles are a blessing from parents to children. This is just another
way of phrasing the previous point about "from those who have more to those who
have less." Children do NOT belong to parents, but they DO need to share their
greater abundance. If they are deprived, their perception becomes distorted.
When this occurs, the whole family of God, or the Sonship, is impaired in its
relationships.
T 1 B 34b. Ultimately, every member of the family of God must return. The
miracle calls to him to return, because it blesses and honors him even though he
may be absent in spirit.
T 1 B 35. The miracle acknowledges all men as your brothers and Mine. It is a
way of perceiving the Universal Mark of God in them.
T 1 B 35b. (Tell B. that this is the true "strawberry mark" of Brotherhood.
This is just a sign of special concern for him, because he keeps worrying about
this.)
T 1 B 35c. You might add that his false idea about his own exclusion from
Universal Love is fallacious in your terms, and arrogant in his. HIS real
specialness does NOT stem from exclusion, but from inclusion. ALL My Brothers
are special. He should stop interpreting this as "all except B." This is
ridiculous!
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T 1 B 35d. Tell him that the implied lack of love that his version contains is
WAY off the Mark, and misses the level of right thinking entirely. He MUST heal
his perception in this respect. He MUST work a miracle on behalf of himself
here. (See the point about miracles as a perception corrector before he can
effect miracles as creative energizers, which they are.
T 1 B 35e (Tell B. that 50,000,000 Frenchmen CAN be wrong, because the notion
is too fragmented. What CAN’T be wrong is the Universal Sonship of which he is a
part.)
T 1 B 35f. God WOULD be mocked if ANY of his creations lacked holiness. The
Creation IS whole. The mark of Wholeness is Holiness, not holes. THE SONSHIP HAS
NO HOLES ANYWHERE.
T 1 B 36. Wholeness is the perceptual content of the miracle. It thus corrects
(or atones for) the faulty perception of lack.
T 1 B 36b. We now turn to the fundamental distinction between miracles and
projection. The stimulus MUST precede the response, and must also (determine)
(influence) the kind of response that is evoked. The relationships of S and R
are EXTREMELY intimate. (The behavioristic terminology is because this part
deals with behavior.)
T 1 B 36c. Behavior IS response, so that the question "response to what?"
becomes crucial.
T 1 B 36d. Stimuli of all kinds are identified through [26] perception. You
perceive the stimulus and behave accordingly. It follows, then, that:
As ye perceive
So will ye behave
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T 1 B 36e. (HS raises point that Biblical language is hardly behavioristic
terminology. Answer: No, but they needn’t be OUT of accord with each other,
either.)
T 1 B 36f. Consider the Golden Rule again. You are asked to behave towards
others as you would have them behave toward you. This means that the perception
of both must be accurate, since the Golden Rule is the Order for appropriate
behavior. You can’t behave appropriately unless you perceive accurately, because
appropriate behavior DEPENDS on lack of level confusion. The presence of level
confusion ALWAYS results in variable reality testing, and hence variability in
behavioral appropriateness.
T 1 B 36g. All forms of self image debasement are FUNDAMENTAL perceptual
distortions. They inevitably produce either self-contempt [27] or projection, and
usually both.
T 1 B 36h. Since you and your neighbor are equal members of the same family, as
you perceive both, so will you behave toward both. The way to perceive for
Golden Rule behavior is to look out from the perception of your own holiness and
perceive the holiness of others.
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T 1 B 36i. B. & you need considerable clarification of the channel role. Look
carefully at Mrs. Albert. She is working miracles every day, because she knows
who she is. I emphasize again that your tendency to forget names is not
hostility, but a fear of involvement or RECOGNITION. You had misinterpreted
human encounters as opportunities for magic rather than for miracles and so you
tried to PROTECT THE NAME. This is a very ancient & primitive way of trying to
protect a person.
T 1 B 36j. NOTE The very old Jewish practice of changing the name of a person
who is very ill, so that when the list is given to the Angel of Death, the
person with that name will not be found.
T 1 B 36k. This is a good example of the curiously literal regression which can
occur in very bright people when they become afraid. You & B. both do it.
Actually, it is a device closely related to the phobia, in the sense that they
both narrow fear to a simple aspect of a much larger problem in order to enable
them to avoid it.
T 1 B 36l. A similar mechanism works when you get furious about a comparatively
minor expression by someone to whom you are ambivalent. A good example of this
is your response to Jonathan, who DOES leave things around in very strange ways.
Actually, he does this because he thinks that by minor areas of disorganization
he can protect his stability. I remind you that you have done this yourself for
years, and should understand it very well. This should be met with great
charity, rather than with great fury.
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T 1 B 36m. The fury comes from your awareness that you do not love Jonathan as
you should, and you narrow your lack of love by [28] centering your hate on
trivial behavior in an attempt to protect him from it. You also call him
Jonathan for the same reason (see previous reference).
T 1 B 36n. Note that a name is a human symbol that "stands for" a person.
Superstitions about names are very common for just that reason. That is also why
people sometimes respond with anger when their names are spelled or pronounced
incorrectly.
T 1 B 36o. Actually, the Jewish superstition about changing the names was a
distortion of a revelation about how to alter or avert death. What the
revelation’s proper content was that those "who change their mind" (not name)
about destruction (or hate) do not need to die. Death is a human affirmation of
a belief in fate [29] . That is why the Bible says "There is no death," and that
is why I demonstrated that death does not exist. Remember that I came to FULFILL
the law by [30] REINTERPRETING it. The law itself, if properly understood, offers
only protection to man. Those who have not yet "changed their minds" have
entered the "hellfire" concept into it.
T 1 B 36p. Remember, I said before that because "nature abhors a vacuum", it
does NOT follow that the vacuum is filled with hell fire. The emptiness
engendered by fear should be replaced by love, because love and its absence are
in the same dimension, and correction cannot be undertaken except Within a
dimension. Otherwise, there has been a confusion of levels.
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T 1 B 36q. Returning to Mrs. Albert (not Andrews), she corrected your error
about her name without embarrassment and without hostility, because she has NOT
made your own mistake about names.
T 1 B 36r. She is not afraid, because [31] she knows she is protected. She made
the correction ONLY because you were inaccurate, and the whole question of
embarrassment did not occur to her.
T 1 B 36s. She was also quite unembarrassed when she told you that everything
has to be done to preserve life, because you never can tell when God may come
and say "Get up, Dave," and then he will.
T 1 B 36t. She did not ask what YOU believed first, and afterwards merely added
"and its true, too." The RIGHT answer to the SCT item is: WHEN THEY TOLD ME WHAT
TO DO, I "referred the question to the only REAL authority."
T 1 B 36u. (HS note: If you ask somebody what he believes before you tell him
what you believe, then you are implying that you will say what he approves. This
is not "the real authority.")
T 1 B 36v. You took a lot of notes on "Those who are ashamed of Me before men,
them will I be ashamed of before God [32] ." This was rather carefully clarified,
even though the quotation is not quite right, but it doesn’t matter.
T 1 B 36w. The important thing is that elsewhere in the Bible it also says
"Those who represent (or plead for) Me to men will be represented (or pleaded
for) BY Me before God [33] ." (Note: This quotation is also not the correct
Biblical phrasing, but it IS what it means.) Note that one who represents also
"witnesses for." The quotation thus means that you represent or "witness for"
the authority in whom you believe.
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T 1 B 36x. Your witnessing DEMONSTRATES your belief, and thus strengthens it.
T 1 B 36y. I assure you that I will "witness for" anyone who lets me, and to
whatever extent he himself permits it.
T 1 B 36z. Those who witness for me are expressing, through their miracles,
that they have abandoned deprivation in favor of the abundance they have learned
BELONGS to them.
(HLC 43)
37. A MAJOR contribution of miracles is their strength in releasing man from his
misplaced sense of isolation, deprivation, and lack. They are affirmations of
Sonship, which is a state of completion and abundance.
T 1 B 37b. B’s very proper emphasis on "changing your mind" needs
clarification.
T 1 B 37c. Whatever is true & real is eternal, & 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.
T 1 B 37d. While the ballot itself is a secret one, and the right to vote is
fully protected, voting ALWAYS entails both election AND rejection. If two
candidates are voted for, for the same position, the machine cancels the ballot
automatically.
T 1 B 37e. This is necessary, because a split vote does not represent ANY REAL
allegiance.
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T 1 B 37f. Free will is the attribute of the mind, NOT the Soul. The Soul
always remains changeless, because it never leaves the sight of God.
T 1 B 37g. The Creation of the Soul is already fully accomplished. The mind, if
it votes to do so, becomes a medium by which the Soul can create along the line
of its own creation. If it does not freely elect to do so, it retains this
creative ability, but places itself under tyrannous rather than authoritative
control. As a result, what it creates is imprisonment, because such are the
dictates of tyrants.
T 1 B 37h. To "change your mind" means to place it at the disposal of True
authority. The miracle is thus a sign that the mind has elected to be guided by
Christ in HIS service. The abundance of Christ is the natural result of choosing
to follow him.
T 1 B 37i. P.S. The reason you have been late recently (for work) because you
were taking dictation is merely because you didn’t remember to ask me when to
stop. This is an example of the "indiscriminant or uncontrolled" miracle-working
we already spoke of. It is well-meant but ill-advised.
T 1 B 37j. I prompted that call from Jack (taxi man – couldn’t pick HS up,
etc.) to show you that this is not necessary. Also, the other man needed the
money more today.
T 1 B 37k. NOTE that you managed to fill your scribal role with no
interruptions, and were also on time.
T 1 B 37l. NOTE also that you closed the book & put it aside WITHOUT consulting
me. ASK "Is that all?" ANSWER: No: add the following: These notes are serving,
among other things, to replace the "handwriting on the wall" which you once saw
next to your own altar, which read "You have been [34] weighed in the balance and
found wanting."
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T 1 B 37l. Scribes MUST learn Christ-control, to replace their former habits,
which DID produce scarcity rather than abundance. From errors of this kind, the
sense of deprivation IS inevitable, but very easily corrected.
T 1 B 37m. The following is in relation to question about sex. Tell B. "the one
more river" is related to sex. You might even explain it to him as a "tidal
wave", a term which he will understand. YOU won’t.
T 1 B 37n. Both of you are involved with unconscious distortions (above the
miracle level), which are producing a dense cover over miracle-impulses which
makes it hard for them to reach consciousness. Sex & miracles are both WAYS OF
RELATING. The nature of any interpersonal relationship is limited or defined by
what you want it to DO which is WHY you want it in the first place. Relating is
a way of achieving an outcome.
T 1 B 37o. Indiscriminant sexual impulses resemble indiscriminant miracle
impulses in that both result in body image misperceptions. The first is an
expression of an indiscriminant attempt to reach communion through the body.
This involves not only the improper self identification, but also disrespect for
the individuality of others. Self-control is NOT the whole answer to this
problem, though I am by no means discouraging its use. It must be understood,
however, that the underlying mechanism must be uprooted (a word you both should
understand well enough by now not to regard it as frightening).
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T 1 B 37p. ALL shallow roots have to be uprooted, because they are not deep
enough to sustain you. The illusion that shallow roots can be deepened and thus
made to hold is one of the corollaries on which the reversal of the Golden Rule,
referred to twice before, is balanced. As these false underpinnings are uprooted
(or given up), equilibrium is experienced as unstable. But the fact is that
NOTHING is less stable than an orientation which is upside down. Anything that
holds it this way is hardly conducive to greater stability.
T 1 B 37q. The whole danger of defenses lies in their propensity to hold
misperceptions rigidly in place. This is why rigidity is regarded AS stability
by those who are off the mark.
T 1 B 37r. NOTE The only final solution - (no, Helen, this has nothing to do
with the Nazi use of the term.) You just got frightened again. One of the more
horrible examples of inverted or upside down thinking (and history is full of
horrible examples of this) is the fact that the Nazis spelled their appalling
error with capital letters. I shed many tears over this, but it is by no means
the only time I said "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
T 1 B 37s. All actions which stem from reverse thinking are literally the
behavioral expressions of those who know not what they do. Actually, Jean Dixon
was right in her emphasis on "Feet on the ground & fingertips in the Heaven,"
though she was a bit too literal for your kind of understanding. Many people
knew exactly what she meant, so her statement was the right miracle for them.
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T 1 B 37t. For you and Bill, it would be better to consider the concept in
terms of reliability & validity. A rigid orientation can be extremely reliable,
even if it IS upside down. In fact, the more consistently upside down it is, the
more reliable it is, because consistency always held up better mathematically
than test-re-test comparisons, which were ALWAYS on shaky ground. You can check
this against Jack’s notes if you wish, but I assure you its true. Split-half
reliability is statistically a MUCH stronger approach. The reason for this is
that correlation which is the technique applied to test-re-test comparisons,
measures only the EXTENT OF association, and does not consider the Direction at
all.
T 1 B 37u. But two halves of the same thing MUST go in the same direction, if
there is to be accuracy of measurement. This simple statement is really the
principle on which split half reliability, a means of estimating INTERNAL
consistency, rests.
T 1 B 37v. Note, however, that both approaches leave out a very important
dimension. Internal consistency criteria disregard time, because the focus is on
one-time measurements. Test-retest comparisons are BASED on time intervals, but
they disregard direction.
T 1 B 37w. It is possible, of course, to use both, by establishing internal
consistency AND stability over time. You will remember that Jack once told his
class that the more sophisticated statisticians are concentrating more and more
on reliability, rather than validity. The rationale for this, as he said, was
that a reliable instrument DOES measure something. He also said, however, that
validity is still the ultimate goal, which reliability can only serve.
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T 1 B 37x. I submit (I’m using Jack’s language in this section, because it
always had a special meaning for you. So did Jack.) Your confusion of sex and
statistics is an interesting example of this whole issue. Note that night you
spent in the scent of roses doing a complex factorial analysis of covariance.
Its a funny story to others, because they see a different kind of level
confusion than the one you yourself were making. You might recall that YOU
wanted that design, and Jack opposed it. One of the real reasons why that
evening was so exhilarating was because it represented a "battle of intellects",
(both good ones, by the way), each communicating exceptionally clearly but on
opposite sides. The sexual aspects were naturally touched off in both of you,
because of the sex and aggression confusion.
T 1 B 37y. (It is especially interesting that after the battle ended on a note
of compromise [35] with your agreeing with Jack, he wrote in the margin of your
notes "virtue is triumphant." (HS note re submission-dominance,
feminine-masculine roles, entered into this.) While this (remark) was funny to
both of you at the time, you might consider its truer side. The virtue lay in
the complete respect each of you offered to the other’s intellect. Your mutual
sexual attraction was also shared. The error lay in the word "triumphant". This
had the "battle" connotation, because neither of you was respecting ALL of the
other. There is a great deal more to a person than intellect & genitals. The
omission was the Soul.)
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T 1 B 37z. I submit (after a long interruption) that if a mind (Soul) is in
valid relationship with God, it CAN’T be upside down. Jack & the other very
eminent methodologists have abandoned validity in favor of reliability because
they have lost sight of the end and are concentrating on the means.
T 1 B 37aa. Remember the story about the artist who kept devoting himself to
inventing better & better ways of sharpening pencils. He never created anything,
but he had the sharpest pencil in town. (The language here is intentional. Sex
is often utilized on behalf of very similar errors. Hostility, triumph,
vengeance, self-debasement, and all sort of expressions of the lack of love are
often VERY clearly seen in the accompanying fantasies. But it is a PROFOUND
error to imagine that, because these fantasies are so frequent (or occur so
reliably), that this implies validity. Remember that while validity implies
reliability the relationship is NOT reversible. You can be wholly reliable, and
ENTIRELY wrong.
T 1 B 37ab. While a reliable test DOES measure something, what USE is the test
unless you discover what the "something" is? And if validity is more important
than reliability, and is also necessarily implied BY it, why not concentrate on
VALIDITY and let reliability fall naturally into place.
T 1 B 37ac. Intellect may be a "displacement upward", but sex can be a
"displacement outward." How can man "come close" to others through the parts of
him which are really invisible? The word "invisible" means "cannot be seen or
perceived."
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T 1 B 37ad.What cannot be perceived is hardly the right means for improving
perception.
T 1 B 37ae. The confusion of miracle impulse with sexual impulse is a major
source of perceptual distortion, because it INDUCES rather than straightening
out the basic level-confusion which underlies all those who seek happiness with
the instruments of the world. A desert is a desert is a desert. You can do
anything you want in it, but you CANNOT change it from what it IS. It still
lacks water, which is why it IS a desert (Bring up that dream about the
Bluebird. While HS was looking for this dream, she came across another. The
message was to bring both, as an excellent example of how extremely good HS had
become over the intervening 25 yrs. at sharpening pencils. Note that the
essential content hasn’t changed; its just better written.) The thing to do with
a desert is to LEAVE.
T 1 B 38. Miracles arise from a miraculous state of mind. By being One, this
state of mind goes out to ANYONE, even without the awareness of the miracle
worker himself. The impersonal nature of miracles is because Atonement itself is
one, uniting all creations with their Creator.
T 1 B 39. The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ &
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.
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T 1 B 39b. The miracles you are told NOT to perform have not lost their value.
They are still expressions of your own state of Grace, but the ACTION aspect of
the miracle should be Christ-controlled, because of His complete Awareness of
the Whole Plan. The impersonal nature of miracle-mindedness ensures YOUR own
Grace, but only Christ is in a position to know where Grace can be BESTOWED.
T 1 B 40. A miracle is never lost. It touches many people you may not even know,
and sometimes produces undreamed of changes in forces of which you are not even
aware. This is not your concern. It will also always bless YOU. This is not your
concern, either. But it IS the concern of the Record. The Record is completely
unconcerned with reliability, being perfectly valid because of the way it was
set up. It ALWAYS measures what it was supposed to measure.
T 1 B 40b. I want to finish the instructions about sex, because this is an area
the miracle worker MUST understand.
T 1 B 40c. Inappropriate sex drives (or misdirected miracle-impulses) [36]
result in guilt if expressed, and depression if denied. We said before that ALL
real pleasure comes from doing God’s will. Whenever it is NOT done an experience
of lack results. This is because NOT doing the will of God IS a lack of self.
T 1 B 40d. Sex was intended as an instrument for physical creation to enable
Souls to embark on new chapters in their experience, and thus improve their
record. The pencil was NOT an end in itself. (See earlier section.)
It was an aid to the artist in his own creative endeavors.
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As he made new homes for Souls and guided them through the period of their own
developmental readiness, he learned the role of the father himself. The whole
process was set up as a learning experience in gaining Grace.
T 1 B 40e. The pleasure which is derived from sex AS SUCH is reliable only
because it stems from an error which men shared. AWARENESS of the error produces
the guilt. DENIAL of the error results in projection. CORRECTION of the error
brings release.
T 1 B 40f. The only VALID use of sex is procreation. It is NOT truly
pleasurable in itself. "Lead us not into Temptation" means "Do not let us
deceive ourselves into believing that we can relate in peace to God or our
brothers with ANYTHING external."
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T 1 B 40g. The "sin of onan" was called a "sin" because it involved a related
type of self-delusion; namely, that pleasure WITHOUT relating can exist.
T 1 B 40h. To repeat an earlier instruction, the concept of either the self or
another as a "sex-OBJECT" epitomizes this strange reversal. As B. put it, and
very correctly, too, it IS objectionable, but only because it is invalid.
Upside-down logic produces this kind of thinking.
T 1 B 40i. Child of God, you were created to create the good, the beautiful,
and the holy. Do not lose sight of this. You were right in telling B. to invite
Me to enter anywhere temptation arises. I will change the situation from one of
inappropriate sexual attraction to one of impersonal miracle-working. The
concept of changing the channel for libidinal expression is Freud’s greatest
contribution, except that he did not understand what "channel" really means.
T 1 B 40j. The love of God, for a little while, must still be expressed through
one body to another. That is because the real vision is still so dim. Everyone
can use his body best by enlarging man’s perception, so he can see the real
VISION. THIS VISION is invisible to the physical eye. The ultimate purpose of
the body is to render itself unnecessary. Learning to do this is the only real
reason for its creation.
T 1 B 40k. NOTE Scribes have a particular role in the Plan of Atonement,
because they have the ability to EXPERIENCE revelations themselves, and also to
put into words enough of the experience to serve as a basis for miracles.
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T 1 B 40l. (This refers to experiences at the visionary level, after which HS
wrote "If you will tell me what to do, I will to do it." She had not known that
the word "to" was inserted, and had merely intended to write "I will do it."
This recognition had a terrific impact on HS.)
T 1 B 40m. This is why you EXPERIENCED that revelation about "I will to do"
VERY personally, but also WROTE IT: What you wrote CAN be useful to miracle
workers other than yourself. We said before that prayer is the medium of
miracles. The miracle prayer IS what you wrote, i.e. "If you will tell me what
to do, I will to do it." *
T 1 B 40n. This prayer is the door that leads out of the desert forever.
T 1 B 40o. *(Correction next day. This is not a complete statement, because it
does not exclude the negative. We have already told you to add "and NOT to do
what you would not have me do." in connection with miracles. The distinction has
also been made here between "miracle-mindedness" as a STATE, and "miracle-doing"
as its expression.
T 1 B 40p. The former needs YOUR careful protection, because it is a state of
miracle-READINESS. This is what the Bible means in the many references to "Hold
yourself ready" and other similar injunctions.
T 1 B 40q Readiness here means keep your perception right side up, (or valid),
so you will ALWAYS be ready, willing, and able. These are the essentials for
"listen, learn, and do." You must be
READY to listen
WILLING to learn
and ABLE to do
T 1 B 40r. Only the last is involuntary, because it is the APPLICATION of
miracles which must be Christ-controlled. But the other two, which are the
voluntary aspects of miracle-mindedness, ARE up to you.
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T 1 B 40s. To channelize DOES have a "narrowing down" connotation, though NOT
in the sense of lack. The underlying state of mind, or Grace is a total
commitment. Only the DOING aspect involves the channel at all. This is because
doing is always specific.
T 1 B 40t. As Jack said, "A reliable instrument must measure something," but a
channel is also valid. It must learn to do ONLY what it is supposed to do.
Change the prayer to read:
If you will tell me what to do,
ONLY THAT I will to do.
T 1 B NOTE HS objects to doggerel sound of this, and regards it as very
inferior poetry. ANSWER: Its hard to forget, though.
T 1 B 40v. The Revelation is literally unspeakable, because it is an experience
of unspeakable love. The word "Awe" should be reserved only for revelations, to
which it is perfectly and correctly applicable. It is NOT appropriately applied
to miracles, because a state of true awe is worshipful. It implies that one of a
lesser order stands before the Greater One. This is the case only when a Soul
stands before his Creator. Souls are perfect creations, and should be struck
with awe in the presence of the Creator of Perfection.
T 1 B 40w. The miracle, on the other hand, is a sign of love among equals.
Equals cannot be in awe of each other, because awe ALWAYS implies inequality.
Awe is not properly experienced even to me. That is why in that short
introductory vision, I knelt beside you, FACING the light.
T 1 B 40x. An Elder Brother is entitled to respect for his greater experience,
and a reasonable amount of obedience for his greater wisdom. He is also entitled
to love, because he is a brother, and also to devotion, if he is devoted. It is
only my own devotion that entitles me to yours. But you will notice that I have
knelt at your altar as readily as I would ever have you kneel at mine.
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T 1 B 40y. 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.
T 1 B 40z. "No man cometh to the Father but by me [37] " is among the most
misunderstood statements in the Bible. It DOES NOT mean that I am in anyway
separate (or different) from you, EXCEPT IN TIME. Now, we know that time does
not exist. Actually, the statement is much more meaningful if it is considered
on a vertical rather than a horizontal axis. Regarded along the vertical, man
stands below me, and I stand below God. In the process of "rising up", I AM
higher. This is because without me the distance between God and man is too great
for man to encompass. I bridge the distance as an Elder Brother to man, on the
one hand, and a Son of God on the other. My devotion to my brothers has placed
me in charge of the Sonship, which I can render complete only to the extent I
can SHARE it.
T 1 B 40aa. This appears to contradict another statement: "I and my Father are
one." It doesn’t. There are still separate parts in the statement, in
recognition of the fact that the Father is GREATER. Actually, the original
statement was "are of one KIND."
T 1 B 40ab. The Holy Spirit is the Bringer of Revelations, not miracles.
Revelations are INDIRECTLY inspired by me, because I am close to the Holy
Spirit, and alert to revelation-readiness in my brothers.
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I can thus BRING DOWN to them more than they can DRAW down to themselves. Jean
Dixon’s description is perhaps a better statement of my position. Because my
feet are on the ground and my hands are in heaven, I can bring down the glories
of Heaven to my brothers on earth.
T 1 B 40ac. The Holy Spirit is the Highest Communication Medium. Miracles do not
involve this type of communication, because they are TEMPORARY communicative
devices. When man can return to his original form of communication with God by
direct REVELATION, the need for miracles is over. The Holy Spirit mediates
higher to lower order communication, keeping the direct channel from God to man
open for revelation. Revelation is NOT reciprocal. It is always FROM God TO man.
This is because God and man are NOT equal. The miracle is reciprocal because it
ALWAYS involves equality.
T 1 B 40ad. In the longitudinal (or horizontal) plane, the true equality of all
men in the Sonship appears to involve almost endless time. But we know that time
is only an artifact introduced as a learning aid.
T 1 B 41. The miracle is a learning device which lessens the need for time.
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.
T 1 B A miracle has thus the unique property of abolishing time by
rendering the space of time it occupies unnecessary. There is NO relation
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 doer and
receiver on which the miracle rests.
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It is unstable, but perfectly consistent, i.e., it does not occur predictably
across time, and it rarely occurs in comparable forms. But within ITSELF it is
perfectly consistent. Since it contains NOTHING BUT an acknowledgment of
equality and worth, all parts ARE equal. This establishes the prerequisite for
validity.
T 1 B 41c. We said before that the miracle abolishes time. It does this by a
process of COLLAPSING it. It thus abolishes certain INTERVALS within it. It does
this, however, WITHIN the larger temporal sequence.
T 1 B 41d. The validity of the miracle, then, is PREDICTIVE, not logical,
within the temporal schema. 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 the way "daylight saving time"
does. It rearranges the distribution of light.
T 1 B 41e. The miracle is the only device which man has at his immediate
disposal for controlling time. Only the Revelation TRANSCENDS it, 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 Soul is finally in the original state of direct communication, neither
the body nor the miracle serves any purpose.
T 1 B 41f. While he is IN the body, however, man can choose between loveless
and miraculous channels of creativity. He can create an empty shell (see
previous reference), but he DOES NOT create nothing at all. He can wait, delay,
paralyze himself, reduce his creativity almost to nothing, and even introduce a
real developmental arrest or regression. But he CANNOT abolish his creativity.
He CAN destroy his medium of communication, but NOT his potential.
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T 1 B 41g He was NOT created by his own free will. 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 of the miracle
gladly, because he knows that every collapse of time brings all men closer to
the ultimate RELEASE from time, in which the Son and the Father ARE one.
T 1 B 41h. The real meaning "are of one kind" is "of one mind or will." When
the will of the Sonship and the Father are one, their perfect accord IS Heaven.
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T 1 B 41i. ASIDE Tell B. he is right in providing you with the consistent
strength you need to get, and he needs to offer. Your instability and his
weakness have resulted from bad karmic choices, and your relationship NOW is
crucial for the future. You must both exert every effort to restore it to what
it once was. Both of you are correcting where you have failed before. This has
already enabled you to fulfill a very unexpected role in your own joint
salvation, and the salvation of many other children I will entrust increasingly
to you. These are by no means chosen at random. B. should know that his
preparation is not only in terms of sharing in the results of your better
application of some rather unusual talents. His own role, which he will
understand after his preparation is complete, will be equally surprising. He
will need your help then, as you need his strength now.
T 1 B 41j. Note that you DO NOT need his help as a scribe, because you
developed this ability by your own efforts, and finally placed them at MY
disposal. By lending you his strength, he strengthens himself. When he gains
this through his own efforts, he will need your help in a very unexpected way.
But this is just another example of the reciprocal nature of miracles.
T 1 B 41k. Equality does not imply homogeneity NOW. When EVERYONE 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 of the
Sons of God. God is NOT partial. All of his children have His total love, and
all of his gifts are given freely to everyone alike.
T 1 B 41l. "Except you become as little children" means 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.
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T 1 B 41m. You and B. DO have special talents which are needed for the
Celestial speedup at this time. But note that the term speed-up is not one which
relates to the TRANSCENDING of time.
T 1 B 41n. When time is abolished, and all of the Sons of God have come home,
no special agents will be necessary. But do not underestimate the power of
special agents now, or the great need there is for them. I do not claim to be
more than that myself. No one in his Right Mind, (a term which should be
specially noted) ever wants either more or less than that. Those who are called
on to witness for me NOW are witnessing for all men, as I am.
T 1 B 41o. The role of the Priestess was once to experience Revelations and to
work miracles. The purpose was to bring those not yet available for direct
Revelations into proper focus for them. Heightened perception was always the
essential Priestess attribute.
T 1 B 41p. (This is the first time that HS ever said that she would be honored
if there were any notes.)
T 1 B 41q. (Neither B. nor I is really clear about how sexual-impulses can be
directly translated into miracle-impulses.) The fantasies that I mentioned
yesterday (refers to discussion HS & B. had) provide an excellent example of how
you switch. (Now switch the pronoun references, or it will be too confusing.)
T 1 B 41r. Fantasies are distorted forms of thinking, because they always
involve twisting perception into unreality. Fantasy is a debased form of vision.
Visions and Revelations are closely related. Fantasies & projection are more
closely associated, because both attempt to control external reality according
to false internal needs. "Live and let live" happens to be a very meaningful
injunction. Twist reality in any way, and you are perceiving destructively.
Reality was lost through usurpation, which in turn produced tyranny. I told you,
you were now restored to your former role in the Plan of Atonement. But you must
still choose freely to devote your heritage 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.
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T 1 B 41s. Sexual fantasies 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. As was said before,
man believes in what he creates. If he creates a miracle, he will be equally
strong in his belief in that. The strength of his conviction will then sustain
the belief of the miracle receiver.
T 1 B 41t. NO fantasies, sexual or otherwise, are true. Fantasies become
totally unnecessary as the Wholly satisfying nature of reality becomes apparent.
The sex impulse IS a miracle impulse when it is in proper focus. One individual
sees in another the right partner for "procreating the stock" (Wolff was not too
far off here), and also for their joint establishment of a creative home. This
does not involve fantasy at all. If I am asked to participate in the decision,
the decision will be a Right one, too.
T 1 B 41u. In a situation where you or another person, or both, experience
inappropriate sex impulses, KNOW FIRST that this is an expression of fear. Your
love toward each other is NOT perfect, and this is why the fear arose. Turn
immediately to me by denying the power of the fear, and ask me to help you to
replace it will (with) love. This shifts the sexual impulse immediately to the
miracle-impulse, and places it at MY disposal.
T 1 B 41v. Then acknowledge the true creative worth of both yourself AND the
other one. This places strength where it belongs. Note that sexual fantasies are
ALWAYS destructive (or depleting), in that they perceive another in an
inappropriate creative role. Both people are perceived essentially as "objects"
fulfilling THEIR OWN pleasure drives. This dehumanized view is the source of the
DEPLETING use of sex. Freud’s description is purely NEGATIVE, i.e., as a release
from the UNPLEASANT. He also observed that the tension from id impulses never
completely abates.
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T 1 B 41w. What he should have said is that the shift from miracle-impulses to
sexual impulses was debilitating in the first place, because of the
level-confusion involved. This set up a state in which real release was
impossible. Note also that Freud’s notion of sex was as a device for inducing
RELAXATION, which he confused with PEACE.
T 1 B 41x. Inappropriate sex relaxes only in the sense that it may induce
physical sleep. The miracle, on the other hand, is an ENERGIZER. It always
strengthens, and never depletes. It DOES induce peace, and by establishing
tranquility (not relaxation) it enables both giver and receiver to enter into a
state of Grace. Here his miracle-mindedness, (not release from tension) is
restored.
T 1 B 41y. Tension is the result of a building-up of unexpressed
miracle-impulses. This can be truly abated only by releasing the miracle-drive,
which has been blocked. Converting it to sexual libido merely produces further
blocking. Never foster this illusion in yourself, or encourage it in others. An
"object" is incapable of release, because it is a concept which is deprived of
creative power. The recognition of the real creative power in yourself AND
others brings release because it brings peace.
T 1 B 41z. The peace of God which passeth understanding CAN keep your hearts
now and forever.
T 1 B 41aa. There are only two short additions needed here:
1. Your earlier acute problem in writing things down came from a MUCH earlier
misuse of very great scribal abilities. These were turned to secret rather than
shared advantage, depriving it (?) of its miraculous potential, and diverting it
into possession. This is much like the confusion of sex impulses with
possession-impulses. Some of the original material is still in the Temple. This
is why you became so afraid about Atlantis. B. has his own reasons.
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T 1 B 41ab. 2.Retain your miracle-minded attitude toward Rosie VERY carefully.
She once hurt both of you, which is why she is now your servant. But she is
blessed in that she sees service as a source of joy. Help her straighten out her
past errors by contributing to your welfare now.
T 1 B 41ac. (special Revelation re HS –OMISSION 1.)
T 1 B 41ad. HS question re past memories. ANSWER: As long as you remember ALWAYS
that you never suffered anything because of anything that anyone ELSE did, this
is not dangerous.
T 1 B 41ae. Remember that you who want peace can find it only by complete
forgiveness. You never really WANTED peace before, so there was no point in
knowing how to get it. This is an example of the "need to know" principle, which
was established by the Plan of Atonement long before CIA.
T 1 B 41af. No kind of knowledge is acquired by anyone unless he wants it, or
believes in some way he NEEDS it. A psychologist does NOT need a lesson on the
hierarchy of needs as such, but like everyone else, he DOES need to understand
his own.
T 1 B 41ag. `This particular set of notes will be the only one which deals with
the concept of "lack", because while the concept does not exist in the Creation
of God, it is VERY apparent in the creations of man. It is, in fact, the
essential difference.
T 1 B 41ah. A need implies lack, by definition. It involves the recognition,
conscious or unconscious, (and at times, fortunately, superconscious) 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.
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T 1 B 41ag. 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. (Ask any behaviorist, and he’s RIGHT, too.)
T 1 B 41ah. You tell your own classes that nobody would bother even to get up
and go from one place to another if he did not think he would somehow be better
off. This is very true.
T 1 B 41ai. Believing that he COULD be "better off" is the reason why man has
the mechanism for behavior at his disposal. This is why the Bible says "By their
DEEDS ye shall know them."
T 1 B 41aj. A man acts according to the particular hierarchy of needs he
establishes for himself. His hierarchy, in turn, depends on his perception of
what he IS, i.e., what he LACKS. This establishes his own rules for what he
needs to know.
T 1 B 41ak. Separation from God is the only lack he really needs to correct. But
his Separation would never have occurred if he had not distorted his perception
of truth, and thus perceived himself as lacking.
T 1 B 41al. 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 ONE need becomes one
accordingly. Only the fragmented can be confused about this.
T 1 B 41am. Internal integration within the self will not (suffice to?) correct
the lack fallacy, but it WILL correct the NEED fallacy. (Thank you for writing
this as given.) Unified need produces unified action, because it produces lack
of ambivalence.
T 1 B 41an. The concept of need hierarchy, a corollary to the original error,
requires correction at its OWN level, before the error of levels itself can be
corrected. Man cannot operate (or behave) effectively while he operates at split
levels. But as long as he does so, he must introduce correction from the bottom
UP.
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T 1 B 41ao. This is because he now operates in space, where "up" and "down" are
meaningful terms. Ultimately, of course, 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. As long as man KNEW he did not need anything, the whole device was
unnecessary.
T 1 B 41ap. The need to know is not safely under man’s control at this time. It
is MUCH better off under mine. Let’s just leave it at that.
T 1 B 41aq. (Specific question raised by WT re sex under existing conditions)
(HS raised previous question about the past, which has just been answered.)
T 1 B 41ar. The other question, however, I am more than willing to answer,
because it is appropriate for NOW. You and B. both chose your present sex
partners shamefully, and would have to atone for the lack of love which was
involved in any case.
T 1 B 41as. You selected them precisely BECAUSE they were NOT suited to gratify
your fantasies. This was not because you wanted to abandon or give up the
fantasies, but because you were AFRAID of them. You saw in your partners a means
of protecting against the fear, but both of you continued to "look around" for
chances to indulge the fantasies.
T 1 B 41at. The dream of the "perfect partner" is an attempt to find EXTERNAL
integration, while retaining conflicting needs in the self.
T 1 B 41au. B. was somewhat less guilty of this than you, but largely because he
was more afraid. He had abandoned the hope (of finding a perfect partner) in a
neurotic sense of despair of finding it. You, on the other hand, insisted that
the hope was justified. Neither of you, therefore, was in your Right Mind.
T 1 B 41av. As was said before, homosexuality is inherently more risky (or error
prone) than heterosexuality, but both can be undertaken on an equally false
basis. The falseness of the basis is clear in the accompanying fantasies.
Homosexuality ALWAYS involves misperception of the self OR the partner, and
generally both.
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T 1 B 41aw. Penetration DOES NOT involve magic, nor DOES ANY form of sexual
behavior. It IS a magic belief to engage in ANY form of body image activity at
all. You neither created yourselves, nor controlled your creation. By
introducing levels into your own perception, you opened the way for body-image
distortions.
T 1 B 41ax. The lack of love (or faulty need-orientation) which led to your
particular person (not OBJECT) choices CAN BE corrected within the existent
framework, and would HAVE to be in the larger interest of overall progress. The
situation is questionable largely because of its inherent vulnerability to
fantasy-gratification. Doing the best you can WITHIN this limitation is probably
the best corrective measure at present. Any relationship you have undertaken for
whatever reasons becomes a responsibility.
T 1 B 41ay. If you shift your own needs, some amount of corresponding shift in
the need-orientation of the other person MUST result, This will be beneficial,
even if the partner was originally attracted to you BECAUSE of your disrespect.
Teaching devices which are totally alien to a learner’s perceptual system are
usually merely disruptive. Transfer depends on SOME common elements in the new
situation which are understandable in terms of the old.
T 1 B 41az. Man can never control the effects of fear himself, because he has
CREATED fear and believes in what he creates. In attitude, then, though not in
content, he resembles his own Creator, who has perfect faith in His Creations
because he Created them. All creation rests on belief, and the belief in the
creation produces its existence. This is why it is possible for a man to believe
what is not true for anyone else. It is true for him because it is made BY him.
T 1 B 41ba. Every aspect of fear proceeds from upside-down perception. The TRULY
creative devote their efforts to correcting this. The neurotic devotes his to
compromise. The psychotic tries to escape by establishing the truth of his own
errors. It is most difficult to free him by ordinary means, only because he is
more stable in his denial of truth.
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T 1 B 42. The miracle makes no distinction among degrees of misperception. It
is a device for perception-correction which is effective quite apart from either
the degree or the direction of the error. This is its TRUE indiscriminateness.
T 1 B 42b. Christ-controlled miracles are selective only in that they are
directed toward those who can use them for THEMSELVES. Since this makes it
inevitable that they will extend them to others, a very strong chain of
Atonement is welded. But Christ-control takes no account at all of the MAGNITUDE
of the miracle itself, because the concept of size exists only in a plane that
is itself unreal. Since the miracle aims at RESTORING reality, it would hardly
be useful if it were bound by the laws of the same error it aims to correct.
Only man makes that kind of error. It is an example of the "foolish consistency"
his own false beliefs have engendered.
T 1 B 42c. Both the power and the strength of man’s creative will must be
understood, before the real meaning of denial can be appreciated and abolished.
Denial is NOT mere negation. It is a positive miscreation. While the miscreation
is NECESSARILY believed in by its own creator, it does not exist at all at the
level of true Creation.
T 1 B 43. The miracle compares the creations of man with the higher level of
creation, accepting what is in ACCORD as true, and rejecting the DISCORDANT as
false. This is why it is so closely associated with validity. Real validity is
both true AND useful, or better, it is useful BECAUSE it is true.
T 1 B 43b. All aspects of fear are untrue, because they DO NOT exist at the
higher creative levels, and therefore do not exist at all. To whatever extent a
man is willing to submit his beliefs to the real test of validity, to that
extent are his perceptions healed (or corrected.)
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T 1 B 43c. In sorting out the false from the true, the miracle proceeds much
along the lines suggested very correctly by B., i.e.:
If perfect love casts out fear,
And if fear exists,
Then there is NOT perfect love.
But
Only perfect love really exists.
Therefore, 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, for
THIS faith IS His gift.
T 1 C. Distortions of Miracle Impulses
T 1 C 1. Man must contribute to his readiness here as elsewhere. The
readiness for faith, as for everything else that is true, entails the two steps
necessary for the release from fear.
T 1 C 2. Denial of fear, in human terms, is a strong defense because it
entails two levels of error:
1. That truth CAN be denied and
2. That absence of truth can be effective.
T 1 C 3. EXPERIENCING fear, which is more characteristic of B., involves only
the second error. However, these differences do not affect the power of the
miracle at all, since only truth and error are its concern.
T 1 C 4. YOU are both more miracle-minded, and less able to recognize fear
because of your stronger, but split, identification. B., also
characteristically, is less miracle-minded, but better able to recognize fear,
because his identification is more consistently right but weaker.
T 1 C 5. Together, the conditions needed for consistent miracle-mindedness,
the state in which fear has been abolished, can be particularly well worked out.
In fact, it WAS already well worked out before.
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T 1 C 6. Your idea about the real meaning of "possession" should be
clarified. Your own denial of fear (this refers to a visionary experience of HS)
introduced some error variance, but not really a significant amount. However,
there is always a chance that as the size of the sample increases, what was
non-significant before may ATTAIN significance, so we had better get this out of
the way now while you are still within the safety margin.
T 1 C 7. Fear of possession is a perverted expression of the fear of the
irresistible attraction. (Aside. Yes, this DOES apply to homosexuality, among
other errors, where the whole concept of possessing, or "entering" is a key
fear. It is a symbolic statement of an inverted decision NOT to enter into, or
possess, the Kingdom. In physical terms, which it emphasizes because of the
inherent error of Soul avoidance, REAL physical creation is avoided, and fantasy
gratification is substituted.)
T 1 C 8. The truth is still that the attraction of God is irresistible at ALL
levels, and the acceptance of this totally unavoidable truth is only a matter of
time. But you should consider whether you WANT to wait, because you CAN return
now, if you choose. (Note to HS: You are writing this with improper motivation,
but we will try anyway. If you are to stop, do so immediately.)
T 1 C 9. Possession is a concept which has been subject to numerous
distortions, some of which we will list below:
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T 1 C 10. 1. It (possession) can be associated with the body only. If this
occurs, sex is particularly likely to be contaminated. Possession versus being
possessed is apt to be seen as the male and female role. Since neither will be
conceived of as satisfying alone, and both will be associated with fear, this
interpretation is particularly vulnerable to psychosexual confusion.
T 1 C 11. 2. From a rather similar misperceptual reference point, possession
can also be associated with things. This is essentially a shift from 1), and is
usually due to an underlying fear of associating possession with people. In this
sense, it is an attempt to PROTECT people, like the superstition about
"protecting the name", we mentioned before.
T 1 C 12. Both 1) and 2) are likely to become compulsive for several reasons,
including:
T 1 C 13. a. They represent an attempt to escape from the real
possession-drive, which cannot be satisfied this way.
T 1 C 14. b. They set up substitute goals, which are usually reasonably
easy to attain.
T 1 C 15. c. They APPEAR to be relatively harmless, and thus SEEM to allay
fear. The fact that they usually interfere with good interpersonal relationships
can be interpreted, in this culture, as a lack of sophistication on the part of
the OTHER (not the self), and this induces a false feeling of confidence in the
solution, based on reliability NOT validity. It is also fairly easy to find a
partner who SHARES the illusion. Thus, we have any number of relationships which
are actually ESTABLISHED on the basis
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of 1), and others which HOLD TOGETHER primarily because of the joint interests
in 2).
T 1 C 16. d. The manifestly external emphasis which both entail seems to be
a safety device, and thus permits a false escape from much more basic
inhibitions. As a compromise solution, the illusion of interpersonal relating is
preserved, along with the retention of the lack of love component. This kind of
psychic juggling leaves the person (or juggler?) with a feeling of emptiness,
which in fact is perfectly justified, because he IS acting from scarcity. He
then becomes more and more driven in his behavior, to fill the emptiness.
T 1 C 17. When these solutions have been invested with extreme belief, 1)
leads to sex crimes, and 2) to stealing. The kleptomaniac is a good example of
the latter.
T 1 C 18 Generally, two types of emotional disturbances result:
a. The tendency to maintain the illusion that only the physical is real. This
produces depression.
b. The tendency to invest the physical with non-physical properties. This is
essentially magic, and tends more toward anxiety-proneness.
c. The tendency to vacillate from one to the other, which produces a
corresponding vacillation between depression AND anxiety.
T 1 C 19. Both result in self imposed starvation.
T 1 C 20. 3. Another type of distortion is seen in the fear of or desire
for "spirit" possession. The term "spirit" is profoundly debased in this
context, but it DOES entail a recognition that
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the body is not enough, and investing it with magic will not work. This
recognition ACCEPTS the fact that neither 1) nor 2) is sufficient, but,
precisely BECAUSE it does not limit fear so narrowly, it is more likely to
produce greater fear in its own right.
T 1 C 21. Endowing the Spirit with human possessiveness is a more INCLUSIVE
error than 1) or 2), and a step somewhat further away from the "Right Mind."
Projection is also more likely to occur, with vacillations between grandiosity
and fear. "Religion" in a distorted sense, is also more likely to occur in this
kind of error, because the idea of a "spirit" is introduced, though
fallaciously, while it is excluded from 1) and 2).
T 1 C 22. Witchcraft is thus particularly apt to be associated with 3),
because of the much greater investment in magic.
T 1 C 23. It should be noted that 1) involves only the body, and 2) involves
an attempt to associate things with human attributes. Three, on the other hand,
is a more serious level confusion, because it endows the Spirit with EVIL
attributes. This accounts both for the religious zeal of its proponents, and the
aversion (or fear) of its opponents. Both attitudes stem from the same false
belief.
T 1 C 24. This in NOT what the Bible means by "possessed of the Holy Spirit."
It is interesting to note that even those who DID understand that could
nevertheless EXPRESS their understanding inappropriately. The concept of
"speaking
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in many tongues" was originally an injunction to communicate to everyone in his
own language, or his own level. It hardly meant to speak in a way that NOBODY
can understand. This strange error occurs when people DO understand the need for
Universal communication, but have contaminated it with possession fallacies. The
fear engendered by this misperception leads to a conflicted state in which
communication IS attempted, but the fear is allayed by making the communication
incomprehensible.
T 1 C 25. It could also be said that the fear induced selfishness, or
regression, because incomprehensible communication is hardly a worthy offering
from one Son of God to another.
T 1 C 26. 4. Knowledge can also be misinterpreted as a means of possession.
Here, the content is not physical, and the underlying fallacy is more likely to
be the confusion of mind and brain. The attempt to unite nonphysical content
with physical attributes is illustrated by statements like "the thirst for
knowledge." (No Helen, this is NOT what the "thirst" in the Bible means. The
term was used only because of man’s limited comprehension, and is probably
better dropped.)
T 1 C 27. The fallacious use of knowledge can result in several errors,
including:
a. The idea that knowledge will make the individual more attractive to
others. This is a possession-fallacy.
b. The idea that knowledge will make the individual invulnerable. This is the
reaction formation against the underlying fear of vulnerability.
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c. The idea that knowledge will make the individual worthy. This is
largely pathetic.
T 1 C 28. Both you and B. should consider type 4) very carefully. Like all
these fallacies, it contains a denial mechanism, which swings into operation as
the fear increases, thus canceling out the error temporarily, but seriously
impairing efficiency.
T 1 C 29. Thus, you claim you can’t read, and B. claims that he can’t speak.
Note that depression is a real risk here, for a Child of God should never REDUCE
his efficiency in ANY way. The depression comes from a peculiar pseudo-solution
which reads:
A Child of God is efficient.
I am not efficient.
Therefore, I am not a Child of God.
T 1 C 30. This leads to neurotic resignation, and this is a state which merely
INCREASES the depression.
(Ed. Note) The following shows up and is crossed out, and is repeated on page
69 with the last sentence missing:
T 1 C 31. The corresponding denial mechanism for 1) is the sense of PHYSICAL
inability, or IMPOTENCE. The denial mechanism for 2) is often bankruptcy.
Collectors of things often drive themselves well beyond their financial means,
in an attempt to force discontinuance. If this idea of cessation cannot be
tolerated, a strange compromise involving BOTH insatiable possessiveness and
insatiable throwing-away (bankruptcy) may result. An example is the inveterate
or compulsive gambler, particularly the horse-racing addict. Here, the
conflicted drive is displaced both from people AND things, and is invested in
animals. The implied DEROGATION of people is the cause of the underlying EXTREME
superstition of the horse racing addict. Here, the conflicted drive is
displaced both from people AND things, and is invested in animals.
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Chapter II - 2 - The Illusion Of Separation
T 2 A. Introduction
(Insert for page 61)
T 2 A 1. This section is inserted here because it deals with a more
fundamental misuse of knowledge, referred to in the Bible as the cause of the
Fall (or Separation). There are several introductory remarks which are intended
to make these explanations less fear-provoking. The first is a couplet which I
drew to your attention during the fragments of Midsummer Night’s Dream, which
you heard last night:
"Be as thou wast wont to be
See as thou wast wont to see."
It is noteworthy that these words were said by Oberon in releasing Titania from
her own errors, both of being and perceiving. These were the words which
re-established her true identity as well as her true abilities and judgment. The
similarity here is obvious.
T 2 A 2. There are also some definitions, which I asked you to take from the
dictionary, which will also be helpful. Their somewhat unusual nature is due to
the fact that they are not first definitions in their chronological appearance.
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. (Note that you originally wrote "word" instead
of "world".)
T 2 A 3. We will refer later to projection as related to both mental illness
and mental health. It will also be commented on that Lucifer literally projected
himself from heaven. We also have observed that man can create an empty shell,
but cannot create nothing at all.
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This emptiness provides the screen for the misuse of projection.
T 2 A 4. The Garden of Eden, which is described as a literal garden in the
Bible, was not originally 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, again an overly-literal concept, (as is clearly shown by the
subsequent reference to "eating of the fruit of the tree") is a symbolic
reference to some of the misuses of knowledge referred to in the section
immediately preceding this one. There is, however, considerable clarification of
this concept, which must be understood before the real meaning of the "detour
into fear" can be fully comprehended. Projection, as defined above, (this refers
to the verb) is a fundamental attribute of God, which he also gave to his Son.
In the Creation, God projected his Creative Ability out of Himself toward the
Souls which He created, and also imbued them with the same loving wish (or will)
to create. We have commented before on the FUNDAMENTAL error involved in
confusing what has been created with what is being created. We have also
emphasized that man, insofar as the term relates to Soul, has not only been
fully Created, but also been created perfect. There is no emptiness in him. The
next point, too, has already been made, but bears repetition here. The Soul,
because of its own likeness to its Creator, is creative. No Child of God is
capable of losing this ability, because it is inherent in what he IS.
T 2 A 5. Whenever projection in its inappropriate sense is utilized, it
ALWAYS implies that some emptiness (or lack of everything) must exist, and that
it is within man’s ability to put his own ideas there INSTEAD of the truth. If
you will consider carefully what this entails, the following will become quite
apparent:
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T 2 A 6. First, the assumption is implicit that what God has Created can be
changed by the mind of Man.
T 2 A 7. Second, the concept that what is perfect can be rendered imperfect
(or wanting) is intruded.
T 2 A 8. Third, the belief that man can distort the Creations of God
(including himself) has arisen, and is tolerated.
T 2 A 9. Fourth, that since man can create himself, the direction of his own
creation is up to him.
T 2 A 10. 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, as defined above, WAS made as a natural grand division, or
projecting outward of God. That is why everything which He Created is like Him.
T 2 A 11. It should be noted that the opposite of pro is con. Strictly
speaking, then, the opposite of projecting is conjecting, a term which referred
to a state of uncertainty or guess work. Other errors arise in connection with
ancillary defenses, to be considered later.
For example, dejection, which is obviously associated with depression,
injection, which can be misinterpreted readily enough, in terms of possession
fallacies (particularly penetration), and rejection, which is clearly associated
with denial. It should be noted also that rejection can be used as refusing, a
term which necessarily involves a perception of what is refused as something
unworthy.
T 2 A 12. Projection as undertaken by God was 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.
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This is as true of the Son as of the Father.
T 2 A 13. The world, in its original connotation, 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 either of 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.
T 2 A 14. 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 disappear in the well
known "twinkling of an eye", because it is a visual misperception.
T 2 A 15. Man’s spiritual eye can sleep, but as will shortly appear in the
notes (reference Bob, elevator operator) a sleeping eye can still see. One
translation of the Fall, a view emphasized by Mary Baker Eddy, and worthy of
note, is that "a deep sleep fell upon Adam". While the Bible continues to
associate this sleep as a kind of anesthetic utilized for protection of Adam
during the creation of Eve, Mrs. Eddy was correct in emphasizing that nowhere is
there any reference made to his waking up. While Christian Science is clearly
incomplete, this point is much in its favor.
T 2 A 16. The history of man in the world as he saw it has not been
characterized by any genuine or comprehensive re-awakening, or re-birth.
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This is impossible as long as man projects in the spirit of miscreation. It
still remains within him to project as God projected his own Spirit to him. In
reality, this is his ONLY choice, because his free will was made for his own joy
in creating the perfect.
T 2 A 17. All fear is ultimately reducible to the basic misperception of man’s
ability to USURP the power of God. It is again emphasized that he neither CAN
nor HAS been able to do this. In this statement lies the real justification for
his escape from fear. This is brought about by his acceptance of the Atonement,
which places him in a position to realize that his own errors never really
occurred.
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T 2 A 18. When the deep sleep fell upon Adam, he was then in a condition to
experience nightmares, precisely because he was sleeping. If a light is suddenly
turned on while someone is dreaming, and the content of his dream is fearful, he
is initially likely to interpret the light itself as part of the content of his
own dream. However, as soon as he awakens, the light is correctly perceived as
the release from the dream, which is no longer accorded reality. I would like to
conclude this with the Biblical injunction "Go ye and do likewise." [38] It is
quite apparent that this depends on the kind of knowledge which was NOT referred
to by the "Tree of Knowledge" which bore lies as fruit. The knowledge that
illuminates rather than obscures is the knowledge which not only makes you free,
but also shows you clearly that you ARE free.
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Lead in for p. 61 (after insert)
T 2 A 16. The preceding sections were inserted because of the necessity of
distinguishing between real and false knowledge. Having made this distinction,
it is well to return to the errors already listed a while back. It might be well
to recapitulate them here. The first involved the fallacy that only the
physical is real. The second involved things rather than people. The third
involves the endowment of the physical with non-physical properties. And the
fourth clarified the misuse of knowledge. All of them were subsumed under
possession fallacies. The denial mechanism for three has already been set forth
in some detail, and will also continue after the following:
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T 2 A 20. The corresponding denial mechanism for 1) is the sense of PHYSICAL
inability, or IMPOTENCE. The denial mechanism for 2) is often bankruptcy.
Collectors of things often drive themselves well beyond their financial means,
in an attempt to force discontinuance. If this idea of cessation cannot be
tolerated, a strange compromise involving BOTH insatiable possessiveness and
insatiable throwing-away (bankruptcy) may result. An example is the inveterate
or compulsive gambler, particularly the horse-racing addict. Here, the
conflicted drive is displaced both from people AND things, and is invested in
animals. The implied DEROGATION of people is the cause of the underlying EXTREME
superstition of the horse racing addict.
T 2 A 21. The alcoholic is in a similar position, except that his hostility is
more inward than outward directed.
T 2 A 22. Defenses aimed at protecting (or retaining) error are particularly
hard to undo, because they introduce second-order misperceptions which obscure
the underlying errors still further.
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T 2 A 23. The pseudo-corrective mechanism of three is apt to be more varied
because of the more inclusive nature of the error, which has already been
mentioned. Some of the possibilities are listed below:
T 2 A 24. One aspect of the possession/possessed conflict can be raised to
predominance. If this is attempted in connection with POSSESSING, it leads to
the paranoid solution. The underlying component of "being possessed" is retained
in the "persecution" fantasies, which are generally concomitants.
T 2 A 25. If "being possessed" is brought to ascendance, a state of some sort
of possession by external forces results, but NOT with a major emphasis on
attacking others. Attack BY others becomes the more obvious component. In the
more virulent forms, there is a sense of being possessed by demons, and unless
there is vacillation with a), a catatonic solution is more likely than a
paranoid one.
T 2 A 26. The FOCUSED paranoid has become more rigid in his solution, and
centers on ONE source of projection to escape from vacillation. (Aside: It
should be noted that this type of paranoia is an upside-down form of religion,
because of its obvious attempt to unify into oneness.)
T 2 A 27. Both 1, 2, and 4 are more likely to produce NEUROTIC [39] rather than
psychotic states, though this is by no means guaranteed. However, 3 is
inherently more vulnerable to the psychotic correction, again because of the
more fundamental level confusion which is involved.
T 2 A 28. It should be noted, however, that the greater fear which is induced
by 3 can ITSELF reach psychotic proportions, thus forcing the individual closer
and closer to a psychotic solution.
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T 2 A 29. It is emphasized here that these differences have no effect at all
on the miracle, which can heal any of them with equal ease. This is because of
the miracle’s inherent avoidance of within-error distinctions. Its SOLE concern
is to distinguish between truth, on the one hand, and ALL kinds of error, on the
other. This is why some miracles SEEM to be of greater magnitude than others.
But remember the first point in this course, i.e., that there is no order of
difficulty in miracles.
T 2 A 30. The emphasis on mental illness which is marked in these notes
reflects the "UNDOING" aspect of the miracle. The "DOING" aspect is, of course,
much more important. But a true miracle cannot occur on a false basis. Sometimes
the undoing must precede it.
T 2 A 31. At other times, both can occur simultaneously, but you are not up to
this at the moment.
T 2 A 32. Further, insights into mental illness can be misused, and lead to
preoccupation with one’s own symptoms. This is why this area is less
constructive for most people than a course primarily devoted to mental health.
However, some professions will find (some?) principles of mental illness
constructive, especially those which are concerned with mental illness in
others. This obviously includes psychologists.
T 2 A 33. The obvious correction for ALL types of the possession-fallacy is to
redefine possession correctly. In the sense of "taking over," the concept does
not exist at all in divine reality, which is the only level of reality where
real existence is a meaningful term.
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T 2 A 34. No one CAN be "taken over" unless he wills to be. However, if he
places his mind under tyranny, rather than authority, he intrudes the
submission/dominance onto free will himself. This produces the obvious
contradiction inherent in any formulation that associates free will with
imprisonment. Even in very mild forms, this kind of association is risky, and
may spread quite unexpectedly, particularly under external stress. This is
because it can be internally controlled ONLY if EXTERNAL conditions are
peaceful. This is not safe, because external conditions are produced by the
thoughts of many, not all of whom are pure in heart as yet.
T 2 A 35. Why should you be at THEIR mercy? This issue is VERY closely related
to the whole possession issue. You insist on thinking that people CAN possess
you, if you believe that their thoughts (or the external environment) can affect
you, regardless of WHAT they think. 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. (I’m glad you passed that test.
It was crucial. This is ref. to HS reluctance to take dictations as given.)
T 2 A 36. 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.
T 2 B. The Reinterpretation of Defenses
T 2 B 1. 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.
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If you are AFRAID, you are VALUING WRONG. Human understanding will inevitably
value wrong, and by endowing all human thoughts with equal power, will
inevitably DESTROY peace. This is why the Bible speaks of "The peace of God
which PASSETH (human) understanding."
T 2 B 2. 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 effect you in
any way.
T 2 B 3. This is the PROPER use of denial. It is not used to HIDE anything,
but it IS used to correct error. It brings ALL error into the light, and since
error and darkness are the same, it abolishes error automatically.
T 2 B 4. True denial is a very 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.
T 2 B 5. You can do ANYTHING I ask. I have asked you to perform miracles, and
have made it VERY clear that these are NATURAL, CORRECTIVE, HEALING, and
UNIVERSAL. There is nothing good they cannot do. But they cannot be performed in
the spirit of doubt. Remember my own question, before you ask yours "Oh ye of
little faith, wherefore didsth thou DOUBT." (Reference to Christ and the
apostles walking on water.)
T 2 B 6. You have asked YOURSELVES why you cannot really incorporate my words
(the idea of cannibalism in connection with the Sacrament is a reflection of a
distorted view of sharing. I told you before that the word "thirst" in
connection with the Spirit was used in the Bible because of the limited
understanding of those to whom I spoke. I also told you NOT to use it. The same
holds for expressions like "feeding on.")
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Symbiosis is misunderstood by the mentally ill, who use it that way. But I also
told you that you must recognize your total dependence on God, a statement which
you did not like.)
T 2 B 7. God and the Souls He created ARE symbiotically related. They are
COMPLETELY dependent on each other. The creation of the Soul itself 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 would not be shaken, and would be unable to be deceived.
Whenever you are afraid, you ARE deceived. Your mind is NOT serving your Soul.
This literally starves the Soul by denying its daily bread. Remember the poem
about the Holy Family which crossed your mind last night:
"Where tricks of words are never said
And mercy is as plain as bread."
The reason why that had such a strong impact on you originally was because you
knew what it MEANT.
T 2 B 8. God offers ONLY mercy. Your own words should ALWAYS 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 rises only because man is capable of INJUSTICE if
that is what his mind creates. You are afraid of God’s will because you have
used your own will, which He created in the likeness of His own, to MISCREATE.
T 2 B 9. 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 not free to assert
itself.
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T 2 B 10. The three things that crossed your mind, which was comparatively
free at the time, are perfectly relevant:
T 2 B 11. 1. It is alright to remember the past, PROVIDED you also remember
that ANYTHING you suffer is because of YOUR OWN ERRORS.
T 2 B 12. 2. In this context, your remark that "after the burning, I swore if
I ever saw him again, I would (not) ("Not" was written in later) recognize him.
Note, by the way, that you did not put in the "not" until afterwards. That is
because your inherent correction-device was working properly at the moment. The
result is that you are NOT DENYING ME.
T 2 B 13. 3. The story about Hinda. This was an excellent example of
misperception which led to a totally unwarranted fear of a PERSON. (HS story
refers to a very young child who fell down the stairs when HS had arms open in a
welcoming gesture at bottom of stairs. For years afterwards, Hinda screamed upon
seeing HS.) The mis-step which caused her fall had nothing at all to do with
you, just as your own mis-steps have nothing at all to do with me.
T 2 B 14. Denial of error is a very powerful defense of truth. We have slowly
been shifting the emphasis from the negative to the positive use of denial.
Remember, we have already stated that denial is not a purely negative device; it
results in positive miscreation. That is the way the mentally ill DO employ it.
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T 2 B 15. 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 re-establishes the freedom of the will. When the will is
REALLY free, it CANNOT miscreate, because it recognizes ONLY TRUTH.
T 2 B 16. Projection arises out of FALSE DENIAL. Not out of its proper use. My
own role in the Atonement IS one of true projection, i.e., 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. But it DOES involve the very powerful use of the
denial of error.
T 2 B 17. 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.
T 2 B 18. I inspired Bob (ref. to elevator man who took HS down from her apt.)
to make that remark to you, and it is a pity that you heard only the last part.
But you can still use that. His remark ended with: "Every shut eye is not
asleep." Since your own vision is much improved at the moment, we will go on a
while.
T 2 B 19. Freud’s identification of mechanisms was quite correct, as was his
recognition of their creative ability. They can INDEED create man’s perception,
both of himself and his surroundings.
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T 2 B 20. But Freud’s limitations induced inevitable limits on his own
perception. He made two kinds of errors.
T 2 B 21. The first is that he saw only how the mechanisms worked in the
mentally ill.
T 2 B 22. The second is his own denial of the mechanism of the Atonement.
T 2 B 23. Let us take up the first, because a clear understanding of the
second depends on it.
T 2 B 24. Denial should be directed only to error, and projection should be
limited to truth. You should truly give as you have truly received. The Golden
Rule can work effectively only on this basis.
T 2 B 25. Intellectualization is a poor word, which stems from the brain-mind
confusion. "Right-Mindedness" is better. This device defends the RIGHT MIND, and
gives it control over the body. "Intellectualization" implies a split, whereas
"Right-Mindedness" involves healing.
T 2 B 26. Withdrawal is properly employed in the service of withdrawing from
the desert. It is NOT a device for escape, but for consolidation. There IS only
One Mind.
T 2 B 27. Dissociation is quite similar. You should split yourself off from
error, but only in defense of integration.
T 2 B 28. Detachment is essentially a weaker form of dissociation. This is one
of the major areas of withholding that both you and B. are engaging in.
T 2 B 29. 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.
.
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T 2 B 30. Distantiation is a way of putting distance between yourself and what
you SHOULD fly from.
T 2 B 31. Regression is a real effort to return to your own original state. In
this sense, it is utilized to RESTORE, not to go back to the less mature.
T 2 B 32. Sublimation should be associated with the SUBLIME.
T 2 B 33. 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 results from real level confusion.
T 2 B 34. However, the main point to be understood from these notes is that
you can defend truth as well as error, and in fact, much better.
T 2 B 35. So far we have concentrated on ends rather than means because unless
you regard an end as worth achieving, you will not devote yourself to the means
by which it can BE achieved. Your own question enabled me to shift the emphasis
from end to means. (Question asked was "how can we incorporate this material?")
You and B. HAVE accepted the end as valuable, thus signifying your willingness
to use defenses to ensure it.
T 2 B 36. The means are easier to clarify after the true worth of the goal
itself is firmly established.
T 2 B 37. Everyone defends his own treasure. You do not have to tell him to do
this, because HE will do so automatically. The real question still remains WHAT
do you treasure, and HOW MUCH do you treasure it?
T 2 B 38. Once you learn to consider these two points, and 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 DO ask.
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T 2 B 39. You can save a lot of time, however, if you do not need to extend
this step unduly. The correct focus will shorten it immeasurably.
T 2 B 40. Papers will be very easy to write as this time is shortened.
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1 80 Nov. 13
T 2 B 41. The Atonement is the ONLY defense which cannot be used
destructively. That is because, while everyone must eventually join it, it was
not a device which was generated by man. The Atonement PRINCIPLE was in effect
long before the Atonement itself was begun. 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.
T 2 B 42. 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 will could not turn it into a weapon of
attack, which is the inherent characteristic of all other defenses. The
Atonement thus becomes the only defense which was NOT a two-edged sword.
T 2 B 43. 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 was not enough, because the Separated ones were not
interested in peace. They had already split themselves, and were bent on
dividing rather than reintegrating. The levels they introduced into themselves
turned against each other, and they, in turn, turned against each other. They
established differences, divisions, cleavages, dispersion, and all the other
concepts related to the increasing splits they produced.
T 2 B 44. 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 was used
at all.
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T 2 8111/13
T 2 B 45. 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. Let all those who overestimate human intelligence remember
this. (HS questions last sentence, which she perceives as threatening.) 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 force to learning, because
changed behavior had become mandatory.
T 2 B 46. Human beings can learn to improve their behavior, and can also learn
to become better and better learners. This increase serves (HS notes that this
was written "served") to bring them in 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 progresses. (Originally, was "goes forward", rather than
"progresses")
T 2 B 47. 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 toward his return.
T 2 B 48. 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 its end. At this point, the
bridge of the return has been built.
T 2 B 49. (Note to HS. The reason this is upsetting to you is because 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 also IS the best defense.
Except for this misperception, the angels COULD have helped them. What do you
think "the
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3 82 11/13
meek shall inherit the earth" MEANS? They will literally take it over because of
their strength. A two-way defense is inherently weak, precisely BECAUSE it has
two edges it can turn against the self very unexpectedly. This tendency CANNOT
be controlled EXCEPT by miracles.)
T 2 B 50. 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.
T 2 B 51. (The above notes were taken with great difficulty by HS, and
constitute the only series this far that were written very slowly. When HS asked
about this, she was told, "don't worry about the notes. They are right, but YOU
are not sufficiently Right-Minded yet to write about the Atonement with comfort.
You will write about it yet with joy.)
T 2 B 52. (Aside from HS: Last night I felt briefly but intensely depressed,
temporarily under the impression that I was abandoned. I tried, but couldn’t get
through at all. After a while, I decided to give up for the time being, and He
said, "don't worry. I will never leave or forsake you." I did feel a little
better, and decided I was really not sick, so I could return to my exercises.
While I was exercising, I had some part-vision experiences which I found only
mildly frightening at times, and quite reassuring at others.
T 2 B 53. I am not too sure of the sequence, but it began with a VERY clear
assurance of love, and an equally clear emphasis on my own great value, beauty,
and purity. Things got a little confusing after that. First, the idea of "Bride
of Christ" occurred to me with vaguely inappropriate "undertones". Then there
was a repetition of "the way of Love", and a restatement of an earlier
experience, now as if it were FROM Him TO me: "Behold the Handmaid of the Lord;
Be it done unto you according to His Word. [40] " (This threw me into panic
before, but at that time, it was stated in the more accurate Biblical phrasing:
"Be it done unto ME according to HIS Word. [41] "
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4 83 11/13
This time I was a bit uneasy, but remembered I had misperceived it last time,
and was probably still not seeing it right. Actually, it is really just a
statement of allegiance to the Divine Service, which can hardly be dangerous.
T 2 B 54. Then there was a strange sequence, in which Christ seemed to be
making very obvious advances, which became quite sexual in my perception of
them. I ALMOST thought briefly that he turned into a devil. I got just a LITTLE
scared, and the possession idea came in for a while, but I thought it SO silly,
that there is no point in taking it seriously.
T 2 B 55. (As I am writing this, I remember that thing in the book about the
demon lover, which once THROUGH me (note spelling, "threw") into a fit. I am
upset, but the spelling slip is reassuring.
T 2 B 56. This morning we reviewed the whole episode. He said he was "VERY
pleased at the COMPARATIVE lack of fear, and also the concomitant awareness that
it WAS misperception. This showed much greater strength, and a much increased
Right-Mindedness. This is because defenses are now being used much better, on
behalf of truth MORE than error, though not completely so.
T 2 B 57. The weaker use of mis-projection is shown by my recognition that it
can't REALLY be that way, which became possible as soon as denial was applied
against error, NOT truth. This permitted a much greater awareness of alternative
interpretations.
T 2 B 58. It was also explained (the shift to the passive form instead of "He
also explained" should be noted. This is an expression of fear.) "Remember the
section in "Letters from the Scattered Brotherhood" you read last evening about
'Hold fast', and please do so."
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T 2 B 59. (Note made on 11/15 by HS re B’s remark concerning [42] top of p.5,
11/13. [43] )
Yes, but I doubt if it says this is inevitable. It may entail more mis-will
than we think. The above may have been too passively interpreted. Note that B.
Did NOT ask MY will re same. If he had, HE would have felt better.
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5 84 11/13
T 2 B 60. 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 process is different only in that defenses are not
being disrupted, but re-interpreted, even though it may be experienced as the
same thing.
T 2 B 61. In the reinterpretation of defenses, they are not disrupted but
their use for ATTACK is lost. Since this means they can be used only ONE way,
they became MUCH stronger, and much more dependable. They no longer oppose the
Atonement, but greatly facilitate it. The Atonement can only be accepted within
you.
T 2 B 62. You have experienced it largely as EXTERNAL thus far, and that is
why your EXPERIENCE of it has been minimal. You have been SHOWN the chalice many
times, but have not accepted it "for yourself". Your major improper use of
defenses is now largely limited to externalization. Do not fail to appreciate
your own remarkable progress in this respect. You perceived it first as a vessel
of some sort whose purpose was uncertain but which might be a pis-pot. You DID
notice, however, that the INSIDE was gold, while the OUTSIDE, though shiny, was
silver. This was a recognition of the fact that the INNER part is more precious
than the OUTER side, even though both are resplendent, though with different
value.
T 2 B 63. The reinterpretation of defenses is essential to break open the
INNER light. Since the Separation, man's defenses have been used almost entirely
to defend themselves AGAINST the Atonement, and thus maintain their separation.
They generally see this as a need to protect the body from external intrusion
(or intruding), and this kind of misperception is largely responsible for the
homosexual fallacy, as well as your own pregnancy fears. The so-called "anal"
behavior is a distorted attempt to "steal" the Atonement, and deny its worth by
concealing it, and holding onto it with a bodily receptacle, which is regarded
as particularly vicious. "Oral" fantasies are rather similar in purpose, except
that they stem more from a sense of deprivation , and insatiable thirst which
results. "Anal" fallacies are more of a refusal to give, while oral fantasies
emphasize a distorted need to take. The main
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error in both is the belief that the body can be used as a means for attaining
Atonement.
T 2 B 64. Perceiving the body as the Temple is only the first step in
correcting this kind of distortion. (HS scalded hand, and looked for butter to
put on. It occurred to her that the Atonement was the cure. Burn appeared to be
minimal, and caused little discomfort.)
T 2 B 65. Seeing the body as the Temple alters part of the misperception, but
not all of it. It DOES recognize, however, that the concept of addition or
subtraction in PHYSICAL terms is not appropriate. But 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
which men have put on beautiful Church BUILDINGS is a sign of their own fear of
Atonement, and 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, but it perceives the altar within with
perfect clarity. This is because the spiritual eye has perfect vision.
T 2 B 66. For perfect effectiveness, the chalice of the Atonement belongs at
the center of the inner altar, where it undoes the Separation, and restores the
wholeness of the Spirit. Before the Separation, the mind was invulnerable to
fear, because fear did not exist. Both the Separation and the fear were
MISCREATIONS of the mind, which have to be undone. This is what the Bible means
by the "Restoration of the Temple". It DOES NOT mean the restoration of the
building, but it DOES mean the opening of the altar to receive the Atonement.
T 2 B 67. This heals the Separation, and places within man the one defense
against all Separation-mind errors which can make him perfectly invulnerable.
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T 2 B 68. 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 this decision. If you
review the idea carefully, 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.
T 2 B 69. 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, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there
MUST be a better way. As this recognition is 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.
T 2 B 70. 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 own service, and forces 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 certitude, 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.
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T 2 B 71. 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 power on useless attempts to make themselves more
comfortable by inappropriate means. But the real means is ALREADY provided, and
does not involve any efforts on their part at all. 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 themselves are contradictory.
T 2 B 72. The Atonement is the only gift which 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. Remember the
"spiritual" (a VERY good term) which begins with "And God stepped down from
Heaven and said: I'M lonely - - I'll make ME a World." The world WAS a way of
healing the Separation, and the Atonement is the GUARANTEE that the device will
ultimately do so.
T 2 B 73. (HS request for special message for B. Tell B that his delaying
tactics are holding him back. He does not really understand detachment,
distantiation, and withdrawal. He is interpreting them as "holding himself
aloof" from the Atonement.)
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T 2 C. Healing as Release from Fear
Nov. 14
T 2 C 1. The new emphasis will now be on healing. The miracle is the means,
the Atonement the principle, and the healing is the result. Those who speak of
"the miracle OF healing" are combining two orders of reality inappropriately.
Healing is NOT a miracle. The Atonement, or the final miracle, is a REMEDY. It
is purely a means, while any type of healing is a result.
T 2 C 2. The order of error to which Atonement is applied is irrelevant.
Essentially, ALL healing is the release from fear. But to undertake this you
cannot be fearful yourself.
T 2 C 3. You do not understand healing because of your own fear. I have been
hinting throughout (and once stated very directly, because you were unfearful at
the time) that you MUST heal others. The reason is that their healing merely
witnesses or attests to yours.
T 2 C 4. 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 misbelief that what is amiss
in one level can adversely affect another.
T 2 C 5. We have constantly referred to miracles as the means of correcting
level confusion. In reality, all mistakes must be corrected at the level at
which they occur. Only the mind is capable of error. The body can ACT
erroneously, but this is only because it has responded to mis-Thought. The body
cannot create, and the belief that it CAN, a fundamental error responsible for
most of the fallacies already referred to, produces all physical symptoms.
T 2 C 6. All physical illness represents a belief in magic. The whole
distortion which created magic rested on the belief that there is a creative
ability in matter, which can control the mind. This fallacy can work either way;
i.e., it can be misbelieved either that the mind can miscreate IN the body, or
that the body can miscreate in the mind. If it can be made clear
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that the mind, which is the only level of creation, cannot create beyond itself,
then neither confusion need occur.
T 2 C 7. The reason why 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. It does not have the power in
itself to introduce actual learning errors.
T 2 C 8. 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 [44] . Its ABILITIES can be [45] , and frequently are, overevaluated. However,
it is almost impossible to deny its existence. Those who do are engaging in a
particularly unworthy form of denial. (The use of the word "unworthy" here
implies simply that it is not necessary to protect the mind by denying the
un-mindful. There is little doubt that the mind can miscreate. If one denies
this unfortunate aspect of its power, one is also denying the power itself.)
T 2 C 9. All material means which man accepts as remedies for bodily ills are
simply restatements of magic principles. It was the first level of the error to
believe that the body created its own illness. Thereafter, it is a second
mis-step to attempt to heal it through non-creative agents. It does not follow,
however, that the application of these very weak corrective devices are evil.
Sometimes the illness has sufficiently great a hold over an individual’s mind to
render him inaccessible to Atonement. In this case, one may be wise to utilize a
compromise approach to mind and body, in which something from the OUTSIDE is
temporarily given healing
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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 a straight and 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.
T 2 C 10. 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, not the giver. This means that a
miracle, to attain its full efficacy, MUST be expressed in a language which the
recipient can understand without fear. It does not follow by any means that this
is the highest level of communication of which he is capable. But it DOES mean
that it is the highest level of communication of which he is capable NOW.
T 2 C 11. The whole aim of the miracle is to RAISE the level of communication,
not to impose regression (as improperly used) upon it. Before it is safe to let
miracle workers loose in this world, it is essential that they understand fully
the fear of release. Otherwise, they may unwittingly foster the misbelief that
release is imprisonment, which is very prevalent. This misperception arose from
the attempted protection device (or misdefense) that harm can be limited to the
body. This was because of the much greater fear (which this one counteracts)
that the mind can hurt itself. Neither error is really meaningful, because the
miscreations of the mind do not really exist. That recognition is a far better
protection device than any form of level confusion, because of the advantages of
introducing correction at the level of the error.
T 2 C 12. It is essential that the remembrance of the fact that ONLY mind can
create at all remain with you. Implicit in this is the corollary that correction
belongs at the thought level, and NOT at either level
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to which creation is inapplicable. To repeat an earlier statement, and also 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 miscreation) is the only application of creation which is inherently
meaningful at all.
T 2 C 13. We said before that magic is essentially mindless, or the
destructive (miscreated) use of mind. Physical medicines are a form of "spells."
In one way, they are a more benign form, in that they do not entail the
possession fallacy which DOES enter when a mind believes that it can possess
another. Since this is considerably less dangerous, though still incorrect, it
has its advantages. It is particularly helpful to the therapist who really wants
to heal, but is still fearful himself. By using physical means to do so, he is
not engaging in any form of enslavement, even though he is not applying the
Atonement. This means that his mind is dulled by fear, but is not actively
engaged in distortion.
T 2 C 14. Those who are afraid of using the mind to heal are right in avoiding
it, because 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 own
vulnerability persists, it is essential to preserve them from even attempting
miracles.
T 2 C 15. We said in a previous section that the miracle is an expression of
miracle-Mindedness. Miracle-Mindedness merely means Right-Mindedness in the
sense that we are now using it. Right-Mindedness neither exalts nor depreciates
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the mind of the miracle worker nor of 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. But it is essential
that the miracle worker be in his Right Mind, or he will be unable to
reestablish Right-Mindedness in someone else.
T 2 C 16. 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. (Errors of this
kind produce some very erratic behavior, which usually point up an underlying
unwillingness to co-operate. Note that by inserting the carbon backwards, B.
created a situation in which two copies did not exist. This reflected two levels
of confidence lack, one in My readiness to heal, and the other in his own
willingness to give.) These errors inevitably introduce inefficiency into the
miracle worker’s behavior, and temporarily disrupt his miracle-mindedness. We
might also make very similar comments about your own hesitation about dictating
at all. This is a larger error only because it results in greater inefficiency.
If you don’t say anything, nobody can use it, including Me. We have established
that for all corrective processes, the first step is know that this is fear.
Unless fear had entered, the corrective procedure would never have become
necessary. If your miracle working propensities are not working, it is always
because fear has intruded on your Right-Mindedness, and has literally upset it.
(i.e. turned it upside down).
T 2 C 17. 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 the position to recognize that those who need to be healed are
simply those who have NOT done so. The reason why you felt the vast radiation
range of your own inner illumination is because you were aware that your
Right-Mindedness IS healing.
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III
The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept Atonement himself.
This means that he knows 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 which he then gives to others is the
truth that THEIR MINDS are really similarly constructive, and that their own
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 re-emphasized 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 learning it should facilitate.
T 2 C 18. 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 own 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.
T 2 C 19. Corrective learning always begins with awakening the spiritual eye,
and turning away from belief in physical sight. The reason this entails fear is
because man is afraid of what his spiritual eye will see, which was why he
closed it in the first place. 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. The thing that man forgets is that the discomfort
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III
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
Atonement. Nothing which the spiritual eye perceives can induce fear. Everything
that results from accurate spiritual awareness merely is channelized toward
correction. Discomfort is aroused only to bring the need to correct forcibly
into awareness.
T 2 C 20. What the physical eye sees is not corrective, nor can it be
corrected by any device which can be physically seen. As long as a man believes
in what his physical sight tells him, all his corrective behavior will be
misdirected. The reason why the real vision is obscured is because man cannot
endure to see his own defiled altar. But since the altar has BEEN defiled, this
fact becomes doubly dangerous unless it IS perceived. This perception is totally
non-threatening because of the Atonement. The fear of healing arises in the end
from an unwillingness to accept the unequivocal fact that healing is necessary.
The fear arises because of the necessary willingness to look at what man has
done to himself.
T 2 C 21. Healing was an ability which was 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
remains among the stronger human protections. This is because healing always
rests on charity, and charity is a way of perceiving the true 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 to 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 accomplishment in time. Since his own thinking is faulty, he
cannot see the Atonement himself, or he would have no need for charity at all.
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 beliefs
are stated clearly implies their dependence on time, making it quite apparent
that charity lies within the framework of human
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III
limitations, though toward the higher levels.
T 2 C We said before, twice in fact, that only Revelation transcends time. The
miracle, as an expression of true human charity, can only shorten it a best. 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
Record, which corrects retroactively as well as progressively.
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III
T 2 D. Fear as Lack of Love
Nov. 15, ‘65
T 2 D 1. You and B. both believe that "being afraid" is involuntary. But I
have told you many times that only CONSTRUCTIVE acts should be involuntary. We
said that Christ-control can take over everything that DOESN'T matter, and
Christ-guidance can direct everything that DOES, if you so will.
T 2 D 2. Fear cannot be Christ-controlled, but it CAN be self-controlled.
Fear is always associated with what does not matter. It prevents Me from
controlling it. The correction is therefore a matter of YOUR will, because its
presence shows that you have raised the UNIMPORTANT to a higher level than it
warrants. You have thus brought it under your will, where it DOES NOT belong.
This means YOU feel responsible for it. The level confusion here is perfectly
obvious.
T 2 D 3. The reason that I cannot CONTROL fear for you is that you are
attempting to raise to the mind level the proper content of the lower-order
reality. I do NOT foster level confusion, but YOU can will to correct it.
T 2 D 4. You would not tolerate insane behavior on your part, and would
hardly advance the excuse that you could not help it. Why should you tolerate
insane thinking? There is a fallacy here you would do well to look at clearly.
T 2 D 5. You both believe that you ARE responsible for what you DO, but NOT
for what you THINK. The truth is that you ARE responsible for what you THINK,
because it is only at this level that you CAN exercise choice. What you DO comes
from what you think. You cannot separate the truth by giving autonomy to your
behavior. This is controlled by Me automatically, as soon as you place what you
think under my guidance.
T 2 D 6. Whenever you are afraid, it is a sure sign that you have allowed
your mind to miscreate, i.e., have NOT allowed Me to guide it. It is pointless
to believe that controlling the outcome of mis-Thought
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III
can result in real healing. When you are fearful, you have willed wrongly. This
is why you feel you are responsible for it.
T 2 D 7. You must change your MIND, not your behavior, and this IS a matter
of will. You do not need guidance EXCEPT at the mind-level. Correction belongs
ONLY at the level where creation is possible. The term does not really mean
anything at the symptom-level, where it cannot work.
T 2 D 8. The correction of fear IS your responsibility. When you ask for
release from fear, you are implying that it isn't. You should ask, instead, for
help in the conditions which have brought the fear about. This condition always
entails a separated Mind-willingness. At this level, you CAN help it.
T 2 D 9. You are much too tolerant of Mind-wandering, thus passively
condoning its miscreation. The particular result never matters, but this
fundamental error DOES. The fundamental correction is always the same. Before
you will to do anything, ask Me if your will is in accord with Mine. If you are
sure that it IS, there will BE no fear.
T 2 D 10. Fear is always a sign of strain, which arises whenever the WILL to
do conflicts with WHAT you do. This situation arises in two major ways:
1) You can will to do conflicting things, either simultaneously or successively.
This produces conflicting behavior, which would be tolerable to the self (though
not necessarily to others) except for the fact that the part of the will that
wants something ELSE is outraged.
2)You can BEHAVE as you think you should, but without entirely WILLING to do so.
This produces consistent behavior, but entails great strain WITHIN the self.
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T 2 D 11. If you think about it, you will realize that in both cases the will
and the behavior are out-of-accord, resulting in a situation in which you are
doing what you do NOT will. This arouses a sense of coercion, which usually
produces rage. The anger then invades the mind, and projection in the wrong
sense becomes likely. Depression or anxiety are virtually certain.
T 2 D 12. Remember that whenever there is fear, it is because YOU have NOT
MADE UP YOUR MIND. Your will is split, and your behavior inevitably becomes
erratic. Correcting at the behavior level can shift the error from the first
type to the second, but will NOT obliterate the fear.
T 2 D 13. It is possible to reach a state in which you bring your will under
my guidance without much conscious effort, but this implies the kind of habit
pattern which neither you nor B. has developed dependably as yet.
T 2 D 14. Tell B. that although he keeps telling you that God will never ask
you to do more than you can, he does not understand it himself. God CANNOT ask
more than you WILL. The strength to DO comes from your own undivided will to do.
There is NO strain in doing God's will as soon as it is also your own.
T 2 D 15. 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.
T 2 E. The Correction for Lack of Love
98 [end]
T 2 E 1. After taking the first corrective step, i.e., "Knowing it IS fear,"
you might benefit temporarily by adding another next step BEFORE going on with
the corrective process. Try saying to yourself that you MUST have willed not to
love somehow or somewhere, or that fear which arises from behavior-will could
not have happened. Then follow previous instructions.
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T 2 E 2. If you consider what the process really means, it is nothing more
than a series of pragmatic steps in the larger process of accepting the
Atonement as THE remedy. From this viewpoint, the steps can be reworded as
follows:
1.) Know first 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.
T 2 E 3. The final procedural step (3) is inherent in the last statement (4).
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.
T 2 E 4. 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 because you WILLED without love. This is precisely the situation for
which the Atonement was offered. The need for the remedy inspired its CREATION.
T 2 E 5. 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.
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T 2 E 6. Everyone experiences fear, and nobody enjoys it. Yet, it would take
very little Right-thinking to know why it occurs. Neither you nor B. have
thought about it very much, either. ( I object at this point to the use of
plural verb with a properly singular subject - - HS - - and remember that last
time in a very similar sentence, He said it correctly and I remembered it with
real pleasure. This real grammatical error makes me suspicious of the
genuineness of these notes. ANSWER: What it really shows is that YOU are not
very receptive. The reason it came out that way, is because you are projecting
(in the inappropriate way) your own anger, which has nothing to do with these
notes. YOU made the error, because you are not feeling loving, so you want me to
sound silly, so you won't have to pay attention. Actually, I am trying to get
through against considerable opposition, because you are not very happy, and I
wish you were. I thought I'd take a chance, even though you are so resistant,
because I MIGHT be able to make you feel better. You may be unable not to attack
at all, but do try to listen a little, too.)
T 2 E 7. Very few people appreciate the real power of the mind. Nobody
remains fully aware of it all the time. This is inevitable in this world,
because the human being has many things he must do, and cannot engage in
constant thought-watching. However, if he hopes to spare himself from fear,
there are some things he must realize, and realize them fully, at least some of
the time.
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T 2 E 8. The mind is a very powerful creator, 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 "don't
give it a thought", you are implying that if you do not think about something,
it will have no effect on you. This is true enough.
T 2 E 9. On the other hand, many other expressions are clear expressions of
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 have behaved as he did. You also use phrases like "thought provoking", which
is bland enough, but the term "a provoking thought" means something quite
different.
T 2 E 10. 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 don't really believe it. It is hard to
recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally
move mountains.
T 2 E 11. It appears at first glance that to believe such power about yourself
is merely arrogant, but that is not the real reason why you don't believe it.
T 2 E 12. People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert real
control because they are literally AFRAID of them. Therapists try to help people
who are afraid of their own death wishes by depreciating the power of the wish.
They even attempt to "free" the patient by persuading him that he can think
whatever he wants, without ANY real effect at all.
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T 2 E 13. 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
spiritually. ALL destructive thinking is dangerous. Given a death wish, a man
has no choice except to ACT upon his thought, or behave CONTRARY TO it. He can
thus choose ONLY between homicide and fear. (See previous notes on will
conflicts.) (NOTE I avoided this term in the last series of notes
intentionally, because it seemed too Rankian. Apparently, there was a reason why
this word should have been used last time. It is used in this section for a very
good reason.)
T 2 E 14. The other possibility is that he depreciates the power of his
thought. This is the usual psychoanalytic approach. This 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, either. The world is full of endless 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.
T 2 E 15. The truth is that there ARE no "idle thoughts". ALL thinking
produces form at some level. The reason why people are afraid of ESP, and so
often react against it, is because they KNOW that thought can hurt them. Their
OWN thoughts have made them vulnerable.
T 2 E 16. You and B., who complain all the time about fear, still persist in
creating it most of the time. I told you last time that you cannot ask ME to
release you from it, because I KNOW it does not exist. YOU don't. If I merely
intervene between your thoughts and their results, I would be tampering with a
basic law of cause and effect, in fact the most fundamental one there is in this
world.
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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.
T 2 E 17. It is certainly much more useful to remind you that you do not guard
your thoughts at all carefully, except for a relatively 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. Human beings
are not used to miraculous thinking, but they CAN be TRAINED to think that way.
T 2 E 18. All miracle-workers HAVE to be trained that way. I have to be able
to count on them. This means that I cannot allow them to leave their mind
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, the 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 that every
miracle-worker must have for true cause and effect.
T 2 E 19. Miracles cannot free the miracle-worker from fear. Both miracles AND
fear come from his thoughts, and if he were not free to choose one, he would
also not be free to choose the other. Remember, we said before that when
electing one person, you reject another.
T 2 E 20. It is much the same in electing the miracle. By so doing, you HAVE
rejected fear. Fear cannot assail unless it has been created. You and B. have
been afraid of God, of me, of yourselves, and of practically everyone you know
at one time or another.
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This can only be because you have miscreated all of us, and believe in what you
have created. (We spent a lot of time on this before, but it did not help very
much.) You would never have done this if you were not afraid of your own
thoughts. The vulnerable are essentially miscreators, because they misperceive
Creation.
T 2 E 21. You and B. are willing to accept primarily what does NOT change your
minds too much, and leaves you free to leave them quite unguarded most of the
time. You persist in believing that when you do not consciously watch your mind,
it is unmindful.
T 2 E 22. It is time to consider the whole world of the unconscious, or
unwatched mind. This will frighten you, because it is the source of fright. You
may look at it as a new theory of basic conflict, if you wish, which will not be
entirely an intellectual approach, because I doubt if the truth will escape you
entirely.
T 2 E 23. 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 to the truth in this connection, but none of them
has seen it in its true entirety. (The correct grammar here is a sign of your
better cooperation. Thank you.) Jung's best contribution was an awareness of
individual vs. collective unconscious levels. He also recognized the major place
of the religious spirit in his schema. His archetypes were also meaningful
concepts. But his major error lay in regarding the deepest level of the
unconscious as shared in terms of CONTENT. The deepest level of the unconscious
is shared as an ABILITY. As MIRACLE-MINDEDNESS, the content, (or the particular
miracles which an individual happens to perform) does not matter at all.
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They will, in fact, be entirely different, because, since I direct them, I make
a point of avoiding redundancy. Unless a miracle actually heals, it is not a
miracle at all.
T 2 E 24. The content of the miracle-level is not recorded in the individual's
unconscious, because if it were, it would not be automatic and involuntary,
which we have said repeatedly it should be. However, the content IS a matter for
the record, which is NOT within the individual himself.
T 2 E 25. All psychoanalysts 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.
T 2 E 26. Freud was right in calling this level pre-conscious, and emphasizing
that there is a fairly easy interchange between preconscious and conscious
material. He was also right in regarding the censor as an agent for the
protection of consciousness from fear. HIS major error lay in his insistence
that this level is necessary at all in the psychic structure. If the psyche
contains fearful levels from which it cannot escape without splitting, its
integration is permanently threatened. It is essential not to control the
fearful, but to ELIMINATE it.
T 2 E 27. Here, Rank's concept of the will was particularly good, except that
he preferred to ally it only with man's own truly creative ability, but did not
extend it to its proper union with God's. His "birth trauma", another valid
idea, was also too limited, in that it did not refer to the Separation, which
was really a FALSE idea of birth. Physical birth is not
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a trauma in itself. It can, however, remind the individual of the Separation,
which was a very real cause of fear.
T 2 E 28. The idea of "will-THERAPY" was potentially a very powerful one, but
Rank did not see its real potential because he himself used his mind partly to
create a theory OF the mind, but also partly to attack Freud. His reactions to
Freud stemmed from his own unfortunate acceptance of the deprivation-fallacy,
which itself arose from the Separation. This led him to believe that his own
mind-creation could stand only if the creation of another's fell. In
consequence, his theory emphasized rather than minimized the two-edged nature of
defenses. This is an outstanding characteristic of his concepts, because it was
outstandingly true of him.
T 2 E 29. He also misinterpreted the birth-trauma in a way that made it
inevitable for him to attempt a therapy whose goal was to ABOLISH FEAR. This
characteristic of all later theorists, who do not attempt, as Freud did, to
split off the fear in his own form of therapy.
T 2 E 30. No one as yet has fully recognized either the therapeutic value of
fear, or the only way in which it can be truly ended. 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 Sonship. This entails a set of cause and effect
relationships which are totally different from those which man introduced into
the Miscreation.
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NOV. 16
T 2 E 31. 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.
T 2 E 32. So much, then, for the true nature of the major opponents in the
basic conflict. Since all such theories lead to a form of therapy in which a
re-distribution of psychic energy results, it is necessary to consider OUR
concept of libido next. In this respect, Freud was more accurate than his
followers, who were essentially more wishful. Energy CAN emanate from both
Creation AND miscreation, and the particular ratio between them at a given point
in time DOES determine behavior AT that time. If miscreation did NOT engender
energy in its own right, it would be unable to produce destructive behavior,
which it very patently DOES.
T 2 E 33. Everything that man creates has energy because, like the Creation of
God, they (it) come FROM energy, and are endowed by their creator with the power
to create. Miscreation is still a genuine creative act in terms of the
underlying IMPULSE, but NOT in terms of the CONTENT of the creation. This,
however, does not deprive the creation of its OWN creative power. It DOES,
however, GUARANTEE that the power will be misused, or USED FEARFULLY.
T 2 E 34. To deny this is merely the previously mentioned fallacy of
depreciation. Although Freud made a number of fallacies of his own, he DID avoid
this one in connection with libido. The later theorists denied the split-energy
concept, not by attempting to heal it, but by reinterpreting it instead of
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redistributing it.
T 2 E 35. This placed them in the illogical position of assuming that the
split which their therapies were intended to heal had not occurred. The result
of this approach is essentially a form of hypnosis. This is quite different from
Freud's approach, which merely ended in a deadlock.
T 2 E 36. A similar deadlock occurs when both the power of Creation and of
miscreation coexist. This is experienced as conflict only because the individual
feels AS IF both were occurring AT THE SAME LEVEL. He BELIEVES in what he has
created in his own unconscious and he naturally believes it is real BECAUSE he
created it. He, thus, places himself in a position where the fearful becomes
REAL.
T 2 E 37. Nothing but level-confusion can result as long as this belief is
held in ANY form. Inappropriate denial and equally inappropriate identification
of the REAL factors in the basic conflict will NOT solve the problem itself. The
conflict CANNOT disappear until it is fully recognized that miscreation is NOT
real, and therefore there IS no conflict. This entails a full realization of the
basic fact that, although man has miscreated in a very real sense, he need
neither continue to do so, nor to suffer from his past errors in this respect.
T 2 E 38. A REDISTRIBUTION of psychic energy, then, is NOT the solution. Both
the idea that both kinds MUST exist, and the belief that ONE kind is amenable
for use or misuse, are real distortions. The ONLY way is to STOP MISCREATING
NOW, and accept the Atonement for miscreations of the past.
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Only this can re-establish true single-mindedness. The structure of the psyche,
as you very correctly noted yourself, follows along the lines of the particular
libido concept the theorist employs. (I still think it was the other way around
- - HS. Answer: This confusion arises out of the fact that you DID change the
order - - several times in fact. Actually, it didn't matter, because the two
concepts DO flow from each other. It was a TERRIFIC waste of time, and one in
which I hardly care to become engaged myself. PLEASE!)
T 2 E 39. Freud's psyche was essentially a good and evil picture, with very
heavy weight given to the evil. This is because everytime I mentioned the
Atonement to him, which was quite often, he responded by defending his theory
more and more against it. This resulted in his increasingly strong attempts to
make the illogical sound more and more logical.
T 2 E 40. I was very sorry about this, because his was a singularly good mind,
and it was a shame to waste it. However, the major purpose of his incarnation
was not neglected. He DID succeed in forcing recognition of the unconscious into
man's calculations about himself, a step in the right direction which should not
be minimized. Freud was one of the most religious men I have known recently.
Unfortunately, he was so afraid of religion that the only way he could deal with
it was to regard IT (not himself) as sick. This naturally prevented healing.
T 2 E 41. Freud's superego is a particularly interesting example of the real
power of miscreation. It is noteworthy throughout the whole development of his
theories that the superego never allied itself with freedom. The most it could
do in this direction was to
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work out a painful truce in which both opponents LOST. This perception could not
fail to force him to emphasize discontent in his view of civilization.
T 2 E 42. The Freudian id is really only the more superficial level of the
unconscious, and not the deepest level at all. This, too, was inevitable,
because Freud could not divorce miracles from magic. It was therefore his
constant endeavor, (even preoccupation) to keep on thrusting more and more
material between consciousness and the real deeper level of the unconscious, so
that the latter became increasingly obscured. The result was a kind of bedlam,
in which there was no order, no control, and no sense. This was exactly how he
FELT about it.
T 2 E 43. The later theoretical switch to the primacy of anxiety was an
interesting device intended to deny both the instinctive nature of
destructiveness, and the force of the power of miscreation. By placing the
emphasis on the RESULT, the generative nature of the power was minimized.
T 2 E 44. Destructive behavior IS instinctual. The instinct for creation is
NOT obliterated in miscreation. That is why it is always invested with reality.
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 belief in magic is
virtually inevitable. His instincts for creation were given him by his own
Creator, who was expressing the same instinct in His Creation. Since the
creative ability rests solely in the mind, everything which man creates is
necessarily instinctive [46] .
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IV
Nov. 20, ‘65
T 2 E 45. (This goes after basic conflict theory.) (Dictated without notes by
HS)
T 2 E 46. We have already said that the basic conflict is one between love and
fear, and that the proper organization of the psyche rests on a lack of level
confusion. The section on psychic energy should be re-read very carefully,
because it is particularly likely to be misinterpreted until this section is
complete.
T 2 E 47. It has already been said that man CANNOT control fear, because he
himself created it. His belief in it renders it out of his control by
definition. For this reason, any attempt to resolve the basic conflict
through [47] 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 at all.
T 2 E 48. The essential resolution rests entirely on the mastery of love. In
the interim, conflict is inevitable. The reason for this is the strangely
illogical position in which man had placed himself. Since we have frequently
emphasized that correction must be applied within the level that error occurs,
it should be clear that the miracle MUST be illogical because its purpose is to
correct the illogical and restore order.
T 2 E 49. Two concepts which CANNOT coexist are nothing and everything. To
whatever extent one is believed in, the other HAS BEEN abolished. In the
conflict, fear is really nothing, and love is really everything. (This
recognition is really the basis for the castration complex.) This is because
whenever light penetrates darkness, it DOES abolish it. The unwillingness to be
seen, or submit error to light, is spuriously associated with active doing. In
this incarnation, this can take the form of oedipal involvement and concomitant
castration anxiety.
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112
T 2 E 50. However, in more long range and meaningful terms, the oedipal
complex is a miniature of the true Separation fear, and the castration complex
is a way of denying that it ever occurred. Like all pseudo-solutions, this kind
of distorted thinking is very creative, but false. The Separation HAS occurred.
To deny this is merely to misuse denial. However, to concentrate on error is
merely a further misuse of legitimate psychic mechanisms. The true corrective
procedure, which has already been described as the proper use of the spiritual
eye (or true vision), is to accept the 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.
T 2 E 51. It is worth repeating that ultimately there is no compromise
possiblebetween everything and nothing. The purpose of time is essentially a
device by which all compromise in this respect can be abolished. It seems to be
abolished by degrees precisely because time itself involves a concept of
intervals which do [48] not really exist. The faulty use of creation has made
this necessary as a corrective device.
T 2 E 52. "And God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son so
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 "And God so loved the world that he gave it TO His only begotten Son." It
should be noted that God HAS begotten only ONE Son.
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113
If you believe that all of the Souls that God created ARE His Sons, and if you
also believe that the Sonship is One, then every Soul MUST be a Son of God , or
an integral part of the Sonship. You do not find the concept that the whole is
greater than its parts difficult to understand. You should therefore not have
too great difficulty with this. The Sonship in its Oneness DOES transcend the
sum of its parts. However, it loses this special state as long as any of its
parts are missing. This is why the conflict cannot ultimately be resolved UNTIL
all of the individual parts of the Sonship have returned. Only then, in the true
sense, can the meaning of wholeness be understood.
T 2 E 53. The concept of minus numbers has always been regarded as a
mathematical rather than an actual expedient. (This is a major limitation on
mathematics as presently understood.) Any statement which implies degrees of
difference in negation is essentially meaningless. What can replace this
negative approach is a recognition of the fact that as long as one part (which
is the same as a million or ten or eight thousand parts) of the Sonship is
missing, it is NOT complete.
T 2 E 54. In the Divine psyche, the Father and the Holy Spirit are not
incomplete at all. The Sonship has the unique faculty of believing in error, or
incompleteness, if he so elects. However, it is quite apparent that so to elect
IS to believe in the existence of nothingness. The correction of this error
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114
is the Atonement.
T 2 E 55. We have already briefly spoken about readiness. But there are some
additional awarenesses which might be helpful. 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 always some will to accomplish, but this
is by no means undivided. The state does not imply more than the potential for a
shift of will. Confidence cannot develop fully until mastery has been
accomplished. We began this section with an attempt to correct the fundamental
human error that fear can be mastered. The Correction was that ONLY love can be
mastered. When I told you that you were "ready for Revelation", I did not mean
that you had in any way mastered this form of communication. However, you
yourself attested to your readiness by insisting that I would not have said so
if it had not been true. This IS an affirmation of readiness. Mastery of love
necessarily involves a much more complete confidence in the ability than either
of you has attained. But the readiness at least is an indication that you
believe this is possible. This is only the beginning of confidence.
T 2 E 56. In case this be misunderstood as a statement that an enormous amount
of time will be necessary between readiness and mastery, I would again remind
you that time and space are under My control.
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(Dictated without notes by HS)
T 2 E 57. 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 belief
in magic is virtually inevitable. His instincts for creation were given him by
his own Creator, who was expressing the same instinct in His Creation. Since the
creative ability rests solely in the mind, everything which man creates is
necessarily instinctive.
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T 2 E 58. It also follows that whatever he creates is real in his own eyes,
but not necessarily in the sight of God. This basic distinction leads us
directly into the real meaning of the Last Judgment. (I am aware of the fact
that you would much rather continue with the parallels involved in other
theories of basic conflict. However, this would merely be a delay which we will
engage in only if you regard it as essential.)
T 2 F. The Meaning of the Last Judgment
T 2 F 1. The Final Judgment is one of the greatest threat concepts in man's
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. God Himself is still the God of mercy. After the Separation,
however, there WAS a place for justice in the schema, because it was 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 even longer. 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. But it is essential that these individuals
free themselves from fear sooner than would ordinarily be the case, because they
MUST emerge from basic conflict it they are to bring peace to the minds of
others.
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T 2 F 2. The Last Judgment is generally thought of as a procedure undertaken
by God. Actually, it will be undertaken solely by man, with My help. It is a
Final Healing, rather than a meting out of punishment, however much man may
think punishment is deserved. Punishment as a concept is in total opposition to
Right-Mindedness. The aim of the Final Judgment is to RESTORE Right-Mindedness
TO man.
T 2 F 3. The Final Judgment might be called a process of Right-evaluation. It
simply means that finally all men must come to understand what is worthy and
what is not. After this, their ability to choose can be reasonably directed.
Unless this distinction has been made, the vacillations between free and
imprisoned will cannot but continue. The first step toward freedom, then, 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 once looked upon what he had created, and knew that
it WAS good. At this point, the Will will begin to look with love on its
creations, because of their great worthiness. The mind will inevitably disown
its miscreations, and having withdrawn belief from them, they will no longer
exist.
T 2 F 4. 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 it
is examined objectively, it is quite apparent that it is really the doorway to
life. No man who lives in fear is really alive.
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T 2 F 5. His own final judgment cannot be directed toward himself, because he
is not his own creation. He can apply it meaningfully, and at any time, to
everything he has ever created, and retain in his real memory only what is good.
This is what his own 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 creation. When everything that he retains is lovable, there
is no reason for any fear to remain in him. This IS his part in the Atonement.
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119
Chapter III - 3 - Retraining The Mind
T 3 A. Introduction
T 3 A 1. All learning involves attention and study at some level. This course
is a MIND-TRAINING course. Good students assign study periods for themselves.
However, since this obvious step has not occurred to you, and since we are
cooperating in this, I will make the obvious assignment now.
T 3 A 2. B is better at understanding the need to study the notes than you
are, but neither of you realizes that many of the problems you keep being faced
with may ALREADY have been solved there. YOU do not think of the notes in this
way at all. B DOES from time to time, but he generally says, "Its probably in
the notes," and DOESN’T look it up. He believes that, although he reads them
over, they cannot REALLY help him until they are complete.
T 3 A 3. First of all, he cannot be sure of this unless he tries. Second,
they would BE completed if both of you so willed.
T 3 A 4. You vaguely know that the course is intended for some sort of
preparation. I can only say that you are not prepared.
T 3 A 5. I was amused when you reminded B. that he, too, was being prepared
for something quite unexpected, and he said, he was not at all curious about
what it was. This disinterest is very characteristic of him when he is afraid.
Interest and fear do NOT go together, as your respective behavior clearly shows.
120
T 3 A 6. Mental retardation is a defense which, like the others EXCEPT the
Atonement, can be used on behalf of error or truth, as elected. When it occurs
in REALITY, it is a temporary device, agreed on beforehand, to check the
miscreative abilities of strong but misdirected wills.
T 3 A 7. It is necessary that this appropriate use of the defense BE
considered real, because otherwise it cannot serve. The lesson involves not only
the individual himself, but also his parents, siblings, and all of those who
come in close relation with him.
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The VALUE of the experience depends on the need of each particular learner. The
person himself is a POOR learner, by definition, only as a step toward changing
from a bad to a good one.
T 3 A 8. Mental retardation can also be used as a maladaptive defense, if the
wrong (or attack) side is employed. This produces the "pseudo-retardation
syndrome" which is justly classified as a psychiatric (or disturbed-level)
symptom. Both of you do this all the time. B. acts as if he does not understand
even his OWN special language, let alone mine, and you cannot read at all.
T 3 A 9. This represents a joint attack on both yourselves AND me, because it
renders YOUR mind weak, and mine incompetent. Remember, this puts you in a truly
fearful position. If you cannot understand either your own mind OR mine, you do
not KNOW what is really willed. It is thus IMPOSSIBLE to avoid conflict, as
defined before, because even if you act ACCORDING TO will, you wouldn’t know it.
T 3 A 10. The next part of this course rests too heavily on the earlier part
not to REQUIRE its study. Without this, you will become much too fearful when
the unexpected DOES occur to make constructive use of it. However, as you study
the notes, you will see some of the obvious implications, unless you still
persist in misusing the defense of mental retardation. Please remember that its
constructive use, described above, is hardly a REAL part of your own REAL proper
equipment. It is a PARTICULARLY [49] inappropriate defense as you use it, and I
can only urge you to avoid it.
T 3 A 11. The reason why a solid foundation is necessary at this point is
because of the highly likely confusion of "fearful" and "awesome," which most
people do make. You will remember that we said once before that awe is
inappropriate in connection with the Sons of God, because you should not
experience awe in the presence of your own equals [50] .
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But it WAS emphasized that awe IS a proper reaction of the Soul in the presence
of its Creator.
T 3 A 12. So far, this course has had only indirect recourse to God, and
rarely even refers to Him directly. I have repeatedly emphasized that awe is
not appropriate in connection with me, BECAUSE of our inherent equality. I have
been careful to clarify my own role in the Atonement, without either over or
understating it. I have tried to do exactly the same things in connection with
yours.
T 3 A 13. The next step, however, DOES involve the direct approach to God
Himself. It would be most unwise to start on this step at all without very
careful preparation, or awe will surely be confused with fear, and the
experience will be more traumatic than beatific.
T 3 A 14. Healing is of God in the end. The means are carefully explained in
the notes. Revelation has occasionally SHOWN you the end, but to reach it the
means are needed.
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T 3 A 15. (The following INtroduction dictated by HS without notes.)
The following is the only detailed description which need be written down as to
how error interferes with preparation. The events specifically referred to here
could be any events, nor does their particular influence matter. It is the
process which is to be noted here, and not its results. The kind of beliefs, and
the fallacious premises involved in misthought are as well exemplified here as
elsewhere. There is nothing of special interest about the events described
below, EXCEPT their typical nature. If this is a true course in mind-training,
then the whole value of this section rests ONLY in showing you what NOT to do.
The more constructive emphasis is, of course, on the positive approach.
Mind-watching would have prevented any of this from occurring, and will do so
any time you permit it to.
T 3 A 16. (Following is from notes) Tell B. that the reason why he was so
strained yesterday is because he allowed himself a number of fear-producing
attitudes. They were fleeting enough to be more will-of-the-wisps than serious
will-errors, but unless he watches this kind of thing, he WILL find the notes
fearful, and, knowing him well, will mis-distantiate. His unprovoked irritation
was unpardonable EXCEPT by himself, and he did not choose to pardon it. YOU did,
but I am afraid you were under some strain in doing so. This was unfortunate,
and weakened your own ability to behave healingly toward B. at the time, and
later also toward Louis, both of whom DID act stupidly. But one stupidity at a
time is usually enough. You are getting too close to the misuse of mental
retardation when stupidity sets in all around.
T 3 A 17. B., having already weakened himself, was very un-miracle-minded,
first by not asking Dora if she wanted a lift in the cab, which was going her
way. Even if she didn’t want it, she would have been able to use the thought
well. There is probably no human error that is
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more fear-provoking (in the will/behavior conflict sense) than countering any
form of error with error. The result can be highly inflammable. By reacting to
Dora’s stupidity with his own, all of the elements which are virtually certain
to engender fear have been provided.
T 3 A 18. B should note that this is one of the few times that he had to wait
for a cab. He thought he took care of it by holding the door of a cab which did
come for that lady, but he was misguided in this belief. Beliefs are THOUGHTS,
and thus come under Christ-guidance, NOT control. Actually, by giving this cab
to her, he was very unkind to you. It was quite apparent that you were extremely
cold, and also very late. The idea that giving her the cab would atone for his
previous errors was singularly out of place, and well calculated to lead to
further error. If, instead of attempting to atone on his own, he had asked for
guidance, there would have been no difficulty whatever in the cab situation. It
was not necessary that anyone wait at all.
T 3 A 19. B’s original slight to Dora, because of his own need to get home as
he perceived it, stopped him from benefiting from the time-saving devise of the
miracle. He would have gotten home MUCH quicker if he had taken time to use time
properly.
T 3 A 20. YOU were still suffering from strain (see above), and got quite
irritated at the girl who stood next to the door on the side which blocked its
opening. Her presence there made it necessary each time the door was opened to
hold it for a much longer time than was necessary, and you were angry because
this made you cold. Actually, the girl was taking care of the younger child who
was standing outside, and both of them were really mentally retarded. If you
will remember, the older girl asked you very uncertainly about the bus, and you
were well aware at the time of her extreme uncertainty.
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T 3 A 21. It would have been much wiser had you built up her confidence,
instead of associating with her stupidity. This reduced your own efficiency, and
the only thing that saved you then was that you DID remember, in the cab, to ask
me about the notes, instead of assuming that you were necessarily to arrange to
meet the next day and go over them. B. had already become so misguided that it
did not occur to him that his own will, (which he justified by the contents of
the recent notes —a misuse of truth only seemingly on its own behalf) might be
questionable. (You took poor notes yourself here, because you got mad at him on
remembering this. While you did try to will right in the cab, you did not quite
succeed. The error is showing up now.)
T 3 A 22. B thus placed himself in a condition to experience a fear rather
than a love reaction. (HS notes that she was going to write "an excellent
position," but did not do so. Answer: You were right about the misuse of
"excellent" here, and please do cross it out. You are STILL angry. An excellent
position for miscreation is not a meaningful approach to the problem.)
T 3 A 23. It was indeed discourteous ("indeed" is not necessary; it was your
OWN error here; I am NOT saying this with any harsh overtones at all. I am just
trying to create better learning conditions for the study periods. We want as
little interference as possible, for VERY good reasons.)
T 3 A 24. Now, go back to B; he WAS discourteous when he told you that HE
wanted to keep the original copy of the notes, having decided to have them
Xeroxed on his OWN will, and then justifying it by a very slight
misinterpretation of what I said about "useful for others." In fact, if he will
re-read the actual quote, he will see that it REALLY means "useful for HIM." YOU
had interpreted that way, and frankly this was pretty clear to me at the time.
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But this sort of thing happens all the time. It should, be noted, however, that
the result was not only considerable and totally unnecessary planning on B’s
part, but also a failure to utilize what WAS intended for him as a help for
HIMSELF. And before YOU get too self-satisfied, I would remind you that you do
it all the time, too.
T 3 A 25. B. acted inappropriately toward YOU, by saying that he wanted to be
SURE that the original was not lost or dirty. It is noticeable that, having
already decided what HE wanted to do, it never occurred to him that it IS
possible that HE might lose or dirty them himself, especially as he had not
entrusted them to me. This is a form of arrogance that he would be much happier
without. He should also note that this would probably not have occurred had he
not been ALREADY literally "off the beam." Be SURE to tell him that this pun is
to reassure him that I am not angry. If he does not get it, or does not like it,
I KNOW it is not VERY good. The reason is that HE put me in a position where I
can really give him very little at the moment.
T 3 A 26. But I want him to know that I am VERY well aware of the exceedingly
few time he now makes errors of this kind. He has come a VERY long way in this
respect. It seems a shame that he should allow himself even this much discomfort
from it.
T 3 A 27. I suggest to YOU that we pray for him, and I pray for your full
cooperation in this. This will correct YOUR errors, and help him react better to
the work on the bookcase, which may otherwise lend itself for misuse by
misprojection. There would have been no problem at all about the bookcase, and
perhaps even no bookcase, if the solution of the storage problem had been left
to me. I have promised to guide you OUT of problems, and will certainly not
create them for you. But this means that you do not undertake to solve them
yourselves. A storage problem is hardly more difficult for me to solve that a
space problem, (see comments under special principles for miracle workers.)
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T 3 A 28. You started well in your attempt to pray with me for B., but ended
badly. This is because you had already made a number of earlier errors. You were
wrong to be pleased with Bill F’s criticism of Rose, and should not have enjoyed
Bill F’s description of Zanvil’s caricaturing of her. You could have laughed
WITH Bill, but NOT AT Rose. Real courtesy NEVER does this. You should know that
all God’s children are fully worthy of COMPLETE courtesy. You should NEVER join
with one at the EXPENSE of another.
T 3 A 29. When you called B about joining you, Gene, & Anne at lunch, YOU
should have waited to ask ME. In fact, you should not even have told Anne that
you would call. Then you could have asked B. FIRST if HE would want to come, and
called ANNE back. It is true that it was better that he came, but this has
nothing to do with the real issue. There are ways of treating others in which
ONLY consistent courtesy, even in very little things, is offered. This is a VERY
HEALING habit to acquire.
T 3 A 30. B’s answer to your call was a clear statement of his own sadly
conflicted state. He said, "I don’t want to join you, but that’s ungracious, so
I’ll go." Whenever ANY invitation to join others in a gracious way is offered,
it should ALWAYS be met with respect, although it need not always be accepted.
However, if it is MET ungraciously the resulting feeling may well be one of
coercion. This is ALWAYS a split-will reaction.
T 3 A 31. B. did not solve this by ACTING graciously. The lunch need not have
entailed either mental or physical strain for him, and no "need to escape"
should have arisen. This was a regression of the unprofitable kind. B. will
continue to experience this need from time to time, until he is willing to
realize that there is nothing he needs or wants to escape from.
T 3 A 32. It is very hard to get out of the chain of miscreation which can
arise out of even the simplest mis-thought. To borrow one of your own phrases,
"This kind of human tragedy is far easier to avert than to undo."
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T 3 A 33. You must both learn not to let this kind of chain reaction START.
You will NOT be able to control it once it has started, because everything and
everyone will be pulled into the misprojection, and misinterpreted accordingly.
NOTHING is lovely to the unloving. This is because they are CREATING ugliness.
T 3 A 34. You, Helen, were definitely not acting right-mindedly by writing
these notes right in front of Jonathan. (Note that you wrote his name as
"Jonathan" this time, although previously in these same notes you referred to
him as "Louis," intentionally using his real name. Actually, of course, it does
not matter what you call him, but NOTE that you FELT FREE at that time to CHOOSE
the name YOU preferred to use. This time, you were FORCED to call him "Jonathan"
because you were ATTACKING him when you took the notes in front of him, and are
now falling back on the magical device of "protecting his name."
T 3 A 35. (I had been considering calling B rather ambivalently, and had
gotten up to do so, but remembered to ask. The answer was to call him at 8:30.
It would be better if HE called, but he may not decide to do so. If he does not,
you should try to get through, and if he had decided NOT to be there, just leave
a message that it is not important. This is still a kindly gesture, and the
message should be put in a gentle way.) (B. did call HS)
T 3 A 36. Without going into further elaboration, and we could devote many
hours to this, lets consider all the time that we had to waste today. AND all
the notes that could have been devoted to a better purpose than undoing the
waste, and thus creating further waste. There IS a better use for time, too. I
would have liked to have spent some time on corrections of the past notes, as an
important step before reviewing them. A major point of clarification is
necessary in connection with the phrase "replacing hatred (or fear) with love."
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T 3 A 37. (No, Helen, do NOT check this against the prayer that B. very kindly
typed for you on the card. That WAS a gracious offering on his part, and YOU
also accepted it with grace at the time. Why should you deprive yourself of the
value of the offering by referring this correction first to HIM?)
T 3 A 38. (These notes did not continue at this time, due to the obvious fact
that HS was still clearly not in her right mind. However, B later suggested that
"correct" or "correct for" should be used instead of "replace". At the time, he
was quite sure about this, and he was perfectly right. The reason why it was
essential that HE make this correction was that the word "replace" was his
choice originally, and reflected a temporary misunderstanding of his own. It
was, however, both courteous and necessary that he change this himself, both as
a sign of his own better understanding, and of an avoidance of correction by
someone else, which would have been discourteous.)
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20
T 3 B. Special Principles for Miracle Workers
T 3 B 1. The miracle abolishes the need for lower order concerns. Since it is
an illogical, or out-of-pattern time interval, by definition, the ordinary
considerations of time and space do not apply.
T 3 B 1a. For example, I do NOT regard time as you and B. do, and Kolb’s space
problem is NOT mine. When YOU perform a miracle, I will arrange both time and
space to adjust to it.
T 3 B 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.
T 3 B 3. Another way of stating 2) 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.
T 3 B 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 REAL effect,
then, is emptiness. Being without substantial content, it lends itself to
projection.
T 3 B 5. The level-adjustment power of the miracle creates 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.
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T 3 B 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. THIS does not
matter.
T 3 B 7. The Biblical injunction "Be of one mind [51] " is the statement for
REVELATION readiness. My OWN injunction "Do this in remembrance of me [52] " is
the request for cooperation in miracle-workers. It should be noted that the two
statements are not in the same order of reality, because the latter involves a
time awareness, since memory implies recalling the PAST in the present.
T 3 B 8. 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.
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T 3 C. Atonement without Sacrifice
Nov. 22 Tuesday
T 3 C 1. There is one more 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.
Nobody who was free of the scarcity-fallacy could POSSIBLY have made this
mistake.
T 3 C 2. If the Crucifixion is seen from an upside down point of view, it
certainly does appear AS IF God permitted, and even encouraged, one of his Sons
to suffer BECAUSE he was good. Many very devoted ministers preach this every
day. This particularly unfortunate interpretation, which actually arose out of
the combined misprojection of a large number of my own would-be followers, has
led many people to be bitterly afraid of God.
T 3 C 3. This particularly anti-religious concept happens to enter into many
religions, and this is neither by chance nor coincidence.
T 3 C 4. 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?
T 3 C 5. (There are times when) The best defense, as always, is NOT to attack
another’s position, but rather to protect the truth. It is not necessary to
consider anything acceptable, if you have to turn a whole frame of reference
around in order to justify it. This procedure is painful in its minor
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applications, and genuinely tragic on a mass basis. Persecution is a frequent
result, justifying the terrible misperception that God Himself persecuted His
own Son on behalf of salvation. The very words are meaningless.
T 3 C 6. It has always 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 it 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?
T 3 C 7. 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 which the Atonement teaches is
wholly lost if it is tainted with this kind of distortion in ANY form.
T 3 C 8. "Vengeance is Mine sayeth the Lord" is strictly a 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 at all. 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 any man the evil that ANOTHER did?
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T 3 C 9. Be very sure that you recognize how impossible this assumption
really is, and how ENTIRELY it arises from misprojection. This kind of error is
responsible for a host of related fallacies, including the misbelief that God
rejected man and forced him out of the Garden of Eden, or that I am misdirecting
you. I have made every effort to use words which are ALMOST impossible to
distort, but man is very inventive when it comes to twisting symbols around.
T 3 C 10. 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 man’s attempts to shroud it in darkness have made it inaccessible to the
unwilling, and ambiguous to the partly willing. The Atonement itself radiates
nothing but truth. It therefore epitomizes harmlessness, and sheds ONLY
blessing. It could not do this if it arose from anything other than 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.
T 3 C 11. 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.
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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.
T 3 C 13. 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 the Soul 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 (reign of the ) Peace of God.
T 3 C 14. But this vision can be perceived only by the truly innocent. Because
their hearts are pure, they 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 "(and) when He shall appear (or be perceived) we shall be
like Him, for we shall see Him AS HE IS."
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T 3 C 15. Sacrifice is a notion totally unknown to God. It arises solely from
fear of the Records [53] . This is particularly unfortunate, because frightened
people are apt to be vicious. Sacrificing others in any way is a clear-cut
violation of God’s own injunction that man should be merciful even as His Father
in heaven is merciful [54] .
T 3 C 16. It has been harder 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. This results in learning failures.
T 3 C 17. I have been correctly referred to in the Bible as "The Lamb of God
who taketh away the sins of the world. [55] " Those who represent the lamb as
blood-stained (an all too widespread conceptual error) do NOT understand the
meaning of the symbol.
T 3 C 18. Correctly understood, the symbol is a very simple parable, or
teaching device, which merely depicts 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. Only the innocent CAN
see God.
T 3 C 19. There has been some controversy (in human terms) as to whether
seeing is an attribute of the eyes, or an expression of the integrative powers
of the brain. Correctly understood, the issue revolves around the question of
whether
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the body or the mind can see (or understand). This is not really open to
question at all.
T 3 C 20. The body is not capable of understanding. Only the mind KNOWS
anything. A pure mind knows the truth, and this IS its strength. It cannot
attack the body, because it knows EXACTLY what the body IS. This is what "a sane
mind in a sane body" really means.
T 3 C 21. A sane mind is NOT out for blood. 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.
T 3 C 22. The lamb taketh away the sins of the world [56] 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 the
mind of His Son. In this state, man’s mind DOES see God, and because he sees Him
as he Is, he knows that the Atonement, NOT sacrifice, is the ONLY appropriate
gift to His OWN altar, where nothing except perfection truly belongs. The
understanding of the innocent is TRUTH. That is why their altars are truly
radiant.
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T 3 C 23. 7(Dictated directly without notes)pp 7-12
Though Christians generally (but by no means universally) recognize the
contradiction involved in victimizing others, they are less adept at ensuring
their own inability to victimize themselves. Although this appears to be a much
more benign error from the viewpoint of society, it is nevertheless inherently
dangerous because once a two-edged defense is used, its direction cannot be
self-controlled.
T 3 C 24. B. recently observed how many ideas were condensed into relatively
few pages here. This is because we have not been forced to dispel miscreations
throughout. (There is one set of notes not yet transcribed which is devoted to
this. These emphasize only the enormous waste of time that is involved.) Cayce’s
notes, too, could have been much shortened. Their excessive length is due to two
factors. The first involves a fundamental error which Cayce himself made, and
which required constant undoing. The second is more related to the attitude of
his followers. They are unwilling to omit anything he said. This is respectful
enough, but not overly-judicious. I would be a far better editor, if they would
allow me this position on their staff.
T 3 C 25. It is obvious that Cayce himself was not able to transcend the
misperceptions of the need for sacrifice, or he could not possibly have been
willing to sacrifice himself. Anyone who is unable to leave the requests of
others unanswered has not entirely transcended egocentricity.
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I never "gave of myself" in this inappropriate way, nor would I ever have
encouraged Cayce to do so.
T 3 C 26. Cayce could not see the Atonement as totally lacking in sacrifice at
ANY level. It WAS obvious to him that the mind cannot be so limited. It was
equally apparent to him that the Soul is merely unaffected by such an idea. This
left him only the body with which to invest his misperception. This is also why
he used his own mind at the "EXPENSE of his body."
T 3 C 27. Because Cayce was a somewhat erratic listener, he was compelled to
correct his own errors at very great length, and not always adequately. Consider
the basis from which he started, when he began with "yes, we have the body." It
is noteworthy that in all these readings, a large section was actually devoted
to the body, even though he usually concluded with the caution that the body
cannot be healed by itself. It would have saved an enormous number of words if
he had always begun with this.
T 3 C 28. Cayce and his devotion to me are in no way underestimated by the
realization that he worked under very great strain, which is ALWAYS a sign that
something is wrong. One of the difficulties inherent in trance states is that it
is very difficult to overcome the split which the trance itself induces through
the medium of communications made while in the trance state.
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T 3 C 29. Cayce’s whole approach put him in a real double-bind, from which he
did not recover. When he spoke of a dream in which he saw his own rather
immanent reincarnation, he was perfectly accurate. He was sufficiently attuned
to real communication to make it easy to correct his errors, and free him to
communicate without strain. It is noticeable throughout his notes that he
frequently engaged in a fallacy that we have already noted in some detail:
namely, the tendency to endow the physical with nonphysical properties. Cayce
suffered greatly from this error. He did not make either of the other three.
However, you will remember that it is this one which is particularly vulnerable
to magical associations. Cayce’s accuracy was so great that, even when he did
this, he was able to apply it constructively. But it does not follow that this
was a genuinely constructive approach.
T 3 C 30. It should also be noted that, when Cayce attempted to "see" the body
in proper perspective, he saw physically discernible auras surrounding it. This
is a curious compromise, in which the nonphysical attributes of the self are
approached AS IF they could be seen with the physical eye.
T 3 C 31. Cayce’s illiteracy never stood in his way. This is because
illiteracy does not necessarily imply any lack of love, and in Cayce’s case very
definitely did not. He therefore had no difficulty at all in overcoming this
seeming limitation.
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What DID hamper him was a profound sense of personal unworthiness, which,
characteristically enough, was sometimes over-compensated for in what might be
called a Christian form of grandiosity. Cayce was essentially uncharitable to
himself. This made him very erratic in his own miracles, and, because he was
genuinely anxious to help others, left himself in a highly vulnerable position.
T 3 C 32. His son comments both on the rather erratic nature of the Cayce
household, and also on the rather uneven nature of Cayce’s temper. Both of these
observations are true, and clearly point to the fact that Cayce did not apply
the Peace of God to himself. Once this had occurred, particularly in a man whose
communication channels were open, it was virtually impossible for him to escape
external solutions. Cayce was a very religious man, who should have been able to
escape fear through religion. Being unable to apply his religion wholeheartedly
to himself, he was forced to accept certain magical beliefs which were alien to
his own Christianity. This is why he was so different when he was asleep, and
even disowned what he said in this state.
T 3 C 33. The lack of integration which this split state implies is clearly
shown in certain off-the-mark detours into areas such as the effects of stones
on the mind, and some curious symbolic attempt to integrate churches and glands.
(This is hardly more peculiar than some of your own confusion.)
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T 3 C 34. Cayce’s mind was imprisoned to some extent by an error against which
you have been cautioned several times. He looked to the past for an EXPLANATION
of the present, but he never succeeded in separating the past FROM the present.
When he said "mind is the builder," he did not realize that it is only what it
is building NOW that really creates the future. The past, in itself, does not
have the ability to do this. Whenever we move from one instant to the next, the
previous one no longer exists. In considering the body as the focus for healing,
Cayce was expressing his own failure to accept this AS ACCOMPLISHED. He did not
fail to recognize the value of the Atonement for others, but he did fail to
accept its corrective merit for himself.
T 3 C 35. As we have frequently emphasized, man CANNOT control his own errors.
Having created them, he does believe in them. Because of his failure to accept
his own perfect freedom FROM the past, Cayce could not really perceive others as
similarly free. This is why I have not wholly endorsed the Cayce documents for
widespread use.
T 3 C 36. I am heartily supportive of the ARE’s endeavor to make Cayce’s
singular contributions immortal, but it would be most unwise to have them
promulgated as a faith until they have been purged of their essential errors.
This is why
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there have been a number of unexplained set backs in their explication. It is
also one of the many reasons why the Cayce material, a major step in the
speedup, must be properly understood before it can be meaningfully validated.
T 3 C 37. Cayce’s son has been wise in attempting to deal with reliability,
which in Cayce’s case is very high. There is a way of validating the material,
and Hugh Lynn is perfectly aware that this must be done eventually. He is also
aware of the fact that he is unable to do it. In the present state of the
material, it would be most unwise even to attempt it. There is too much that IS
invalid. When the time comes that this can be corrected to the point of real
safety, I assure you it will be accomplished. In tribute to Cayce, I remind you
that no effort is wasted, and Cayce’s effort was very great.
T 3 C 38. It would be most ungrateful of me if I allowed his work to produce a
generation of witch doctors. I am sorry that Cayce himself could not rid himself
of a slight tendency in this direction. But fortunately I have a fuller
appreciation of him than he had.
T 3 C 39. I am repeating here a Biblical injunction of my own, already
mentioned elsewhere, that if my followers eat any deadly thing it shall not hurt
them. This is what Cayce could NOT believe, because he could not see that, as a
Son of God, he WAS invulnerable.
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T 3 D. Miracles as Accurate Perception
(DICTATED WITHOUT NOTES)
Nov. 24, 1965
T 3 D 1. We have repeatedly stated that the basic concepts referred to
throughout the notes are NOT matters of degree. Certain fundamental concepts
CANNOT be meaningfully understood in terms of co-existing 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 absolutely essential
that you understand completely that behavior is erratic until a firm commitment
to one or the other is made.
T 3 D 2. A firm commitment to darkness or nothingness is impossible. Nobody
has ever lived who has not experienced some light and some of everything. This
has made everybody really unable to deny truth totally, even if he deceives
himself in this connection most of the time. That is why those who live largely
in darkness and emptiness never find any lasting solace. (This really answers
B’s question about whether people return voluntarily.)
T 3 D 3. Innocence is also 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 is a genuine viewpoint
which is universal in its application that it becomes wisdom.
T 3 D 4. Innocent (or true) perception means that you NEVER misperceive, and
ALWAYS see truly. More simply, this means that you never see what does not exist
in reality. Whenever you lack confidence in what someone else 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
(incorrect use) the essentially creative power of the miracle. The miracle
perceives everything AS IT IS. If nothing but the truth exists (and this is
really redundant
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in 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 that the innocent can see. They do not suffer from the delusions of the
Separated ones.
T 3 D 5. The way to correct all such delusions is to withdraw your faith from
them, and invest it ONLY in what is true. To whatever extent you side with false
perception in yourself or others, you are validating a basic misperception. You
CANNOT validate the invalid. I would suggest that you voluntarily give up all
attempts to do so, because they can be only frantic. If you are willing to
validate what is true in everything you perceive, you will make it true for you.
T 3 D 6. Remember that we said that truth overcomes ALL error. This means
that if you perceive truly, you are canceling out misperceptions in yourself AND
others simultaneously. Because you see them as they were really created and can
really create, you offer them your own validation of THEIR truth. This is the
real healing which the miracle actively creates.
T 3 D 7. (Reply to HS question: Is this all? The reason why this is so short,
despite its extreme importance, is because it is not symbolic. This means that
it is not open to more than one interpretation.)à
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This means that it is unequivocal. It also explains the quotation which you have
never gotten correctly in complete form before: "But this we know, that when He
shall appear (or be perceived) we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He
is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as He is
pure. [57] " Every man DOES have the hope that he can see correctly, because the
ability to do so is IN him. Man’s ONLY hope IS to see things as they are).
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T 3 E. Perception versus Knowledge
Friday, Nov. 26
T 3 E 1. (On Wed. evening, Nov. 24, HS had sudden flash of illumination and
very much wanted to offer prayer for B., which she did as follows: "Jesus, help
me see my brother (B.) as he really is, and thus release both him and me." HS
also thought later: Everytime there is anything unlovable that crosses one’s
mind (re sex, possession, etc.) you should immediately recognize that you do not
want to hurt your brother.) On Thurs. morning, the prayer for the miracle
occurred as follows stated above.)
T 3 E 2. You had a lot of trouble afterwards with the words (which are
essentially irrelevant) partly because you were dissatisfied with yourself at
the time, but also because you ARE confused about the difference between
perception and cognition. You will note that we have said very little about
cognition as yet. (Aside: One of the exceptions is in the correction formula for
fear, which begins with KNOW first) The reason is because you must get your
perceptions straightened out before you can KNOW anything.
T 3 E 3. To know is to be certain. Uncertainty merely means that you DON’T
know. Knowledge is power BECAUSE it is certain, and certainty is strength.
Perception is temporary. It is an attribute of the space-time belief, and is
therefore subject to fear or love. Misperception produces fear, and true
perception produces 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.
T 3 E 4. All of your difficulties ultimately stem from the fact that you do
not recognize, or KNOW, yourselves, each other, or God. "Recognize" means "know
again." This means that you knew before. (Note that it does not mean SAW
before.) You can see in many ways, because perception involves different
interpretations, and this means it is not whole.
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The miracle is a way of PERCEIVING, not a way of knowing. It is the right answer
to a question, but you do not ask questions at all when you know.
T 3 E 5. Questioning delusions 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
implies variability by definition. 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.
T 3 E 6. The "questioning mind" perceives itself in time, and therefore looks
for FUTURE answers. The unquestioning mind is closed merely because it believes
the future and the present will be the same. This establishes an unchanged
state, or stasis. This 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.
T 3 E 7. Visions are the natural perception of the spiritual eye, but they
are still corrections. B’s question about the "spiritual eye" was a very
legitimate one. 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 for the miracle, but NOT of revelation. 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 these visions do not last.
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T 3 E 8. The Bible instructs you to "KNOW thyself [58] ," 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. But it is not until you
RECOGNIZE him that you KNOW him. Only then are you ABLE to stop asking questions
about him.
T 3 E 9. While you ask questions about God, you are clearly implying that you
do NOT know him. Certainty does not require action. When you say you are ACTING
on the basis of sure knowledge, you are really confusing perception and
cognition. Knowledge brings MENTAL strength for creative THINKING, but not for
right doing.
T 3 E 10. Perception, miracles and doing are closely related. Knowledge is a
result of revelation, and induces only thought (thinking). 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. This is why B. is having so much trouble in what he calls
"integrating" the notes. His tentative perception is too uncertain for
knowledge, because knowledge is SURE. Your perception is so variable that you
swing from sudden but real knowledge to complete cognitive disorganization. This
is why B. is more prone to irritation, while you are more vulnerable to rage. He
is consistently BELOW his potential, while you achieve it at times and then
swing very wide of the mark.
T 3 E 11. Actually, these differences do not matter. But I thought you might
be glad to learn that you are much better off with DIFFERENT perceptual problems
than you would be if you suffered from similar ones. This enables each of you to
RECOGNIZE (and this is the
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right word here) that the misperceptions of the other are unnecessary. It is
because you do not KNOW what to do about it that B. reacts to yours with
irritation, and you respond to his with fury.
T 3 E 12. I repeat again that if you ATTACK error, you will hurt yourself. You
do not 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 into a stranger that you are afraid of
him. PERCEIVE him correctly, so that your Soul can KNOW him.
T 3 E 13. 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 the peace WITHOUT question.
T 3 E 14. God is not a stranger to His Own Sons, and His Sons are not
strangers to each other. Knowledge preceded both perception and time, and will
also ultimately replace (or correct for) them. This is the real meaning of the
Biblical account 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" is a
real scribal error. It should read, "KNOW God and accept His certainty." (This
error is why the commandments are all negative, in contrast to Christ’s
statement about "Thou shalt love", etc.) There are no strangers in His Creation.
To create as He Created, you can create only what you KNOW and accept as yours.
T 3 E 15. God knows His Children with perfect certainty. He Created them by
knowing them.
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He recognizes them perfectly. When they do not recognize each other, they do not
recognize Him. Brothers can misperceive one another, but they rarely maintain
that they do not KNOW each other. This is possible only if they maintain that
they are NOT really brothers. The Bible is VERY specific on this point.
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T 3 F. Conflict and the Ego
Saturday 11/27
T 3 F 1. ost of the abilities man now possesses are only shadows of his real
strengths. The Soul knows, loves, and creates. These are its unequivocal
functions. All of the functions of man are equivocal, or open to question or
doubt. This is because he can no longer be certain how he will USE them. He is
therefore incapable of knowledge, because he is uncertain. He is also incapable
of true loving, because he can perceive lovelessly. He cannot create surely,
because perception deceives, and illusions are not pure.
T 3 F 2. Perception did not exist until the Separation had introduced
degrees, aspects and intervals. The Soul has no levels, and ALL conflict arises
rom the concept of levels. Wars arise when some regard others as if they were on
a different level. All interpersonal conflicts arise from this fallacy. Only the
levels of the Trinity are capable of Unity. The levels which man created by the
Separation are disastrous. They cannot BUT conflict. This is because one is
essentially meaningless to another. Freud realized this perfectly, and that is
why he conceived as forever irreconcilable the different levels of his psyche.
They were conflict-prone by definition, because they wanted different things and
obeyed different principles.
T 3 F 3. In our picture of the psyche, there is an unconscious level, which
properly consists ONLY of the miracle ability and should be under MY direction;
and a conscious level, which perceives or is aware of impulses from both the
unconscious and the superconscious. These are the sources of the impulses it
receives. Consciousness is thus the level of perception, but NOT of knowledge.
Again, to PERCEIVE is NOT to know. (In this connection, Cayce is more accurate
than Freud.)
T 3 F 4. Consciousness was the first split that man introduced into himself.
He became a PERCEIVER rather than a creator in the true sense.
T 3 F 5. Consciousness is correctly identified as the domain of the ego.
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Jung was right indeed in insisting that the ego is NOT the self, and that the
self should be regarded as an achievement. He did not RECOGNIZE (a term we now
understand) that the Achievement was God’s. In a sense, the ego was a man-made
attempt to perceive himself as he wished, rather than as he IS. This is an
example of the created/creator confusion we spoke of before. He can only KNOW
himself as he IS, because that is all he can be SURE of. Everything else IS open
to question.
T 3 F 6. 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 wholly 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 separate, or divided, mind MUST be confused. A divided mind
is uncertain by definition. It HAS to be in conflict because it is out of accord
with itself.
T 3 F 7. Intrapersonal conflict arises from the same basis as interpersonal.
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.
T 3 F 8. Man has every reason to feel anxious, as he perceives himself. This
is why he cannot escape fear until he KNOWS the he DID not and CAN not create
himself. He can NEVER make this misperception valid, and when he at last
PERCEIVES clearly, he is GLAD HE CAN'T. His Creation is beyond his own error
variance, and this is why he MUST eventually choose to heal the Separation.
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T 3 F 9. 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 this is subject to degrees, a fact which clearly demonstrates
a lack of association with knowledge. (No, Helen, this is PERFECTLY clear and
DOES follow the previous section. Neither you nor I is at all confused, even in
grammar.)
T 3 F 10. 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 healing is
indeed a miracle, in view of how man perceives himself. Only the sick NEED
healing. The Soul does not need healing, but the mind DOES.
T 3 F 11. Freud gave a very graphic but upside-down account of how the
divisions of the mind arose from the bottom UP. Actually, this is impossible,
because the unconscious cannot create the conscious. You cannot create something
you can't KNOW. Freud was greatly worried about this, being VERY bright, though
misguided, and attempted to get around it by introducing a number of
"borderline" areas which merely resulted in fuzziness. This was particularly
unfortunate, because he was capable of going much higher, if he had not been so
afraid. This is why he kept pulling the mind DOWN.
T 3 F 12. The ego did NOT arise out of the unconscious. A lower-order
perception cannot create a higher-order one, (which is the way you perceive the
structure of the psyche if you look at it from the bottom UP) because it doesn’t
understand it. But a higher-order perception CAN create a lower-order one by
understanding it in terms of MISperception.
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T 3 F 13. 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 it chose
to do this, it willed only to know. Afterwards, it had to will ambiguously, and
the only way out of ambiguity IS clear perception.
T 3 F 14. The ego is as frail as Freud perceived it. The later theorists have
tried to introduce a less pessimistic view, but have looked in the wrong
direction for their hope. Any attempt to endow the ego with the attributes of
the Soul, is merely confused thinking. Freud was more clear-sighted about this,
because he knew a BAD thing when he perceived it, but he failed to recognize
that a bad thing cannot exist. It is therefore wholly unnecessary to try to get
out of it. As you very rightly observed yourself, the thing to do with a desert
is to LEAVE.
T 3 F 15. The mind returns itself to its proper function only when it WILLS TO
KNOW. This places it in the Soul’s service, where perception is meaningless. The
superconscious is the level of the mind which wills to do this. (Freud was
particularly distorted on this point, because he was getting too far UP for
comfort according to his own perception.) But he WAS right in maintaining that
the "parts" of the psyche cannot be correctly perceived either as THINGS or as
entirely separate. (He would have thought better if he had said "entirely
separated.")
T 3 F 16. The mind DID divide itself when it willed to create its own levels
AND the ability to perceive them. 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 miscreating, 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.
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T 3 F 17. The ability to perceive made the body possible, because you must
perceive SOMETHING, and WITH something. This is why perception involves an
exchange, or a 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, although depressing, was a way out
of the conflict he induced. (This has already been covered in some detail.)
T 3 F 18. The superconscious, which KNOWS, could not be reconciled with this
loss of power, because it was incapable of darkness. This is why it became
almost inaccessible to the mind, and entirely inaccessible to the body. It was
PERCEIVED as a threat, because light does abolish darkness by establishing the
clear fact that it ISN'T THERE. The truth will ALWAYS destroy error in this
sense. This is not an ACTIVE process of destruction at all. We have already
emphasized the fact that knowing does not DO anything. It can be PERCEIVED as an
attacker, but it CANNOT attack.
T 3 F 19. What man perceives as its attack is his own recognition of the fact
that it can always be REMEMBERED, because it has never been destroyed. This is
not a literal remembering as much as a re-membering. (That is largely for B. I
wish he would decide to use that talent of his constructively. He has no idea of
how powerful it could be. Actually, it does come from the unconscious, and is
really a distorted form of miraculous perception which he has reduced to word
twisting. Although this can be quite funny, it is still a real waste. Maybe he’d
care to let me control it, and still use it humorously himself. He doesn’t have
to decided it is one OR the other.)
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T 3 F 20. The unconscious should never have been reduced to a "container" for
the waste products of conflict. Even as HE perceives his psyche, every level has
a creative potential, because nothing man creates can wholly lose this.
T 3 F 21. 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. But I was a man who remembered the Soul and its
knowledge. Tell B. that when he refused to misperceive he was indeed behaving as
I behaved. 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, which naturally remembered the Soul and its own real
purpose.
T 3 F 22. I cannot unite your will with God’s for you. But I CAN erase all
misperceptions from your mind, if you will bring it under my guidance. ONLY your
misperceptions stand in your own way. Without them, your own 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.
T 3 F 23. "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.
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T 3 F 24. (Note that the term "insight", though referring to lofty perception,
is not an attribute of knowledge. This is why terms like "lofty" are meaningless
in this context. Insight is not the way TO knowledge, but it IS a prerequisite
FOR knowledge. Being of God, knowledge has nothing to do with your perceptions
at all. That is why it can only be a gift of God TO you.)
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T 3 G. The Loss of Certainty
Dictated without notes.
Nov. 30 [1965]
T 3 G 1. We said before that the abilities which man possesses are only
shadows of his true abilities. The soul’s true functions are knowing, loving,
and creating. The intrusion of the ability to perceive, which is inherently
judgmental, was introduced only after the Separation. No one has been sure of
anything since then. You will also remember that I made it very clear that the
Resurrection was the return to knowledge, which was accomplished by the union of
my will with the Father’s.
T 3 G 2. Since the Separation, the words "create" and "make" are inevitably
confused. When you make something, you make it first out of a sense of lack or
need, and second, out of a something that already exists. Anything can be that
is made is made for a specific purpose. It has no true generalizability. When
you make something to fill a perceived lack, which is obviously why you would
make anything, you are tacitly implying that you believe in the Separation.
Knowing does not lead to doing, as we have frequently observed already.
T 3 G 3. What appears to be contradictory about the difference between
knowing and perceiving, and Revelation and miracles, is again the fallacy that
is the root cause of all subsequent errors. The miracle was associated with
perception, and not with knowing. However, we also noted that prayer is the
medium of miracles, and also the natural communication of the Creator and the
Created. Prayer is always an affirmation of knowledge, not of accurate
perception. That is why unless perception has entered into it, it calls on
Revelation.
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T 3 G 4. The confusion between your own creation and what you create is so
profound that it has literally become impossible to know anything, because
knowledge is always stable. It is quite evident that human beings are not.
Nevertheless, they are perfectly stable as God created them. In this sense, when
their behavior is unstable, they are obviously disagreeing with God’s idea of
the Creation. This is a fundamental right of man, although not one he would care
to exercise if he were in his Right Mind.
T 3 G 5. The problem that is bothering you most is the fundamental question
which man continually asks of himself, but which cannot properly be directed to
himself at all. He keeps on asking "himself" what he is. This implies that the
answer is not only one which he knows, but one which is up to him. The first
part of this statement is perfectly true, but the second part is not. We have
frequently commented on the absolute necessity of correcting all fallacious
thinking which associates man in any way with his own Creation. Man CANNOT
perceive himself correctly. He has no image at all. The word "image" is always
perception related, and is not a product of knowing. Images are symbolic, and
stand for something else. The current emphasis on "changing your image" is a
good description of the power of perception, but it implies that there is
nothing to KNOW.
T 3 G 6. Prayer is the medium of miracles, not because God created
perceptions, but because God created YOU. At the beginning of this course, we
said that YOU are a miracle. Therefore, the miracle worker is a miracle NOT of
his own creation [59] . Unless perception rests on some knowing basis, it is so
unstable that it doesn’t mean anything.
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Knowing is not open to interpretation, because its meaning is its own. It is
possible to interpret meaning, but this is always open to error because it
involves the perception of meaning. All of these wholly needless complexities
are the result of man’s attempt to regard himself both as separated and
unseparated at the same time. It is impossible to undertake a confusion as
fundamental as this without engaging in further confusion.
T 3 G 7. Methodologically, man’s mind has been very creative. But, as always
occurs when method and content are separated, it has not been utilized for
anything but an attempt to escape a fundamental and entirely inescapable
impasse. This kind of thinking cannot result in a creative outcome, though it
has resulted in considerable ingenuity. It is noteworthy, however, that this
ingenuity has almost totally divorced him from knowledge.
T 3 G 8. Knowledge does not require ingenuity at all. When we say "the truth
shall set you free [60] ," we mean that all this kind of thinking is a waste of
time, but that you are free of the need of engaging in it.
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T 3 G 9. Note again that the functions of the Soul were not referred to as
abilities. This point requires clarification, because abilities are beliefs
which are BASED on the scarcity fallacy, since they do not mean anything apart
from within-group comparisons. As you yourself never fail to point out, "nobody
has none of an ability, and nobody has all of it." That is, of course, why the
curve never rests on the line. The clearest implications of relativity, which
properly inheres in this statement, DEMONSTRATE that abilities are not functions
of the Soul. The Soul’s functions are NOT relative. They are ABSOLUTE. They are
OF God and FROM [61] God, and therefore God-like.
T 3 G 10. Prayer is a way of asking for something. When we said that prayer is
the medium of miracles, we also said that the only meaningful prayer is for
forgiveness, because those who have been forgiven have everything. Once
forgiveness has been accepted, prayer in the usual sense becomes utterly without
meaning. Essentially, a prayer for forgiveness is nothing more than a request
that we may be able to recognize something we already have.
T 3 G 11. In electing the ability to perceive instead of the will to know, man
placed himself in a position where he could resemble his Father ONLY by
perceiving miraculously. But he lost the knowledge that he himself is a miracle.
MIRACULOUS CREATION was his own Source, and also his own real function. "God
created man in his own image and likeness" is correct in meaning, but the words
are open to considerable misinterpretation. This is avoided, however, if "image"
is understood to mean "thought," and "likeness" is taken as "of a like quality."
God DID create the Son in His own Thought, and of a quality like to His own.
There IS nothing else.
T 3 G 12. Perception is impossible WITHOUT a belief in "more" and "less."
Unless perception, at every level, involves selectivity, it is incapable of
organization. In all types of perception, there is a continual process of
accepting and rejecting, of organizing and reorganizing, and of shifting and
changing focus. Evaluation is an essential aspect of perception, because
judgment MUST be made for selection. "Lack of lack" is a concept which is
meaningless to a perceiver, because the ability to perceive at all RESTS ON
lack.
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T 3 G 13. What happens to perceptions if there ARE no judgments, and there is
nothing BUT perfect equality? Perception is automatically useless. Truth can
only be KNOWN. All of it is equally true, and knowing any part of it IS to know
all of it.
T 3 G 14. Only perception involves partial awareness. Knowledge transcends ALL
of the laws which govern perception. Partial KNOWLEDGE is impossible. It is all
One, and has no separate parts. (i.e. the parts have NOT separated.) This IS the
real knowledge. You who are really one with it need but know YOURSELF and your
knowledge is complete. To know God’s miracle is to know Him.
T 3 G 15. Forgiveness is the healing of the perception of separation. Correct
perception of EACH OTHER is necessary ONLY because minds have willed to see
themselves AS separate beings. Each Soul knows God completely. This IS the
miraculous power of the Soul. The fact that each Soul has this power completely
is a fact that is entirely alien to human thinking, in which if any ONE has
everything, there is nothing LEFT.
T 3 G 16. God’s miracles are as total as His Thought, because they ARE His
thoughts. God shines in them all with perfect light. If they recognize this
light anywhere, they know it universally. Revelation cannot be explained,
because it IS knowledge. Revelation HAPPENS. It is the only REALLY natural
happening, because it reflects the nature of God.
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T 3 G 17. As long as perception lasts, prayer has a place. Since perception
rests on lack, those who perceive have not totally accepted the Atonement and
given over themselves to truth. Perception IS a separated state, and the
perceiver DOES need healing. Communion, not prayer, is the natural state of
those who know. God and HIS miracles are inseparable.
T 3 G 18. All words, at best, are preparatory. THE word is really a thought.
No one WORD is universally meaningful, because a word is a symbol, but thought
is not divisible by creation. The original name for "thought" and "word" was the
same. The quotation should read "In the beginning was the thought, and the
thought was with God, and the thought WAS God." How beautiful indeed are the
thoughts of God, who live in His light. Your worth is beyond perception because
it is beyond doubt.
T 3 G 19. Do not perceive yourself in different lights. KNOW yourself in the
One Light, where the miracle which is you is perfectly clear.
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T 3 G 20. The prerequisites for therapy must include the following conditions:
T 3 G 21-1. The procedure must involve the recognition rather than the denial of
the importance of thought.
T 3 G 22-2. The exact equality of everyone who is involved. This must include
Me.
T 3 G 23-3. No one is either therapist or patient. (B. should add "teacher or
pupil.")
T 3 G 24-4. Above all EVERYONE involved must want to give up everything that is
NOT true. The reason for the negative emphasis here is that therapy implies
something HAS gone wrong. Even though the purpose is to correct, those who are
ill ARE negative.
T 3 G 25-5. Therapy is EXACTLY the same as all other forms of miracle-working.
It has no separate laws of its own. All of the points that were given for
miracles apply to therapy because, UNLESS therapy proceeds from
miracle-mindedness, it CANNOT heal.
T 3 G 26-6. The therapist (hopefully) does have the role of being the better
perceiver. (This is also, again hopefully, true of the teacher.) It does not
follow that he is the better knower. Temporarily, the therapist or teacher can
help in straightening out twisted perceptions, which is also the only role that
I would ever contribute myself. All therapy should do is try to place EVERYONE
involved in the right frame of mind to help one another. It is essentially a
process of true courtesy, including courtesy to Me.
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T 3 G 27. Any form of mental illness can truthfully be described as an
expression of viciousness. We said before that those who are afraid are apt to
be vicious. If we were willing to forgive other people’s misperceptions of us,
they could not possibly affect us at all. There is little doubt that you can
explain your present attitudes [62] in terms of how people used to look at you,
but there is no wisdom in doing so. In fact, the whole historical approach can
justifiably be called doubtful.
T 3 G 28. As you have so often said, no one has adopted ALL of his parents’
attitudes as his own. In every case, there has been a long process of choice, in
which the individual has escaped from those he himself vetoed, while retaining
those he voted FOR. B. has not retained his parents political beliefs, in spite
of the particular kind of newspapers that constituted their own reading matter
in this area. The reason why he could do this was because he believed he was
free in this area.
T 3 G 29. There must be some acute problem OF HIS OWN that would make him so
eager to accept their misperception of his own worth. This tendency can ALWAYS
be regarded as punitive. It cannot be justified by the inequality of the
strengths of parents and children. This is never more than temporary, and is
largely a matter of maturational and thus physical difference. It does not last
unless it is held onto.
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T 3 G 30. When B’s father came to his new office and "destroyed" it, it is
quite apparent that B. MUST have been willing to let it be destroyed. The many
times that he has commented on this event alone would suggest that the extreme
importance of this misperception in his own distorted thinking. Why should
anyone accord an obvious misperception so much power? There cannot be any real
justification for it, because even B. himself recognized the real problem by
saying "How could he do this to me?" The answer is HE didn’t.
T 3 G 31. B. has a very serious question to ask himself in this connection. We
said before that the purpose of the Resurrection was to "demonstrate that no
amount of misperception has any influence at all on a Son of God." This
demonstration EXONERATES those who misperceive, by establishing beyond doubt
that they have NOT hurt anyone. B’s question, which he must ask himself very
honestly, is whether he is willing to demonstrate that his parents have NOT hurt
him. Unless he is willing to do this, he has not forgiven them.
T 3 G 32. The essential goal of therapy is the same as that of knowledge. No
one can survive independently as long as he is willing to see himself through
the eyes of others. This will always put him in a position where he MUST see
himself in different lights. Parents do not create the image of their children,
though they may perceive
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images which they do create. However, as we have already said, you are not an
image. If you SIDE WITH image-makers, you are merely being idolatrous.
T 3 G 33. B. has no justification whatever for perpetuating ANY image of
himself at all. He is NOT an image. Whatever is true of him is wholly benign. It
is essential that he KNOW this about himself, but he cannot know it while he
chooses to interpret himself as vulnerable enough to BE hurt. This is a peculiar
kind of arrogance, whose narcissistic component is perfectly obvious. It endows
the perceiver with sufficient unreal strength to make him over, and then
acknowledges the perceiver’s miscreation. There are times when this strange lack
of real courtesy appears to be a form of humility. Actually, it is never more
than simple spite.
T 3 G 34. Bill, your parents did misperceive you in many ways, but their
ability to perceive was quite warped, and their misperceptions stood in the way
of their own knowledge. There is no reason why it should stand in the way of
yours. It is still true that you believe they DID something to you. This belief
is extremely dangerous to your perception, and wholly destructive of your
knowledge. This is not only true of your attitudes toward your parents, but also
of your misuse of your friends. You still think that you MUST respond to their
errors AS IF they were true. By reacting self-destructively, you are GIVING them
approval for their misperceptions.
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T 3 G 35. No one has the right to change himself according to different
circumstances. Only his actions are capable of appropriate variation. His belief
in himself is a constant, unless it rests on perceptual acuity rather than
knowledge of what he is.
T 3 G 36. It is your DUTY to establish beyond doubt that you are totally
unwilling to side with (identify with) anyone’s misperceptions of you, including
your own. If you become concerned with totally irrelevant factors, such as the
physical condition of a classroom, the number of students, the hour of the
course, and the many elements which you may choose to select for emphasis as a
basis for misperception, you have lost the knowledge of what ANY interpersonal
relationship is for. It is NOT true that the difference between pupil and
teacher is lasting. They meet IN ORDER to abolish the difference. At the
beginning, since we are still in time, they come together on the basis of
inequality of ability and experience. The aim of the teacher is to give them
more of what is temporarily his. This process has all of the miracle conditions
we referred to at the beginning. The teacher (or miracle worker) gives more to
those who have less, bringing them closer to equality with him, at the same time
gaining for himself.
T 3 G 37. The confusion here is only because they do not gain the same things,
because they do not NEED the same things. If they did, their respective, though
temporary roles would not be conducive to mutual profit. Freedom from fear can
be achieved by BOTH teacher and pupil ONLY if they do not compare either their
needs or their
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positions in regard to each other in terms of higher and lower.
T 3 G 38. Presumably, children must learn from parents. What parents learn
from children is merely of a different order. Ultimately, there is no difference
in order, but this involves only knowledge. Neither parents nor children can be
said to HAVE knowledge, or their relationships would not exist AS IF they were
on different levels. The same is true of the teacher and the pupil. Children
have an authority problem ONLY if they believe that their image is influenced BY
the authority. This is an act of will on their part, because they are electing
to misperceive the authority and GIVE him this power.
T 3 G 39. A TEACHER with an authority problem is merely a pupil who refuses to
teach others. He wants to maintain HIMSELF in a position where he can be misused
and misperceived. This makes him resentful of teaching, because of what he
insists it has done to him.
T 3 G 40. The ONLY way out of this particular aspect of the desert is still to
leave. The way this is left is to release EVERYONE involved, by ABSOLUTELY
REFUSING to engage in any form of honoring error. Neither teacher nor pupil is
imprisoned by learning unless he uses it as an attack. If he does this, he will
be imprisoned whether he actually teaches or learns, or refuses to be [63]
engaged in the process at all.
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T 3 G 41. The role of a teacher, properly conceived, is one of leading himself
and others out of the desert. The value of this role can hardly be
underestimated, if only because it was one to which I very gladly dedicated my
own life. I have repeatedly asked MY pupils to follow me. This means that, to be
effective teachers, they MUST interpret teaching as I do. I have made EVERY
effort to teach you ENTIRELY without fear. If you do not listen, you will be
unable to avoid the VERY obvious error of perceiving teaching as a threat.
T 3 G 42. It is hardly necessary to say that teaching is a process whose
purpose is to produce learning. The ultimate purpose of ALL learning is to
abolish fear. This is necessary so that knowledge can happen. The role of the
teacher is NOT the role of God. This confusion is all too frequently made, by
parents, teachers, therapists, and the clergy. It is a real misunderstanding of
both God and His miracles. Any teacher who believes that teaching is fearful
CANNOT learn because he is paralyzed. He also cannot really teach.
T 3 G 43. B. was quite right in maintaining that this course is a prerequisite
for his. However, he was really saying much more than that. The purpose of this
course IS to prepare you for knowledge. So is the only real purpose of ANY
legitimate course. All that is required of you as a teacher is to follow Me.
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T 3 G 44. Whenever anyone decides that he can function only in SOME roles but
not in others, he cannot BUT be attempting to make a compromise which will not
work. If B. is under the misbelief that he is coping with the fear problem by
functioning as an administrator and as a teacher of interns, but NOT as a
teacher of students, he is merely deceiving himself. He owes himself greater
respect. There is nothing as tragic as the attempt to deceive one’s self,
because it implies that you perceive yourself as so unworthy that deception is
more fitting for you than truth. Either you can function in all of the roles you
have properly undertaken to fill, or you cannot function effectively in any of
them. This IS an all or none decision. You CANNOT make inappropriate level
distinctions within this choice. You are either capable or not. This does not
mean that you can DO everything, but it DOES mean that you are either totally
miracle-minded or not. This decision is open to NO compromise whatever. When B.
says that he cannot teach, he is making the same mistake that we spoke of
before, when he acted as if universal laws applied to everyone except him. This
is not only arrogant, but patently untrue. Universal laws MUST apply to him,
unless he does not exist. We will not bother to argue about this.
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T 3 G 45. Descartes engaged in a very interesting teaching procedure, and one
from which he himself learned a great deal. He began with doubting the existence
of everything, except himself. He insisted that his own existence was not open
to doubt, and rebuilt his entire thought system on the one premise "I think,
therefore I am." It is noteworthy that he arrived at accepting the entire system
he originally doubted, solely on the basis of this ONE piece of knowledge. There
was, however, a distinct shift in his own perception. He no longer really
questioned the reality of what he perceived, because he KNEW he was there.
T 3 G 46. We mentioned before that B. is not too sure of this, and that is why
we suggested that he concentrate on "Lord, here I am." A teacher is unlikely to
be effective unless he begins with BEING THERE. B, this is not really open to
question. You will lose all your fear of teaching and relating in any form once
you know who you are. There is no point whatever in remaining in the prison of
believing that this is up to you. You do NOT exist in different lights. It is
this belief which has confused you about your own reality. Why would you want to
remain so obscure to yourself?
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T 3 H. Judgment and the Authority Problem
12/10/65
T 3 H 1. We have already discussed the Last Judgment in some though
insufficient detail. After the Last Judgment, there isn’t any more. This is
symbolic only in the sense that everybody is much better off WITHOUT judgment.
When the Bible says "Judge not that ye be not judged [64] " 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 know has been the cause of the loss of
peace. Judgment is the process on which perception but not cognition rests. We
covered this before in terms of selectivity. Evaluation was said at that time to
be its obvious prerequisite.
T 3 H 2. 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. Watson had a
very relevant notion of the unconscious in this connection. In fact, it was so
relevant that he dropped it as officially out of accord with Behaviorism. He was
right on both counts.
T 3 H 3. One of the illusions from which human perception suffers is that
what it perceives and judges against has no effect. This cannot be true, unless
man [65] also believes that what his judgment vetoes does not exist. He evidently
does not believe this, or he would not have judged against it.
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It does not really 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.
T 3 H 4. Neither of you has any idea of the tremendous release and deep peace
that comes from meeting yourselves and your brothers totally without judgment.
If you will look back at the earlier notes about what you and your brothers ARE,
you will realize that judging them in any way is really without meaning. In
fact, their meaning is lost to you precisely BECAUSE [66] you ARE judging them.
All uncertainty comes from a totally fallacious belief that you are under the
coercion of judgment. You do not need it to organize your life, and you
certainly do not need it to organize yourselves.
T 3 H 5. When you look upon knowledge, all judgment is automatically
suspended, and this is the process that enables recognition to REPLACE
perception. Man is very fearful of everything he has perceived and 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 disguise
in what seems to be 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.
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T 3 H 6. 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 being more debased THAN
others. All of this does make you tired, because it is essentially
disheartening. You are not really capable of being tired, but you are very
capable of wearying yourselves.
T 3 H 7. 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. But there is a very good reason for this. (This, however, depends
upon what you mean by good.)
T 3 H 8. If you wish to be the author of reality, which is totally impossible
anyway, then you will insist on holding on to judgment. You will also use the
term with considerable fear and believe 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.
T 3 H 9. The issue of authority is really a question of authorship. When an
individual has a "authority problem," it is ALWAYS because he believes he is the
author of himself, and resents his own projection that you share his delusion in
this respect. He then perceives the situation as one in which two people are
literally fighting for his own authorship. This is the fundamental
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error of all those who believe they have usurped the power of God.
T 3 H 10. The belief is very frightening to them, but hardly troubles God at
all. 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 own true
authorship, and men [67] preferred to remain 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.
T 3 H 11. The dispute over authorship has left such uncertainty in the minds
of man that some people have gone so far as to doubt whether they were ever
created 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
acknowledged the fact some TRUE authorship is necessary for existence.
T 3 H 12. Only those who give over all desire to reject can KNOW that their
own rejection is impossible.
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You have not usurped the power of God, but you HAVE lost it. Fortunately, when
you lose something, this 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, or even to place it. It is perfectly possible to look on
reality without judgment, and merely KNOW it is there. By knowing this, you are
not doubting its reality at all.
T 3 H 13. 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 his
own 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
the denier himself. He has thrown away the reason for his own peace, and sees
himself only in pieces. This strange perception IS an authority problem. It is
also the basis for castration anxiety, since both forms of error are
fundamentally the same.
T 3 H 14. Neither you nor B. can find peace while this authority problem
continues. But the truth is still that there IS no problem about this. There is
no man who does not feel that he is imprisoned in some way. If this has been the
result of his own free will, he must regard his will as if it were NOT free, or
the obviously circular reasoning of his own position would be quite apparent.
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T 3 H 15. Free will MUST lead to freedom. Judgment always imprisons, because
it separates segments of reality according to highly unstable scales of desire.
Wishes are not facts, by definition. To wish is to imply that willing is not
sufficient. However, no one really believes that what is wished is as real as
what is willed. Instead of "seek you first the Kingdom of Heaven [68] " 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."
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12/11/65
T 3 H 16. It is ESSENTIAL that this whole authority problem be voluntarily
dismissed at once and for all before B’s course. Neither of you understands how
important this is for your sanity. You are both quite insane on this point.
(This is not a judgment. It is merely a fact. (No, Helen, you SHOULD use the
word "fact". This is just as much a fact as God is. A fact is literally a
"making" or a starting point. You DO start from this point, and your thinking is
inverted because of it.)
T 3 I. Creating versus the Self-Image
T 3 I 1. Every system of thought MUST have a starting point. It begins with
either a making or a creating, a difference which we have already covered. Both
are acts of will, except that making involves doing, and creating involves
active willing. 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.
T 3 I 2. 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 absolutely
essential that you 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 you have (made) created for yourselves. (The use of creative here was an
error. You should have said made for yourself.)
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T 3 I 3. You have both made the error of the psychotherapist we described in
some detail before, and it is particularly serious at this time. You cannot
resolve your authority problem by depreciating the power of your minds. This [69]
CAN hurt you if you misuse it, because you KNOW its strength. You also know that
you CANNOT weaken it anymore than you can weaken God.
T 3 I 4. The devil is a frightening concept ONLY 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 Souls. 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 perceived as willing to
"sell" him their Souls in return for gifts they KNOW are of no real worth at
all.
T 3 I 5. 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
WILL to correct, and therefore perceives the cause as beyond his control.
T 3 I 6. 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 PERFECTLY real in time,
though not in Eternity. All beliefs are real to the believer.
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T 3 I 7. 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 he does, would he have put them in a
position where their own destruction was possible? The "tree" which was
forbidden was correctly named "tree of knowledge." Yet God created knowledge,
and gave it freely to His Creations. The symbolism here is open to many
interpretations, but you may be SURE that any interpretation which perceives
either God OR His creations as if they were capable of destroying their own
Purpose is wrong.
T 3 I 8. Eating of the tree of knowledge is a symbolic expression for
incorporating into the self the ability for self-creation. 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 usually ascribed to the "father figure," a particularly
interesting idea, in view of the fact that nobody means the physical father by
the term. It refers to an IMAGE of a father in relation to an IMAGE of the self.
T 3 I 9. Once again, 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. I told you before that
when you finally perceive correctly, you can only be GLAD YOU CAN’T.
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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 would bring
it to light.
T 3 I 10. You and B. still believe you are images of your own creation. You
are split with your own Souls on this point, and there is NO resolution, because
you believe the one thing that is literally INCONCEIVABLE. That is why you
CANNOT create, and are afraid to make or produce.
T 3 I 11. You, Helen, are CONSTANTLY arguing about the authorship of this
course. This is NOT humility; it is a REAL authority problem. You, Bill, really
believe that by teaching you are assuming a dominant or father role, and that
the "father figure" will kill you. This is not humility either. Castration fears
are a particularly distorted reflection of the real basic anxiety, or Separation
fear.
T 3 I 12. 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 [70] 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.
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T 3 I 13. 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.
T 3 I 14. 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-systems upon you, as if it were the fear of death. There IS no
death, but there IS a belief in death.
T 3 I 15. The Bible says that the tree 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-systems WILL stand corrected. They CANNOT stand
otherwise.
T 3 I 16. 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.
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Chapter IV - 4 - The Root Of All Evil
T 4 A. Introduction
T 4 A 1. (Aside to HS. You were both wise and devoted (two words which are
literally interchangeable in the sense that they truly bring on the exchange of
one another.) in claiming your scribal functions and working so late. You HAD
committed a serious error against your brother, and one who had asked for your
help. A devoted priestess does not do this. The Bible says 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.
T 4 A 2. Devotion to a brother CANNOT set YOU back either. It can ONLY lead
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.
T 4 A 3. Do not attempt to break God’s copyright, because His Authorship
alone CAN copy right. Your own right authorship does NOT lie in remaking His
copies, but in creating LIKE Him.
T 4 A 4. Embarrassment is ALWAYS an expression of egocentricity, an
association which has been made before. (Made, NOT created. This kind of
association is ALWAYS man-made). Both of you have completed the SCT stem: When I
was called on to speak—with—"I became embarrassed and COULD NOT SPEAK."
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This should be corrected to "Recognized my Authorship."
T 4 A 5. Tell B. that he cannot be embarrassed by his own words unless he
believes that HE is responsible for them. We have already corrected "word" to
"thought," and he IS free to allocate the authorship for his thoughts as he
elects. He can speak from his Soul or from his ego, precisely as he chooses. If
he speaks from his Soul, he has chosen to "be still and know that I am God [71] ."
These words are inspired, because they come from KNOWLEDGE. If he speaks from
his ego, he is DISCLAIMING knowledge instead of AFFIRMING it, and is thus
dis-spiriting himself.
T 4 A 6. The dis-spirited have no choice BUT to be narcissistic, and to be
narcissistic IS to place your faith in the unworthy. Your real worth IS your
divine authorship, and your Soul is its acknowledgement. I cannot guide your
egos EXCEPT as you associate them with your Souls.
T 4 A 7. Attacking misidentification errors is neither MY function nor YOURS.
Destroying the devil is a meaningless undertaking. Cervantes [72] wrote an
excellent symbolic account of this procedure, though he did not understand his
own symbolism. The REAL point of his writing was that his "hero" was a man who
perceived himself as unworthy because he identified with his ego and perceived
its weakness. He then set about to alter his perception, NOT by correcting his
misidentification, but by behaving egotistically.
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T 4 A 8. Chesterton wrote an excellent description of Cervantes and his
perception of his "unheroic hero," a view of man which the ego tolerates all too
frequently, but the Soul NEVER countenances:
"And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain
Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain. [73] "
T 4 A 10. Do not embark on foolish journeys because they are indeed in vain.
The ego may will them because the ego IS both lean and foolish. 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 that as YOUR OWN last foolish journey, you are free also to join My
Resurrection. Human living has indeed been needlessly wasted in repetition
compulsion. It re-enacts the Separation, the loss of power, the foolish journey
of the ego in its 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, or, more properly as active creation. Do not make the
pathetic 99 error of "clinging to the old rugged cross [74] ." The only message of
the crucifixion is in respect for man’s ability to OVERCOME the cross. Unless he
does so, he is free to crucify himself as often as he chooses. But this was NOT
the gospel I intended to offer him.
T 4 A 11. We have another journey to undertake, and I hope that, if both of you
will read these notes carefully, they will help to prepare you to undertake it.
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T 4 B. Right Teaching and Right Learning
Dec. 26
T 4 B 1. We have spoken of many different human symptoms, and at this level
there IS almost endless variation. But there is only one cause for all of them.
The authority problem IS "the root of all evil". Money is but one of its many
reflections, and is a reasonably representative example of the kind of thinking
which stems from it. The idea of buying and selling implies precisely the kind
of exchange that the Souls cannot understand at all, because their own Supply is
always abundant, and all their demands are fully met.
T 4 B 2. Every symptom which the ego has made involves a contradiction in
terms. This is because the mind is split between the ego and the Soul, so that
WHATEVER the ego makes is incomplete and contradictory. Consider what a
"speechless professor" means as a concept. It literally means a "nonprofessing
professor," or a "nonspeaking speaker".
T 4 B 3. Untenable positions such as this are the result of the authority
problem, which, because it accepts the one inconceivable thought as its premise,
can only produce ideas which are inconceivable. B. may claim (and has certainly
done so in the past) that the PROFESSORSHIP was thrust upon him. This is not
true. He wanted it very much, and also worked hard to get it. He would not have
had to work so hard either, if he had not misunderstood it.
T 4 B 4. The term "profess" is used quite frequently in the Bible, but in a
somewhat different context. To profess is to identify with an idea and offer the
idea to others to be THEIR own. The idea does NOT lessen; it becomes STRONGER.
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The teacher clarifies his own ideas and strengthens them BY teaching them.
T 4 B 5. Teacher and pupil, therapist and patient, are all alike in the
learning process. They are in the SAME order of learning, and unless they SHARE
their lessons they will lack conviction. If a salesman must believe in the
product he sells, how much more must a teacher believe in the ideas which he
professes. But he needs another condition; he must also believe in the students
to whom he offers his ideas.
T 4 B 6. B. could not be afraid to teach unless he still believes that
interaction means loss, and that learning means separation. He stands guard over
his own ideas, because he wants to protect this thought-system as it is, and
learning MEANS change. Change is always fearful to the separated, because they
cannot conceive of it as a change toward HEALING the separation. They ALWAYS
perceive it as a change for further separation, because separation WAS their
first experience of change.
T 4 B 7. Bill, your whole fear of teaching is nothing but an example of your
own intense separation anxiety, which you have handled with the usual series of
mixed defenses in the combined pattern of attack on truth and defense of error,
which characterizes ALL ego-thinking.
T 4 B 8. You insist that if you allow no change to enter into your EGO, your
SOUL will find peace. This profound confusion is possible only if one maintains
that the SAME thought-system can stand on two foundations.
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T 4 B 9. NOTHING can reach the Soul from the ego, and nothing FROM the Soul
can strengthen the ego, or reduce the conflict within it. The ego IS a
contradiction. Man’s self and God’s Self ARE in opposition. 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.
T 4 B 10. 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 or teaching is
perceived as frightening is because true learning DOES lead to the
relinquishment (NOT destruction) of the ego to the light of the Soul. This is
the change the ego MUST fear, because it does not share my charity.
T 4 B 11. My lesson was like yours, and because I learned it I can teach it. I
never attack your egos (in spite of H’s strange beliefs to the contrary), but I
DO try to teach them how their thought-systems have arisen. When I remind you of
your TRUE Creation, your egos cannot BUT respond with fear.
T 4 B 12. Bill, 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 or changing because you believe that you can
demonstrate by doing so that the Separation never occurred. The dreamer who
doubts the reality of his dream while he is still dreaming it is not really
healing the level-split.
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T 4 B 13. You HAVE dreamed of a separated ego, and you HAVE believed in a
world which rested upon it. This is very real to you. You cannot undo this by
doing nothing and not changing.
T 4 B 14. If you are willing to renounce the role of guardians of your
thought-systems and open them to me, I will correct them very gently, and lead
you home. Every good teacher hopes to give his students so much of his own
thinking that they will one day no longer need him. This is the one real goal of
the parent, teacher, and therapist. This goal will not be achieved by those who
believe that they will LOOSE their child or pupil or patient if they succeed.
T 4 B 15. 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.
T 4 B 16. The ego cannot make this choice because of the nature of its origin.
But YOU can, because of the nature of YOURS. Egos can clash in any situation,
but Souls cannot clash at all. If you perceive a teacher as merely a "larger
ego," you WILL be afraid, because to ENLARGE an ego IS to increase separation
anxiety. Do not engage in this foolishness, Bill. I will teach with you and live
with you, if you will think with me.
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T 4 B 17. But my goal will always be to absolve you finally from the need for
a teacher. This is the OPPOSITE of the ego-oriented teacher’s goal. He is
concerned with the effect of HIS ego on OTHER egos, and he therefore interprets
their interaction as a means of ego preservation. This is no less true if he is
afraid to teach than if he is frankly out to dominate through teaching. The form
of the symptom is only a reflection of his particular way of handling the
separation anxiety.
T 4 B 18. ALL separation anxiety is a symptom of a continuing will to remain
separated. This cannot be repeated too often because you have NOT learned it.
Bill, you are afraid to teach ONLY because you are afraid of the impression your
image of yourself will make ON OTHER IMAGES. You believe that their APPROVAL of
your image will exalt it, but also that your separation anxiety will be
increased. You also believe that their DISAPPROVAL of it will lessen the
separation anxiety, but at the cost of depression.
T 4 B 19. I would not be able to devote myself to teaching if I believed
either of these ideas, and YOU will not be a devoted teacher yourself as long as
you maintain them. I am constantly being perceived as a teacher either to be
exalted or rejected, but I do not accept either perception for myself.
T 4 B 20. Your own worth is NOT established by your teaching. Your worth was
established by God. As long as you dispute this, EVERYTHING you do will be
fearful, and particularly any situation which lends itself easily to the
superior-inferior fallacy. Teachers must be patient, and repeat their lessons
until they are learned. I am willing to do so, because I have no right to set
your learning limits for you.
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T 4 B 21. Once again,—NOTHING you do, or think, or will, or make is necessary
to establish your worth. This point IS NOT DEBATABLE except in delusions. Your
ego is NEVER at stake because God did not create it. Your Soul is never at stake
because He DID. Any confusion on this point IS a delusion, and no form of
devotion is possible as long as this delusion lasts.
T 4 B 22. Bill, if you will to be a devoted teacher rather than an egocentric
one, you will not be afraid. The teaching situation IS fearful if it is misused
as an ego involvement. If you become afraid, it is BECAUSE you are using it this
way. But the devoted teacher perceives the situation AS IT IS, and NOT as HE
wills it. He does not see it as dangerous because HE is not exploiting it.
T 4 B 23. The ego tries to exploit ALL situations into forms of praise for
itself in order to overcome its doubts. It will be doubtful forever, or better,
as long as you believe in it. You who made it CANNOT trust it, because you KNOW
it is not real. The ONLY sane solution is not to try to change reality, which is
indeed a fearful attempt, but to see it as it is. YOU are part of reality, which
stands unchanged beyond the reach of your ego, but within easy reach of your
Soul.
T 4 B 24. Bill, again I tell you that when you are afraid, be still and KNOW
that God is real and YOU are His beloved son in whom he is well pleased. Do not
let your ego dispute this, because the ego cannot know what is as far beyond its
reach as you are. God is NOT the author of fear. YOU are.
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You have willed, therefore, to create unlike Him, and you have made fear for
yourselves.
T 4 B 25. You are not at peace, because you are not fulfilling your function.
God gave you a very lofty responsibility which you are not meeting. You KNOW
this, and you are afraid. But your egos have chosen to be afraid INSTEAD of
meeting it. When you awaken you will not be able to understand this, because it
is literally incredible.
T 4 B 26. 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 anymore that He can avoid YOU.
T 4 B 27. The ego is afraid of the Soul’s joy, because once you have
experienced this, you will withdraw all protection from your ego and become
totally without investment in fear. Your investment is great now, because fear
is a witness to the Separation, and your ego rejoices when you witness to it.
T 4 B 28. Leave it behind. Do not listen to it, and do not preserve it. Listen
only to God, who is as incapable of deception as are the Souls he created. As
teachers and therapists, release yourselves and release others. Do not present a
false and unworthy picture of yourselves TO others, or accept such a picture OF
them yourselves.
T 4 B 29. The ego has built a shabby and unsheltering home for you, because it
cannot build otherwise. Do not try to make this impoverished house stand. ITS
weakness IS your strength. Only God could make a home that was worthy of His
Creations, who have chosen to leave it empty by their own dispossession.
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T 4 B 30. His Home will stand forever, and is ready for you when you choose to
enter. Of this you can be wholly certain. God is as incapable of creating the
perishable as your ego is making the eternal.
T 4 B 31. 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.
T 4 B 32. The meek shall inherit the earth because their egos are humble, and
this gives them better perception. The Kingdom of Heaven is the right of the
Soul, whose beauty and dignity are beyond doubt, beyond perception, and stand
forever as the mark of the love of God for His Creations, who are wholly worthy
of Him and ONLY of Him. Nothing else is sufficiently worthy to be a gift for a
creation of God Himself.
T 4 B 33. I will substitute for your ego if you will, but NEVER for your Soul.
A father can safely leave a child with an elder brother who has shown himself
responsible, but this involves no confusion about the child’s origin. The
brother can protect the child’s body and his ego, which are very closely
associated, but he does not confuse HIMSELF with the father because he does
this, although the child may.
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T 4 B 34. The reason why I can be entrusted with YOUR body and YOUR egos is
simply because this enables YOU not to be concerned with them, and ME to teach
you their unimportance. I could not understand their importance to YOU if I had
not once been tempted to believe them myself. Let us undertake to learn this
lesson together, so we can also be free of them together.
T 4 B 35. I need devoted teachers as much as I need devoted priestesses. They
both heal the mind, and that is always my own aim. The Soul is far beyond the
need of your protection OR mine.
T 4 B 36. The Biblical quotation should read "In this world you need NOT have
tribulation BECAUSE I have overcome the world." THAT is why you should "be of
good cheer."
T 4 B 37. B’s course was very carefully chosen, because "abnormal psychology"
IS ego psychology. This is precisely the kind of content which should never be
taught FROM the ego whose abnormality should be lessened by teaching, not
increased. You, Bill, are particularly well suited to perceive this difference,
and can therefore teach this course as it should be taught. Most teachers have
an unfortunate tendency to teach the COURSE abnormally, and many of the students
are apt to suffer considerable perceptual distortion because of their own
authority problem.
T 4 B 38. Your teaching assignment (and I assure you it IS an assignment) will
be to present perceptual distortions without either engaging in them yourself,
or encouraging your students to do so. This interpretation of your role and
theirs is too charitable to induce fear.
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If you adhere to this role, you will both engender and experience hope, and you
will inspire rather than dispirit the future teachers and therapists I am
entrusting to you.
T 4 B 39. I promise to attend myself, and you should at least credit with me
with some dependability in keeping my own promises. I never make them lightly,
because I know the need my brothers have for trust.
T 4 C. The Ego and False Autonomy
T 4 C 1. Bill has asked lately how the mind could ever have made the ego.
This is a perfectly reasonable question; in fact, the best question either of
you could ask. There is no point in giving an historical answer, because the
past does not matter in human terms, and history would not exist if the same
errors were not being repeated in the present. B. has often told you that your
thinking is too abstract at times, and he is right. Abstraction DOES apply to
knowledge, because knowledge is completely impersonal, and examples are
irrelevant to its understanding. Perception, however, is always specific, and
therefore quite concrete.
T 4 C 2. Perceptual distortions are not abstractions. They are merely
confusions. Each man makes one ego for himself, although it is subject to
enormous variation because of its instability, and one for everyone he
perceives, which is equally variable. Their interaction IS a process which
literally alters both, because they were not made either BY or WITH the
unalterable.
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T 4 C 3. It is particularly important to realize that this alteration can and
does occur as readily when the interaction takes place IN THE MIND as when it
involves physical presence. THINKING about another ego is as effective in
changing relative perception as is their physical interaction. There could be no
better example of the fact that the ego is an idea, though not a reality-based
thought. Your own present state is the best concrete example B. could have of
how the mind could have made the ego. You DO have real knowledge at times, but
when you throw it away it is as if you never had it. This willfulness is so
apparent that B. need only perceive it to see that is DOES happen. If it can
occur that way in the present, why should he be surprised that it occurred that
way in the past? All psychology rests on the principle of continuity of
behavior. Surprise is a reasonable response to the unfamiliar, but hardly to
something that has occurred with such persistence.
T 4 C 4. An extreme example is a good teaching aid, not because it is
typical, but because it is clear. The more complex the material, the clearer the
examples should be for teaching purposes. (Bill, remember that for your own
course, and do not avoid the dramatic. It holds the student’s interest precisely
because it is so apparent that it CAN be readily perceived.) But, as we have
said before, all teaching devices in the hands of good teachers are aimed at
rendering themselves unnecessary. I would therefore like to use your present
state as an example of how the mind can work, provided you both fully recognize
that it need not work that way.
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I NEVER forget this myself, and a good teacher shares his own ideas, which he
himself believes. Otherwise, he cannot really "profess" them, as we used the
term before.
T 4 C 5. With full recognition of its transitory nature, (a recognition which
I hope you both share), H. offers a very good teaching example of alternations
between Soul and ego, with concomitant variation between peace and frenzy. In
answer to B’s question, it is perfectly apparent that when she is ego-dominated,
she DOES NOT KNOW her Soul. Her abstract ability, which is perfectly genuine and
does stem from knowledge, cannot help her because she has turned to the concrete
which she cannot handle abstractly. Being incapable of appropriate concreteness
perceptually, because her ego is not her natural home, she suffers from its
intrusions, but NOT from complete lack of knowledge.
T 4 C 6. The result is a kind of "double vision", which would have produced
an actual diplopia, if she had not settled for nearsightedness. This was an
attempt to see the concrete more clearly through the ego’s eyes, without the
"interference" of the longer range. Her virtual lack of astigmatism is due to
her real efforts at objectivity and fairness. She has not attained them, or she
would not be nearsighted. But she HAS tried to be fair with what she permitted
herself to see.
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T 4 C 7. Why are you surprised that something happened in the dim past, when
it is so clearly happening right now? You forget the love that even animals have
for their own offspring, and the need they feel to protect them. This is because
they regard them as part of themselves. No one disowns something he regards as a
very real part of himself. Man reacts to his ego much as God does to His Souls,
-- with love, protection, and great charity. The reaction of man to the self he
made is not at all surprising. In fact, it duplicates in many ways the way he
will one day react to his real creations, which are as timeless as he is.
T 4 C 8. The question is not HOW man responds toward his ego, but only what
he believes he IS. Again, belief is an ego-function, and as long as your origin
is open to belief at all, you ARE regarding it from an ego viewpoint. That is
why the Bible quotes me as saying, "Ye believe in God, believe also in me."
Belief DOES apply to me, because I am the teacher of the ego. When teaching is
no longer necessary, you will merely know God.
T 4 C 9. Belief that there IS another way is the loftiest idea of which
ego-thinking is capable. This is because it contains a hint of recognition that
the ego is NOT the self. Helen always had this idea, but it merely confused her.
B., you were more capable of a long-range view, and that is why your eyesight is
good. But you were willing to see because you utilized judgment against what you
saw. This gave you clearer perception than Helen’s, but cut off the cognitive
level more deeply. That is why you believe that you never had knowledge.
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T 4 C 10. Repression HAS been a stronger mechanism in your own ego defense,
and that is why you find her shifts so hard to tolerate. Willfulness is more
characteristic of her, and that is why she has less sense than you do. It is
extremely fortunate, temporarily, that the particular strengths you will both
develop and use are precisely those which the other must supply now. You who
will be the strength of God are quite weak, and you who will be God’s help are
clearly in need of help. What better plan could have been devised to prevent the
intrusion of the ego’s arrogance on the outcome?
T 4 C 11. Undermining the foundation of an ego’s thought-system MUST be
perceived as painful, even though this is anything but true. Babies scream in
rage if you take away a knife or a scissors, even though they may well harm
themselves if you do not. The speedup has placed you both in the same position.
T 4 C 12. You are NOT by any means 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 both HAVE willed to cooperate in a concerted and very commendable
effort to become both harmLESS and helpFUL, two attributes which MUST go
together. Your attitudes, even toward this, are necessarily conflicted, because
ALL attitudes are ego-based.
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T 4 C 13. This will not last. Be patient awhile, and remember what we have
said once before; the outcome is as certain as God! Helen used to perceive the
quotation "To him that hath shall be given" as a paradox that bordered on the
ironic. She also had a similar reaction to another related one: "Faith is the
gift of God." We have reinterpreted both of these statements before, but perhaps
we can make them even clearer now.
T 4 C 14. Only those who have a real and lasting sense of abundance can be
truly charitable. This is quite obvious when you consider the concepts involved.
To be able to give anything implies that you can do without it. Even if you
associate giving with sacrifice, you still give only because you believe you are
somehow getting something better so that you can do without the thing you give.
T 4 C 15. "Giving to get" is an inescapable law of the ego, which ALWAYS
evaluates itself in relation to others’ egos, and is therefore continually
preoccupied with the scarcity principle which gave rise to it. This IS the
meaning of Freud’s "pleasure principle." Freud was the most accurate "ego
psychologist" we ever had, although he would not have preferred this description
himself. His ego was a very weak and deprived concept, which could function ONLY
as a thing in need.
T 4 C 16. The "reality principle" of the ego is not real at all. It is forced
to perceive the "reality" of other egos, because it CANNOT establish the reality
of itself. In fact, its whole perception of other egos AS real is ONLY an
attempt to convince itself that IT is real.
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T 4 C 17. "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
really means that a condition has arisen in which the delusion of reality of the
ego 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.
T 4 C 18. The ego NEVER gives out of abundance, because it was made as a
substitute for it. This is why the concept of GETTING arose in the ego’s
thought-system. All appetites are "getting" mechanisms representing ego needs to
confirm itself. This is as true of bodily appetites as it is of the so-called
"higher" ego needs. Bodily appetites are NOT physical in origin, because the ego
regards the body as its home, and DOES try to satisfy itself through the body.
But the IDEA that this is possible is a decision of the ego, which is completely
confused about what is really possible. This accounts for its essential
erraticness.
T 4 C 19. Consider the inevitable confusion which MUST arise from a perception
of the self which responds: When I was completely on my own I "had no idea what
was possible."
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The ego DOES believe it is completely on its own, which is merely another way of
describing how it originated. This is such a fearful state that it can only turn
to other egos, and unite with them in a feeble attempt at identification, or
attack them in an equally feeble show of strength. The ego is free to complete
the stem: "When I was completely on my own" in any way it chooses, but it is NOT
free to consider the validity of the premise itself, because this premise is its
FOUNDATION. The ego IS the belief of the mind that it is completely on its own.
T 4 C 20. The ego’s ceaseless attempts to gain the Soul’s acknowledgement and
thus establish its own existence are utterly useless. The Soul in its knowledge
is unaware of the ego. It does NOT attack the ego. It merely cannot conceive of
it at all. While the ego is equally unaware of the Soul, it DOES perceive itself
as rejected by something which is greater than itself. This is way self-esteem
in ego terms MUST be a delusion.
T 4 C 21. The creations of God do not create myths, but the creative efforts
of man can turn to mythology, but only under one condition. What man then makes
is no longer creative. Myths are entirely perceptions and are so ambivalent in
form, and so characteristically good and evil in nature that the most benevolent
of them is not without fearful components, if only in innuendo.
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Myths and magic are closely associated, in that myths are usually related to the
ego origins, and magic to the powers which the ego ascribes to itself. Every
mythological system includes an account of "the creation," and associates this
with its particular perception of magic.
T 4 C 22. The "battle for survival" is nothing more than the ego’s struggle to
preserve itself and its interpretation of its own beginning. This beginning is
always associated with physical birth, because nobody maintains that the ego
existed before that point in time. The religiously ego-oriented tend to believe
that the Soul existed before, and will continue to exist afterward, after a
temporary lapse into 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.
T 4 C 23. The term "salvation" does NOT apply to the Soul, which is not in
danger and does not need to be salvaged. Salvation is nothing more that
"right-mindedness" which is NOT the one-mindedness of the Soul, but which must
be accomplished before one-mindedness can be restored. Right-mindedness dictates
the next step automatically, because right perception is uniformly without
attack, so that wrong-mindedness is obliterated. The ego cannot survive without
judgment, and is laid aside accordingly. The mind then has only ONE direction in
which it can move.
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T 4 C 24. The directions which the mind will take are always automatic,
because they cannot BUT be dictated by the thought-system to which it adheres.
Every thought-system has INTERNAL consistency, and this does provide a basis for
the continuity of behavior. However, this is still reliability and NOT validity.
Reliable behavior is a meaningful perception, as far as ego thinking goes.
However, VALID behavior is an expression which is inherently contradictory,
because validity is an END, and behavior is a means. These cannot be combined
logically, because when an end has been attained, the means for its attainment
are no longer meaningful.
T 4 C 25. Test constructors recognize that there are different kinds of
validity, and also that they are of different orders. This means that they do
not mean truth and do not pretend to mean it. Test validity can be judged by
logic, by theory, and by practice, each being regarded as a different dimension.
In each case, the amount of confidence is expressed in some form of percentage,
either quantitatively, or merely in terms of "high," moderate, and low. But a
hypothesis is tested as either true or false, to be accepted or rejected
accordingly. If it is shown to be true it becomes a fact, after which no one
attempts to evaluate it unless its status AS fact is questioned.
T 4 C 26. EVERY idea which the ego has accorded the status of fact is
questionable, because facts are in the realm of knowledge. Confusing realms of
discourse is a thinking error which philosophers have recognized for centuries.
Psychologists are generally quite deficient in this respect, as are many
theologians. Data from one realm of discourse do not mean anything in another,
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Because they are a part. This is why psychologists are concentrating
increasingly on the ego, in an attempt to unify their clearly unrelated data. It
need hardly be said that an attempt to relate the unrelated cannot succeed.
T 4 C 27. The recent ecological emphasis is but a more ingenious way of trying
to impose order on chaos. We have already credited the ego with considerable
ingenuity, though not with creativeness. But it should always be remembered that
inventiveness is really wasted effort, even in its most ingenious forms. We do
not have to EXPLAIN anything. This is why we need not trouble ourselves with
inventiveness. The highly specific nature of invention is not worthy of the
abstract creativity of God’s Creations.
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T 4 D. Love without Conflict
Dec. 27, 1965
T 4 D 1. When H. reads this to you, Bill, try to listen very carefully. You
have never understood what "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you" means. The
reason you cannot understand it is because it is NOT understandable to the ego,
which interprets it as if something outside is inside, which does not mean
anything. The word "within" does not belong. The Kingdom of Heaven IS you.
T 4 D 2. What else BUT you did the Creator create, and what else but you IS
His Kingdom? This is the whole message of the Atonement, a message which in its
totality transcends the sum of its parts which we have covered before. Christmas
is not a time; it is a state of mind. The Christ Mind wills from the Soul, not
from the Ego, and the Christ Mind IS yours.
T 4 D 3. You, too, have a Kingdom which your Soul has created. It has not
ceased to create because your ego has set you on the road of perception. Your
Soul’s creations are no more fatherless than you are. Your ego and your Soul
will never be 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.
T 4 D 4. That was written in that form because it is a good thing to use as a
kind of prayer in moments of temptation. It is a declaration of independence.
You will both find it very helpful if you understand it fully.
T 4 D 5. In its characteristic upside-down way, the ego has taken the
impulses from the superconscious and perceives them as if they arise in the
unconscious. The ego judges what is to be accepted, and the impulses from the
superconscious are unacceptable to it, because they clearly point to the
unexistence of the ego itself.
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The ego therefore experiences threat, and not only censors but also reinterprets
the data. However, as Freud very correctly pointed out what you do not perceive
you still know, and it can retain a very active life BEYOND your awareness.
T 4 D 6. Repression thus operates to conceal not only the baser impulses, but
also the most lofty ones from the ego’s awareness, because BOTH are threatening
to the ego and, being concerned primarily with its preservation in the face of
threat, it perceives them as the same. The threat value of the lofty is really
much greater to the ego, because the pull of God Himself can hardly be equated
with the pull of human appetites.
T 4 D 7. By perceiving them as the same, the ego attempts to save itself from
being swept away, as it would surely be in the presence of knowledge. The upper
level of the unconscious thus contains the call of God as well as the call of
the body. That is why the basic conflict between love and fear is unconscious.
The ego cannot tolerate either and represses both by resorting to inhibition.
Society depends on inhibiting the former, but SALVATION depends on disinhibiting
the latter.
T 4 D 8. The reason you need my help is because you have repressed your own
guide, and therefore need guidance. My role is to separate the true from the
false in your own unconscious, so it can break through the barriers the ego has
set up and shine into your minds. Against our united strength, the ego CANNOT
prevail.
T 4 D 9. It should be quite apparent to you by now why the ego regards the
Soul as its "enemy." The ego arose from the Separation, and its
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continued existence depends on your continuing belief in the Separation.
Reducing the Soul impulses to the unconscious, the ego has to offer you some
sort of reward for maintaining this belief. All it CAN offer is a sense of
temporary existence, which begins with its own beginning and ends with its own
ending. It tells you that this life is YOUR existence because it IS its own.
T 4 D 10. Against this sense of temporary existence, the Soul offers the
knowledge of permanence and unshakeable BEING. No one who has experienced the
revelation of this can ever fully believe in the ego again. How can its meager
offering to you prevail against the glorious gift of God?
T 4 D 11. You who identify with your egos cannot believe that God loves you.
YOU do not love what you have made, and what you have made does not love you.
Being made out of the denial of the Father, the ego has no allegiance to its own
Maker. You cannot conceive of the real relationship that exists between God and
His Souls, because of the hatred you have for the Self you have made. You
project onto your own idea of yourself the will to separate, which conflicts
with the love you also feel for what you have made because you made it.
T 4 D 12. No human love is without this ambivalence, and since no ego has
experienced love WITHOUT ambivalence, the concept is beyond its understanding.
Love will enter immediately into any mind which truly wants it, but it MUST want
it truly. This means that it wants it WITHOUT ambivalence, and this kind of
wanting is wholly without the ego’s "drive to get."
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T 4 D 13. There is a kind of experience that is so different from anything the
ego can offer that you will never recover. The word is used quite literally
here, -- you will never be able to hide again. It is necessary to repeat that
your belief in darkness and in hiding IS why the light cannot enter.
T 4 D 14. The Bible has many references to the immeasurable gifts which are
for you, but for which YOU must ask. This is not the condition as the ego sets
conditions. It is the glorious condition of what you ARE. No force except your
own will is strong enough or worthy enough to guide you. In this you are as free
as God, and must remain so forever.
T 4 D 15. 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.
T 4 D 16. Note: HS became very fearful here, and rather vaguely thought the
answer was: "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me, because there ARE none.
You still think there are."
T 4 D 17. It has never really entered your minds to give up every idea you
have ever had that OPPOSES knowledge. You retain thousands of little scraps of
meanness which prevent the Holy One from entering. Light cannot penetrate
through the walls you make to block it, and it is forever UNwilling to destroy
what you have made. No one can see THROUGH a wall, but I can step around it.
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T 4 D 18. Watch your minds for the scraps of meanness, or you will be unable
to ask me to do so. I can help you only as our Father Created us. I will love
you and honor you and maintain complete respect for what you have made. But I
will neither love nor honor it unless it is true. I will never forsake you, any
more than God will. But I MUST wait as long as you will to forsake yourselves.
T 4 D 19. Because I wait in love and not in impatience, you will surely ask me
truly. I will come gladly in response to a single unequivocal call. Watch
carefully, and see what it is you are truly asking for. Be very honest with
yourselves about this, for you we must hide nothing from each other.
T 4 D 20. If you will REALLY try to do this, you have taken the first step
toward preparing your minds for the Holy One to enter. We will prepare for this
together, and once He has come, you will be ready to help me make other minds
ready for Him. How long will you deny Him His Kingdom?
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Jan. 7, ’66.
T 4 D 21. In your own unconscious, deeply repressed by the ego, is the
declaration of your release. GOD HAS GIVEN YOU EVERYTHING. This is the one fact
which MEANS that the ego does not exist, and which therefore makes it profoundly
afraid. In the ego’s language, to have and to be are different, but they are
identical to the Soul. It knows that you both HAVE everything and ARE
everything. Any distinction in this respect is meaningful only when the idea of
getting, which implies a lack, has already BEEN accepted. That is why we made no
distinction before between having the Kingdom of God and BEING the Kingdom of
God.
T 4 D 22. The calm being of God’s Kingdom, which in your sane mind is
perfectly conscious, is ruthlessly banished from the part of the mind which the
ego rules. The ego is desperate because it opposes literally invincible odds
whether you are asleep or awake. Consider how much vigilance you have been
willing to exert to protect your ego, and how little you have been willing to
exert to protect your higher mind. Who but the insane would undertake to believe
what is not true, and then protect this belief at the cost of Truth?
T 4 E. The Escape from Fear
T 4 E 1. 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.
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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.
T 4 E 2. 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.
T 4 E 3. When your mood tells you that you have willed wrongly, and this is
so whenever you are not joyous, then KNOW this need not be.
T 4 E 4. In every case you have thought wrongly about some Soul that God
created, and are perceiving images your ego makes in a darkened glass. Think
honestly what you have thought that God would NOT have thought, and what you
have not thought that God would have you think. Search sincerely for what you
have done and left undone accordingly. And then change your minds to THINK WITH
GOD’S.
T 4 E 5. This may seem hard to you, but it is MUCH easier than trying to
think AGAINST it. Your mind IS one with God’s. Denying this and thinking
otherwise has held your ego together, but has literally split your mind. As a
loving brother, I am deeply concerned with your minds, and urge you to follow my
example as you look at yourselves and at each other and see in both the glorious
Creations of a glorious Father.
T 4 E 6. 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.
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Know you are deprived of nothing, except by your own decisions, and then decide
otherwise.
T 4 E 7. When you are anxious, KNOW that all anxiety comes from the
capriciousness of the ego, and NEED NOT BE. You can be as vigilant AGAINST the
ego’s dictates as FOR them.
T 4 E 8. When you feel guilty, KNOW that your ego has indeed violated the
laws of God, but YOU have not. Leave the sins of the ego to me. That is what the
Atonement is for. But until you change your mind about those your ego has hurt,
the Atonement cannot release you. As long as you feel guilty, your ego is in
command, because only the ego CAN experience guilt. THIS NEED NOT BE.
T 4 E 9. You, Helen, have been more honest that B. in really trying to see
whom your ego has hurt, and also in trying to change your mind about them. (HS
doubtful whether this is accurate-written at a time when she was very angry.) I
am not unmindful of your efforts, but you still have much too much energy
invested in your ego. THIS NEED NOT BE. Watch your minds for the temptations of
the ego, and do not be deceived by it. KNOW it offers you nothing.
T 4 E 10. You, B, have not made consistent efforts to change your mind except
through applying old habit patterns to new ideas. But you have learned, and
learned it better than H., (HS doubtful about accuracy here) that your mind
gains control over ITSELF when you direct it genuinely toward perceiving someone
ELSE truly. Your lack of vitality is due to your former marked effort at solving
your needless depression and anxiety through disinterest. Because your ego WAS
protected by this unfortunate negative attribute, you are afraid to abandon it.
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T 4 E 11. When you have given up this voluntary dis-spiriting, you have
already seen how your mind can focus, and rise above fatigue, and heal. But you
are not sufficiently vigilant against the demands of your ego that you disengage
yourself. THIS NEED NOT BE. The habit of engaging WITH God and His Creations is
easily made if you refuse actively to let your minds slip away. Your problem is
not concentration: it is a belief that nobody, including yourself, is WORTH
consistent effort.
T 4 E 12. Side with me CONSISTENTLY against this deception, as we have sided
against it briefly already. Do not permit this shabby belief to pull you back.
The disheartened are useless to themselves and to me, but only the ego can be
disheartened.
T 4 E 13. Have you REALLY considered how many opportunities you have to
gladden yourselves, and how many of them you have refused? There is no limit to
the power of a Son of God, but he himself can limit the expression of his power
as much as he wills. Your mind and mine can unite in shining your ego away, and
releasing the strength of God into everything you think and will and do. Do no
settle for ANYTHING less than this, and refuse to accept anything BUT this as
your goal.
T 4 E 14. Watch your minds carefully for any beliefs that hinder its
accomplishment, and step away from them. Judge how well you have done this by
your own feelings, for this is the one RIGHT use of judgment. Judgment , like
any other defense, can be used to attack or protect, to hurt or to heal. The ego
SHOULD be brought to your own judgment and found wanting there. Without your own
allegiance, protection, and love it cannot exist.
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T 4 E 15. Judge your ego truly, and you MUST withdraw allegiance, protection,
and love from it. You are mirrors of truth in which God Himself shines in
perfect light. To the ego’s dark glass you need but say, "I will not look there
because I KNOW these images are not true."
T 4 E 16. Then let me the Holy One shine upon you in peace, knowing that this
and only this MUST be His Mind shone on you in your creation, and brought YOUR
mind into being. His Mind still shines on you and MUST shine THROUGH you. Your
ego cannot prevent HIM from shining on you, but it CAN prevent you from letting
Him shine THROUGH you.
T 4 E 17. The first coming of Christ is just another name for the Creation,
for Christ is the Son of God. The SECOND coming of Christ means nothing more
than the end of the ego’s rule over part of the minds of men, and the healing of
the mind. I was created like you in the First, and I am reminding you that I
have called you to join with me in the Second.
T 4 E 18. If you will think over your lives, you will see how carefully the
preparations were made. I am in charge of the Second Coming as I have already
told you, and my judgment, which is used only for its protection, cannot be
wrong because it NEVER attacks. Yours is so distorted that you believe that I
was mistaken in choosing you. I assure you this is a mistake of your own egos.
Do not mistake it for humility.
T 4 E 19. Your egos are trying to convince you that THEY are real, and I am
not, because if I AM real, I am no more real than YOU are. That knowledge, and I
assure you that it IS knowledge, means that Christ must come into your minds and
heal them.
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T 4 E 20. While I am not attacking your egos, I AM working with your higher
mind whether you are asleep or awake, (just as your ego does with your lower
mind.) I am your vigilance in this, because you are too confused to recognize
your own hope.
T 4 E 21. I was not mistaken. Your minds WILL elect to join with mine, and
together we are invincible. You two will yet come together in my name and your
sanity will be restored. I raised the dead by KNOWING that life is an eternal
attribute of everything that the living God Created. Why do you believe that it
is harder for me to inspire the dis-spirited 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.
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T 4 F. The Ego-Body Illusion
1/12/66
T 4 F 1. ALL things work together for good. There are NO exceptions except in
the ego’s judgment. Control is a central factor in what the ego permits into
consciousness, and one to which it devotes its maximum vigilance. This is NOT
the way a balanced mind holds together. ITS control is unconscious.
T 4 F 2. The ego is further off balance by keeping its primary motivation
UNconscious, and raising control rather than sensible judgment to predominance.
It has every reason to do this, according to the thought-system which both gave
rise to it and which it serves. Sane judgment would inevitably judge AGAINST it,
and MUST be obliterated by the ego in the interest of its self-preservation.
T 4 F 3. A crucial source of the ego’s off-balance state is its lack of
discrimination between impulses from God and from the body. Any thought-system
which makes THIS confusion MUST be insane. Yet this demented state is ESSENTIAL
to the ego, which judges ONLY in terms of threat or nonthreat TO ITSELF.
T 4 F 4. In one sense, the ego’s fear of the idea of God is at least logical,
because this idea DOES dispel it. Fear of dissolution from the higher source,
then, makes SOME sense in ego terms. But fear of the body, with which the ego
identifies so closely, is more blatantly senseless. The body is the ego’s home
by its own election. It is the only identification with which it feels safe,
because the body’s vulnerability is its own best argument that you CANNOT be of
God.
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T 4 F 5. This is the belief that it sponsors eagerly. Yet the ego hates the
body, because it does not accept the idea that the body is good enough as its
home. Here is where the mind becomes actually dazed. Being told by the ego that
it is really part of the body, and that the body is its protector, it is also
constantly informed that the body can NOT protect it. This, of course, is not
only true, but perfectly obvious.
T 4 F 6. Therefore, the mind asks, "Where can I go for protection?", to which
the ego replies, "Turn to me." The mind, and not without cause, reminds the ego
that it has itself insisted that it IS identified with the body, so there is no
point in turning to it for protection. The ego has no real answer to this
because there isn’t any. But it DOES have a typical solution. It obliterates the
question from the mind’s awareness. Once unconscious, it can and does produce
uneasiness, but it cannot be answered because it cannot be asked.
T 4 F 7. This is the question which MUST be asked: "Where am I to go for
protection?" Only an insane mind FAILS to ask it. Even the insane ask it
unconsciously, but it requires real sanity to ask it consciously.
T 4 F 8. If you will remember your dream about the recorder, which was
remarkably accurate in some ways because it came partly from ego-repressed
knowledge, the real problem was correctly stated as "What is the question?"
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because, as you very well knew, the answer COULD be found if the question were
recognized. If you remember, there were a number of solutions you attempted, all
ego-based, not because you thought they would really work, but because the
question ITSELF was obscure.
T 4 F 9. When the Bible says "Seek and ye shall find," it does NOT mean that
you should seek blindly and desperately for something you wouldn’t recognize.
Meaningful seeking is consciously undertaken, consciously organized, and
consciously directed. B’s chief contribution to your joint venture is his
insistence that the goal be formulated clearly, and KEPT IN MIND.
T 4 F 10. You, Helen, are not good at doing this. You still search for many
gods simultaneously, and this goal confusion, given a strong will, MUST produce
chaotic behavior. B’s behavior is not chaotic, because he is not so much
goal-divided as not goal-ORIENTED. Where Helen has overinvested in many goals, B
has underinvested in ALL goals. He has the advantage of POTENTIALLY greater
freedom from distractibility, but he does not care enough to use it. Helen has
the advantage of great effort, but she keeps losing sight of the goal.
T 4 F 11. B has very intelligently suggested that you both should set yourself
the goal of really studying for this course. There can be no doubt of the wisdom
of this decision, for any student who wants to pass it. But, knowing your
individual weaknesses as learners and being
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a teacher with some experience, I must remind you that learning and wanting to
learn are inseparable.
T 4 F 12. All learners learn best when they believe that what they are trying
to learn is of value to them. But values in this world are hierarchical, and not
everything you may WANT to learn has lasting value.
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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.
T 4 F 13. Eternalness is the one function that the ego has tried to develop,
but has systematically failed. It may surprise you to learn that had the ego
willed to do so, it COULD have made the eternal, because, as a product of the
mind, it IS endowed with the power of its own creator. But the DECISION to do
this, rather than the ABILITY to do it is what the ego cannot tolerate. That is
because the decision, from which the ability would naturally develop, would
necessarily involve true perception, a state of clarity which the ego, fearful
of being judged truly, MUST avoid.
T 4 F 14. The results of this dilemma are peculiar, but no more so than the
dilemma itself. The ego has reacted characteristically here as elsewhere,
because mental illness, which is ALWAYS a form of ego-involvement, is not a
problem of reliability as much as of validity. The ego compromises with the
issue of the eternal, just as it does with all issues that touch on the real
question in ANY way. By compromising in connection with all TANGENTIAL
questions, it hopes to hide the REAL question and keep it OUT OF MIND. Its
characteristic "business" with non-essentials is precisely for that purpose.
T 4 F 15. Consider the alchemist’s age-old attempts to turn base metal into
gold. (This typo was originally "god"). The one question which the alchemist did
not permit himself to ask was "What For?" He COULD not ask this, because it
would immediately become apparent that there was no sense in his efforts, even
if he succeeded. The ego has also countenanced some strange compromises with the
idea of the eternal, making odd attempts to relate the concept to the
unimportant in an effort to satisfy the mind without jeopardizing itself. Thus,
it has permitted many good minds to devote themselves to perpetual MOTION, but
NOT to perpetual THOUGHTS.
T 4 F 16. Ideational preoccupations with conceptual problems set up to be
incapable of solution are another favorite ego device for impeding the
strong-willed from real progress in learning. The problems of squaring the
circle, and carrying pi to infinity are good examples. A more recent ego-attempt
is particularly noteworthy. The idea of preserving the body by suspension, thus
giving it the kind of limited immortality
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which the ego can tolerate, is among its more recent appeals to the mind.
T 4 F 17. It is noticeable that in all these diversionary tactics, the ONE
question which is NEVER asked by those who pursue them is "What for?" This is
the question which YOU must learn to ask in connection with everything your mind
wills to undertake. What is your purpose? Whatever it is, you cannot doubt that
it will channelize your efforts automatically. When you make a decision of
purpose, then, you HAVE made a decision about future effort, a decision which
will remain in effect UNLESS you change the DECISION.
T 4 F 18. Psychologists are in a good position to realize that the ego is
capable of making and accepting as real some very distorted associations which
are not true. The confusion of sex with aggression, and resulting behavior which
is the same for BOTH, is a good example. This is understandable to the
psychologist, and does not produce surprise. The lack of surprise, however, is
NOT a sign of understanding. It is a symptom of the psychologist’s ability to
accept as reasonable a compromise which is clearly senseless, to attribute it to
the mental illness of the patient rather than his own, and to limit his
questions about both the patient AND himself to the trivial.
T 4 F 19. These relatively minor confusions of the ego are not among its more
profound misassociations, although they DO reflect them. Your own egos have been
blocking the more important questions which your minds should ask. You do NOT
understand a patient while you yourselves are willing to limit the questions you
raise about HIS mind, because you are also accepting these limits for YOURS.
This makes you unable to heal him AND yourselves. Be ALWAYS unwilling to adapt
to ANY situation in which miracle-mindedness is unthinkable. That state in
ITSELF is enough to demonstrate that perception is wrong.
T 4 G. The Constant State
C 51
T 4 G 1. It cannot be emphasized too often that CORRECTING perception is
merely a temporary expedient. It is necessary ONLY because Misperception is a
BLOCK to knowledge, while ACCURATE perception is a stepping-stone TOWARDS it.
The whole value of right perception lies in the inevitable judgment which is
necessarily entails that it is UNNECESSARY. This removes the block entirely.
T 4 G 2. You may ask how this is possible as long as you appear to be living
in this world. And since this is a sensible question, it has a sensible answer.
But you
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must be careful that you really understand the question. What IS the you who are
living in this world? Bill will probably have more trouble with this than you,
but if he will try not to close his mind, he may decide that we are NOT engaging
in denial after all.
T 4 G 3. To help him, it might be wise to review a number of the concepts
with which he does not appear to have trouble, except at times. He liked the
idea of invisibility, and was particularly open to the concept of different
orders of reality. He also found the notion of varying densities of energy
appealing. While he may yet agree that these are merely teaching aids, this is a
good time to employ them.
T 4 G 4. Immortality is a constant state. It is as true now as it ever was or
will be, because it implies NO CHANGE AT ALL. It is not a continuum, and it is
NOT understood by comparing it with any opposite. Knowledge NEVER involves
comparisons. That is its essential difference from everything else the mind can
grasp.
T 4 G 5. "A little knowledge" is not dangerous except to the ego. Vaguely the
ego senses threat, and, being unable to realize that "a little knowledge" is a
meaningless phrase because "all" and "a little" in this context are the same,
decides that since "all" is impossible, the fear does not lie in this. "A
little," however, is a scarcity concept, and this the ego understands well.
Regarding "all" as impossible, "a little" is perceived as the real threat.
T 4 G 6. The essential thing to remember always is that the ego DOES NOT
RECOGNIZE the real source of its perceived threat. And if YOU associate yourself
WITH the ego, YOU do not perceive the whole situation as it really is. Only your
allegiance to it gives the ego ANY power over you. We have spoken of the ego as
if it were a separate thing, acting on its own. This was necessary to persuade
you that you cannot dismiss it lightly, and MUST realize how much of your
thinking is ego-directed. But we cannot safely leave it at that, or you will
regard yourselves as necessarily conflicted as long as you are here, or more
properly, BELIEVE that you are here.
T 4 G 7. The ego is nothing more than a PART of your belief about yourselves.
Your other life has continued without interruption, and has been and always will
be totally unaffected by your attempts to dissociate. The ratio of repression
and
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dissociation of truth varies with the individual ego-illusion (tell Bill that
phrase is VERY good), but dissociation is always involved, or you would not
believe that you ARE here.
T 4 G 8. When I told Bill to concentrate on the phrase "here I am, Lord," I
did not mean "in this world" by "here." I wanted him to think of himself as a
separate consciousness, capable of direct communication with the Creator of that
consciousness. He, too, MUST begin to think of himself as a very powerful
receiving and sending channel, a description I once gave you symbolically.
Remember that HE understood it before you did, because you are more dissociative
and less repressed.
T 4 G 9. Your great debt to each other is something you should never forget.
It is exactly the same debt that you owe to me. Whenever you react egotistically
towards each other, you are throwing away the graciousness of your indebtedness
and the holy perception it would produce. The reason why the term "holy" can be
used here is that, as you learn how much you ARE indebted to the whole Sonship
which includes me, you come as close to knowledge as perception ever can. This
gap is so small knowledge can easily flow across it and obliterate it forever.
T 4 G 10. You have very little trust in me as yet, but it will increase as you
turn more and more often to me instead of to your egos for guidance. The results
will convince you increasingly that your choice in turning to me is the only
sane one you can make. No one who has learned from experience that one choice
brings peace and joy while another brings chaos and disaster needs much
conditioning. The ego cannot withstand the conditioning process, because the
process itself DEMONSTRATES that there is another way.
T 4 G 11. The classic conditioning by rewards model has always been most
effective. Howard Hunt made a very good point in this connection, even though he
did not understand that the real reason why conditioning through pain is not the
most efficient method is because pain itself is an ego-illusion, and can never
induce more than a temporary effect.
T 4 G 12. The rewards of God are immediately recognized as eternal. Since this
recognition is made by YOU and NOT by your ego, the recognition ITSELF
establishes that you and your ego CANNOT be identical. You may believe that you
have already accepted the difference, but you are by no means convinced as yet.
The very fact that you are preoccupied with the idea of escaping FROM the ego
shows this.
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T 4 G 13. You cannot escape from the ego by humbling it, or controlling it, or
punishing it. The ego and the Soul DO NOT KNOW each other. The separated mind
cannot maintain the separation EXCEPT by dissociating. Having done this, it
utilizes repression against all truly natural impulses, not because the EGO is a
separate thing, but because you want to believe that YOU are. The ego is a
device for maintaining this belief, but it is still only YOUR willingness to use
the device that enables it to endure.
T 4 G 14. My trust in you is greater than yours in me at the moment, but it
will not always be that way. Your mission is very simple. You have been chosen
to live so as to demonstrate that You are NOT an ego. I repeat that I do not
choose God’s channels wrongly. The Holy One shares my trust and always approves
my Atonement decisions, because my will is never out of accord with His.
T 4 G 15. I have told you several times that I am in charge of the whole
Atonement. This is ONLY because I completed by 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.
T 4 G 16. 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.
T 4 G 17. Because you are all the Kingdom of God, I can lead you back to your
own creations, which you do not yet know. God has kept them very safe in HIS
knowing while your attention has wandered. Bill gave you a very important idea
when he told you that what has been dissociated IS STILL THERE. I am grateful to
him for that, and I hope he will not decide that it is true only for you. Even
though dissociation is much more apparent in you, and repression is much more
evident in him, each of you utilizes both.
T 4 G 18. Wisdom always dictates that a therapist work through WEAKER defenses
first. That is why I suggested to Bill that he persuade you to deal with
REPRESSION first.
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We have only just about reached the point where dissociation means much to you,
because it is so important to your misbeliefs. Bill might do well, - and you
could help him here, - to concentrate more on HIS dissociative tendencies and
not try to deal with repression yet.
T 4 G 19. I hinted at this when I remarked on his habit of disengaging
himself, and when I spoke to him about distantiation. These are all forms of
dissociation, and these weaker forms were always more evident in him than in
you. That is because dissociation was so extreme in your case that you did not
have to hide it because you were not aware that it was there. Bill, on the other
hand, DOES dissociate more than he thinks, and that is why he cannot listen. He
does not need to go through the same course in repression that you did, because
he will give up his major misdefense AFTER he has rid himself of the lesser
ones.
T 4 G 20. Do not disturb yourself about repression, Bill, but DO train
yourself to be alert to any tendency to withdraw from your brothers. Withdrawal
is frightening, and you do not recognize all the forms it takes in you. Helen is
right that she will experience things that will cut across all her perceptions
because of their stunning knowledge. You were right that this will occur when
she learns to recognize what she ALREADY knows and has dissociated.
T 4 G 21. You, Bill, will learn somewhat differently, because you are afraid
of all complete involvements, and believe that they lessen YOU. You have learned
to be so much more clear-sighted about this that you should be ready to oppose
it in yourself RELATIVELY easily. As you come closer to a brother, you DO
approach me, and as you withdraw from him I become distant to you.
T 4 G 22. Your giant step forward was to INSIST on a collaborative venture.
This does NOT go against the true spirit of meditation at all. It is inherent IN
it. Meditation is a collaborative venture with GOD. It CANNOT be undertaken
successfully by those who disengage themselves from the Sonship, because they
are disengaging themselves from me. God will come to you only as you will give
Him to your brothers. Learn first of them, and you will be ready to hear God as
you hear them. That is because the function of love is One.
T 4 G 23. How can you teach someone the value of something he has thrown away
deliberately? He must have thrown it away because he did NOT value it. You can
only show him how
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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.
T 4 G 24. I am conditioning you to associate misery with the ego, and joy with
your Soul. You have conditioned yourself the other way around. But a far greater
reward will break through any conditioning, if it is repeatedly offered when the
old habit is broken. You are still free to choose. But can you really WANT the
rewards of the ego in the presence of the rewards of God?
T 4 H. Creation and Communication
T 4 H 1. It should be clear that, while the content of any particular
ego-illusion does not matter, it is usually more helpful to correct it in a
specific context. Bill is right that you are too abstract in this matter.
Ego-illusions are QUITE specific, although they frequently change, and although
the mind is naturally abstract, it became concrete voluntarily as soon as it
splits. However, only PART of it splits, so only PART of it is concrete.
T 4 H 2. 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.
T 4 H 3. 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.
T 4 H 4. The specificity of the ego’s thinking, then, results in a spurious
kind of generalization, which is really not abstract at all. It will respond in
certain specific ways to all stimuli which it perceives as related. In contrast,
the Soul reacts in the same way to everything it know is true, and does not
respond at all to anything else. Nor does it make any attempt to ESTABLISH what
is true. It knows
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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.
T 4 H 5. This communication IS the will of God. Creation and communication
are synonymous. God created every mind by communicating His Mind to it, thus
establishing it forever as a channel for the reception of His Mind and Will.
Since only beings of a like order can truly communicate. His Creations naturally
communicate with Him and communicate like Him. This communication is perfectly
abstract, in that its quality is universal in application, and not subject to
ANY judgment, ANY exception, or ANY alteration.
T 4 H 6. God made you BY this and FOR this. The mind can distort its
functions, but it cannot endow itself with those it was not given. That is why
the mind cannot totally lose the ability to communicate, even though it may
refuse to utilize it on behalf of being. Existence as well as being rests on
communication.
T 4 H 7. Existence is SPECIFIC in how, what, and with whom communication is
worth undertaking. Being is completely without these distinctions. It is a state
in which the mind IS in communication with everything that is real, including
its own Soul. To whatever extent you permit this state to be curtailed, you are
limiting your sense of your OWN reality, which becomes total only by recognizing
ALL reality in the glorious context of its real relationship to YOU. This IS
your reality. Do no desecrate it or recoil from it. It is your real home, your
real temple, and your real self.
T 4 H 8. God, who encompasses ALL Being, nevertheless created separate beings
who have everything individually, but who want to share it to increase their
joy. Nothing that is real can be increased EXCEPT by sharing it. That is why God
Himself created you. Divine Abstraction takes joy in application, and that is
what creation MEANS. How, what, and to whom are irrelevant, because real
creation gives everything since it can only create like itself. Remember that in
being, there is no difference between having and being, as there is in
existence. In the state of being, the mind gives everything always.
T 4 H 9. 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
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thanks, and no perceptions with which to judge your offerings. But unless you
take your part in the creation, His joy is not complete because YOURS is
incomplete. And THIS He does know. He knows it in his own Being and its
experience of His Sons’ experience. The constant GOING OUT of His love is
blocked when His Channels are closed, and He IS lonely when the minds He created
do not communicate fully with Him.
T 4 H 10. God HAS kept your kingdom for you, but He cannot share His joy with
you until you know it with your whole mind. Even revelation is not enough,
because it is communication FROM God. But it is not enough until it is shared.
God does not need revelation returned to Him, which would clearly be impossible,
but He DOES want revelation brought to others. This cannot be done with the
actual revelation, because its content cannot be expressed, and it is intensely
personal to the mind which receives it. But it can still be returned BY that
mind through its attitudes to other minds which the knowledge from the
revelation brings.
T 4 H 11. God is praised whenever any mind learns to be wholly helpful. This
is impossible without being wholly harmless, because the two beliefs cannot
coexist. The truly helpful are invulnerable, because they are NOT protecting
their egos, so that nothing CAN hurt them. Their helpfulness IS their praise of
God, and He will return their praise of Him, because they are like Him and can
rejoice together. God goes out to them and through them, and there is great joy
throughout the Kingdom. Every mind that is changed adds to this joy with its own
individual willingness to share in it.
T 4 H 12. The truly helpful are God’s 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. I arranged
for Bill to attend the rehabilitation meetings for very good reasons, and I want
him to know them so we can share our goal there.
T 4 I. True Rehabilitation
T 4 I 1. Properly speaking, every mind which is split needs rehabilitation.
The medical orientation emphasizes the body, and the vocational orientation
stresses the ego. The team approach generally leads more to confusion than
anything else, because it is too often misused as an expedient for sharing the
ego’s dominion with other ego’s rather than as a real experiment in cooperation
of minds.
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T 4 I 2. The reason why Bill needs this experience is because he needs
rehabilitating himself. How often have I answered "help him" when you asked me
to help you? He, too, has asked for help, and he has been helped whenever he was
truly helpful to you. He has also gained to whatever extent he could give. He
will help YOU more truly by going, if he can remember all the time he is there
that his ONLY reason for being there is to REPRESENT ME.
T 4 I 3. Rehabilitation, as a movement, has been an improvement over overt
neglect, but it is often little more than a painful attempt on the part of the
hald to lead the blind. Bill, you will see this at every meeting. But this is
not why you were chosen to go. You have a fear of broken bodies, because your
ego cannot tolerate them. You ego cannot tolerate ego-weakness, either, without
ambivalence, because it is afraid of its own weakness and the weakness of its
chosen home.
T 4 I 4. That is really why you recoil from the demands of the dependent, and
from the sight of a broken body. Your ego is threatened, and blocks your natural
impulse to help, placing you under the strain of divided will. You withdraw to
allow your ego to recover, and to regain enough strength to be helpful again on
a basis limited enough NOT to threaten your ego, but also too limited to give
YOU joy.
T 4 I 5. Those with broken bodies are often looked down on by the ego,
because of its belief that nothing but a perfect body is worthy as its OWN
temple. A mind that recoils from a hurt body is in great need of rehabilitation
itself. A damaged brain is also hardly a danger. ALL symptoms of hurt need true
helpfulness, and whenever they are met with this, the mind that so meets them
heals ITSELF.
T 4 I 6. Rehabilitation is an attitude of praising God as He Himself knows
praise. He offers praise to you, and you must offer it to others. The real
limitations on clinical psychology, as it is evaluated by its followers at
present, are not reflected by the attitudes of psychiatrists, or medical boards,
or hospital administrators, even though most of them are sadly in need of
rehabilitation themselves.
T 4 I 7. The real handicaps of the clinicians lie in their attitudes to those
whom their ego perceive as weakened and damaged. By these evaluations, they have
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weakened and damaged their own helpfulness, and have thus set their own
rehabilitation back. Rehabilitation is NOT concerned with the ego’s fight for
control, nor the ego’s need to avoid and withdraw.
T 4 I 8. Bill, you can do much on behalf of your own rehabilitation AND
Helen’s, and much more universally as well, if you think of the Princeton
meetings in this way:
I am here ONLY to be truly helpful.
I am here to represent Christ, who sent me.
I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do,
because the one who sent me will direct me.
I am content to be wherever He wished, knowing he goes
there with me.
I will be healed as I let him teach me to heal.
Chapter V - 5 – Healing And Wholeness
T 5 A. Introduction
T 5 A 1. To heal is to make happy. I told you once 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 in 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 its influence
wholeheartedly. But joy calls for the an integrated willingness to share in it,
and thus promotes the mind’s natural impulse to RESPOND AS ONE.
T 5 A 2. Those who attempt to heal without being wholly joyous themselves
call forth different kinds of responses at the same time, and thus deprive
others of the joy of responding wholeheartedly. To be wholehearted, 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.
T 5 A 3. To heal, or to make joyous, is therefore the same as to integrate
and MAKE ONE. That is why it makes do [?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.
T 5 A 4. You do not have to know them individually, or they you. The light of
joy
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is so strong that it radiates throughout the Sonship and returns thanks to the
Father for radiating HIS joy upon it. Only God’s own 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 healer’s prayer is, "let me know this brother
as I know myself."
T 5 B. Healing as Joining
T 5 B 1. Healing is an act of thought by which two minds perceive their
oneness, and become glad. This gladness calls to every part of the Sonship to
rejoice with them, and let God Himself go out into them and through them. Only
the healed mind can experience revelation with lasting effect, because
revelation is an experience of pure joy. If you do not will to be wholly joyous,
your mind cannot have what it does not will to be.
T 5 B 2. Remember that the Soul knows no difference between being and having.
The higher mind thinks according to the laws which the Soul obeys, and therefore
honors only the laws of God. To Him, getting is meaningless, and giving is all.
Having everything, the Soul HOLDS everything by GIVING it, thus creating as the
Father created.
T 5 B 3. If you think about it, you will see that, while this kind of
thinking is totally alien to having THINGS, even to the lower mind it is quite
comprehensible in connection with IDEAS. If you share a physical possession, you
DO divide its ownership. But if you share an IDEA, you do NOT lessen it. ALL of
it is still yours, although all of it has been given away. Further, if the
person to whom you give it accepts it as HIS, he reinforces it in YOUR mind, and
thus INCREASES it.
T 5 B 4. If you can accept the concept that the world IS one of ideas, the
whole belief in the false association which the ego has made between giving and
LOSING is gone. Let us start our process of re-awakening [rebirth?] with just a
few simple concepts:
Thoughts INCREASE by being given away.
The more who BELIEVE in them, the STRONGER they become.
EVERYTHING is an idea.
How, then, is it possible that giving and losing can be meaningfully associated?
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T 5 B 5. 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.
T 5 B 6. The Holy Spirit is the only part of the Holy Trinity which is
symbolic. He is referred to in the Bible as the Healer, the Comforter, and the
Guide. He is also described as something separate, apart from the Father and
from the Son. I myself said, "and if I go I will send you ANOTHER comforter, and
he will abide with you."
T 5 B 7. The Holy Spirit is a difficult concept to grasp, precisely because
it IS symbolic, and therefore open to many different interpretations. As a man
and as one of God’s creations, my right thinking, which came from the Universal
Inspiration which IS the Holy Spirit, taught me first and foremost that this
Inspiration is for ALL. I could not have it myself without knowing that.
T 5 B 8. The word "know" is proper here, because the Holy Inspiration is so
close to knowledge that it calls forth, or better, allows it to come. We have
spoken before of the higher or true perception, which is so close to truth that
God Himself can flow across the little gap. Knowledge is always ready to flow
everywhere, but it cannot oppose. Therefore you can obstruct it, although you
can never lose it.
T 5 B 9. The Holy Spirit is the Christ mind that senses the knowledge that
lies beyond perception. It came into being with the separation as a protection,
and inspired the beginning of the Atonement at the same time. Before that, there
was no need for healing and no-one was comfortless.
T 5 C. The Mind of the Atonement
T 5 C 1. God honored even the miscreations of His Children because they had
made them. But he also blessed them with a way of thinking about them that could
raise their perceptions until they became so lofty that they could reach almost
back to Him.
T 5 C 2. The Holy Spirit is the mind of the Atonement. It represents a state
of mind that comes close enough to one-mindedness that transfer is at last
possible. As you well know, transfer depends on common elements in the old
learning and the new situation to which it is transferred.
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Perception is not knowledge, but it can be TRANSFERRED to knowledge, or CROSS
OVER into it. It might even be more helpful here to use the literal meaning
"carried over," for the last step is taken by God.
T 5 C 3. 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.
T 5 C 4. 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.
T 5 C 5. 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.
T 5 C 6. 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.
T 5 C 7. Finally, it points the way beyond the healing which it brings, and
leads the mind beyond its own integration into the paths of creation.
T 5 C 8. 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.
T 5 C 9. The Holy Spirit is the MOTIVATION for miracle-mindedness. It is the
will to HEAL the separation by letting it go. It is IN you because God placed it
in your mind, and although you can keep it asleep you cannot obliterate it. God
Himself keeps it alive by transmitting it from His Mind to yours as long as
there is time. It is partly His will and partly yours. The miracle itself is
just this fusion or union of will between Father and Son.
T 5 C 10. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Joy. It is the call to return, with
which God blessed the minds of the separated Sons. This the vocation of the
mind. It had no calling until the separation, because before it had only being,
and would not have understood the call to right thinking. The Holy
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Spirit was God’s answer to the separation, the means by which the Atonement
could repair until the whole mind returned to creating. The Atonement and the
separation began at the same time. When man made the ego, God placed in him the
call of joy. This call is so strong that the ego always dissolves at its sound.
T 5 C 11. That is why you can choose to listen to two voices within you. One
you made yourself, and that one is not of God. But the other is given you by
God, Who asks you only to listen to it. The Holy Spirit IS in you in a very
literal sense. It is the voice that calls you back to where you were before and
will be again.
T 5 D. The Voice for God
T 5 D 1. It is possible even in this world to hear ONLY that voice and no
other. It takes effort and great willingness to learn. It is the final lesson
that I learned, and God’s Sons are as equal as learners as they are as Souls.
The voice of the Holy Spirit IS the call to Atonement, or the restoration of the
integrity of the mind. When the Atonement is complete and the whole Sonship is
healed, there will be no call to return, but what God creates is eternal. The
Holy Spirit will remain with the Sons of God, to bless THEIR creations and keep
them in the light of joy.
T 5 D 2. 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 to banish the idea of darkness. His is the glory
before which dissociation falls away, and the Kingdom of Heaven breaks through
into its own.
T 5 D 3. Before the separation you did not need guidance. You KNEW as you
will know again, but you do not know now. God does not guide, because He can
share only PERFECT KNOWLEDGE. Guidance is EVALUATIVE, because it implies that
there is a RIGHT way and also a WRONG way, one to be chosen and the other
avoided. By choosing one, you give up the other. This IS a conflict state. It
MEANS that knowledge has been lost, because knowledge is SURE.
T 5 D 4. God is not in you; YOU are part of HIM. When you willed to leave
Him, He gave you a voice to speak FOR Him, because He could no longer share His
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knowledge with you without hindrance. Direct communication was broken, because
you had made another voice through another will. The Holy Spirit calls you both
to remember and forget. You have chosen to be in a state of opposition, in which
opposites are possible. As a result, there ARE choices which you must make. In
the holy state, the will is free in the sense that its creative power is
unlimited, but choice itself is meaningless.
T 5 D 5. Freedom to choose is the same POWER as freedom to create, but its
APPLICATION is different. Choosing MEANS divided will. The Holy Spirit is one
way of choosing. This way is in you BECAUSE there is also another way. God did
not leave His Children comfortless, even though they left Him. The voice they
put in their minds was NOT the voice of His Will, for which the Holy Spirit
speaks. The call to return is stronger than the call to depart, but it speaks in
a different way.
T 5 D 6. 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.
T 5 D 7. "What profiteth a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own
Soul?" This means that if he listens to the wrong voice, he has LOST SIGHT of
his Soul. He CANNOT lose it, but he CAN not know it. It is therefore LOST TO
HIM, until he chooses right. The Holy Spirit is your guide in choosing. He is
the part of your mind which ALWAYS speaks for the right choice, because he
speaks for God. He is your remaining communication with God, which you can
interrupt, but cannot destroy.
T 5 D 8. The Holy Spirit is the way in which God’s will can be done on earth
as it is in Heaven. Both Heaven and Earth are in YOU, because the call of both
are in your wills, and therefore in your minds. The voice for God comes from
your own altars to Him. These altars are not THINGS. They are DEVOTIONS.
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But you have other devotions now. Your divided devotion has given you the two
voices, and you must choose at which altar you will to serve. The call you
answer now IS an evaluation, because it is a DECISION. The decision itself is
very simple. It is made on the basis of which call is worth more to you.
T 5 D 9. 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.
T 5 D 10. You understand the role of models in the learning process, and the
importance of the models you value and choose to follow in determining what you
will to learn. I am your model for decision. By deciding for God, I showed you
that this decision CAN be made, and that YOU can make it. I promised you that
the mind that made the decision for me is also in YOU, and that you can let it
change you just as it changed me. This mind is unequivocal, because it hears
only ONE VOICE, and answers in ONE WAY.
T 5 D 11. 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?
T 5 D 12. 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.
T 5 D 13. Remember that "Yolk" means "join together," and "burden" means
message. Let us reconsider the biblical statement "my yolk is easy and my burden
light" in this way. Let us join together, for my message is Light.
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I came to your minds because you had grown vaguely aware of the fact that there
is another way, or another voice. Having given this invitation to the Holy
Spirit, I could come to provide the model for HOW TO THINK.
T 5 D 14. Psychology has become the study of BEHAVIOR, but no-one denies the
basic law that behavior is a response to MOTIVATION, and motivation is will. I
have enjoined you to behave as I behaved, but we must respond to the same mind
to do this. This mind is the Holy Spirit, whose will is for God always. It
teaches you how to keep me as the model for your thought, and behave like me as
a result.
T 5 D 15. 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.
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T 5 E. The Guide to Salvation
Jan. 29, ‘66
T 5 E 1. 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. This relationship MUST be in His
mind, because unless it were, the separation between the two ways of thinking
would not be open to healing. He is part of the Holy Trinity, because His Mind
is partly YOURS and also PARTLY GOD’S. This needs clarification not in
statement, since we have said this before, but in EXPERIENCE.
T 5 E 2. The Holy Spirit is the IDEA of healing. Being thought, the idea
GAINS AS IT IS SHARED. Being the call FOR God, it is also the idea OF God. If
you are part of God, it is also the idea of YOURSELF, as well as of all the
parts of God. The idea of the Holy Spirit shares the property of other ideas,
because it follows the laws of the universe of which IT is a part. Therefore, it
is strengthened by being given away. It increases in YOU as you give it to your
brothers.
T 5 E 3. Since thoughts do not have to be conscious to exist, your brother
does not have to be AWARE of the Holy Spirit, either in himself or in you for
this miracle to occur. He may have dissociated the call for God, just as YOU
have. But the dissociation is healed in BOTH of you as you see it in him, and
thus acknowledge its BEING. Bill, who has made a number of vital contributions
to our joint venture, made a major one a while ago, which he himself did not
appreciate or even understand. If we recognize its value together, we will be
able to use it together, because it is an idea,
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and must therefore be shared to be held.
T 5 E 4. When Bill said that he was determined "NOT to see you that way," he
was speaking negatively. If he will state the same idea POSITIVELY, he will see
the POWER of what he said. He had realized that there are two ways of seeing
you, and also that they are diametrically opposed to one another. These two ways
must be in HIS mind, because he was referring to HIMSELF as the perceiver. They
must also be in YOURS, because he was perceiving YOU.
T 5 E 5. What he was really saying was that he would NOT look at you through
HIS ego, or perceive YOUR ego in you. State positively, he would see you through
the Holy Spirit in HIS mind, and perceive it in YOURS. What you acknowledge in
your brother, you ARE acknowledging in yourself. What you share you STRENGTHEN.
The voice of the Holy Spirit IS weak in you. That is why you MUST share it,
because it must be INCREASED in strength before YOU can hear it. It is
impossible to hear it in yourself while it is so weak in your OWN mind. It is
NOT weak in itself; but it IS limited by your unwillingness to hear it.
T 5 E 6 Will itself is an idea, and is therefore strengthened by being
shared. You have made the mistake of looking for the Holy Spirit in YOURSELVES,
and that is why your meditations have frightened you. By adopting the ego’s
viewpoint, you undertook an ego-alien journey WITH THE EGO AS GUIDE. This was
BOUND to produce fear. Bill’s better idea needs to be strengthened in BOTH of
you. Since it was HIS, HE can increase it by giving it to you.
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T 5 E 7. Delay is of the ego, because time is ITS concept. Delay is obviously
a TIME idea. Both time AND delay are meaningless in eternity. We have said
before that the Holy Spirit is God’s answer to the ego. Everything of which the
Holy Spirit reminds you is in direct opposition to the ego’s notions, because
true and false perceptions are THEMSELVES opposed. The Holy Spirit has the task
of UNDOING what the ego has made. It must undo it in the same realm of discourse
in which the ego itself operates, or the mind would be unable to understand the
change. We have repeatedly emphasized the fact that one level of the mind is not
understandable to another. So it is with the ego and the soul, and with time and
eternity.
T 5 E 8. Eternity is an idea of God, so the soul understands it perfectly.
Time is a belief of the ego, so the lower mind, which IS the ego’s domain,
accepts it without question. The only aspect of time which is really eternal is
NOW. That is what we REALLY mean when we say that now is the only time. The
literal nature of this statement does not mean anything to the ego. It
interprets it, at best, to mean "don’t worry about the future." This is NOT what
it really means at all.
T 5 E 9. The Holy Spirit is the mediator between the interpretations of the
ego and the knowledge of the Soul. Its ability to deal with symbols enables it
to work AGAINST the ego’s beliefs in its own language. Its equal ability to look
BEYOND symbols into eternity also enables it to understand the laws of God, for
which it speaks.
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T 5 E 10. It can thus perform the function of RE-INTERPRETING what the ego
makes, not by destruction, but by understanding. Understanding is light, and
light leads to knowledge. The Holy Spirit is IN light, because it is IN YOU who
ARE light. But you yourselves do not know this. It is therefore the task of the
Holy Spirit to re-interpret you on behalf of God.
T 5 E 11. You cannot understand yourselves alone. This is because you have no
meaning apart from your rightful place in the Sonship, and the rightful place of
the Sonship in God. This is your life, your eternity, and YOURSELF. It is of
this that the Holy Spirit reminds you. It is this that the Holy Spirit SEES.
This vision invariably frightens the ego, because it is so calm. Peace is the
ego’s greatest enemy, because according to ITS interpretation of reality, war is
the guarantee of its survival. The ego becomes strong in strife because if you
believe there is strife, you will react viciously because the idea of danger has
entered your mind. This idea itself IS an appeal to the ego.
T 5 E 12. The Holy Spirit is as vigilant as the ego to the call of danger,
opposing it with ITS strength just as the ego WELCOMES it with all its might.
The Holy Spirit counters this welcome by welcoming peace. Peace and eternity are
as closely related as are time and war. Perception as well as knowledge derive
meaning from RELATIONSHIPS. Those which you accept are the foundations of your
beliefs.
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T 5 E 13. The Separation is merely another term for a split mind. It was not
an act, but a thought. Therefore, the idea of Separation can be given away, just
as the idea of unity can, and either way, it will be STRENGTHENED IN THE MIND OF
THE GIVER. The ego is the symbol of the Separation, just as the Holy Spirit is
the symbol of peace. What you perceive in others you are STRENGTHENING IN YOUR
SELF. You let your mind misperceive, but the Holy Spirit lets your mind
re-interpret its own misperceptions. The Holy Spirit is the perfect teacher. It
uses only what your minds ALREADY understand, to teach you that you do not
understand it.
T 5 E 14. The Holy Spirit can deal with an unwilling learner without going
counter to his will, because part of his will IS still for God. Despite the
ego’s attempts to conceal this part, it is still much stronger than the ego,
even though the ego does not recognize it. The Holy Spirit recognizes it
perfectly, because it is its own dwelling place, or the place in the mind where
it is at home. YOU are at home there, too, because it is a place of peace, and
peace is of God.
T 5 E 15. 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 reinterpret into the timeless. The mind must be led into
eternity THROUGH time, because having made time it is capable of perceiving its
opposite.
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T 5 E 16. The Holy Spirit must work through opposites, because it must work
with and for a mind that IS in opposition. Correct and learn, and be open to
learning. You have NOT made truth, but truth can still set you free. Look as the
Holy Spirit looks, and understand as He understands. His understanding looks
back to God, in remembrance of Me. He is in Holy Communion always, and He is
part of YOU. He is your guide to salvation, because he holds the remembrance of
things past and to come. He holds this gladness gently in your minds, asking
only that you INCREASE it in His name by sharing it to increase His joy in YOU.
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T 5 F. Therapy and Teaching
Jan. 12, ‘66
T 5 F 1. You must have noticed how often I have used your own ideas to help
YOU. B. is right is saying that you have learned to be a loving, wise, and very
understanding therapist, except for yourself. That exception has given you more
than perception for others because of what you saw in them, but less than
knowledge of your real relationships TO them because you did NOT make them part
OF you. Understanding IS beyond perception, because it introduces meaning. But
it is below knowledge, even though it can grow TOWARDS it. It is possible, with
great effort, to understand someone else and to be helpful to him, but the
effort is misdirected. The misdirection is quite apparent. It is directed AWAY
from you.
T 5 F 2. This does NOT mean that it is lost to you, but it DOES mean that you
are not aware of it. I have saved all of your kindnesses and every loving
thought you have had, and I assure you, you have had many. I have purified them
of errors which hid their light, and have kept them for you in their own perfect
radiance. They are beyond destruction and beyond guilt. They came from the Holy
Spirit within YOU, and we know that what God creates is eternal.
T 5 F 3. Bill once spoke of the Kingdom in this way, because he yearns for
what he has repressed. You are much more afraid of it, because dissociation is
more fearful. B’s better contact has allowed him the strength to retain the fear
in awareness, and to resort to displacement, which he is learning to overcome
with YOUR help. That is because you do not perceive HIM as dissociated, and can
help him with his repression,
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which does not frighten you. He, on the other hand, has no difficulty in seeing
YOU dissociate, and does not have to deal with repression in you, which WOULD
produce fear in him.
T 5 F 4. Joining in Atonement, which I have repeatedly asked you to do, is
ALWAYS a way OUT of fear. This does not mean that you can safely fail to
acknowledge anything that is true, but the Holy Spirit will not fail to help you
reinterpret EVERYTHING that you perceive as fearful, and teach you ONLY what is
loving is TRUE. It is beyond your ability to destroy, but entirely within your
grasp. It BELONGS to you because YOU created it. It is yours because it is part
of you, just as you are part of God, because He created you.
T 5 F 5. The Atonement is the GUARANTEE of the safety of the Kingdom. Nothing
good is lost, because it comes from the Holy Spirit, the voice for Creation.
Nothing that is not good was ever created, and therefore CANNOT be protected.
What the ego makes it KEEPS TO ITSELF, and so it is without strength. Its
unshared existence does not die. It was merely never born. Real birth is not a
beginning; it is a CONTINUING. Everything that CAN continue has already BEEN
born. But it can INCREASE as you are willing to return the part of your mind
that needs healing to the higher part, and thus render your creating (creation)
undivided.
T 5 F 6. You yourself always told your patients that the real difference
between neurotic and ‘healthy’ guilt feelings was that neurotic guilt feelings
DO NOT HELP ANYONE. This distinction was very wise, though incomplete. Let us
make the distinction a little sharper now. à
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Neurotic guilt feelings are a device of the ego for "atoning" without sharing,
and for asking for pardon without change. The ego NEVER calls for real
atonement, and cannot tolerate real forgiveness, which IS change.
T 5 F 7. Your concept of "healthy guilt feelings" has great merit, but
without the concept of the Atonement it lacked the healing potential it held.
YOU make the distinction in terms of feelings which led to a decision not to
repeat the error, which is only PART of healing. Your concept therefore lacked
the idea of UNDOING it. What you were really advocating, then, was adopting a
policy of sharing without a real FOUNDATION.
T 5 F 8. 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, anymore than YOU are.
T 5 F 9. The Atonement cannot be understood except as a PURE ACT OF SHARING.
That is what is meant when we said that it is possible even in this world to
listen to ONE voice. If you are part of God, and the Sonship is one, you CANNOT
be limited to the self the ego sees. Every loving thought held in ANY part (of
the Sonship) belongs to every part.
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It is shared BECAUSE it is loving. Sharing is God’s way of creating, and also
YOURS. Your ego can keep you in exile FROM the Kingdom but in the Kingdom itself
it has no power.
T 5 F 10. You have become willing to receive my messages as I give them,
without interference by the ego, so we can clarify an earlier point which was
mentioned before. We said that you will one day teach as much as you learn, and
that will keep you in balance. The time is now, because you have let it be now.
You cannot learn EXCEPT by teaching. I heard one voice because I had learned
that learning is attained BY teaching. I understood that I COULD NOT ATONE FOR
MYSELF ALONE.
T 5 F 11. Listening to one voice MEANS the will to share the voice to hear it
yourself. The mind that was in me is still irresistibly drawn to every mind
created by God, because God’s wholeness IS the wholeness of his Son. Turning the
other cheek does NOT mean that you should submit to violence without protest. It
means that you cannot be hurt, and do not want to show your brother anything
except your wholeness. Show him that he CANNOT hurt you, and hold nothing
against him, or you hold it against yourself.
T 5 F 12. Teaching is done in many ways, by formal means, by guidance, and
above all BY EXAMPLE. If you will to learn, you MUST will to teach. Teaching is
therapy because it means the sharing of ideas, and the awareness that to share
them is to strengthen them. The union of the Sonship IS its protection.
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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.
T 5 F 13. I cannot forget my need to teach what I have learned which arose in
me BECAUSE I learned it. I call upon you to teach what you have learned, because
by so doing YOU can depend on it. Make it dependable in my name, because my name
is the name of God’s Son. What I learned I give you freely, and the mind which
was in me rejoices as YOU will to hear it. The Holy Spirit atones in all of us
by UNDOING, and thus lifts the burden you have placed in your mind. By following
Him, He leads you back to God where you belong. And how can you find this way
except by taking your brother with you?
T 5 F 14. My part in the Atonement is not complete until YOU join it, and give
it away. As you teach, so shall you learn. I will never leave you or forsake
you, because to forsake you would be to forsake myself and God who created me.
You will forsake yourselves and your God if you forsake any of YOUR brothers.
You are more than your brother’s keeper. In fact, you do not WANT to keep him.
You must learn to see him as he is, and KNOW that he belongs to God, as you do.
How could you treat your brother better than by rendering unto God the things
which are God’s?
T 5 F 15. Ideas do not LEAVE the mind which thought them in order to have
separate being. Nor do separate thoughts conflict with one another in space,
because they do not occupy space at all.
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HUMAN ideas can conflict in content, because they occur at different levels, and
include opposite thoughts at the SAME level. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO SHARE OPPOSING
THOUGHTS. The Holy Spirit does not LET you forsake your brothers. Therefore, you
can really share only the parts of your thoughts which are of Him, which He also
keeps for YOU. And of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. All the rest remains with
you until He has reinterpreted them in the light of the Kingdom, making them,
too, worthy of being shared. When they have been sufficiently purified, He lets
you give them away. The will to share them IS their purification.
T 5 F 16. The Atonement gives you the power of a healed mind, but the power to
create is of God. Therefore, those who have been forgiven must devote themselves
first to healing, because having RECEIVED the idea of healing they MUST give it
to hold it. The full power of creation (creating) cannot be expressed as long as
any of God’s ideas are withholding it from the Kingdom. The joint will of ALL
the Sonship is the only creator that can create like the Father. That is because
only the complete can think completely, and the thinking of God lacks nothing.
Everything YOU think that is not through the Holy Spirit IS lacking.
T 5 F 17.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,
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in whose Heart and Hands we have our being. His quiet children are His blessed
sons. The Thoughts of God are with you.
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T 5 G. The Two Decisions
Feb. 21, ‘66
T 5 G 1. Perhaps this will become clearer and more personally meaningful if
the ego’s use of guilt is clarified. The ego has a purpose, just as the Holy
Spirit has. The ego’s purpose is FEAR, because only the fearful can be
egotistic. The ego’s logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit, because
your mind has all the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it
elects. But let us again remember that both are in you.
T 5 G 2. In Heaven there is no guilt, because the Kingdom is attained through
the Atonement, which creates it in you. The word "create" is appropriate here,
because once what YOU have made is undone by the Holy Spirit, the blessed
residue IS restored, and therefore continues in creation. What is truly blessed
is incapable of giving rise to guilt, and must give rise to joy. This makes it
invulnerable to the ego, because its peace is unassailable. It is invulnerable
to disruption BECAUSE it is whole.
T 5 G 3. Guilt is always disruptive. Anything that engenders fear is
divisive, because it obeys the law of division. If the ego is the symbol of the
separation, it is also the symbol of guilt. Guilt is more than merely not of
God. It is the symbol of the ATTACK on God. This is a totally meaningless
concept EXCEPT to the ego, but do not underestimate the power of the ego’s
belief in it. This is the belief from which ALL guilt really stems.
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T 5 G 4. The ego IS the part of the mind which believes in division. But how
can part of God detach itself WITHOUT believing it is attacking Him? We spoke
before of the authority problem as involving the concept of USURPING His power.
The ego believes that this is what YOU did, because it believes it IS you. It
follows, then, that if you identify WITH the ego, you MUST perceive yourself as
guilty.
T 5 G 5. Whenever you respond to your ego, you WILL experience guilt, and you
WILL fear punishment. The ego is quite literally a fearful thought. And however
ridiculous the idea of attacking God may be to the sane mind, never forget that
the ego is NOT SANE. It REPRESENTS a delusional system, and it speaks FOR it.
Listening to the ego’s voice MEANS that you believe it is possible to attack
God. You believe that a part of Him has been torn away by YOU.
T 5 G 6. The classic picture of fear of retaliation from without then
follows, because the severity of the guilt is so acute that it MUST be
projected. Although Freud was wrong about the basic conflict itself, he was very
accurate in describing its effects. Whatever you accept INTO your mind has
reality for you. It is, however, only the ACCEPTANCE which makes it real.
T 5 G 7. As an extreme example of dissociation yourself, you should have
little trouble in understanding that it is perfectly possible not to ACCEPT what
IS in your minds.
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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.
T 5 G 8. The ego does not perceive sin as a lack of love. It perceives it as
a POSITIVE ACT OF ASSAULT. This is an interpretation which is necessary to its
survival, because as soon as YOU regard it as a LACK, you will automatically
attempt to remedy the situation. And you will also succeed. The ego regards this
as doom, but YOU must learn to regard it as freedom.
T 5 G 9. The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body
because IT has been healed. The sane mind cannot conceive of illness, because it
cannot conceive of attacking anything or anyone. We said before that illness is
a form of magic. It might be better to say it is a form of magical SOLUTION. The
ego believes that by punishing ITSELF, it will mitigate the punishment of God.
Yet even in this it is arrogant. It attributes to God a punishing attempt, and
then takes over this intent as its OWN perorgative. It tries to usurp ALL the
functions of God as it perceives them, because it recognizes that only total
allegiance can be trusted.
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T 5 G 10. The ego cannot OPPOSE the laws of God, anymore than YOU can. But it
can INTERPRET them according to what it wants, just as YOU can. That is why the
question "what DO you want" must be answered. You ARE answering it every minute
and every second, and each moment of decision is a judgment which is anything
BUT ineffectual. Its effects will follow automatically UNTIL THE DECISION IS
CHANGED. This is a redundant statement, because you have NOT learned it. But
again, any decision can be Unmade as well as made.
T 5 G 11. But remember that the ALTERNATIVES are unalterable. The Holy Spirit,
like the ego, is a decision. Together they constitute all the alternatives which
your mind CAN accept and obey. The ego and the Holy Spirit are the ONLY choices
which are open to you. God created one, and so you cannot eradicate it. YOU made
the other, so you CAN. Only what God creates is irreversible and unchangeable.
What YOU have made can always be changed, because when you do not think LIKE
God, you have not really thought at all. Delusional ideas are NOT thought, but
you CAN think that you believe in them.
T 5 G 12. 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.
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March 6, 1966
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.
T 5 G 13. Every thought disorder is attended by guilt at its inception, and
MAINTAINED by guilt in its continuance. Guilt is inescapable for those who
believe that they order their OWN thought, and must therefore obey its orders.
This makes them feel RESPONSIBLE for their mind ERRORS, without recognizing that
by ACCEPTING this responsibility they are really reacting Irresponsibly. If the
sole responsibility of the miracle-worker is to accept the ATONEMENT, and I
assure you that it is, then the responsibility for what is atoned FOR CANNOT be
yours.
T 5 G 14. This contradiction cannot BE resolved except by accepting the
solution of undoing. You WOULD be responsible for the effects of all your wrong
thinking IF IT COULD NOT BE UNDONE. The purpose of the Atonement is to save the
past in PURIFIED form only. If you accept the remedy FOR a thought-disorder, and
a remedy whose efficacy is beyond doubt, how can its symptoms remain? You have
reason to question the validity of symptom cure. But NO ONE believes that the
symptoms can remain if the underlying CAUSE is removed.
T 5 H. Time and Eternity
T 5 H 1. The CONTINUING will to remain separated is the only possible reason
for continuing guilt feelings. We have said this before, but we did not
emphasize the destructive results of this decision at that time. ANY decision of
the mind will affect both behavior AND experience. And what you will you EXPECT.
This is NOT delusional.
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Your mind DOES create your future, and CAN turn it back to full creation at any
minute, IF IT ACCEPTS THE ATONEMENT FIRST. It will also turn back to full
creation the instant it has done so. Having given up its thought DISORDER, the
proper ordering of thought becomes quite apparent.
T 5 H 2. God in His knowledge is not waiting. But His Kingdom IS bereft while
YOU wait. All the Sons of God are waiting for your return, just as YOU are
waiting for THEIRS. Delay does not matter in eternity, but it IS tragic in time.
You have elected to be in time rather than in eternity, and have therefore
changed your belief in your status. But election is both free and alterable. You
do NOT belong in time. Your place is ONLY in eternity, where God Himself placed
you forever.
T 5 H 3. Guilt feelings are the PRESERVERS of time. They induce fears of
FUTURE retaliation or abandonment, and thus ensure that the future will remain
like the past. This IS the ego’s continuity, and gives it a false sense of
security through the belief that you cannot escape from it. But you can and
MUST. God offers you the continuity of eternity in exchange. When you will to
make this exchange, you will simultaneously exchange guilt for peace,
viciousness for love, and pain for joy.
T 5 H 4. My role is only to unchain your will and make it free. Your egos
cannot accept this freedom, and will oppose your free decision at every possible
moment, and in every possible way.
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And as its maker, you KNOW what it can do, because you GAVE IT the ability to do
it. The mind does indeed know its power, because the mind does indeed know God.
Remember the Kingdom always, and remember that you who are part of it cannot BE
lost. The mind that was in me IS in you, for God creates with perfect fairness.
Let the Holy Spirit remind you always of His fairness, and let me teach you how
to share it with your brothers. How else can the chance to claim it for yourself
be given you?
T 5 H 5. What you do not understand is that the two voices speak for
different interpretations of the same thing simultaneously, or almost
simultaneously, for the ego always speaks first. Alternate interpretations are
unnecessary until the first one has been made, and speaking itself was
unnecessary before the ego was made. The ego speaks in judgment, and the Holy
Spirit reverses its decisions, much as the Supreme Court has the power to
reverse the lower courts decision about the laws of this world.
T 5 H 6. The ego’s decisions are ALWAYS wrong, because they are based on a
complete fallacy which they are made to uphold. NOTHING it perceives is
interpreted correctly. Not only does it cite scripture for its purpose, but it
even interprets scripture as a witness for itself. The Bible is a fearful thing
to the ego, because of its prejudiced judgment. Perceiving it as fearful, it
interprets it fearfully. Having made YOU afraid, you do not appeal to the higher
court, because you believe its judgment would be AGAINST you.
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T 5 H 7. We need cite only a few examples to see how the ego’s
interpretations have mislead you. A favorite ego quotation is "As ye sow, so
shall ye reap." Another is "Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord." Still another is
"I will visit the sins of the fathers unto the third and the fourth generation."
And also, "The wicked shall perish." There are many others, but if you will let
the Holy Spirit reinterpret these in its own light, they will suffice.
T 5 H 8. "As ye sow, so shall ye reap" merely means that what you believe to
be worth cultivating you will cultivate in yourself. Your judgment of what is
worthy DOES make it worthy for you.
T 5 H 9. "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.
T 5 H 10. "I will visit the sins of the fathers unto the third and fourth
generation," as interpreted by the ego, is particularly vicious. It is used, in
fact, as an attempt to guarantee its survival beyond itself. Actually, all it
really means is that the Holy Spirit in later generations retains the power to
interpret CORRECTLY what former generations have thought, and thus release THEIR
thoughts from the ability to produce fear ANYWHERE in the Sonship.
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T 5 H 11."The wicked shall perish" is merely a statement of fact, if the word
"perish" is properly understood. Every loveless thought MUST be undone, and even
the word "undone" is fearful to the ego, which interprets "I am undone" as "I am
destroyed." The ego will NOT be destroyed, because it is part of YOUR thought.
But because it is uncreative, and therefore unsharing, it WILL be reinterpreted
entirely, to release you from fear.
T 5 H 12. The part of your thought which you have given TO the ego will merely
return to the Kingdom, where your whole mind BELONGS. The ego is a form of
ARREST, but arrest is merely delay. It does NOT involve the concept of police at
all, although the ego welcomes that interpretation. You CAN delay the completion
of the Kingdom , but you CANNOT introduce the concept of ASSAULT into it.
T 5 H 13. When I said "I am come as a light into the world," I surely came to
share this light with you. Remember the symbolic reference we made before to the
ego’s dark glass, and remember also that we said "Do not look there." It is
still true that "Where you look to find yourself is up to you." The Higher Court
will not condemn you. It will merely dismiss the case against you. There can BE
no case against a child of God, and every witness to guilt in God’s creations is
bearing false witness to God Himself.
T 5 H 14.Appeal everything you believe gladly to God’s own Higher Court, because
it speaks for Him, and therefore speaks truly. It WILL dismiss the case against
you, however carefully YOU have built it.
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The case may be fool-proof, but it is NOT God-proof. The voice for God will not
hear it at all, because it can only witness truly. Its verdict will always be
"Thine is the Kingdom," because it was given you to remind you of what you ARE.
T 5 H 15. Your patience with each other is your patience with your selves. Is
not a child of God worth patience? I have shown you infinite patience, because
my will IS that of our Father, from whom I learned of infinite patience. His
voice was in me, as it is in you, speaking for patience towards the Sonship, in
the name of its Creator. What you need to learn now is that only infinite
patience CAN produce immediate effects. This is the way in which time is
exchanged for eternity. Infinite patience calls upon infinite Love, and by
producing results NOW renders time unnecessary.
T 5 H 16. 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.
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T 5 I. The Eternal Fixation
T 5 I 1. The concept of "set" is among the better psychological percepts.
Actually, it is used quite frequently in the Bible, and also here, under many
different terms. "God will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed (or
set) on Thee because he trusteth in Thee."
T 5 I 2. The pronouns here are confusing without explanation, and the attempt
to shift "Thee" to "Him" is a misinterpretation. The statement means that God’s
peace is set in the Holy Spirit, because it is fixed on God. It is also fixed in
you. You, then, ARE fixed in the peace of God.
T 5 I 3. The concept of "fixation" is a very helpful one, which Freud
understood perfectly. Unfortunately, he lost his understanding because he was
afraid, and as you know all too well, fear is incompatible with good judgment.
Fear DISTORTS thinking, and therefore DISorders thought. Freud’s system of
thought was extremely ingenious, because Freud was extremely ingenious. A mind
MUST endow its thoughts with its own attributes. This is its inherent STRENGTH,
even though it may misuse its power.
T 5 I 4. Freud lost much of the potential value of his own thought system
because, much like Cayce, he did NOT include himself in it. This IS a
dissociated state, because the thinker cuts himself off from his thoughts.
Freud’s thought was so conflicted that he could not have retained his sanity as
HE saw it WITHOUT dissociating. à
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This is why the many contradictions which are quite apparent in his thinking
became increasingly less apparent to Him.
T 5 I 5. A man who knows what fixation REALLY means and does NOT yield to it
is terribly afraid. Fixation is the pull of God, on whom your mind IS fixed
because of the Holy Spirit’s irrevocable set. "Irrevocable" means "cannot be
called back or redirected." The irrevocable nature of the Holy Spirit’s set is
the basis for its unequivocal voice. The Holy Spirit NEVER changes its mind.
Clarity of thought CANNOT occur under conditions of vacillation. Unless a mind
is fixed in its purpose, it is NOT clear. But clarity literally means the state
of light, and enlightenment IS understanding. It stands UNDER perception because
you have denied it as the REAL foundation of thought. This is the basis for ALL
delusional systems.
T 5 I 6. The concept of fixation, as Freud saw it, has a number of real
learning advantages. First, it recognizes that man CAN be fixated at a point in
development which does NOT accord with a point in time. This clearly could have
been a means toward real release from the time belief, had Freud pursued it with
an open mind. But Freud suffered all his life from refusal to allow eternity to
dawn upon his mind, and enlighten it truly. As a result, he overlooked NOW
entirely, and merely saw the continuity of past and future.
T 5 I 7. Second, although he misinterpreted what the Holy Spirit told him, or
better, reminded him of, he was too honest to deny more than he had to, to keep
his fear in tolerable bounds, as he perceived the situation. Therefore, he
EMPHASIZED that the point in development at which the mind is fixated is more
real to ITSELF than the external reality with which it DISagrees.
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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.
T 5 I 8. Third, although Freud interpreted fixations irrevocable danger
points to which the mind can always regress, the concept can also be interpreted
as an irrevocable call to sanity which the mind cannot LOSE. Freud saw return as
a threat to maturity because he did not understand prodigality. He merely
interpreted it as squandering. Actually, "prodigal" also means careful. This
confusion between careful and careless led him to confuse the escape from care
with something desirable. In fact, he even went so far as to equate it quite
literally WITH desire.
T 5 I 9. But throughout his thought-system, the "threat" of fixation
remained, and could never be completely eliminated by any living human being
anywhere. Essentially, this was the basis of his pessimism. This was personally
as well as theoretically the case. Freud tried every means his very inventive
mind could devise to set up a form of therapy which could enable the mind to
escape from fixation forever, even though he KNEW this was impossible. The
knowledge plagued his belief in his own thought-system at every turn, because he
was both an honest man and a healer. He was therefore only PARTIALLY insane at
the perceptual level, and was unable to relinquish the hope of release even
though he could not cope with [missing]
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T 5 I 10. The reason for this amount of detail is because YOU are in the same
position. You were eternally fixated on God in your creation, and the pull of
this fixation is so strong that you will never overcome it. The reason is
perfectly clear. The fixation is on a level that is so high that it cannot BE
surmounted. You are ALWAYS being pulled back to your Creator because you belong
in Him.
T 5 I 11. Do you REALLY believe you can make a voice that can drown out His?
Do you really believe that you can devise a thought-system which can separate
you from His? Do you REALLY believe that you can plan for your safety and joy
better than He can? You need be neither careful nor careless. You need merely
cast all your cares upon Him because He careth for YOU. You ARE His care because
He loves you. His voice reminds you always that all hope is yours BECAUSE of His
care.
T 5 I 12. You CANNOT choose to escape His care, because that is not His will.
But you CAN choose to accept His care, and use the infinite power OF His care
for all those He created BY it. There have been many healers who did not heal
themselves. They have not moved mountains by their faith because their faith
[?_was_not] WHOLE. Some of them have healed the sick at times, but they have not
raised the dead. Unless the healer heals HIMSELF, he does NOT believe that there
is no order in miracles. He has not learned that EVERY mind that God created is
equally worthy of being healed because GOD CREATED IT WHOLE.
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T 5 I 13. You are asked merely to return to God the mind as HE created it. He
asks you only for what He gave, knowing that this giving will heal YOU. Sanity
IS wholeness. And the sanity of your brothers IS yours. Why should you listen to
the endless insane calls which you think are made upon you, when you KNOW the
voice of God Himself is in you? God commended His Spirit to you, and asks that
you commend yours to Him. He wills to keep it in perfect peace because you are
of one mind and Spirit with Him.
T 5 I 14. Excluding yourself from the Atonement is the ego’s last-ditch
defense of its own existence. It reflects both the ego’s need to separate, and
your willingness to side with its separateness. This willingness means that YOU
DO NOT WANT TO BE HEALED. When I told Bill that there is "just one more thing,"
he heard me very well. I hope he will hear me as well now. His intelligent
mis-hearing of "river" as "rivet" showed that, even though he wanted release, he
was not able to cope with it at the time.
T 5 I 15. 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 clear
and perfectly explicit to you, and have also told you of your part in His Plan
and how urgent it is that you fulfill it.
T 5 I 16. There is time for delay, but there need not be. God weeps at the
sacrifice of His children who believe they are lost to Him. The "one more thing"
that Bill must learn is merely that he is NOT the one more. He is both ONE and
AT ONE. If he will learn this NOW, he will be willing in accord with the last
judgment, which is really only the Biblical reminder of the inevitability of
self-INCLUSION. This is what "Physician, heal thyself" really means. Bill has
frequently observed for HIMSELF that this is hard to do. He has, however, been
perfectly aware of
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JUST what YOU should do about it.
T 5 I 17. You might ask him for me whether he does not think he might be
dissociating HIMSELF from his own awareness, since he is so clear about the
remedy for YOU. You might also remind him that to whatever extent he separates
himself from you, he is separating himself from ME. This IS a collaborative
venture. Let me therefore return his own ideas to him, so that you can share
them and thus help each other to help me.
T 5 I 18. But let me first remind you of something I told you myself. Whenever
you are not wholely joyous, it is because you have reacted with a lack of love
to some Soul which God created. Perceiving this as sin, you become defensive
because you EXPECT ATTACK. The decision to react in that way, however, was
YOURS, and can therefore be undone. It CANNOT be undone by repentance in the
usual sense, because this implies guilt. If you allow yourself to feel guilty,
you will reinforce the error, rather than allowing it to be undone FOR you.
T 5 I 19. Decisions CANNOT be difficult. This is obvious if you realize that
you must ALREADY have made a decision NOT to be wholly joyous if that is what
you feel. Therefore, the first step in the undoing is to recognize that YOU
ACTIVELY DECIDED WRONGLY, BUT CAN AS ACTIVELY DECIDE OTHERWISE.
T 5 I 20. 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:
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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.
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Chapter VI- 6 - Attack And Fear
T 6 A. Introduction
March 22, 1966
T 6 A 1. The relationship of anger to attack is obvious, but the inevitable
association of anger and FEAR is not always so clear. Anger ALWAYS involves
PROJECTION OF SEPARATION, which must ultimately be accepted as entirely one’s
own responsibility. Anger cannot occur unless you believe that you have been
attacked; the attack was justified; and you are in no way responsible for it.
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?
T 6 A 2. The way to undo an insane conclusion is always 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. And we have often said that an extreme
example is a particularly helpful learning device. EVERYONE teaches, and teaches
all the time. This is a responsibility which he assumes inevitably, the moment
he has accepted any premises 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.
T 6 A 3. You have been chosen to teach the Atonement precisely BECAUSE you
have been EXTREME examples of allegiance to your thought systems, and therefore
have developed the capacity FOR allegiance. It has indeed been misplaced. Bill
had become an outstanding example of allegiance to apathy, and you have become a
startling example of fidelity to variability. But this IS a form of faith, which
you yourselves had grown willing to redirect. You cannot doubt the STRENGTH of
your devotion when you consider how faithfully you observed it. It was quite
evident that you had ALREADY developed the ability to follow a better model, if
you could ACCEPT it.
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T 6 B. The Message of the Crucifixion
T 6 B 1. We have not dwelt upon the crucifixion, because of its fearful
connotations. The only emphasis we laid upon it was that it was NOT a form of
punishment. But we know that nothing can be really explained only in negative
terms. There is a positive interpretation of the crucifixion which is wholly
devoid of fear, and therefore wholly benign in what it teaches, if it is
properly understood. It is nothing more than an extreme example. Its value, like
the value of any teaching device, lies solely in the kind of learning it
facilitates. It can be, and has been, misunderstood. But this is only because
the fearful are apt to perceive fearfully.
T 6 B 2. I told you before that you can always call on me to share my
decision and thus MAKE IT STRONGER. I also told you that the crucifixion was the
last foolish journey that the Sonship need take, and that it should means
RELEASE from fear to anyone who understands it. While we emphasized the
Resurrection only before, the purpose of the crucifixion and how it actually LED
to the Resurrection was not clarified at that time. Nevertheless, it has a
definite contribution to make to your own lives, and if you will consider it
WITHOUT fear, it will help you understand your own role as teachers.
T 6 B 3. You have reacted for years AS IF you were being crucified. This is a
marked tendency of the separated, who ALWAYS refuse to consider what they have
done to THEMSELVES. Projection means anger, anger fosters assault, and assault
promotes fear. The real meaning of the crucifixion lies in the APPARENT
intensity of the assault of some of the Sons of God upon a brother. This, of
course, is impossible, and must be fully understood AS an impossibility. In
fact, unless it IS fully understood as ONLY that, I cannot serve as a real model
for learning.
T 6 B 4. Assault can ultimately be made ONLY on the body. There is little
doubt that one BODY can assault another, and can even destroy it. But if
destruction ITSELF is impossible, then ANYTHING that is destructible cannot be
real. Therefore, its destruction does NOT justify anger. To the extent
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to which you believe it DOES, you MUST be accepting false premises and TEACHING
THEM TO OTHERS. The message which the crucifixion was intended to teach was that
it is not necessary to perceive ANY form of assault in persecution because you
cannot BE persecuted. If you respond with anger, you MUST be equating yourself
with the destructible, and are therefore regarding yourself insanely. I have
made it perfectly clear that I am like you, and you are like me. But our
fundamental equality can be demonstrated only through joint decision.
T 6 B 5. You are free to perceive yourselves as persecuted if you chose But
you might remember when you DO chose to react that way that I WAS persecuted as
the world judges, and did NOT share this evaluation for myself. And because I
did not share it, I did NOT strengthen it. I therefore offered a DIFFERENT
interpretation of attack, and one which I DO want to share with you. If you will
BELIEVE it, you will help me TEACH it.
T 6 B 6. We have said before, "As you teach so shall you learn." If you react
as if you are persecuted, you ARE teaching persecution. This is not a lesson
which the Sons of God should WANT to teach if they are to realize their own
salvation. Rather teach your own perfect immunity, which IS the Truth in you,
and KNOW that it cannot be assailed. Do not protect it yourselves, or you have
believed that it IS assailable. You are not asked to BE crucified, because that
was part of my own teaching contribution. You are merely asked to follow my
example in the face of much less extreme temptations to misperceive, and NOT to
accept them falsely as justifications for anger.
T 6 B 7. 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.
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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.
T 6 B 8. My brothers slept during the so-called "agony in the garden," but I
could not be angry with them, because I had learned I could not BE abandoned.
Peter swore he would never deny me, but he did so three times. It should be
noted that he did offer to defend me with the sword, which I naturally refused,
not being at all in need of bodily protection. I AM sorry when my brothers do
not share my decision to hear (and be) only one voice, because it weakens them
as teachers AND learners. But yet I know that they cannot really betray
themselves or me, and that it is still on them that I MUST build my church.
T 6 B 9. There is no choice in this, because only you can BE the foundation
of God’s church. A church is where an altar is, and the presence of the altar is
what makes it a church. Any church which does not inspire love has a hidden
altar which is not serving the purpose for which God intended it. I must found
His church on you because you, who accept me as a model are literally my
disciples. Disciples are followers, but if the model they follow has chosen to
save them pain in all respects, they are probably unwise NOT to follow him.
T 6 B 10. I elected, both for your sake AND mine, to demonstrate that the most
outrageous assault, as judged by the ego, did not matter. As the world judges
these things, but NOT as God knows them, I was betrayed, abandoned, beaten,
torn, and finally killed. It was perfectly clear that this was only because of
the projection of others onto me, because I had not harmed anyone and had healed
many. We are still equal as learners, even though we need not have equal
experiences. The Holy Spirit is glad when you can learn enough from MINE to be
re-awakened by them. That was their only purpose, and that is the only way
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in which I can be perceived as the Way, the Truth, and the Light.
T 6 B 11. When you hear only one voice, you are never called on to sacrifice.
On the contrary, by enabling yourselves to hear the Holy Spirit in others, you
can learn from their experiences and gain from them WITHOUT experiencing them.
That is because the Holy Spirit IS one, and anyone who listens is inevitably led
to demonstrate His way for ALL. You are not persecuted, nor was I. You are not
asked to repeat my experience, because the Holy Spirit which we SHARE, makes
this unnecessary. But to use my experiences constructively for yourselves, you
must still follow my example in how to perceive them.
T 6 B 12. My brothers and yours are constantly engaged in justifying the
unjustifiable. My one lesson, which I must teach as I learned, is that no
perception which is out of accord with the judgment of the Holy Spirit CAN be
justified. I undertook to show this was true in a very extreme case, merely
because this would serve as a good teaching aid to those whose temptations to
give in to anger and assault would NOT be as extreme.
T 6 B 13. I will, with God Himself, that none of His Sons should suffer.
Remember that the Holy Spirit is the communication link between God the Father
and His separated Sons. If you will listen to His voice, you will know that you
cannot either hurt or BE hurt, but that many need your blessing to help them
hear this for themselves. When you perceive only this need in them, and do not
respond to any others, you will have learned of me, and be as eager to share
your learning as I am. The crucifixion CANNOT be shared, because it is the
symbol of projection. But the Resurrection IS the symbol of sharing, because the
re-awakening of every Son of God is necessary to enable the Sonship to know its
wholeness. Only this IS knowledge.
T 6 B 14. The message of the crucifixion is very simple and perfectly clear:
"teach ONLY love, for that is what you ARE." If you interpret it in any other
way, you are using it as a weapon for assault rather than as the call to peace
for which it was intended. The Apostles often misunderstood it, and always for
the same reason that makes anyone misunderstand anything. Their
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own imperfect love made them vulnerable to projection, and out of their own fear
they spoke of the wrath of God as His retaliatory weapon. They also could not
speak of the crucifixion entirely without anger, because their own sense of
guilt had made them angry.
T 6 B 15. There are two glaring examples of upside down thinking in the New
Testament, whose whole Gospel is only the message of love. These are not at all
like the several slips into impatience which I made, because I had learned the
Atonement prayer, which I also came to teach, too well to engage in upside down
thinking myself. 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.
T 6 B 16. Nor could they have described my reactions to Judas Iscariot as they
did, if they had really understood ME. They could not have believed that I could
[?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?
T 6 B 17. I am very grateful to the Apostles for their teaching, and fully
aware of the extent of their devotion to me. But as you read their teachings,
remember that I told them myself that there was much they would understand
later, because they were not wholly ready to follow me at the time. I emphasize
this only because I do not want you to allow ANY fear to enter into the thought
system toward which I am guiding you. I do NOT call for martyrs but for
TEACHERS.
T 6 B 18. Bill is an outstanding example of this confusion, and has literally
believed for years that teaching IS martyrdom. This is because he thought, and
still thinks at times, that teaching leads to crucifixion rather than to
re-awakening. The upside down nature of this association is so obvious that
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he could only have made it BECAUSE he felt guilty. No-one is "punished" for
sins, and the Sons of God are not sinners. ANY concept of "punishment" involves
the projection of blame, and RE-INFORCES the idea that blame is justified. The
behavior that results is a LESSON IN BLAME, just as all behavior teaches the
beliefs that motivate it.
T 6 B 19. The crucifixion was a complex of behaviors arising out of clearly
opposed thought systems. As such, it is the perfect symbol of conflict between
the ego and the Son of God. It was as much intrapersonal as interpersonal then,
just as it is now, and it is still just as real. But BECAUSE it is just as real
now, its lesson, too, has equal reality when it is learned. I do not need
gratitude any more than I needed protection. But YOU need to develop your
weakened ability to BE grateful, or you cannot appreciate God. HE does not need
your appreciation, but you DO.
T 6 B 20. 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.
T 6 B 21. 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.à
C 104 [split paragraph]
T 6 C. The Uses of Projection
T 6 C 1. Any split in will MUST involve a rejection of part of it, and this
IS the belief in separation. The wholeness of God, which IS His peace, cannot be
appreciated EXCEPT by a whole mind, which recognizes the wholeness of God’s
creation and BY this recognition knows its Creator.
T 6 C 2. Exclusion and separation are synonymous. So are separation and
dissociation. We have said before that the separation was and IS dissociation,
and also that once it had occurred, projection became its main defense, or the
device which KEEPS IT GOING. The reason, however, may not be
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as clear to you as you think. What you project you disown, and therefore do not
believe is yours. You are therefore EXCLUDING yourself from it, by the very
statement you are making that you are DIFFERENT from someone else. Since you
have also judged AGAINST what you project, you attack it because you have
already attacked it BY rejecting it. By doing this UNCONSCIOUSLY, you try to
keep the fact that you must have attacked yourself FIRST out of awareness, and
thus imagine that you have made yourself safe.
T 6 C 3. Projection will ALWAYS hurt you. It reinforces your belief in your
own split mind, and its ONLY purpose is to KEEP THE SEPARATION GOING. It is
solely a device of the ego to make you feel DIFFERENT from your brothers and
separated FROM them. The ego justifies this on the wholly spurious grounds that
it makes you seem better than they are, thus obscuring equality with them still
further.
T 6 C 4. Projection and attack are inevitably related, because projection is
ALWAYS a means of JUSTIFYING attack. Anger without projection is impossible. The
ego uses projection ONLY to distort your perception of both yourself AND your
brothers. It begins by excluding something you think exists in you which you do
not want, and leads directly to your excluding yourself from your brothers.
T 6 C 5. But we know that there is another use of projection. Every ability
of the ego has a better counterpart, because its abilities are directed by the
mind, which has a better voice. The Holy Spirit, as well as the ego, utilizes
projection but since their goals are opposed, so is the result. The Holy Spirit
begins by perceiving YOU as perfect. KNOWING this perfection is shared, it
RECOGNIZES it in others, thus strengthening it in both. Instead of anger, this
arouses love FOR both because IT ESTABLISHES INCLUSION. Perceiving equality, it
perceives equal needs. This invites Atonement automatically, because Atonement
IS the one need which is universal.
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T 6 C 6. To perceive YOURSELF in this way is the ONLY way in which you can
find happiness in this world. This is because it is the acknowledgement that you
are NOT in this world, and the world IS unhappy. How else can you find joy in a
joyless place EXCEPT by realizing that you are NOT there? You cannot be anywhere
that God did not put you, and God created you as part of HIM. That is both WHERE
you are and WHAT you are. This is COMPLETELY unalterable. It is total inclusion.
You cannot change this now or ever. It is forever true. It is NOT a belief, but
a fact.
T 6 C 7. Anything that God creates is as true as He is. Its truth lies only
in its perfect inclusion in Him Who alone IS perfect. To deny this in any way is
to deny yourself AND Him, because it is impossible to accept one without the
other. The perfect equality of the Holy Spirit’s perception is the counterpart
of the perfect equality of God’s knowing. The ego’s perception has no
counterpart in God, but the Holy Spirit remains the bridge between perception
and knowledge. By enabling you to use perception in a way that PARALLELS
knowledge, it you will ultimately meet it and KNOW it.
T 6 C 8. The ego prefers to believe that parallel lines do not meet, and
conceives of their meeting as impossible. You might remember that the human eye
perceives them as if they DO meet in the distance, which is the same as in the
future, if time and space are one dimension. The later mathematics support the
interpretation of ultimate convergence of the parallel theoretically. EVERYTHING
meets in God, because everything was created BY Him and IN Him. God created His
Sons by extending His Thought and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His
Mind. ALL His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each
other because they, were created neither partially nor in part.
T 6 C 9.The Holy Spirit enables you to PERCEIVE THIS WHOLENESS NOW. You can no
more pray for yourselves alone than you can fine joy for yourself
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alone. Prayer is a re-statement of INCLUSION, directed by the Holy Spirit under
the laws of God. God created you to create. You cannot EXTEND His Kingdom until
you KNOW of its wholeness. But thoughts begin in the mind of the thinker, from
which they extend outward. This is as true of God’s thinking as it is of yours.
Because your minds are split, you can also perceive as well as think, but
perception cannot escape from the basic laws of mind. You perceive FROM your
mind, and extend your perceptions outward.
T 6 C 10. Although perception of any kind is unnecessary, YOU made it and the
Holy Spirit can therefore use it well. He can INSPIRE perception and lead it
toward God by making it PARALLEL to God’s way of thinking, and thus guaranteeing
their ultimate meeting. This convergence SEEMS to be far in the future ONLY
because your mind is NOT in perfect alignment with the idea, and therefore DOES
NOT WANT IT NOW. The Holy Spirit USES time, but does NOT believe in it. Coming
from God, He uses EVERYTHING for good, but does not BELIEVE in what is not true.
T 6 C 11. Since the Holy Spirit IS in your minds, then your minds must be able
to believe ONLY what is true. The Holy Spirit can speak only for this, because
he speaks for God. He tells you to return your whole mind to God, BECAUSE IT HAS
NEVER LEFT HIM. If it has never left Him, you need only perceive it as it is to
BE returned. The full awareness of the Atonement, then, is the recognition that
the separation NEVER OCCURRED. The ego CANNOT prevail against this, because it
is an explicit statement that the EGO never occurred.
T 6 C 12. The ego can accept the idea that RETURN is necessary, because it can
so easily make the idea seem so difficult. But the Holy Spirit tells you that
even RETURN is unnecessary, because what never happened CANNOT involve ANY
problem. But it does NOT follow that YOU cannot make the idea of return both
necessary AND difficult. God made nothing either necessary OR difficult. But YOU
have perceived both AS IF they were part of His perfect creations. Yet it is
surely clear that the perfect NEED nothing, and CANNOT
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experience perfection as a difficult accomplishment because that is what they
ARE.
T 6 C 13. This is the way in which you MUST perceive God’s Creations, bringing
all of your perceptions into the one parallel line which the Holy Spirit sees.
This line is the direct line of communication with God, and lets YOUR mind
converge with HIS. There is no conflict anywhere in this perception, because it
means that ALL perception is guided by the Holy Spirit, whose mind is fixed on
God. ONLY the Holy Spirit can resolve conflict, because ONLY the Holy Spirit is
conflict-free. He perceives ONLY what is true in YOUR mind, and extends outward
to ONLY what is true in other minds.
T 6 C 14. The difference between the ego’s use of projection and projection as
the Holy Spirit uses it is very simple. The ego projects to EXCLUDE and
therefore to deceive. The Holy Spirit projects by RECOGNIZING HIMSELF in EVERY
mind, and thus perceives them as ONE. Nothing conflicts in this perception,
because what the Holy Spirit perceives IS the same. Wherever He looks He sees
Himself, and because He is UNITED, He offers the whole Kingdom always. This is
the one message which God gave TO Him, and for which He must speak because that
is what He IS. The peace of God lies in that message, and so the peace of God
lies in YOU.
T 6 C 15. 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 [???inserted] impartially can
you perceive Him at all. The ego is legion, but the Holy Spirit is one. No
darkness abides ANYWHERE in the Kingdom, so your part is only to allow no
darkness to abide in your OWN mind. This alignment with Light is unlimited,
because it is in alignment with the Light of the world. Each of us IS the Light
of the world, and by joining our minds IN this Light, we proclaim the Kingdom of
God together and AS ONE.
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T 6 D. The Relinquishment of Attack
March 29, ’66.
T 6 D 1. We have used many words as synonymous which are not ordinarily
regarded as the same. We began with having and being, and recently have used
others. Hearing and being is an example, to which we can also add teaching and
being, learning and being, and, above all, PROJECTING and being. This is
because, as we have said before, every idea begins in the mind of the thinker
and extends outward. Therefore, what extends FROM the mind IS STILL IN IT, and
FROM what it extends it knows ITSELF. This is its natural talent.
T 6 D 2. The word "knows" is correct here, even though the ego does NOT know,
and is not concerned with BEING at all. The Holy Spirit still holds knowledge
safe through its impartial perception. By attacking nothing, it presents no
barrier at all to the communication of God. Therefore, being is never
threatened. Your Godlike mind can never be defiled. The ego never was and never
will be part of it.
T 6 D 3. But through the ego you CAN hear and learn and teach and project
WHAT IS NOT TRUE. From this, which YOU have made, you have taught yourselves to
believe you ARE NOT what you ARE. You CANNOT teach what you have not learned.
And what you teach you strengthen in yourselves BECAUSE you are sharing it.
Every lesson which you teach YOU are learning.
T 6 D 4. 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. And only BY
teaching it can YOU learn it.
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T 6 D 5. "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.
T 6 D 6. The perfectly safe ARE wholly benign. They bless because they know
they ARE blessed. Without anxiety, the mind is wholly kind, and because it
PROJECTS beneficence, it IS beneficent. Safety is the COMPLETE RELINQUISHMENT OF
ATTACK. No compromise is possible in this. Teach attack in any form, and YOU
HAVE LEARNED IT AND IT WILL HURT YOU. But your learning is not immortal, and you
can unlearn it BY NOT TEACHING IT. Since you cannot NOT teach, your salvation
lies in teaching exactly the opposite of everything the ego believes. This is
how YOU will learn the truth that will make you free, and keep you so as others
learn it of YOU.
T 6 D 7. The only way to HAVE peace is to TEACH peace. By learning it through
projection, it becomes a part of you that you KNOW, because you cannot teach
what you have dissociated. Only thus can you win back the knowledge you threw
away. An idea which you SHARE you MUST HAVE. It awakens in you through the
conviction of teaching. Remember that if teaching is being and learning is
being, then teaching is learning. EVERYTHING you teach YOU are learning. Teach
only love, and learn that love is yours and YOU are love.
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T 6 E. The Only Answer
March 30, 1966
T 6 E 1. Remember that the Holy Spirit is the ANSWER, not the question. The
ego always speaks first, because it is capricious and does NOT mean its maker
well. This is because it believes, and correctly, that its maker may withdraw
his support from it at any moment. If it meant you well, it would be glad, as
the Holy Spirit will be glad when He has brought you home and you no longer need
His guidance. The ego does NOT regard itself as part of you. Herein lies its
primary perceptual error, the foundation of its whole thought system.
T 6 E 2. When God created you, He made you part of Him. That is why attack
WITHIN the Kingdom is impossible. But YOU made the ego without love, and so it
does not love YOU. You could not remain WITHIN the Kingdom without love, and
since the Kingdom IS love, you believe you are WITHOUT it. This enables the ego
to regard itself as separate and OUTSIDE its maker, thus speaking for the part
of your mind that believes YOU are separate and outside the Mind of God.
T 6 E 3. The ego, then, raised the first question that was ever asked, but it
can never answer it. That question, which was "What are you?" was the beginning
of doubt. The ego has never answered ANY questions since, though it has raised a
great many. The most inventive activities of the ego have never done more than
OBSCURE THE QUESTION, because you HAVE the answer, and THE EGO IS AFRAID OF YOU.
You cannot really understand conflict until YOU fully understand one basic fact
that the ego does not know. The Holy Spirit does not speak first, but He ALWAYS
answers. EVERYONE has called upon Him for help at one time or another, and in
one way or another, AND HAS BEEN ANSWERED. Since the Holy Spirit answers truly,
He answers FOR ALL TIME, and that means that everyone has the answer NOW.
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T 6 E 4. The ego cannot hear the Holy Spirit, but it DOES feel that part of
the same mind that made it is against it. It interprets this wholly as a
justification for ATTACKING its maker. The ego believes that the best defense is
attack, and WANTS YOU TO BELIEVE THIS. Unless you DO believe it, you will not
side with it. And the ego feels badly in need of allies, though not of brothers.
T 6 E 5. Perceiving something alien to itself in your MIND, the ego turns to
the body, NOT the mind as its ally BECAUSE the body is not part of you. This
makes the body the ego’s friend. But it is an alliance frankly based on
separation. If you side with this alliance, you WILL be afraid, because you are
siding with an alliance OF fear. The ego and the body conspire AGAINST your
minds, and because they realize that their "enemy" CAN end them both merely by
knowing they are not part of him, they join in the attack together. This is
perhaps the strangest perception of all, if you consider what it really
involves. The ego, which is not real, attempts to persuade the mind, which IS
real, that it IS its own learning device, and that the learning device is more
real than IT is. No-one in his right mind could POSSIBLY believe this, and
no-one in his right mind DOES believe it.
T 6 E 6. Hear, then, the one answer of the Holy Spirit to ALL the questions
which the ego raises. You are a Child of God, a priceless part of His Kingdom,
which He created as part of Him. Nothing else exists, and ONLY this is real. You
have chosen a sleep in which you have had bad dreams, but the sleep is not real,
and God calls you to awake. There will be nothing left of your dream when you
hear Him, because you WILL be awake. Your dreams have contained many of the
ego’s symbols, and they have confused you. But that was only because you were
asleep and DID NOT KNOW.
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T 6 E 7. When you awake, you will see the Truth around you and in you, and
you will no longer believe in dreams, because they will have no reality for you.
But the Kingdom and all that you have created there will have great reality for
you, because they are beautiful and true. In the Kingdom, where you are and what
you are is perfectly certain. There is no doubt there, because the first
question was never asked. Having finally been wholly answered, IT HAS NEVER
BEEN. BEING alone lives in the Kingdom, where everything lives in God without
question. The time that was spent on questioning in the dream has given way to
the Creation and to its Eternity.
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April 1, 1966
T 6 E 8. YOU are as certain as God, because you are as true as He is. But
what was once quite certain in your minds has become only the ABILITY for
certainty. The introduction of abilities into being was the beginning of
UNcertainty, because abilities are POTENTIALS, not accomplishments. Your
abilities are totally useless in the presence of God’s accomplishments and also
of yours. Accomplishments are RESULTS which HAVE BEEN achieved. When they are
perfect, abilities are meaningless.
T 6 E 9. It is curious that the perfect must now be perfected. In fact, it is
impossible. But you must remember that when you put yourselves in an impossible
situation, you believed that the impossible WAS possible.
T 6 E 10. 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.
T 6 E 11. 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.
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T 6 E 12. This is the kind of reasoning that the ego engages in, but God, who
KNOWS that His creations are perfect does NOT insult them. This would be as
impossible as the ego’s notion that it has insulted Him. That is why the Holy
Spirit NEVER commands. To command is to assume INequality, which the Holy Spirit
demonstrates does not exist. Fidelity to premises is a law of the mind, and
everything God created is faithful to His laws. But fidelity to other laws is
also possible, not because the laws are true, but because YOU MADE THEM.
T 6 E 13. What would be gained if God proved to you that you have thought
insanely? Can God lose His own certainty? We have frequently stated that what
you teach [?you] ARE. Would you have God teach you that you have sinned? If He
confronted the self you have made with the Truth He created FOR you, what could
you be but afraid? You would doubt your sanity, which is the one thing in which
you can FIND the sanity He gave you. God does not teach. To teach is to imply a
lack which God KNOWS is not there. God is not conflicted. Teaching aims at
change, but God created ONLY the changeless.
T 6 E 14. The separation was not a loss of perfection, but a failure in
communication. A harsh and strident form of communication arose as the ego’s
voice. It could not shatter the peace of God, but it COULD shatter YOURS. God
did not blot it out, because to eradicate it would be to attack it. Being
questioned, He did not question. He merely gave the Answer.
T 6 E 15. God’s answer IS your teacher.
T 6 F. "To Have, Give All to All"
C 115 [split paragraph]
T 6 F 1. Like any good teacher, He DOES know more than you know NOW, but He
teaches only to make you equals. This is because you had ALREADY taught wrong,
having believed what was not true. YOU DID NOT BELIEVE IN YOUR OWN PERFECTION.
Could God teach you that you had made a split mind when He knows your mind only
as whole?
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T 6 F 2. What God DOES know is that His communication channels are not open
to Him, so that He cannot impart His joy and know that His Children are wholly
joyous. This is an ongoing process, not in time, but in eternity. God’s
extending outward, though not His completeness, was blocked when the Sonship
does not communicate with Him as one. So He thought, "My Children sleep, and
must be awakened."
T 6 F 3. How can you wake children better and more kindly than with a gentle
Voice that will not frighten them, but will merely remind them that the night is
over and the Light has come? You do not inform them that the nightmares which
frightened them so badly were not real, because children BELIEVE in magic. You
merely reassure them that they are safe NOW. Then you train them to RECOGNIZE
THE DIFFERENCE between sleeping and waking, so that THEY will understand they
need not be afraid of dreams. Then when bad dreams come, they will call on the
Light THEMSELVES to dispel them.
T 6 F 4. A wise teacher teaches through approach, NOT avoidance. He does not
emphasize what you must avoid to escape from harm as much as what you need to
learn to have joy. This is true even of the world’s teachers. Consider the
confusion that a child would experience if he were told, "Do not do THIS because
it might hurt you and make you unsafe, but if you do THAT you will escape from
harm and be safe, and then you will not be afraid." All of this could be
included in only three words: "Do only that." That simple statement is perfectly
clear, easily understood, and very easily remembered.
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T 6 F 5. The Holy Spirit NEVER itemizes errors, because He does not frighten
children, and those who lack wisdom ARE children. But He ALWAYS answers their
call, and His dependability makes THEM more certain. Children DO confuse fantasy
and reality, and they ARE frightened because they do not know the difference.
T 6 F 6. The Holy Spirit makes NO distinction among dreams. He merely shines
them away. His light is ALWAYS the call to awake, WHATEVER you may have been
dreaming. Nothing lasting lies in dreams, and the Holy Spirit, shining with the
light from God Himself, speaks only for what lasts forever.
T 6 F 7. When your body and your ego and your dreams are gone, you will know
that YOU will last forever. Many think that this is accomplished through death,
but NOTHING is accomplished through death because death is nothing. EVERYTHING
is accomplished through life, and life is of the mind and in the Mind. The body
neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain you who ARE life. If we share
the same mind, you can overcome death BECAUSE I DID. Death is an attempt to
resolve conflict by not willing at all. Like any other impossible solution which
the ego attempts, IT WILL NOT WORK.
T 6 F 8. God did not make the body, because it is destructible, and therefore
not of the Kingdom. The body is the symbol of the what you THINK you are. It is
clearly a separation device, and therefore does not exist. The Holy Spirit, as
always, takes what you have made and translates it into a learning device FOR
you. Again, as always, it reinterprets what the ego uses as an argument FOR
separation into an argument AGAINST it.
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T 6 F 9. If the mind can heal the body, but the body cannot heal the mind,
then the mind must be STRONGER. Every miracle demonstrates this. We have said
that the Holy Spirit is the MOTIVATION for miracles. This is because He ALWAYS
tells you that ONLY the mind is real, because only the mind CAN BE SHARED. The
body IS separate, and therefore CANNOT be part of you. To be of one mind is
meaningful, but to be of one body is meaningless. By the laws of mind, then, the
body IS meaningless.
T 6 F 10. 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.
T 6 F 11. Only one equal gift CAN be offered to the equal Sons of God, and
that is FULL APPRECIATION. Nothing more and nothing less. Without a range, order
of difficulty IS meaningless, and there must BE no range in what you offer to
each other. The Holy Spirit, which leads to God, translates communication into
being, just as He ultimately translates perception into knowledge.
T 6 F 12. You DO NOT LOSE WHAT YOU COMMUNICATE. The ego uses the body for
attack, for pleasure, and for pride. The insanity of this perception makes it a
fearful one. The Holy Spirit sees it only as a means of COMMUNICATION. And
because communicating IS sharing, it becomes communion. You might argue that
fear as well as love can be communicated, and therefore can be shared. But this
is not so real as it sounds. Those who communicate fear are promoting attack,
and attack always BREAKS communication, and therefore makes communion
impossible.
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T 6 F 13. 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.
T 6 F 14. This is a very preliminary step, and the only one you must take
yourself. It is not even necessary that you COMPLETE the step yourself, but it
IS necessary that you turn in that direction. Having willed to go that way, you
place YOURSELF in charge of the journey, where you and ONLY you must remain.
T 6 F 15. This step APPEARS to exacerbate conflict rather than resolve it,
because it is the BEGINNING step in reversing your perception and turning it
right side up. This conflicts with the upside down perception which you have not
yet abandoned, or the change in direction would not have been necessary. Some
people remain at this step for a very long time, experiencing VERY acute
conflict. Many try to accept the CONFLICT, rather than to take the next step
toward its resolution. But having taken the first step, they WILL be helped.
Having willed what they CANNOT complete alone, THEY ARE NO LONGER ALONE.
T 6 F 16. You, Helen, had taken this step, and because you believed in it, you
taught it to Bill, who still believed in the solution of sleep. You were not
consistent in teaching it, but you did so often enough to enable him to learn
it. Once HE learned it, he could teach YOU how to become more consistently
awake, and thus begin to waken HIMSELF. This placed him, too, in command of the
journey. His recognition of the direction it must take was perfectly stated when
he INSISTED ON COLLABORATION.
T 6 F 17. You, H., had taken a giant step INTO conflict, but B. turned you
both forwards TOWARD THE WAY OUT. The more he teaches this, the more he will
learn it.
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T 6 G. "To Have Peace, Teach Peace to Learn It"
APRIL 3, ‘66
T 6 G 1. All the separated ones have a basic fear of retaliation and
abandonment. This is because they BELIEVE in attack and rejection, so this is
what they perceive and teach and LEARN. These insane concepts are clearly the
result of their own dissociation and projection. What you teach you are, but it
is quite apparent that you can teach wrongly, and therefore TEACH YOURSELVES
WRONG. Many thought that I was attacking them, even though it is quite apparent
that I was NOT. An insane learner learns strange lessons.
T 6 G 2. What you must understand is that, when you do not SHARE a thought
system, you ARE weakening it. Those who BELIEVE in it therefore perceive this as
an ATTACK ON THEM. This is because everyone identifies himself WITH his thought
system, and EVERY thought system centers on WHAT YOU BELIEVE YOU ARE. If the
center of the thought system is TRUE, only truth extends outward from it. But if
a lie is at its center, only DECEPTION proceeds from it. All good teachers
realize that only fundamental change will last. But they do NOT begin at that
level. Strengthening MOTIVATION for change is their first and foremost goal. It
is also their last and final one. Increasing motivation for change IN THE
LEARNER is all that a teacher NEED do to GUARANTEE change. This is because a
change in motivation IS a change of mind, and this will INEVITABLY produce
fundamental change BECAUSE the mind is fundamental.
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T 6 G 3. The first step in the reversal or undoing process, then, is the
UNDOING of the getting concept. Accordingly, the Holy Spirit’s first lesson was:
To HAVE, GIVE all TO all. We said that this is apt to INCREASE conflict
temporarily, and we can clarify this still further now. At this point, the
equality of having and being is not yet perceived. Until it IS, having still
appears to be the OPPOSITE of being. Therefore, the first lesson SEEMS to
contain a contradiction because it is BEING LEARNED BY A CONFLICTED MIND. This
MEANS conflicting motivation, and so the lesson CANNOT be learned consistently
as yet.
T 6 G 4. Further, the mind of the learner projects its own split, and
therefore does NOT perceive consistent minds in others, making him suspicious of
THEIR motivations. This is the real reason why in many respects the first lesson
is the hardest to learn. Still strongly aware of the ego in himself, and
responding primarily TO the ego in others, he is being taught to react to BOTH
as if what he DOES believe IS NOT TRUE.
T 6 G 5. Upside down as always, the ego perceives the first lesson as insane.
In fact, this is its only alternative here, because the other one, which would
be much LESS acceptable, would obviously be that IT is insane. The ego’s
judgment, then, is predetermined by what it IS, though not more so than is any
other product of thought. The fundamental change will still occur with the
change of mind IN THE THINKER.
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T 6 G 6. Meanwhile, the increasing clarity of the Holy Spirit’s voice makes
it impossible for the learner NOT TO LISTEN. For a time, then, he IS receiving
conflicting messages AND ACCEPTING BOTH. This is the classic "double bind" in
communication, which you wrote about yourselves quite recently, and with good
examples too. It is interesting that Helen claimed at the time that she had
never heard of it and did not understand it. You might remember our brother’s
insistence on its inclusion. Helen thought he had become (quite) irrational on
this point, but it was quite strongly reinforced in HIS mind, and so he wanted
to teach it in his text. This, of course, was a very good way for YOU to learn
it.
T 6 G 7. The way out of conflict between two opposing thought systems is
clearly TO CHOOSE ONE AND RELINQUISH THE OTHER. If you identify WITH your
thought system, and you cannot escape this, and if you accept two thought
systems which are in COMPLETE DISagreement, peace of mind IS impossible. If you
TEACH both, which you will surely do as long as you ACCEPT both, you are
teaching conflict and LEARNING it. But you DO want peace, or you would not have
called upon the voice for PEACE to help you. His LESSON is not insane, but the
CONFLICT IS.
T 6 G 8. There can BE no conflict between sanity and insanity, because only
one is true, and therefore only ONE is REAL. The ego tries to persuade you that
it is up to YOU to decide which voice is true. But the Holy Spirit teaches you
that truth was created by God, and YOUR decision CANNOT change it. As you begin
to realize the quiet power of His Voice AND ITS PERFECT CONSISTENCY, it MUST
dawn on your minds that you are
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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.
T 6 G 9. You are NOT asked to make insane decisions, although you are free to
THINK you are. But it MUST be insane to believe IT IS UP TO YOU to decide what
God’s Creations ARE. The Holy Spirit perceives the conflict exactly as it is.
Therefore, His second lesson is: To HAVE peace, TEACH peace to LEARN it.
T 6 G 10. This is still a preliminary step, because having and being are still
not equated but it is more advanced than the first step, which is really only a
thought REVERSAL. The second step is a positive affirmation of WHAT YOU WANT.
This, then IS a step in the direction OUT of conflict, because it means that
alternatives have been considered, and ONE has been chosen as MORE DESIRABLE.
T 6 G 11. But the evaluation "more desirable" still implies that the desirable
has degrees. Therefore, although this step is essential for the ultimate
decision, it is clearly NOT the final one.
T 6 G 12. It should be clear that the recognition of the lack of order in
miracles has not yet been accepted, because NOTHING is difficult that is WHOLLY
DESIRED. To desire wholly is to CREATE, and creating CANNOT be difficult if God
Himself created you AS a creator. The second step, then, is still perceptual but
it is nevertheless a giant step toward the unified perception that parallels
God’s knowing.
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T 6 G 13. 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.
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T 6 H. "Be Vigilant Only for God and His Kingdom"
T 6 H 1. For your own salvation you MUST be critical, because YOUR salvation
IS critical to the whole Sonship. We said before that the Holy Spirit IS
evaluative, and MUST be. Yet His evaluation does not extend BEYOND you, or you
WOULD share it. In YOUR mind, and your mind ONLY, He sorts out the true from the
false, and teaches you to judge every thought that you allow to ENTER in the
light of what God PUT there. Whatever is IN ACCORD with this light He retains,
to strengthen the Kingdom in YOU. When it is PARTLY in accord with truth He
accepts it and purifies it. But what is OUT OF ACCORD ENTIRELY He rejects by
judging against. This is how He keeps the Kingdom perfectly consistent and
perfectly unified.
T 6 H 2. But what you must remember is that what the Holy Spirit REJECTS the
ego ACCEPTS. This is because there they are in fundamental disagreement about
everything, because they are in fundamental disagreement about WHAT YOU ARE. The
ego’s beliefs on this crucial issue vary, and that is why it promotes different
moods. The Holy Spirit NEVER varies on this point, and so the ONE mood that He
engenders is joy. He protects this by rejecting everything that does NOT foster
joy, and so He alone can keep you wholly joyous.
T 6 H 3. The Holy Spirit does not teach your mind to be critical of other
minds, because He does not want you to teach your errors and LEARN THEM
YOURSELVES. He would hardly be consistent if He allowed you to STRENGTHEN what
you must learn to avoid. In the mind of the THINKER, then, He IS judgmental, but
only in order to unify it so it can perceive WITHOUT judgment.
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This enables the mind to TEACH without judgment and therefore learn to BE
without judgment. The UNdoing is necessary only in YOUR mind, so that you cannot
PROJECT it. God Himself has established what you can project with perfect
safety. Therefore, the Holy Spirit’s third lesson is: Be vigilant ONLY for God
and HIS Kingdom.
T 6 H 4. This is a major step toward FUNDAMENTAL change. Yet it is still a
lesson in thought REVERSAL, because it implies that there is something you must
be vigilant AGAINST. It has advanced far from the first lesson which was
PRIMARILY a reversal, and also from the second, which was essentially the
identification of what is MORE desirable. This step, which follows from the
second as the second does from the first, emphasizes the DICHOTOMY between the
desirable and the UNdesirable. It therefore makes the ULTIMATE choice
inevitable. But while the first step seems to INCREASE conflict, and the second
still ENTAILS it to some extent, this one calls for CONSISTENT EFFORT AGAINST
IT.
T 6 H 5. We said already that you can be as vigilant AGAINST the ego as FOR
it. This lesson teaches not that you CAN be, but that you MUST be. It does not
concern itself with order of difficulty, but with CLEAR-CUT PRIORITY FOR
VIGILANCE. This step is unequivocal in that it teaches there must be NO
exceptions, but it does NOT deny that the temptations to MAKE exceptions will
occur. Here, then, your consistency is called on DESPITE chaos. But chaos and
consistency CANNOT coexist for long, because they are MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE..
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As long as you must be vigilant against ANYTHING, however, you are not
recognizing this, and are holding the belief that you can CHOOSE EITHER ONE
T 6 H 6. By teaching you WHAT to choose, the Holy Spirit will ultimately be
able to teach you that YOU NEED NOT CHOOSE AT ALL. This will finally liberate
your will FROM choice, and direct it towards creation WITHIN the Kingdom.
Choosing through the Holy Spirit will only lead you TO it. You create by what
you ARE, but this IS what you must learn. The way to learn it is INHERENT in the
third step, which brings together the lessons inherent in the others, and goes
beyond them towards real integration.
T 6 H 7. If you allow yourselves to HAVE in your minds only what God put
there, you are acknowledging your mind as God created it. Therefore, you are
accepting it AS IT IS. And since it IS whole, you are teaching peace BECAUSE you
have believed in it. The final step will still be taken FOR you by God. But by
the third step, the Holy Spirit has PREPARED you FOR God. He is GETTING YOU
READY to translate having into being by the very nature of the steps you must
take WITH Him. You learn first that having rests on GIVING and NOT getting. Next
you learn that you learn what you TEACH, and that you WANT TO LEARN PEACE. This
is the CONDITION for identifying WITH the Kingdom, because it is the condition
OF the Kingdom.
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T 6 H 8. But you have believed that you are WITHOUT the Kingdom, and have
therefore excluded yourself FROM it in your belief. It is therefore essential to
teach you that YOU must be INCLUDED, and the BELIEF THAT YOU ARE NOT is the ONLY
thing that you must exclude.
T 6 H 9. The third step is thus one of PROTECTION for your minds by allowing
you to identify ONLY with the center, where God placed the altar to HIMSELF. We
have already said that altars are BELIEFS, but God and His creations are BEYOND
belief because they are beyond question. The Voice FOR God speaks only for
BELIEF beyond question, but this IS the preparation for BEING without question.
T 6 H 10. As long as belief in God and His Kingdom is assailed by ANY doubts
in your minds, His perfect Accomplishment is NOT apparent to you. This is why
you MUST be vigilant ON GOD’S BEHALF. The ego speaks AGAINST His Creation, and
therefore DOES engender doubt. You cannot go BEYOND belief UNTIL you believe
wholly. No one can EXTEND a lesson he has NOT LEARNED FULLY. Transfer, which IS
extension, is the measure of learning because it is the MEASURABLE RESULT. This,
however, does NOT mean that what it transfers TO is measurable. On the contrary,
unless it transfers to the whole Sonship, which is immeasurable because it was
created BY the Immeasurable, the learning itself MUST be incomplete.
T 6 H 11. To teach the WHOLE Sonship WITHOUT EXCEPTION demonstrates that you
PERCEIVE ITS WHOLENESS and have learned that it IS One. Now you must be vigilant
to HOLD its Oneness in your minds because if you allow doubt to enter, YOU will
lose awareness of its wholeness, and WILL BE UNABLE TO TEACH IT.
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The wholeness of the Kingdom does NOT depend on your perception, but your
AWARENESS of its wholeness DOES. It is only your awareness that NEEDS
protection, because your BEING cannot be assailed. Yet a real sense of being
CANNOT be yours while you are doubtful of what you ARE. THIS IS WHY VIGILANCE IS
ESSENTIAL. Doubts ABOUT being MUST not enter your mind, or you CANNOT know what
you are with certainty.
T 6 H 12. Certainty is OF God for YOU. Vigilance is not necessary for truth,
but it IS necessary AGAINST ILLUSION. Truth is WITHOUT illusions, and therefore
WITHIN the Kingdom. Everything OUTSIDE the Kingdom IS ILLUSION. But you must
learn to ACCEPT truth because YOU THREW IT AWAY. You therefore saw yourself AS
IF you were WITHOUT it. By making another Kingdom WHICH YOU VALUED, you did NOT
keep the Kingdom of God alone in your minds, and thus placed part of your mind
OUTSIDE of it. What you have made has thus divided your will and given you a
sick mind that MUST be healed. Your vigilance AGAINST this sickness IS the way
to heal it.
T 6 H 13. 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.
T 6 H 14. 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.
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Vigilance DOES require effort, but only to teach you that effort ITSELF is
unnecessary. You have exerted GREAT effort to preserve what you made BECAUSE it
is NOT true. Therefore, you must now turn your effort AGAINST it. Only this can
cancel out the NEED for effort, and call upon the BEING which you both HAVE and
ARE. THIS recognition is wholly WITHOUT effort, because it is ALREADY true and
needs no protection. It is in the perfect safety of God. Therefore, inclusion is
total and Creation is without limit.
Chapter VII - 7 – The Consistency Of The Kingdom
T 7 A. Introduction
T 7 A 1. The creative power of both God AND His Creations is limitless, but
it is 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. But in Creation you are NOT in a
reciprocal relation TO God, because He created YOU, but you did NOT create Him.
We have already stated 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.
T 7 A 2. 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 God’s creative Thought proceeds
FROM Him TO you, so must YOUR creative thought proceed FROM you to YOUR
creations. In this way only can ALL creative power extend outward.
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God’s 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.
T 7 A 3. You claim this power when you have become wholly vigilant for God
AND the 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. God’s creations have ALWAYS BEEN,
because HE has always been. YOUR creations have always been, because you can
create only as HE creates.
T 7 A 4. Eternity is yours because He created you eternal.
T 7 B. Bargaining versus Healing
C 131 [split paragraph]
T 7 B 1. The ego demands RECIPROCAL rights, because it is competitive rather
than loving. It is always willing to make a deal, but it cannot understand that
to be LIKE another means that NO deals are possible. To gain you must GIVE, not
bargain. To bargain is to LIMIT giving, and this is NOT God’s Will. To will WITH
God is to create like HIM. God does not limit HIS gifts in ANY way. YOU are His
gifts, and so your gifts must be like HIS.
T 7 B 2. Your gifts TO the Kingdom are like His to YOU. I gave ONLY love to
the Kingdom, because I believed that was what I WAS. What you believe you are
DETERMINES your gifts, and if God created you by extending HIMSELF AS you, you
can only extend YOURSELF as He did. Only joy increases forever. Joy and Eternity
are INSEPARABLE. God extends outward beyond limits and beyond time, and you, who
are co-creators with Him, extend His Kingdom forever and beyond limit.
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Eternity is the indelible stamp of Creation. The eternal are in peace and joy
forever.
T 7 B 3. 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 always has the task of translating the useLESS into the useFUL, the
meaningLESS into the meaningFUL, and the temporary into the timeLESS. He CAN,
therefore, tell you something about this last step, but this one you must know
yourself, because BY it you know what you are. This IS your being.
T 7 B 4. God does not take steps because His Accomplishments are NOT gradual.
He does not teach, because His Creations are changeless. He does nothing LAST
because He Created FIRST and FOR ALWAYS. It must be understood that the word
"first" as applied to Him is NOT a time concept. He is first here only in the
sense that He is first in the Holy Trinity Itself. He is the Prime Creator
because HE created His co-creators. Because He DID, time applies neither to Him
NOR to what He created.
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April 11, ’66.
T 7 B 5. The "last step" that God was said to take was therefore true in the
beginning, is true now, and will be true forever. What is timeless IS ALWAYS
THERE because its BEING is eternally changeless. It does NOT change by increase,
because it was forever created TO increase. If you perceive it as NOT
increasing, you do not know what it IS. You also do not know what created it, or
who HE is. God does not REVEAL this to you, because it was never hidden. His
light was never obscured, because it is His Will to SHARE it. How can what is
fully shared be withheld and then revealed?
T 7 B 6. 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.
T 7 C. The Laws of Mind
C 133
T 7 C 1. To heal, then, is to correct perception in your brother AND yourself
by sharing the Holy Spirit with him. This places you both WITHIN the Kingdom and
restores ITS wholeness in your minds. This PARALLELS creation because it UNIFIES
BY INCREASING, and INTEGRATES BY EXTENDING.
T 7 C 2. What you project you believe. This is an immutable law of mind in
this world as well as in the Kingdom. However, its CONTENT is somewhat different
in this world from what it REALLY is, because the thoughts it governs are VERY
different from the thoughts in the Kingdom. Laws must be adapted to
circumstances, if they are to maintain order.
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T 7 C 3. The outstanding characteristic of the laws of mind, as they operate
in this world, is that by obeying them, and I assure you that you MUST obey
them, you can arrive at diametrically opposed results. This is because the laws
have adapted to the circumstances of this world, in which diametrically opposed
outcomes are believed in. The laws of mind govern thoughts, and you DO respond
to two conflicting voices. You have heard many arguments on behalf of "the
freedoms," which would indeed have BEEN freedom if man had not chosen to FIGHT
for them. That is why they perceive "the freedoms" as many instead of ONE.
T 7 C 4. But the argument that underlies the DEFENSE of freedom is perfectly
valid. Because it is true, it should not be FOUGHT for, but it SHOULD be sided
WITH. Those who are AGAINST freedom believe that its outcome will hurt them,
which CANNOT be true. But those who are FOR freedom, even if they are misguided
in HOW they defend it, are siding with the one thing in this world which IS
true. Whenever anyone can listen fairly to both sides of ANY issue, he WILL make
the right decision. This is because he HAS the answer. Conflict can indeed be
projected, but it MUST be intrapersonal first.
T 7 C 5. The term "intrapersonal" is an ego term, because "personal" implies
of ONE person, and NOT of others. "Interpersonal" has a similar error, because
it implies something that exists between DIFFERENT individuals. When we spoke
before of the extremely PERSONAL nature of revelation, we followed this
statement immediately with a description of the inevitable outcomes of the
revelation in terms of SHARING. A PERSON conceives of himself as separate,
largely because he perceives OF himself as bounded by a body. ONLY if he
perceives as a MIND can he overcome this. THEN he is free to use terms like
"intramental" and "intermental" WITHOUT seeing them as different and
conflicting, because minds CAN be in perfect accord.
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T 7 C 6. OUTSIDE the Kingdom, the law which prevails INSIDE it is ADAPTED to
"what you project you believe." This is its TEACHING form, because outside the
Kingdom teaching is mandatory because learning is essential. This form of the
law clearly implies that you will learn what YOU are from what you have
projected onto others and therefore believe THEY are. IN the Kingdom, there is
no teaching OR learning, because there is no BELIEF. There is only CERTAINTY.
God and His Sons, in the surety of Being, KNOW that what you project you ARE.
T 7 C 7. That form of the law is NOT adapted at all, being the Law of
Creation. God Himself created the law by creating BY it. And His Sons, who
create LIKE Him, follow it gladly, knowing that the increase of the Kingdom
depends on it, just as THEIR creation did. Laws must be communicated, if they
are to be helpful. In effect, they must be TRANSLATED for those who speak a
different language. But a good translator, though he MUST alter the FORM of what
he translates, NEVER changes the meaning. In fact, his whole PURPOSE is to
change the form SO THAT the original meaning IS retained.
T 7 C 8. The Holy Spirit IS the translator of the Laws of God to those who do
NOT understand them. YOU could not do this yourselves because conflicted minds
CANNOT be faithful to one meaning, and will therefore CHANGE THE MEANING TO
PRESERVE THE FORM. The Holy Spirit’s purpose in translating is naturally EXACTLY
the opposite. He translates ONLY to preserve the original meaning in ALL
respects and in ALL languages. Therefore, He OPPOSES differences in form as
meaningful, and emphasizes always that THESE DIFFERENCES DO NOT MATTER. The
meaning of His message is ALWAYS the same, and ONLY the meaning matters.
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T 7 C 9. God’s Law of Creation, in perfect form, does NOT involve the USE of
truth to convince His sons OF truth. The EXTENSION of truth, which IS the Law of
the Kingdom, rests only on the knowledge of WHAT TRUTH IS. This is your
INHERITANCE, and requires no learning at all. But when you DISinherited
YOURSELVES, you BECAME learners. No-one questions the intimate connection of
learning and memory. Learning is impossible WITHOUT memory, because it CANNOT be
consistent UNLESS it is remembered.
T 7 C 10. That is why the Holy Spirit IS a lesson in remembering. We said
before that He teaches remembering and FORGETTING, but the forgetting aspect is
only TO MAKE THE REMEMBERING CONSISTENT. You forget to REMEMBER BETTER. You will
NOT understand His translations while you listen to two ways of perceiving them.
Therefore, you must forget or relinquish one to UNDERSTAND the other. This is
the only way you can LEARN consistency, so that you can finally BE consistent.
What can the perfect consistency of the Kingdom MEAN to the confused? It MUST be
apparent that confusion INTERFERES with meaning, and therefore PREVENTS THE
LEARNER FROM APPRECIATING IT.
T 7 C 11. There is NO confusion in the Kingdom, because there IS only one
meaning. This Meaning comes from God and IS God. Because it is also YOU, you
share it and EXTEND it as your Creator did. This needs no translation, because
it is perfectly understood, but it DOES need extension because it MEANS
extension. Communication here is perfectly direct and perfectly united. It is
totally without strain, because nothing discordant EVER enters. That is why it
IS the Kingdom of God. It belongs to Him and is therefore LIKE Him. That IS its
reality, and nothing CAN assail it.
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T 7 D. The Unified Curriculum
April 17, 1966
T 7 D 1. To heal is to liberate totally. We once said there is no order in
miracles because they are all maximal expressions of love. This has no range at
all. The 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 took
them AWAY, the three apples are not there. But it is NOT true that the table is
now MINUS three apples. If there is NOTHING on the table, it does NOT matter
what WAS there in terms of amount. The "nothing" is neither greater nor less
because of what is ABSENT.
T 7 D 2. That is why "all" and "nothing" are dichotomous, WITHOUT a range.
This is perfectly clear in maximal test performance and for EXACTLY the reason
you emphasize. You cannot interpret AT ALL, unless you assume either MAXIMAL
motivation or its COMPLETE ABSENCE. Only in these two conditions can you validly
COMPARE responses, and you MUST assume the former, because if the LATTER is
true, the subject WILL NOT DO ANYTHING. Given VARIABLE motivation he WILL do
something, but you cannot understand WHAT IT IS.
T 7 D 3. The RESULTS of tests are evaluated relatively, ASSUMING maximal
motivation. But this is because we are dealing with ABILITIES, where degree of
development IS meaningful. This does NOT mean that what ability is used FOR is
necessarily either limited OR divided. But one thing is certain. Abilities are
POTENTIALS for learning, and you will apply them to what you WANT
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to learn. Learning is EFFORT, and effort MEANS will.
T 7 D 4. You will notice that we have used the term "abilities" as a plural,
which is correct. This is because abilities began with the ego, which perceived
them as a POTENTIAL FOR EXCELLING. This is how the ego STILL perceives them and
uses them. It does NOT want to teach everyone all it has learned, because that
would DEFEAT its purpose in learning. Therefore, it does not REALLY learn at
all. The Holy Spirit teaches YOU to use what the ego has made to TEACH the
opposite of what the ego has LEARNED. The KIND of learning is as irrelevant as
is the particular ability which was applied TO the learning.
T 7 D 5. You could not have a better example of the Holy Spirit’s (this)
unified purpose than this course. The Holy Spirit has taken very diversified
areas of YOUR past learning, and has applied them to a UNIFIED curriculum. The
fact that this was NOT the ego’s reason for learning is totally irrelevant. YOU
made the effort to learn, and the Holy Spirit has a unified goal for ALL effort.
He ADAPTS the ego’s potentials for excelling to potentials for EQUALIZING. This
makes them USELESS for the ego’s purpose, but VERY useful for His.
T 7 D 6. 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.
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T 7 D 7. That is why we once said that papers will be easy to write when you
have learned THIS course. To the ego there appears to be no connection, because
the EGO is discontinuous. But the Holy Spirit teaches one lesson and applies it
to ALL individuals in ALL situations. Being 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.
T 7 D 8. When I said, "Behold I am with you always," I meant it literally. I
am not absent to ANYONE nor in ANY situation. BECAUSE I am always with you, YOU
are the Way, and the Truth, and the Light. YOU did not make this power any more
than I did. It was created to BE shared, and therefore cannot be meaningfully
perceived as belonging to anyone AT THE EXPENSE of another. This perception
makes it meaningLESS by eliminating or overlooking its real and ONLY meaning.
T 7 E. The Recognition of Truth
T 7 E 1. God’s MEANING waits in the Kingdom because that is where He placed
it. It does NOT wait in time. It merely RESTS there (in the Kingdom) because it
BELONGS there, as YOU do. How can you, who ARE God’s meaning, perceive
yourselves as absent FROM it? You can see yourselves as separated FROM your
meaning only by EXPERIENCING YOURSELF AS UNREAL. This is WHY the ego is insane;
it teaches that you are NOT what you ARE. This is so contradictory that it is
clearly impossible. It is therefore a lesson which you CANNOT REALLY LEARN, and
therefore CANNOT REALLY TEACH. But you ARE always teaching. You MUST, then, be
teaching something ELSE as well, even though the ego DOES NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS.
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T 7 E 2. The ego, then, IS always being undone, and DOES suspect your
motives. Your mind CANNOT be unified in allegiance to the ego, because the mind
does NOT belong to it. But what is "treacherous" to the ego IS faithful to
peace. The ego’s "enemy" is therefore YOUR friend. We said before that the ego’s
friend is not part of you but that is because the ego perceives itself as at war
and therefore in need of allies. YOU, who are NOT at war, must look for brothers
and RECOGNIZE all you see AS brothers, because ONLY equals are at peace.
T 7 E 3. Because God’s equal Sons have everything, they CANNOT compete. But
if they perceive ANY of their brothers as anything OTHER than their perfect
equals, the IDEA of competition HAS entered their minds. Do not underestimate
your need to be vigilant AGAINST this idea, because ALL your conflicts come FROM
it. It IS the belief that conflicting interests are possible, and therefore
means that you have accepted the IMpossible as true. How is that different from
saying that you are perceiving YOURSELF as unreal?
T 7 E 4. To be IN the Kingdom is merely to focus your full attention ON it.
As long as you believe that you can ATTEND to what is NOT true, you are
accepting conflict as your CHOICE. Is it REALLY a choice? It SEEMS to be, but
seeming and reality are hardly the same. You who ARE the Kingdom are not
concerned with seeming. Reality is yours because you ARE reality. This is how
having and being are ultimately reconciled, not in the Kingdom, but IN YOUR
MINDS. The altar there is the ONLY reality. It is perfectly clear in its
thought, because it is a reflection of PERFECT Thought. It SEES only brothers
because it sees ONLY in its own Light.
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T 7 E 5. God has lit your minds Himself, and keeps your mind lit BY His light
because His light is what your minds ARE. This is TOTALLY beyond question. And
when you questioned it, you WERE answered. The answer merely UNDOES the question
by establishing the fact that to QUESTION reality is to question MEANINGLESSLY.
That is why the Holy Spirit NEVER questions. Its sole function is to UNdo the
questionable, and thus LEAD TO CERTAINTY. The certain are perfectly calm,
because they are not in doubt. They do NOT raise questions because NOTHING
QUESTIONABLE ENTERS THEIR MINDS. This holds them in perfect serenity because
this is what they SHARE, KNOWING what they are.
T 7 E 6. Healing is both an art and a science, as has so often been said. It
is an art because it depends on inspiration in the sense that we have already
used the term. Inspiration is the opposite of dis-spiriting, and therefore means
to make joyful. The dis-spirited are depressed because they believe that they
are literally "without the Spirit," which is an illusion. You do not PUT the
Spirit in them by inspiring them, because that would be "magic," and therefore
would not be real healing. But you DO recognize the Spirit that is ALREADY
THERE, and thereby REAWAKEN IT. This is why the healer is part of the
Resurrection and the Life. The SPIRIT is not asleep in the minds of the sick,
but the part of the mind that can perceive it and be glad IS.
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T 7 E 7. 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.
T 7 E 8. Truth can only be RECOGNIZED, and NEED only be recognized.
Inspiration is of the Spirit, and certainty is of God according to His laws.
Both therefore come from the same Source, because inspiration comes from the
voice FOR God and certainty comes from the laws OF God. Healing does not come
DIRECTLY from God, who knows His Creations as perfectly whole. But healing is
nevertheless OF God, because it proceeds from His Voice and from His laws. It is
their RESULT in a state of mind which does not know Him. The STATE is unknown to
Him, and therefore does not exist. But those who sleep are stupefied, or better,
UNAWARE. And BECAUSE they are unaware THEY DO NOT KNOW.
T 7 E 9. The Holy Spirit must work THROUGH you to teach you He is IN you.
This is an intermediary step toward the knowledge that YOU are in God BECAUSE
YOU ARE PART OF HIM. The miracles which the Holy Spirit inspires CAN have no
order, because every part of Creation IS of one order. This is God’s will AND
yours.
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The laws of God ESTABLISH this, and the Holy Spirit reminds you OF it. When you
heal, you are REMEMBERING THE LAWS OF GOD and FORGETTING the laws of the ego. We
said before that forgetting is merely a way of REMEMBERING BETTER. It is
therefore NOT the opposite of remembering, when it is properly conceived.
Perceived Improperly, it induces a perception of CONFLICT WITH SOMETHING ELSE,
as all incorrect perception does. PROPERLY perceived, it can be used as a way
OUT of conflict, as all proper perception can.
T 7 E 10. ALL abilities, then should be given over to the Holy Spirit, WHO
KNOWS HOW TO USE THEM PROPERLY. He can use them ONLY for healing, because He
knows you ONLY as whole. BY healing you learn of wholeness, and by learning of
wholeness you learn to remember God. You HAVE forgotten Him, but the Holy Spirit
still knows that YOUR forgetting MUST be translated into a way of remembering,
and NOT perceived as a SEPARATE ability which OPPOSES AN OPPOSITE. This is the
way in which the ego tries to use ALL abilities, because its goal is ALWAYS to
make YOU believe that YOU are in opposition.
T 7 E 11. The ego’s goal is as unified as the Holy Spirit’s, and it is BECAUSE
of this that their goals can NEVER be reconciled in ANY way or to ANY extent.
The ego ALWAYS seeks to divide and separate. The Holy Spirit ALWAYS seeks to
unify and HEAL. As you heal, you ARE healed because the Holy Spirit sees NO
ORDER OF HEALING. Healing IS the way to undo the belief in differences, because
it is the ONLY way of perceiving the Sonship WITHOUT this belief. This
perception is therefore IN accord with the laws of God even in a state of mind
which is OUT of accord with His..
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But the strength of right perception is so great that it brings the mind INTO
accord with His, because it yields to His pull which IS in all of you.
T 7 E 12. To oppose the pull or the will of God is not an ability but a real
delusion. The ego believes that it HAS this ability, and can offer this ability
to YOU as a gift. YOU DO NOT WANT IT. It is NOT a gift. It is NOTHING AT ALL.
God HAS given you a gift, which you both HAVE and ARE. When you do not USE it,
you do not know you HAVE it. By not knowing this, you do NOT know what you ARE.
Healing, then, is a way of APPROACHING knowledge by THINKING in accordance with
the laws of God and RECOGNIZING THEIR UNIVERSALITY. WITHOUT this recognition,
you have made the laws themselves meaningless TO you. But the LAWS are not
meaningless, because all meaning is contained BY them, and IN them.
T 7 E 13. Seek ye FIRST the Kingdom of Heaven, because that is where the laws
of God operate truly, and they can operate ONLY truly, because they are the laws
of Truth. But SEEK THIS ONLY, because you can FIND nothing else. There IS
nothing else. God is all in all in a very literal sense. All being is in Him
because He IS all Being. YOU are therefore in Him because YOUR being IS His.
Healing is a way of FORGETTING the sense of danger that the ego has induced in
YOU by not recognizing its existence in your brothers. This strengthens the Holy
Spirit in BOTH of you, because it is a REFUSAL TO ACKNOWLEDGE FEAR. Love needs
only this invitation. It comes freely to ALL the Sonship, because it is what the
Sonship IS.
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T 7 E By their awakening TO it, they merely forget what they are NOT. This
enables them to remember what they ARE.
T 7 F. Healing and the Changelessness of Mind
T 7 F 1. The body is nothing more than a framework for developing abilities.
It is therefore a means for developing potentials, which is quite apart from
what the potential is used FOR. This IS a decision. The effects of the ego’s
decision in this matter are so apparent that they need no elaboration here. But
the Holy Spirit’s decision to use the body ONLY for communication has such
direct connection with healing that it DOES need clarification. The unhealed
healer OBVIOUSLY does not understand his own vocation.
T 7 F 2. ONLY minds communicate. Since the ego CANNOT obliterate the impulse
to communicate because it is also the impulse to CREATE it can only try to teach
you that the BODY can both communicate AND create, and therefore does not NEED
the mind. The ego, then, tries to teach you that the body can ACT like the mind,
and therefore IS self-sufficient. But we have learned that behavior is NOT the
level for either teaching OR learning. This must be so, because you CAN act in
accordance with what you do NOT believe. But this will weaken you as teachers
AND learners because, as has been repeatedly emphasized, you teach what you DO
believe. An inconsistent lesson WILL be poorly taught AND POORLY LEARNED. If you
teach both sickness AND healing, you are both a poor teacher and a poor learner.
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T 7 F 3. Healing is the one ability that everyone CAN develop, and MUST
develop, if he is to BE healed. Healing IS the Holy Spirit’s form of
communication, and the ONLY one He knows. He recognizes no other, because he
does NOT accept the ego’s confusion of mind and body. Minds CAN communicate, but
they CANNOT hurt. The body in the service of the ego can hurt other BODIES, but
this CANNOT occur UNLESS the body has ALREADY been confused WITH the mind. This
fact, too, can be used either for healing or for magic, but you must realize
that magic is ALWAYS the belief that healing is HARMFUL. This is its totally
insane premise, and so it proceeds accordingly.
T 7 F 4. Healing ONLY STRENGTHENS. Magic always tries to weaken. Healing
perceives NOTHING in the healer that everyone else does not share WITH him.
Magic ALWAYS sees something special in the healer, which he believes he can
offer as a gift to someone who does NOT have it. He may believe that this gift
comes from God TO him, but it is quite evident that he does NOT understand God
if he thinks HE has something that others DO NOT. You might well ask why SOME
healing CAN result from this kind of thinking, and there is a real reason for
this.
T 7 F 5. However misguided the "magical healer" may be, and however much he
may be trying to strengthen his ego, he is ALSO trying to help. He IS conflicted
and unstable, but AT TIMES he is offering SOMETHING to the Sonship, and the ONLY
thing the Sonship can ACCEPT IS healing. When the so-called healing "works,"
then, the impulse both to help and BE helped have coincided. This is
co-incidental, because the healer may NOT be experiencing HIMSELF as truly
helpful at the time, and the belief that he IS, in the mind of ANOTHER, HELPS
HIM.
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T 7 F 6. The Holy Spirit does NOT work by chance, and the healing that is of
Him ALWAYS works. And unless the healer ALWAYS heals BY Him, the results WILL
vary. But healing itself IS consistence, because ONLY consistence is
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.
T 7 F 7. Can ANYTHING of God NOT be for all and always? Love is incapable of
ANY exceptions. Only if there is fear does the whole IDEA of exceptions of any
kind seem to be meaningful. Exceptions ARE fearful because they were made BY
fear. The "fearful healer" is a contradiction in terms, and is therefore a
concept that ONLY a conflicted mind could POSSIBLY perceive as meaningful. Fear
does NOT gladden. Healing DOES. Fear ALWAYS makes exceptions. Healing NEVER
does. Fear produces dissociation because it induces SEPARATION. Healing always
induces harmony because it proceeds from integration.
T 7 F 8. Healing is predictable BECAUSE it can be counted on. EVERYTHING that
is of God can be counted on, because everything of God is WHOLLY REAL. HEALING
can be counted on BECAUSE it is inspired by His voice, and is in accord with His
laws. But if healing IS consistence, it CANNOT be inconsistently understood.
Understanding MEANS consistence, because GOD means consistence. And because that
IS His Meaning, it is also YOURS. YOUR meaning CANNOT be out of accord with His,
because your whole meaning, and your ONLY meaning, comes FROM His and is LIKE
His. God CANNOT be out of accord with HIMSELF, and YOU cannot be out of accord
with Him. You cannot separate your self from YOUR Creator, who created YOU by
sharing HIS Being WITH you.
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T 7 F 9. The unhealed healer wants gratitude FROM his brothers, but he is NOT
grateful to them. This is because he thinks he is giving something TO them, and
is NOT receiving something equally desirable in return. His TEACHING is limited
because he is LEARNING so little. His HEALING lesson is limited by his own
ingratitude, which is a lesson in SICKNESS. Learning is constant and so vital in
its power for change that a Son of God can recognize his power in an instant,
and change the world in the next. That is because by changing HIS mind he has
changed the most powerful device that was ever created FOR change.
T 7 F 10. 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.
T 7 F 11. When you heal, that is exactly what you ARE learning (doing). You
are recognizing the changeless mind in your brother by perceiving (knowing) that
he could NOT have changed his mind. That is how you perceive the Holy Spirit in
him. It is ONLY the Holy Spirit in him that never changes His mind. He himself
must think he CAN, or he would not perceive himself as sick. He therefore does
not know what his self IS. If YOU see only the changeless in him, you have not
really changed him at all. But by changing your mind about HIS FOR him, you help
him undo the change his ego thinks it has made in him. As you can hear two
voices, so you can see in two ways. One way shows you an image, or better, an
idol which you may worship out of fear, but which you will never love. The other
shows you only truth, which you will love because you will UNDERSTAND it.
Understanding is APPRECIATION, because what you understand you can identify
WITH, and by making it part of YOU you have accepted it with love.
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This is how God Himself created YOU, in understanding, in appreciation, and in
love.
T 7 F 12. 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.
T 7 F 13. 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.
T 7 F 14. I do not want to share my BODY in communion because this is to share
nothing. Would I try to share an illusion with the most holy children of a most
Holy Father? But I do want to share my MIND with you because we ARE of one Mind,
and that Mind IS ours. See ONLY this Mind everywhere, because only this IS
everywhere and in everything. It IS everything, because it encompasses all
things within ITSELF. Blessed are you who perceive only this, because you
perceive only what is true. Come therefore unto me and learn of the truth in
YOU.
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T 7 F 15. The mind WE share IS shared by all our brothers, and as we see them
truly, they WILL be healed. Let YOUR minds shine with mine upon their minds, and
by our gratitude to them make THEM aware of the light in them. This light will
shine back upon YOU and on the whole Sonship because this IS your proper gift to
God. He will accept it and give it to the Sonship, because it is acceptable to
Him, and therefore to His Sons. This is the true communion of the Spirit Who
sees the altar of God in everyone, and by bringing it to YOUR appreciation calls
upon you to love God and His Creation.
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T 7 G. From Vigilance to Peace
T 7 G 1. You can think of the Sonship ONLY as one. This is part of the law of
Creation, and therefore governs ALL thought. You can PERCEIVE the Sonship as
fragmented, but it is impossible for you to see something in part of it that you
will not attribute to all of it. That is why attack is NEVER discrete. And why
attack MUST be relinquished entirely. If it is NOT relinquished entirely, it is
not relinquished at all. Fear and love are equally reciprocal. They make or
create depending on whether the ego or the Holy Spirit begets or inspires them,
but they WILL return to the mind of the thinker, and they WILL affect his total
perception. That includes his perception of God, of His Creations, and of his
own. He will not appreciate ANY of these if he regards them fearfully. He will
appreciate ALL of them if he regards them with love.
T 7 G 2. The mind that accepts attack CANNOT love. This is because it
believes that it can DESTROY love, and therefore does not understand what love
IS. If it does not understand what love IS, it CANNOT perceive itself as loving.
This loses the awareness of being; induces feelings of unreality; and results in
utter confusion. Your own thinking has done this, because of its power. But your
own thinking can also save you FROM this, because its power is not of your
making. Your ability to DIRECT your thinking as you will IS part of its power.
If you do not believe you can do this, you have DENIED the power of your
thought, and thus rendered it powerLESS in your belief.
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T 7 G 3. The ingeniousness of the ego to preserve itself is enormous, but it
stems from the power of the mind WHICH THE EGO DENIES. This means that the ego
attacks WHAT IS PRESERVING IT, and this MUST be a source of extreme anxiety.
This is why it NEVER knows what it is doing. This is perfectly logical, though
clearly insane. The ego draws upon the one source which is totally inimicable 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.
T 7 G 4. Remaining logical but still insane, the ego resolves this completely
insane dilemma in a completely insane way. It does not perceive ITS existence as
threatened, by projecting the threat onto YOU, and perceiving your BEING as
NONexistent. This ensures ITS continuance, if you side WITH it, by guaranteeing
that you will NOT know your OWN safety. The ego CANNOT AFFORD TO KNOW ANYTHING.
Knowledge is total, and the ego DOES NOT BELIEVE IN TOTALITY. This unbelief is
its own origin, and while the ego does not love YOU, it IS faithful to its own
antecedent, begetting as it was begotten.
T 7 G 5. 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 TO you, BECAUSE it
gives you everything. No-one who has everything WANTS the ego. Its own maker,
then, DOES NOT WANT IT. Rejection is therefore the only decision which the ego
could POSSIBLY encounter if the mind which made it knew ITSELF. And if it
recognized ANY part of the Sonship, it WOULD know itself.
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T 7 G 6. The ego therefore opposes ALL appreciation, ALL recognition, ALL
sane perception, and ALL knowledge. It perceives their threat as total because
it senses the fact that all commitments which the mind makes ARE total. Forced
therefore to detach itself from you who ARE mind, it is willing to attach itself
to anything ELSE. But there IS nothing else. It does NOT follow, however, that
the mind cannot make illusions. But it DOES follow that if it makes illusions it
will BELIEVE in them, because THAT IS HOW IT MADE THEM.
T 7 G 7. 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.
T 7 G 8. If you will keep in mind what the Holy Spirit offers you, you cannot
be vigilant for anything BUT God and His Kingdom. The ONLY reason why you find
this difficult is because you think there IS something else. Belief does not
require vigilance UNLESS it is conflicted. If it IS, there ARE conflicting
components within it which have engendered a state of war, and vigilance has
therefore BECOME essential. Vigilance has no place at all in peace. It is
necessary ONLY AGAINST beliefs which are NOT true, and would never have been
called upon by the Holy Spirit if you had not believed the untrue yourselves.
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T 7 G 9. But you CANNOT deny that when you BELIEVE something you HAVE made it
true FOR YOU. When YOU believe what God DOES NOT KNOW, your thought seems to
CONTRADICT His, and this makes it appear AS IF YOU ARE ATTACKING HIM. We have
repeatedly emphasized that the ego DOES believe it can attack God, and tries to
persuade you that YOU have done this. If the mind CANNOT attack, the ego
proceeds perfectly logically to the position that YOU cannot be mind. By not
seeing you as YOU are, it can see ITSELF as it WANTS to be. Aware of its
weakness, the ego wants your allegiance, but NOT as you really are. The ego
therefore wants to engage your mind in its OWN delusional system, because
otherwise the light of YOUR understanding WILL dispel it.
T 7 G 10. The ego wants no part of truth, because the truth is that IT is not
true. If truth is total, the UNtrue CANNOT exist. Commitment to either MUST be
total, because they cannot co-exist in your minds WITHOUT splitting them. If
they cannot coexist in peace, and if you WANT peace, you MUST give up the IDEA
of conflict ENTIRELY, and for ALL TIME. This requires vigilance ONLY as long as
YOU DO NOT RECOGNIZE WHAT IS TRUE. While you believe that two totally
contradictory thought systems SHARE truth, your need for vigilance is apparent.
Your minds ARE dividing their allegiance between two kingdoms, and YOU are
totally committed to neither.
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T 7 G 11. Your identification with the Kingdom is totally beyond question
except by you WHEN YOU ARE THINKING INSANELY. What you are is NOT established by
your perception, and is NOT influenced BY it at all. ALL perceived problems in
identification at ANY level ARE NOT PROBLEMS OF FACT. But they ARE problems in
UNDERSTANDING, because they MEAN that you perceive WHAT you can understand as UP
TO YOU TO DECIDE. The ego believes THIS totally, being fully committed TO it.
But it is NOT TRUE. The ego is therefore totally committed to UNtruth,
perceiving in total contradiction to the Holy Spirit and to the knowledge of
God.
T 7 G 12. You can be perceived with meaning ONLY by the Holy Spirit, because
your being IS the knowledge of God. ANY belief that you accept which is APART
from this WILL obscure God’s voice in you, and will therefore obscure God TO
you. Unless you perceive His Creation truly, you CANNOT know the Creator,
because God and His Creation ARE NOT SEPARATE. The Oneness of the Creator and
the Creation IS your wholeness, your sanity, and your limitless power. This
limitless power is God’s gift to you, because it is WHAT YOU ARE. If you
dissociate your mind FROM it, you are perceiving the most powerful force in the
universe of thought AS IF it were weak, because you do NOT believe YOU are part
of it.
T 7 G 13. Perceived WITHOUT your part IN it, God’s Creation IS perceived as
weak, and those who SEE themselves as weakened DO attack. The attack MUST be
blind, because there is nothing TO attack. Therefore, they make up images,
perceive them as unworthy, and attack them for their unworthiness. That is all
the world of the ego is. NOTHING. It has no meaning. It does not exist. Do not
TRY to understand it, because if you do you are believing that it CAN be
understood, and therefore is capable of being appreciated and loved. This WOULD
justify it, but it CANNOT BE justified. YOU cannot make the meaningLESS
meaningFUL. This can ONLY be an insane attempt.
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T 7 G 14. 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.
T 7 G 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 God’s will, but YOURS. If
your will is out of accord with God’s, YOU ARE WILLING WITHOUT MEANING. But
because ONLY God’s will is unchangeable, no REAL conflict of will is possible.
This is the Holy Spirit’s perfectly consistent teaching. Creation, not
separation, IS your will BECAUSE it is God’s. And nothing that opposes this
means anything at all. Being a perfect Accomplishment, the Sonship can only
accomplish perfectly, EXTENDING the joy in which it was created, and identifying
itself with both its Creator and its creations, KNOWING they are One.
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T 7 H. The Total Commitment
T 7 H 1. 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.
T 7 H 2. That is the negative side of the law as it operates in this world.
But denial is a defense, and so it is as capable of being used positively as it
is of being used destructively. Used negatively, it WILL be destructive, because
it will be used for attack. But in the service of the Holy Spirit, the law
becomes as beneficent as all of the laws of God. Stated positively, the law
requires you only to recognize PART of reality to appreciate ALL of it. Mind is
too powerful to be subject to exclusion. You will NEVER be able to exclude
yourself from what you project.
T 7 H 3. When a brother acts insanely, he is offering you an opportunity to
bless him. His need is YOURS. YOU need the blessing you can offer him. There is
no way for you to have it EXCEPT by giving it. This IS the law of God, and it
HAS NO EXCEPTIONS. What you deny you LACK, not because it IS lacking, but
because you have denied it in another, and therefore are not aware of it in YOU.
Every response you make is determined by what you think you ARE. And what you
WANT to be IS what you think you are. Therefore, what you WANT to be determines
every response you make.
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T 7 H 4. You do NOT need God’s blessing, because that you have forever. But
you DO need YOURS. The picture you see of yourselves is deprived, unloving, and
very vulnerable. You CANNOT love this. But you can very easily escape FROM it,
or better, leave it behind. You are NOT there, and that is not YOU. Do not see
this picture in anyone, or you HAVE accepted it as you. ALL illusions about the
Sonship are DISPELLED together, as they were MADE together. Teach no-one that HE
is what YOU do not want to be. Your brother is the mirror in which you will see
the image of yourself as long as perception lasts. And perception WILL last
until the Sonship knows itself as whole.
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T 7 H 5. You MADE perception, and it MUST last as long as you WANT it.
Illusions are investments. They will last as long as you value them. Values are
relative, but they are powerful because they are MENTAL judgments. The only way
to dispel illusions is to withdraw ALL investment from them, and they will HAVE
no life for you because you have put them OUT OF YOUR MIND. While you include
them IN it, you are GIVING them life. Except there is nothing there to receive
your gift.
T 7 H 6. The gift of life IS yours to give, because it was given YOU. You are
unaware of YOUR gift BECAUSE you do not give it. You CANNOT make nothing live,
because it cannot BE enlivened. Therefore, you have NOT extended the gift you
both have and are, and so you do NOT know your being. All confusion comes from
not extending life, because this is NOT the will of your Creator. You CAN do
nothing apart from Him, and you DO do nothing apart from him. Keep His Way to
remember yourselves, and teach His Ways lest you forget yourself. Give only
honor to the sons of the living God, and count yourself among them gladly.
T 7 H 7. ONLY honor is a fitting gift for those whom God Himself created
worthy of honor and whom He honors. Give them the appreciation which God accords
them always, because they are His Beloved Sons in whom He is well pleased. You
CANNOT be apart from them, because you are not apart from Him. Rest in His love,
and protect your rest by loving. But love EVERYTHING He created, of which YOU
are part, or you cannot learn of His peace and accept His gift for yourself and
as yourself.
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You CANNOT know your own perfection until you have honored all those who were
created LIKE you.
T 7 H 8. One Child of God is the only teacher sufficiently worthy to teach
another. One Teacher is in all your minds, and He teaches the same lesson to
all. He always teaches you the inestimable worth of EVERY Son of God, teaching
it with infinite patience born of the Love of Him for whom He speaks. Every
attack is a call for His patience, because ONLY His patience can translate
attack into blessing. Those who attack DO NOT KNOW THEY ARE BLESSED. They attack
BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE THEY ARE DEPRIVED. Give therefore of YOUR abundance, and
teach them THEIRS. Do not share their delusions of scarcity, or you will
perceive YOURSELF as lacking.
T 7 H 9. Attack could never PROMOTE attack unless you perceived it as a means
of depriving you of SOMETHING YOU WANT. But you cannot lose ANYTHING unless YOU
do not value it and therefore DO NOT WANT IT. This makes you feel DEPRIVED of
it, and by projecting YOUR rejection, you believe that others are TAKING IT FROM
YOU. One MUST be fearful if he believes that his brother is attacking him to
tear the Kingdom of Heaven from him.
T 7 H 10. This is the ultimate basis for ALL of the ego’s projection. Being
the part of your mind which does NOT believe it is responsible for ITSELF, and
being without allegiance to God, it 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.
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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.
T 7 H 11. You ARE the will of God. Do not accept anything else AS YOUR will,
or you ARE denying what you are. Deny THIS and you WILL attack, because you
believe you have BEEN attacked. But see the love of God in you, and you will see
it everywhere because it IS everywhere. See His abundance in everyone, and you
will know that you are in Him WITH them. They are part of you as you are part of
God. YOU are as lonely without understanding this as God Himself is lonely when
His Sons do not know Him. The peace of God IS understanding this.
T 7 H 12. There is only one way out of the world’s thinking, just as there was
only one way INTO it. Understand totally by understanding TOTALITY. Perceive ANY
part of the ego’s thought system as wholly insane, wholly delusional, and wholly
undesirable, and you have CORRECTLY EVALUATED ALL OF IT. This correction enables
you to perceive ANY part of Creation as wholly real, wholly perfect, and WHOLLY
DESIRABLE. Wanting this ONLY, you will HAVE this only, and giving this only, you
will BE only this. The gifts you offer to the ego are ALWAYS experienced as
sacrifices. But the gifts you offer to the Kingdom are gifts to YOU. They will
always be treasured by God, because they belong to His Beloved Sons who belong
to Him. All power and glory are yours because the Kingdom is His.
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T 7 I. The Defense of Conflict
T 7 I 1. We once said that without projection there can be no anger, but it
is also true that without projection there can be no love. Projection is a
fundamental law of the mind, and therefore one which ALWAYS operates. It is the
law by which you create and were created. It is the law which unifies the
Kingdom and keeps it in the mind of God. To the ego, the law is perceived as a
way of getting RID of something it does NOT want. To the Holy Spirit, it is the
fundamental law of sharing, by which you give what you value in order to keep it
in your OWN minds.
T 7 I 2. Projection to the Holy Spirit is the law of extension. To the ego,
it is the law of deprivation. It therefore produces abundance or scarcity,
depending on how you choose to apply it. This choice IS up to you, but it is NOT
up to you to decide whether or not you will UTILIZE projection. Every mind MUST
project, because that is how it lives, and every mind IS life. The ego’s use of
projection must be fully understood before the INEVITABLE association between
projection and anger can be finally UNmade.
T 7 I 3. The ego ALWAYS tries to preserve conflict. It is very ingenious in
devising ways which SEEM to diminish conflict only because it does NOT want you
to find it so intolerable that you will INSIST on giving it up. Therefore, it
tries to persuade you that IT can free you OF conflict, lest you give IT up and
free YOURSELF. The ego, using its own warped version of the laws of God, uses
the power of the mind ONLY to defeat the mind’s real purpose. It projects
conflict FROM your mind to OTHER minds, in an attempt to persuade you that you
have gotten RID of it. This has a number of fallacies which may not be so
apparent.
T 7 I 4. Strictly speaking, conflict cannot BE projected, precisely BECAUSE
it cannot be fully shared. Any attempt to keep PART of it and get rid of ANOTHER
part does not really mean ANYTHING. Remember that a conflicted teacher is a poor
teacher AND A POOR LEARNER. His lessons are confused, and their transfer value
severely limited BY his confusion.
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T 7 I 5. A second fallacy is the idea that you can GET RID of something you
do not want BY giving it away. GIVING it is how you KEEP it. The belief that by
giving it OUT you have excluded from WITHIN is a complete distortion of the
power of EXTENSION.
T 7 I 6. That is why those who project from the ego are vigilant for their
OWN safety. THEY ARE AFRAID THAT THEIR PROJECTIONS WILL RETURN AND HURT THEM.
They DO believe they have blotted them out of their OWN minds, but they also
believe they are trying to creep back INTO them. This is because their
projections have NOT left their minds, and this, in turn, forces them to engage
in compulsive activity in order NOT to recognize this.
T 7 I 7. You cannot perpetuate an illusion about another WITHOUT perpetuating
it about yourself. There is no way out of this, because it is IMPOSSIBLE to
fragment the mind. To fragment is to break into pieces, and mind CANNOT attack.
The belief that it CAN, a fallacy which the ego ALWAYS makes, underlies its
whole use of projection. This is because it does not understand what the mind
IS, and therefore does not understand what YOU are. Yet ITS existence IS
dependent on your mind, because it is a BELIEF. The ego IS therefore a confusion
in identification, which never had a consistent model, and never developed
consistently. It is the distorted product of the misapplication of the laws of
God by distorted minds which are misusing their own power.
T 7 I 8. DO NOT BE AFRAID OF THE EGO. It DOES depend on your mind, and as you
made it by believing in it, so you can dispel it by withdrawing belief FROM it.
Do NOT project the responsibility for your belief in it onto ANYONE else, or you
will PRESERVE the belief. When you are willing to accept sole responsibility for
the ego’s existence YOURSELF, you will have laid aside all anger and all attack,
because they COME from an attempt to PROJECT RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN ERRORS.
But having ACCEPTED the error
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as yours, DO NOT KEEP THEM. Give them over quickly to the Holy Spirit to be
undone completely, so that ALL their effects will vanish from your minds and
from the Sonship AS A WHOLE. He will teach you to perceive BEYOND belief,
because truth IS beyond belief and His perception IS true.
T 7 I 9. The ego can be completely forgotten at ANY time, because it was
always a belief that is totally incredible. No-one can KEEP a belief he has
judged to be unbelievable. The more you learn ABOUT the ego, the more you
realize that it cannot BE believed. The incredible cannot BE understood because
it IS unbelievable. The utter meaninglessness of ALL perception which comes from
the unbelievable MUST be apparent, but it is NOT beyond belief because it was
made BY belief.
T 7 I 10. The whole purpose of this course is to teach you that the ego is
unbelievable and will forever BE unbelievable. You who made the ego by BELIEVING
the unbelievable CANNOT make this judgment alone. By accepting the Atonement for
YOURSELF, you are deciding AGAINST the belief that you can BE alone, thus
dispelling the idea of separation and affirming your true identification with
the whole Kingdom as literally PART OF YOU. This identification is as beyond
doubt as it is beyond belief. Your wholeness HAS no limits, because its being is
in Infinity.
T 7 J. The Extension of the Kingdom
C 164 [paragraph split]
T 7 J 1. Only you can limit your creative power, but God wills to release it.
He no more wills you to deprive yourselves of YOUR creations than He wills to
deprive Himself of His.
T 7 J 2. Do not withhold your gifts to the Sonship, or you withhold yourself
from God. Selfishness is of the ego but self-fulness is of the Soul because that
is how He created it. The Holy Spirit is the part of the mind that lies between
the ego and the Soul, mediating between them ALWAYS IN FAVOR OF THE SOUL. To the
ego this is partiality, and it therefore responds as if it were the part that is
being sided AGAINST.
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To the Soul this is truth, because it knows its own fulness and cannot conceive
of ANY part from which it is excluded. The soul KNOWS that the consciousness of
all its brothers is included in its own, as IT is included in God. The power of
the whole Sonship AND OF ITS CREATOR is therefore its OWN fulness, rendering its
Creation and its creating equally whole and equal in perfection.
T 7 J 3. 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.
T 7 J 4. The extension of God’s Being is the Soul’s only function. ITS
fulness cannot be contained any more than can the fulness of its Creator.
Fullness IS extension. The ego’s whole thought system BLOCKS extension, and
therefore blocks YOUR ONLY FUNCTION. It therefore blocks your joy and THIS is
why you perceive yourselves as unfulfilled. Unless you create, you ARE
unfulfilled. But God does NOT know unfillment, 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.
T 7 J 5. 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-fulness. Exclude
ANY part of the Kingdom FROM yourself, and you are NOT whole. A split mind
CANNOT perceive its fullness, and needs the miracle OF its wholeness to dawn
upon it and heal it. This reawakens its wholeness IN it and restores it to the
Kingdom because of its ACCEPTANCE of wholeness. The full appreciation of its
self-fulness makes selfishness impossible, and extension inevitable.
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That is why there is perfect peace in the Kingdom. Every Soul IS fulfilling its
function, and ONLY complete fulfillment IS peace.
T 7 J 6. Insanity APPEARS to add to reality, but no-one would claim that what
it adds is true. Insanity is therefore the NONextension of truth, which blocks
joy because it blocks Creation and therefore blocks self-FULFILLMENT. The
unfulfilled MUST be depressed, because their self-fulness is UNKNOWN to them.
Your creations are protected FOR you because the Holy Spirit, Who is in your
minds, knows of them, and can bring them INTO your awareness whenever you will
let Him. They ARE there as part of your own being, because YOUR fulfillment
INCLUDES them. The creations of every Son of God are yours, because every
creation belongs to everyone, being created for the Sonship as a whole.
T 7 J 7. You have not failed to add to the inheritance of the Sons of God,
and thus have not failed to secure it for yourselves. If it was the will of God
to give it to you, He gave it forever. If it was His will that you have it
forever, He gave you the means for keeping it, and YOU HAVE DONE SO. Disobeying
God’s will is meaningful only to the insane. In truth, it is impossible.
T 7 J 8. Your self-fulness is as boundless as God’s. Like His, it extends
forever and in perfect peace. Its radiance is so intense that it creates in
perfect joy, and only the whole can be born of its wholeness. Be confident that
you have never lost your identity and the extension which maintains it in
wholeness and peace. Miracles are AN EXPRESSION OF THIS CONFIDENCE. They are
reflections both of your own proper identification WITH your brothers, and of
your own awareness that YOUR identification IS maintained by extension. The
miracle is A LESSON IN TOTAL PERCEPTION. By including ANY part of totality in
the lesson, you HAVE included the whole.
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T 7 J 9. You have said that, when you write of the Kingdom and your own
creations which belong to it, you are describing WHAT YOU DO NOT KNOW. This is
true in a sense, but no more true than your failure to acknowledge the whole
result of the ego’s premises. The Kingdom is the result of premises, as much as
this world is. You HAVE carried the ego’s reasoning to its logical conclusion,
which is TOTAL CONFUSION ABOUT EVERYTHING. But you do not really BELIEVE this,
or you could not possibly maintain it. If you REALLY saw this result, you COULD
not want it. The ONLY reason why you could possibly want ANY part of it is
because YOU DO NOT SEE THE WHOLE OF IT.
T 7 J 10. You therefore ARE willing to look at the ego’s premises but NOT at
their logical outcome. Is it not possible that you have done the same thing with
the premises of God? Your creations ARE the logical outcome of His premises. HIS
thinking has established them FOR you. They are therefore THERE, EXACTLY where
they belong. They belong to your mind, as part of your identification with HIS.
But your state of mind and your recognition of WHAT IS IN YOUR MIND depends, at
any given moment, on what you believe ABOUT your mind. Whatever these beliefs
may be, they are the premises which will determine WHAT YOU ACCEPT INTO YOUR
MINDS.
T 7 J 11. It is surely clear that you can both accept into your minds what is
NOT really there, and DENY WHAT IS. Neither of these possibilities requires
further elaboration, although both are clearly indefensible even if YOU elect to
defend them. But the function which God Himself GAVE your minds through His you
may DENY but you CANNOT prevent. They are the logical outcome of what you ARE.
The ability to SEE a logical outcome depends on the WILLINGNESS TO SEE IT, but
its TRUTH has nothing to do with your willingness at all. Truth is GOD’S will.
SHARE His Will, and you will share what He KNOWS. Deny His Will AS YOURS, and
you are denying His Kingdom AND yours.
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T 7 J 12. The Holy Spirit will direct you ONLY so as to avoid all pain. The
UNDOING of pain must OBVIOUSLY avoid this. No-one would surely OBJECT to this
goal IF HE RECOGNIZED IT. The problem is NOT whether what He says is true, but
whether or not you want to LISTEN to what He says.
T 7 K. The Confusion of Strength and Weakness
C 168 [split paragraph]
T 7 K 1. You no more recognize what is painful than you know what is joyful,
and are, in fact, very apt to confuse them. The Holy Spirit’s main function is
to teach you to tell them apart.
T 7 K 2. However strange it may seem that this is necessary, it obviously IS.
The reason is equally obvious. What is joyful to you is painful to the ego, and
as long as you are in doubt about what you are, you WILL be confused about joy
and pain. This confusion is the cause of the whole idea of sacrifice. Obey the
Holy Spirit, and you will be giving up the ego, but you will be SACRIFICING
nothing. On the contrary, you will be gaining everything. But if you BELIEVED
this there would be no conflict. That is why you need to DEMONSTRATE THE OBVIOUS
TO YOURSELF. It is not obvious to you.
T 7 K 3. You REALLY believe that doing the opposite of God’s will CAN be
better for you. You also believe that it is POSSIBLE to do the opposite of God’s
will. Therefore, you believe that an impossible choice IS open to you, which is
both very fearful and very desirable. But God wills. He does not wish. Your will
is as powerful as His because it is His. The ego’s wishes do not mean anything,
because the ego wishes for the impossible. You CAN wish for the impossible, but
you can only will with God. This is the ego’s weakness and your strength.
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T 7 K 4. The Holy Spirit always sides with YOU and with your STRENGTH. As
long as you avoid His guidance in any way, you WANT TO BE WEAK. But weakness is
frightening. What else, then, can this decision mean except that you want to be
fearful? The Holy Spirit never asks for sacrifice, but the ego always does. When
you are confused about this VERY clear distinction in motivation, it CAN only be
due to projection. Projection of this kind is a confusion in motivation, and
given THIS confusion, TRUST becomes impossible.
T 7 K 5. No-one obeys gladly a guide he does not trust. But this does not
mean that the guide is untrustworthy. In this case, it always means that the
FOLLOWER IS. However, this, too, is merely a matter of his own belief. Believing
that he can betray, he believes that everything can betray him. But this is ONLY
because he has elected to follow false guidance. Unable to follow THIS guidance
without fear, he associates fear with guidance, and refuses to follow any
guidance at all. If the result of this decision is confusion, this is hardly
surprising.
T 7 K 6. The Holy Spirit is perfectly trustworthy, as YOU are. God Himself
trusts you and therefore your trustworthiness is beyond question. It will always
remain beyond question, however much you may question it. I trust MY choices
ONLY because they ARE God’s Will. We said before that YOU are the will of God.
His will is not an idle wish, and your identification with His Will is not
optional because it is what you are. Sharing His will WITH me is not really open
to choice at all, though it may SEEM to be. The whole separation lies in this
fallacy. And the ONLY way out of the fallacy is to decide that YOU DO NOT HAVE
TO DECIDE ANYTHING.
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T 7 K 7. Everything has been given you by God’s decision. This is His Will,
and you can not undo it. Even the relinquishment of your false 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 lead you out of the confusion YOU have made. There is no confusion in the
mind of a Son of God, whose will must be the will of the Father, because the
Father’s Will is His Son.
T 7 K 8. Miracles are in accord with the Will of God, whose will you do NOT
know because you are confused about what you will. This MEANS that you are
confused about what you are. If you are God’s will and do NOT ACCEPT His will,
you can ONLY be not accepting what you are. But if your joy IS what you are, you
ARE denying joy. The miracle therefore is a lesson in what joy is. Being a
lesson in SHARING, it is a lesson in love, which is joy. Every miracle is thus a
lesson in Truth, and by OFFERING truth YOU are learning the difference between
pain and joy.
T 7 L. The State of Grace
T 7 K 1. The Holy Spirit will always guide you truly, because your joy IS
His. This is His will for everyone, because He speaks for the Kingdom of God
which is joy. Following Him is therefore the easiest thing in the world, and the
only thing which is easy, because it is NOT of the world and is therefore
natural. The world goes against your nature, because it is out of accord with
God’s laws. The world perceives orders of difficulty in EVERYTHING. This is
because the ego perceives nothing as wholly desirable. By DEMONSTRATING to
yourselves that THERE IS NO ORDER OF DIFFICULTY IN MIRACLES, you will convince
yourselves that in your natural state there IS no difficulty, because it is a
state of Grace.
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T 7 K 2. Grace is the natural state of every Son of God. When he is not in a
state of grace he IS out of his natural environment, and does NOT function well.
Everything he does becomes a strain, because he was not created for the
environment which he has made. He therefore cannot adapt to it, nor can he adapt
it to him. There is no point in trying. A Son of God is happy only when he knows
he is WITH God. That is the only environment in which he will not experience
strain, because that is where he belongs. It is also the only environment that
is worthy of him, because his own worth is beyond ANYTHING that he can make.
T 7 K 3. Consider the Kingdom which you have made, and judge its worth
fairly. Is it worthy to be a home for a Child of God? Does it protect his peace,
and shine love upon him? Does it keep his heart untouched by fear, and allow him
to give always without any sense of loss? Does it teach him that this giving is
his joy, and that God Himself thanks him for his giving?
T 7 K 4. That is the only environment in which you can be happy. You cannot
make it, anymore than you can make yourselves. But it has been created for you,
as you were created for it. God watches over His children and denies them
nothing. But when they deny Him they do NOT know this, because THEY deny
themselves everything. You who could give the love of God to everything you see
and touch and remember are literally denying Heaven to yourselves. I call upon
you again to remember that I have chosen you to teach the Kingdom to the
Kingdom. There are no exceptions to this lesson because the lack of exceptions
is the lesson.
T 7 K 5. 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
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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.
T 7 K 6. Perceiving the majesty of God as your brother is to accept your own
inheritance. God gives only equally. If you recognize His gift to anyone ELSE,
you have acknowledged what He has given you. Nothing is as easy to perceive as
truth. This is the perception which is immediate, clear, and natural. You have
trained yourselves not to see it, and this HAS been very difficult for you. Out
of your natural environment you may well ask, "what is truth?" because truth is
the environment by which and for which you were created. You do not know
yourselves because you do not know your Creator. You do not know YOUR creations,
because you do not know your brothers who created them with you.
T 7 K 7. We said before that only the whole Sonship is a worthy 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 the truth. You do not know your creations because you do not know their
creator. You do not know yourselves because you do not know yours.
8. Your creations cannot establish your reality, any more than YOU can
establish God’s. But you can know both. Being is known by sharing. Because God
shared His Being with you, you can know Him. But you must also know all He
created to know what they have shared. Without your Father you will not know
your fatherhood. The Kingdom of God includes all His Sons and their children,
who are like the Sons as they are like the Father. Know then the Sons of God,
and you will know all Creation.
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Chapter VIII- 8 – The Journey Back
T 8 A. Introduction
May 18
T 8 A 1. You are hampered in your progress by your demands to know what you
do not know. This is actually a way of hanging on to deprivation. You cannot
reasonably object to following instructions in a course FOR knowing, on the
grounds that you do not know. The need for the course is implicit in your
objection. Knowledge is not the motivation for learning this course. PEACE is.
As the PREREQUISITE for knowledge, peace MUST be learned. This is ONLY because
those who are in conflict are not peaceful, and peace is the CONDITION of
knowledge because it is the condition of the Kingdom.
T 8 A 2. Knowledge will be restored when YOU meet its conditions. This is not
a bargain made by God, who made no bargains at all. It is merely the result of
your misuse of His Laws on behalf of a will that was not His. Knowledge IS His
Will. If you are OPPOSING His Will, how CAN you have knowledge? I have told you
what knowledge OFFERS you, but it is clear that you do NOT regard this as wholly
desirable. If you did, you would hardly be willing to throw it away so readily,
when the ego asks for your allegiance.
T 8 A 3. The distraction of the ego SEEMS to interfere with your learning,
but it HAS no power to distract unless you GIVE it the power. The ego’s voice is
an hallucination. You cannot expect the EGO to say "I am not real."
Hallucinations ARE inaccurate perceptions of reality. But you are NOT asked to
dispel them alone. You are merely asked to evaluate them in terms of their
results TO YOU. If you DO NOT WANT THEM on the basis of LOSS OF PEACE, they will
be removed from your mind FOR you. Every response to the ego is a call to war,
and war DOES deprive you of peace.
T 8 A 4. Yet in this war THERE IS NO OPPONENT. THIS is the reinterpretation
of reality which you must make to secure peace, and the ONLY one you need ever
make.
T 8 B. The Direction of the Curriculum
T 8 B 1. Those whom you PERCEIVE as opponents are PART of your peace, which
YOU are giving up by attacking them. How can you have what YOU give up? You
SHARE to have, but you do NOT give it up yourselves.
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When you GIVE UP peace, you are EXCLUDING yourself FROM it. This is a condition
which is so ALIEN to the Kingdom that you CANNOT understand the state which
prevails WITHIN it.
T 8 B 2. Your past learning MUST have taught you the wrong things, simply
because it has not made you happy. On this basis alone, its value should be
questioned. If learning aims at CHANGE, and that is ALWAYS its purpose, are you
satisfied with the changes YOURS has brought you? Dissatisfaction with the
learning outcome MUST be a sign of learning failure, because it means that you
did NOT get what you WANT.
T 8 B 3. The curriculum of the Atonement IS the opposite of the curriculum
you have established for yourselves, but SO IS ITS OUTCOME. If the outcome of
yours has made you unhappy, and if you WANT a different outcome, a change in the
curriculum is obviously necessary.
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May 23, 1966
T 8 B 4. The first change that MUST be introduced is a change in direction. A
meaningful curriculum cannot be inconsistent. If it is planned by two teachers,
each believing in diametrically opposed ideas, it CANNOT be integrated. If it is
carried out by these two teachers simultaneously, EACH ONE MERELY INTERFERES
WITH THE OTHER. This leads to fluctuation, but NOT to change. The volatile have
no direction. They cannot choose one, because they CANNOT relinquish the others
EVEN IF THE OTHERS DO NOT EXIST. Their conflicted curriculum teaches them that
ALL directions exist, and gives them no RATIONALE for choice.
T 8 B 5. The total senselessness of such a curriculum must be fully
recognized before a real change in direction becomes possible. You CANNOT learn
simultaneously from two teachers who are in TOTAL DISAGREEMENT ABOUT EVERYTHING.
Their joint curriculum presents an IMPOSSIBLE learning task. They are teaching
you ENTIRELY different things in ENTIRELY different ways, which would be
possible except for the crucial fact that both are teaching you about YOURSELF.
Your REALITY is unaffected by both. But if you listen to both, your mind will
split on WHAT YOUR REALITY IS.
T 8 C. The Rationale for Choice
T 8 C 1. There is a rationale for choice. Only ONE teacher knows what your
reality is. If learning that is the purpose of the curriculum, you MUST learn it
of Him. The ego does NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS TRYING TO TEACH. It is trying to teach
you what you are WITHOUT KNOWING IT. The ego is expert ONLY in confusion. It
does not understand ANYTHING ELSE. As a teacher, then, it is totally confused
and totally confusing.
T 8 C 2. Even if you could disregard the Holy Spirit entirely, which is quite
impossible, you could learn nothing from the ego, because the ego knows nothing.
Is there any possible reason for choosing a teacher such as this? Does the TOTAL
disregard of ANYTHING it teaches make anything but sense? Is this the teacher to
whom a Son of God should turn to find HIMSELF? The ego has never given you a
sensible answer to anything.
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Simply on the grounds of your own experience with the ego’s teaching, should not
this alone disqualify it as your future teacher?
T 8 C 3. But the ego has done more harm to your learning than this alone.
Learning is joyful if it leads you along your natural path, and facilitates the
development of WHAT YOU HAVE. But when you are taught against your nature, you
will lose by your learning, because your learning will IMPRISON you. Your will
is in your nature, and therefore cannot go AGAINST it. The ego cannot teach you
anything as long as your will is free, because you WILL NOT LISTEN TO IT. It is
not your will to be imprisoned, because your will is free.
T 8 C 4. That is why the ego IS the denial of free will. It is never God Who
coerces you, because He shares His Will WITH you. His voice teaches only His
Will, but that is not the Holy Spirit’s lesson, because that is what you are.
The lesson is that your will and God’s CANNOT be out of accord because they ARE
one. This is the UNdoing of everything the ego tries to teach. It is not, then,
only the DIRECTION (of the curriculum?) which must be unconflicted, but also the
content.
T 8 C 5. The ego wants to teach you that you want to oppose God’s Will. This
unnatural lesson CANNOT be learned, but the attempt to learn it is a violation
of your own freedom, and makes you AFRAID of your will because it is free. The
Holy Spirit opposes any imprisoning of the will of a Son of God, knowing that
the will of the Son is the Father’s. He leads you steadily along the path of
freedom, teaching you how to disregard, or look beyond everything that would
hold you back.
T 8 C 6. We said before that the Holy Spirit teaches you the difference
between pain and joy. That is the same as saying that He teaches you the
difference between imprisonment and freedom. YOU CANNOT MAKE THIS DISTINCTION
WITHOUT HIM. That is because you have taught YOURSELF that imprisonment is
freedom. Believing them to be the same, how can you tell them apart? Can you ask
the part of your mind that taught you to believe they are the same to teach you
the difference?
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T 8 C 7. The Holy Spirit’s teaching takes only one direction, and has only
one goal. His direction is freedom, and His goal is God. But He cannot conceive
of God without you, because it was not God’s Will to be without you. When you
have learned that your will is God’s, you could no more will to be without Him
than He could will to be without you. This is freedom and this is joy. Deny
YOURSELF this, and you are denying God His Kingdom, because He created you for
this.
T 8 C 8. When we said, "all power and glory are yours because the Kingdom is
His," this is what we meant: The Will of God is without limit, and all power and
glory lie within it. It is boundless in strength and in love and in peace. It
has no boundaries because its extension is unlimited, and it encompasses all
things because it CREATED all things. By CREATING all things, it made them PART
OF ITSELF. You are the Will of God, because this is how you were created.
Because your Creator creates only like Himself, you are like Him.
T 8 C 9. You are part of Him who is all power and glory, and are therefore as
unlimited as He is. To what else except all power and glory can the Holy Spirit
appeal to restore God’s Kingdom? His appeal, then, is merely to what the Kingdom
is, and for its own acknowledgment of what it is. When you acknowledge THIS, you
bring the acknowledgment automatically to everyone, because YOU HAVE
ACKNOWLEDGED EVERYONE. By your recognition you awaken theirs, and through theirs
yours is extended. Awakening runs easily and gladly through the Kingdom in
answer to the call of God. This is the natural response of every Son of God to
the Voice of His Creator, because it is the voice for HIS creations and for his
own extension.
T 8 C 10. Glory be to God in the highest, and to you because He has so willed
it. Ask and it shall be given you [75] , because it has already been given. Ask
for light and learn that you are light. If you WANT understanding and
enlightenment you will learn it, because your will to learn it is your decision
to listen to the Teacher who knows of light and can therefore
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TEACH IT TO YOU.
T 8 D. The Holy Encounter
T 8 D 1. There is no limit on your learning, because there is no limit on
your minds. There is no limit on His will to teach, because He was created by
unlimited Will in ORDER to teach. Knowing His function perfectly, He wills to
fulfill it perfectly, because that is His joy AND yours. To fulfill the Will of
God perfectly is the only joy and peace that can be fully KNOWN, because it is
the only function that can be FULLY EXPERIENCED. When this is accomplished,
then, there is no other experience. But the wish for other experience will block
this, because God’s Will CANNOT be forced upon you, being an experience of total
willingness.
T 8 D 2. The Holy Spirit knows how to teach this, but you do not. That is why
you need Him, and why God gave Him TO you. Only His teaching will release your
will to God’s, uniting it with His power and glory, and establishing them as
yours. You will share them as He shares them, because this is the natural
outcome of their being. The Will of the Father and of the Son are one together
by their extension. Their extension is the result of their Oneness, holding
THEIR unity by extending their JOINT will.
T 8 D 3. This is perfect creation by the perfectly created in union with the
Perfect Creator. The Father must give fatherhood to His Sons, because His Own
Fatherhood must be extended outward. You who belong in God have the holy
function of extending His Fatherhood by placing no limits upon it. Let the Holy
Spirit teach you HOW to do this, for you will know what it means of God Himself.
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T 8 D 4. When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see
him, you will see yourself. As you treat him, you will treat yourself. As you
think of him, you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will
find yourself or lose sight of yourself. Whenever two Sons of God meet they are
given another chance at Salvation. Do not leave anyone without giving salvation
TO him and receiving it yourself. For I am always there WITH you, in remembrance
of YOU.
T 8 D 5. The goal of the curriculum, regardless of the teacher you choose, is
Know thyself. There is nothing else to learn. Everyone is looking for himself
and the power and glory he thinks he has lost. Whenever you are with anyone
ELSE, you have another opportunity to find them. Your power and glory are in HIM
BECAUSE they are yours. The ego tries to find them in yourself, because he [76]
does not know where to look. But the Holy Spirit teaches you that if you look
only at yourself you CANNOT find yourself because that is NOT what you are.
T 8 D 6. Whenever you are with a brother you are learning what you are,
because you are teaching what you are. He will respond either with pain or with
joy, depending on which teacher you are following. He will be imprisoned or
released according to your decision, and so will you. Never forget your
responsibility to him, because it is your responsibility to yourself. Give him
his place in the Kingdom, and you will have yours. The Kingdom cannot be found
alone, and you who are the Kingdom cannot find yourselves alone.
T 8 D 7. To achieve the goal of the curriculum, then, you cannot listen to the
ego. Its purpose is to DEFEAT ITS OWN GOAL. It does not know this, because it
does not know anything. But you can know this, and you will know it if you are
willing to look at what the ego has made of you.
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This is your responsibility, because once you have really done this you will
accept the Atonement for yourself. What other choice could you make?
T 8 D 8. Having made this choice, you will begin to learn and understand why
you have believed that when you met someone else, you have thought he WAS [77]
someone else. And every holy encounter in which you enter fully will teach you
THAT this is not so. You can encounter only part of yourself, because you are
part of God WHO IS EVERYTHING. His power and glory are everywhere, and you
cannot be excluded from them. The ego teaches that your strength is in you
alone. The Holy Spirit teaches that all strength is in God and therefore in you.
T 8 D 9. God wills No-One suffer. He does not will ANYONE to suffer for a
wrong decision you have made, including YOURSELF. That is why He has given you
the means for undoing it. Through His power and glory all your wrong decisions
are undone completely, releasing you and your brothers from EVERY IMPRISONING
THOUGHT ANY part of the Sonship has accepted. Wrong decisions HAVE no power
because they are not true. The imprisonment which they seem to produce is no
more true than they are.
T 8 D 10. Power and glory belong to God alone. So do you. God gives whatever
belongs to Him, because He gives OF HIMSELF, and everything belongs to Him.
Giving of your self is the function He gave you. Fulfilling it perfectly will
teach you what YOU have of HIM. And this will teach you what you are IN Him. You
cannot be powerLESS to do this, because this is your power. Glory is God’s gift
to you because that is what He is. See this glory everywhere, to learn what you
are.
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T 8 E. The Light of the World
May 31, 1966.
T 8 E 1. If God’s Will for you is complete peace and joy, unless you
experience only this you MUST be refusing to acknowledge His Will. His Will does
not vacillate, being changeless forever. When you are not at peace, it can only
be because you do not believe you are IN HIM. Yet He is all in all. His peace IS
complete, and you must be included in it. His laws govern you because they
govern everything. You cannot exempt yourself from His laws, although you CAN
disobey them. But if you do, and only if you do, you will feel lonely and
helpless, because you Are denying yourself everything.
T 8 E 2. I am come as a light into the world [78] which does deny itself
everything. It does this simply by dissociating itself from everything. It is
therefore an illusion of isolation, MAINTAINED by fear of the same loneliness
which is its illusion. I have told you that I am with you always even to the end
of the world [79] . That is why I am the light of the world [80] . If I am with you
in the loneliness of the world, the loneliness is gone. You cannot maintain the
illusion of loneliness if you are not alone.
T 8 E 3. My purpose, then, is to overcome the world [81] . I do not attack it,
but my light must dispel it because of WHAT IT IS. Light does not ATTACK
darkness, but it does shine it away. If my light goes with you everywhere, you
shine it away with ME. The light becomes ours, and you CANNOT abide in darkness,
any more than darkness can abide anywhere you go. The remembrance of me is the
remembrance of yourself and of Him Who sent me to you.
T 8 E 4. You WERE in darkness until God’s Will was done completely by any
part of the Sonship. When it was, it was perfectly accomplished by ALL. How else
could it BE perfectly accomplished? My mission was simply to UNITE the Will of
the Sonship WITH the Will of the Father by being aware of the Father’s Will
myself. This is the awareness I came to give YOU, and YOUR problem in accepting
it IS the problem of this world. Dispelling it is salvation, and in this sense I
AM the salvation of the world [82] .
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T 8 E 5. The world MUST despise and reject me, because the world is the
belief that love is impossible. Your reactions to me ARE the reactions of the
world to God. If you will accept the fact that I am with you, you are denying
the world and accepting GOD. My will IS His, and your will to hear me IS the
decision to hear His Voice and abide in His Will. As He sent me to you, so will
I send you to others. But I will go to them with you, so we can teach them union
and peace.
T 8 E 6. Do you not think the world needs peace as much as you do? Do you not
want to give it to the world as much as you want to receive it? For unless you
do, you will not receive it. If you will to have it of me, you must give it.
Rehabilitation does not come from anyone ELSE. You can have GUIDANCE from
without, but you must accept it from within. The guidance must become what you
want, or else it will be meaningless to you. That is why rehabilitation is a
collaborative venture. I can tell you what to DO, but this will not really help
you unless you collaborate by believing that I know what to do. Only then will
your MIND will to follow me.
T 8 E 7. Without your will, you cannot be rehabilitated. MOTIVATION TO BE
HEALED is the crucial factor in rehabilitation. Without this, you are deciding
against healing, and your veto of my will FOR you makes healing impossible. If
healing is our joint will, unless our wills are joined you cannot be healed.
This is obvious when you consider what healing is for.
T 8 E 8. Healing is the way in which the separation is overcome. Separation
is overcome by union. It CANNOT be overcome by separating. The will to unite
must be unequivocal, or the will itself is separated or NOT WHOLE. Your will is
the means by which you determine your own condition, because will is the
MECHANISM OF DECISION. It is the power by which you separate or join, and
experience pain or joy accordingly. My will cannot overcome yours, because YOURS
IS AS POWERFUL AS MINE. If it were not so, the Sons
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of God would be unequal.
T 8 E 9. All things BECOME possible through our joint will. But my will alone
will not help you. Your will is as free as mine, and God Himself would not go
against it. I cannot will what God does not will. I CAN offer you my will to
make yours invincible by this sharing, but I CANNOT oppose yours without
competing with it and thereby violating God’s Will for you. Nothing God created
can oppose your will, as nothing God created can oppose His. God gave your will
its power, which I can only acknowledge in honor of His.
T 8 E 10. If you want to be LIKE me, I will help you, knowing that we are
alike. If you want to be DIFFERENT, I will wait until you change your mind. I
can teach you, but only you can choose to listen to my teaching. How else can it
be, if God’s Kingdom is freedom? Freedom cannot be learned by tyranny of ANY
kind, and the perfect equality of all God’s Sons cannot be recognized through
the dominion of one will over another. God’s Sons are equal in will, all being
the Will of their Father. This is the only lesson I can teach, knowing that it
is true.
T 8 E 11. When your will is not mine, it is not Our Father’s. This means that
you have imprisoned yours, and have not let it be free. Of yourselves you can do
nothing, because of yourselves you are nothing. I am nothing without the Father,
and you are nothing without me because by DENYING the Father you deny yourself.
I will always remember you, and in my remembrance OF you lies your remembrance
of yourself. In our remembrance of each other lies our remembrance of God. And
in this remembrance lies your freedom, because your freedom is in Him.
T 8 E 12. Join then with me in praise of Him and you whom He created. This is
our gift of gratitude to Him, which He will share with all His Creations, to
whom He gives equally whatever is acceptable to Him. Because it is acceptable to
Him, it is the gift of freedom, which is His Will for all His Sons. By offering
freedom you will be free, because
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freedom is the only gift which you can offer to God’s Sons, being an
acknowledgment of what they are and what He is.
T 8 E 13. Freedom is creation because it is love. What you seek to imprison
you do not love. Therefore, when you seek to imprison ANYONE, including
yourself, you do not love him and you cannot identify with him. When you
imprison yourself, you are losing sight of your true identification with me and
with the Father. Your identification is with the Father and with the Son. It
cannot be with one and not the other. If you are part of one, you MUST be part
of the other because they are One.
T 8 E 14. The Holy Trinity is holy because It is One. If you exclude YOURSELF
from this union, you are perceiving the Holy Trinity as separated. You MUST be
included in It, because It is everything. Unless you take your place in It and
fulfill your function AS part of It, It is as bereft as you are. No part of It
can be imprisoned if Its Truth is to be known.
T 8 E 15. Can you be separated from your identification and be at peace?
Dissociation is NOT a solution; it is a delusion. The delusional believe that
truth will ASSAIL them, and so they DO NOT SEE IT because they prefer the
delusion. Judging truth as something they do not want, they perceive deception
and block knowledge. Help them by offering them your unified will on their
behalf, as I am offering you mine on yours. Alone we can do nothing, but
together our wills fuse into something whose power is far beyond the power of
its separate parts.
T 8 E 16. By not being separate, the Will of God is established in ours and as
ours. This will is invincible because it is undivided. The UNDIVIDED will of the
Sonship is the perfect creator, being wholly in the likeness of God, Whose Will
it is. You cannot be exempt from it, if you are to understand what it is and
what you are. By separating your will from mine, you ARE exempting yourself from
the Will of God which is yourself.
T 8 E 17. But to heal is still to make whole. Therefore to heal is to unite
with those who are LIKE you, because perceiving this likeness is to
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recognize the Father. If your perfection is in Him and only in Him, how can you
know it WITHOUT recognizing Him? The recognition of God is the recognition of
yourself. There is no separation of God and His Creation. You will learn this as
you learn that there is no separation of your will and mine.
T 8 E 18. Let the love of God shine upon you by your acceptance of me. My
reality is yours and His. By joining YOUR will with mine, you are signifying
your awareness that the Will of God is One. His Oneness and ours are not
separate, because His Oneness encompasses ours. To join WITH me is to restore
His power TO you because we are sharing it. I offer you only the recognition of
His power in you, but in that lies all truth. As we unite, we unite with Him.
Glory be to the union of God and His Holy Sons, because all glory lies IN them
because they ARE united.
T 8 E 19. The miracles WE do bear witness to the Will of the Father for His
Son, and to our joy in uniting WITH His Will FOR us. When you unite with me, you
are uniting without the ego, because I have renounced the ego in myself, and
therefore cannot unite with yours. Our union is therefore the way to renounce
the ego in YOURSELVES. The truth in both of us is beyond the ego. By willing
that, you have gone beyond it toward truth.
T 8 E 20. Our success in transcending the ego is guaranteed by God, and I can
share my perfect confidence IN His Promise because I know He gave me this
confidence for both of us and all of us. I bring His Peace back to all His
Children, because I received it of Him for us all. Nothing can prevail against
our united wills, because nothing can prevail against God’s. Would ye know the
Will of God for you? Ask it of me, who knows [83] it for you, and you will find
it. I will deny YOU nothing, as God denies me nothing.
T 8 E 21. Ours is simply the journey back to God Who is our home. Whenever
fear intrudes anywhere along the road to peace, it is always because the ego has
attempted to JOIN the journey with us AND cannot do so. Sensing defeat and
angered by it, it regards itself as rejected and becomes
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retaliative. You are invulnerable to its retaliation because I am with you. On
this journey, you have chosen me as your companion instead of your ego. Do not
try to hold on to both, or you will try to go in different directions and will
lose the way.
T 8 E 22. The ego’s way is not mine, but it is also not yours. The Holy Spirit
has one direction for all minds, and the one He taught me IS yours. Let us not
lose sight of His direction through illusions, for ONLY illusions of another
direction can obscure the one for which God’s Voice speaks in all of us. Never
accord the ego the power to interfere with the journey, because it has none, and
the journey is the way to what is TRUE. Leave all deception behind, and reach
beyond all attempts of the ego to hold you back.
T 8 E 23. I DO go before you, because I am beyond the ego. Reach therefore for
my hand because you want to transcend the ego. My will, will never be wanting,
and if you want to share it YOU WILL. I give it willingly and gladly, because I
need YOU as much as you need ME.
C 186 [split paragraph]
T 8 F. The Power of Joint Decision
T 8 F 1. We are the joint will of the Sonship, whose wholeness is for all. We
begin the journey back by setting out together, and gather in our brothers as we
continue together.
T 8 F 2. Every gain in our strength is offered to all, so they, too, can lay
aside their weakness and add their strength to us. God’s welcome waits for us
all, and He will welcome us as I am welcoming YOU. Forget not the Kingdom of God
for anything the world has to offer. The world can ADD nothing to the power and
the glory of God and His Holy Sons, but it can blind the Sons to the Father if
they behold it. You cannot behold the [84] world and know God. Only one is true.
T 8 F 3. I am come to tell you that the choice of which is true is not yours.
If it were, you would have destroyed yourselves. But God did not will the
destruction of His Creations, having created them for eternity. His Will has
saved you, not from yourselves, but from your illusions of yourselves. He has
saved you for yourselves. Let us glorify Him Whom the world denies, for over His
Kingdom it has no power.
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June 6, 1966.
T 8 F 4. No-one created by God can find joy in anything except the eternal.
That is not because he is DEPRIVED of anything else, but because nothing else is
worthy of him. What God AND His Sons create is eternal, and in this and this
only is their joy. Listen to the story of the prodigal son, and learn what God’s
treasure is and yours:
T 8 F 5. This son of a loving father left his home and thought he squandered
everything for nothing of any value, though he did not know its worthlessness at
the time. He was ashamed to return to his father, because he thought he had hurt
him. But when he came home the father welcomed him with joy, because only the
son himself was his father’s treasure. HE WANTED NOTHING ELSE.
T 8 F 6. God wants only His Son, because His Son is His only treasure. You
want your creations, as He wants His. Your creations are your gift to the Holy
Trinity, created in gratitude for your creation. They do not leave you, any more
than you have left your Creator. But they extend your creation, as God extended
Himself to you. Can the Creations of God Himself take joy in what is not real?
And what is real except the Creations of God and those which are created like
His? Your creations love you as your Soul loves your Father FOR THE GIFT OF
CREATION. There is no other gift that is eternal, and therefore THERE IS NO
OTHER GIFT THAT IS TRUE.
T 8 F 7. How, then, can you accept anything else, or give anything else, and
expect joy in return? And what else BUT joy would you want? You made neither
yourself nor your function. YOU have made only the decision to be unworthy of
both. But you COULD not make yourself unworthy because YOU ARE THE TREASURE OF
GOD. What He values is valuable. There CAN be no question of its worth, because
its value lies in God’s sharing Himself with it and ESTABLISHING ITS
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VALUE FOREVER. Your function is to ADD to God’s treasure by creating yours. His
will to you is His Will for you. He would not withhold creation from you,
because His joy is in it.
T 8 F 8. You CANNOT find joy except as He does. His joy lay in creating you,
and He extends His Fatherhood to you so that you can extend yourself AS HE DID.
You do not understand this because you do not understand Him. No one who does
not know his function can understand it. And no one CAN know his function unless
he knows who he IS. Creation is the Will of God. His Will created you TO CREATE.
Your will was not created separate from His, and so it wills as HE wills.
T 8 F 9. An unwilling will does not mean anything, because it is a
contradiction in terms which actually leaves nothing. You can make yourself
powerless only in a way that has NO MEANING AT ALL. When you think you are
unwilling to will with God, you are not thinking. God’s will IS thought. It
cannot be contradicted by thought. God does not contradict Himself. And His
Sons, who are like Him, cannot contradict themselves or Him. But their thought
is so powerful that they can even imprison the mind of God’s Son if they so
choose. This choice does make the Son’s function unknown TO HIM, but never to
his Creator. And because it is not unknown to his Creator, it is forever
knowable to him.
T 8 F 10. There is no question but one you should ever ask of yourself: "Do I
want to know my Father’s Will for me?" HE will not hide it. He has revealed it
to me because I asked it of Him, and learned of what He had already given. Our
function is to function together, because apart from each other we cannot
function at all. The whole power of God’s Son lies in all of us, but not in any
of us alone.
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God would not have us be alone because He does not will to be alone. That is why
He created His Son and gave him the power to create with Him. Our creations are
as holy as we are, and we are the Sons of God Himself, and therefore as holy as
He is. Through our creations we extend our Love, and thus increase the joy of
the Holy Trinity. You do not understand this for a very simple reason. You who
are God’s own treasure do not regard yourselves as valuable. Given this belief
YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND ANYTHING.
T 8 F 11. I share with God the knowledge of the value HE puts upon you. My
devotion to you is of Him, being born of my knowledge of myself and Him. We
cannot be separated. Whom God has joined CANNOT be separated [85] , and God has
joined all His Sons WITH HIMSELF. Can you be separated from your life and your
being? The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where
you are always, and what you are forever. It is a journey without distance, to a
goal that has never changed.
T 8 F 12. Truth can only be experienced. It cannot be described and it cannot
be explained. I can make you aware of the conditions of truth, but the
experience is of God. Together we can meet its conditions, but truth will dawn
upon you of itself. What God has willed for you is yours. He has given His Will
to His treasure, whose treasure It is. Your heart lies where your treasure is,
as His does. You who are beloved of God are wholly blessed. Learn this of me,
and free the Holy Will of all those who are as blessed as you are.
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T 8 G. Communication and the Ego-Body Equation
T 8 G 1. Attack is ALWAYS physical. When attack in ANY form enters your mind,
you are EQUATING YOURSELF WITH A BODY. This is the ego’s INTERPRETATION of the
body. You do not have to ATTACK physically to accept this interpretation; you
ARE accepting it simply by the belief that attack can GET YOU SOMETHING YOU
WANT. If you did NOT believe this, the IDEA of attack would have no appeal to
you.
T 8 G 2. When you equate yourself with a body, you will ALWAYS experience
depression. When a Child of God thinks of himself in this way, he is belittling
himself and seeing his brothers as similarly belittled. Since he can find
himself ONLY in them, he has cut himself off from salvation. Remember that the
Holy Spirit interprets the body ONLY as a means of communication. Being the
communication link between God and His separated Sons, He interprets everything
YOU have in the light of what HE is.
T 8 G 3. The ego SEPARATES through the body. The Holy Spirit reaches THROUGH
it to others. You do not perceive your brothers as the Holy Spirit does because
you do not interpret their bodies AND YOURS solely as a means of JOINING THEIR
MINDS and uniting them with yours and mine. This interpretation of the body will
change your mind entirely about its value. Of itself it has NONE. If you use it
for attack it is harmful to you. But if you use it ONLY to reach the minds of
those who believe they ARE bodies and teach them THROUGH the body that THIS IS
NOT SO, you will begin to understand the power of the mind that is in both of
you. If you use the body for this, and ONLY for this, you CANNOT use it for
attack. In the service of uniting, it becomes a beautiful lesson in communion,
which has value until communion IS.
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T 8 G 4. This is God’s way of making unlimited what YOU have limited. His
Voice does not see the body as YOU do, because He knows the ONLY reality that
ANYTHING can have is the service it can render God on behalf of the function HE
has given. Communication ENDS separation. Attack PROMOTES it. The body is ugly
or beautiful, savage or holy, helpful or harmful, according to the use to which
it is put. And in the body of another you will see the use to which you put
YOURS.
T 8 G 5. If the body becomes for you a means which you give to the Holy
Spirit to use on behalf of the union of the Sonship, you will not see ANYTHING
physical except as WHAT IT IS. Use it for truth, and you will see it truly.
Misuse it and you will misunderstand it, because you have already done so BY
misusing it. Interpret anything apart from the Holy Spirit, and you will
mistrust it. This will lead you to hatred and attack and loss of peace.
T 8 G 6. But ALL loss comes only from your own misunderstanding. Loss of any
kind is impossible. When you look upon a brother as a physical entity, his power
and glory are lost to you and SO ARE YOURS. You have attacked him, and you must
have attacked yourself first. Do not see him this way for your own salvation,
which MUST bring him his. Do not ALLOW him to belittle himself in your mind, but
give him freedom from his belief in littleness, and escape from yours. As part
of YOU, he is holy. As part of ME, you are. To communicate with a part of God
Himself is to reach beyond the Kingdom to its Creator, through His Voice which
He has established as part of you.
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T 8 G 7. Rejoice, then, that of yourselves you can do nothing. You are not of
yourselves. And He of Whom you are has willed your power and glory for you, with
which you can perfectly accomplish His holy Will for you when you so will it
yourself. He has not withdrawn His gifts from YOU, but you have withdrawn them
from Him. Let no Son of God remain hidden for His Name’s sake, because His Name
is yours.
T 8 G 8. Remember that the Bible says, "The word (or thought) was made
flesh. [86] " Strictly speaking, this is impossible, since it seems to involve the
translation of one order of reality into another. Different orders of reality
merely SEEM to exist, just as different orders of miracles do. Thought cannot be
MADE into flesh except by belief, because thought is not physical. But thought
is communication, for which the body can be used. This is the only natural use
to which it can be put. To use the body UNnaturally is to lose sight of the Holy
Spirit’s purpose, and thus to confuse the goal of His curriculum.
T 8 G 9. There is nothing so frustrating to a learner as to place him in a
curriculum which he cannot learn. His sense of adequacy suffers, and he must
become depressed. Being faced with an impossible learning situation, REGARDLESS
of why it is impossible, is the most depressing thing in the world. In fact, it
is ultimately why the world is depressing. The Holy Spirit’s curriculum is never
depressing because it is a curriculum in joy. Whenever the reaction to learning
is depression, it is only because the goal of the curriculum has been lost sight
of.
T 8 G 10. In the world, not even the body is perceived as whole. Its purpose is
seen as fragmented into many functions which bear little or no relationship to
each other, so that it appears to be ruled by chaos.
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Guided by the ego, it is. Guided by the Holy Spirit, it is not. It becomes ONLY
a means by which the part of the mind which you have separated from your Soul
can reach beyond its distortions and return to the Soul. The ego’s temple thus
becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit, where devotion to Him replaces devotion
to the ego. In this sense the body does become a temple to God, because His
Voice abides in it by directing the use TO WHICH YOU PUT IT.
T 8 G 11. Healing is the result of using the body solely for communication.
Since this IS natural, it heals by making whole, which is also natural. All mind
is whole, and the belief that part of it is physical or NOT MIND is a fragmented
(or sick) interpretation. Mind cannot be made physical, but it can be made
manifest THROUGH the physical if it uses the body to GO BEYOND itself. By
reaching out, the mind EXTENDS itself. It does not stop at the body, for if it
does it is blocked in its purpose. A mind which has been blocked has allowed
itself to be vulnerable to attack, because it has TURNED AGAINST ITSELF.
T 8 G 12. The removal of blocks, then, is the only way to guarantee help and
healing. Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind which is working
through the body but not in it. If the mind believes the body is its goal, it
will distort its perception OF the body, and by blocking its own extension
BEYOND it will INDUCE illness by FOSTERING SEPARATION. Perceiving the body AS A
SEPARATE ENTITY cannot but foster illness, because it is not true. A medium of
communication WILL lose its usefulness if it is used for anything else.
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T 8 G 13. To use a medium of communication as a medium of attack is an obvious
confusion in purpose. To communicate is to join and to attack is to separate.
How can you do both simultaneously WITH THE SAME THING, and NOT suffer?
Perception of the body can be unified only by ONE PURPOSE. This releases the
mind from the temptation to see it in many lights, and gives it over entirely to
the One Light in which it can be really understood at all.
T 8 G 14. To confuse a learning device with a curriculum goal is a fundamental
confusion. Learning can hardly be meaningfully arrested at its own aids, and
hope to understand them or its real purpose. Learning must lead beyond the body
to the re-establishment of the power of the mind IN it. This can be accomplished
only if the mind EXTENDS to other minds, and does not ARREST ITSELF in its
extension. The arrest of the mind’s extension is the cause of all illness,
because ONLY EXTENSION IS THE MIND’S FUNCTION. Block this, and you have blocked
health because you have BLOCKED THE MIND’S JOY.
T 8 G 15. The opposite of joy is depression. When your learning promotes
depression instead of joy, you cannot be listening to God’s joyous teacher, and
you must be learning amiss. To see a body as anything EXCEPT a means of pure
extension is to limit your mind and hurt yourself. Health is therefore nothing
more than united purpose. If the body is brought under the purpose of the mind,
it becomes whole because the mind’s purpose is one.
T 8 G 16. Attack can only be an assumed goal of the body, but the body apart
from the mind has no purpose at all. You are not limited by the body, and
thought cannot be made flesh. But mind can be manifested through the body if it
goes beyond it and does not interpret it as limitation. Whenever you see another
as limited to or by the body, you are imposing this limit ON YOURSELF. Are you
willing to accept this, when your whole purpose for learning should be to escape
FROM limitations?
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T 8 G 17. To conceive of the body as a means of attack of any kind, and to
entertain even the possibility that joy could possibly result, is a clear-cut
indication of a poor learner. He has accepted a learning goal in obvious
contradiction to the unified purpose of the curriculum, and is interfering with
his ability to accept it AS HIS OWN.
T 8 G 18. Joy is unified purpose, and unified purpose is only God’s. When
yours is unified, it is His. Interfere with His purpose, and YOU NEED SALVATION.
You have condemned yourself, but condemnation is not of God. Therefore, it is
not true. No more are any of the results of your condemnation. When you see a
brother as a body, you are condemning him because you have condemned yourself.
But if ALL condemnation is unreal, and it must be unreal because it is a form of
attack, then it can have no results.
T 8 G 19. Do not allow yourselves to suffer from the results of what is not
true. Free your minds from the belief that this is possible. In its complete
impossibility, and your full awareness of its complete impossibility, lies your
only hope for release. But what other hope would you want? Freedom from
illusions lies only in not believing them. THERE IS NO [87] ATTACK, but there is
unlimited communication and therefore unlimited power and wholeness. The power
of wholeness is EXTENSION. Do not arrest your thought in this world, and you
will open your mind to Creation in God.
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T 8 H. The Body as Means or End
June 8, 1966
T 8 H 1. Attitudes toward the body are attitudes toward attack. The ego’s
definitions of ANYthing are childish, and are ALWAYS based on what it believes a
thing is for. This is because it is incapable of true generalizations, and
equates what it sees with the function it ascribes to it. It does not equate it
with what it is. To the ego, the body IS TO ATTACK WITH. Equating YOU with the
body, it teaches that YOU are to attack with, because THIS IS WHAT IT BELIEVES.
The body, then, is not the source of its own health. Its condition lies solely
in your interpretation of its function.
T 8 H 2. The reasons why definitions by function are inferior is merely
because they may well be inaccurate. Functions are part of being, since they
arise FROM it. But the relationship is NOT reciprocal. The whole does define the
part, but the part does NOT define the whole. This is as true of knowledge as it
is of perception. The reason why to know in part is to know entirely is merely
because of the fundamental difference between knowledge and perception. In
perception, the whole is built up of parts, which can separate and reassemble in
different constellations. Knowledge never changes, so that its constellation is
permanent. The only areas in which part-whole relationships have any meaning are
those in which change is possible. There IS no difference between the whole and
the part where change is impossible.
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T 8 H 3. The body exists in a world which seems to contain two voices which
are fighting for its possession. In this perceived constellation, the body is
regarded as capable of shifting its control from one to the other, making the
concept of both health and sickness possible. The ego makes a fundamental
confusion between means and ends, as it always does. Regarding the body as an
end, it has no real use for it at all, because it is not an end. You must have
noticed an outstanding characteristic of every end that the ego has accepted as
its own. When you have achieved it, it has not satisfied you. This is why the
ego is forced to shift from one end to another without ceasing, so that you will
continue to hope it can offer you something.
T 8 H 4. It has been particularly difficult to overcome the ego’s belief in
the body as an end because this is synonymous with ATTACK AS AN END. The ego has
a REAL INVESTMENT IN SICKNESS. If you are sick, how can you object to the ego’s
firm belief that you are not invulnerable? This is a particularly appealing
argument from the ego’s point of view, because it obscures the obvious attack
which underlies the sickness. If you accepted this, and also decided against
attack, you could not give this false witness to the ego’s stand. It is hard to
perceive this as a false witness, because you do not realize that it is entirely
out of keeping with what YOU want. This witness, then, appears to be innocent
and trustworthy only because YOU have not seriously cross-examined him.
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T 8 H 5. If you did, you would not consider sickness such a strong witness on
behalf of the ego’s views. A more honest statement would be as follows: Those
who want the ego are predisposed to defend it. Therefore, their choice of
witnesses should be suspect from the beginning. The ego does not call upon
witnesses who might disagree with its case, nor does the HOLY SPIRIT. We have
said before that judgment is the function of the Holy Spirit, and one which He
is perfectly equipped to fulfill. The ego, as a judge, gives anything but an
impartial trial [88] (judgment.) When the ego calls on a witness, it has ALREADY
MADE IT AN ALLY. It is still true that the body has no function of itself. This
is because it is not an end. The ego, however, establishes it as an end because,
as such, IT WILL LOSE ITS TRUE FUNCTION.
T 8 H 6. This is the purpose of everything the ego does. Its sole aim is to
lose sight of the functions of everything. A sick body does not make any sense.
It could not make any sense, since sickness is not what it is for. Sickness is
meaningful only if the two basic premises on which the ego’s interpretation of
the body rests are true. These are specifically first that the body is for
attack, and also that you are a body. Without this, sickness is completely
inconceivable. Sickness is a way of demonstrating that you can be hurt. It is a
witness to your frailty, your vulnerability, and your extreme need to depend on
external guidance. The ego uses this as its best argument for your need for its
guidance. It dictates endless prescriptions for avoiding this catastrophic
outcome. The Holy Spirit, perfectly aware of the same data, does not bother to
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analyze it at all. If the data are meaningless, there is no point in treating
them at all [89] .
T 8 H 7. The function of truth is to collect data which are TRUE. There is no
point in trying to make sense out of meaningless data. ANY way they are handled
results in nothing. The more complicated the results become, the harder it may
be to recognize their nothingness, but it is not necessary to examine ALL
possible outcomes to which premises give rise to judge the PREMISES truly.
T 8 H 8. A learning DEVICE is not a teacher. It cannot tell you how you feel.
You do not KNOW how you feel, because YOU HAVE ACCEPTED THE EGO’S CONFUSION [90] ,
and you think A LEARNING DEVICE CAN TELL YOU HOW YOU [91] FEEL. Sickness is
merely another example of your insistence on asking for guidance of a teacher
who does not know the answer. The ego is incapable of knowing how you feel. When
we said that the ego DOES NOT KNOW ANYTHING, we said the one thing about the ego
that is wholly true. But there is a corollary. If knowledge is being, and the
ego has no knowledge, then the ego HAS NO BEING.
T 8 H 9. You might ask how the voice of something which does not exist can be
so insistent. Have you ever seriously considered the distorting power of
something you want, even if it is not true? You have had many instances of how
what you want can distort what you see and hear. No one can doubt the ego’s
skill in building up false cases. And no one can doubt your willingness to
listen, until you will not to tolerate ANYTHING except truth.
T 8 H 10. When you lay the ego aside it will be gone. The Holy Spirit’s voice
is as loud as your willingness to listen. It cannot be louder without violating
your will, which He seeks to free but never to command.
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He will teach you to use your body only to reach your brothers so He can teach
His message through you. This will heal them and therefore heal you. Everything
used in accordance with its function as HE sees it cannot be sick. Everything
used otherwise is.
T 8 H 11. Do not allow the body to be a mirror of a split mind. Do not let it
be an image of your own perception of littleness. Do not let it reflect your
will to attack. Health is the natural state of anything whose interpretation is
left to the Holy Spirit, who perceives no attack on anything. Health is the
result of relinquishing all attempts to use the body lovelessly. It is the
beginning of the proper perspective on life, under the guidance of the one
teacher who knows what life is, being the voice for Life Itself.
T 8 I. Healing as Corrected Perception
C 200
T 8 I 1. We once said that the Holy Spirit is the Answer [92] . He is the
answer to EVERYTHING, because He knows what the answer to everything is. The ego
does not know what a REAL question is, although it asks an endless number. But
you can learn this, as you learn to question the value of the ego and thus
establish your ability to EVALUATE its questions. When the ego tempts you to
sickness, do not ask the Holy Spirit to heal the body. For this would merely be
to accept the ego’s belief that the body is the proper aim for healing. Ask
rather that the Holy Spirit teach you the right perception of the body, for
perception alone can be distorted.
T 8 I 2. ONLY PERCEPTION CAN BE SICK, because perception can be wrong. Wrong
perception is DISTORTED WILLING, which WANTS things to be as they are not. The
reality of EVERYTHING is totally harmless, because total harmlessness is the
condition of its reality. It is also the condition of your awareness of its
reality. You do not have to SEEK reality. It will seek you and FIND you, WHEN
YOU MEET ITS CONDITIONS. Its conditions are part of WHAT IT IS. And this part
only is up to you. The rest is of Itself. You need
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do so little, because It is so powerful that your little part WILL bring the
whole to you. Accept, then, your little part, and let the whole be yours.
Wholeness heals BECAUSE it is of the [93] mind.
T 8 I 3. All forms of sickness, even unto death, are physical expressions of
the fear of awakening. They are attempts to reinforce UNCONSCIOUSNESS out of
fear of CONSCIOUSNESS. This is a pathetic way of TRYING NOT TO KNOW by rendering
the faculties for knowing ineffectual. "Rest in peace" is a blessing for the
living, not the dead, because rest comes from waking, not from sleeping. Sleep
is withdrawing; waking is JOINING. Dreams are illusions of joining, taking on
the ego’s distortions about what joining means, if you are sleeping under its
guidance. But the Holy Spirit, too, has use for sleep, and can use dreams on
BEHALF of waking, if you will let Him.
T 8 I 4. How you wake is the sign of how you have used sleep. To whom did you
give it? Under which teacher did you place it? Whenever you wake dis-spiritedly,
it was not of the Spirit. Only when you awaken joyously have you utilized sleep
ACCORDING TO THE HOLY SPIRIT’S PURPOSE. You can indeed be "drugged by sleep,"
but this is ALWAYS because you have MISUSED IT ON BEHALF OF SICKNESS. Sleep is
no more a form of death than death is a form of unconsciousness. Unconsciousness
is impossible. You can rest in peace only BECAUSE YOU ARE AWAKE.
T 8 I 5. Healing is release from the fear of waking, and the substitution of
the will to wake. The will to wake is the will to love, since all healing
involves replacing fear with love. The Holy Spirit cannot distinguish among
degrees of error, for if He taught that one form of sickness is more serious
than another, He would be teaching that one error can be more real than another.
But HIS function is to distinguish only between the false and the true,
replacing the false WITH the true.
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T 8 I 6. The ego, which always weakens the will, wants to separate the body
from the mind. This IS an attempt to destroy it. But the ego actually believes
that it is protecting it. This is because it believes that mind is dangerous,
and that to make mindless is to heal. But to make mindless is impossible, since
it would mean to make nothing out of what God Created. The ego despises
weakness, even though it makes every effort to induce it. IT WANTS ONLY WHAT IT
HATES. To the ego this is perfectly sensible. Believing in the power of attack,
it wants it.
T 8 I 7. You have begun to realize that this is a very practical course,
because it means exactly what it says. So does the Bible, if it is properly
understood. There has been a marked tendency on the part of many of the Bible’s
followers, and also its translators, to be entirely literal about fear and its
effects, but not about love and its results. Thus, "hellfire" means burning, but
raising the dead becomes allegorical. Actually, it is particularly the
references to the outcomes of love that should be taken literally because the
Bible is about love, being about GOD.
T 8 I 8. The Bible enjoins you to be perfect [94] , to heal all errors, to take
no thought of the body as separate, and to accomplish all things IN MY NAME.
This is not my name alone, for ours is a shared identification. The name of
God’s Son is One, and you are enjoined to do the works of love BECAUSE we share
this oneness. Our minds are whole because they are one. If you are sick, you are
withdrawing from me. But you CANNOT WITHDRAW FROM ME ALONE. You can only
withdraw from yourself and me.
T 8 I 9. I would not ask you to do things which you CANNOT do, and it is
impossible that I could do things YOU cannot do. Given this, and given this
QUITE LITERALLY, there CAN be nothing which prevents you from doing exactly what
I ask, and EVERYTHING which argues for it. I give you NO limits, because God
lays none upon you.
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When you limit yourself, we are not of one mind, and that is sickness. But
sickness is not of the body, but OF THE MIND. All forms of DISfunction are
merely signs that the mind has split, and does not accept a UNIFIED PURPOSE.
T 8 I 10. The unification of purpose, then, is the Holy Spirit’s only way of
healing. This is because it is the only level at which healing MEANS anything.
The re-establishing of meaning in a chaotic thought system is the only way to
heal it. We said before that your task is only to meet the conditions for
meaning, since meaning itself is of God. But your return to meaning is essential
TO HIS, because YOUR meaning is PART of His. Your healing, then, is part of His
health, because it is part of His Wholeness. He cannot lose this, but you can
not know it. Yet it is still His will for you, and His will must stand forever
and in all things.
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T 8 J. The Acceptance of Reality
T 8 J 1. Fear of the Will of God is one of the strangest beliefs that the
human mind has ever made. This could not possibly have occurred unless the mind
was already profoundly split, making it possible for IT to be afraid of what it
really is. It is apparent that reality CANNOT "threaten" anything except
illusions, because reality can only UPHOLD truth. The very fact that the will of
God, which IS what you are, is perceived as fearful TO you demonstrates that you
ARE afraid of what you are. It is not, then, the will of God of which you are
afraid, but YOURS. Your will is not the ego’s, and that is why the ego is
against you. What seems to be the fear of God is really only the fear of your
own reality.
T 8 J 2. It is impossible to learn anything consistently in a state of panic.
If the purpose of this course is to learn what you are, and if you have ALREADY
DECIDED that what you are is FEARFUL, then it must follow that you will NOT
LEARN THIS COURSE. But you might remember that the reason for the course is that
you do not know who you are. If you do not know your reality, how would you know
whether it is fearful or not? The association of truth and fear, which would be
highly artificial at best, is particularly inappropriate in the minds of those
who do not know what truth is. All that this kind of association means is that
you are arbitrarily endowing something quite beyond your awareness with
something YOU DO NOT want.
T 8 J 3. It is evident, then, that you are judging something of which you are
totally unaware. You have set this strange situation up so that it is COMPLETELY
IMPOSSIBLE to escape from it without a guide who does know what your reality is.
The purpose of this Guide is merely to remind you of what YOU want. He is not
attempting to force an alien will upon you. He is merely making every possible
effort, within the limits YOU impose upon Him, to re-establish your OWN will in
your consciousness. You have imprisoned it in your unconscious, where it remains
available, but cannot help you. When we said that the Holy Spirit’s function is
to sort out the true from the false in your unconscious, we meant that He has
the power to look into what you have
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hidden, and perceive the Will of God there.
T 8 J 4. His perception of this will can make it real to you, because HE is
in your mind, and therefore He is your reality. If, then, His perception OF your
mind brings its reality TO you, He is teaching you what you are. The only source
of fear in this whole process can only be WHAT YOU THINK YOU lose. But it is
only what the Holy Spirit sees that you can possibly have. We have emphasized
many times that the Holy Spirit will never call upon you to sacrifice anything.
But if you ask the sacrifice of reality OF YOURSELVES, the Holy Spirit must
remind you that this is not God’s will because it is not yours.
T 8 J 5. There is no difference between your will and God’s. If you did not
have divided wills, you would recognize that willing is salvation because it IS
communication. It is impossible to communicate in alien tongues. You and your
Creator can communicate through creation, because that, and only that, is your
joint will. Divided wills do not communicate because they speak for different
things to the same mind. This loses the ability to communicate, simply because
confused communication DOES NOT MEAN ANYTHING. A message cannot be said to be
communicated unless it makes sense.
T 8 J 6. How sensible can your messages be, when they ask for WHAT YOU DON’T
WANT? Yet as long as you are afraid of your will, this is precisely what you
will ask for. You may insist that the Holy Spirit does not answer you, but it
might be wiser to consider the kind of asker you are. YOU DO NOT ASK ONLY FOR
WHAT YOU WANT. This is solely because you are afraid you might receive it, and
you would. THIS is really why you persist in asking the teacher who could not
possibly teach you your will. Of him, you can never learn it, and this gives you
the illusion of safety. But you cannot be safe from truth, but only in it.
Reality is the only safety.
T 8 J 7. Your will is your salvation BECAUSE IT IS THE SAME AS GOD’S. The
separation is nothing more than the belief that it is different. NO mind can
believe that its will is stronger than God’s. If, then, a mind believes that its
will is different FROM His, it can only decide either that there is no God, or
that God’s Will is fearful. The former accounts for the atheist, and the latter
for the martyr. Martyrdom takes many forms, the category including ALL
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doctrines which hold that God demands sacrifices of any kind.
T 8 J 8. Either basic type of insane decision will induce panic, because the
atheist believes he is alone and the martyr believes that God is crucifying him.
Both really fear both abandonment AND retaliation, but the former is more
reactive against abandonment and the latter against retaliation. The atheist
maintains that God has left him, but he does not care. He will, however, become
very fearful, and hence very ANGRY, if anyone suggests that God has not left
him. The martyr, on the other hand, is more aware of guilt, and believing that
punishment is inevitable, attempts to teach himself to like it.
T 8 J 9. The truth is, very simply, that NO-ONE WANTS EITHER ABANDONMENT OR
RETALIATION. Many people seek both, but it is still true that they do NOT want
it. Can you ask the Holy Spirit for "gifts" such as these, and actually expect
to receive them? The Holy Spirit is totally incapable of giving YOU anything
that does NOT come from God. His task is NOT to make anything FOR you. He CANNOT
make you want something you DON’T want. When you ask the Universal Giver for
what you do not want, YOU are asking for what cannot be given, because it was
never created. It was never created because it was never your will for you.
T 8 J 10. Ultimately everyone must learn the will of God, because ultimately
everyone must recognize himself. This recognition is the recognition that his
will and God’s are one. In the presence of Truth, there are no unbelievers and
no sacrifices. In the security of Reality fear is totally meaningless. To deny
what is can only seem to be fearful. Fear cannot be real without a cause, and
GOD is the only Cause. God is Love, and you do want Him. This is your will. Ask
for THIS and you will be answered, because you will be asking only for what
belongs to you.
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T 8 J 11. When you ask the Holy Spirit for what would hurt you, He CANNOT
answer, because nothing can hurt you and so you are asking for nothing. Any
desire which stems from the ego is a desire for nothing, and to ask for it IS
not a request. It is merely a denial in the form of a request. The Holy Spirit
is not concerned with form at all, being aware only of meaning. The ego cannot
ask the Holy Spirit for anything, because there is COMPLETE COMMUNICATION
FAILURE between them. But you can ask for everything of the Holy Spirit, because
your requests are real, being of your will. Would the Holy Spirit deny the Will
of God? And could He fail to recognize it in God’s Sons?
T 8 J 12. The energy which you withdraw from Creation you expend on fear. This
is not because your ENERGY is limited, but because you have limited it. You do
not recognize the ENORMOUS waste of energy which you expend in denying truth.
What would YOU say of someone who PERSISTED in attempting the impossible, and
believed that to achieve it is success? The belief that you MUST HAVE THE
IMPOSSIBLE in order to be happy is totally at variance with the principle of
Creation. God could not will that happiness depended on what you could never
have.
T 8 J 13. The fact that God is love does not require belief, but it does
require ACCEPTANCE. It is indeed possible for you to deny facts, although it is
IMPOSSIBLE for you to change them. If you hold your hands over your eyes you
will not see, because you are interfering with the laws of seeing. If you deny
love you will NOT KNOW IT because your cooperation is the law of its being. You
cannot change laws you did not make, and the laws of happiness were created for
you, NOT BY you.
T 8 J 14. Attempts of any kind to deny what is are fearful, and if they are
strong they will induce panic. WILLING AGAINST reality, though impossible, can
be made into a very persistent goal, even though you do not want it. But
consider the result of this strange decision.
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You are devoting your mind to what you DO NOT WANT. How real can this devotion
be? If you do not want it, it was never created. If it was never created, it is
nothing. Can you really devote yourself to nothing?
T 8 J 15. God, in His devotion to YOU, created you devoted to everything, and
gave you what you are devoted TO. Otherwise, you would not have been created
perfect. Reality is everything, and you therefore have everything because you
are real. You cannot make the UNreal because the absence of reality is fearful,
and fear cannot be created. As long as you believe that fear is possible, you
will not create. Opposing orders of reality make reality meaningless, and
reality is MEANING.
T 8 J 16. Remember, then, that God’s Will is already possible, and nothing
else will ever be. This is the simple acceptance of Reality because only this is
real. You cannot distort reality and know what it is. And if you do distort
reality you will experience anxiety, depression, and ultimately panic, because
you are trying to MAKE YOURSELF UNREAL. When you feel these things do not try to
look beyond yourself for truth, for truth can only be within you. Say,
therefore, :
"Christ is in me, and where He is God must be, for Christ is part of Him."
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T 8 K. The Answer to Prayer
T 8 K 1. Everyone who has ever tried to use prayer to request something, has
experienced what appears to be failure. This is not only true in connection with
specific things which might be harmful, but also in connection with requests
which are strictly in line with this course. The latter, in particular, might be
incorrectly interpreted as "proof" that the course does not mean what it says.
But you must remember that the course does state, and REPEATEDLY, that its
purpose is the ESCAPE FROM FEAR.
T 8 K 2. Let us suppose, then, that what you request of the Holy Spirit IS
what you really want, but that YOU ARE STILL AFRAID OF IT. Should this be the
case, your ATTAINMENT of it would no longer BE what you want, even if IT is.
This accounts for why CERTAIN SPECIFIC FORMS of healing are not achieved, even
though the STATE of healing IS. It frequently happens that an individual asks
for physical healing, because he is fearful OF BODILY HARM. However, at the same
time, if he WERE healed physically, the threat to his thought-system would be
considerably MORE fearful to him than its physical EXPRESSION. In this case, he
is not really asking for RELEASE from fear, but for the removal of a symptom
WHICH HE HAS SELECTED. This request is, therefore, NOT for healing at all.
T 8 K 3. The Bible emphasizes that ALL prayers are answered, and this must be
true, if no effort is wasted. The very fact that one has asked the Holy Spirit
for ANYTHING, will ensure a response. But it is equally certain that no
response, given by the Holy Spirit, will ever be one which would INCREASE fear.
It is even possible that His answer will not be heard at all. It is impossible,
however, that it will be lost. There are many answers which you have already
received, but have NOT YET HEARD. I assure you that they are waiting for you. It
is indeed true that no effort is wasted.
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T 8 K 4. If you would know your prayers are answered, never doubt a Son of
God. Do not question him, and do not confound him, for your faith in him is your
faith in yourself. If you would know God and His Answer, believe in me, whose
faith in YOU cannot be shaken. Can you ask of the Holy Spirit truly, and doubt
your brother? Believe his words are true, because of the truth which is in him.
You will unite with the truth in him, and his words will be true. As you hear
him, you will hear me.
T 8 K 5. Listening to truth is the only way you can hear it now, and finally
know it. The message your brother gives you is up to you. What does he say to
you? What would YOU have him say? Your decision about him determines the message
YOU receive. Remember that the Holy Spirit is in him, and His Voice speaks to
YOU through him. What can so holy a brother tell you except truth? But are you
listening to it?
T 8 K 6. Your brother may not know who he is, but there is a Light in his
mind which does know. This Light can shine into yours, making his words true,
and you ABLE TO HEAR THEM. His words are the Holy Spirit’s answer to YOU. Is
your faith in him strong enough to LET you listen and hear? Salvation is of your
brother. The Holy Spirit extends from your mind to his, and answers you. You
cannot hear the Voice for God in yourself alone, because you are not alone. And
His answer is only for what you are.
T 8 K 7. You will not know the trust I have in you, unless you extend it. You
will not trust the guidance of the Holy Spirit, or believe that it is for YOU,
unless you hear it in others.
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It must be for your brother, because it is for you. Would God have created a
Voice for you alone? Could you hear His answer except as He answers all of God’s
Sons? Hear of your brother what you would have me hear of YOU, for you would not
want me to be deceived.
T 8 K 8. I love you for the truth in you, as GOD does. Your deceptions may
deceive you, but they cannot deceive me. Knowing what you ARE, I cannot doubt
you. I hear only the Holy Spirit in you, Who speaks to me through you. If you
would hear me, hear my brothers, in whom God’s Voice speaks. The answer to all
your prayers lies in them. You will be answered as you HEAR THE ANSWER IN
EVERYONE. Do not listen to anything else, or you will not hear truth.
T 8 K 9. Believe in your brothers because I believe in you, and you will
learn that my belief in you is justified. Believe in me by believing in them,
for the sake of what God gave them. THEY WILL ANSWER YOU, if you learn to ask
truth of them. Do not ask for blessings without blessing THEM, for only in this
way can YOU learn how blessed you are. By following this way, you are looking
for the truth in YOU. This is not going beyond yourself, but toward yourself.
Hear only God’s answer in His Sons, and YOU are answered.
T 8 K 10. To disbelieve is to side AGAINST, or to attack. To believe is to
accept, and side with. To believe is not to be credulous, but to accept and
appreciate. What you do NOT believe you do NOT APPRECIATE, and you cannot be
grateful for what you do not VALUE. There is a price you will pay for judgment,
because judgment is the setting of price. And as you set it, you will pay it.
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T 8 K 11. If paying is equated with getting, you will set the PRICE low, but
demand a high return. But you will have forgotten that to price is to VALUE, so
that YOUR return is IN PROPORTION TO YOUR JUDGMENT OF WORTH. If paying is
associated with giving, IT CANNOT BE PERCEIVED AS LOSS, and the reciprocal
relationship of giving and RECEIVING will be recognized. The price will then be
set high, because of the value of the RETURN.
T 8 K 12. To price for getting is to LOSE SIGHT OF VALUE, making it inevitable
that you will not value what you receive. Valuing it little, you will not
appreciate it, and you will not want it. Never forget, then, that you have set
the value on what you receive, and have priced it BY what you give. To believe
that it is possible to get much FOR little, is to believe that you can bargain
with God.
T 8 K 13. God’s laws are always fair, and PERFECTLY consistent. By giving, you
receive. But to receive is to accept, NOT to get. It is impossible not to have,
but it is possible NOT TO KNOW YOU HAVE. The recognition of HAVING is the
willingness for giving, and only by this willingness, can you RECOGNIZE what you
have. What you give is therefore the value you put on what you have, being the
exact measure of the value you PUT upon it. And this, in turn, is the measure of
HOW MUCH YOU WANT IT.
T 8 K 14. You can ask of the Holy Spirit, then, ONLY by giving to Him. And you
can give to Him only WHERE YOU SEE HIM. If you SEE Him in everyone, consider how
much you will be asking OF Him, and how much you will receive. He will deny you
nothing, because you have denied Him nothing, and so you can SHARE EVERYTHING.
This is the way, and the only way, to have His answer, because His answer is all
you can ask for and WANT. Say, then, to everyone,
"Because I will to know myself,
I see you as God’s Son and my brother."
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Chapter IX - 9 - The Correction Of Error
T 9 A. Introduction
T 9 A 1. The alertness of the ego to the errors which other egos make, is NOT
the kind of vigilance which the Holy Spirit would have you maintain. Egos are
critical in terms of the kind of sense they STAND FOR. THEY understand this kind
of sense, because it IS sensible to them. To the Holy Spirit, it makes no sense
at all. To the ego, it is kind and right and good to point out errors, and
"correct" them. This makes PERFECT sense to the ego, which is totally unaware of
what errors ARE, and what correction IS.
T 9 A 2. Errors ARE of the ego, and CORRECTION of errors of ANY kind lies
solely in the RELINQUISHMENT of the ego. When you CORRECT a brother, you are
telling him that he is WRONG. He may be making no sense at the time, and it is
certain that if he is speaking from the ego, he WILL be making no sense, but
your task is still to tell him HE IS RIGHT. You do not tell him this verbally if
he is SPEAKING foolishly, because he needs correction AT ANOTHER LEVEL, since
his error IS at another level. HE is still right, because he is a Son of God.
His ego is ALWAYS wrong, no matter WHAT it says or does.
T 9 A 3. If you point out the errors of HIS ego, you MUST be seeing him
through yours, because the Holy Spirit DOES NOT PERCEIVE HIS ERRORS. This MUST
be true, if there is no communication AT ALL between the ego and the Holy
Spirit. The ego makes NO sense, and the Holy Spirit does not attempt to
understand ANYTHING that arises from it. Since He does not understand it, He
DOES NOT JUDGE IT, KNOWING that nothing it engenders MEANS ANYTHING.
T 9 B. Sanity and Perception
T 9 B 1. When you react AT ALL to errors, you are NOT LISTENING TO THE HOLY
SPIRIT. He has merely disregarded them, and if you ATTEND to them, you are NOT
HEARING HIM. If you do not hear HIM, you are listening to YOUR ego, and making
as little sense as the brother whose errors you perceive. This CANNOT be
correction. But it is more than merely lack of correction for him. It is the
GIVING UP of correction in YOURSELF.
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T 9 B 2. When a brother behaves insanely, you can heal him ONLY by perceiving
the SANITY in him. If you perceive his errors and ACCEPT them, you are accepting
YOURS. If you want to give YOURS over to the Holy Spirit, you must do this with
HIS. Unless this becomes the ONE way in which you handle ALL errors, you cannot
understand HOW ALL ERRORS ARE UNDONE. How is this different from telling you
that what you teach you LEARN? Your brother is as right as you are. And if you
think he is WRONG, you are condemning YOURSELF.
T 9 B 3. YOU cannot correct YOURSELF. Is it possible, then, for you to
correct another? But you CAN see him truly, because it IS possible for you to
see YOURSELF truly. It is not up to you to CHANGE him, but merely to accept him
AS HE IS. His errors do not come from the truth that is in him, and ONLY this
truth is yours. His errors cannot change this, and can have no effect at all on
the truth in YOU.
T 9 B 4. To perceive errors in anyone, and to REACT to them AS IF THEY WERE
REAL, is to MAKE them real to you. You will not escape paying the price for
this, NOT because you are being PUNISHED for it, but because you are following
the wrong guide, and will lose your way. Your brother’s errors are not of him,
anymore than yours are OF YOU. Accept his errors as real, and you have attacked
YOURSELF. If you would find YOUR way AND KEEP IT, see only truth beside you, for
you walk together.
T 9 B 5. The Holy Spirit in you forgives all things in you, AND your brother.
HIS errors are forgiven WITH yours. Atonement is no more separate than love. It
CANNOT be separate, because it COMES from Love. ANY attempt you make to correct
a brother, means that you believe correction by YOU is possible, and this can
ONLY be the arrogance of the ego. Correction is of God, Who does not know of
arrogance. The Holy Spirit forgives everything, BECAUSE GOD CREATED EVERYTHING.
Do not undertake HIS function, or you will forget YOURS.
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T 9 B 6. Accept ONLY the function of healing in time, because that is what
time is FOR. GOD gave you the function to create in eternity. You do not need to
learn this. But you DO need to learn to WANT this, and for THIS all learning was
made. This is the Holy Spirit’s good use of an ability which you do not need,
but which you HAVE made. Give it to Him; you do NOT know how to use it. He will
teach you how to see YOURSELF without condemnation, by learning how to look on
EVERYTHING without it. Condemnation will then not be real to you, and all YOUR
errors WILL be forgiven.
T 9 C. Atonement as a Lesson in Sharing
T 9 C 1. Atonement is for all, because it is the way to UNDO the belief that
ANYTHING is for you ALONE. To forgive is to OVERLOOK. Look, then, BEYOND error,
and do not let your perception rest UPON it, for you will believe what your
perception HOLDS. Accept as true only what your brother IS, if you would know
yourself. Perceive what he is NOT, and you CANNOT know what you are, BECAUSE you
see HIM falsely. Remember always that your identity is shared, and that its
sharing IS its reality.
T 9 C 2. You have a PART to play in the Atonement. But the plan of the
Atonement IS beyond you. You do not know how to OVERLOOK errors, or you would
not make them. It would merely be further error to think either that you do NOT
make them, or that you can CORRECT them without a GUIDE TO CORRECTION. And if
you do not FOLLOW this Guide, your errors will NOT be corrected. The plan is not
yours BECAUSE of your limited ideas about WHAT YOU ARE. But this limitation IS
where ALL ERRORS ARISE. The way to UNDO them is, therefore, not OF you, but FOR
you.
T 9 C 3. The Atonement is a lesson in sharing, which is given you because YOU
HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO DO IT. The Holy Spirit merely reminds you of what is your
NATURAL ability. By REINTERPRETING the ability to ATTACK, which you DID make,
into the ability to SHARE, He TRANSLATES what you have made, into what God
created. But if you would accomplish this THROUGH Him, you cannot look on your
abilities through the eyes of the ego, or you will judge them as IT does. All
their harmfulness lies in ITS judgment.
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All their HELPFULNESS lies in the judgment of the Holy Spirit.
T 9 C 4. The ego has a plan of forgiveness, because you are ASKING for one,
but not of the right teacher. The EGO’S plan, of course, MAKES NO SENSE and WILL
NOT WORK. By following it, you will merely place yourself in an impossible
situation, to which the ego ALWAYS leads you. Its plan is to have you SEE ERROR
CLEARLY FIRST, and THEN overlook it. But how CAN you overlook what you have made
real? By seeing it clearly, you HAVE made it real, and CANNOT overlook it.
T 9 C 5. This is where the ego is forced into appealing to mysteries, and
begins to insist that you accept the meaningless, to save yourself. Many have
tried to do this in my name, forgetting that my words make PERFECT sense,
because they come from GOD. They are as sensible now as they ever were, because
they speak of ideas which are eternal. Forgiveness that is learned of ME does
not use fear to UNDO fear. Nor does it make real the uNreal, and then destroy
it.
T 9 C 6. Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond
error from the beginning, and thus KEEPING it unreal for you. Do not let any
belief in its realness [95] enter your minds AT ALL, or you will also believe
that you must UNDO what you have made, in order to BE forgiven. What has no
effect does not exist, and to the Holy Spirit, the effects of error are TOTALLY
non-existent. By steadily and consistently canceling out ALL its effects,
EVERYWHERE AND IN ALL RESPECTS, He teaches that the ego does not exist, and
PROVES IT. Follow His teaching in forgiveness, then, because forgiveness IS His
function, and HE knows how to fulfill it perfectly.
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T 9 C 7. That is what we meant when we once said that miracles are NATURAL,
and when they do NOT occur, something has gone wrong. Miracles are merely the
sign of your willingness to follow the HIS plan of Salvation, in recognition of
the FACT that you do NOT know what it is. His work is NOT your function, and
unless you accept this, you CANNOT learn what YOUR function IS.
T 9 C 8. The confusion of functions is so typical of the ego, that you should
be quite familiar with it by now. The ego believes that ALL functions belong to
IT, even though it has no idea what they ARE. This is more than mere confusion.
It is a particularly dangerous combination of grandiosity AND confusion, that
makes it likely that the ego will attack anyone and anything, for no reason at
all. This is exactly what it DOES. It is TOTALLY unpredictable in its responses,
because it has no idea WHAT it heard.
T 9 C 9. If one has no idea what is happening, how appropriately can you
EXPECT him to react? But you might still ask yourself, regardless of how you can
ACCOUNT for the reactions, whether they place the ego in a very sound position
as a guide for YOURS. It seems absurd to have to emphasize repeatedly that the
ego’s qualifications as a guide are singularly unfortunate, and that it is a
remarkably poor choice as a teacher of salvation. Yet this question, ridiculous
as it seems, is REALLY the crucial issue in the whole separation fantasy.
T 9 C 10. Anyone who elects a totally insane guide, MUST be totally insane
himself. It is not true that you do not know the guide is insane. YOU know it
because I know it, and you HAVE judged it by the same Standard as I have. The
ego literally lives on borrowed time, and ITS days ARE numbered. Do not fear the
last judgment, but welcome it and do not wait, for the ego’s time is
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borrowed from YOUR eternity. This IS the Second Coming, which was made FOR you,
as the First was created.
T 9 C 11. The Second Coming is merely the return of SENSE. Can this POSSIBLY
be fearful? What can be fearful but fantasy, and no one turns to fantasy unless
he despairs of satisfaction in reality. But it is CERTAIN that he will NEVER
find satisfaction in fantasy, so that his ONLY hope is to change his mind about
REALITY. Only if the decision that reality is fearful is WRONG, can GOD be
right. And I ASSURE you that God IS right.
T 9 C 12. Be glad, then, that you HAVE been wrong, but this was only because
you did not know who you WERE. Had you REMEMBERED, you could no more have been
wrong than God can. The impossible can happen ONLY in fantasy. When you search
for reality in fantasies, you will not find it. The symbols of fantasy are of
the ego, and of THESE you will find many. But do not look for meaning in them.
They have no more meaning than the fantasies into which they are woven.
T 9 C 13. Fairy tales can be pleasant or fearful, pretty or ugly, but NO ONE
calls them TRUE. Children may believe them, and so, for a while, they ARE true
for them. But when Reality dawns, they are gone. REALITY has NOT gone in the
meanwhile. The [96] Second Coming is the AWARENESS of Reality, not its RETURN.
Behold, my children, Reality is here. It belongs to you and me and God, and is
perfectly satisfying to all of us. Only THIS awareness heals, because it is the
awareness of truth.
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T 9 D. The Unhealed Healer
T 9 D 1. The ego’s plan for forgiveness is far more widely used than God’s.
This is because it is undertaken by unhealed healers, and IS therefore of the
ego. Let us consider the unhealed healer more carefully now. By definition, he
is trying to GIVE what he has NOT received. If he is a theologian, he may begin
with the premise, "I am a miserable sinner, and so are you." If he is a
psychotherapist, he is more likely to start with the equally incredible idea
that HE really believes in attack, and so does the patient, but it does not
matter in EITHER case.
T 9 D 2. We have repeatedly stated that beliefs of the ego CANNOT be shared,
and THIS IS WHY THEY ARE NOT REAL. How, then, can UNCOVERING them MAKE them
real? Every healer who searches fantasies for truth MUST be unhealed, because he
DOES NOT KNOW WHERE TO LOOK FOR TRUTH, and therefore does not have the answer to
the problem of healing. There IS an advantage to bringing nightmares into
awareness, but ONLY to teach that they are NOT real, and that ANYTHING they
contain is meaningless. The unhealed healer cannot DO this, because he does not
BELIEVE it.
T 9 D 3. All unhealed healers follow the ego’s plan for forgiveness, in one
form or another. If they are theologians, they are likely to condemn THEMSELVES,
TEACH condemnation, and advocate a very fearful solution. Projecting
condemnation onto God, they make Him retaliative, and FEAR HIS RETRIBUTION. What
they have done is merely to IDENTIFY with the ego, and by perceiving clearly
what IT does, condemn THEMSELVES because of this profound confusion.
T 9 D 4. It is understandable that there has been a revolt against this
concept, but to revolt AGAINST it, is still to BELIEVE in it. The FORM of the
revolt, then, is different, but NOT the content.
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The new form of the ego’s plan is an unhelpful as the older one, because form
does not matter to the Holy Spirit, and therefore DOES NOT MATTER AT ALL.
According to the newer forms of the plan, the therapist interprets the ego’s
symbols IN the nightmare, and uses them to PROVE THE NIGHTMARE IS REAL. Having
MADE it real, he then attempts to dispel its EFFECTS by DEPRECIATING THE
IMPORTANCE OF THE DREAMER.
T 9 D 5. This WOULD be a healing approach, IF THE DREAMER were properly
identified AS UNREAL. But if the dreamer is equated WITH the mind, the mind’s
corrective power, through the Holy Spirit, is DENIED. It is noteworthy that this
is a contradiction even in the ego’s own terms, and one which it usually DOES
note, even in its confusion. If the way to counteract fear is to reduce the
importance of the FEARER, how can this build ego STRENGTH? These perfectly
self-evident inconsistencies account for why, except for certain stylized verbal
accounts, NOBODY can EXPLAIN what happens in psychotherapy. Nothing real DOES.
T 9 D 6. Nothing real has happened to the unhealed healer, and HE LEARNS FROM
HIS OWN TEACHING. BECAUSE his ego is involved, it ALWAYS attempts to gain some
support from the situation. Seeking to GET something for HIMSELF, the healer
does NOT know how to give, and consequently CANNOT SHARE. He CANNOT correct,
because he is not working CORRECTIVELY. He believes that it is up to him to
teach the patient what is REAL, but he does not know it HIMSELF.
T 9 D 7. What, then, SHOULD happen? When God said: "Let there be Light,"
there WAS light. Can you find light by ANALYZING darkness as the psychotherapist
does, or like the theologian, by ACKNOWLEDGING it in yourself, and looking for a
distant light to remove it, while emphasizing the distance?
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T 9 D 8. Healing is NOT mysterious. Nothing occurs UNLESS you understand it,
since light IS understanding. A "miserable sinner" cannot be healed without
magic, nor can an "unimportant mind" esteem itself without magic. Both forms of
the ego’s approach, then, MUST arrive at an impasse, the characteristic
"impossible situation" to which the ego ALWAYS leads.
T 9 D 9. It CAN be helpful to point out to a patient WHERE HE IS HEADING, but
the point is LOST unless he can change his direction. The therapist cannot do
this for him, but he also CANNOT DO THIS FOR HIMSELF. His only MEANINGFUL
contribution is to present an example of one whose direction has been changed
FOR him, and who NO LONGER BELIEVES IN NIGHTMARES OF ANY KIND. The light in HIS
mind will therefore ANSWER the questioner, who MUST decide with God that there
IS light BECAUSE HE SEES IT. And by HIS acknowledgment, THE THERAPIST KNOWS IT
IS THERE.
T 9 D 10. That is how perception ultimately is translated into knowledge. The
miracle-worker begins by PERCEIVING light, and translates HIS perception into
sureness by continually extending it, and ACCEPTING ITS ACKNOWLEDGMENT. Its
EFFECTS assure him IT IS THERE. The therapist does not heal; he LETS HEALING BE.
HE can point to darkness, but he CANNOT bring light OF HIMSELF, for light is NOT
of him. But being FOR him, it MUST be for his patient.
T 9 D 11. The Holy Spirit is the ONLY therapist. He makes healing PERFECTLY
clear in ANY situation in which He is the Guide. The human therapist can only
LET HIM FULFILL HIS FUNCTION. He needs no help for this. He WILL tell you
EXACTLY what to do, to help ANYONE He sends to you FOR help, and will speak to
him through you, IF YOU DO NOT INTERFERE. Remember that you
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ARE choosing a guide for helping, and the wrong choice will NOT help. But
remember also that THE RIGHT ONE WILL. Trust Him, for help is His function, and
He is of God.
T 9 D 12. As you awaken other minds TO Him through Him, and not yourself, you
will understand that you are not obeying the laws of this world, but that the
laws you ARE obeying WORK. "The good is what works" is a sound though
insufficient statement. ONLY the good CAN work. Nothing else works at all. This
course is a guide to behavior. Being a very direct and very simple learning
situation, it provides the guide who tells you what to do. If you do it, you
will SEE that it works. Its RESULTS are more convincing than its words. THEY
will convince you that the words are true.
T 9 D 13. By following the right Guide, you will learn the simplest of all
lessons: "By their fruits ye shall know them [97] , and THEY shall know
THEMSELVES".
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T 9 E. The Awareness of the Holy Spirit
T 9 E 1. How can you become increasingly aware of the Holy Spirit in you,
EXCEPT by His EFFECTS? You cannot see Him with your eyes, nor hear Him with your
ears. How, then, can you perceive Him at all? If you INSPIRE joy, and others
react to you WITH joy, even though you are not experiencing joy yourself, there
must be SOMETHING IN YOU that IS CAPABLE OF PRODUCING IT. If it is in YOU, and
CAN produce joy, and if you see that it DOES produce joy in others, you MUST be
dissociating it in yourself.
T 9 E 2. It seems to you that the Holy Spirit does not produce joy
consistently in you, ONLY because YOU DO NOT CONSISTENTLY AROUSE JOY IN OTHERS.
Their reactions to you ARE your evaluations of His consistency. When you are
inconsistent, you will not always GIVE RISE to joy, and so you will not always
recognize HIS consistency. What you offer to your brother, you offer to Him,
because He cannot GO BEYOND your offering in HIS giving. This is NOT because HE
limits His giving, but simply because YOU have limited your RECEIVING.
T 9 E 3. The will to receive is the will to accept. If your brothers ARE part
of you, will you ACCEPT them? Only they can teach you what you are, and your
learning is the result of what you taught THEM. What you call upon in them, you
call upon in YOURSELF. And as you call upon it IN THEM, it becomes real to YOU.
God has but one Son, knowing them all as One. Only God Himself is more than
they, but they are not less than He is. Would you know what this means? If what
you do to my brother you do to me, and if you do everything for yourself because
we are PART of you, everything WE do belongs to you as well. Every Soul God
created is part of you, and shares His glory WITH you.
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T 9 E 4. His glory belongs to Him, but it is equally YOURS. You cannot, then,
BE less glorious than He is. He is more than you ONLY because He CREATED you,
but not even this would He keep from you. Therefore, you CAN create as He did,
and YOUR dissociation WILL NOT ALTER THIS. Neither God’s Light nor YOURS is
dimmed because you do not see.
T 9 E 5. Because the Sonship MUST create as one, you remember creation
whenever you recognize part of creation. Each part you remember adds to YOUR
wholeness, because each part IS whole. Wholeness is indivisible, but you cannot
learn YOUR wholeness, UNTIL YOU SEE IT EVERYWHERE. You can know yourself only as
God knows His Son, for KNOWLEDGE is shared WITH God. When you awake in Him, you
will know your magnitude by accepting HIS limitlessness as YOURS. But meanwhile,
you will judge it as you judge your brothers’, and will accept it as you accept
theirs.
T 9 E 6. You are not yet awake, but you can learn HOW to awaken. Very simply
the Holy Spirit teaches you to awaken others. As you see them waken, you will
learn WHAT WAKING MEANS. And because you have willed to wake them, their
gratitude, and their appreciation of what you have given them, will TEACH YOU
ITS VALUE. THEY will become the witnesses to your reality, as YOU were created
witnesses to God’s. But when the Sonship COMES TOGETHER and accepts its oneness,
it will be known by ITS creations, who witness to its reality, as the Son does
to the Father.
T 9 E 7. Miracles have no place in eternity because they are reparative. But
while you still need healing, your miracles are the only witnesses to your
reality THAT YOU CAN RECOGNIZE.
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You cannot perform a miracle FOR YOURSELF, because miracles are a way of GIVING
ACCEPTANCE AND receiving it. In TIME the giving comes FIRST, though they are
simultaneous in eternity, where they cannot BE separated. When you have learned
that they ARE the same, the need for time is over. Eternity is ONE time, its
ONLY dimension being "always."
T 9 E 8. But this cannot mean anything to you, until you remember God’s open
arms, and finally know His open Mind. Like Him, YOU are ALWAYS, in His Mind, and
with a mind like His. In your open mind are YOUR creations, in perfect
communication, born of perfect understanding. Could you but accept one of them,
you would not want ANYTHING the world has to offer. Everything else would be
totally meaningless. God’s meaning is incomplete without you, and you are
incomplete without your creations.
T 9 E 9. Accept your brother in this world, and accept NOTHING ELSE, for in
him you will find your creations, because he created them WITH you. You will
never know that you are co-creator with God, until you learn that your brother
is a co-creator with YOU.
T 9 F. Salvation and God’s Will
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T 9 F 1. God’s Will is your salvation. Would He not have given you the means
to find it? If He wills you to HAVE it, He MUST have made it possible, and very
easy to obtain it.
T 9 F 2. Your brothers are everywhere. You do not have to seek far for
salvation. Every minute and every second gives you a chance to save YOURSELF. Do
not lose these chances, NOT because they will not return, but because delay of
joy is needless. God wills you perfect happiness NOW. Is it possible that this
is not also YOUR will? And is it possible that this is not ALSO the will of your
brothers? Consider, then, that in this joint will, you ARE all united, and IN
THIS ONLY. There WILL be disagreement on anything ELSE, but NOT in this. This,
then, is where peace ABIDES. And YOU abide in peace, when you so decide.
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T 9 F 3. But you cannot abide in peace unless you accept the Atonement,
because the Atonement IS the way to peace. The reason is very simple, and so
obvious that it is often overlooked. That is because the ego is AFRAID of the
obvious, since obviousness is the essential characteristic of reality. You
CANNOT overlook it, unless you are NOT LOOKING. It is PERFECTLY obvious that if
the Holy Spirit looks with love on all He perceives, He looks with love on YOU.
His EVALUATION of you is based on his knowledge of what you ARE, and so He
evaluates you truly. And this evaluation MUST be in your mind, because HE is.
T 9 F 4. The ego is also in your mind, because you have ACCEPTED it there.
ITS evaluation of you, however, is the exact opposite of the Holy Spirit’s,
because the ego does NOT love you. It is unaware of what you are, and wholly
mistrustful of EVERYTHING it perceives, because its own perceptions are so
shifting. The ego is therefore capable of suspiciousness at best, and
viciousness at worst. That is its range. It cannot exceed it, because of its
uncertainty. And it can never go BEYOND it, because it can never BE certain.
T 9 F 5. You, then, have two conflicting evaluations of yourself in your
minds, and they CANNOT BOTH BE TRUE. You do not yet realize how COMPLETELY
different these evaluations are, because you do not understand how lofty the
Holy Spirit’s perception of you really is. He is not deceived by ANYTHING you
do, because He NEVER forgets what you are. The ego is deceived by EVERYTHING you
do, even when you respond to the Holy Spirit, because at such times ITS
CONFUSION INCREASES. The ego is, therefore, particularly likely to attack you
when you react lovingly, because it has evaluated you AS UNLOVING, and you are
going AGAINST ITS JUDGMENT.
T 9 F 6. The ego will begin to ATTACK your motives as soon as they become
clearly out of accord with its perception of you. This is when it will shift
abruptly from suspiciousness to viciousness, because its uncertainty is
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INCREASED. But it is surely pointless to attack in return. What can this mean,
except that you are AGREEING with the ego’s evaluation of what you are? If you
are willing to see yourself as unloving, YOU WILL NOT BE HAPPY. You are
condemning yourself, and MUST therefore regard yourself as inadequate.
T 9 F 7. Would you look to the ego to help you escape from a sense of
inadequacy it has PRODUCED, and must MAINTAIN for its own existence? Can you
ESCAPE from its evaluation of you, by using its methods for keeping this picture
INTACT? You cannot evaluate an insane belief system from WITHIN it. Its own
range precludes this. You can only GO BEYOND it, look back from a point where
SANITY exists, and SEE THE CONTRAST. Only BY this contrast, can insanity be
judged as insane.
T 9 F 8. With the grandeur of God in you, you have chosen to be little, and
lament your littleness. Within the system which DICTATED this choice, the lament
IS inevitable. Your littleness is TAKEN FOR GRANTED there, and you do NOT ask
who granted it. The question is meaningless WITHIN the ego’s thought-system,
because it OPENS THE WHOLE THOUGHT-SYSTEM TO QUESTION. We said before that the
ego does not know what a real question is. Lack of knowledge of ANY kind is
ALWAYS associated with UNWILLINGNESS to know, and produces a TOTAL lack of
knowledge, simply because KNOWLEDGE is total. NOT to question your littleness
is, therefore, to deny ALL knowledge, and keep the ego’s WHOLE thought-system
intact.
T 9 F 9. You cannot retain PART of a thought-system, because it can BE
questioned only at its foundation. And this MUST be questioned from beyond it,
because WITHIN it, its foundation DOES stand. The Holy Spirit judges against the
reality of the ego’s thought- system, merely because He knows its FOUNDATION is
not true. Therefore, nothing that arises from it MEANS anything. The Holy Spirit
judges every belief you hold in terms of where it comes from. If it comes from
God,
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He knows it to be true. If it does not, He knows it is meaningless.
T 9 F 10. Whenever you question your value, say, "God Himself is incomplete
without me." Remember this when the ego speaks, and you will not hear it. The
truth about YOU is so lofty that nothing that is unworthy of God is worthy of
you. Choose, then, what you want in these terms, and accept nothing that you
would not offer to God as wholly fitting for HIM, for YOU do not want anything
else. Return your part of Him, and He will give you all of Himself, in exchange
for your return of what belongs to Him, and renders Him complete.
T 9 G. Grandeur versus Grandiosity
T 9 G 1. Grandeur is of God, and ONLY of Him. Therefore, it is in you.
Whenever you become aware of it, however dimly, you abandon the ego
automatically, because in the presence of the grandeur of God, the
meaninglessness of the ego becomes perfectly apparent. Though it does not
understand this, the ego believes that its "enemy" has struck, and attempts to
offer gifts to induce you to return to its protection. SELF-inflation is the
only offering it can make. The grandiosity of the ego is its alternative to the
grandeur of God. Which will you choose?
T 9 G 2. Grandiosity is ALWAYS a cover for despair. It is without hope,
because it is not real. It is an attempt to COUNTERACT your littleness, based on
the belief THAT THE LITTLENESS IS REAL. WITHOUT this belief, the grandiosity is
meaningless, and you could not possibly WANT it. The essence of grandiosity is
competitiveness, because it ALWAYS involves ATTACK. It is a delusional attempt
to OUTDO, but NOT to UNdo. We said before that the ego vacillates between
suspiciousness and viciousness. It remains suspicious as long as you DESPAIR of
yourself. It shifts to viciousness whenever you will not tolerate
self-debasement, and seek relief. Then it offers you the delusion of ATTACK as a
solution.
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T 9 G 3. The ego does not know the difference between grandeur and
grandiosity, because it does not know the difference between miracle-impulses
and ego-alien beliefs of its own. We once said that the ego IS aware of threat,
but does NOT make distinctions between two ENTIRELY different kinds of threat to
its existence. Its own PROFOUND sense of vulnerability renders it incapable of
judgment, EXCEPT in terms of attack. When it experiences threat, its ONLY
decision is whether to attack NOW, or withdraw to attack later. If you ACCEPT
its offer of grandiosity, it will attack immediately. If you do not, it will
wait.
T 9 G 4. The ego is immobilized in the presence of God’s grandeur, because
HIS grandeur establishes YOUR freedom. Even the faintest hint of your reality
literally drives the ego from your mind, because of the complete lack of
investment in it. Grandeur is totally WITHOUT illusion, and because it is real,
it is compellingly convincing. But the conviction of reality will not REMAIN
with you, UNLESS YOU DO NOT ALLOW THE EGO TO ATTACK IT.
T 9 G 5. The ego will make every effort to recover, and mobilize its energies
AGAINST your release. It will tell you that you are insane, and argue that
grandeur CANNOT be a real part of you, because of the littleness in which IT
believes. But your grandeur is NOT delusional, BECAUSE YOU DID NOT MAKE IT. YOU
have made grandiosity, and are afraid of it, because it is a form of ATTACK. But
your grandeur is of God, who created it out of His love. From your grandeur you
can only bless, because your grandeur is your ABUNDANCE. By blessing you hold it
in your minds, protecting it from illusions, and keeping yourself in the Mind of
God.
T 9 G 6. Remember always that you cannot be anywhere EXCEPT in the Mind of
God. When you FORGET this, you WILL despair, and you WILL attack. The ego
depends SOLELY on your willingness to tolerate it. But if you are willing to
look upon your grandeur, you CANNOT despair, and therefore you CANNOT want the
ego. Your grandeur is God’s ANSWER to the ego, because it is true.
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Littleness and grandeur cannot co-exist, nor is it possible for them to
alternate in your awareness. Littleness and grandiosity can and MUST, since both
are untrue, and therefore on the same level. Being the level of shift, it is
experienced as shifting, and extremes are its essential characteristic.
T 9 G 7. But truth and littleness are DENIALS of each other, and grandeur IS
truth. Truth does not vacillate; it is ALWAYS true. When grandeur slips away
from you, YOU HAVE REPLACED IT WITH SOMETHING YOU HAVE MADE. Perhaps it is the
belief in littleness; perhaps it is the belief in grandiosity. But it MUST be
insane, because it is NOT TRUE. Your grandeur will NEVER deceive you, but your
illusions ALWAYS will. Illusions ARE deceptions.
T 9 G 8. You CANNOT triumph, but you ARE exalted. And in your exalted state,
you seek others like you, and rejoice with them. It is easy to distinguish
grandeur from grandiosity, simply because love is returned, but pride is not.
Pride will not produce miracles, and therefore will deprive you of the true
witnesses to your reality. Truth is not obscure nor hidden, but its obviousness
to YOU lies in the joy you bring to its witnesses, WHO SHOW IT TO YOU. They
attest to your grandeur, but they cannot attest to pride because pride is not
shared.
T 9 G 9. God WANTS you to behold what He created, because it is HIS joy. Can
your grandeur be arrogant, when God HIMSELF witnesses to it? And what can be
real that has NO witnesses? What good can come of it? And if no good can come of
it, the Holy Spirit cannot use it. What He cannot TRANSFORM to the Will of God
does not exist at all. Grandiosity is delusional because it is used to REPLACE
your grandeur. Yet what God has created cannot BE replaced.
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T 9 G 10. God is incomplete without you, simply because His grandeur is total,
and you cannot BE missing from it. You are altogether irreplaceable in the Mind
of God. No one else can fill your part of it, and while you leave your part of
it empty, your eternal place merely waits for your return. God, through His
Voice, reminds you of it, and God Himself keeps your extensions safe within it.
But YOU do not know them, until you return TO them.
T 9 G 11. You CANNOT replace the Kingdom, and you cannot replace yourself.
God, Who KNOWS your value, would not have it so, and so it is NOT so. Your value
is in GOD’S Mind, and therefore NOT in yours alone. To accept yourself as He
created you CANNOT be arrogant, because it is the DENIAL of arrogance. To accept
your littleness IS arrogant, because it means that you believe that YOUR
evaluation of yourself is TRUER THAN GOD’S. But if truth is indivisible, then
YOUR evaluation of yourself MUST BE GOD’S.
T 9 G 12. You did not ESTABLISH your value, and it needs no defense. NOTHING
can attack it, or prevail over it. It does not vary. It merely IS. Ask the Holy
Spirit WHAT it is, and He will tell you. But do not be afraid of His Answer, for
it comes from God. It IS an exalted answer, because of its Source. But the
Source is true, and so is its answer. Listen and do not question what you hear,
for God does not deceive. He would have you replace the ego’s belief in
littleness with His own exalted answer to the question of your being, so that
you can cease to question it, and KNOW it for what it IS.
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T 9 H. The Inclusiveness of Creation
T 9 H 1. NOTHING beyond yourself can make you fearful or loving, because
nothing IS beyond you. Time and eternity are both in your minds, and WILL
conflict, until you perceive time SOLELY as a means to REGAIN eternity. You
cannot do this, as long as you believe that ANYTHING that happens to you is
caused by factors OUTSIDE yourself. You must learn that time is solely at YOUR
disposal, and that nothing in the world can take this responsibility FROM you.
You can VIOLATE God’s laws in your imagination, but you cannot escape from them.
They were established for your protection, and are as inviolate as your safety.
T 9 H 2. God created nothing beside you, and nothing beside you exists, for
you are part of Him. What except Him CAN exist? Nothing BEYOND Him can happen,
because nothing EXCEPT Him is real. YOUR creations add to Him, as YOU do. But
nothing is added that is different, because everything has always BEEN. What can
upset you except the ephemeral, and how can the ephemeral be real, if you are
God’s ONLY creation, and He created you eternal?
T 9 H 3. Your holy will establishes EVERYTHING that happens to you. Every
response you make, to everything you perceive, is up to you, because your will
DETERMINES your perception of it. God does not change His Mind about YOU, for He
is not uncertain of HIMSELF. And what He knows CAN be known, because He does not
know only for Himself. He CREATED you for Himself, but He gave you the power to
create for YOUR self, so you would be LIKE Him. That is why your will is holy.
T 9 H 4. Can anything EXCEED the love of God? Can anything, then, exceed YOUR
will? Nothing can reach you from BEYOND it, because being in God, YOU encompass
everything. Believe this, and you will realize how much IS up to you. When
ANYTHING threatens your peace of mind, ask yourself "Has God changed His Mind
about me?" Then ACCEPT His decision, for it is indeed changeless, and refuse to
change your mind about YOURSELF.
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God will never decide AGAINST you, or He would be deciding against Himself.
T 9 H 5. The reason you do not know YOUR creations is simply that you would
decide against them, as long as your minds are split, and to attack what you
have created is impossible. But remember that IT IS AS IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD. The
law of Creation is that you love your creations as yourself, BECAUSE THEY ARE
PART OF YOU. Everything that was created is therefore PERFECTLY safe, because
the laws of God protect it by His love. Any part of your mind that does not know
this, has banished itself from knowledge, because it has NOT MET ITS CONDITIONS.
T 9 H 6. Who could have done this but you? Recognize this gladly, for in this
recognition lies the realization that your banishment is not of God, and
therefore does not exist. You are at home in God, dreaming of exile, but
perfectly capable of awakening to Reality. Is it your will to do so? You know,
from your own experience, that what you see in dreams you think is real, as long
as you are asleep. But the instant you waken, you KNOW that everything that
SEEMED to happen DID NOT HAPPEN AT ALL. You do not think this mysterious, even
though ALL the laws of what you awake to WERE violated while you slept.
T 9 H 7. Is it not possible that you merely shifted from one dream to another
without really wakening? Would you bother to reconcile what happened in
conflicting DREAMS, or would you dismiss BOTH TOGETHER, if you discovered that
REALITY is in accord with neither? You do not remember being awake. When you
hear the Holy Spirit, you merely feel BETTER, because loving seems POSSIBLE to
you. But you do NOT remember yet that it once was so, and it is in this
remembering that you will know it can be so again.
T 9 H 8. What is possible has not yet been accomplished. But what has once
been is so now, if it is eternal. When you remember, you will know what you
remember IS eternal, and therefore is NOW.
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T 9 I. The Decision to Forget
T 9 I 1. You will remember everything the instant you DESIRE IT WHOLLY, for
if to desire wholly is to create, you will have willed away the separation,
returning your mind simultaneously to your Creator and your creations. Knowing
them, you will have no wish to sleep, but only the will to waken and be glad.
Dreams will be impossible, because you will WANT only truth, and being at last
your will, it will be yours.
T 9 I 2. Unless you KNOW something, you CANNOT dissociate it. Knowledge
therefore PRECEDES dissociation, and dissociation is nothing more than a
DECISION TO FORGET. What has been FORGOTTEN then appears to be fearful, but ONLY
because the dissociation was an ATTACK ON TRUTH. You are fearful because you
have forgotten. And you have REPLACED your knowledge by an awareness of dreams,
BECAUSE YOU ARE AFRAID OF YOUR DISSOCIATION, NOT of what you have dissociated.
Even in this world’s therapy, when dissociated material is ACCEPTED, it ceases
to be fearful, for the laws of mind always hold.
T 9 I 3. But to give up the dissociation of REALITY brings more than merely
lack of fear. In THIS decision lie joy, and peace, and the glory of creation.
Offer the Holy Spirit only your will to remember, for He retains the knowledge
of God and of you FOR you, waiting for your acceptance. Give up gladly
EVERYTHING that would stand in the way of your remembering, for God is in your
memory, and His Voice will tell you that you are part of Him when you are
willing to remember Him and know your own reality again. Let nothing in this
world delay your remembering of Him, for in this remembering is the knowledge of
YOURSELF.
T 9 I 4. To remember is merely to restore to your mind WHAT IS ALREADY THERE.
You do not make what you remember; you merely accept again what has been made
AND REJECTED. The ability to ACCEPT truth in this world is the perceptual
counterpart of creating in the Kingdom. God WILL do His part
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if you will do yours, and HIS return in exchange for yours is the exchange of
knowledge for perception. NOTHING is beyond His will for you. But signify your
will to remember Him, and behold! He will give you everything but for your
asking.
T 9 I 5. Whenever you attack, you are denying YOURSELF. You are specifically
teaching yourself that you are NOT what you are. YOUR denial of reality
precludes ACCEPTANCE of God’s gift, BECAUSE YOU HAVE ACCEPTED SOMETHING ELSE IN
ITS PLACE. If you understand that the misuse of defenses always constitutes an
attack on truth, and truth is God, you will realize why this is ALWAYS fearful.
If you further recognize that you are PART of God, you will also understand why
it is that YOU ALWAYS ATTACK YOURSELF FIRST.
T 9 I 6. ALL attack is self attack. It cannot BE anything else. Arising from
your OWN decision NOT to be what you ARE, IT IS AN ATTACK ON YOUR
IDENTIFICATION. Attack is thus the way in which your identification is lost,
because, when you attack, you MUST have forgotten what you are. And if your
reality is God’s, when YOU attack, you are not remembering HIM. This is not
because He is gone, but because you are ACTIVELY WILLING NOT TO REMEMBER HIM.
T 9 I 7. If you realized the complete havoc this makes of your peace of mind,
you COULD not make such an insane decision. You make it only because you still
believe that it can GET YOU SOMETHING YOU WANT. It follows, then, that you want
something OTHER than peace of mind, and you have not considered what it must be.
Yet the logical outcome of your decision is perfectly clear, if you will LOOK at
it. By deciding AGAINST your reality, you have made yourself vigilant AGAINST
God and His Kingdom. And it is THIS vigilance that makes you afraid to remember
Him.
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T 9 I 8. You have NOT attacked God, and you DO love Him. Can you change your
reality? No-one can will to destroy himself. When you think you are attacking
your SELF, it is a sure sign that you hate what you think you are. And this, and
ONLY this, can BE attacked by you. What you THINK you are CAN be hateful, and
what this strange image makes you do can be very destructive. The destruction is
no more real than the image, but those who make idols DO worship them. The idols
are nothing, but their worshippers are the Sons of God in sickness.
T 9 I 9. God would have them released from their sickness, and returned to
His Mind. He will not limit your power to help them, because He has given it TO
you. Do not be afraid of it, because it is your salvation. What Comforter can
there be for the sick children of God except His power through YOU? Remember
that it does not matter where in the Sonship He is accepted. He is ALWAYS
accepted for all, and when your mind receives Him, the remembrance of Him
awakens throughout the Sonship.
T 9 I 10. Heal your brothers simply by accepting God FOR them. Your minds are
not separate, and God has only one channel for healing, because He has but one
Son. His remaining communication link with all His Children joins them together,
and them to Him. To be aware of this is to heal them, because it is the
awareness that no one is separate, and so no one is sick. To believe that a Son
of God can be sick is to believe that PART OF GOD CAN SUFFER.
T 9 I 11. Love CANNOT suffer, because it cannot attack. The remembrance of
love therefore brings invulnerability with it. Do not side with sickness in the
presence of a Son of God, even if HE believes in it, for YOUR acceptance of God
in him ACKNOWLEDGES the love of God which he has forgotten. Your recognition of
him as PART OF GOD teaches him the truth about himself, WHICH HE IS DENYING.
Would you STRENGTHEN his denial of God, and thus lose sight of YOURSELF? Or
would you remind him of his wholeness, and remember your Creator WITH him?
T 9 I 12. To believe a Son of God is sick is to worship the same idol he does.
God created love, NOT idolatry. ALL forms of idolatry are caricatures of
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creation, taught by sick minds, who are too divided to know that Creation SHARES
power, and NEVER usurps it. Sickness is idolatry, because it is the belief that
POWER CAN BE TAKEN FROM YOU. But this is impossible, because you are part of
God, Who IS all power. A sick god MUST be an idol, made in the image of what its
maker thinks HE is. And that is exactly what the ego DOES perceive in a Son of
God; -- a sick god, self-created, self-sufficient, very vicious, and very
vulnerable.
T 9 I 13. Is this the idol you would worship? Is this the image you would be
vigilant to SAVE? Are you REALLY afraid of losing THIS? Look calmly at the
logical conclusion of the ego’s thought-system, and judge whether its offering
is really what you want, for this IS what it offers you. To obtain THIS, you are
willing to attack the Divinity of your brothers, and thus lose sight of YOURS.
And you are willing to keep it hidden, to protect this idol, which you think
will save you from dangers WHICH THE IDOL ITSELF STANDS FOR, but which do not
exist.
T 9 I 14. There are no idolaters in the Kingdom, but there is great
appreciation for every Soul which God created, because of the calm knowledge
that each one is part of Him. God’s Son knows no idols, but He DOES know His
Father. Health in this world is the counterpart of value in Heaven. It is not my
merit that I contribute to you, but my love, for you do not value yourselves.
When you do not value yourself you become sick, but MY value of you can heal
you, because the value of God’s Son is one.
T 9 I 15. When I said, "my peace I give unto you," I meant it. Peace came from
God through me to YOU. It was FOR you, but you did not ask. When a brother is
sick, it is because HE IS NOT ASKING FOR PEACE, and therefore he does not know
he HAS it. The ACCEPTANCE of peace is the denial of illusion, and sickness IS an
illusion. Yet every Son of God has the power to deny illusions ANYWHERE in the
Kingdom, merely by denying them completely in himself.
T 9 I 16. I CAN heal you, because I KNOW you. I know your value FOR you, and
it is this value that makes you whole. A whole mind is not idolatrous, and does
not know of conflicting laws. I will heal you merely because I have only
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ONE message, and it is true. Your faith in it will make you whole, when you have
faith in me. I do not bring God’s message with deception, and you will learn
this as you learn that you ALWAYS receive as much as you ACCEPT. You could
accept peace NOW, for everyone you meet, and offer them perfect freedom from ALL
illusions, BECAUSE YOU HEARD. But have no other gods before Him, or you will NOT
hear.
T 9 I 17. God is not jealous of the gods you make, but YOU are. You would save
them and serve them, because you believe that THEY MADE YOU. You think they are
your father, because you are projecting onto them the fearful fact that YOU MADE
THEM TO REPLACE GOD. But when they seem to speak to you, remember that NOTHING
can replace God, and whatever replacements you have attempted ARE nothing. Very
simply, then, you may BELIEVE you are afraid of nothingNESS, but you are REALLY
afraid of NOTHIN And in THAT awareness you ARE healed.
T 9 I 18. You WILL hear the god you listen to. You MADE the god of sickness,
and BY making him, you made yourself ABLE to hear him. But you did NOT create
him, because he is NOT the Will of the Father. He is therefore not eternal, and
will be UNmade for you, the instant you signify your willingness to accept ONLY
the eternal. If God has but one Son, there is but one God. You share reality
with Him, BECAUSE reality is not divided. To accept other gods before Him, is to
place other images before YOURSELF. You do not realize how much you listen to
your gods, and how vigilant you are on their behalf. But they exist only because
you honor them.
T 9 I 19. Place honor where it is due, and peace WILL be yours. It is your
inheritance from your REAL Father. You cannot make your father, and the father
you made did NOT make you. Honor is not due to illusions, for to honor them is
to honor nothing. But fear is not due them either, for nothing cannot be
fearful. You have chosen to fear love BECAUSE of its perfect harmlessness. And
because of this fear, you have been willing to give up your own perfect
helpfulness, and your own perfect Help. Only at the altar of God will you find
peace, and this altar is in you, because God put it there. His Voice still calls
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you to return, and He will be heard, when you place no other gods before Him.
T 9 I 20. You can give up the god of sickness for your brothers; in fact, you
would HAVE to do so, if you give him up for yourself. For if you see him
anywhere, YOU have accepted him. And if you accept him, you WILL bow down and
worship him, because HE WAS MADE AS GOD’S REPLACEMENT. He is the belief that YOU
CAN CHOOSE WHICH GOD IS REAL. Although it is perfectly clear that this has
nothing to do with REALITY, it is equally clear that it has EVERYTHING to do
with REALITY AS YOU PERCEIVE IT.
T 9 J. Magic versus Miracles
[split paragraph]
T 9 J 1. All magic is a form of reconciling the irreconcilable. All religion
is the recognition that the irreconcilable cannot BE reconciled.
T 9 J 2. Sickness and perfection ARE irreconcilable. If God created you
perfect, you ARE perfect. If you believe you can be sick, you HAVE placed other
gods before Him. GOD is not at war with the god of sickness which you made, but
YOU are. He is the symbol of willing AGAINST God, and you are afraid of him
BECAUSE he cannot be reconciled with God’s will. If you ATTACK him, you will
make him real to you. But if you refuse to worship him, in whatever form he may
appear to you, and wherever you think you see him, he will disappear into the
nothingness out of which he was made.
T 9 J 3. Reality can dawn only in an unclouded mind. It is always THERE, to
BE accepted, but its acceptance depends on your WILLINGNESS TO HAVE IT. To know
reality MUST involve the willingness to judge Unreality FOR WHAT IT IS. This is
the RIGHT use of selective perception. To overlook nothingness is merely to
judge it correctly, and because of your ability to evaluate it truly, to LET IT
GO. Knowledge cannot dawn on a mind full of illusions, because truth and
illusions are irreconcilable. Truth is whole, and CANNOT be known by PART of a
mind.
T 9 J 4. The Sonship cannot be perceived as PARTLY sick, because to perceive
it that way, is not to perceive it at all. If the Sonship is ONE, it is one in
ALL respects. ONENESS CANNOT BE DIVIDED. If you perceive other gods, YOUR mind
is split, and you will not be able to LIMIT the split, because the split IS the
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sign that you have removed part of your mind from God’s Will, and this MEANS
that it is out of control. To be out of control is to be out of REASON, and the
mind DOES become unreasonable without reason. This is merely a matter of
DEFINITION. By DEFINING the mind wrongly, you perceive it as FUNCTIONING
wrongly.
T 9 J 5. God’s laws will keep your minds at peace, because peace IS His Will,
and His laws are established to uphold it. His are the laws of freedom, but
yours are the laws of bondage. Since freedom and bondage are irreconcilable,
their laws CANNOT BE UNDERSTOOD TOGETHER. The laws of God work only for your
good, and there ARE no other laws beside His. Everything else is merely lawLESS,
and therefore chaotic. But God Himself has protected EVERYTHING He created BY
His laws. Therefore, everything that is not under them does not exist.
T 9 J 6. "Laws of chaos" are meaningless, by definition. Creation is
perfectly lawful, and the chaotic is without meaning, BECAUSE IT IS WITHOUT GOD.
You have given your peace to the gods you made, but they are not there to take
it FROM you, and you are NOT able to give it TO them. You are NOT free to give
up freedom, but only to DENY it. YOU CANNOT DO WHAT GOD DID NOT INTEND, because
what He did not intend DOES NOT HAPPEN. Your gods do not BRING chaos; you are
ENDOWING them with chaos, and accepting it OF them.
T 9 J 7. All this has never been. Nothing but the laws of God has ever
operated, and nothing except His Will will ever be. You were created through His
laws and by His Will, and the manner of your creation established you AS
CREATORS. What you have made is so unworthy of you, that you could hardly want
it, IF YOU WERE WILLING TO SEE IT AS IT IS. You will see nothing at all. And
your vision will AUTOMATICALLY look beyond it, to what is IN you, and all AROUND
you. Reality cannot BREAK THROUGH the obstructions you interpose, but it WILL
envelop you completely, WHEN YOU LET THEM GO.
T 9 J 8. When you have experienced the protection of God, the making of idols
becomes inconceivable. There are no strange images in the Mind of God, and what
is not in His Mind CANNOT be in yours, because you are of One Mind, and that
Mind
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belongs to HIM. It is yours BECAUSE it belongs to Him, for ownership is sharing
to Him. And if it is so for Him, it is so for you. His definitions ARE His laws,
for by them He established the universe as what it is. No false gods you attempt
to interpose between yourself and your reality, affect truth at all. Peace is
yours because God created you. And He created nothing else.
T 9 J 9. The miracle is the act of a Son of God who has laid aside all false
gods, and who calls on his brothers to do likewise. It is an act of faith,
because it is the recognition that his brother CAN do it. It is a call to the
Holy Spirit in his mind, a call to Him which is strengthened by this joining.
Because the miracle-worker has heard Him, he strengthens His Voice in a sick
brother by weakening his belief in sickness, which he does NOT share. The power
of one mind CAN shine into another, because all the lamps of God were lit by the
same spark. It is everywhere, and it is eternal.
T 9 J 10. In many, only the spark remains, for the great rays are obscured.
But God has kept the spark alive, so the rays can never be completely forgotten.
If you but see the little spark, you will learn of the greater light, for the
rays are there unseen. Perceiving the spark will heal, but knowing the Light
will create. Yet in the returning, the little light must be acknowledged first,
for the separation was a descent from magnitude to littleness. But the spark is
still as pure as the Great Light, because it is the remaining call of Creation.
Put all your faith in it, and God Himself will answer you.
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T 9 K. The Denial of God
T 9 K 1. The rituals of the god of sickness are strange and very demanding.
Joy is never permitted, for depression is the sign of allegiance to him.
Depression MEANS that you have foresworn God. Men are afraid of blasphemy, but
they do not know what it means. They do not realize that, to deny God, is to
deny their own identity, and in this sense, the wages of sin IS death. The sense
is very literal; -- denial of Life perceives its opposite, as ALL forms of
denial replace what IS, with what is NOT. No-one can really DO this, but that
you can THINK you can, and BELIEVE YOU HAVE, is beyond dispute.
T 9 K 2. Do not forget, however, that to deny God will inevitably result in
projection, and you will believe that others, AND NOT YOURSELF, have done this
TO you. You WILL receive the message you give, because it is the message you
WANT. You may believe that you judge your brothers by the messages they give
YOU, but you HAVE judged them by the message you give THEM. Do not attribute
your denial of joy to them, or you cannot see the spark in them, that could
bring joy to YOU. It is the DENIAL of the spark that brings depression, and
whenever you see your brothers WITHOUT it, you ARE denying God.
T 9 K 3. Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego’s religion. The god of
sickness obviously demands the denial of health, because health is in direct
opposition to its own survival. But consider what this means to YOU. UNLESS you
are sick you cannot keep the gods you made, for only in sickness could you
possibly WANT them. Blasphemy, then, is SELF-destructive, not God destructive.
It means that you are willing NOT to know yourself, IN ORDER to be sick. This IS
the offering which your god demands, because having made him out of YOUR
insanity, he IS an insane idea. He has many forms, but though he may seem like
many different things, he is but one idea;-- the denial of God.
T 9 K 4. Sickness and death entered the mind of God’s Son against His Will.
The "attack on God" made His Son think he was fatherless, and out of his
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depression he made the god of depression. This was his alternative to joy,
because he would not accept the fact that, although he was a creator, he had
been created. Yet the Son IS helpless without the Father, Who alone IS his Help.
We said before that of yourselves you can do nothing, but you are not OF
yourselves. If you were, what you have made would be true, and you could never
escape.
T 9 K 5. It is BECAUSE you did not make yourselves, that you need be troubled
by nothing. Your gods are nothing, because your Father did not create them. You
cannot make creators who are unlike your Creator, any more than He could have
created a Son who was unlike Him. If creation is sharing, it cannot create what
is unlike itself. It can share only what it IS. Depression is isolation, and so
it could not have BEEN created.
T 9 K 6. Son of God, you have not sinned, but you have been much mistaken.
But this can be corrected, and God will help you, knowing that you could not sin
against Him. You denied Him BECAUSE you loved Him, knowing that if you
RECOGNIZED your love for Him, you COULD not deny Him. Your denial therefore
MEANS that you love Him, and THAT YOU KNOW HE LOVES YOU. Remember that what you
deny you MUST have known. And if you can accept denial, YOU CAN ACCEPT ITS
UNDOING.
T 9 K 7. Your Father has not denied you. He does not retaliate, but He DOES
call to you to return. When you think He has not answered your call, YOU HAVE
NOT ANSWERED HIS. He calls to you from every part of the Sonship, because of His
love for His Son. If you hear His message, He HAS answered you, and you will
learn what you are of Him, if you hear aright. The love of God is in everything
He created, for His Son is everywhere. Look with peace upon your brothers, and
God will come rushing into your heart, in gratitude for your gift to Him.
T 9 K 8. Do not look to the god of sickness for healing, but only to the God
of love, for healing is the acknowledgment of Him. When you acknowledge Him, you
will KNOW that He has never ceased to acknowledge you, and that in
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His acknowledgment OF you lies your Being. You are not sick, and you cannot die.
But you CAN confuse your self with things that do. Remember, though, that to do
this IS blasphemy, for it means that you are looking without love on God and His
Creation, from which He cannot be separated. Only the eternal can be loved, for
love does not die. What is of God is His forever, and you ARE of God. Would He
allow Himself to suffer? And would He offer His Son anything that is not
acceptable to Him?
T 9 K 9. If you will accept yourself as God created you, you will be
incapable of suffering. But to do this, you must acknowledge Him as your
Creator. This is not because you will be punished otherwise. It is merely
because your acknowledgment of your Father IS the acknowledgment of yourself as
you ARE. Your Father created you Wholly without sin, wholly without pain, and
wholly without suffering of any kind. If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and
suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it. Your mind is
capable of creating worlds, but it can also DENY what it creates, because it is
free.
T 9 K 10. You do not realize how much you have denied yourself, and how much
God, in His love, would not have it so. Yet He would not interfere with you,
because He would not know His Son if he were not free. To interfere with you
would be to attack HIMSELF, and God is not insane. When you denied HIM, you WERE
insane. Would you have Him SHARE your insanity? God will never cease to love His
Son, and His Son will never cease to love Him. That was the condition of His
Son’s Creation, fixed forever in the Mind of God. To know that is sanity. To
deny it is insanity. God gave HIMSELF to you in your Creation, and His gifts ARE
eternal. Would you deny yourself to Him?
T 9 K 11. Out of your gifts to Him, the Kingdom will be restored to His Son.
His Son removed himself from His gift by refusing to accept what had been
created FOR him, and what he himself had created in the name of His Father.
Heaven waits for his return, for it was created as the dwelling place of God’s
Son. You are not at home anywhere else, or in any other condition. Do not deny
yourself the joy which was created FOR you, for the misery you have made for
yourselves. God has given you the means for undoing what you have made. Listen,
and you WILL learn what you are.
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T 9 K 12. If God knows His children as wholly sinless, it is blasphemous to
perceive them as guilty. If God knows His children as wholly without pain, it is
blasphemous to perceive suffering anywhere. If God knows his children to be
wholly joyous, it is blasphemous to feel depressed. All these illusions, and the
many other forms which blasphemy may take, are REFUSALS TO ACCEPT CREATION AS IT
IS. If God created His Son perfect, that is how you must learn to see him, to
learn of his reality. And as part of the Sonship, THAT IS HOW YOU MUST SEE
YOURSELF TO LEARN YOURS.
T 9 K 13. Do not perceive ANYTHING God did not create, or you ARE denying Him.
His is the ONLY Fatherhood, and it is yours only because HE has given it to you.
Your gifts to YOURSELF are meaningless, but your gifts to YOUR creations are
like His, because they are given in His Name. That is why your creations are as
real as His. But the real Fatherhood must be acknowledged, if the real Son is to
be known. You believe that the sick things which you have made are your real
creations, because you believe that the sick images you perceive are the Sons of
God.
T 9 K 14. Only if you ACCEPT the Fatherhood of God will you have anything,
because His Fatherhood GAVE you everything. That is why to deny Him IS to deny
yourself. Arrogance is the denial of love, because love shares and arrogance
withholds. As long as both appear to you to be desirable, the concept of choice,
which is not of God, will remain with you. While this is not true in Eternity,
it IS true in time, so that, while time lasts in YOUR minds, there WILL be
choices. Time itself WAS your choice. If you would remember Eternity, you must
learn to look on only the Eternal. If you allow yourselves to become preoccupied
with the temporal, you are LIVING IN TIME. As always, your choice is determined
by what you value. Time and Eternity cannot both be real, because they
contradict each other. If you will accept only what is timeless as real, you
will begin to understand Eternity, and Gmake it yours.G
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Chapter X - 10 - God And The Ego
T 10 A. Introduction
T 10 A 1. Either God or the ego is insane. If you will examine the evidence ON
BOTH SIDES fairly, you will realize that this MUST be true. Neither God nor the
ego proposes a partial thought system. Each is internally consistent, but they
are diametrically opposed in all respects, so that partial allegiance is
impossible. But remember that their results are as different as their
foundations, and their fundamentally irreconcilable natures CANNOT be resolved
by YOUR vacillations. Nothing alive is fatherless, for life is creation.
Therefore, your decision is always an answer to the question, "Who is my
father?" And you WILL be faithful to the father you choose.
T 10 A 2. Yet what would you say to someone who REALLY believed this question
involves conflict? If YOU made the ego, how can the ego have made YOU? The
authority problem remains the ONLY source of perceived conflict, because the ego
was MADE out of the wish of God’s Son to father HIM. The ego, then, is nothing
more than a delusional system in which YOU MADE YOUR OWN FATHER. Make no mistake
about this. It sounds insane when it is stated with perfect honesty, but the ego
never looks upon what it does with perfect honesty. Yet that IS its insane
premise, which is carefully hidden in the dark cornerstone of its thought
system. And either the ego, which you made, IS your father, or its whole thought
system will not stand.
T 10 B. Projection versus Extension
T 10 B 1. You have made by projection, but God has created by extension. The
cornerstone of God’s creation is YOU, for HIS thought system is light. Remember
the rays that are there unseen. The more you approach the center of HIS thought
system, the clearer the light becomes. The closer you come to the foundation of
the ego’s thought system, the darker and more obscure becomes the way. But even
the little spark in your mind is enough to lighten it. Bring this light
fearlessly with you, and hold it up to the foundation of the ego’s thought
system bravely. Be willing to judge it with perfect honesty. Open the dark stone
of terror on which it rests, and bring it out into the light. There you will see
that it rests on meaninglessness, and that everything of which you have been
afraid was based on nothing.
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T 10 B 2. My brother, you are part of God and part of me. When you have at
last looked at the ego’s foundation without shrinking, you will also have looked
upon ours. I come to you from our Father, to offer you everything again. Do not
refuse it to keep a dark cornerstone hidden, for ITS protection will not save
you. I GIVE you the lamp, and I will go with you. You will not take this journey
alone. I will lead you to your true Father, Who hath need of you, as I have.
Will you not answer the call of love with joy?
T 10 B 3. You HAVE learned your need of healing. Would you bring anything ELSE
to the Sonship, knowing your need of it for yourself? For in this lies the
beginning of knowledge; the foundation on which God will help you build again
the thought system which you share WITH Him. Not one stone you place upon it but
will be blessed by Him. For you will be restoring the holy dwelling place of His
Son, where He wills His Son to be, and where he IS. In whatever part of the mind
of God’s Son you restore this reality, you restore it to YOURSELF. For you dwell
in the Mind of God WITH your brother, for God Himself did not will to be alone.
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August 8, 1966.
T 10 B 4. To be alone is to be separated from INFINITY, but how can this be,
if INFINITY has no end? No-one can BE beyond the limitless, because what has NO
limits, must be everywhere. There are no beginnings and no endings in God, Whose
Universe is Himself. Can you exclude yourself from the Universe, or from God,
Who IS the Universe? I and my Father are one with YOU, for you are part of us.
Do you REALLY believe that part of God can be missing or lost to Him?
T 10 B 5. If you were not part of God, His Will would not be unified. Is this
conceivable? Can part of His Mind contain nothing? If your place in His Mind
cannot be filled by anyone EXCEPT you, and your filling it WAS your creation,
WITHOUT you, there would be an empty place in God’s Mind. Extension cannot be
blocked, and it has no voids. It continues forever, however much it is denied.
Your DENIAL of its reality arrests it in time, but not in Eternity. That is
why your creations have not ceased to be extended, and why so much is waiting
for your return.
T 10 B 6. Waiting is possible ONLY in time, but time has no meaning. You who
made delay can leave time behind, simply by recognizing that neither beginnings
nor endings were created by the Eternal, Who placed no limits on His creation
nor upon those who create like Him. You do not know this, simply because you
have tried to limit what HE created, and so you believe that ALL creation is
limited. How, then, could you know YOUR creations, having DENIED Infinity? The
laws of the universe do not permit contradiction. What holds for God holds for
you. If you believe YOU are absent from God, you WILL believe He is absent from
you.
T 10 B 7. Infinity is meaningless WITHOUT you, and YOU are meaningless without
God. There IS no end to God and His Son, for we ARE the universe. God is not
incomplete, and He is not childless. Because He did not will to be alone, He
created a Son like Himself. Do not deny Him His Son, for your unwillingness to
accept His Fatherhood has denied you yours. See His creations as HIS Son, for
yours were created in honor of Him.
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T 10 B 8. The universe of love does not stop because you do not see it, and
your closed eyes have not lost the ability to see. Look upon the glory of His
creation, and you will learn what God has kept for YOU. God has given you a
place in His Mind which is yours forever. But you could keep it only by Giving
it, as it was given to you. Could YOU be alone there, if it was given you
because GOD did not will to be alone? God’s Mind cannot be lessened. It can ONLY
be increased, and EVERYTHING He creates has the function of creating. It can
ONLY be increased, and EVERYTHING He creates has the function of creating LOVE
DOES NOT LIMIT, and what it creates is not limited.
T 10 B 9. To give without limit is God’s Will for you, because only this can
bring you the joy which is His, and which He wills to share with YOU. Your love
is as boundless as His because it IS His. Could any part of Him be WITHOUT His
Love, and could any part of His Love be contained? God is your heritage, because
His one gift is Himself. How can you give except LIKE Him, if you would know His
gift to YOU? Give, then, without limit and without end, to learn how much HE has
given YOU. Your ability to ACCEPT Him depends on your willingness to give as He
gives. Your fatherhood and your Father are One.
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August 10, 1966.
T 10 B 10. God willed to create, and your will is His. It follows, then, that
YOUR will to create, since your will follows from His. And being the extension
of His will, yours MUST be the same. Yet what you will, you do not know. This is
not strange, when you realize that to deny IS to not know. God’s Will was that
you are His Son. By DENYING this, you denied your OWN will, and therefore DO NOT
KNOW WHAT IT IS. The reason you must ask what God’s Will is in everything, is
merely because It IS yours. YOU do not know what it is, but the Holy Spirit
REMEMBERS IT FOR YOU.
T 10 B 11. Ask him, therefore, what God’s Will is for you, and He will tell you
YOURS. It cannot be too often repeated that you do NOT KNOW it. Whenever what
the Holy Spirit tells you appears to be coercive, it is ONLY because YOU DO NOT
RECOGNIZE YOUR OWN WILL. The projection of the ego makes it appear as if God’s
Will is OUTSIDE yourself, and therefore NOT YOURS. In THIS interpretation, it IS
possible for God’s Will and yours to conflict. God, then, may seem to demand of
you what you do NOT want to give, and thus DEPRIVE you of what you want. Would
God, Who wants ONLY your will, be capable of this? Your will is His Life, which
He has GIVEN to you. Even in time you cannot live apart from Him, for sleep is
not death. What He created can sleep, but it CANNOT die. Immortality is His Will
for His Son, and His Son’s will for HIMSELF. Yet God’s Son cannot will death for
himself, because His Father is Life, and HIS SON IS LIKE HIM .
T 10 B 12. Creation is your will because it is His. You cannot be happy unless
you do what you will truly, and you CHANGE this, because it is immutable. But it
is immutable by God’s Will AND YOURS, for otherwise His Will would not have been
extended. You are afraid to know God’s Will, because you believe it is NOT
yours. This belief is your whole sickness, and your whole fear. Every symptom of
sickness and fear arise here, because this is the belief that makes you want not
to know. Believing this, you hide in
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darkness, denying that the Light is in YOU.
T 10 B 13. You are asked to trust the Holy Spirit only because He speaks for
YOU. He is the Voice for God, but never forget that God did not will to be
alone. He SHARES His Will with you; He does not thrust it UPON you. Always
remember that what He gives He holds, so that nothing He gives CAN contradict
Him. You who share His Life must share it to KNOW it, for sharing IS knowing.
Blessed are you who learn that to hear the Will of your Father, is to know your
own. For it is YOUR will to be LIKE Him, Whose Will it is that it be so.
T 10 B 14. God’s Will is that His Son be One, and united with Him in His
Oneness. That is why healing is the beginning of the recognition that YOUR WILL
IS HIS.
T 10 C. The Willingness for Healing
251 [split paragraph]
T 10 C 1. If sickness is separation, the will to heal and BE HEALED is the
first step toward RECOGNIZING WHAT YOU TRULY WANT. Every ATTACK is a step AWAY
from this, and every healing thought brings it closer. The Son of God HAS both
Father and Son because he IS both Father and Son.
T 10 C 2. To unite having and being is only to unite your will with His, for
He wills you HIMSELF. And you will yourself to HIM, because in your perfect
understanding of Him, you KNOW there IS but One Will. But when you attack ANY
part of God and His Kingdom, your understanding is NOT perfect, and what YOU
will is therefore lost to you.
T 10 C 3. Healing thus becomes A LESSON IN UNDERSTANDING, and the more you
practice it, the better teacher AND LEARNER you become. If you have DENIED
truth, what better witnesses to its reality could you have, than those who have
been healed BY it? But be sure to count yourself among them, for in your
willingness to JOIN them is YOUR healing accomplished.
T 10 C 4. Every miracle which you accomplish speaks to you of the Fatherhood
of God. Every healing thought which you ACCEPT, either FROM your brother or in
your OWN mind, teaches you that you are God’s Son. But in every hurtful thought
you hold, wherever you perceive it, lies the denial of God’s Fatherhood and your
Sonship. And denial IS as total as love. You cannot deny PART of yourself,
simply because the remainder will seem to be unintegrated, and therefore without
meaning. And being without meaning TO YOU, you will not understand it.
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To deny meaning MUST be to fail to understand.
T 10 C 5. You can only heal yourself, for only God’s Son NEEDS healing. He
needs it because he does not understand himself, and therefore knows not what he
does. Having forgotten his will, he does not know what he WANTS. Healing is a
sign that HE WANTS TO MAKE WHOLE. And this willingness opens his OWN ears to the
Voice of the Holy Spirit, Whose message IS wholeness. He will enable you to go
far beyond the healing YOU would undertake, for beside your small willingness to
make whole He will lay His Own COMPLETE Will and make YOURS whole. What can the
Son of God NOT accomplish with the Fatherhood of God in him?
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T 10 C 6. And yet the invitation must come from you, for you have surely
learned that whom you invite as your guest WILL abide with you. The Holy Spirit
cannot speak to an unwelcoming host, BECAUSE HE WILL NOT BE HEARD. The Eternal
Guest remains, but His Voice grows faint in alien company. He needs your
protection, but only because your care is a sign that you WANT Him. Think like
Him ever so slightly, and the little spark becomes a blazing light that fills
your mind so that He becomes your only Guest.
T 10 C 7. Whenever you ask the ego to enter, you lessen His welcome. HE will
remain, but YOU have allied yourself AGAINST Him. Whatever journey you choose to
take, He will go with you, waiting. You can safely trust His patience, for He
CANNOT leave a part of God. But you will far more than patience. You will never
rest until you know your function AND FULFILL IT, for only in this can your will
and your Father’s be wholly joined. To HAVE Him is to be LIKE Him, and He has
GIVEN Himself to you.
T 10 C 8. You who have God MUST be as God, for HIS function became YOURS with
His gift. Invite this knowledge back into your minds, and let nothing that will
obscure it enter. The Guest whom God sent you will teach you how to do this, if
you but recognize the little spark, and are WILLING TO LET IT GROW. YOUR
willingness need not be perfect, because His IS. If you will merely offer Him a
little place, He will lighten it so much, that you will gladly extend it. And by
THIS extending, you will begin to remember Creation.
T 10 C 9. Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God? You will accept only
whom YOU invite. You are free to determine who shall be your guest, and how long
he shall remain with you. But this is not REAL freedom, for it depends on how
you see it. For the Holy Spirit is THERE, although He cannot help you without
your invitation, and the ego is nothing, whether you invite it in or not. Real
freedom depends on welcoming REALITY, and of your guests only He IS real. Know,
then, Who abides with you, merely by recognizing WHAT IS ALREADY THERE, and do
not be satisfied with imaginary comforters, for the Comforter of God is in you.
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T 10 D. From Darkness to Light
T 10 D 1. When you are weary, remember you have hurt yourself. Your Comforter
will rest you, but YOU cannot. YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW, for if you did, you could
never have grown weary. Unless you have hurt yourselves, you could never suffer
in ANY way, for that is not God’s Will for His Son. Pain is not of Him, for He
knows no attack, and His peace surrounds you silently. God is very quiet, for
there is no conflict in Him. Conflict is the root of all evil, for being blind,
it does not see whom it attacks. But it ALWAYS attacks the Son of God, and the
Son of God is YOU.
T 10 D 2. God’s Son is indeed in need of comfort, for he knows not what he
does, believing his will is not his own. The Kingdom is his, and yet he wanders
homelessly. At home in God he is lonely, and amid all his brothers he is
friendless. Would God let this be real, if He did not will to be alone Himself?
And if your will is His, it CANNOT be true of you, BECAUSE it is not true of
Him. Oh my children, if you knew what God wills for you, your joy would be
complete! And what He wills HAS happened, for it was ALWAYS true.
T 10 D 3. When the light comes, and you have said, "God’s Will is mine," you
will see such beauty that you will KNOW it is not of you. Out of your joy, you
will create beauty in His Name, for YOUR joy could no more be contained than
His. The bleak little world will vanish into nothingness, and your heart will be
so filled with joy that it will leap into Heaven and into the presence of God. I
cannot tell you what this will be like, for your hearts are not ready. But I CAN
tell you, and remind you often, that what God wills for Himself He wills for
YOU, and what He wills for you IS yours.
T 10 D 4. The way is not hard, but it IS very different. Yours is the way of
pain, of which God knows nothing. THAT way is hard indeed, and very lonely. Fear
and grief are your guests, and they go with you, and abide with you on the way.
But the dark journey is not the way of God’s Son. Walk in light, and do not see
the dark companions, for they are not fit companions for the Son of God, who was
created OF Light and IN Light.
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The Great Light ALWAYS surrounds you, and shines out FROM you. How can you see
the dark companions in a Light such as this? If you see THEM, it is only because
you are denying the Light. But DENY THEM INSTEAD, for the Light is here, and the
way is clear.
T 10 D 5. God hides nothing from His Son, even though he would hide himself.
Yet the Son of God cannot hide his glory, for God wills him to be glorious, and
gave him the Light that shines in him. You will never lose your way, for God
leads you. When you wander, you but undertake a journey which is not real. The
dark companions, the dark way, are all illusions. Turn toward the Light, for the
little spark in you is part of a Light so great that it can sweep you out of all
darkness forever. For your Father IS your Creator, and you ARE like Him. The
Children of Light cannot abide in darkness, for darkness is NOT in them.
T 10 D 6. Do not be deceived by the dark comforters, and never let them enter
the mind of God’s Son, for they have no place in His temple. When you are
tempted to deny Him, remember that there ARE no other Gods that you CAN place
before Him, and accept His Will for you in peace. For you CANNOT accept it
otherwise. Only God’s Comforter CAN comfort you. In the quiet of His temple, He
waits to give you the peace that is yours. GIVE His peace that you may enter the
temple, and find it waiting for you. But be holy in the Presence of God, or you
will not know that you are there. For what is unlike God cannot enter His Mind,
because it was not in His Thought, and therefore does not belong to Him. And
YOUR minds must be as pure as His, if you would know what belongs to YOU.
T 10 D 7. Guard carefully His temple, for He Himself dwells there, and abides
in peace. You cannot enter God’s Presence with the dark companions beside you,
but you also cannot enter alone. All your brothers must enter WITH you, for
until you have accepted them, YOU cannot enter. For you cannot understand
Wholeness unless YOU are whole, and no part of the Son can be excluded, if he
would know the wholeness of his Father.
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T 10 D 8. In your mind you can ACCEPT the whole Sonship, and bless it with the
light your Father gave it. Then you will be worthy to dwell in the temple WITH
Him, because it is YOUR will not to be alone. God blessed His Son forever. If
you will bless him in TIME, you will BE in eternity. Time cannot separate you
from God, if you use it on BEHALF of the eternal.
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T 10 E. The Inheritance of God’s Son
T 10 E 1. Never forget that the Sonship is your salvation, for the Sonship is
your Soul. As God’s Creation it is yours, and belonging to you, it is His. Your
Soul does not need salvation, but your mind needs to learn what salvation IS.
You are not saved FROM anything, but you ARE saved FOR glory. Glory is your
inheritance, given your Soul by its Creator, that you might EXTEND it. But if
you hate part of your own Soul, ALL your understanding is lost, because you are
looking on what God creates AS YOURSELF without love. And since what He created
IS part of Him, you are denying Him His place in His own altar.
T 10 E 2. Could you try to make God homeless, and know YOU are at home? Can
the Son deny the Father, WITHOUT believing that the Father has denied HIM? God’s
laws hold ONLY for your protection, and they never hold in vain. What you
experience, when you deny your fathe, is still for your protection, for the
power of your will cannot be lessened without the intervention of God AGAINST
it, and any limitation on YOUR power is NOT the Will of God. Therefore, look
ONLY to the power that God gave you to save you, remembering that it is yours
BECAUSE it is His, and join with your brothers in His peace.
T 10 E 3. The peace of YOUR Soul lies in its limitlessness. Limit the peace
you share, and your own Soul MUST be unknown to you. Every altar to God is part
of your Soul, because the Light He created is One with Him. Would you cut a
brother off from the Light that is yours? You could not do so, if you realized
that YOU CAN ONLY DARKEN YOUR OWN MIND. As you bring HIM back, so will YOUR mind
return. That is the law of God, for the protection of the wholeness of His Son.
T 10 E 4. ONLY YOU CAN DEPRIVE YOURSELF OF ANYTHING. Do not oppose this
realization, for it is truly the beginning of the dawn of light. Remember also
that the denial of this simple fact takes many forms, and these you must learn
to recognize, and to oppose steadfastly and WITHOUT EXCEPTION. This is a crucial
step in the re-awakening. The beginning phases of this reversal are often quite
painful, for as blame is withdrawn from without, there is a strong tendency to
harbor it within.
T 10 E 5. It is difficult, at first, to realize that this is EXACTLY
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the same thing, for there IS no distinction between within and without. If your
brothers are part of YOU, and you blame THEM for your deprivation, you ARE
blaming yourself. And you cannot blame yourself WITHOUT blaming them.
T 10 E 6. That is why blame must be UNDONE, NOT re-allocated. Lay it to
yourself, and you cannot KNOW yourself, for ONLY THE EGO BLAMES AT ALL.
Self-blame is therefore ego identification, and as strong an ego defense as
blaming others. YOU CANNOT ENTER GOD’S PRESENCE IF YOU ATTACK HIS SON. When His
Son lifts his voice in praise of his Creator, he WILL hear the Voice of his
Father. But the Creator cannot be praised without His Son, for their glory is
shared, and they are glorified together. Christ is at God’s altar, waiting to
welcome His Son. But come wholly without condemnation, for otherwise you will
believe that the door is barred, and you cannot enter.
T 10 E 7. The door is NOT barred, and it is impossible for you to be unable to
enter the place where God would have you be. But love yourself with the love of
Christ, for so does your Father love you. You CAN refuse to enter, but you
CANNOT bar the door which Christ holds open. Come unto me who hold it open FOR
you, for while I live, it cannot be shut, and I live forever. God is my Life and
YOURS, and NOTHING is denied by God to His Son. At God’s altar, Christ waits for
the restoration of Himself in YOU.
T 10 E 8. God knows His Son as wholly blameless as Himself, and He is
approached through the appreciation of His Son. Christ waits for your acceptance
of Him as YOURSELF, and His Wholeness as YOURS. For Christ is the Son of God,
who lives in his Creator, and shines with His glory. Christ is the extension of
the love and the loveliness of God, as perfect as his Creator, and at peace with
Him. Blessed is the Son of God, whose radiance is of His Father, and whose glory
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He wills to share as His Father shares it with Him.
T 10 E 9. There is no condemnation in the Son, for there is no condemnation in
the Father. Sharing the perfect Love of the Father, the Son must share what
belongs to Him, for otherwise He will not know the Father or the Son. Peace be
unto you who rest in God, and in whom the whole Sonship rests.
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T 10 F. The "Dynamics" of the Ego
August 24, 1966
T 10 F 1. No-one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not
looking is the way they are PROTECTED. There is no need to shrink from
illusions, for they cannot be dangerous. We are ready to look more closely at
the ego’s thought system, because together we have the lamp that will dispel it,
and since you realize you do not WANT it, you MUST be ready. Let us be very calm
in doing this, for we are merely looking honestly for truth. The "dynamics" of
the ego will be our lesson for a while, for we must look first at this to look
beyond it, since you HAVE made it real. We will UNDO this error quietly
together, and then look beyond it to truth.
T 10 F 2. What is healing, but the removal of all that STANDS IN THE WAY of
knowledge? And how else can one dispel illusions EXCEPT by looking at them
directly, WITHOUT protecting them? Be not afraid, therefore, for what you will
be looking at IS the source of fear, but you have learned surely by now, that
FEAR IS NOT REAL. We have accepted the fact already that its EFFECTS can be
dispelled, merely by denying THEIR reality. The next step is obviously to
recognize that WHAT HAS NO EFFECTS DOES NOT EXIST.
T 10 F 3. Laws do not operate in a vacuum, and what leads to nothing HAS NOT
HAPPENED. If reality is recognized BY ITS Extension, what extends to nothing
CANNOT be real. Do not be afraid, then, to look upon fear, for it cannot BE
seen. Clarity undoes confusion by definition, and to look upon darkness through
light MUST dispel it. Let us begin this lesson in "ego dynamics", by
understanding that the term itself does not mean anything. In fact, it contains
exactly the contradiction in terms that MAKES it meaningless. "Dynamics" implies
the power to DO something, and the whole separation fallacy lies in the belief
that the ego HAS the power to do ANYTHING.
T 10 F 4. The ego is fearful BECAUSE you believe this. But the truth is very
simple; ALL POWER IS OF GOD. What is NOT of Him has no power to do ANYTHING.
When we look at the ego, then, we are NOT considering dynamics, but delusions.
We can surely regard a delusional system without fear,
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for it cannot have any effects if its source is not true. Fear becomes more
obviously inappropriate if one recognizes the ego’s GOAL, which is so clearly
senseless that any effort exerted on its behalf is NECESSARILY expended on
nothing.
T 10 F 5. The ego’s goal is quite explicitly EGO AUTONOMY. From the beginning,
then, its PURPOSE is to be separate, sufficient unto itself, and independent of
any power EXCEPT ITS OWN. This is WHY it is the symbol of separation. Every idea
has a purpose, and its purpose is always the natural extension of what it IS.
Everything that stems from the ego is the natural outcome of its central belief,
and the way to undo its RESULTS, is merely to recognize that their SOURCE is NOT
natural, being out of accord with your true nature.
T 10 F 6. We once said that to will contrary to God is wishful thinking, and
not real willing. His Will is One, because the extension of His Will CANNOT be
unlike ITSELF. The real conflict you experience, then, is between the ego’s idle
wishes and the Will of God, WHICH YOU SHARE. Can this BE a real conflict? Yours
is the independence of Creation, NOT of autonomy. Your whole creative function
lies in your complete dependence on God, Whose function He shares WITH you. By
HIS willingness to share it, He becomes as dependent on you, as you are on Him.
Do not ascribe the ego’s arrogance to Him, Who wills NOT to be independent of
YOU. He has included YOU in HIS Autonomy. Can YOU believe that autonomy is
meaningful APART from Him?
T 10 F 7. The belief in EGO autonomy is costing you the knowledge of your
dependence on God, IN WHICH YOUR FREEDOM LIES. The ego sees ALL dependency as
threatening, and has twisted even your longing for God into a means of
establishing ITSELF. But do not be deceived by ITS interpretation of your
conflict. The ego ALWAYS attacks on behalf of separation. Believing it HAS the
power to do this, it does nothing else, because its goal of autonomy
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IS nothing else. The ego is totally confused about reality, BUT IT DOES NOT LOSE
SIGHT OF ITS GOAL. It is much more vigilant than YOU are, BECAUSE it is
perfectly certain of its purpose. YOU are confused, because you do NOT know
YOURS.
T 10 F 8. What you must learn to recognize is that the LAST thing the ego
wishes you to realize, is THAT YOU ARE AFRAID OF IT. For if the\ego gives rise
to fear, it is DIMINISHING your independence, and WEAKENING your power. Yet its
one claim to your allegiance is that it can GIVE power to you. Without THIS
belief, you would not listen to it at all. How, then, can its existence
continue, if you realize that by accepting it, you ARE belittling yourself, and
DEPRIVING yourself of power?
T 10 F 9. The ego can and does allow you to regard yourself as supercilious,
unbelieving, "light hearted -," distant, emotionally shallow, callous,
uninvolved, and even desperate, BUT NOT REALLY AFRAID. MINIMIZING fear, but NOT
its undoing, is the ego’s constant effort, and is indeed the skill at which it
is VERY ingenious. How can it preach separation WITHOUT upholding it through
fear, and would you listen to it, if you recognized this IS what it is doing?
T 10 F 10. YOUR recognition that whatever seems to separate you from God is
ONLY fear, regardless of the form it takes, and quite apart from HOW THE EGO
WANTS TO YOU TO EXPERIENCE IT, is therefore the basic ego threat. Its dream of
autonomy is shaken to its foundation by this awareness. For though you may
countenance a false idea of independence, you will NOT accept the cost of fear,
IF YOU RECOGNIZE IT. Yet this IS the cost, and the ego CANNOT minimize it. For
if you overlook love, you are overlooking YOURSELF, and you MUST fear UNreality
BECAUSE YOU HAVE DENIED YOURSELF.
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By believing that you have successfully attacked truth, YOU ARE BELIEVING THAT
ATTACK HAS POWER. Very simply, then, YOU HAVE BECOME AFRAID OF YOURSELF. And no
one wills to learn what he believes would DESTROY him.
T 10 F 11. If the ego’s goal of autonomy COULD be accomplished GOD’S purpose
could be defeated, and this IS impossible. Only by learning what fear IS, can
you finally learn to distinguish the possible from the impossible, and the false
from the true. According to the ego’s teaching, ITS goal CAN be accomplished,
and GOD’S Purpose can NOT. According to the Holy Spirit’s teaching, ONLY God’s
Purpose IS accomplishment, and it is ALREADY accomplished.
T 10 F 12. God is as dependent on you as you are on Him, because HIS autonomy
ENCOMPASSES yours, and is therefore incomplete WITHOUT it. You can only
ESTABLISH your autonomy by identifying WITH Him, and FULFILLING YOUR FUNCTION AS
IT EXISTS IN TRUTH. The ego believes that to accomplish ITS goal IS happiness.
But it is given YOU to know that GOD’S function IS yours, and happiness CANNOT
be found apart from your joint will. Recognize only that the ego’s goal, which
you have pursued quite diligently, has merely brought you FEAR, and it becomes
difficult to maintain that FEAR is happiness.
T 10 F 13. UPHELD by fear, this IS what the ego would have you believe. Yet
God’s Son is not insane, and CANNOT believe it. Let him but RECOGNIZE it, and he
will NOT accept it. For only the insane would choose fear IN PLACE of love, and
only the insane could believe that love can be gained by ATTACK. But the sane
KNOW that only attack COULD produce fear, from which the love of God COMPLETELY
protects them.
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T 10 F 14. The ego analyzes; the Holy Spirit ACCEPTS. The appreciation of
wholeness comes ONLY through acceptance, for to analyze MEANS to separate out.
The attempt to understand totality by BREAKING IT UP is clearly the
characteristically contradictory approach of the ego to everything. Never forget
that the ego believes that power, understanding AND TRUTH lie in separation. And
to ESTABLISH this belief it MUST attack. Unaware that the belief cannot BE
established, and obsessed with the conviction that separation IS salvation, the
ego attacks everything it perceives, by breaking it up into small and
disconnected parts, without meaningful relationships, and thus without meaning.
The ego will ALWAYS substitute chaos for meaning, for if separation is
salvation, harmony is threat.
T 10 F 15. The ego’s interpretations of the laws of perception are, and would
HAVE to be, the exact opposite of the Holy Spirit’s. The ego FOCUSES ON ERROR,
and OVERLOOKS TRUTH. It makes real every mistake it perceives, and with
characteristically circular reasoning, concludes that, BECAUSE of the mistake,
consistent truth must be meaningless. The next step, then, is obvious. If
consistent truth is meaningless, INCONSISTENCY must be true if truth has
meaning. Holding error clearly in mind, and protecting what it has made real,
the ego proceeds to the next step in its thought system; that error is real, and
TRUTH IS ERROR.
T 10 F 16. The ego makes no attempt to UNDERSTAND this, and it is clearly not
understandable. But the ego does make EVERY attempt to DEMONSTRATE it, and THIS
it does constantly. Analyzing to ATTACK meaning, the ego DOES succeed in
overlooking it, and is left with a series of fragmented PERCEPTIONS IN WHICH IT
UNIFIES ON BEHALF OF ITSELF. This, then, becomes the universe it perceives and
it is this universe which, in turn, becomes its demonstration of its own
reality.
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T 10 F 17. Do not underestimate the appeal of the ego’s demonstrations to those
who would listen. Selective perception chooses its witnesses carefully, and its
witnesses ARE consistent. The case for insanity IS strong to the insane. For
reasoning ends at its beginning, and no thought system transcends its source.
Yet reasoning without meaning CANNOT demonstrate anything, and those who are
convinced by it, MUST be deluded. Can the ego teach truly, when it overlooks
truth? Can it perceive what it has DENIED? Its witnesses DO attest to its
DENIAL, but hardly to WHAT it has denied. The ego looks straight at the Father
and does not see Him, for it has denied His Son.
T 10 F 18. Would YOU remember the Father? Accept His Son and you WILL remember
Him. Nothing can demonstrate that His Son is unworthy, for nothing can prove
that a lie is true. What you see of His Son through the eyes of the ego is a
demonstration that His Son does not exist, yet where the Son is, the Father MUST
be. Accept what God does NOT deny, and HE will demonstrate its truth. The
witnesses for God stand in His Light and behold what HE created. Their silence
is the sign that they have beheld God’s Son, and in the Presence of Christ, THEY
need demonstrate nothing, for Christ speaks to them of Himself and of His
Father. They are silent because Christ speaks to them, and it is His words that
THEY speak.
T 10 F 19. Every brother you meet becomes a witness for Christ or for the ego,
depending on what you perceive in him. Everyone convinces you of WHAT YOU WANT
TO PERCEIVE, and of the reality of the Kingdom you have chosen for your
vigilance. Everything you perceive is a witness to the thought-system YOU WANT
TO BE TRUE. Every brother has the power to release you, IF YOU WILL TO BE FREE.
You cannot accept false witness of him, unless you have evoked false witnesses
AGAINST him. If HE speaks not of Christ to YOU, YOU spoke not of Christ to him.
You hear but your own voice, and if Christ speaks through you, YOU will hear
Him.
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T 10 G. Experience and Perception
T 10 G 1. It is impossible not to believe what you see, but it is equally
impossible to see what you do NOT believe. Perceptions are built up on the basis
of experience, and experience leads to beliefs. It is not until beliefs are
fixed that perceptions stabilize. In effect, then, what you believe you DO see.
That is what I meant when I said, "Blessed are ye who have not seen and still
believe," for those who believe in the resurrection WILL see it. The
resurrection is the complete triumph of Christ over the ego, not by attack, but
by transcendence. For Christ DOES rise above the ego and all its works, and
ascends to the Father and HIS Kingdom.
T 10 G 2. Would you join in the resurrection or the crucifixion? Would you
condemn your brothers or free them? Would you transcend YOUR prison and ascend
to the Father? For these questions are all the same, and are answered together.
There has been much confusion about what perception means, because the same word
is used both for awareness and for the INTERPRETATION of awareness. Yet you
cannot BE aware without interpretation, and what you perceive IS your
interpretation. This course is perfectly clear. You do not see it clearly
because you are interpreting AGAINST it, and therefore do not BELIEVE it. And if
belief determines perception, you do NOT perceive what it means and therefore do
not ACCEPT it.
T 10 G 3. Yet different experiences lead to different beliefs, and experience
teaches. [98] I am leading you to a new kind of experience which you will become
less and less willing to deny. Learning of Christ is easy, for to perceive with
Him involves no strain at all. HIS perceptions are your NATURAL awareness, and
it is only distortions which YOU introduce that tire you. Let the Christ in you
interpret FOR you, and do not try to limit what you see by narrow little beliefs
which are unworthy of God’s Son. For until Christ comes into His Own, the Son of
God WILL see himself as fatherless.
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T 10 G 4. I am YOUR resurrection and YOUR life. You live in me because you live
in God. And everyone lives in YOU, as YOU live in everyone. Can you, then,
perceive unworthiness in a brother and NOT perceive it in yourself? And can you
perceive it in yourself and NOT perceive it in God? Believe in the resurrection
because it has BEEN accomplished, and it has been accomplished IN YOU. This is
as true now as it will ever be, for the resurrection is the Will of God, Which
knows no time and no exceptions. But make no exceptions yourself, or you will
not perceive what has been accomplished FOR you. For we ascend unto the Father
together, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, for such is the
nature of God’s Son as His Father created him.
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31 August, 1966
T 10 G 5. Do not underestimate the power of the devotion of God’s Son, nor the
power of the god he worships over him. For he places HIMSELF at the altar of his
god, whether it be the god he made or the God Who created him. That is why his
slavery is as complete as his freedom, for he will obey ONLY the god he accepts.
The god of the crucifixion demands that he crucify, and his worshippers obey. In
his name they crucify THEMSELVES, believing that the power of the Son of God is
born of sacrifice and pain. The God of the resurrection demands NOTHING, for He
does not will to take away. He does not require obedience, for obedience implies
submission. He would only have you learn your OWN will and follow it, not in the
spirit of sacrifice and submission, but in the gladness of freedom.
T 10 G 6. Resurrection must compel your allegiance gladly because it is the
symbol of joy. Its whole compelling power lies in the fact that it represents
what YOU want to be. The freedom to leave behind everything that hurts you and
humbles you and frightens you cannot be thrust upon you, but it CAN be offered
you through the grace of God. And you can ACCEPT it by His grace, for God IS
gracious to His Son, accepting him without question as His Own. Who, then, is
YOUR own? The Father has given you all that is His, and He Himself is yours WITH
them. Guard them in their resurrection, for otherwise you will not awake in God,
safely surrounded by what is yours forever.
T 10 G 7. You will not find peace until you have removed the nails from the
hands of God’s Son and taken the last thorn from his forehead. The Love of God
surrounds His Son whom the god of the crucifixion condemns. Teach not that I
died in vain. Teach rather that I did NOT die by demonstrating that I live IN
YOU. For the UNDOING of the crucifixion of God’s Son is the work of the
redemption, in which everyone has a part of equal value. God does not judge His
blameless Son.
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Having given HIMSELF to him, how could it be otherwise?
T 10 G 8. You have nailed YOURSELF to a cross and placed a crown of thorns
upon your own head. Yet you CANNOT crucify God’s Son, for the Will of God cannot
die. His Son HAS BEEN redeemed from his own crucifixion, and you cannot assign
to death whom God has given eternal life. The dream of crucifixion still lies
heavy on your eyes, but what you see in dreams is not reality. While you
perceive the Son of God as crucified you are asleep. And as long as you believe
that YOU can crucify him you are only having nightmares. You who are beginning
to wake are still aware of dreams and have not yet forgotten them. The
forgetting of dreams and the awareness of Christ comes with the awakening of
others to SHARE your redemption.
T 10 G 9. You will awaken to your OWN call, for the Call to awake is WITHIN
you. If I live in you, you ARE awake. Yet you must see the works I do through
you, or you will not perceive that I have done them UNTO you. Do not set limits
on what you believe I can do through you, or you will not accept what I can do
FOR you. For it is done ALREADY, and unless you give all that you have received,
you will not know that your Redeemer liveth and that YOU have awakened WITH Him.
Redemption is recognized ONLY by sharing it.
T 10 G 10. God’s Son IS saved. Bring only THIS awareness to the Sonship, and
you will have a part in the redemption as valuable as mine. For your part must
be LIKE mine if you learn it of me. If you believe that YOURS is limited, YOU
are limiting MINE. There is no order of difficulty in miracles because all of
God’s Sons are of equal value, and their equality is their Oneness. The whole
power of God is in every part of Him, and nothing contradictory to His Will is
either great or small. What does not exist has NO size and NO measure. To God
ALL things are possible. And to Christ it is given to be LIKE the Father.
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T 10 H. The Problem and the Answer
T 10 H 1. The world as YOU perceive it cannot have been created by the Father,
for the world is NOT as you see it. God created ONLY the eternal, and everything
YOU see is perishable. Therefore, there must be another world which you do NOT
see. The Bible speaks of a NEW Heaven and a NEW earth, yet this cannot be
literally true, for the eternal are not RE-created. To PERCEIVE anew is merely
to perceive again, implying that before YOU WERE NOT PERCEIVING AT ALL. What,
then, is the world that awaits your perception WHEN YOU SEE IT? Every loving
thought that the Son of God ever had is eternal. Those which his mind perceived
in this world are the world’s only reality. They are still perceptions, because
he still believes that he is separate, yet they are eternal, because they are
loving. And BEING loving, they are like the Father, and therefore cannot die.
T 10 H 2. The real world can ACTUALLY BE PERCEIVED. All that is necessary is a
willingness to perceive nothing ELSE. For if you perceive both good AND evil,
you are accepting both the false AND the true, AND MAKING NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN
THEM. The ego sees SOME good, but never ONLY good. That is WHY its perceptions
are so variable. It does not reject goodness entirely, for this you could not
accept, but it always ADDS something that is NOT real TO the real, thus
CONFUSING ILLUSION AND REALITY. For perceptions cannot be partly true. If you
believe in truth AND illusion you CANNOT TELL WHICH IS TRUE.
T 10 H 3. To establish your PERSONAL autonomy you tried to create UNLIKE your
Father, BELIEVING what you made to be capable of BEING unlike Him. Yet
everything in what you have made that IS true, IS like Him. Only this is the
real world, and perceiving ONLY this will lead you to the real Heaven because IT
WILL MAKE YOU CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING IT. The perception of goodness is not
knowledge, but the denial of the OPPOSITE of goodness enables you to perceive a
condition in which opposites do not exist. And this IS the condition of
knowledge. WITHOUT this awareness, you have NOT met its conditions, and until
you do you will not know that it is yours already.
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T 10 H 4. You have made many ideas which you have placed between yourselves
and your Creator, and these beliefs are the world as YOU perceive it. Truth is
not absent here, but it IS obscure. You do not know the difference between what
you have made, and what God created, and so you do not know the difference
between what you have made, and what YOU have created. To believe that you can
perceive the real world is to believe that you can know yourself. You CAN know
God, because it is His Will to BE known. The real world is all that the Holy
Spirit has saved for you, out of what you have made, and to perceive only this
is salvation, because it is the recognition that reality is ONLY WHAT IS TRUE.
T 10 H 5. This is a very simple course. Perhaps you do not feel that a course
which, in the end, teaches nothing more than that only reality is true is
necessary. BUT DO YOU BELIEVE IT? When you have perceived the real world, you
will recognize that you did NOT believe it. But the swiftness with which your
new and ONLY real perception will be translated into knowledge, will leave you
only an instant to realize that this judgment is true. And then everything you
made will be forgotten, the good and bad, the false and the true. For as Heaven
and earth become one, even the real world will vanish from your sight. The end
of the world is not its destruction, but its TRANSLATION into Heaven. The
REINTERPRETATION of the world is the transfer of ALL perception to knowledge.
T 10 H 6. The Bible tells you to become as little children. Little children
recognize that they do not understand what they perceive, and so they ASK WHAT
IT MEANS. Do not make the mistake of believing that YOU understand what YOU
perceive, for its meaning IS lost to you. But the Holy Spirit has saved its
meaning FOR you, and if you will LET Him interpret it FOR you, He will restore
what you have thrown away. As long as you THINK YOU KNOW its meaning, you will
see no need to ask it OF Him. You do not know the meaning of ANYTHING you
perceive. NOT ONE THOUGHT YOU HOLD IS WHOLLY TRUE.
T 10 H 7. The recognition of this is your firm beginning. You are not
misguided; you have accepted no guide at all. Instruction in perception is your
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great need, FOR YOU UNDERSTAND NOTHING. RECOGNIZE this, but do not accept it,
for understanding is your inheritance. Perceptions are learned, and you are not
without a Teacher. But your willingness to learn of Him depends on your
willingness to question EVERYTHING you have learned OF YOURSELF, for you who
have learned amiss should not be your own teachers. No-one can withhold truth,
except from himself. Yet God will not refuse the answer He GAVE you. Ask, then,
for what is yours, but which you did NOT make, and do not defend yourself
AGAINST truth.
T 10 H 8. YOU made the problem which God HAS answered. Ask yourselves,
therefore, but one simple question; "Do I want the problem or do I want the
answer?" Decide for the answer, and you WILL have it, for you will see it as it
is, and it is yours already. You complain that this course is not sufficiently
specific for you to understand it AND USE IT. Yet it has been VERY specific, and
YOU HAVE NOT DONE WHAT IT SPECIFICALLY ADVOCATES. This is not a course in the
play of ideas, but in their PRACTICAL APPLICATION. Nothing could be more
specific than to be told very clearly, that if you ask you WILL receive.
T 10 H 9. The Holy Spirit will answer EVERY specific problem, as long as you
believe that problems ARE specific. His answer is both many and one, as long as
you believe that the One IS many. Realize that YOU ARE AFRAID OF HIS
SPECIFICITY, for fear of what you think it will DEMAND of you. Yet only by
asking will you learn that nothing that is of God demands ANYTHING of you. God
GIVES; He does NOT take. You are refusing to ask, because you believe that
asking is TAKING, and you do not perceive it as sharing. The Holy Spirit will
give you only what is yours, and will take nothing in return. For what is yours
IS everything, and you share it WITH God. This IS its reality. Would the Holy
Spirit, Who wills only to RESTORE, be capable of MISinterpreting the question
you must ask to learn His answer?
T 10 H 10. You HAVE heard the answer, but you have misunderstood the QUESTION.
You have believed that to ask for guidance of the Holy Spirit, IS TO ASK FOR
DEPRIVATION. Little children of God, you do not understand your Father.
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You believe in a world that takes because you believe that you can get by
taking. But BY that perception, you have lost sight of the real world. You are
afraid of the AS YOU SEE IT, but the real world is still yours for the asking.
Do not deny it TO yourself, for it can ONLY free you. Nothing of God will
enslave His Son, whom He created free and whose freedom is protected by HIS
Being.
T 10 H 11. Blessed are you who will ask the truth of God without fear, for only
thus can you learn that His answer IS the release from fear. Beautiful Child of
God, you are asking only for what I promised you. Do you believe I would DECEIVE
you? The Kingdom of Heaven IS within you. Believe that the truth is in me, for I
KNOW that it is in YOU. God’s Sons have nothing which they do not share. Ask for
truth of any Son of God, and you have asked it of me. No one of us but has the
answer in him, to give to anyone who asks it OF him. Ask anything of God’s Son,
and His Father will answer you, for Christ is not deceived in His Father and His
Father is not deceived in Him.
T 10 H 12. Do not, then, be deceived in your brother, and see only his loving
thoughts as his reality, for by denying that his mind is split, YOU WILL HEAL
YOURS. Accept him as his Father accepts him, and heal him unto Christ, for
Christ is his healing AND YOURS. Christ is the Son of God Who is in no way
separate from His Father, Whose EVERY thought is as loving as the Thought of His
Father, by which He was created. Be not deceived in God’s Son, for thereby you
MUST be deceived in yourself. And being deceived in yourself you ARE deceived in
your Father, in Whom no deceit is possible.
T 10 H 13. In the real world, there is no sickness, for there is no separation
and no division. Only loving thoughts are recognized, and because no-one is
without YOUR help, the Help of God goes with YOU everywhere. As you become
willing to ACCEPT this Help BY ASKING FOR IT, you will give it BECAUSE YOU WANT
IT. Nothing will be beyond your healing power, because nothing will be denied
your simple request. What problems will not disappear in the presence
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of God’s answer? Ask, then, to learn of the reality of your brother BECAUSE THIS
IS WHAT YOU WILL PERCEIVE IN HIM, and you will see your beauty reflected in HIM.
T 10 H 14. Do not accept your brother’s variable perception of himself, for his
split mind is yours, and you will not accept YOUR healing without his. For you
share the real world as you share Heaven, and his healing IS yours. To love
yourself is to HEAL yourself, and you cannot perceive part of you as sick and
achieve your OWN goal. Brother, we heal together as we live together, and love
together. Be not deceived in God’s Son, for he is one with himself, and One with
his Father. Love him who is beloved of His Father, and you will learn of the
Father’s Love for YOU.
T 10 H 15. If you perceive offense in a brother, pluck the offense from your
mind, for you are offended by Christ, and are deceived in Him. HEAL in Christ
and be not offended by Him, for there is no offense IN Him. If what you perceive
offends you, you are offended in YOURSELF, and are condemning God’s Son, whom
God condemneth not. Let the Holy Spirit remove ALL offense of God’s Son against
himself and perceive no-one but through HIS guidance, for He would save you from
ALL condemnation. Accept His healing power, and use it for all He sends you, for
He wills to heal the Son of God in whom He is not deceived.
T 10 H 16. Children perceive terrifying ghosts and monsters and dragons, and
they are terrified. But if they ask someone they trust for the REAL meaning of
what they perceive, and are willing to LET THEIR INTERPRETATIONS GO IN FAVOR OF
REALITY, their fear goes with them. When a child is helped to translate his
"ghost" into a curtain, his "monster" into a shadow and his "dragon" into a
dream, he is no longer afraid, and laughs happily at his own fear. You, my
children, are afraid of your brothers, and of your Father and of YOURSELVES. But
you are merely DECEIVED in them.
T 10 H 17. Ask what they ARE of the Teacher of Reality, and hearing His answer,
you too will laugh at your fears and replace them with peace. For fear lies
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not in reality, but in the minds of children who do not UNDERSTAND it. It is
only their LACK OF UNDERSTANDING that frightens them, and when they learn to
perceive truly, they are not afraid. And because of this, they will ask for
truth again, when they are frightened. It is not the REALITY of your brothers,
or your Father, or yourself which frightens you. You do not know what they ARE,
and so YOU perceive them as ghosts and monsters and dragons.
T 10 H 18. ASK of their reality from the ONe Who knows it, and He will tell you
what they are. For you do NOT understand them, and because you are deceived by
what you see, you NEED reality to dispel your fears. Would you not exchange your
fears for truth if the exchange is yours for the asking? For if God is not
deceived in you, you can be deceived only in YOURSELF. But you can learn the
truth of yourself of the Holy Spirit, Who will teach you that, as part of God,
deceit in YOU is impossible. When you perceive yourself without deceit, you will
accept the real world in place of the false one you have made. And then your
Father will lean down to you, and take the last step for you, by raising you
unto Himself.
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Chapter XI - 11 - God's Plan For Salvation
T 11 A. Introduction
September 8, 1966
T 11 A 1. You have been told not to make error real, and the way to do this is
very simple. If you WANT to believe in error, you would HAVE to make it real,
because it is not true. But TRUTH is real in its OWN right, and to believe in
truth, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DO ANYTHING. Understand that you do not respond to
stimuli, but to STIMULI AS YOU INTERPRET THEM. Your interpretation thus becomes
the JUSTIFICATION for the response. That is why analyzing the motives of others
is hazardous to YOU. If you decide that someone is REALLY trying to attack you,
or desert you or enslave you, you will respond as if he had actually DONE so,
BECAUSE you have made his error REAL to you. To interpret error is to GIVE IT
POWER, and, having done this, you WILL overlook truth.
T 11 A 2. The analysis of ego motivation is very complicated, very obscuring,
and NEVER without the risk of your own ego involvement. The whole process
represents a clear-cut attempt to demonstrate YOUR OWN ability to understand
what you perceive. This is demonstrated by the fact that you REACT to your
interpretations as if they WERE correct, and control your reactions
behaviorally, BUT NOT EMOTIONALLY. This is quite evidently a mental split, in
which you have attacked the integrity of your mind, and pitted one level within
it against another.
T 11 B. The Judgment of the Holy Spirit
T 11 B 1. There is but one interpretation of ALL motivation that makes any
sense, and, because it is the Holy Spirit’s judgment, it requires no effort at
all on your part. Every loving thought is true. EVERYTHING ELSE is an appeal for
healing and help. That is what it IS, regardless of the form it takes. Can
anyone be justified in responding with anger to a plea for help? No response can
BE appropriate EXCEPT the willingness to give it TO him, for this and ONLY this
is what he is ASKING for. Offer him anything ELSE, and YOU are assuming the
right to attack his reality, by interpreting it AS YOU SEE FIT.
T 11 B 2. Perhaps the danger of this to your OWN mind is not yet fully
apparent. But this by no means signifies that it is not perfectly clear. If you
maintain
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that an appeal for help is something ELSE, you will REACT to something else, and
your response will be inappropriate to reality as IT is, but NOT to your
perception OF it. This is poor reality testing by definition. There is nothing
to prevent you from recognizing ALL calls for help as exactly what they are,
EXCEPT YOUR OWN PERCEIVED NEED TO ATTACK. It is only THIS that makes you willing
to engage in endless "battles" with reality, in which you DENY the reality of
the need for healing by making IT unreal.
T 11 B 3. You would not do this except for your UNWILLINGNESS to perceive
reality, WHICH YOU WITHHOLD FROM YOURSELF. It is surely good advice to tell you
not to judge what you do not understand. No-one with a personal investment is a
reliable witness, for truth to him has become what he WANTS it to be. If you are
unwilling to perceive an appeal for help AS WHAT IT IS, it is because YOU are
unwilling to give help, AND TO RECEIVE IT. The analysis of the ego’s "real"
motivation is the modern equivalent of the inquisition. For in both, a brother’s
errors are "uncovered," and he is then attacked FOR HIS OWN GOOD. What can this
be, BUT projection? For HIS errors lay in the minds of his INTERPRETORS, for
which they punished HIM.
T 11 B 4. Whenever you fail to recognize a call for help, you are REFUSING
help. Would you maintain that you do not NEED it? Yet this IS what you are
maintaining when you refuse to recognize a brother’s appeal. For only by
ANSWERING his appeal, can YOU be helped. Deny him YOUR help, and you will NOT
perceive God’s answer to YOU. The Holy Spirit does NOT need your help in
interpreting motivation, but you DO need HIS. ONLY appreciation is an
appropriate response to your brother. Gratitude is due him for both his loving
thoughts, and his appeals for help, for both are capable of bringing love into
YOUR awareness, IF YOU PERCEIVE THEM TRULY. And ALL your sense of strain comes
from your attempts NOT to do just this.
T 11 B 5. How simple, then, is God’s plan for salvation. There is but one
response to reality, for reality evokes no conflict at all. There is but one
Teacher of Reality, Who understands what it is. He does NOT change His mind
about reality, because REALITY does not change. Although YOUR
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interpretations of reality are meaningless in your divided state, His remain
consistently true. He GIVES them to you because they are FOR you.
T 11 B 6. Do not attempt to "help" a brother in YOUR way, for you cannot help
yourselves. But hear his call for the help of God, and you will recognize your
OWN need for the Father. Your interpretations of your brother’s need is your
interpretation of YOURS. By giving help, you are ASKING FOR IT. And if you
perceive but one need in yourself, you WILL be healed. For you will recognize
God’s answer as you want it to be, and if you want it in truth, it will be truly
yours. Every appeal you answer in the Name of Christ, brings the remembrance of
your Father closer to YOUR awareness. For the sake of YOUR need, then, hear
every call for help as what it is, so God can answer YOU.
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Sept. 9, ‘66
T 11 B 7. By applying the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the reactions of
others more and more consistently, you will gain an increasing awareness that
HIS criteria are equally applicable to YOU. For to RECOGNIZE fear is not enough
to escape FROM it, although the recognition IS necessary to demonstrate the NEED
for escape. The Holy Spirit must still TRANSLATE it into truth. If you were LEFT
with the fear, having RECOGNIZED it, you would have taken a step AWAY from
reality, not TOWARDS it. Yet we have repeatedly emphasized the need to recognize
fear, and face it WITHOUT DISGUISE, as a crucial step in the undoing of the ego.
Consider how well the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the motives of others will
serve you then.
T 11 B 8. Having taught you to accept only loving thoughts in others, and to
regard everything else as an appeal for help, He has taught you that FEAR is an
appeal for help. This is what RECOGNIZING it really means. If you do NOT PROTECT
it, HE will reinterpret it. That is the ultimate value TO YOU in learning to
perceive attack as a call for love. We have learned surely that fear and attack
are inevitably associated. If ONLY attack produces fear, and if you see attack
as the call for help that it IS, the REALITY of fear MUST dawn upon you. For
fear IS a call for love, in unconscious recognition of what has been denied.
T 11 C. The Mechanism of Miracles
T 11 C 1. Fear is a symptom of your deep sense of loss. If, when you perceive
it in others, you learn to SUPPLY the loss, the basic CAUSE of fear is removed.
Thereby you teach yourself that fear does not exist IN YOU, for you have in
YOURSELF, the means for removing it, and have DEMONSTRATED this by GIVING it.
Fear and love are the only emotions of which you are capable. One is false, for
it was made out of denial, and denial DEPENDS on the real belief in what is
denied for its OWN existence.
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T 11 C 2. By interpreting fear correctly, as a POSITIVE AFFIRMATION OF THE
UNDERLYING BELIEF IT MASKS, you are undermining its perceived usefulness by
rendering it useless. Defenses which do not work AT ALL are AUTOMATICALLY
discarded. If you raise what fear conceals to CLEAR-CUT, UNEQUIVOCAL
PRE-DOMINANCE, fear becomes meaningless. You have denied its power to conceal
love, which was its only purpose. The mask which YOU have drawn across the face
of Love has disappeared.
T 11 C 3. If you would look upon Love, which IS the world’s reality, how could
you do better than to recognize, in every defense AGAINST it, the underlying
appeal FOR it? And how could you better learn of its reality, than by answering
the appeal for it by GIVING it? The Holy Spirit’s interpretation of fear DOES
dispel it, for the AWARENESS of truth cannot BE denied. Thus does the Holy
Spirit replace fear with love, and translate error into truth. And thus will YOU
learn of Him how to replace your dream of separation with the fact of unity. For
the separation is only the DENIAL of union, and, correctly interpreted, attests
to your eternal knowledge that union is true.
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T 11 C 4. Miracles are merely the translation of denial into truth. If to love
oneself is to HEAL oneself, those who are sick do NOT love themselves.
Therefore, they are asking for the love that would heal them, but which they are
DENYING TO THEMSELVES. If they knew the truth about themselves, they could not
be sick. The task of the miracle-worker thus becomes to DENY THE DENIAL OF
TRUTH. The sick must heal THEMSELVES, for the truth is IN them. But, having
OBSCURED it, the light in ANOTHER mind must shine into theirs, because that
light IS theirs.
T 11 C 5. The light in them shines as brightly, REGARDLESS of the density of
the fog that obscures it. If you give no power to the fog to obscure the light,
it HAS none, for it has power ONLY because the Son of God gave power TO it. He
must HIMSELF withdraw that power, remembering that all power is of God. YOU CAN
REMEMBER THIS FOR ALL THE SONSHIP. Do not allow your brother not to remember,
for his forgetfulness is YOURS. But YOUR remembering is HIS, for God cannot be
remembered alone. THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN. To perceive the healing of
your brother as the healing of yourself, is thus the way to remember God. For
you forgot your brothers WITH Him, and God’s answer to your forgetting is but
the way to remember.
T 11 C 6. Perceive in sickness but another call for love, and offer your
brother what he believes he cannot offer himself. Whatever the sickness, there
is but one remedy. You will be made whole as you MAKE whole, for to perceive in
sickness the appeal for health, is to recognize in hatred the call for love. And
to give a brother what he REALLY wants, is to offer it unto yourself. For your
Father wills you to know your brother AS yourself. Answer HIS call for love, and
YOURS is answered. Healing is the love of Christ for His Father, and for
HIMSELF.
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Sept. 13, 66
T 11 C 7. You have no idea of the intensity of your wish to get rid of each
other. This does NOT mean that you are not strongly impelled TOWARD each other,
but it DOES mean that LOVE IS NOT THE ONLY EMOTION. Because your love has
become more in awareness, the conflict can no longer be "settled" by your
previous attempts to MINIMIZE the fear. The lov emakes attack untenable, BUT
YOU STILL FEEL THE FEAR. Instead of trying to resolve it directly, you have a
strong tendency to TRY TO ESCAPE FROM THE LOVE. Yet this is the LAST thing you
would want to ESCAPE from. And even if you did, you can escape from everything
ELSE, but not from this. Be glad indeed that there IS no escape from salvation.
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Sept. 14, ‘66
T 11 C 8. You do not realize how much you hate each other. You will not get
rid of this until you DO realize it, for UNTIL then, you will think you want to
get rid of EACH OTHER and KEEP THE HATRED. Yet if you are each other’s
salvation, what can this mean except that you PREFER attack to salvation? Be
glad that neither your reality nor your salvation is a matter of your
preference, for you HAVE much cause for joy. But that the cause is NOT of your
making is surely obvious. You DO hate and fear each other, and your love, which
is very real, is TOTALLY obscured by it. How can you know the meaning of love
UNLESS it is total?
T 11 C 9. This will be a very difficult period for you, but it will not be so
for long. You are in danger, but you WILL be helped, and nothign will happen.
But you cannot remain in darkness, and this will BE the way out. Look as calmly
as you can upon hatred, for if we are to deny the denial of truth, we must first
RECOGNIZE what we are denying. Remeber that knowledge PRECEDES denial, and that
the searatoin was a descent from magnitude to littleness. And so the way back
is to retrace the way to magnitude.
T 11 C 10. Your hatred is not real, it it is real to you. IT HIDES WHAT YOU
REALLY WANT. Surely are willing to look upon what you do NOT want without fear,
EVEN IF IT FRIGHTENES YOU, if you can thereby get rid of it? For you CANNOT
escape salvation, and you WILL not escape fear until you WANT salvation. Be not
afraid of this journey into fear, for it is not your destination. And we will
wak through it in safety, for peace is not far, and you will be led in its
light.
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T 11 C 11. Remember what we said about the frightening perceptions of little
children, which terrify them because they do not understand them. If they ASK
for enlightenment, and ACCEPT IT, their fears vanish. But if they HIDE their
nightmares, they will KEEP them. It is easy to help an uncertain child, for he
recognizes that he does not know what his perceptions mean. But you believe that
you DO know. Little children, you are hiding your heads under the covers of the
heavy blankets you have laid upon yourselves. You are hiding your nightmares in
the darkness of your own certainty, and refusing to open your eyes and LOOK AT
THEM.
T 11 C 12. Let us not save nightmares, for they are not fitting offerings for
Christ, and so they are not fit gifts for YOU. Take off the covers, and look at
what you are afraid of. Only the ANTICIPATION will frighten you, for the reality
of nothingness cannot be frightening. Let us not delay this, for your dream of
hatred will not leave you without help, and help is here. Learn to be quiet in
the midst of turmoil, for quietness is the END of strife, and this is the
journey to peace. Look straight at every image that rises to delay you, for the
goal is inevitable, because it is eternal.
T 11 C 13. The goal of love is but your right, and it belongs to you DESPITE
your preference. YOU STILL WILL WHAT GOD WILLS, and no nightmare can defeat a
Child of God in his purpose. For your purpose was given you by God, and you must
accomplish it, BECAUSE it is His Will. Awake and remember your purpose, for it
is YOUR will to do so. What has been accomplished FOR you MUST be yours. Do not
let your hatred stand in the way of love, for NOTHING can withstand the love of
Christ for His Father, or His Father’s love for Him.
T 11 C 14. A little while, and you WILL see me. For I am not hidden because you
are hiding. I will awaken you as surely as I awakened myself, for I awoke FOR
you. In MY Resurrection is YOUR release. Our mission is to escape CRUCIFIXION;
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not Redemption. Trust in my help, for I did not walk alone, and I will walk with
you, as our Father walked with me. Did you not know that I walked with Him in
peace? And does not that mean that peace goes with US on the journey?
T 11 C 15. There is no fear in perfect love. We will but be making perfect to,
you what is ALREADY perfect IN you. You do not fear the UNKNOWN, but the KNOWN.
You will not fail in your mission, because I failed not in mine. Give me but a
little trust, in the name of the COMPLETE trust I have in you, and we will
easily accomplish the goal of perfection together. For perfection IS, and cannot
be denied. To deny the denial of perfection is not so difficult as the denial of
truth. And what we can accomplish together MUST be believed, when you SEE it as
accomplished. You who have tried to banish love have not succeeded. But you who
choose to banish fear WILL succeed.
T 11 C 16. The Lord is with you, but you know it not. Yet your Redeemer liveth,
and abideth in you in the peace out of which He was created. Would you not
exchange THIS awareness for the awareness of your fear? When we have overcome
fear, not by hiding it, not by minimizing it, not by denying its full import in
any way, this IS what you will really see. You cannot lay aside the obstacle to
real vision without looking upon it, for to lay aside means to judge AGAINST. If
YOU will look, the Holy Spirit will judge, and will judge truly. He cannot shine
away what YOU keep hidden, for you have not offered it TO Him, and He cannot
take it FROM you.
T 11 C 17. We are therefore embarking on an organized, well-structured, and
carefully planned program, aimed at learning how to offer to the Holy Spirit
everything you do NOT want. HE knows what to DO with it. You do NOT know how to
use what He knows. Whatever is revealed to Him that is not of God, is gone. But
you must reveal it to YOURSELF in perfect willingness, for otherwise His
knowledge remains useless TO you. Surely He will not fail to help you, since
help is His ONLY purpose. Do you not have greater reason for fearing the world,
as you perceive it, than for looking at the cause of fear, and letting it go
forever?
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T 11 D. The Investment in Reality
Sept. 16
T 11 D 1. I once asked if you were willing to sell all you have, and give to
the poor and follow me. This is what I meant: If you had no investment in
anything in this world, you could teach the poor where their treasure IS. The
poor are merely those who have invested wrongly, and they are poor indeed! And
because they are in need, it is given to you to help them, since you are among
them. Consider how perfectly your lesson would be learned, if you were unwilling
to SHARE their poverty. For poverty is lack, and there is but one lack, since
there is but one need.
T 11 D 2. Suppose a brother insists on having you do something you think you
do not want to do. The very fact of his insistence should tell you that he
believes salvation lies in it. If you insist on refusing, and experience a quick
response of opposition, YOU are believing that YOUR salvation lies in NOT doing
it. You, then, are making the same mistake that HE is, and are making his error
real to both of you. Insistence means investment, and what you invest in is
ALWAYS related to your notion of salvation. The question is always two-fold;
first, WHAT is to be saved, and second, how can it be saved?
T 11 D 3. Whenever you become angry with a brother, for WHATEVER reason, you
are believing that the EGO is to be saved, and to be saved by ATTACK. If HE
attacks, you are agreeing with this belief, and if YOU attack, you are
reinforcing it. REMEMBER THAT THOSE WHO ATTACK ARE POOR. Their poverty asks for
gifts, NOT for further impoverishment. You who could help them are surely acting
destructively, if you accept their poverty as YOURS. If you had not invested as
THEY had, it would never occur to you to overlook their need.
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T 11 D 4. Recognize WHAT DOES NOT MATTER, and if your brothers ask you for
something "outrageous," do it BECAUSE it does not matter. Refuse, and your
opposition establishes that it DOES matter to you. It is only you, therefore,
who have made the request outrageous, for nothing can BE asked of you, and every
request of a brother is for you. Why would you insist in DENYING him? For to do
so is to deny yourself, and impoverish both. HE is asking for salvation, as YOU
are. Poverty is of the ego, and never of God. No "outrageous" request can be
made of one who recognizes what is valuable, and wants to accept nothing else.
T 11 D 5. Salvation is for the mind, and it is attained through peace. This is
the only thing that can be saved, and the ONLY way to save it. Any response
OTHER than love, arises from a confusion about the "what" and the "how" of
salvation. And this is the ONLY answer. Never lose sight of this, and never
allow yourself to believe, even for an instant, that there is another answer.
For you will surely place yourself among the poor, who do not understand that
they dwell in abundance and that salvation is come.
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Sept. 20, 1966
T 11 D 6. To identify with the ego is to attack yourself, and MAKE yourself
poor. That is why everyone who identifies with the ego feels deprived. What he
EXPERIENCES is then depression or anger, but what he DID is to exchange his
self-love for self-hate, making him AFRAID of himself. He does NOT realize this.
Even if he is fully aware of anxiety, he does not perceive its source as his own
EGO IDENTIFICATION, and he ALWAYS tries to handle it by making some sort of
insane "arrangement" with the world. He always perceives this world as OUTSIDE
himself, for this is crucial to his adjustment. He does not realize that he
MAKES this world, for there IS no world outside him.
T 11 D 7. If only the loving thoughts of God’s Son are the world’s reality,
the real world must be in his mind. His insane thoughts, too, must be in his
mind, but an internal conflict of this magnitude he cannot tolerate. For a split
mind IS endangered, and the recognition that it encompasses completely opposed
thoughts within itself IS intolerable. Therefore, the mind projects the split,
NOT the reality. Everything you perceive as the outside world, is merely your
attempt to maintain your ego identification, for everyone believes that
identification is salvation.
T 11 D 8. But consider what has happened, for thoughts have consequences to
the thinker. You are AT ODDS with the world as you perceive it because you think
IT is antagonistic to you. This is a necessary consequence of what you have
done. You have projected outward what IS antagonistic to what is inward, and
therefore you would HAVE to perceive it this way. That is why you must realize
that your hatred IS in your mind, and NOT outside it, before you can get rid of
it. And why you must get rid of it, BEFORE you can perceive the world as it
really is.
T 11 D 9. Long ago we said that God so loved the world that He gave it to His
only-begotten Son. (that whosoever believeth on him should never see death). God
DOES love the real world, and those who perceive its reality
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cannot see the world of death. For death is not of the real world, in which
everything is eternal. God gave you the real world in exchange for the one you
made, out of your split mind, and which IS the symbol of death. For if you could
REALLY separate yourselves from the Mind of God, you WOULD die. And the world
you perceive IS a world of separation.
T 11 D 10. You were willing to accept even death to deny your Father. Yet He
would not have it so, and so it is NOT so. You still could not will against Him,
and that is why you have no control over the world you made. It is not a world
of will, because it is governed by the desire to be unlike Him. And this desire
is NOT will. The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by
arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without meaning of ANY kind. For it was made
out of what you do NOT want, projected from your mind, because you were afraid
of it.
T 11 D 11. Yet this world is ONLY in the mind of its maker, along with his REAL
salvation. Do not believe it is outside of yourself, for only by recognizing
WHERE it is, will you gain control over it. For you DO have control over your
mind, for the mind is the mechanism of decision. If you will recognize that ALL
attack which you perceive, is in your own mind, and NOWHERE ELSE, you will at
last have placed its source, and where it began it must end. For in this place
also lies salvation. The altar of God, where Christ abideth, is there.
T 11 D 12. You have defiled the altar, but NOT the world. But Christ has placed
the Atonement on the altar FOR you. Bring your perceptions of the world to this
altar, for it is the altar to truth. There you will see your vision changed, and
there you will learn to see truly. From this place, where God and His Son dwell
in peace, and where you are welcome, you will look out in peace, and behold the
world truly. But to find the place, you must relinquish your investment in the
world as YOU have projected it, allowing the Holy Spirit to project the real
world to you, from the altar of God.
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T 11 E. Seeking and Finding
T 11 E 1. The ego is certain that love is dangerous, and this is always its
central teaching. It never PUTS it this way; on the contrary, everyone who
believes that the ego is salvation is intensely engaged in the search for love.
Yet the ego, though encouraging the search very actively, makes one proviso; -
do not FIND it. Its dictates, then, can be summed up simply as, "Seek and do NOT
find." This is the one promise the ego holds out to you, and the one promise it
will KEEP. For the ego pursues its goal with fanatic insistence, and its
reality-testing, though severely impaired, is completely consistent.
T 11 E 2. The search which the ego undertakes is therefore bound to be
defeated. And since it also teaches that it is your identification, its guidance
leads you to a journey which must end in perceived SELF defeat. For the ego
CANNOT love, and in its frantic search for love, it is seeking what it is AFRAID
to find. The search is inevitable, because the ego is part of your mind, and
because of its source, the ego is not wholly split off, or it could not be
believed at all. For it is your mind that believes in it, and gives existence to
it. Yet it is also your mind that has the power to DENY its existence, and you
will surely do so when you realize exactly what the journey it sets you IS.
T 11 E 3. It is surely obvious that no-one wants to find what would UTTERLY
defeat him. Being unable to love, the ego would be totally inadequate in Love’s
presence, for it could not respond at all. You would HAVE to abandon the ego’s
guidance, for it would be quite apparent that it had not taught you the response
pattern you NEED. The ego will therefore DISTORT love, and teach you that love
calls forth the responses the ego CAN teach. Follow its teaching, then, and you
will SEARCH for love, but will not RECOGNIZE it.
T 11 E 4. But Do you realize that the ego must set you on a journey which
cannot BUT lead to a sense of futility and depression? To seek and NOT to find
is hardly joyous. Is this the promise YOU would keep? The Holy Spirit offers you
another promise, and one that will lead to joy. For
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HIS promise is always, "Seek and you will find," and under His guidance you
cannot BE defeated. His is the journey to ACCOMPLISHMENT, and the goal HE sets
before you He will GIVE you. For He will never deceive God’s Son, whom He loves
with the love of the Father.
T 11 E 5. You WILL undertake a journey, because you are NOT at home in this
world. And you WILL search for your home, whether you know where it is or not.
If you believe it is outside yourself, the search will be futile, for you will
be seeking it where it is not. Yu do not know how to look within yourself, for
you do not BELIEVE your home is there. Yet the Holy Spirit knows it FOR you, and
He will guide you TO your home, because that is His Mission. As He fulfills HIS
mission, He will teach you YOURS. For your mission is the same as His. By
guiding your BROTHERS home, you are but following HIM.
T 11 E 6. Behold the Guide your Father gave you, that you might learn you have
eternal life. For death is not your Father’s Will nor yours, and whatever is
true IS the Will of the Father. You pay no price for life, for that was given
you, but you DO pay a price for death, and a very heavy one. If death is your
treasure, you will sell everything else to purchase it. And you will believe
that you HAVE purchased it BECAUSE you have sold everything else. But you CANNOT
sell the Kingdom of Heaven. Your inheritance can neither be bought NOR sold.
There can BE no disinherited parts of the Sonship, for God is whole, and all his
extensions are like Him.
T 11 E 7. The Atonement was not the price of your wholeness, but it WAS the
price of your AWARENESS of your wholeness. For what you chose to "sell" had to
be kept for you, since you could not "buy" it back. Yet YOU must invest in it,
not with money, but WITH YOUR SPIRIT. For Spirit is Will, and will IS the
"price" of the Kingdom. Your inheritance awaits only the recognition that you
have BEEN redeemed. The Holy Spirit guides you into Life Eternal, but YOU must
relinquish your investment in death, or you will not see it, though it is all
around you.
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T 11 F. The Sane Curriculum
Sept. 21, ‘66
T 11 F 1. Only love is strong because it is UNDIVIDED. The strong do not
attack, because they see no need to do so. BEFORE the idea of attack can enter
your mind, you must have PERCEIVED yourself as weak. Because you had attacked
yourself, and believed that the attack was EFFECTIVE, you behold yourself as
weakened. No longer perceiving yourself and all your brothers as equal, and
regarding yourself as WEAKER, you attempt to "equalize" the situation YOU have
made. You use attack to do so, because you believe that attack was successful in
weakening YOU.
T 11 F 2. That is why the recognition of your OWN invulnerability is so
important in the restoration of your sanity. For if you accept your
invulnerability, you are recognizing that attack HAS no effect. Although you
have attacked yourself, and very brutally, you will demonstrate that NOTHING
HAPPENED. Therefore, by attacking, you have not done ANYTHING. Once you realize
this, there is no longer any SENSE in attack, for it manifestly DOES NOT WORK,
it cannot protect you. But the recognition of your invulnerability has more than
negative value.
T 11 F 3. If your attacks on yourself have FAILED to weaken you, YOU ARE STILL
STRONG. You therefore have no need to "equalize" the situation to establish your
strength. But you will never realize the utter uselessness of attack, EXCEPT by
recognizing that your attack on YOURSELF had no effects. For others DO react to
attack, if they perceive it, and if you are trying to attack them, you will be
unable to avoid interpreting this as reinforcement. The ONLY place where you can
cancel out all reinforcement, is in YOURSELF. For YOU are always the first point
of your attack, and if this has never been it HAS no consequences.
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Sept. 22, 1966
T 11 F 4. The Holy Spirit’s Love is your strength, for yours is divided, and
therefore not real. You could not trust your own love, when you have ATTACKED
it. You cannot learn of perfect love with a split mind, because a split mind has
MADE itself a poor learner. You tried to make the separation eternal because you
wanted to retain the characteristics of creation, with your own CONTENT.
T 11 F 5. Creation is NOT of you, and poor learners need special teaching. You
have learning handicaps in a very literal sense. There are areas in your
learning skills that are so impaired, that you can progress only under constant
clear-cut direction, provided by a teacher who can TRANSCEND your limited
resources. He BECOMES your resource, because OF YOURSELF, you CANNOT learn. The
learning situation in which you place yourself IS impossible, and IN this
situation, you clearly require a special teacher, and a special curriculum.
T 11 F 6. Poor learners are not good choices for teachers, either for
themselves or for anyone else. You would hardly turn to THEM to establish the
curriculum by which they can ESCAPE their limitations. If they understood what
is beyond them, they would not BE handicapped. You do NOT know the meaning of
love, and this IS your handicap. Do not attempt to teach yourselves what you do
not understand, and do not try to set up curriculum goals, where yours have
clearly failed. For YOUR learning goal has been NOT to learn, and this CANNOT
lead to successful learning.
T 11 F 7. You cannot transfer what you have not learned, and the impairment of
the ability to generalize is a crucial learning failure. Would you ask those who
have FAILED to learn, what learning aids are FOR? THEY DO NOT KNOW. For if they
could interpret the aids correctly, they would have learned from them. We have
said that the ego’s rule is, "Seek and do NOT find." Translated into curricular
terms, this is the same as saying, "TRY to learn but do NOT succeed."
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T 11 F 8. The result of this curriculum goal is obvious. Every legitimate
teaching aid, every real instruction, and every sensible guide to learning, WILL
BE MISINTERPRETED. For they are all for learning facilitation, which this
strange curriculum goal is AGAINST. If you are trying to learn how NOT to learn,
and are using the aim of teaching to DEFEAT itself, what can you expect BUT
confusion? The curriculum does not make any sense.
T 11 F 9. This kind of learning has so weakened your mind that you CANNOT
love. For the curriculum you have chosen is AGAINST love, and amounts to a
course in HOW TO ATTACK YOURSELF. A necessary minor, supplementing this major
curriculum goal, is learning how NOT to overcome the split which made this goal
believable. And you can NOT overcome it, for all YOUR learning is on its BEHALF.
T 11 F 10. Yet your will speaks against your learning, as your learning speaks
against your will. And so you fight AGAINST learning, and succeed, for that is
your will. But you do not realize, even yet, that there IS something you DO will
to learn, and that you can learn it, because it IS your will to do so. You who
have tried to learn what you do NOT will, should take heart. For though the
curriculum you set yourself is depressing indeed, it is merely ridiculous, if
you look at it. Is it POSSIBLE that the way to achieve a goal is NOT to attain
it?
T 11 F 11. Resign NOW as your own teachers. THIS resignation will NOT lead to
depression. It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have
taught yourselves, and of the learning outcomes which have resulted. Under the
proper learning conditions, which you can neither provide nor understand, you
will become excellent learners AND teachers. But it is not so yet, and will not
BE so until the whole learning situation, as YOU have set it up, is reversed.
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T 11 F 12. Your learning POTENTIAL, properly understood, is limitless, because
it will lead you to God. You can TEACH the way to Him AND learn it, if you
follow the Teacher Who knows it, and the curriculum for learning it. The
curriculum is totally unambiguous, because the goal is NOT divided, and the
means and the end are in COMPLETE accord. YOU need offer only UNDIVIDED
ATTENTION. Everything else will be GIVEN you. For it is YOUR will to learn
aright, and nothing can oppose the will of God’s Son. His learning is as
unlimited as HE is.
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T 11 G. The Vision of Christ
Sept. 21, 1966.
T 11 F 1. The ego is trying to teach you how to gain the whole world, and lose
your own Soul. The Holy Spirit teaches that you CANNOT lose your Soul and there
IS no gain in the world, for OF ITSELF, it profits nothing. To invest in
something without profit is surely to impoverish yourself, and the overhead is
high. Not only is there no profit in the investment, but the cost to YOU is
enormous. For this investment costs you the world’s reality, by denying YOURS,
and gives you nothing in return. You CANNOT sell your Soul, but you CAN sell
your AWARENESS of it.
T 11 F 2. You cannot perceive the soul, but you will not KNOW it while you
perceive anything ELSE as more valuable. The Holy Spirit is your strength
because He perceives nothing BUT your soul as you. He is perfectly aware that
you do NOT know yourselves, and perfectly aware of how to teach you what you
are. BECAUSE He loves you, He will gladly teach you what He loves, for He wills
to share it. Remembering you always, He cannot let you forget your worth. For
the Father never ceases to remind Him of His Son, and He never ceases to remind
His Son of the Father. God is in your memory BECAUSE of Him.
T 11 F 3. You chose to forget your Father, but you did not will to do so. And
therefore, you can decide otherwise. As it was MY decision, so is it YOURS. You
do not WANT the world. The only thing of value in it is whatever part of it you
look upon with love. This gives it the only reality it will ever have. Its value
is NOT in itself, but yours IS in you. As self value comes from self EXTENSION,
so does the PERCEPTION of self value come from the projection of loving thoughts
outward.
T 11 F 4. Make the world real unto YOURSELF, for the real world is the gift of
the Holy Spirit, and so it BELONGS to you. Correction is for all who cannot see.
To open the eyes of the blind is the Holy Spirit’s mission, for He knows that
they have not lost their vision, but merely sleep. He would awaken them from the
sleep of forgetting, to the remembering of God. Christ’s eyes are open, and He
will look upon whatever you see with love
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if you accept His vision as yours.
T 11 F 5. The Holy Spirit keeps the vision of Christ for every Son of God who
sleeps. In His sight, the Son of God is perfect, and He longs to share His
vision with you. He will show you the real world, because God gave you Heaven.
Through Him, your Father calls His Son to remember. The awakening of His Son
begins with his investment in the REAL world, and by this, he will learn to
reinvest in HIMSELF. For reality is one with the Father AND the Son, and the
Holy Spirit blesses the real world in Their Name.
T 11 F 6. When you have seen this real world, as you will surely do, you WILL
remember us. But you must learn the cost of sleeping, and REFUSE to pay it. Only
then will you decide to awake. And then the real world will spring to your
sight, for Christ has never slept. He is waiting to be seen, for He has never
lost sight of YOU. He looks quietly on the real world, which He would share with
you, because He knows of the Father’s love for Him. And knowing this, He would
give you what is yours.
T 11 F 7. In perfect peace, He waits for you at His Father’s altar, holding
out the Father’s love to you, in the quiet light of the Holy Spirit’s blessing.
For the Holy Spirit will lead everyone home to his Father, where Christ waits as
his Self. Every Child of God is one in Christ, for his Being is in Christ, as
Christ’s is in God. Christ’s love for you is His love for His Father, which He
knows because He knows His Father’s love for Him. When the Holy Spirit has at
last led you to Christ, at the altar to His Father, perception fuses into
knowledge, because perception has become so holy that its transfer to Holiness
is merely its natural extension.
T 11 F 8. Love transfers to love without any interference, for the situations
are identical. Only the ABILITY to make this transfer is the product of
learning. As you perceive more and more common elements in ALL situations, the
transfer of your training, under the Holy Spirit’s guidance increases and
becomes generalized. Gradually, you learn to apply it to everyone and
everything, for its applicability IS universal. When this has been
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accomplished, perception and knowledge have become so similar that they share
the unification of the Laws of God. What is One cannot be perceived as separate,
and the denial of the separation IS the reinstatement of knowledge.
T 11 F 9. At the altar of God, the holy perception of God’s Son becomes so
enlightened that light streams into it, and the Spirit of God’s Son shines in
the Mind of the Father, and becomes one with it. Very gently does God shine upon
Himself, loving the extension of Himself which is His Son. The world has no
purpose, as it blends into the Purpose of God. For the real world has slipped
quietly into Heaven, where everything eternal in it has always been. There, the
Redeemer and the redeemed join in perfect love of God, and of each other. Heaven
is your home, and being in God, it must ALSO be in you.
T 11 H. The Guide for Miracles
T 11 H 1. Miracles demonstrate that learning has occurred under the right
guidance, for learning is invisible, and what has been learned can be recognized
only by its RESULTS. Its generalization is demonstrated as you use it in more
and more situations. You will recognize that you have learned there is no order
of difficulty in miracles, when you have applied them to ALL situations. For
there IS no situation to which miracles do not apply, and by applying them to
all situations, you will gain the real world. For in this holy perception, you
will be made whole, and the Atonement will radiate from YOUR acceptance of it
for YOURSELF, to everyone the Holy Spirit sends you for your blessing.
T 11 H 2. In every Child of God His blessing lies, and in your blessing of the
Children of God is His blessing to YOU. Everyone in the world must play his part
in the redemption of the world, to recognize that the world HAS BEEN redeemed.
You cannot see the invisible. But if you see its effects, you KNOW it must be
there. By perceiving what it DOES, you recognize its being. And by WHAT it does,
you learn what it IS. You cannot SEE your abilities, but you gain confidence in
their existence as they enable you to ACT. And the results, of your actions you
CAN see.
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T 11 H 3. The Holy Spirit is invisible, but you can see the results of His
Presence, and through them, you will learn that He is there. What He enables you
to do is clearly NOT of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality,
as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of
prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to
do is clearly beyond ALL of them. Perceiving His results, you will understand
where He must be, and finally KNOW what He is.
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Sept. 26, 1966
T 11 H 4. You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you can see His manifestations.
And unless you do, you will not realize He is there. Miracles are His witnesses,
and speak for his Presence. What you cannot see becomes real to you only through
the witnesses who speak for it. For you can be AWARE of what you cannot see, and
it can become compellingly real to you, as its presence becomes manifest THROUGH
you. Do His work, for you SHARE in His function. As your function in Heaven is
creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with you
in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares His with you on earth.
T 11 H 5. As long as you believe you have two functions, so long will you need
correction. For this belief is the DESTRUCTION of peace, a goal in direct
opposition to the Holy Spirit’s purpose. You see what you expect, and you expect
what you invite. Your perception is the result of your invitation, coming to you
as you sent for it. Whose manifestations would you see? Of whose presence would
you be convinced? For you will believe in what you MANIFEST, and as you look out
so will you see in. Two ways of looking at the world are in your mind, and your
perception will reflect the guidance you chose.
T 11 H 6. I am the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, and when you see me, it
will be because you have invited Him. For He will send you His witnesses if you
will but look upon them. Remember always that you see what you seek, for what
you seek you WILL find. The ego finds what it seeks, and ONLY that. It does not
find love, for that is NOT what it is seeking. But seeking and finding are the
same, and if you seek for two goals, you will find them, but you will RECOGNIZE
NEITHER. For you will think they are the same, because you WANT them both. The
mind always strives for integration, and if it is split, and wants to KEEP the
split, it will believe it has one goal by MAKING it one.
T 11 H 7. We said before that WHAT you project is up to you, but it is NOT up
to you WHETHER to project, for projection is a law of mind. Perception IS
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projection, and you look in BEFORE you look out. As you look in, you choose the
guide for seeing, and THEN look out, and behold his witnesses. This is why you
find what you seek. What you want in YOURSELF you will make manifest by
projection, and you will accept it FROM the world, because you put it there BY
wanting it.
T 11 H 8. When you think you are projecting what you do NOT want, it is still
because you DO want it. This leads directly to dissociation, for it represents
the acceptance of two goals, each perceived in a DIFFERENT place, separated from
each other BECAUSE you made them different. The mind then sees a divided world
OUTSIDE itself, but not within. This gives it an illusion of integrity, and
enables it to believe that it is pursuing one goal. As long as you perceive the
world as split, YOU are not healed. For to be healed is to pursue one goal,
because you have ACCEPTED only one, and WANT but one.
T 11 H 9. When you want ONLY love you will see nothing else. The contradictory
nature of the witnesses you perceive is merely the reflection of your
conflicting invitations. You have looked upon your minds, and accepted
opposition there, having SOUGHT it there. But do not then believe that the
witnesses for opposition are true for they attest only to your decision about
reality, returning to you the message you GAVE them. Love is recognized by its
messengers. If you make it manifest, its messengers will come to you, because
you INVITED them.
T 11 H 10. The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of
this world. YOU CAN DECIDE TO SEE IT RIGHT. What you made of it is NOT its
reality, for its reality is only what you GAVE it. You cannot really give
anything but love to anyone or anything, nor can you really receive anything
else from them. If you think you have received anything else, it is because you
have looked within, and thought you saw the power to give something else WITHIN
YOURSELF. It was only this decision that
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determined what you found, for it was the decision of what you SOUGHT.
T 11 H 11. You are afraid of me because you looked within, and are afraid of
what you saw. Yet you could not have seen reality, for the reality of your mind
is the loveliest of God’s Creations. Coming only from God, its power and
grandeur could only bring you peace, IF YOU REALLY LOOKED UPON IT. If you are
afraid, it is because you saw something THAT IS NOT THERE. Yet in this same
place you could have looked upon me and all your brothers, in the perfect safety
of the Mind that created us. For we are there in the peace of the Father, Who
wills to project His peace through YOU.
T 11 H 12. When you have accepted your mission to PROJECT peace, you will FIND
it. For by MAKING IT MANIFEST you will SEE it. Its holy witnesses will surround
you, because you CALLED upon them, and they will come to you. I have heard your
call, and I have answered it, but you will not look upon me nor hear the answer
which you sought. That is because you do not yet want ONLY that. Yet as I become
more real to you, you will learn that you DO want only that. And you will see me
as you look within, and we will look upon the world as God created it together.
Through the eyes of Christ, ONLY the real world exists, and can BE seen.
T 11 H 13. As you decide so will you see. And all that you see but witnesses to
your decision. When you look within and see me, it will be because you have
decided to manifest truth. And as you manifest it, you will see it both without
AND within, for you will see it without BECAUSE you saw it first within.
Everything you behold without is a judgment of what you beheld within. If it is
YOUR judgment, it will be wrong, for judgment is not your function. If it is the
judgment of the Holy Spirit, it will be right, for judgment IS His function. You
share His function only by judging as HE does, reserving no judgment at all unto
yourselves. For you will judge AGAINST yourselves, but He will judge FOR you.
T 11 H 14. Remember, then, that whenever you look without and react unfavorably
to what you see, you have judged yourself unworthy, and have condemned yourself
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to death. The death penalty is the ego’s ultimate goal, for it fully believes
that you are a criminal, as deserving of death as God knows you are deserving of
life. The death penalty never leaves the ego’s mind, for that is what it always
reserves for you in the end. Wanting to kill you, as the final expression of its
feeling for you, it lets you live but to await death. It will torment you while
you live, but its hatred is not satisfied until you die. For your destruction is
the one end toward which it works, and the only one with which it will be
satisfied.
T 11 H 15. The ego is not a traitor to God to Whom treachery is impossible. But
it IS a traitor to you who believe you have been treacherous to your Father.
That is why the undoing of guilt is an essential part of the Holy Spirit’s
teaching. For as long as you feel guilty, you are listening to the voice of the
ego, which tells you that you HAVE been treacherous to God, and therefore
DESERVE death. You will think that death comes from Him, and NOT from the ego,
because, by confusing yourself WITH the ego, you believe that YOU want death.
And from what you want God does NOT save you.
T 11 H 16. When you are tempted to yield to the desire for death, remember that
I DID NOT DIE. You will realize that this is true when you look within and SEE
me. Would I have overcome death for myself alone? And would eternal life have
been given me of the Father UNLESS he had also given it to you? When you learn
to make ME manifest, YOU will never see death. For you will have looked upon the
deathless in YOURSELF, and you will see only the eternal, as you look out upon a
world that cannot die.
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T 11 I. Reality and Redemption
Sept. 30, ‘66
T 11 I 1. Do you REALLY believe that you can kill the Son of God? For the
Father has hidden His Son safely within Himself, and kept him far away from your
destructive thoughts, but YOU know neither the Father nor the Son because of
them. You attack the real world every day and every hour and every minute, and
yet you are surprised that you cannot see it. If you seek love in order to
attack it, you will NEVER find it. For if love is sharing, how can you find it
except through ITSELF? Offer it and it will come to you, because it is drawn to
itself. But offer attack and it will remain hidden, for it can live only in
peace.
T 11 I 2. God’s Son is as safe as his Father, for the Son knows his Father’s
protection and CANNOT fear. His Father’s love holds him in perfect peace, and
needing nothing, he asks for nothing. But he is far from you whose Self he is,
for you chose to attack him, and he disappeared from your sight into his Father.
HE did not change, but YOU did. For a split mind and all its works were not
created by the Father, and could not live in the knowledge of Him.
T 11 I 3. When you made what is NOT true visible, what is true became
invisible. Yet it cannot be invisible in ITSELF, for the Holy Spirit sees it
with perfect clarity. It is invisible to you, because you are looking at
something ELSE. Yet it is no more up to you to decide what is visible and what
is invisible, than it is up to you to decide what reality is. What can be seen
is what the HOLY SPIRIT sees. The definition of reality is God’s, not yours. HE
created it, and He knows what it is. You who knew have forgotten. And unless He
had given you a way to remember, you would have condemned yourselves to
oblivion.
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T 11 I 4. Because of your Father’s love, you can NEVER forget Him. For no one
can forget what God Himself placed in his memory. You can DENY it, but you
cannot LOSE it. A Voice will answer every question you ask, and a vision will
correct the perception of everything you see. For what you have made invisible
is the only truth, and what you have not heard is the only answer. For God would
reunite you with yourself, and did not abandon you in your seeming distress. You
are waiting only for Him, and do not know it. But His memory shines in your
minds, and cannot BE obliterated. It is no more past than future, being forever
always.
T 11 I 5. You have but to ask for this memory, and you WILL remember. But the
memory of God cannot shine in a mind which has MADE it invisible, and wants to
KEEP it so. For the memory of God can dawn only in a mind that wills to
remember, and that has relinquished the insane desire to control reality. You
who cannot even control yourselves, should hardly aspire to control the
universe. But look upon what you have made of it, and, be not content rejoice
that it is not so.
T 11 I 6. Son of God, be not content with nothing. What is not real cannot BE
seen, and has no value. God could not offer His Son what has no value, nor could
His Son receive it. You were redeemed the instant you thought you had deserted
Him. Everything you made has never been, and is invisible because the Holy
Spirit does not see it. Yet what He DOES see is yours to behold, and through HIS
vision your perception is healed. You have made the invisible the only truth
that this world holds. Valuing nothing, you have sought it and found it. By
making nothing real to you, you have SEEN it.
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T 11 I 7. BUT IT IS NOT THERE. And Christ is invisible to you because of what
you have made visible to YOURSELVES. Yet it does not matter how much distance
you have tried to interpose between your awareness and Truth. God’s Son CAN be
seen, because His Vision is shared. The Holy Spirit looks upon Him, and sees
nothing else in you. What is invisible to you is perfect in His sight, and
encompasses ALL of it. He has remembered you because He forgot not the Father.
T 11 I 8. You looked upon the unreal and found despair. But by seeking the
unreal, what else COULD you find? The unreal world IS a thing of despair, for it
can never be. And you who share God’s Being with Him, could never be content
without reality. What God did not give you has no power over you, and the
attraction of love for love remains irresistible. For it is the function of love
to unite all things unto itself, and to hold all things together by extending
its wholeness.
T 11 I 9. The real world was given you by God, in loving exchange for the
world YOU made, and which you see. But take it from the hand of Christ, and look
upon it. Its reality will make everything else invisible, for beholding it is
TOTAL perception. And as you look upon it, you will remember that it was always
so. Nothingness will become invisible, for you will at last have seen truly.
Redeemed perception is easily translated into knowledge, for ONLY perception is
capable of error. And perception has never been. Being corrected, it gives place
to knowledge, which is forever the ONLY reality. The Atonement is but the way
back to what was never lost. Your Father could not cease to love His Son.
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T 11 J. Guiltlessness and Invulnerability
T 11 J 1. If you did not feel guilty, you could not attack. For condemnation
is the root of attack. It is the judgment of one mind by another as UNWORTHY of
love, and DESERVING of punishment. But herein lies the split. For the mind that
judges, perceives itself as SEPARATE from the mind being judged, believing that
by punishing another, IT will escape punishment. All this is but the delusional
attempt of the mind to deny itself, and ESCAPE THE PENALTY OF DENIAL. It is not
an attempt to RELINQUISH denial, but to HOLD ON to it. For it is guilt that has
obscured the Father to you, and it is guilt that has driven you insane. The
acceptance of guilt into the mind of God’s Son was the beginning of the
separation, as the acceptance of the Atonement is its end.
T 11 J 2. The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by
guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For
this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it
are the laws of death. Children are born into it through pain and in pain. Their
growth is attended by suffering, and they learn of sorrow and separation and
death. Their minds are trapped in their brain, and its powers declines if their
bodies are hurt. They seem to love, yet they desert, and are deserted. They
appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their
bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and seem to be no more. Not
one of them but has thought that God is cruel.
T 11 J 3. If this were the real world, God WOULD be cruel. For no father could
subject his children to this as the price of salvation, and be loving. LOVE DOES
NOT KILL TO SAVE. For if it did, attack WOULD be salvation, and this is the
ego’s interpretation, NOT God’s.
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Only the world of guilt could demand this, for only the guilty could CONCEIVE of
it. Adam’s "sin" could have touched none of you, had you not believed that it
was the FATHER Who drove him out of Paradise. For it is in that belief the
knowledge of the Father was lost, for it is only those who do not understand Him
that COULD believe it.
T 11 J 4. This world IS a picture of the crucifixion of God’s Son. And until
you realize that God’s Son cannot be crucified, this is the world you will see.
But you will not realize this, until you accept the eternal fact that God’s Son
is NOT GUILTY. He DESERVES only love, because he has GIVEN only love. He cannot
be condemned, because he has never condemned. The Atonement is the final lesson
he need learn, for it teaches him that, never having sinned, he has no NEED of
salvation.
T 11 J 5. Long ago we said that the Holy Spirit shares the goal of all good
teachers, whose ultimate aim is to make themselves unnecessary, by teaching
their pupils all they know. The Holy Spirit wills ONLY this, for sharing the
Father’s love for His Son, He wills to remove all guilt from his mind, that he
may remember his Father in peace. For peace and guilt are antithetical, and the
Father can be remembered ONLY in peace. Love and guilt cannot coexist, and to
accept one is to DENY the other.
T 11 J 6. Guilt hides Christ from your sight, for it is the denial of the
blamelessness of God’s Son. In this strange world which you have made, the Son
of God HAS sinned. How could you SEE him, then? By making him invisible, the
world of retribution rose in the black cloud of guilt which you accepted, and
you hold it dear. For the blamelessness of Christ is the proof that the ego
never was, and can never be. Without guilt the ego HAS no life, and God’s Son
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IS without guilt.
T 11 J 7. As you look upon yourselves and judge what you do honestly, as you
have been asked to do, you may be tempted to wonder how you can be guiltless.
You are not guiltless in time, but in ETERNITY. You HAVE "sinned" in the past,
but there IS no past. Always has no direction. Time seems to go in one
direction, but when you reach its end, it will roll up like a long carpet that
has spread along the past behind you, and will disappear. As long as you believe
the Son of God is guilty, you will walk along this carpet, believing that it
leads to death. And the journey will seem long and cruel and senseless, for so
it is.
T 11 J 8. The journey which the Son of God has set himself is foolish indeed.
But the journey on which his Father sets him is one of release and joy. The
Father is not cruel, and His Son CANNOT hurt himself. The retaliation which he
fears, and which he SEES, will never touch him, for although he believes in it,
the Holy Spirit KNOWS it is not true. He stands at the end of time, where YOU
must be, because He is WITH you. He has ALWAYS undone everything unworthy of the
Son of God, for such was His mission, given by God. And what God gives has
always been.
T 11 J 9. You will see me as you learn the Son of God is guiltless. He has
always sought his guiltlessness, and he has FOUND it. For everyone is seeking to
escape from the prison he has made, and the way to find release is not denied
him. Being IN him, he has found it. WHEN he finds it is only a matter of time,
and time is but an illusion. For the Son of God is guiltless NOW, and the
brightness of his purity shines untouched forever in God’s Mind. God’s Son will
ALWAYS be as he was created. Deny YOUR world, and judge him not. For his eternal
guiltlessness is in the mind of his Father, and protects him forever.
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T 11 J 10. When you have accepted the Atonement for yourselves, you will
realize that there IS no guilt in God’s Son. And ONLY as you look upon him as
guiltless, can you understand his Oneness. For the idea of guilt brings a belief
of condemnation of one by another, projecting separation in place of unity. You
can condemn only yourself, and by doing so, you cannot know that you are God’s
Son. For you have denied the condition of his Being, which is his perfect
blamelessness. Out of Love he was created, and in Love he abides. Goodness and
mercy have always followed him, for he has always extended the Love of his
Father.
T 11 J 11. As you perceive the holy companions who travel with you, you will
realize that there IS no journey, but only an awakening. The Son of God, who
sleepeth not, has kept faith with his Father FOR you. There is no road to travel
on, and no time to travel through. For God waits not for His Son in time, being
forever unwilling to be without him. And so it has always been. Let the holiness
of God’s Son shine away the cloud of guilt that darkens your mind, and by
accepting his purity as yours, learn of him that it IS yours.
T 11 J 12. You are invulnerable BECAUSE you are guiltless. You can hold on to
the past ONLY through guilt. For guilt establishes that you will be punished for
what you have done, and thus depends on one-dimensional time, proceeding from
past to future. No-one who believes this, can understand what ALWAYS means. And
therefore guilt MUST deprive you of the appreciation of eternity. You are
immortal BECAUSE you are eternal, and always MUST be now. Guilt, then, is a way
of holding past and future in your minds, to ensure the ego’s continuity. For if
what has been WILL be punished, it’s continuity WOULD be guaranteed.
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T 11 J 13. But the guarantee of your continuity is God’s, not the ego’s. And
immortality is the opposite of time, for time passes away, while immortality is
constant Accepting the Atonement teaches you what immortality IS, for by
accepting your guiltlessness, you learn that the past has never been, and so the
future is needless. The future in time is always associated with expiation, and
ONLY guilt could induce a sense of NEED for expiation. Accepting the
guiltlessness of the Son of God as YOURS is therefore God’s way of reminding you
of His Son, and what he is in truth. For God has never condemned His Son, and
being guiltless, he IS eternal.
T 11 J 14. You cannot dispel guilt by making it real, and THEN atoning for it.
For this is the ego’s plan, which it offers INSTEAD of dispelling it. The ego
believes in ATONEMENT through ATTACK, being fully committed to the insane notion
that attack IS salvation. And you who cherish guilt must ALSO believe it, for
how else but by identifying WITH the ego, could you hold dear what you do not
want?
T 11 J 15. The ego teaches you to attack yourself BECAUSE you are guilty, and
this must INCREASE the guilt, for guilt is the RESULT of attack. In the ego’s
teaching, then, there IS no escape from guilt. For attack makes guilt real, and
if it is real there IS no way to overcome it. The Holy Spirit dispels it simply
through the calm recognition that it has never been. As He looks upon the
guiltless Son of God, he KNOWS this is true. And being true for you, you CANNOT
attack yourself, for without guilt, attack is impossible. You, then, ARE saved
because God’s Son is guiltless. And being wholly pure, you ARE invulnerable.
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Chapter XII- 12 - The Problem Of Guilt
T 12 A. Introduction
Oct. 4, 1966
T 12 A 1. The ultimate purpose of projection, as the ego uses it, is ALWAYS to
get rid of guilt. But, characteristically, it attempts to get rid of it from ITS
viewpoint only. For much as the ego wants to retain guilt, YOU find it
intolerable. For guilt stands in the way of your remembering God, Whose pull is
so strong that YOU cannot resist it. On this issue, then, the deepest split of
all occurs, for if you are to retain guilt, as the ego insists, YOU CANNOT BE
YOU. Only by persuading you that IT is you, could the ego possibly induce you to
project guilt, and thereby keep it in your mind.
T 12 A 2. But consider how strange a solution the ego’s arrangement is. You
project guilt to get rid of it, but you actually merely conceal it. You DO
experience guilt feelings, but you have no idea of why. On the contrary, you
associate them with a weird assortment of ego ideals, which the ego claims you
have failed. But you have no idea that you are failing the Son of God, by seeing
him as guilty. Believing you are no longer you, you do not realize that you are
failing YOURSELF.
T 12 B. Crucifixion by Guilt
T 12 B 1. The darkest of your hidden cornerstones holds your belief in guilt
from your own awareness. For in that dark and secret place is the realization
that you have betrayed God’s Son, by condemning him to death. You do not even
suspect that this murderous but insane idea lies hidden there. For the ego’s
destructive urge is so intense, that nothing short of the crucifixion of God’s
Son can ultimately satisfy it. It does not know who the Son of God is, because
it is blind. But let it perceive guiltlessness anywhere, and it will try to
destroy it, because it is afraid.
T 12 B 2. Much of the ego’s strange behavior is directly attributable to its
definition of guilt. To the ego, THE GUILTLESS ARE GUILTY. Those who do not
attack are its "enemies," because, by not valuing its interpretation of
salvation, they are in an excellent position to LET IT GO. They have approached
the darkest and deepest cornerstone in the ego’s foundation, and while the ego
can withstand your raising all else to question, it guards this one secret with
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its life, for its existence DOES depend on keeping this secret. And it is this
secret that we must look upon calmly, for the ego cannot protect you against
truth, and in its presence the ego is dispelled.
T 12 B 3. In the calm light of truth, let us recognize that you believe you
HAVE crucified God’s Son. You have not admitted this "terrible" secret, because
you still wish to crucify him, if you could FIND him. Yet the wish has hidden
him from you, because it is very fearful, and you are AFRAID to find him. You
have handled this wish to kill YOURSELF by NOT KNOWING who you are, and
identifying with something ELSE. You have projected guilt blindly and
indiscriminately, but you have NOT uncovered its source. For the ego DOES want
to kill you, and if you identify WITH it, you must believe ITS goal is YOURS.
T 12 B 4. We once said that the crucifixion is the symbol of the ego. When it
was confronted with the REAL guiltlessness of God’s Son, it DID attempt to kill
him. And the reason it gave was that guiltlessness is blasphemous to God. To the
ego, THE EGO is god, and guiltlessness MUST be interpreted as the final guilt
which fully justifies murder. You do not yet understand that all your fear of
this course stems ultimately from this interpretation, but if you will consider
your reactions to it, you will become increasingly convinced that this is so.
T 12 B 5. This course has explicitly stated that its goal for you is happiness
and peace. Yet you are AFRAID of it. You have been told again and again that it
will make you free, yet you react as if it is trying to imprison you. Most of
the time you dismiss it, but you do NOT dismiss the EGO’S thought system. You
have seen its results and you STILL lack faith in it. You MUST, then, believe
that, by NOT learning the course, you are PROTECTING yourself. And you do not
realize that it is only your guiltlessness that CAN protect you.
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T 12 B 6. The Atonement has always been interpreted as the release from guilt,
and this is correct, if it is understood. Yet even when I have interpreted it
FOR you, you have rejected it, and have NOT accepted it for yourself. You have
recognized the futility of the ego and its offerings, but though you do not want
it, you will not look upon the alternative with gladness. You are AFRAID of
redemption, and you believe it will kill you. Make no mistake about the depth of
your fear. For you believe that, in the presence of truth, you will turn on
yourself and destroy yourself.
T 12 B 7. Little children, this is not so. Your "guilty secret" is nothing,
and if you will but bring it to light, the Light will dispel it. And then no
dark cloud will remain between you and the remembrance of your Father. For you
will remember His guiltless Son, who did not die because he is immortal. And you
will see that you were redeemed WITH him, and have never been separated FROM
him. In this understanding lies your remembering, for it is the recognition of
love WITHOUT fear. There will be great joy in Heaven on your home-coming, and
the joy will be YOURS. For the redeemed son of man IS the guiltless Son of God,
and to recognize him, IS your redemption.
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T 12 C. The Fear of Redemption
Oct. 5, ‘66
T 12 C 1. You may wonder why it is so crucial that you look upon your hatred,
and realize its full extent. And you may think that it would be easy enough for
the Holy Spirit to show it to you, and dispel it WITHOUT the need for you to
raise it to awareness yourself. But there is one more complication which you
have interposed between yourself and the Atonement, which you do not yet
realize. We have said that no one will countenance fear, if he RECOGNIZES it.
But in your disordered state, you are NOT afraid of fear. You do not like it,
but it is not your desire to attack which really frightens you. You are not
seriously disturbed by your hostility. You keep it hidden, because you are MORE
afraid of what it covers.
T 12 C 2. You could look even upon the ego’s darkest cornerstone without fear,
if you did not believe that, WITHOUT the ego, you would find, within yourself,
something you fear even more. You are NOT afraid of crucifixion. Your real
terror is of REDEMPTION. Under the ego’s dark foundation is the memory of God,
and it is of THIS that you are really afraid. For this memory would INSTANTLY
restore you to your proper place, and it is this place that you have sought to
LEAVE.
T 12 C 3. Your fear of attack is nothing, compared to your fear of love. You
would be willing to look even upon your savage wish to kill God’s Son, if you
did not believe that it SAVES you from love. For this wish CAUSED the
separation. You have protected it, because you do not WANT the separation
healed, and you realize that, by REMOVING the dark cloud that obscures it, your
love for your Father would impel you to answer his call, and leap into heaven.
You believe that attack is salvation, to prevent you from this. For still deeper
than the ego’s foundation, and much stronger than it will ever be, is your
intense and burning love of God, and His for you.
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T 12 C 4. This is what you REALLY want to hide. In honesty, is it not harder
for you to say "I love" than "I hate?" For you associate love with weakness and
hatred with strength, and your REAL power seems to you as your real weakness.
For you could not control your joyous response to the call of love if you heard
it, and the whole world you think you control WOULD vanish. The Holy Spirit,
then, seems to be attacking your fortress, for you would shut out God, and He
does not will to BE excluded.
T 12 C 5. You have built your whole insane belief system, because you think
you would be helpless in God’s presence. And you would SAVE yourself from His
love, because you think it would crush you into nothingness. You are afraid it
would sweep you away from yourself, and make you little. For you believe that
magnitude lies in defiance, and that attack is grandeur. You think you have made
a world that God would destroy. And by loving Him, which you DO, you would throw
this world away, which you WOULD.
T 12 C 6. Therefore, you have used the world to COVER your love, and the
deeper you go into the blackness of the ego’s foundation, the closer you come to
the love that is hidden beneath it. AND IT IS THIS THAT FRIGHTENS YOU. You can
accept insanity, because you made it. But you cannot accept love, because you
did NOT. You would rather be slaves of the crucifixion, than sons of God in
redemption. For your INDIVIDUAL death is more valued than your living Oneness,
and what is GIVEN you, is not so dear as what you made. You are more afraid of
God than of the ego, and love cannot enter where it is not welcome. But hatred
can, for it enters of its will, and cares not for yours.
T 12 C 7. The reason you must look upon your delusions, and not keep them
hidden, is that they do NOT rest on their own foundation. In concealment, they
appear to do so, and thus they seem to be self-sustained. This is the
fundamental illusion on which they rest. For BENEATH them, and concealed as long
as THEY are hidden, is the loving mind that THOUGHT it made them in anger. And
the pain in this mind is so apparent, when it is uncovered, that its need of
healing cannot BE denied. Not all the tricks and games that you have offered it
can heal it,
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for here is the REAL crucifixion of God’s Son.
T 12 C 8. And yet he is NOT crucified. For here is both his pain AND his
healing, for the Holy Spirit’s vision is merciful, and His remedy is quick. Do
not HIDE suffering from His sight, but bring it gladly to Him. Lay before His
eternal sanity ALL your hurt, and LET Him heal you. Do not leave any spot of
pain hidden from His Light, and search your minds carefully for any thoughts
which you may fear to uncover. For He will heal every little thought which you
have kept to hurt you, and cleanse it of its littleness, restoring it to the
magnitude of God.
T 12 C 9. Beneath all your grandiosity, which you hold so dear, is your real
call for help. For you call for love to your Father, as your Father calls you to
Himself. In that place, which you have hidden, you will only to unite with the
Father, in loving remembrance of Him. You will find this place of truth as you
see it in your brothers, for though they may deceive themselves, like you they
long for the grandeur that is in them. And perceiving it you will welcome it,
and it will be yours. For grandeur is the RIGHT of God’s Son, and no illusions
can satisfy him, or save him from what he IS.
T 12 C 10. Only his love is real, and he will be content ONLY with his reality.
Save him from his illusions, that you may accept the magnitude of your Father in
peace and joy. But exempt no one from your love, or you will be hiding a dark
place in your minds, where the Holy Spirit is not welcome. And you will exempt
YOURSELF from His healing power, for by not offering total love, you will not be
healed completely. Healing must be as complete as fear, for love cannot enter
where there is one spot of fear to mar its welcome.
T 12 C 11. You who prefer specialness to sanity could not obtain it in your
right minds. You were at peace until you asked for special favor, and God did
not give it. For the request was alien to Him, and you could not ask this of a
Father Who truly loved His Son. Therefore, you made of Him an unloving father,
demanding of Him what only such a father could give. And the peace of God’s Son
was shattered,
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for he no longer understood his Father. He feared what he had made, but still
more did he fear his REAL father, having attacked his glorious equality with
Him.
T 12 C 12. In peace he needed nothing, and asked for nothing. In war he
DEMANDED everything, and FOUND nothing. For how could the gentleness of love
respond to his demands, EXCEPT by departing in peace, and returning to the
Father? If the son did not wish to remain in peace, he could not remain at all.
For a darkened mind cannot live in the light, and it must seek a place of
darkness, where it can believe it is where it is not. God did not allow this to
happen. But you DEMANDED that it happen, and therefore believed that it was so.
T 12 C 13. To single out is to make alone, and thus MAKE LONELY. God did not do
this to you. Could He set you apart, KNOWING that your peace lies in His
oneness? He denied you only your request for pain, for suffering is not of His
creation. Having GIVEN you creation, He could not take it FROM you. He could but
answer your insane request with a sane answer, which would abide with you in
your insanity. AND THIS HE DID. No-one who hears His answer but will give up
insanity. For His answer is the reference point BEYOND delusions, from which you
can look back on them, and see them as insane. But seek this place and you WILL
find it, for Love is in you, and will lead you there.
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T 12 D. Healing and Time
Oct. 6, ‘66
T 12 D 1. And now the reason why you are afraid of this course should be
apparent. For this is a course on love, because it is about you. You have been
told that your function in this world is healing, and your function in Heaven is
creating. The ego teaches that your function on earth is destruction, and that
you have no function at all in Heaven. It would thus destroy you here, and bury
you here, leaving you no inheritance except the dust out of which it thinks you
were made. While it is reasonably satisfied with you, as its reasoning goes, it
offers you oblivion. When it becomes overtly savage, it offers you hell.
T 12 D 2. Yet neither oblivion nor hell is as unacceptable to you as Heaven.
For your definition of Heaven IS hell and oblivion, and the real Heaven is the
greatest threat you think you could experience. For hell and oblivion are ideas
which you made up, and you are bent on demonstrating their reality, to establish
YOURS. If THEIR reality is questioned, you believe that YOURS is. For you
believe that ATTACK established your reality, and that your destruction is the
final proof that you were right.
T 12 D 3. Under the circumstances, would it not be more DESIRABLE to have been
wrong, even apart from the fact that you WERE wrong? For while it could perhaps
be argued that death suggests there WAS life, no one would claim that it proves
there IS life. And even the past life, which death might indicate, could only
have been futile if it must come to this, and NEEDS this to prove that it was.
You question Heaven, but you do not question this. You could heal and be healed,
if you DID question it. And even though you know not Heaven, might it not be
more desirable than death? You have been as selective in your questioning as in
your perception. An open mind is more honest than this.
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Oct. 7, 1966
T 12 D 4. The ego has a very strange notion of time, and it is with this
notion that your questioning might well begin. The ego invests heavily in the
past, and in the end, believes that the past is the ONLY aspect of time that is
meaningful. You will remember that we said its emphasis on guilt enables it to
ensure its continuity, by making the future LIKE the past, and thus avoiding the
present. By the notion of PAYING for the past in the future, the past becomes
the DETERMINER of the future, making them continuous, WITHOUT an intervening
present. For the ego uses the present ONLY as a brief transition to the future,
in which it brings the past to the future, by interpreting the present in PAST
terms.
T 12 D 5. NOW has no meaning to the ego. The present merely reminds it of past
hurts, and it reacts to the present as if it were past. For the ego cannot
tolerate RELEASE from the past, and though it is no more, the ego tries to
preserve its image by responding as if it were present. Thus, it dictates
reactions to those you meet now from a PAST reference point, obscuring their
present reality. In effect, if you follow it’s dictates, you will react to your
brothers as though they were someone else, and this will surely prevent you from
perceiving them as they ARE. And you will receive messages from them out of your
OWN past because, by making it real in the present, you are forbidding yourself
to LET IT GO. You thus deny yourself the message of release that every brother
offers you NOW.
T 12 D 6. The shadowy figures from the past are precisely what you must
ESCAPE. For they are not real, and have no hold over you, unless you bring them
WITH you. They carry the spots of pain in your minds, directing you to attack in
the present, in retaliation for a past that is no more. And this decision is one
of FUTURE pain. For unless you learn that past pain is delusional, you are
choosing a future of delusions, and losing the endless opportunities which you
could find for release in the present. The ego would preserve
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your nightmares, and prevent you from awaking, and understanding that they are
past.
T 12 D 7. Would you RECOGNIZE a holy encounter, if you are merely perceiving
it as a meeting with your own past? For you are meeting no one, and the SHARING
of salvation, which MAKES the encounter holy, is excluded from your sight. The
Holy Spirit teaches that you always meet YOURSELF, and the encounter is holy
because YOU are. The ego teaches that you always encounter your past, and
because your dreams WERE not holy, the future CANNOT be, and the present is
without meaning. It is evident that the Holy Spirit’s perception of time is the
exact opposite of the ego’s. And the reason is equally clear, for they perceive
the goal of time as diametrically opposed.
T 12 D 8. The Holy Spirit interprets time’s purpose as rendering the need for
it unnecessary. Thus does He regard the function of time as temporary, serving
only his teaching function, which is temporary by definition. His emphasis is
therefore on the only aspect of time which CAN extend to the infinite. For NOW
is the closest approximation of eternity that this world offers. And it is in
the REALITY of now, without past OR future, that the beginning of the
appreciation of eternity lies. For only now is HERE, and IT presents the
opportunities for the holy encounters, in which salvation can be found.
T 12 D 9. The ego, on the other hand, regards the function of time as one of
extending itself IN PLACE of eternity. For, like the Holy Spirit, the ego
interprets the goal of time as its own. The continuity of past and future, under
ITS direction, is the only purpose the ego perceives in time, and it closes over
the present, so that no gap in the EGO’S continuity can occur. ITS continuity,
then, would KEEP you in time, while the Holy Spirit would release you FROM it.
And it is HIS interpretation of the means of salvation that you must learn to
accept, if you would share His goal of salvation for you.
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T 12 D 10. You, too, will interpret the function of time as you interpret yours.
If you accept your function in the world of time as healing, you will emphasize
ONLY the aspect of time in which healing can occur. For healing CANNOT be
accomplished in the past, and MUST be accomplished in the present to release the
future. This interpretation ties the future to the present, and extends the
present, rather than the past. But if you interpret your function as
destruction, you will lose sight of the present, and hold on to the past to
ENSURE a destructive future. And time WILL be as you interpret it, for of itself
it is nothing.
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T 12 E. The Two Emotions
Oct. 10, 1966
T 12 E 1. We have said that you have but two emotions, love and fear. One is
changeless but continually exchanged, being offered BY the eternal TO the
eternal. In this exchange it is extended, for it INCREASES as it is given. The
other has many forms, for the content of individual illusions differs greatly.
But they have one thing in common; they are all insane. They are made of sights
which are NOT seen, and sounds which are NOT heard. They make up a private world
which CANNOT be shared. For they are meaningful ONLY to their maker, and so they
have no meaning at all. In this world their maker moves alone, for only he
perceives them.
T 12 E 2. Each one peoples his world with figures from his individual past,
and it is because of this that private worlds DO differ. But the figures that he
sees were NEVER real, for they are made up only of his reactions to his
brothers, and do not include their reactions to HIM. Therefore he does not see
that he made them, and that they are not whole. For these figures have no
witnesses, being perceived in one separate mind only.
T 12 E 3. It is THROUGH these strange and shadowy figures that the insane
relate to their insane world. For they see only those who remind them of these
images, and it is to THEM that they relate. Thus do they communicate with those
who are not there, and it is THEY who answer them. and no-one hears their answer
save him who called upon them, and he alone believes they answered him.
Projection makes perception, and you CANNOT see beyond it. Again and again have
men attacked each other, because they saw in them a shadow figure in their
private world.
T 12 E 4. And thus it is that you MUST attack yourself first. For what you
attack is NOT in others. Its only reality is in your OWN mind, and by attacking
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others, you are literally attacking what is NOT THERE. The delusional can be
very destructive, for they do not recognize that they have condemned THEMSELVES.
They do not wish to die, yet they will not let condemnation GO. And so they
separate into their private world, where everything is disordered, and where
what is within, appears to be without. Yet what IS within they do not see, for
the REALITY of their brothers they CANNOT see.
T 12 E 5. You have but two emotions, yet in your private world, you react to
each of them as though it were the OTHER. For love cannot abide in a world
apart, where, when it comes, it is not recognized. If you see your own hatred AS
your brother, you are not seeing HIM. Everyone draws nigh unto what he loves,
and recoils from what he fears. And you react with fear to love, and draw away
from it. But fear ATTRACTS you, and believing it is love, you call it to
yourself. Your private world is filled with the figures of fear you have invited
into it. And all the love your brothers offer you, YOU DO NOT SEE.
T 12 E 6. As you look with open eyes upon your world, it MUST occur to you
that you have withdrawn into insanity. For you see what is not there, and hear
what is soundless. Your behavioral manifestations of emotions are the OPPOSITE
of what the emotions are. You communicate with no-one, and you are as isolated
from reality, as if you were alone in all the universe. In your madness, you
overlook reality COMPLETELY, and you see only your OWN split mind everywhere you
look. God calls you and you do not hear, for you are preoccupied with your own
voice. And the vision of Christ is not in your sight, for you look upon yourself
ALONE.
T 12 E 7. Little children, would you offer THIS to your Father? For if you
offer it to yourself, you ARE offering it to Him. And He will NOT return it, for
it is unworthy of you because it is unworthy of Him. But He WOULD release you
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from it, and set you free. His sane answer tells you that what you have offered
yourself is not true, but HIS offering to you has never changed. You who know
not what you do, CAN learn what insanity is, and look beyond it. It is given you
to learn how to DENY insanity, and come forth from your private world in peace.
T 12 E 8. And you will see all that you denied in your brothers, BECAUSE you
denied it in yourself. For you will love them, and by drawing nigh unto them,
you will draw them to yourself, perceiving them as witnesses to your reality,
which you share with God. For I am with them, as I am with YOU. And we will draw
them from their private world, for as we are united, so would we unite with
them. The Father welcomes all of us in gladness, and gladness is what we would
offer Him. For every Son of God is given you, to whom God gave HIMSELF. And it
is God whom you must offer them, to recognize His gift to YOU.
T 12 E 9. Vision depends on light, and you cannot see in darkness. Yet in the
darkness, in the private world of sleep, you SEE in dreams, although your eyes
are closed. And it is here that what you see you MADE. But let the darkness go,
and all you made you will no longer see, for sight of it depends upon DENYING
vision. But from denying vision, it does not follow that you CANNOT see. Yet
this is what denial DOES, for by it you ACCEPT insanity, believing you can make
a private world, and rule your OWN perception. But for this, light MUST be
excluded. Dreams disappear when light has come, and you can SEE.
T 12 E 10. Do not seek vision through YOUR eyes. For you MADE your way of
seeing, that you might see in darkness, and in this you are deceived. BEYOND
this darkness, and yet still WITHIN you, is the vision of Christ, Who looks on
all in light. Your vision comes from fear, as His from Love. And He sees FOR
you, as your witness to the real world. He is the Holy Spirit’s
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manifestation, looking always on the real world, and calling forth its
witnesses, and drawing them unto YOU. For He loves what He sees within you, and
He would EXTEND it. And He will not return unto the Father, until He has
extended your perception even unto Him. And there perception is no more, for He
has returned you to the Father with Him.
T 12 E 11. You have but two emotions, and one you made and one was given you.
Each is a WAY OF SEEING, and different worlds arise from their different
visions. See through the vision that is given you, for through Christ’s vision
He beholds Himself. And seeing what He is, He knows His Father. Beyond your
darkest dreams, He sees God’s guiltless Son within you, shining in perfect
radiance, which is undimmed by your dreams. And this YOU will see, as you look
with Him. For His vision is His gift of love to you, given Him of the Father FOR
you.
T 12 E 12. The Holy Spirit is the light in which Christ stands revealed. And
all who would behold Him can see Him, for they have ASKED for light. Nor will
they see Him ALONE, for He is no more alone than they are. Because they saw the
son, they have risen in Him to the Father. And all this will they understand,
because they looked within, and saw, beyond the darkness, the Christ in them,
and RECOGNIZED Him. In the sanity of His vision, they looked upon themselves
with love, seeing themselves as the Holy Spirit sees them. And WITH this vision
of the truth in them, came all the beauty of the world to shine upon them.
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T 12 F. Finding the Present
October 16, 1966
T 12 F 1. To perceive truly is to be aware of ALL reality, through the
awareness of your own. But for this, NO illusions can rise to meet your sight,
for ALL reality leaves no room for ANY error. This means that you perceive a
brother only as you see him NOW. His past has NO reality in the present, and you
CANNOT see it. Your past reactions to him are also not there, and if it is to
these that you react NOW, you see but an image of him that you made and cherish
INSTEAD of him. In your questioning of illusions, ask yourself if it is REALLY
sane to perceive what WAS NOW. If you remember the past as you look upon him,
you will be unable to perceive the reality that is NOW.
T 12 F 2. You consider it "natural" to use your past experience as the
reference point from which to JUDGE the present. Yet this is Unnatural, because
it is delusional. When you have learned to look upon everyone with NO REFERENCE
AT ALL to the past, either his or yours as you perceived it, you will be able to
learn from what you see NOW. For the past can cast no shadow to darken the
present, UNLESS YOU ARE AFRAID OF LIGHT. And only if you are, would you choose
to bring this darkness WITH you, and by holding it in your minds, see it as a
dark cloud that shrouds your brothers, and conceals their reality from your
sight.
T 12 F 3. THIS DARKNESS IS IN YOU. The Christ revealed to you NOW has no past,
for He is changeless. And in HIS changelessness lies YOUR release. For if He is
as He was created, there is no guilt in Him. No cloud of guilt has risen to
obscure Him, and He stands revealed in everyone you meet, because you see Him
through HIMSELF.
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To be born again is to let the PAST go, and look without condemnation upon the
present. For the cloud which obscures God’s Son to you IS the past, and if you
would have it past AND GONE, you must not see it NOW. And if you see it now in
your delusions, it has NOT gone from you, although it is not there.
T 12 F 4. Time can release as well as imprison, depending on whose
interpretation of it you use. Past, present, and future are not continuous,
unless you FORCE continuity on them. You can PERCEIVE them as continuous, and
make them so for YOU. But do not be deceived, and then believe that this is how
it IS, for to believe that reality is what you would HAVE it be, according to
your use for it, IS delusional. You would destroy time’s continuity by breaking
it into past, present, and future, for your own purposes. You would anticipate
the future on the basis of your past experience and plan for it accordingly. And
by so doing, you are ALIGNING past and future, and not allowing the miracles,
which could intervene BETWEEN them, to free you to be born again.
T 12 F 5. The miracle enables you to see your brother WITHOUT his past, and so
perceive him as born again. His errors ARE all past, and by perceiving him
without the, you are RELEASING him. And since his past is yours, you SHARE in
this release. Let no dark cloud out of YOUR past obscure him from you, for truth
lies ONLY in the present, and you wilL find it if you seek it there. You have
looked for it where it is NOT, and therefore have not found it. Learn, then, to
seek it where it IS, and it will dawn on eyes that see. Your past was made in
anger, and if you use it to attack the present you will not SEE the freedom that
the present holds.
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Judgment and condemnation are BEHIND you, and unless you bring them WITH you,
you will see that you are free of them.
T 12 F 6. Look lovingly upon the present, for it holds the ONLY things that
are forever true. All healing lies within it, because ITS continuity is real. It
extends to all aspects of consciousness AT THE SAME TIME, and thus enables them
to reach EACH OTHER. The present is before time was, and will be when time is no
more. In it is everything that is eternal, and they are one. Their continuity is
timeless, and their communication is unbroken, for they are not separated by the
past. Only the past CAN separate, and IT is nowhere.
T 12 F 7. The present offers you your brothers in the light that would unite
you with them, and free you from the past. Would you, then, hold the past
AGAINST them? For if you do, you are choosing to remain in the darkness that is
not there, and refusing to accept the light that is offered you. For the light
of perfect vision is freely given , as it is freely received, and can be
accepted only WITHOUT LIMIT. In this one, still dimension of time, which does
not change, and where there is no sight of what you were, you look at Christ,
and call His witnesses to shine on you, BECAUSE YOU CALLED THEM FORTH. And THEY
will not deny the truth in you, because you looked for it in them, and FOUND it
there.
T 12 F 8. Now is the time of salvation, for now is the release from time.
Reach out to all your brothers, and touch them with the touch of Christ. In
timeless union with them is YOUR continuity, unbroken because it is wholly
shared. God’s guiltless Son is ONLY light. There is no darkness in him anywhere,
for he is whole.
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Call all your brothers to witness to his wholeness, as I am calling you to join
with me. Every voice has a part in the song of redemption, the hymn of gladness
and thanksgiving for the light, to the Creator of Light. The holy light that
shines forth from God’s Son is the witness that his light is of his Father.
T 12 F 9. Shine on your brothers in remembrance of your Creator, and you will
remember Him, as you call forth the witnesses to His creation. Those whom you
heal bear witness to YOUR healing, for in their wholeness you will see your own.
And as your hymns of praise and gladness rise to your Creator, He will return
your thanks, in His clear answer to your call. For it can never be that His Son
called upon Him, and remained unanswered. His call to you is but your call to
Him. And in Him you are answered by His peace.
T 12 F 10. Children of Light, you know not that the Light is in you. And you
will find it through its witnesses. For having given light to them, they will
RETURN it. Everyone you see in light brings YOUR light closer to your OWN
awareness. Love always leads to love. The sick, who ask for love, are grateful
for it, and in their joy, they shine with holy thanks. And this they offer you,
who GAVE them joy. They are your guides to joy, for having received it of you,
they would keep it. You have established them as guides to peace, for you have
made it manifest in them. And seeing it, its beauty calls you home.
T 12 F 11. There is a light which this world cannot give. Yet you can give it,
as it was given you. And as you give it, it shines forth to call you from the
world, and follow it. For this light
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will attract you as nothing in this world can do. And you will lay aside the
world and find another. This other world is bright with love which YOU have
given it. And here will everything remind you of your Father and his holy Son.
Light is unlimited, and spreads across this world in quiet joy. All those you
brought with you will shine on you, and you will shine on them in gratitude,
because they brought you here. Your light will join with theirs, in power so
compelling, that it will draw the others out of darkness as you look on them.
T 12 F 12. Awaking unto Christ is following the laws of love of your free will,
and out of quiet recognition of the truth in them. The attraction of light must
draw you willingly, and willingness is signified by GIVING. Those who accept
love of you, become your willing witnesses to the love you gave them, and it is
THEY who hold it out to YOU. In sleep you are alone, and your awareness is
narrowed to yourself. And that is why the nightmares come. You dream of
isolation, BECAUSE your eyes are closed. You do not SEE your brothers, and, in
the darkness, you cannot look upon the light you gave to them.
T 12 F 13. And yet the laws of love are not suspended because you sleep. And you
have followed them through all your nightmares, and have been faithful in your
giving, for you were NOT alone. Even in sleep has Christ protected you, ensuring
the real world for you when you wake. In YOUR name He has given FOR you, and
given YOU the gifts He gave. God’s Son is still as loving as his Father.
Continuous with his Father, he has no past apart from Him. So he has never
ceased to be his Father’s witness, AND HIS OWN. Although he slept, Christ’s
vision did not leave him. And so it is that he can call unto himself the
witnesses that teach him that he never slept.
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T 12 G. Attainment of the Real World
October 19, 1966
T 12 G 1. Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself, "The
real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where
people walk alone and separately. There are no stores where people buy an
endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light,
and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There
is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever." This world you see
must be DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU
CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing,
and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have
denied the other.
T 12 G 2. Both are not true, yet either one will seem as real to you as the
amount to which you hold it dear. And yet their power is NOT the same, because
their real attraction to you is unequal. You do not really want the world you
see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have
never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that
you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has
the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready
to return to dust, even as you made it.
T 12 G 3. This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at
all. You could not give it that, and so, although you turn in sadness from it,
you cannot find in it the road that leads away from it into another world. Yet
the real world has the power to touch you even here BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT. And
what you call with love WILL come to you. Love always answers, being unable to
deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it, from
every part of this strange world you made, but do not want. The only effort you
need make, to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did not make is
willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE.
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T 12 G 4. You HAVE been wrong about the world, because you have misjudged
YOURSELF. From such a twisted reference point, what COULD you see? All vision
starts WITH THE PERCEIVER, who judges what is true and what is false. And what
he judges false, HE DOES NOT SEE. You who would judge reality CANNOT see it, for
whenever judgment enters, reality has slipped away. The out of mind is out of
sight, because what is denied is there, but is not recognized. Christ is still
there, although you know Him not. His Being does not depend upon your
recognition. He lives within you in the quiet present, and waits for you to
leave the past behind, and enter into the world He holds out to you in love.
T 12 G 5. No-one in this distracted world but has not seen some glimpses of
the other world about him. Yet while he still lays value on his own, he will
DENY the vision of the other world, maintaining that he loves what he loves not,
and following not the road that love points out. Love leads so gladly! And as
you follow Him, you will rejoice that you have found His company, and learned of
Him the joyful journey home. You wait but for YOURSELF. To give this sad world
over, and exchange your errors for the peace of God, is but YOUR will. And
Christ will ALWAYS offer you the Will of God, in recognition that you share it
with Him.
T 12 G 6. It is God’s Will that nothing touch His Son except Himself, and
nothing else comes nigh unto him. He is as safe from pain as God Himself, Who
watches over him in everything. The world about him shines with love, because
God placed him in Himself where pain is not, and love surrounds him without end
or flaw. Disturbance of his peace can never be. In perfect sanity he looks on
love, for it is all about him, and within him. He MUST deny the world of pain,
the instant he perceives the arms of love around him. And from this point of
safety, he looks quietly about him, and recognizes that the world is one with
him.
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T 12 G 7. The peace of God passeth your understanding ONLY in the past. Yet
here it IS, and you can understand it NOW. God loves His Son forever, and His
Son RETURNS his Father’s love forever. The real world is the way that leads you
to remembrance of this one thing that is wholly true, and wholly YOURS. For all
else you have lent yourself in time, and it will fade. But this one thing is
ALWAYS yours, being the gift of God unto His Son. Your ONE reality was given
you, and by it God created you as one with Him.
T 12 G 8. You will first dream of peace, and then awaken to it. Your first
exchange of what you made for what, you want is the exchange of nightmares for
the happy dreams of love. In these lie your true perceptions, for the Holy
Spirit corrects the world of dreams, where ALL perception is. Knowledge needs no
correction. Yet the dreams of love lead UNTO knowledge. In them you see nothing
fearful, and because of this they are the welcome that you OFFER knowledge. Love
waits on welcome, NOT on time, and the real world is but your welcome of what
always was. Therefore the call of joy is in it, and your glad response is your
awakening to what you have not lost. Praise, then, the Father for the perfect
sanity of His most holy Son.
T 12 G 9. Your Father knoweth that you have need of nothing. In Heaven this is
so, for what could you need in eternity? In YOUR world you DO need things,
because it is a world of scarcity in which you find yourself BECAUSE you are
lacking. But CAN you find yourself in such a world? Without the Holy Spirit, the
answer would be no. But because of Him, the answer is a joyous YES. As mediator
between the two worlds, He knows what you have need of, and which will not hurt
you. Ownership is a dangerous concept, if it is left to you. The ego wants to
HAVE things for salvation, for possession is its law. Possession for its OWN
sake is the ego’s fundamental creed, a basic cornerstone in the churches that it
builds unto itself. And at ITS altar, it demands you lay ALL of the things it
bids you get, leaving you no joy in them.
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T 12 G 10. Everything that the ego tells you that you need will hurt you. For,
although it urges you again and again to GET, it leaves you nothing, for what
you get it will DEMAND of you. And even from the very hands that grasped it, it
will be wrenched and hurled into the dust. For where the ego sees salvation it
sees SEPARATION, and so you lose whatever you have gotten in its name.
Therefore, ask not of yourselves what you need, for YOU KNOW NOT, and your
advice unto yourself will hurt you. For what you think you need will merely
serve to tighten up your world AGAINST the light, and render you unwilling to
question the value that this world can really hold for you.
T 12 G 11. Only the Holy Spirit KNOWS what you need. For He will give you all
things that do not block the way to light. And what else COULD you need? In
time, He gives you all the things that you need have, and will renew them as
long as you have need of them. He will take nothing from you, as long as you
have ANY need of it. And yet He knows that everything you need is temporary, and
need but last until you step aside from ALL your needs, and learn that all of
them HAVE BEEN fulfilled. Therefore, He has no investment in the things that He
supplies, except to make certain that you will not use them on behalf of
lingering in time. He knows that you are not at home there, and He wills no
delay to wait upon your joyous homecoming.
T 12 G 12. Leave, then, your needs to Him. He will supply them, with no
emphasis at all upon them. What comes to you of Him comes safely, for He will
ensure it never can become a dark spot, hidden in your mind, and kept to hurt
you. Under His guidance, you will travel light and journey lightly, for His
sight is ever on the journey’s end, which is His goal. God’s Son is not a
traveler through OUTER worlds. However holy his perception may become, no world
outside himself holds his inheritance. Within himself he HAS no needs, for light
needs nothing but to shine in peace. And from itself, to let the rays extend in
quiet to infinity.
T 12 G 13. Whenever you are tempted to undertake a foolish journey that would
lead AWAY from light, remember what you really want, and say, "The Holy Spirit
leads
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me unto Christ, and where else would I go? What need have I but to awake in
Him?" Then follow Him in joy, with faith that He will lead you safely through
all dangers to your peace of mind that this world sets before you. Kneel not
before the altars to sacrifice, and seek not what you will surely lose. Content
yourselves with what you will as surely KEEP, and be not restless, for you
undertake a quiet journey to the peace of God, where He would have you be in
quietness.
T 12 G 14. In me, you have already overcome EVERY temptation that would hold
you back. We walk together on the way to quietness that is the gift of God. Hold
me dear, for what except your brothers CAN you need? We will restore to you the
peace of mind that we must find together. The Holy Spirit will teach you to
awaken unto us, and to yourself. This is the only REAL need to be fulfilled in
time. Salvation FROM the world lies only here. My peace I GIVE you. TAKE it of
me, in glad exchange for all the world has offered but to take away. And we will
spread it, like a veil of light, across the world’s sad face, in which we hide
our brothers FROM the world, and it from them.
T 12 G 15. We cannot sing redemption’s hymn alone. My task is not completed
‘til I have lifted every voice with mine. And yet it is NOT mine, for as it is
my gift to you, so was it the Father’s gift to me, given me through His Spirit.
The sound of it will banish sorrow from the mind of God’s most holy Son, where
it cannot abide. Healing in time IS needed, for joy cannot establish its eternal
reign where sorrow dwells. You dwell not here, but in eternity. You travel but
in dreams, while safe at home. Give thanks to every part of you that you have
taught how to REMEMBER you. Thus does the Son of God give thanks unto his Father
for his purity.
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Chapter XIII - 13 - From Perception To Knowledge
T 13 A. Introduction
T 13 A 1. All therapy is release from the past. And that is why the Holy
Spirit is the only therapist. He teaches that the past does not exist, a fact
which belongs to the sphere of knowledge, and which therefore no-one in the
world knows. It would indeed be impossible to BE in the world with this
knowledge. For the mind that knows this unequivocally, knows also that it dwells
in eternity, and utilizes no perception at all. It therefore does not consider
where it is, because the concept "where" does not mean anything to it. It knows
that it is EVERYWHERE, just as it has EVERYTHING and FOREVER.
T 13 A 2. The very real difference between perception and knowledge becomes
quite apparent, if you consider this: there is nothing partial about knowledge.
Every aspect is whole, and therefore no aspect is separate. YOU are an aspect of
knowledge, being in the Mind of God, Who KNOWS you. All knowledge must be yours,
for in you IS all knowledge. Perception, at its loftiest, is never complete.
Even the perception of the Holy Spirit, as perfect as perception can be, is
without meaning in Heaven. Perception can reach everywhere under His guidance,
for the vision of Christ beholds everything in light. But no perception, however
holy, will last forever.
T 13 B. The Role of Healing
T 13 B 1. Perfect perception, then, has many elements in common with
knowledge, making transfer to it possible. Yet the last step must be taken by
God, because the last step in your redemption, which seems to be in the future,
was accomplished by God in your creation. The separation has not interrupted it.
Creation cannot BE interrupted. The separation is merely a faulty formulation of
reality, with no effect at all. The miracle, without a function in Heaven, IS
needful here. Aspects of reality can still be seen, and they will replace
aspects of UNreality. Aspects of reality can be seen in everything and
everywhere. Yet only God can gather them together by crowning them as one with
the final gift of eternity.
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T 13 B 2. Apart from the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit has no function.
He is not separate from either, being in the mind of both, and knowing that Mind
is one. He is a thought of God, and God has given Him to you, because He has no
thoughts He does not share. His message speaks of timelessness in time, and that
is why Christ’s vision looks on everything with love. Yet even Christ’s vision
is not His reality. The golden aspects of reality, which spring to light under
His loving gaze, are partial glimpses of the Heaven that lies beyond them.
T 13 B 3. This is the miracle of creation; THAT IT IS ONE FOREVER. Every
miracle you offer to the Son of God, is but the true perception of one aspect of
the whole. Though every aspect IS the whole, you cannot know this, until you see
that every aspect is the SAME, perceived in the SAME light; and THEREFORE one.
Everyone seen WITHOUT the past thus brings you nearer to the end of time, by
bringing healed and healing sight into the darkness, and enabling the world to
see. For light must come into the darkened world, to make Christ’s vision
possible even here. Help Him to give His gift of light to all who think they
wander in the darkness, and let Him gather them into His quiet sight that makes
them one.
T 13 B 4. They are all the same; all beautiful, and equal in their holiness.
And He will offer them unto His Father, as they were offered unto Him. There is
ONE miracle, as there is ONE reality. And every miracle you do contains them
all, as every aspect of reality you see blends quietly into the one reality of
God. The only miracle that ever was, is God’s most holy Son, created in the One
Reality that is his Father. Christ’s vision is His gift to you. His Being is His
Father’s gift to Him.
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T 13 B 5. Be you content with healing, for Christ’s gift you CAN bestow, and
your Father’s gift you CANNOT lose. Offer Christ’s gift to everyone and
everywhere. For miracles, offered the Son of God through the Holy Spirit, attune
you to reality. The Holy Spirit knows your part in the redemption, and who are
seeking you, and where to find them. Knowledge is far beyond your individual
concern. You who are part of it, and all of it, need only realize that it is of
the Father, NOT of you. Your role in the redemption leads you to it, by
re-establishing its oneness in your minds.
T 13 B 6. When you have seen your brothers as yourself, you will be RELEASED
to knowledge, having learned to free yourself, of Him who knows of freedom.
Unite with me, under the holy banner of His teaching, and, as we grow in
strength, the power of God’s Son will move in us, and we will leave no-one
untouched and no-one left alone. And suddenly, time will be over, and we will
all unite in the Eternity of God the Father. The holy light you saw OUTSIDE
yourself, in every miracle you offered to your brothers, will be RETURNED to
you. And, KNOWING that the light is IN you, your creations will be there with
you, as you are in your Father.
T 13 B 7. As miracles in this world join you to your brothers, so do your
creations establish your fatherhood in Heaven. YOU are the witnesses to the
Fatherhood of God, and He has given you the power to create the witnesses to
YOURS, which is as HIS. Deny a brother here, and you deny the witnesses to your
fatherhood in Heaven. The miracle which God created is perfect, as are the
miracles which YOU created in His Name. They need no healing, nor do you, when
you know THEM.
T 13 B 8. But in this world, your perfection is unwitnessed. God knows it, but
YOU do not, and so you do not share His witness to it. Nor do you witness unto
Him, for reality is witnessed to as one. God waits your witness to His Son, and
to Himself. The miracles you do on earth are lifted up to Heaven, and to Him.
They witness to what you do not know, and, as they reach the gates of Heaven,
God will open them. For never would He leave His own beloved Son outside them,
and beyond Himself.
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T 13 C. The Shadow of Guilt
T 13 C 1. Guilt remains the only thing that hides the Father, for guilt is the
attack upon His Son. The guilty ALWAYS condemn, and having done so, they WILL
condemn, linking the future to the past, as is the ego’s law. Fidelity unto this
law lets no light in, for it DEMANDS fidelity to darkness, and FORBIDS
awakening. The ego’s laws are strict, and breaches are severely punished.
Therefore, give no obedience to its laws, for they ARE laws of punishment. And
those who follow them believe that they are guilty, and so they MUST condemn.
Between the future and the past, the laws of God must intervene, if you would
free yourselves. Atonement stands between them, like a lamp that shines so
brightly, that the chain of darkness, in which you bound yourselves will
disappear.
T 13 C 2. Release from guilt is the ego’s whole undoing. MAKE NO-ONE FEARFUL,
for his guilt is yours, and, by obeying the ego’s harsh commandments, you bring
its condemnation of yourself, and you will not escape the punishment it offers
those who obey it. The ego rewards fidelity to it with pain, for faith in it IS
pain. And faith can be rewarded only in terms of the belief in which the faith
was placed. Faith MAKES the power of belief, and where it is invested,
determines its reward. For faith is ALWAYS given what is treasured, and what is
treasured IS returned to you.
T 13 C 3. The world can give you only what you gave it, for being nothing but
your own projection, it HAS no meaning apart from what you found in it, and
placed your faith in. Be faithful unto darkness, and you will NOT see, because
your faith will be rewarded as you GAVE it. You will accept your treasure,
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and if you place your faith in the past, the future WILL be like it. Whate’er
you hold as dear you think is YOURS. The power of your VALUING will make it so.
T 13 C 4. Atonement brings a re-evaluation of everything you cherish, for it
is the means by which the Holy Spirit can separate the false and the true, which
you have accepted into your minds WITHOUT DISTINCTION. Therefore, you cannot
value one without the other, and guilt has become as true FOR YOU as innocence.
You do not believe the Son of God is guiltless, because you see the past, and
see HIM not. When you condemn a brother, you are saying, "I who was guilty
choose to REMAIN so." You have denied HIS freedom, and by so doing, you have
denied the witness unto YOURS. You could as easily have FREED him from the past,
and lifted from his mind the cloud of guilt that binds him to it. And in HIS
freedom would have been your OWN.
T 13 C 5. Lay not his guilt upon him, for his guilt lies in his secret that he
thinks that he has done this unto YOU. Would you then teach him that he is RIGHT
in his delusion? The idea that the guiltless Son of God can attack himself, and
MAKE him guilty, is insane. In ANY form, in ANYONE, BELIEVE THIS NOT. For sin
and condemnation are the same, and the belief in one is faith in the other,
calling for punishment INSTEAD of love. NOTHING can justify insanity, and to
call for punishment upon yourself, MUST be insane.
T 13 C 6. See no-one, then, as guilty, and you will affirm the truth of
guiltlessness unto YOURSELF. In every condemnation that you offer the Son of
God, lies the conviction of your OWN guilt.
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If you would have the Holy Spirit make you free of it, accept His offer of
Atonement for all your brothers. For so you learn that it is true for YOU.
Remember always that it is impossible to condemn the Son of God IN PART. Those
whom you see as guilty, become the witnesses to guilt in YOU, and you will see
it there, for it IS there, until it is undone. Guilt is ALWAYS in your own mind,
which has condemned ITSELF. Project it not, for while you do, it cannot BE
undone. With everyone whom you release from guilt, great is the joy in Heaven,
where the witnesses to your fatherhood rejoice.
T 13 C 7. Guilt makes you blind. For while you see one spot of guilt within
you, you will NOT see the light. And by projecting it, the WORLD seems dark, and
shrouded in your guilt. You throw a dark veil over it, and cannot see it,
BECAUSE YOU CANNOT LOOK WITHIN. You are afraid of what you would see there, but
it is NOT there. THE THING YOU FEAR IS GONE. If you would look within, you would
see only the Atonement, shining in quiet and in peace, upon the altar to your
Father. Do not be afraid to look within. The ego tells you all is black with
guilt within you, and bids you NOT to look. Instead, it bids you look upon your
brothers, AND SEE THE GUILT IN THEM.
T 13 C 8. Yet this you cannot do, without remaining blind. For those who see
their brothers dark, and guilty in the dark in which they shroud them, are too
afraid to look upon the light within. Within you is not what you believe is
there, and what you put your faith in. Within you is the holy sign of perfect
faith your Father has in you. He does not value you as you do. He knows Himself,
and knows the truth in YOU. He knows THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE, for He knows not of
differences. Can you see guilt where God KNOWS there is perfect innocence? You
can DENY His knowledge, but you cannot change it. Look, then, upon the light He
placed within you, and learn that what you feared was there HAS BEEN replaced
with love.
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T 13 D. Release and Restoration
T 13 D 1. You are accustomed to the notion that the mind can see the source of
pain where it is not. The doubtful service of displacement is to hide the REAL
source of your guilt, and KEEP from your awareness the full perception THAT IT
IS INSANE. Displacement always is maintained by the illusion that the source,
from which attention is diverted, must be TRUE. And MUST BE FEARFUL, or you
would not have displaced the guilt onto what you believed to be LESS fearful.
You are therefore willing, with little opposition, to look upon all sorts of
"sources" underneath awareness, provided that they are not the deeper source, to
which they bear no real relationship at all. Insane ideas HAVE no real
relationships, for that is why they are insane.
T 13 D 2. No real relationship can rest on guilt, or even hold one spot of it,
to mar its purity. For all relationships which guilt has touched, are used but
to avoid the person AND the guilt. What strange relationships you have made for
this strange purpose! And you forgot that real relationships are holy, and
cannot be used by YOU at all. They are used only by the Holy Spirit, and it is
that that MAKES them pure. If you displace YOUR guilt upon them, the Holy Spirit
cannot use them. For, by pre-empting for your OWN ends what you should have
given HIM, he cannot use them unto YOUR release. No-one who would unite in ANY
way, with ANYONE, for his OWN salvation will find it in that strange
relationship. It is not shared, and so it is not real.
T 13 D 3. In any union with a brother, in which you seek to lay your guilt
upon him, or share it with him, or perceive his own, you WILL feel guilty. Nor
will you find satisfaction and peace with him, because your union with him is
NOT real. You will see guilt in that relationship, because you PUT it there. It
is inevitable that those who suffer guilt WILL attempt to displace it, because
they DO believe in it. Yet, though they suffer, they will not look within, and
let it GO. They cannot know they love, and cannot understand what loving IS.
Their main concern is to perceive the source of guilt
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outside themselves, BEYOND their own control.
T 13 D 4. When you maintain that you are guilty, but the source lies in the
PAST, you are NOT looking inward. The past is not in you. Your weird
associations to it have no meaning in the present. Yet you let them stand
between you and your brothers, with whom you find no REAL relationships at all.
Can you expect to use your brothers as a means to solve the past, and still to
see them as they really are? Salvation is not found by those who use their
brothers to resolve problems which are not there. You wanted not salvation in
the past. Would you impose your idle wishes on the present, and hope to find
salvation NOW?
T 13 D 5. Determine, then, to be not as you were. Use no relationship to hold
you to the past, but with each one, each day, be born again. A minute, even
less, will be enough to free you from the past, and give your mind in peace over
to the Atonement. When everyone is welcome to you as you would have yourself be
welcome to your Father, you will see no guilt in you. For you will have accepted
the Atonement, which shone within you all the while you dreamed of guilt, and
would not look within and see it.
T 13 D 6. As long as you believe that guilt is justified in ANY way, in
ANYONE, WHATEVER he may do, you will not look within, where you would ALWAYS
find Atonement. The end of guilt will never come as long as you believe there is
a REASON for it. For you must learn that guilt is ALWAYS totally insane, and HAS
no reason. The Holy Spirit seeks not to dispel reality. If GUILT were real,
ATONEMENT would not be. The purpose of Atonement is to dispel illusions, not to
establish them as real, and THEN forgive them. The Holy Spirit does not keep
illusions in your mind to frighten you, and show them to you fearfully, to
demonstrate what He has saved you from.
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T 13 D 7. What He has saved you from is GONE. Give no reality to guilt, and
see NO reason for it. The Holy Spirit does what God would have Him do, and has
always done so. He has seen separation, but knows of union. He teaches healing,
but He also knows of creation. He would have you see and teach as He does, and
through Him. But what He knows, you do not know, though it is yours. NOW it is
given you to heal and teach, to make what will be, now. As yet it is NOT now.
The Son of God believes that he is lost in guilt, alone in a dark world, where
pain is pressing everywhere upon him, from WITHOUT. When he has looked within,
and seen the radiance there, he will remember how much his Father loves him. And
it will seem incredible that he has ever thought his Father loved him not, and
looked upon him as condemned.
T 13 D 8. The moment that you realize guilt is INSANE, WHOLLY unjustified, and
WHOLLY without reason, you will not fear to look upon the Atonement, and accept
it wholly. You who have been unmerciful unto yourselves, do not remember your
Father’s love. And, looking without mercy upon your brothers, you do not
remember how much You love HIM. Yet it is forever true. In shining peace within
you, is the perfect purity in which you were created. Fear not to look upon the
lovely truth in you. Look THROUGH the cloud of guilt that dims your vision, and
look PAST darkness, to the holy place where you will see the light.
T 13 D 9. The altar to your Father is as pure as He Who raised it to Himself.
Nothing can keep from you what Christ would have you see. His will is like His
Father’s, and He offers mercy to every Child of God, as He would have YOU do.
RELEASE from guilt, as you would BE released. There is no other way to look
within, and see the light of love shining as steadily, and as surely, as God
Himself has always loved His Son. AND AS HIS SON LOVES HIM. There is no fear in
love, for love is guiltless. You who have always loved your Father can have no
fear, for ANY reason, to look within, and see your holiness.
T 13 D 10. You cannot be as you believed you were. Your guilt is without
reason, because it is not in the Mind of God, where YOU are. And this IS
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reason, which the Holy Spirit would RESTORE to you. He would remove only
illusions. All else He would have you see. And in Christ’s vision He would show
you the perfect purity that is forever within God’s Son. You cannot enter into
REAL relationship with any of God’s Sons, unless you love them all, and EQUALLY.
Love is not special. If you single out PART of the Sonship for your love, you
are imposing guilt on ALL your
T 13 D 11. You can love ONLY as God loves. Seek not to love unlike Him, for
there IS no love apart from His. Until you recognize that this is true, you will
have no idea what love is like. No-one who condemns a brother, can see himself
as guiltless in the peace of God. If he IS guiltless and in peace, and sees it
not, he IS delusional, and has not looked upon himself. To him I say, "Behold
the Son of God, and look upon his purity, and be still. In quiet, look upon his
holiness, and offer thanks unto his Father, that no guilt has ever touched him."
T 13 D 12. No illusion that you have ever held against him, has touched his
innocence in any way. His shining purity, wholly untouched by guilt, and wholly
loving, is bright within you. Let us look upon him together, and love him. For
in our love of him is your guiltlessness. But look upon yourself, and gladness
and appreciation for what you see, will banish guilt forever. I thank You,
Father, for the purity of Your most holy Son, whom Thou hast created guiltless
forever.
T 13 D 13. Like you, my faith and my belief are centered on what I treasure.
The difference is that I love ONLY what God loves with me, and, because of this,
I treasure you beyond the value that you set on yourselves, even unto the worth
that God has placed upon you. I love all that He created. And all my faith and
my belief I offer unto it. My faith is you is strong as all the love I give my
Father. My trust in you is without limit, and without the fear that you will
hear me not. I thank the Father for your loveliness, and for the many gifts that
you will let me offer to the Kingdom, in honor of its wholeness that is of God.
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T 13 D 14. Praise be unto you, who make the Father One with His Own Son. Alone
we are all lowly, but together, we shine with brightness so intense, that none
of us alone can even think on it. Before the glorious radiance of the Kingdom,
guilt melts away, and, transformed into kindness, will never more be what it
was. Every reaction that you experience will be so purified, that it is fitting
as a hymn of praise unto your Father. See only praise of Him in what He has
created, for He will never cease His praise of YOU. United in this praise, we
stand before the gates of Heaven, where we will surely enter, in our
blamelessness. God loves you. Could I, then, lack faith in you, and love Him
perfectly?
T 13 D 15. Forgetfulness and sleep, and even death, become the ego’s best
advice for how to deal with the perceived and harsh intrusion of guilt on peace.
Yet no-one sees himself in conflict, and ravaged by a cruel war, unless he
believes that both "opponents" in the war are real. Believing this, he must
escape, for such a war would surely end his peace of mind, and so destroy him.
But if he could but realize the war is between forces that are real and UNREAL
powers, he could look upon himself, and SEE his freedom. No-one finds himself
ravaged and torn in endless battle, which he HIMSELF perceives as wholly without
meaning.
T 13 D 16. God would not have His Son embattled, and so His Son’s imagined
"enemy," which he made, is TOTALLY unreal. You are but trying to escape a bitter
war from which you HAVE escaped. The war is gone. For you have heard the hymn of
freedom, rising unto Heaven. Gladness and joy belong to God for your release,
because you made it not. But, as you made not freedom, so you made not a war
that could ENDANGER freedom. Nothing destructive ever was, or will be. The war,
the guilt, the past ,are gone as one, into the unreality from which they came.
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T 13 E. The Guarantee of Heaven
October 28, 1966
T 13 E 1. When we are all united in Heaven, you will value NOTHING that you
value here. For nothing that you value here you value wholly, and so you do not
value it at all. Value is where God placed it, and the value of what God esteems
cannot BE judged, for it has been ESTABLISHED. It is WHOLLY of value. It can
merely be appreciated or not. To value it partially is not to KNOW its value. In
Heaven is everything God values, and nothing else. Heaven is perfectly
unambiguous. Everything is clear and bright, and calls forth ONE response. There
is no darkness, and there is no contrast. There is no variation. There is no
interruption. There is a sense of peace so deep, that no dream in this world has
ever brought even a dim imagining of what it is.
T 13 E 2. Nothing in this world can give this peace, for nothing in this world
is wholly shared. Perfect perception can merely show you what is CAPABLE of
being wholly shared. It can also show you the RESULTS of sharing, while you
still remember the results of NOT sharing. The Holy Spirit points quietly to the
contrast, knowing that you will finally let Him judge the difference for you,
allowing Him to demonstrate which MUST be true. He has perfect faith in your
final judgment because He knows that He will make it FOR you. To doubt this
would be to doubt that His mission will be fulfilled. How is this possible, when
His mission is of God?
T 13 E 3. You whose minds are darkened by doubt and guilt, remember this; God
gave the Holy Spirit to you, and gave Him the mission to remove all doubt, and
every trace of guilt, that His dear Son has laid upon himself. It is IMPOSSIBLE
that this mission fail.
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T 13 E 4. Nothing can prevent what God would have accomplished from
accomplishment. Whatever your reactions to the Holy Spirit’s voice may be,
whatever voice you choose to listen to, whatever strange thoughts may occur to
you, God’s Will IS done. You WILL find the peace in which He has established
you, because He does not change His Mind. He is invariable as the peace in which
you dwell, and of which the Holy Spirit reminds you.
T 13 E 5. You will not remember change and shift in Heaven. You have need of
contrast only here. Contrast and differences are necessary teaching aids, for by
them you learn what to avoid, and what to seek. When you have learned this, you
will find the answer that makes the need for ANY differences disappear. Truth
comes of its own will unto its own. When you have learned that you BELONG to
truth, it will flow lightly over you, without a difference of any kind. For you
will need no contrast to help you realize that this is what you want, and ONLY
this.
T 13 E 6. Fear not the Holy Spirit will fail in what your Father has given Him
to do. The Will of God can fail in NOTHING. Have faith in only this one thing,
and it will be sufficient; God wills you be in Heaven, and nothing can keep you
from it, or IT from you. Your wildest misperceptions, your weird imaginings,
your blackest nightmares all mean nothing. They will not prevail against the
peace God wills for you. The Holy Spirit will restore your sanity, because
insanity is NOT the Will of God. If that suffices Him, it is enough for you. You
will not keep what God would have removed, because it breaks communication with
you, with whom He would communicate. His voice WILL be heard.
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T 13 E 7. The communication link which God Himself placed within you, joining
your minds with His, CANNOT be broken. You may believe you WANT it broken, and
this belief DOES interfere with the deep peace, in which the sweet and constant
communication which God would share, with you is known. Yet His channels of
reaching out cannot be wholly closed, and separated from Him. Peace will be
yours, because His peace still flows to you, from Him Whose Will IS peace. You
have it NOW. The Holy Spirit will teach you how to USE it, and by projecting it,
to learn that it is in you.
T 13 E 8. God willed you Heaven, and will ALWAYS will you nothing else. The
Holy Spirit knows ONLY of His Will. There is no chance that Heaven will not be
yours, for God is sure, and what He wills is sure as He is. You will learn
salvation, because you will learn HOW TO SAVE. It will not be possible to exempt
yourself from what the Holy Spirit wills to teach you. Salvation is as sure as
God. His certainty suffices. Learn that even the darkest nightmare that
disturbed the mind of God’s sleeping Son, holds no power over him. He WILL learn
the lesson of awaking. God watches over him, and light surrounds him.
T 13 E 9. Can God’s Son lose himself in dreams, when God has placed WITHIN him
the glad call to waken and be glad? He cannot separate himself from what is IN
him. His sleep will not withstand the call to wake. The mission of redemption
will be fulfilled, as surely as the creation will remain unchanged throughout
eternity. You do not have to know that Heaven is yours, to make it so. It IS so.
But the will of God must be accepted as your will, to know it. The Holy Spirit
cannot fail to undo FOR you everything
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you have learned, that teaches you what is not true must be reconciled with
truth. This is the reconciliation which the ego would substitute for your
reconciliation unto sanity and unto peace.
T 13 E 10. The Holy Spirit has a very different kind of reconciliation in His
mind for you, and one which He WILL effect, as surely as the ego will NOT effect
what it attempts. Failure is of the ego, NOT of God. From Him you CANNOT wander,
and there is no possibility that the plan the Holy Spirit offers to everyone,
for the salvation OF everyone, will not be perfectly accomplished. You WILL be
released, and you will not remember anything you made that was not created FOR
you, and BY you in return. For how can you remember what was never true, or NOT
remember what has always been? It is this reconciliation with truth, and ONLY
truth, in which the peace of Heaven lies.
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T 13 F. The Testimony of Miracles
November 2, 1966
T 13 F 1. Yes, you are blessed indeed. But in this world, you do not know it.
Yet you have the means for learning it, and seeing it quite clearly. The Holy
Spirit uses logic as easily, and as well, as does the ego, except that His
conclusions are NOT insane. They take a direction exactly opposite, pointing as
clearly to Heaven as the ego points to darkness and to death. We have followed
much of the ego’s logic, and have seen its logical conclusions. And having seen
them, we have realized that they can not be seen but in delusions. For there
alone their seeming clearness SEEMS to be clearly seen. Let us now turn away
from them, and follow the simple logic, by which the Holy Spirit teaches you the
simple conclusions that speak for truth, and ONLY truth.
T 13 F 2. If you are blessed and do not know it, you need to learn it must be
so. The knowledge is not taught, but its conditions must be acquired, for it is
they that have been thrown away. You CAN learn to bless, and CANNOT give what
you have not. If, then, you OFFER blessing, it MUST have come first to yourself.
And you must also have ACCEPTED it as yours, for how else could you give it away
? This is why your miracles offer YOU the testimony that you are blessed. If
what you offer IS complete forgiveness, you MUST have let guilt go, accepting
the Atonement for yourself, and learning you are guiltless. How could you learn
what has been done for you, but which you do not know, unless you do what you
would HAVE to do, if it HAD been done unto you?
T 13 F 3. INdirect proof of truth is needed in a world made of denial, and
without direction. You will perceive the need for this, if you will realize that
to deny is the decision NOT to know. The logic of the world MUST therefore lead
to nothing, for its GOAL is nothing. If you decide to have and give and BE
nothing except a dream, you MUST direct your thoughts unto oblivion. And if you
have and give and are EVERYTHING, and all this has been DENIED, your thought
system is closed off, and wholly separated from the truth.
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This IS an insane world, and do not underestimate the actual extent of its
insanity. There is no area of your perception that it has not touched, and your
dream IS sacred to you.
T 13 F 4. That is why God placed the Holy Spirit IN you, where you placed the
dream. Seeing is ALWAYS outward. Were your thoughts wholly of YOU, the
thought-system which you have made, would be forever dark. The thoughts which
the mind of God’s Son projects, have all the power that he gives to them. The
thoughts he shares with God are BEYOND his belief, but those he made ARE his
beliefs. And it is THESE, and NOT the truth, that he has chosen to defend and
love. They will not be taken from him. But they can be given up by him, for the
Source of their undoing is IN him. There is nothing in the world to teach him
that the logic of the world is totally insane, and leads to nothing. But in him
who made this insane logic, there is One Who KNOWS it leads to nothing, for He
knows of everything.
T 13 F 5. Any direction which will lead you where the Holy Spirit leads you
not, goes nowhere. Anything you den, which He knows to be true, you have denied
YOURSELF, and He must therefore teach you NOT to deny it. Undoing IS indirect,
as doing is. You were created only to create, neither to see NOR do. These are
but indirect expressions of the will to live, which has been blocked by the
capricious and unholy whim of death and murder, that your Father shared not with
you. You have set yourselves the task of sharing what can not be shared. And
while you think it possible to LEARN to do this, you will not believe all that
IS possible to learn to do.
T 13 F 6. The Holy Spirit, therefore, must begin His teaching, by showing you
what you can NEVER learn. His MESSAGE is not indirect, but He must introduce the
simple truth into a thought-system which has become so
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twisted and so complex, that you cannot SEE that it means nothing. HE merely
looks at its foundation, and dismisses it. But YOU, who cannot undo what you
have made, nor escape the heavy burden of it’s dullness that lies upon your
minds, cannot see THROUGH it. It deceives you, because you chose to deceive
yourselves. Those who choose to BE deceived, will merely attack direct
approaches, which would seem but to encroach upon deception, and strike at it.
T 13 G. The Happy Learner
T 13 G 1. The Holy Spirit needs a happy learner, in whom His mission can be
happily accomplished. You who are steadfastly devoted to misery, must first
recognize that you ARE miserable and NOT happy. The Holy Spirit cannot teach
without this contrast, for you believe that misery IS happiness. This has so
confused you, that you have undertaken to learn to do what you can NEVER do,
believing that, UNLESS you learn it, you will not be happy. You do not realize
that the foundation on which this most peculiar learning goal depends, means
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. This DOES make sense to you.
T 13 G 2. Have faith in nothing, and you will FIND the treasure that you
sought. But you will add another burden to your mind, ALREADY burdened, or you
would not have sought another. You will believe that nothing is OF VALUE, and
will value it. A little piece of glass, a speck of dust, a body, or a war, are
one to you. For if you value ONE thing made of nothing, you HAVE believed that
nothing can be precious, and that you can learn how to make the untrue true. The
Holy Spirit, SEEING where you are, but KNOWING you are elsewhere, begins His
lesson in simplicity with the fundamental teaching that TRUTH IS TRUE. This is
the hardest lesson you will ever learn, and in the end, the ONLY one.
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T 13 G 3. Simplicity is very difficult for twisted minds. Consider all the
distortions you have made of nothing; all the strange forms and feelings, and
actions and reactions, that you have woven out of it. Nothing is so alien to you
as the simple truth and nothing are you less inclined to listen to. The contrast
between what is true, and what is not, is PERFECTLY apparent, yet you do not see
it. The simple and the obvious are not apparent to those who would make palaces
and royal robes of nothing, believing they are kings with golden crowns because
of them. All this the Holy Spirit sees, and teaches, simply, that all this is
not true.
T 13 G 4. To these unhappy learners, who would teach themselves nothing, and
delude themselves into believing that it is NOT nothing, the Holy Spirit says,
with steadfast quietness, "The truth is true. Nothing else matters, nothing else
is real, and everything beside it is not there. Let Me make the one distinction
for you, which you cannot make, but need to learn. Your faith in nothing IS
deceiving you. Offer your faith to Me, and I will place it gently in the holy
place where it belongs. You will find NO deception there, but only the simple
Truth. And you will love it, because you will UNDERSTAND it."
T 13 G 5. Like you, the Holy Spirit did not make truth. Like God, He KNOWS it
to be true. He brings the light of truth into the darkness, and LETS it shine on
you. And as it shines, your brothers see it, and, realizing that this light is
not what you have made, they see in you more than YOU see. They will be happy
learners of the lesson which this light brings to them, because it teaches them
release from nothing, and from all the works of nothing. The heavy chains which
seem to bind them unto despair, they do not see as nothing, until you bring the
light to them. And THEN they see the chains have disappeared, and so they MUST
have been nothing.
T 13 G 6. And YOU will see it with them. BECAUSE you taught them gladness and
release, they will become YOUR teachers in release and gladness. When you teach
anyone that truth is true, you learn it WITH him. And so you learn
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that what seemed hardest was the easiest. Learn to be happy learners. You will
NEVER learn how to make nothing everything. But see that this HAS been your
goal, and RECOGNIZE how foolish it has been. Be glad it is undone, for, when you
look at it in simple honesty, it IS undone. We said before, "Be not content with
nothing," for you HAVE believed that nothing could content you. IT IS NOT SO.
T 13 G 7. If you would be a happy learner, you must give EVERYTHING that you
have learned over to the Holy Spirit, to be Unlearned for you. And then begin to
learn the joyous lessons that come quickly, on the firm foundation that truth is
true. For what is builded there IS true, and BUILT on truth. The universe of
learning will open up before you, in all its gracious simplicity. With truth
before you, you will not look back. The happy learner meets the conditions of
learning here, as he also meets the conditions of knowledge in the Kingdom.
T 13 G 8. All this lies in the Holy Spirit’s plan to free you from the past,
and open up the way to freedom for you. For truth IS true. What else could ever
be, or ever was? This simple lesson holds the key to the dark door, which you
believe is locked forever. You MADE this door of nothing, and behind it IS
nothing. The key is only the light which shines away the shapes and forms and
fears of nothing. Accept this key to freedom, from the hands of Christ, Who
gives it to you, that you may join Him in the holy task of bringing light to
darkness. For, like your brothers, you do not realize the light has come, and
freed you from the sleep of darkness.
T 13 G 9. Behold your brothers in their freedom, and learn of them how to be
FREE of darkness. The light in you will waken them, and they will not leave YOU
asleep. The Vision of Christ is given , the very instant that it is perceived.
Where everything is clear, it is all holy. The quietness of its simplicity is so
compelling, that you will realize it is IMPOSSIBLE to deny the simple truth. For
there IS nothing else. God is everywhere, and His Son is in Him with everything.
Can he sing the dirge of sorrow, when THIS is true?
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T 13 H. The Decision for Guiltlessness
November 6, 1966.
T 13 H 1. Learning will be commensurate with motivation, and the interference
in your motivation for learning, is exactly the same as that which interferes
with ALL your thinking. The happy learner cannot FEEL GUILTY about learning.
This is so essential to learning, that it should never be forgotten. The
guiltless learner learns so easily, because his thoughts are free. But this
entails the recognition that guilt is INTERFERENCE, NOT salvation, and serves no
useful function at all.
T 13 H 2. You are accustomed to using guiltlessness merely to offset the pain
of guilt, and do not look upon it as having value IN ITSELF. You believe that
guilt and guiltlessness are BOTH of value, each representing an escape from what
the other does not offer you. You do not want either alone, for without both you
do not see yourselves as whole and therefore happy. You are whole ONLY in your
guiltlessness, and only in your guiltlessness CAN you be happy. There IS no
conflict here.
T 13 H 3. To wish for guilt in ANY way, in ANY form, will lost appreciation of
the value of your guiltlessness, and push it from your sight. There is no
compromise that you can make with guilt, and escape the pain which ONLY
guiltlessness allays. Learning is living here, as creating is Being in Heaven.
Whenever the pain of guilt seems to attract you, remember that, if you yield to
it, you are deciding AGAINST your happiness, and will not learn how to be happy.
Say, therefore, to yourself, gently, but with the conviction born of the love of
God and of His Son:
What I experience I will make manifest.
If I am guiltless, I have nothing to fear.
I choose to testify to my ACCEPTANCE of the Atonement,
NOT for its rejection.
I would accept my guiltlessness by making it manifest,
and SHARING it.
Let me bring peace to God’s Son from his Father.
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Nov. 12, 1966
T 13 H 4. Each day, each hour and minute, - even each second, - you are
deciding between the crucifixion and the Resurrection; between the ego and the
Holy Spirit. The ego is the choice for guilt, the Holy Spirit the decision for
blamelessness. The power of decision is all that is yours. What you can decide
BETWEEN is fixed, because there are no alternatives, except truth and illusion.
And there is no overlap between them, because they are opposites which CANNOT be
reconciled, and CANNOT both be true. You are guilty OR guiltless, bound OR free,
happy OR unhappy.
T 13 H 5. The miracle teaches you that you have chosen guiltlessness, freedom,
and joy. It is not a cause, but an EFFECT. It is the natural result of choosing
right, attesting to your happiness that comes from choosing to be free of guilt.
Everyone you offer healing to, returns it. Everyone you attack, keeps it and
cherishes it, by holding it against you. Whether he does this, or does it not,
will make no difference. You will THINK he does. It is impossible to offer what
you do not want, without this penalty. The cost of giving IS receiving. Either
it is a penalty from which you suffer, or the happy purchase of a treasure to
hold dear.
T 13 H 6. No penalty is ever asked of God’s Son, except BY himself and OF
himself. Every chance given him to heal, is another opportunity to replace
darkness with light, and fear with love. If he refuses it, he binds himself to
darkness because he did not choose to free his brother, and enter light with
him. By GIVING power to nothing, he threw away the joyous opportunity to learn
that nothing HAS no power. And, by NOT dispelling, darkness, he became afraid of
darkness AND of light. The joy of learning darkness has no power over the Son of
God, is the happy lesson the Holy Spirit teaches, and would have YOU teach with
Him. It is HIS joy to teach it, as it will be YOURS.
T 13 H 7. The way to teach this simple lesson is merely this; guiltlessness IS
invulnerability. Therefore, make your invulnerability manifest to everyone, and
teach him that, WHATEVER he may try to do to you, your perfect freedom from the
belief that you can be harmed, shows him HE is guiltless. He can do NOTHING that
can hurt you, and by refusing to allow him to THINK he can, you teach him
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that the Atonement, which you have accepted for yourself, is also HIS. There IS
nothing to forgive. No-one can hurt the Son of God. His guilt is wholly without
cause, and, being without cause, CANNOT exist.
T 13 H 8. God is the ONLY Cause, and guilt is not of Him. Teach no-one he has
hurt you, for, if you do, you teach yourself that what is not of God, HAS power
over you. THE CAUSELESS CANNOT BE. Do not attest to it, and do not foster belief
in it in any mind. Remember always MIND is one, and CAUSE is one. You will learn
communication with this oneness ONLY when you learn to DENY the causeless, and
accept the Cause of God as YOURS. The power that God has given to His Son IS
his, and nothing else can His Son see, or choose to look upon, without imposing
on himself the penalty of guilt, IN PLACE of all the happy teaching the Holy
Spirit would gladly offer him.
T 13 H 9. Whenever you decide to make decisions for yourself, you are thinking
self- destructively, and the decision WILL be wrong. It will hurt you, because
of the concept of decision which led to it. It is not true that you can make
decisions BY yourself, or FOR yourself alone. No thought of God’s Son CAN be
separate, or isolated in its effects. Every decision is made for the WHOLE
Sonship, directed in and out, and influencing a constellation larger than
anything you ever dreamed of. Those who accept Atonement ARE invulnerable. But
those who believe they are guilty, WILL respond to guilt, because they think it
is salvation, and will not refuse to see it, and side with it. They BELIEVE that
INCREASING guilt is self-PROTECTION. And they will fail to understand the simple
fact that, what they do not want, MUST hurt them.
T 13 H 10. All this arises because they do not believe that what they want is
GOOD. Yet will was given them BECAUSE it is holy, and will bring to them ALL
that they need, coming as naturally as peace that knows no limits. There is
nothing their wills will not provide, that offers them ANYTHING of value. But,
because they do not understand their will, the Holy Spirit quietly understands
if FOR them, and gives them what THEY will, without effort, strain, or the
impossible burden of deciding what they want and need alone. It will never
happen that you will have to make decisions for yourself. You are not bereft of
help, and Help that KNOWS the answer. Would you be content with little, which is
all that you alone can
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Nov. 12, 1966
offer yourself, when He Who gives you everything will simply OFFER it to you?
T 13 H 11. He will never ask what you have done to make you worthy of the gift
of God. Ask it not therefore of yourselves. Instead, accept His answer, for He
KNOWS you are worthy of everything God wills for you. Do not try to escape the
gift of God, which He so freely, and so gladly offers you. He offers you but
what God gave Him FOR you. You need not decide whether or not you are deserving
of it. God knows you ARE. Would you deny the truth of God’s decision, and place
your pitiful appraisal of yourself, in place of His calm and unswerving value of
His Son? NOTHING can shake God’s conviction of the perfect purity of everything
that He created, for it IS wholly pure. Do not decide against it, for being of
Him it MUST be true.
T 13 H 12. Peace abides in every mind that quietly accepts the plan that God
has set for his Atonement, relinquishing his OWN. You know not of salvation, for
you do not understand it. Make no decisions about what it is, or where it lies,
but ask of the Holy Spirit everything, and leave ALL decisions to His gentle
counsel. The One Who knows the plan, of God which God would have you follow, can
teach you what it IS. Only His wisdom is capable of guiding you to follow it.
Every decision you undertake alone but signifies that you would define what
Salvation is, and what you would be saved from. The Holy Spirit knows that ALL
Salvation is escape from guilt. You have no other "enemy," and against this
strange distortion of the purity of the Son of God, the Holy Spirit is your ONLY
friend.
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T 13 H 13. He is the strong protector of your innocence, which sets you free.
And it is HIS decision to undo everything that would obscure your innocence from
your unclouded mind. Let Him, therefore, be the only guide that you would follow
to Salvation. He knows the way, and leads you gladly on it. WITH Him, you will
not fail to learn what God wills for you is your will. WITHOUT His guidance, you
will think you know alone, and will decide AGAINST your peace, as surely as you
made the wrong decision in ever thinking that Salvation lay in you alone.
Salvation is of Him to Whom God gave it for you. He has not forgotten it. Forget
Him not, and He will make every decision for you, for your Salvation and the
peace of God in you.
T 13 H 14. Seek not to appraise the worth of God’s Son whom He created holy,
for to do so is to evaluate his Father, and judge AGAINST Him. And you WILL feel
guilty for this imagined "crime," which no one in this world, or Heaven, CAN
possibly commit. God’s Spirit teaches only that the "sin" of self replacement on
the throne of God is NOT a source of guilt. What cannot happen, can have no
effects to fear. Be quiet in your faith in Him, Who loves you, and would lead
you out of insanity. Madness may be your choice, but NOT your reality. Never
forget the Love of God, Who HAS remembered you. For it is quite impossible that
He could ever let His Son drop from His loving Mind, wherein he was created, and
where his abode was fixed in perfect peace forever.
T 13 H 15. Say to the Holy Spirit only, "Decide for me," and it is done. For
His decisions are reflections of what God KNOWS about you, and in this light
error of ANY kind becomes impossible. Why would you struggle so frantically to
anticipate all that you CANNOT know,
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when all knowledge lies behind every decision which the Holy Spirit makes FOR
you? Learn of His wisdom and His love, and teach His answer to everyone who
struggles in the dark. For you decide for them AND for yourself. How gracious is
it to decide all things through Him, Whose equal love is given equally to all
alike. He leaves you no one OUTSIDE yourself, alone WITHOUT you. And so He gives
you what is yours, because your Father would have you share it with him.
T 13 H 16. In everything be led by Him, and do not reconsider. Trust Him to
answer quickly, surely, and with love for everyone who will be touched, in any
way by the decision. And everyone will be. Would you take unto yourself the sole
responsibility for deciding what can bring ONLY good to everyone? Would you KNOW
this? You taught yourselves the most unnatural habit of NOT communicating with
your Creator. Yet you remain in close communication with Him, and with
everything that is within Him, as it is within yourself. Unlearn isolation
through His loving guidance, and learn of all the happy communication that you
have thrown away, but could not lose.
T 13 H 17. Whenever you are in doubt what you should do, think of His Presence
in you, and tell yourself this, and ONLY this: "He leadeth me, and knows the
way, which I know not. Yet He will never KEEP from me what He would have me
LEARN. And so I trust Him to communicate to me all that He knows FOR me." Then
let Him teach you quietly how to perceive your guiltlessness, which is ALREADY
there.
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T 13 I. The Way of Salvation
T 13 I 1. When you accept a brother’s guiltlessness, you will see Atonement in
him. For, by proclaiming it in him, you make it YOURS, and you WILL see what you
sought. You will not see the symbol of your brother’s guiltlessness shining
within him, while you still believe it is not there. HIS guiltlessness is YOUR
Atonement. Grant it to him, and you will see the truth of what you have
acknowledged. Yet truth is offered FIRST, to be received, even as God gave it
first to His Son. The first in time means nothing, but the First in Eternity is
God the Father, Who is both First and One. Beyond the First, there is no other,
for there is no order, no second or third, and nothing BUT the First.
T 13 I 2. You who belong to the First Cause, created by Him like unto Himself,
and part of Him, are more than merely guiltless. The state of guiltlessness is
only the condition in which what is not there has been removed, from the
disordered mind that thoughT it WAS. This state, and only this, must YOU attain
with God beside you. For until you do, you will still think that you are
separate from Him. You can feel His Presence next to you, but CANNOT know that
you are one with Him. This need not be taught. Learning applies only to the
condition in which it happens of itself.
T 13 I 3. When you have let all that obscured the truth in your most holy mind
be undone for you, and stand in grace before your Father, He will give Himself
to you, as He has always done. Giving Himself is all He knows, and so it is all
knowledge. For what He knows not cannot be, and therefore cannot be given. Ask
not to be forgiven, for this has already been accomplished. Ask rather to learn
how to forgive, and restore what always was to your unforgiving mind. Atonement
becomes real and visible, to them that USE it. On earth, it is your only
function, and you
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must learn that it is all you WANT to learn.
T 13 I 4. You WILL feel guilty till you learn this. For, in the end, whatever
form it takes, your guilt arises from your failure to fulfill your function in
God’s Mind with all of YOURS. Can you escape this guilt, by failing to fulfill
your function here? You need not understand creation, to do what must be done,
before that knowledge would be meaningful to you. God breaks no barriers;
neither did He MAKE them. When YOU release them, they are gone. God will not
fail, nor ever has, in anything.
T 13 I 5. Decide that God is right, and YOU are wrong, about yourself. He
created you out of Himself, but still within Him. He knows what you are.
Remember that there is no second to Him. There cannot, therefore, be anyone
without His Holiness, nor anyone unworthy of His perfect love. Fail not in your
function of loving in a loveless place, made out of darkness and deceit, for
thus are darkness and deception undone. Fail not YOURSELF, but instead, offer to
God AND YOU His blameless Son. For this small gift of appreciation for His love,
God will Himself exchange your gift for His.
T 13 I 6. Before you make ANY decisions for yourself, remember that you have
decided AGAINST your function in Heaven, and consider carefully whether you WANT
to make decisions here. Your function here is only to decide AGAINST deciding
what you want, in recognition that you do not KNOW. How, then, can you decide
what you should do? Leave all decisions to the One Who speaks for God, and for
your function as He KNOWS it. So will He teach you to remove the awful burden
you have laid upon yourself, by loving not the Son of God, and trying to teach
him guilt instead of love. Give up this frantic and insane attempt,
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which cheats you of the joy of living with your God and Father, and awaking
gladly to His Love and Holiness, which join together as the truth in you, making
you One with Him.
T 13 I 7. When you have learned how to decide WITH God, all decisions become
as easy and as right as breathing. There is no effort, and you will be led as
gently, as if you were being carried along a quiet path in summer. Only your own
volition seems to make deciding hard. The Holy Spirit will not delay at all in
answering your EVERY question what to do. He KNOWS. And He will TELL you, and
then do it FOR you. You who are tired might consider whether this is not more
restful than sleep. For you can bring your guilt into sleeping, but not into
this.
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Chapter XIV - 14 - Bringing Illusions To Truth
T 14 A. Introduction
November 16, 1966.
T 14 A 1. Unless you are guiltless you cannot know God, Whose Will is that you
know Him. Therefore, you MUST be guiltless. But, if you do not accept the
necessary conditions for knowing Him, YOU HAVE DENIED HIM, and do not recognize
Him, though He is all around you. He cannot be known without His Son, whose
guiltlessness IS the condition for knowing Him. Accepting His Son as guilty is
denial of the Father so complete, that knowledge is swept away from recognition,
in the very mind where God Himself has placed it. If you would but listen, and
learn how impossible this is! Do not endow Him with attributes YOU understand.
You made Him not, and anything YOU understand, is not of Him.
T 14 A 2. Your task is not to make reality. It is here, WITHOUT your making,
but NOT without YOU. You who have thrown your selves away, and valued God so
little, hear me speak for Him, and for yourselves. You cannot understand how
much your Father loves you, for there is no parallel in your experience of the
world to help you understand it. There is nothing on earth with which it can
compare, and nothing you have ever felt, APART from Him, that resembles it ever
so faintly. You cannot even give a blessing in perfect gentleness. Would you
know of One Who gives forever, and Who knows of nothing EXCEPT giving?
T 14 A 3. The Children of Heaven live in the light of the blessing of their
Father, because THEY KNOW THAT THEY ARE SINLESS. The Atonement was established
as the means of restoring guiltlessness to the mind which has denied it, and
thus denied Heaven to Itself. Atonement teaches you the true condition of the
Son of God. It does NOT teach you what you are, or what your Father is. The Holy
Spirit, Who remembers this FOR you, merely teaches you how to REMOVE the blocks
that stand between you and what YOU know. His memory is YOURS. If you remember
what YOU have made, you are remembering nothing. Remembrance of reality is in
HIM, and THEREFORE in you.
T 14 B. Guilt and Guiltlessness
T 14 B 1. The guiltless and the guilty are totally incapable of understanding
one
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another. Each perceives the other AS LIKE HIMSELF, making them unable to
communicate, because each sees the other UNLIKE the way he sees HIMSELF. God can
communicate ONLY to the Holy Spirit in your mind, because only He shares the
knowledge of what you are WITH God. And only the Holy Spirit can ANSWER God for
YOU, for only He knows what God IS. Everything ELSE, that YOU have placed within
your mind, CANNOT exist, for what is not in communication with the Mind of God,
has never been. Communication with God is Life. Nothing without it IS at all.
T 14 B 2. The only part of your mind that has reality, is the part that links
you still with God. Would you have ALL of it transformed into a radiant message
of God’s Love, to share with all the lonely ones, who denied Him with you? GOD
MAKES THIS POSSIBLE. Would you deny His yearning to be known? You yearn for Him,
as He for you. This is forever changeless. Accept, then, the immutable. Leave
the world of death behind, and return quietly to Heaven. There is NOTHING of
value here, and EVERYTHING of value there. Listen to the Holy Spirit, and to God
through Him. He speaks of you to YOU. There IS no guilt in you, for God is
blessed in His Son, as the Son is blessed in Him.
T 14 B 3. Each one of you has a special part to play in the Atonement, but the
message given to each to share is always the same; GOD’S SON IS GUILTLESS. Each
one teaches the message differently, and learns it differently. But UNTIL he
teaches it and learns it, he will suffer the pain of dim awareness, that his
true function remains unfulfilled in him. The burden of guilt is heavy, but God
would not have you bound by it. HIS plan for your awaking is as perfect as yours
is fallible. You know not what you do, but He Who knows is with you. His
gentleness is yours, and all the love you share with God, He holds in trust for
you. He would teach you nothing except how to be happy.
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T 14 B 4. Blessed Son of a wholly blessing Father, joy was created FOR you.
Who can condemn whom God has blessed? There is nothing in the Mind of God that
does not share his shining innocence. Creation is the natural extension of
perfect purity. Your only calling here is to devote yourself, with active
willingness, to the denial of guilt in ALL its forms. To accuse is NOT TO
UNDERSTAND. The happy learners of the Atonement become the teachers of the
innocence that is the RIGHT of all that God created. Deny them not what is their
due, for you will not withhold it from them alone.
T 14 B 5. The inheritance of the Kingdom is the right of God’s Son, given him
in his creation. Do not try to steal it from him, or you will ASK for guilt and
WILL experience it. PROTECT his purity from every thought that would steal it
away, and keep it from his sight. BRING INNOCENCE TO LIGHT, in answer to the
call of the Atonement. Never allow purity to remain hidden, but shine away the
heavy veils of guilt, within which the Son of God has hidden himself from his
own sight. We are all joined in the Atonement here, and nothing else can unite
us in this world. So will the world of separation slip away, and full
communication be restored between the Father and the Son.
T 14 B 6. The miracle acknowledges the guiltlessness which MUST have been
denied, to produce NEED of healing. Do not withhold this glad acknowledgment,
for hope of happiness, and release from suffering of every kind, lies in it. Who
is there but wishes to be free of pain? He may not yet have learned HOW to
exchange his guilt for innocence, nor realize that ONLY in this exchange can
freedom from pain be his. But those who have failed to learn need TEACHING, NOT
attack. To attack those who have need of teaching is to fail to learn FROM them.
T 14 B 7. Teachers of innocence, each in his own way, have joined together,
taking their part in the unified curriculum of the Atonement. There is no unity
of learning goals apart from this. There is no conflict in this curriculum,
which has ONE aim, however it is taught. Each effort made on.
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its behalf is offered to the single purpose of RELEASE from guilt, to the
eternal glory of God and His creation. And every teaching that points to this
points straight to Heaven, and to the peace of God. There is no pain, no trial,
no fear, that teaching this can fail to overcome. The power of God Himself
supports this teaching, and GUARANTEES its limitless results
T 14 B 8. Join your own efforts to the Power that cannot fail, and MUST result
in peace. No-one can be untouched by teaching such as this. You will not see
yourself BEYOND the power of God if you teach only this. You will NOT be exempt
from the effect of this most holy lesson, which seeks but to restore what is the
right of God’s creation. From everyone whom you accord release from guilt, you
will INEVITABLY learn YOUR innocence. The circle of Atonement HAS no end. And
you will find ever-increasing confidence in your safe inclusion in what is for
all, in everyone you bring within its safety and its perfect peace.
T 14 B 9. Peace, then, be unto everyone who becomes a teacher of peace. For
peace is the acknowledgment of perfect purity, from which no-one is excluded.
Within its holy circle, is everyone whom God created as His Son. Joy is its
unifying attribute, with no-one left outside, to suffer guilt alone. The power
of God draws everyone to its safe embrace of love and union. Stand quietly
within this circle, and attract all tortured minds to join with you, in the
safety of its peace and holiness. Abide with me within it, as teachers of
Atonement, NOT of guilt.
T 14 B 10. Blessed are ye who teach with me. Our power comes not of us, but of
our Father. In guiltlessness we know Him, as He knows us guiltless. I stand
within the circle, calling YOU to peace. Teach peace with me, and stand with me
on holy ground. Remember for everyone your Father’s power, that He has given
them. Believe not that you cannot teach His perfect peace. Stand not outside,
but join with me within. Fail not the only purpose to which MY teaching calls
you. Restore to God His Son, as He created him, by teaching
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him his innocence.
T 14 B 11. The crucifixion has no part in the Atonement. Only the Resurrection
became my part in it. THAT is the symbol of the RELEASE from guilt, by
guiltlessness. Whomever you perceive as guilty, you would crucify. But you
RESTORE guiltlessness to whomever you SEE as guiltless. Crucifixion is ALWAYS
the ego’s aim. It SEES AS GUILTY, and BY its condemnation, IT WOULD KILL. The
Holy Spirit sees only guiltlessness, and, in His gentleness, He would RELEASE
from fear, and re-establish the reign of love. The power of love is in His
gentleness, which is of God and therefore cannot crucify, nor suffer
crucifixion. The temple you restore becomes YOUR altar, for it was re-built
through YOU. And everything you give to God IS yours. Thus He creates, and thus
must YOU restore.
T 14 B 12. Each one you see you place, within the holy circle of Atonement, or
leave outside, judging him fit for crucifixion or redemption. If you bring him
INTO the circle of purity, you will rest there WITH him. If you leave him
without, you JOIN him there. Judge not, except in quietness which is NOT of you.
Refuse to accept anyone as WITHOUT the blessing of Atonement, and bring him INTO
it by blessing him. Holiness MUST be shared, for therein lies everything that
makes it holy. Come gladly to the holy circle, and look out in peace on all who
think they are outside. Cast no-one out, for this is what HE seeks along with
you. Come, let us join him in the holy place of peace, which is for all of us,
united as one, within the cause of peace.
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T 14 C. Out of the Darkness
- 371 -
November 22, 1966
T 14 C 1. The journey that we undertake together is the change of dark for
light, of ignorance for understanding. NOTHING YOU UNDERSTAND IS FEARFUL. It is
only in darkness and in ignorance that you perceive the frightening, and you
shrink away from it to further darkness. And yet, it is only the hidden that CAN
terrify, NOT for what it IS, but FOR its hiddenness. The obscure is frightening,
BECAUSE you do not understand its meaning. If you did, IT would be clear, and
you would be no longer in the dark. Nothing has HIDDEN value, for what is hidden
CANNOT be shared, and so its value is unknown. The hidden is KEPT APART, but
value ALWAYS lies in joint appreciation. What is concealed CANNOT be loved, and
so it MUST be feared.
T 14 C 2. The quiet light in which the Holy Spirit dwells within you, is
merely perfect openness, in which nothing is hidden, and therefore nothing is
feared. Attack will ALWAYS yield to love, if it is brought TO love, not hidden
FROM it. There is no darkness that the light of love will not dispel, unless it
is concealed from love’s beneficence. What is KEPT
APART from love CANNOT share its healing power, because it has been separated
off, and KEPT IN DARKNESS. The sentinels of darkness watch over it carefully,
and you who made these guardians of illusion out of nothing, are now AFRAID of
them.
T 14 C 3. Would you continue to give imagined power to these strange ideas of
safety? They are neither safe nor unsafe. They do not protect, NEITHER DO THEY
ATTACK. They DO nothing at all, BEING nothing at all. As guardians of darkness
and of ignorance, look to them ONLY for fear, for what they keep obscure IS
fearful. But let them go, and what WAS fearful, will be so no longer. Without
protection of obscurity, ONLY the light of love remains, for only this HAS
meaning, and CAN live in light. Everything else MUST disappear.
T 14 C 4. Death yields to life, simply because destruction IS NOT TRUE. The
light of guiltlessness shines guilt away because, when they are BROUGHT
TOGETHER, the truth
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of one MUST make the falsity of its OPPOSITE perfectly clear. Keep not guilt and
guiltlessness APART, for your belief that you can HAVE THEM BOTH, is
meaningless. All you have done by keeping them apart is LOSE THEIR MEANING, by
confusing them with each other. And so you do not realize that only one means
ANYTHING, and the other is wholly without sense of ANY kind.
T 14 C 5. You have interpreted the separation as a means which you have made
for BREAKING your communication with your Father. The Holy Spirit re-interprets
it as a means of re-establishing what has NOT been broken, but HAS been made
obscure. All things you made have use to Him, for His most holy purpose. He
KNOWS you are not separate from God, but He perceives much in your mind that
lets you THINK you are. All this, and nothing else, would He separate FROM you.
The power of decision, which you made IN PLACE of power of creation, He would
teach you how to use ON YOUR BEHALF. You who made it to crucify yourselves, must
learn of Him how to apply it to the holy cause of restoration.
T 14 C 6. You who speak in dark and devious symbols, do not understand the
language you have made. It HAS no meaning, for its purpose is NOT communication,
but rather, the DISRUPTION of communication. If the purpose of language IS
communication, how can this tongue mean ANYTHING? Yet even this strange and
twisted effort to communicate through NOT communicating, holds enough of love to
MAKE IT MEANINGFUL, IF ITS INTERPRETER IS NOT ITS MAKER. You who made it are but
expressing CONFLICT, from which the Holy Spirit would RELEASE you. Leave what
you would communicate to Him. He will interpret it to you with perfect clarity,
for He knows with Whom you ARE in perfect communication.
T 14 C 7. You know not what you say, and so you know not what is said to you.
But your Interpreter perceives the meaning in your alien language. He will not
attempt to communicate the meaningless. But He WILL separate out all that HAS
meaning, dropping off all the rest, and offering your true communication to
those
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who would communicate as truly WITH you. YOU SPEAK TWO LANGUAGES AT ONCE, and
this MUST lead to unintelligibility. But if one means nothing, and the other
EVERYTHING, only that one is possible for purposes of communication. The other
but INTERFERES with it.
T 14 C 8. The Holy Spirit’s function is ENTIRELY communication. He therefore
MUST remove whatever INTERFERES with it, in order to RESTORE it. Therefore, keep
no source of interference from His sight, for He will NOT attack your sentinels.
But bring them TO Him, and let His gentleness teach you that, in the light, they
are not fearful, and CANNOT serve to guard the dark doors behind which nothing
at all is carefully concealed. We must open all doors, and let the light come
streaming through. There are no hidden chambers in God’s Temple. Its gates are
open wide, to greet His Son. No-one can fail to come where God has called him,
if he close not the door himself upon His Father’s welcome.
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T 14 D. Perception without Deceit
November 23,1966.
T 14 D 1. WHAT DO YOU WANT? Light or darkness, knowledge or ignorance are
yours, but not both. Opposites must be brought together, and not kept apart. For
their separation is only in your mind, and they are reconciled by union, as YOU
are. In union, everything that is not real MUST disappear, for truth IS union.
As darkness disappears in light, so ignorance fades away when knowledge dawns.
Perception is the medium by which ignorance is BROUGHT to knowledge. But the
perception must be without deceit, for otherwise, it becomes the messenger of
ignorance, rather than a helper in the search for truth.
T 14 D 2. The search for truth is but the honest searching out of everything
that INTERFERES with truth. TRUTH IS. And can be neither lost, nor sought, nor
found. It is there, wherever YOU are, being WITHIN you. Yet it CAN be recognized
or unrecognized, real or false, to YOU. If you hide it, it becomes unreal to
you, BECAUSE you hid it, and SURROUNDED IT WITH FEAR. Under each cornerstone of
fear, on which you have erected your insane system of belief, THE TRUTH LIES
HIDDEN. Yet you cannot know this, for, by HIDING truth in fear, you see no
reason to believe the more you LOOK at fear, the LESS you see it, and the
clearer WHAT IT CONCEALS becomes.
T 14 D 3. It is not possible to convince the unknowing that they know. From
their point of view, IT IS NOT TRUE. Yet it IS true, because GOD knows it. These
are clearly opposite viewpoints of what the "unknowing" ARE. To God, unknowing
is impossible. It is therefore not a point of view at all, but merely a belief
in something that does not exist. It is only this BELIEF that the unknowing
have, and BY it, they are wrong about themselves. They have DEFINED themselves
as they were NOT created. Their creation was NOT a point of view, but rather, a
CERTAINTY. Uncertainty BROUGHT to certainty does not retain ANY conviction of
reality.
T 14 D 4. You must have noticed that the emphasis has been on bringing what is
undesirable TO the desirable, what you do NOT want to what you DO. You will
realize
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that salvation MUST come to you this way, if you consider what dissociation IS.
Dissociation is a distorted process of thinking, whereby two systems of belief,
which CANNOT coexist, are BOTH MAINTAINED. It HAS BEEN recognized that, if they
were BROUGHT TOGETHER, their joint acceptance WOULD become impossible. But, if
one is kept in darkness FROM THE OTHER, their SEPARATION seems to keep them both
alive, and equal in their reality. Their JOINING thus becomes the source of
fear, for, if they meet, acceptance MUST be withdrawn from one of them.
T 14 D 5. You CANNOT have them both, for each DENIES the other. Apart, this
fact is lost from sight, for each, in a SEPARATE place, CAN be endowed with firm
belief. BRING THEM TOGETHER, and the fact of their complete incompatibility is
instantly apparent. One WILL go, BECAUSE the other is seen in the SAME place.
Light cannot enter darkness, when a mind BELIEVES in darkness, and will not let
it go. Truth does not struggle AGAINST ignorance, and love does not ATTACK fear.
What needs no protection, does not defend itself. Defense was of YOUR making.
God knows it not.
T 14 D 6. The Holy Spirit uses defenses ON BEHALF of truth, only because you
made them AGAINST it. His perception of them, according to HIS purpose, merely
changes them into a CALL FOR what you have ATTACKED WITH them. Defenses, like
everything you made, must be gently turned to your own good, translated by the
Him from means of self-destruction, to means of preservation and release. His
task is mighty, but the power of God is with Him. Therefore, to Him, it is so
easy, that it was accomplished the instant it was given Him for you.
T 14 D 7. Do not delay yourselves in your return to peace, by wondering how He
can fulfill what God has given Him to do. Leave that to Him Who knows! You are
not asked to do mighty tasks yourself. You are merely asked to do the little He
SUGGESTS you do, trusting Him only to the small extent of believing that, if He
asks it, you can do it. You will SEE how easily ALL that He asks can be
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accomplished. He asks of you but this; - bring to Him every secret you have
locked away from Him. Open every door to Him, and bid Him enter the darkness,
and lighten it away.
T 14 D 8. At YOUR request, He enters gladly. He brings the light to darkness,
if you make the darkness OPEN to Him. But what you hide, He cannot look upon.
For He sees FOR YOU, and unless you look WITH Him, He CANNOT see. The vision of
Christ is not for Him alone, but for Him WITH YOU. Bring, therefore, all your
dark and secret thoughts to Him, and look upon them WITH Him. He holds the
light, and you the darkness. They CANNOT coexist, when both of you TOGETHER look
on them. His judgment MUST prevail, and He will GIVE it to you, as you join your
perception to His. Joining with Him in seeing, is the way in which you learn to
share with Him the interpretation of perception that leads to knowledge.
T 14 D 9. You cannot see alone. Sharing perception with Him Whom God has given
you, teaches you how to RECOGNIZE what you see. It is the recognition that
NOTHING you see means ANYTHING alone. Seeing WITH Him will SHOW you that all
meaning, INCLUDING YOURS, comes not from double vision, but from the gentle
fusing of everything into one meaning, one emotion and one purpose. God has one
Purpose, which He shares with you. The single vision, which the Holy Spirit
offers you, will bring this Oneness to your mind with clarity and brightness so
intense, you could not wish, for all the world, not to accept what God would
have you have. Behold your will, accepting it as His, with all His love as
yours. All honor to you through Him, and through Him unto God.
T 14 D 10. In the darkness you have obscured the glory God gave you, and the
power that He bestowed upon His guiltless Son. All that, lies hidden in every
darkened place shrouded in guilt, and in the dark denial of innocence. Behind
the dark
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doors which you have closed lies nothing, BECAUSE nothing CAN obscure the gift
of God. It is the CLOSING of the doors, that interferes with recognition of the
power of God that shines in you. Banish not power from your mind, but let all
that would hide your glory, be brought to the judgment of the Holy Spirit, and
there undone. Whom He would save for glory IS saved for it. He has promised the
Father that, through Him, you would be released from littleness to glory.
T 14 D 11. To what He promised God, He is wholly faithful, for He shared WITH
God the promise that was given to Him to share with YOU. He shares it still, FOR
YOU. Everything that promises otherwise, great or small, however much or little
valued, He will replace with the one promise GIVEN unto Him to lay upon the
altar to your Father and His Son. No altar stands to God WITHOUT His Son. And
NOTHING brought there that is not equally worthy of BOTH, but will be REPLACED
by gifts wholly acceptable to Father AND to Son. Can you offer guilt to God? You
cannot, then, offer it to His Son. For they are NOT apart, and gifts to one ARE
offered to the other.
T 14 D 12. You know not God, because you know not this. And yet you DO know
God, and ALSO this. All this is safe WITHIN you, where the Holy Spirit shines.
He shines not in division, but in the meeting-place where God, UNITED with His
Son, speaks to His Son THROUGH Him. Communication between what cannot BE divided
CANNOT cease. The holy meeting-place of the unseparated Father and His Son lies
in the Holy Spirit, and in YOU. All interference in the communication that God
Himself wills with His Son is quite impossible here. Unbroken and uninterrupted
love flows constantly between the Father and the Son, as BOTH would have it be.
And so it IS.
T 14 D 13. Let your minds wander not through darkened corridors, AWAY from
Light’s center. You may choose to lead YOURSELVES astray, but you can only be
BROUGHT TOGETHER by the Guide appointed FOR you. He will surely lead you to
where God
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and His Son await your recognition. They are joined in giving you the gift of
Oneness, before which ALL separation vanishes. Unite with what you ARE. You
CANNOT join with anything EXCEPT reality. God’s glory and His Son’s BELONG to
you in truth. They HAVE no opposite, and nothing else CAN you bestow upon
yourselves.
T 14 D 14. There is no substitute for truth. And truth will make this plain to
you, as you are brought into the place where you must MEET with truth. And there
you must be led, through gentle understanding, which can lead you nowhere else.
Where God is, there are YOU. Such IS the truth. Nothing can change the knowledge
GIVEN you by God into UNknowing. Everything God created KNOWS its Creator. For
this is how creation is accomplished, by the Creator, and by His creations. In
the holy meeting-place are joined the Father and His creations, and the
creations of His Son, with them together.
T 14 D 15. There is one link which joins them all together, holding them in the
Oneness out of which creation happens. The link with which the Father joins
Himself to those He gives the power to create LIKE Him, can NEVER be dissolved.
Heaven itself is union with ALL of creation, and with its One Creator. And
Heaven remains the Will of God for YOU. Lay no gifts other than this upon your
altars, for nothing can coexist BESIDE it. Here, your meager offerings are
BROUGHT TOGETHER with the gift of God, and only what is worthy of the Father
will be accepted by the Son, for whom it was intended. To whom God gives
Himself, He IS given. Your little gifts will vanish, on the altar where He has
placed His Own.
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T 14 E. The Recognition of Holiness
November 26, 1966.
T 14 E 1. The Atonement does not MAKE holy. You were CREATED holy. It merely
brings UNholiness TO holiness, or what you MADE, to what you ARE. The bringing
together of truth and illusion, OF THE EGO AND GOD, is the Holy Spirit’s only
function. Keep not your making from your Father, for hiding it has cost you
knowledge of Him, and of yourselves. The knowledge is safe, but wherein is YOUR
safety, APART from it? The making of time, to TAKE THE PLACE of timelessness,
lay in the decision to BE NOT as you WERE. Thus, truth was made past, and the
present was dedicated to illusion. And the past, too, was changed, and
INTERPOSED between what ALWAYS was, and NOW. The past that YOU remember NEVER
was, and represents only the denial of what ALWAYS was.
T 14 E 2. Bringing the ego to God, is but to bring error to truth, where it
stands corrected, because it is the OPPOSITE of what it meets, and is undone
because the CONTRADICTION can no longer stand. How long can contradiction stand,
when its impossible nature is clearly revealed? What disappears in light is NOT
attacked. It merely vanishes, because it is not true. Different realities ARE
meaningless, for reality MUST be one. It CANNOT change with time, or mood, or
chance. Its changelessness is WHAT MAKES IT REAL. This CANNOT be undone. Undoing
is for UNreality. And this, reality WILL do for you.
T 14 E 3. Merely by BEING WHAT IT IS, does truth release you from everything
that it is NOT. The Atonement is so gentle, you need but whisper to it, and all
its power will rush to your assistance and support. You are not frail, with God
beside you. But WITHOUT Him, you are nothing. The Atonement OFFERS YOU GOD. The
gift which you refused, is held by Him in you. His Spirit holds it there FOR
you. God has not left His altar, though His worshippers placed other gods upon
it. The temple still is holy, for the Presence that dwells within it IS
Holiness.
T 14 E 4. In the temple, holiness waits quietly for the return of them that
love it. For the Presence knows they will return to purity and to grace. The
graciousness of God will take them gently in, and cover all their sense of pain
and loss, with the immortal assurance of their Father’s Love. There, fear of
death will be
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replaced with joy of living. For God is Life, and they abide IN Life. Life is as
holy as the Holiness by which it was created. The Presence of Holiness lives in
everything that lives, for Holiness CREATED life, and leaves not what it created
holy as Itself.
T 14 E 5. In the world you, can become a spotless mirror, in which the
holiness of your Creator shines forth from you, to all around you. You can
REFLECT HEAVEN here. But no reflections of the images of other gods must dim the
mirror that would hold God’s reflection in it. Earth can reflect Heaven or hell;
God or the ego. You need but leave the mirror clean, and clear of all the images
of hidden darkness you have drawn upon it. God will shine upon it of Himself.
Only the clear reflection OF Himself can BE perceived upon it. Reflections are
seen in light. In darkness, they are obscure, and their meaning seems to lie
only in shifting interpretations, rather than in themselves.
T 14 E 6. The reflection of God NEEDS no interpretation. II IS CLEAR. Clear
but the mirror, and the message which shines forth from what the mirror holds
out for everyone to see, NO-ONE will fail to understand. It is the message that
the Holy Spirit is holding to the mirror that is in HIM. He recognizes it,
because he has been taught his NEED for it, but knows not where to look to FIND
it. Let him, then, see it in YOU, and share it WITH you. Could you but realize,
for a single instant, the power of healing that the reflection of God, shining
in YOU, can bring to all the world, you COULD not wait to make the mirror of
your mind clean, to receive the image of the Holiness that heals the world.
T 14 E 7. The image of holiness that shines in YOUR mind is NOT obscure, and
will NOT change. Its meaning, to those who look upon it is not obscure, for
everyone perceives it AS THE SAME. All bring their DIFFERENT problems to its
healing light, but ALL their problems are met ONLY with healing there. The
response of holiness, to ANY form of error, is ALWAYS the same. There is no
contradiction in what holiness CALLS FORTH. Its ONE response is healing, without
ANY regard for what is brought TO it.
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T 14 E 8. Those who have learned to offer ONLY healing, because of the
reflection of holiness in them, are ready at last for Heaven. There, holiness is
not a reflection, but rather the ACTUAL CONDITION of what was but reflected TO
them here. God is no image, and His creations, as part of Him, hold Him in them
in truth. They do not merely REFLECT the truth, for THEY ARE truth.
T 14 F. The Shift to Miracles
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T 14 F 1. When no perception stands between God and His Creation, or between
His Children and their own, the knowledge of creation MUST continue forever. The
reflections that you accept into the mirror of your minds in time, but bring
eternity nearer or farther.
T 14 F 2. But eternity ITSELF is beyond ALL time. Reach out of time and touch
it, with the help of its reflection IN you, and you will turn from time to
holiness, as surely as the reflection of holiness calls everyone to lay all
guilt aside. Reflect the peace of Heaven HERE, and bring this world to Heaven.
For the REFLECTION of truth draws everyone TO truth. And as they enter INTO it,
they leave ALL reflections behind. In Heaven, reality is SHARED, and not
reflected. By sharing its reflection HERE, its truth becomes the only perception
which the Son of God accepts. And thus, remembrance of His Father dawns on him,
and he can no longer be satisfied with anything but his own reality.
T 14 F 3. You on earth have no conception of limitlessness, for the world you
seem to live in IS a world of limits. In this world, it is NOT true that
anything without order of difficulty can occur. The miracle, therefore, has a
unique function, and is motivated by a unique Teacher, Who brings the laws of
another world to this one. The miracle is the one thing you can do that
TRANSCENDS order, being based, NOT on differences, but on equality. Miracles are
NOT in competition, and the number that you can do is LIMITLESS. They can be
simultaneous and legion. This is not difficult to understand, once you conceive
of them as possible at all.
T 14 F 4. What is more difficult to grasp is the lack of order of magnitude,
which stamps the miracle as something that MUST come from elsewhere, NOT from
here. From the world’s viewpoint, this is quite impossible. You have experienced
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the lack of competition among your thoughts, which, even though they may
conflict, can occur to you together, and in great numbers. You are so used to
this, that it can cause you little surprise. Yet you are also used to
classifying some of your thoughts as more important, larger, or better, wiser,
or more productive and valuable, than others. And this is true about the
thoughts that cross the mind of those who think they live apart. For some are
reflections of Heaven, while others are motivated by the ego, which but SEEMS to
think.
T 14 F 5. The result is a weaving, changing pattern that never rests, and is
never still. It shifts unceasingly across the mirror of your mind, and the
reflections of Heaven last but a moment, and grow dim, as darkness blots them
out. Where there was light, darkness removes it in an instant, and alternating
patterns of light and darkness, darkness and light, sweep constantly across your
minds. The little sanity that still remains is held together by a sense of order
which YOU establish. Yet the very fact that you can DO this, and bring ANY order
into chaos, shows you that you are NOT an ego, and that MORE than an ego MUST be
in you. For the ego IS chaos, and if it were all of you, no order at all would
be possible.
T 14 F 6. But, though the order which you impose upon your minds limits the
ego, IT ALSO LIMITS YOU. To order is to judge, and to arrange BY judgment.
Therefore, it is not your function, but the Holy Spirit’s. It will seem very
difficult for you to learn that YOU HAVE NO BASIS AT ALL for ordering your
thoughts. This lesson the Holy Spirit teaches, by giving you shining examples,
to show you that your way of ordering is wrong, but that a better way is OFFERED
you. The miracle offers EXACTLY the same response to EVERY call for help. IT
DOES NOT JUDGE THE CALL. It merely recognizes what it IS, and answers
accordingly. It does NOT consider which call is louder, or greater, or more
important.
T 14 F 7. You may wonder how you, who are still bound to judgment, can be
asked to do that which requires no judgment of your own. The answer is very
simple. The power of God, and NOT of you, engenders miracles. The miracle ITSELF
is but
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the witness that you HAVE the power of God in you. That is the reason why the
miracle gives EQUAL blessing to ALL who share in it, and that is also why
EVERYONE shares in it. The power of God IS limitless. And, being always maximal,
it offers EVERYTHING to EVERY call from ANYONE. There is no order here. A call
for help is GIVEN help. The only judgment involved at all is in the Holy
Spirit’s one division into two categories; one of love, and the other, the call
for love.
T 14 F 8. You cannot safely make this division, for you are much too confused,
either to recognize love, or to believe that EVERYTHING else is nothing but a
NEED for love. You are too bound to form, and NOT to content. What you CONSIDER
content, is not content at all. It is merely form, and nothing else. For you do
NOT respond to what a brother REALLY offers you, but only to the particular
perception of his offering by which your EGO judges it. The ego is incapable of
understanding content, and is totally unconcerned with it. To the ego, if the
form is acceptable, the content MUST be. Otherwise, it will attack the form.
T 14 F 9. You who believe you understand something of the dynamics of the
mind, let me assure you that you know NOTHING of it at all. For of yourselves,
you COULD not know of it. The study of the ego is NOT the study of the mind. In
fact, the ego enjoys the study of itself, and thoroughly approves the
undertakings of the students who would analyze it, approving its importance. Yet
they but study form, with meaningless content. For their teacher is senseless,
though careful to conceal this fact behind a lot of words that sound impressive,
but which lack ANY consistent sense when they are put together.
T 14 F 10. This is the characteristic of the ego’s judgments. SEPARATELY, they
seem to hold, but PUT THEM TOGETHER, and the system of thought which arises from
JOINING them, is incoherent and utterly chaotic. For form is not enough for
meaning, and the underlying LACK of content, makes a cohesive system impossible.
SEPARATION therefore remains the ego’s chosen condition. For no-one ALONE can
judge the ego truly. But when two or more JOIN TOGETHER in searching for truth,
the ego can no longer defend its lack of content. The fact of union tells them
it is not true.
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T 14 F 11. It is impossible to remember God in secret and alone. For
remembering Him means you are NOT alone, and willing to remember it. Take no
thought FOR YOURSELF, for no thought you hold IS for yourself. If you would
remember your Father, let the Holy Spirit order your thoughts, and give only the
answer with which He answers you. Everyone seeks for love, as you do, and knows
it not, unless he joins WITH you in seeking it. If you undertake the search
TOGETHER, you bring with you a light so powerful, that what you see is GIVEN
meaning. The lonely journey fails, because it has EXCLUDED what it would FIND.
T 14 F 12. As God communicates to the Holy Spirit in you, so does the Holy
Spirit TRANSLATE His communications THROUGH you, so YOU can understand them. God
has no secret communications, for everything of Him is perfectly open, and
freely accessible to all, being FOR all. Nothing lives in secret, and what you
would hide from the Holy Spirit IS nothing. Every interpretation you would lay
upon a brother is senseless. Let the Holy Spirit SHOW HIM TO YOU, and teach you
both his love and NEED for love. Neither his mind, NOR YOURS, holds but these
two orders of thought. The miracle is the recognition that this is true.
T 14 F 13. Where there is love, your brother MUST give it to you, because of
what it IS. But where there is NEED for love, YOU must give it, because of what
YOU are. Long ago we said this course will teach you what you are, restoring to
you your identity. We have already learned that this identity is shared. THYE
MIRACLE BECOMES THE MEANS OF SHARING IT. By SUPPLYING your identity, WHEREVER it
is NOT recognized, YOU will recognize it. And God Himself, Who wills to be with
His Son forever, will bless each recognition of His Son, with all the love He
holds for him. Nor will the power of all His love be absent from any miracle you
offer TO His Son. How, then, can there be ANY order of difficulty among them?
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T 14 G. The Test of Truth
December 5, 1966.
T 14 G 1. But the essential thing is learning that YOU DO NOT KNOW. Knowledge
is power, and all power is of God. You who have tried to keep power for
yourselves, have lost it. You still HAVE the power, but you have interposed so
much between it and your AWARENESS of it, that you cannot use it. EVERYTHING you
have taught yourselves has made your power more and more obscure to you. You
know not WHAT it is, nor WHERE. You have made a SEMBLANCE of power, and a SHOW
of strength, so pitiful that it MUST fail you. For power is not seeming
strength, and truth is beyond a semblance of any kind.
T 14 G 2. Yet all that stands between you, and the power of God in you, is but
your learning of the false, and your attempts to UNDO THE TRUE. Be willing,
then, for ALL of it to be undone, and be glad that you are not bound to it
forever. For you have taught yourselves HOW TO IMPRISON THE SON OF GOD, a lesson
so unthinkable that only the insane, in deepest sleep, could even DREAM of it.
Can God learn how NOT to be God? And can His Son, GIVEN all power BY Him, learn
to be powerLESS? What have you taught yourselves that you can possibly prefer to
keep, in place of what you HAVE, and what you ARE?
T 14 G 3. Atonement teaches you how to escape forever from everything that you
have taught yourselves in the past, by showing you ONLY what you ARE NOW.
Learning HAS BEEN accomplished, BEFORE its effects are manifest. Learning is
therefore IN THE PAST, but its influence DETERMINES the present, by giving it
whatever meaning it holds for you. Your learning gives the present NO MEANING AT
ALL. Nothing you have ever learned can help you understand the present, or teach
you how to undo the past. Your past IS what you have taught yourselves.
T 14 G 4. LET IT ALL GO. Do NOT attempt to understand ANY event, or ANYTHING,
or ANYONE in its light, for the light of darkness, by which you TRY to see, can
ONLY obscure. Put no confidence at all in darkness to illuminate your
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understanding, for if you do, you CONTRADICT the light, and thereby THINK you
see the darkness. Yet darkness cannot BE seen, for it is nothing more than a
condition in which seeing becomes impossible. You who have not yet brought ALL
of the darkness you have taught yourselves unto the light in you, can hardly
judge the truth and value of this course. Yet God did not abandon you. And so
you have another lesson, sent from Him, ALREADY learned for every Child of
Light, by Him to Whom God gave it.
T 14 G 5. This lesson shines with God’s glory, for in it lies His power, which
He shares so gladly with His Son. Learn of His happiness, which is yours. But to
accomplish this, all your dark lessons MUST be brought willingly to truth, and
joyously laid down, by hands open to receive, not closed to take. Every dark
lesson that you bring to Him Who teaches light, He will accept FROM you, BECAUSE
YOU DO NOT WANT IT. And He will gladly EXCHANGE each one for the bright lesson
He has learned FOR you. Never believe that ANY lesson you have learned, APART
from Him, means ANYTHING.
T 14 G 6. You have one test, as sure as God, by which to recognize if what you
learned is true. If you are WHOLLY free of fear of any kind, and if all those
who meet, or even THINK of you, SHARE in your perfect peace, then you can be
sure that you have learned GOD’S lesson, and NOT yours. Unless all this is true,
there ARE dark lessons in your minds, which hurt and hinder you, AND EVERYONE
AROUND YOU. The ABSENCE of PERFECT peace means but ONE thing; you THINK you do
not will for God’s Son what His Father wills for him. Every dark lesson teaches
this, on one form or another. And each bright lesson, with which the Holy Spirit
will REPLACE the dark ones you do NOT accept and hide, teaches you that you will
WITH the Father unto His Son.
T 14 G 7. Do not be concerned how you can learn a lesson so COMPLETELY
different from everything you have taught yourselves. How would you know? Your
part is very simple. You need only recognize that everything YOU learned you DO
NOT WANT. Ask to BE taught, and do NOT use your experiences to confirm what YOU
have learned. When your peace is threatened, or disturbed in
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ANY way, say to yourself, "I do not know what anything, INCLUDING THIS, means.
And so I do NOT know HOW TO RESPOND TO IT. And I will not use my own past
learning as the light to guide me now." By this refusal to attempt to teach
yourself what you do not know, the Guide Whom God has given you, will speak to
you. HE will take His rightful place in your awareness, the instant YOU abandon
it, and offer it to Him.
T 14 G 8. YOU cannot be your guide to miracles, for it is you who made them
necessary. And, because you did, the means on which you can DEPEND for miracles,
has been provided FOR you. God’s Son can make no needs His Father will not meet,
if he but turn to Him ever so little. Yet He cannot COMPEL His Son to turn to
Him, and remain Himself. It is impossible that God lose His identity, for if He
did, YOU WOULD LOSE YOURS. And BEING yours, He cannot change Himself, for your
identity IS changeless. The miracle ACKNOWLEDGES His changelessness, by seeing
His Son as he always was, and NOT as he would make himself. The miracle brings
the effect which ONLY guiltlessness CAN bring, and thus establishes the fact
that guiltlessness MUST BE.
T 14 G 9. How can you, so firmly bound to guilt and committed so to remain,
establish FOR YOURSELF your guiltlessness? This is impossible. But be sure that
you are willing to acknowledge that it IS impossible. It is only because you
think that you can run some little part, or deal with certain aspects of your
lives alone, that the guidance of the Holy Spirit is limited. Thus would you
make HIM undependable, and USE this fancied undependability as an excuse for
keeping certain dark lessons FROM Him. And, by so limiting the guidance that you
would ACCEPT, YOU are unable to DEPEND on miracles, to answer ALL your problems
FOR you.
T 14 G 10. Do you think that what the Holy Spirit would have you GIVE, He would
withhold from YOU? You have NO problems which He cannot solve, by offering YOU a
miracle. Miracles are for YOU. And EVERY fear or pain or trial you have HAS BEEN
undone. HE has brought ALL of them to light, having
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ACCEPTED them INSTEAD of you, and recognized that they never were. There ARE no
dark lessons He has not ALREADY lightened FOR you. The lessons you would teach
yourselves, He has corrected already. They do not exist in His Mind at all. For
the past binds HIM not, and therefore binds not you.
T 14 G 11. He does not see time as you do. And each miracle He offers you,
CORRECTS your use of time, and makes it His. He Who has freed you from the past,
would teach you, you ARE free of it. He would but have you accept His
accomplishments AS YOURS, because He did them FOR you. And because He did, they
ARE yours. He has MADE you free of what you made. You can deny Him, but you
CANNOT call upon Him in vain. He ALWAYS gives what HE has made, IN PLACE of you.
He would establish His bright teaching so firmly in your mind, that no dark
lessons of guilt can abide in what He has established as holy by His Presence.
T 14 G 12. Thank God that He is there, and works through you. And all His works
are yours. He offers YOU a miracle, with every one you LET Him do through you.
God’s Son will ALWAYS be indivisible. As we are held as one in God, so do we
learn as one in Him. God’s Teacher is as like to His Creator as is His Son, and
through His Teacher does God proclaim His Oneness AND His Son’s. Listen in
silence, and do NOT raise your voice against Him. For He teaches the miracle of
Oneness, and before HIS lesson, division disappears. Teach LIKE Him here, and
you WILL remember that you have ALWAYS created like your Father. The miracle of
creation has never ceased, having the holy stamp of immortality upon it. This is
the Will of God for all creation, and all creation joins in willing this.
T 14 G 13. Those who remember always that THEY know nothing, but who have
become willing to learn EVERYTHING, will learn it. But whenever they trust
THEMSELVES, they will NOT learn. They have destroyed their motivation for
learning, BY THINKING THEY ALREADY KNOW. Think not you understand ANYTHING,
until you pass the test of perfect peace, for peace and understanding GO
TOGETHER, and never can be found alone. Each brings the other WITH it, for
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it is the law of God that they be not separate. They are cause and effect, each
to the other, so, where one is absent, the other CANNOT be.
T 14 G 14. Only those who see they CANNOT know, UNLESS the effects of
understanding are with them, can really learn at all. And for this, IT MUST BE
PEACE THEY WANT, and nothing else. Whenever you think YOU know, peace will
depart from you, because you have abandoned the Teacher of Peace. Whenever you
fully realize that YOU KNOW NOT, peace will return, for you will have invited
Him to do so, by abandoning the ego on behalf of Him. Call not upon the ego for
ANYTHING. It is only that, that you need do. The Holy Spirit will, OF HIMSELF,
fill every mind that so makes room for Him. If you want peace, you MUST abandon
the teacher of attack.
T 14 G 15. The Teacher of Peace can NEVER abandon YOU. YOU can desert HIM, but
He will never reciprocate, for His faith in you IS His understanding. It is as
firm as is His faith in His Creator, and He knows that faith in His Creator MUST
encompass faith in creation. In this consistency, lies His holiness, which He
CANNOT abandon, for it is not His Will to do so. With your perfection ever in
His sight, He gives the gift of peace to everyone who perceives the NEED for
peace, and who would have it. Make way for peace, and it will come. For
understanding IS in you, and from it, peace MUST come.
T 14 G 16. The power of God, from which they both arise, is yours as surely as
it is His. You think you know Him not, only because, alone, it is impossible to
know Him. But see the mighty works that He will do through you, and you MUST be
convinced you did them through Him. It is impossible to deny the Source of
effects so powerful, they COULD not be of you. Leave room for Him, and you will
find yourself so filled with power, that NOTHING will prevail against your
peace. And this will be the test by which you recognize that you HAVE
understood.
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Chapter XV - 15 - The Purpose Of Time
T 15 A. Introduction
December 7, 1966
T 15 A 1. Can you imagine what it means to have no cares, no worries, no
anxieties, but merely to be perfectly calm and quiet all the time? Yet that is
what time is for; to learn just that and nothing more. God’s Teacher cannot be
satisfied with His teaching, until it constitutes ALL your learning. He has not
fulfilled His teaching function until you have become such consistent learners
THAT YOU LEARN ONLY OF HIM. When this has happened, you will no longer need a
teacher, or time in which to learn.
T 15 A 2. One of the sources of perceived discouragement from which you
suffer, is your belief that THIS TAKES TIME, and that the results of the Holy
Spirit’s teaching are far in the future. This is not so. For the Holy Spirit
USES time in His OWN way, and is NOT bound by it. Time is His friend in
teaching. It does not waste Him, as it does you. But all the waste that time
seems to bring with it, is due but to your identification with the ego, who uses
time to support ITS belief in destruction. The ego, like the Holy Spirit, uses
time to convince you of the inevitability of the goal and end of learning. To
the ego, the goal is death, which IS its end. But to the Holy Spirit, the goal
is life, which HAS no end.
T 15 B. The Uses of Time
T 15 B 1. The ego IS an ally of time, but NOT a friend. For it is as
mistrustful of death as it is of life, and what it wants for you, IT cannot
tolerate. The ego wants YOU dead, but NOT itself. The outcome of its strange
religion MUST therefore be the conviction that it can pursue you BEYOND the
grave. And out of its unwillingness for you to find peace even in the death it
wants for you, it offers you immortality in hell. It speaks to you of Heaven,
but assures you that Heaven is not for you. How can the guilty hope for Heaven?
T 15 B 2. The belief in hell is inescapable to those who identify with the
ego. Their nightmares and their fears are all associated with it. The ego
teaches that hell is IN THE FUTURE, for this is what ALL its teaching is
directed to.
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HELL IS ITS GOAL. For, although the ego aims at death and dissolution as an end,
IT does not believe it. The goal of death, which it craves for you, leaves IT
unsatisfied. No-one who follows the ego’s teaching is without the FEAR of death.
If death were thought of merely as an end of pain, would it be FEARED?
T 15 B 3. We have seen this strange paradox in the ego’s thought-system
before, but never so clearly as here. For the ego must SEEM to KEEP FEAR FROM
YOU, to keep your allegiance. Yet it must ENGENDER fear, in order to maintain
ITSELF. Again, the ego tries, and all too frequently succeeds, in doing both, by
using dissociation for holding its contradictory aims together, so that they
SEEM to be reconciled. The ego teaches thus: Death is the end, as far as hope of
Heaven goes. But, because you and ITSELF cannot be separated, and because it
cannot conceive of its OWN death, it will pursue you still, BECAUSE YOUR GUILT
IS ETERNAL.
T 15 B 4. Such is the ego’s version of immortality. And it is THIS the ego’s
version of time supports. The ego teaches that Heaven is here and now, because
the FUTURE is hell. Even when it attacks so savagely that it tries to take the
life of someone who hears it temporarily as the ONLY voice, it speaks of hell
even to him. For it tells him hell is HERE, and bids him leap from hell into
oblivion. The only time the ego allows anyone to look upon, with some amount of
equanimity is the PAST. And even then, its only value is that it is no more.
T 15 B 5. How bleak and despairing is the ego’s use of time! And how
TERRIFYING! For underneath its fanatical insistence that the past and future be
the same, is hidden a far more insidious threat to peace. The ego does not
advertise its final threat, for it would have its worshippers still believe that
IT can offer the ESCAPE from it. But the belief in guilt MUST lead to the BELIEF
IN HELL, and ALWAYS DOES. The only way in which the ego allows the fear of hell
to be experienced is to BRING HELL HERE, but ALWAYS as a foretaste of the
future. For no-one who considers himself as DESERVING hell, can believe that
punishment will end in peace.
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T 15 B 6. The Holy Spirit teaches thus: There IS no hell. Hell is only what
the ego has made OF THE PRESENT. The BELIEF in hell is what PREVENTS you from
UNDERSTANDING the present, because YOU ARE AFRAID OF IT. The Holy Spirit leads
as steadily to Heaven, as the ego drives to hell. For the Holy Spirit, Who knows
ONLY the present, uses it to UNDO the fear by which the ego would make the
present useless. There is NO ESCAPE from fear, in the ego’s use of time. For
time, according to its teaching, is nothing but a teaching device for
COMPOUNDING guilt, until it becomes all-encompassing, and demands vengeance
forever.
T 15 B 7. The Holy Spirit would undo ALL of this NOW. Fear is NOT of the
present, but ONLY of the past and future, which do not exist. There is no fear
in the present, when each instant stands clear and separated from the past,
without its shadow reaching out into the future. Each instant is a clean,
untarnished birth, in which the Son of God emerges FROM the past, into the
present. And the present EXTENDS FOREVER. It is so beautiful and so clean and
free of guilt, that nothing but happiness is there. No darkness is remembered,
and his immortality and joy are NOW.
T 15 B 8. This lesson takes NO time. For what IS time, WITHOUT a past and
future? It HAS taken time to misguide you so completely, but it takes no time at
all to BE what you ARE. Begin to practice the Holy Spirit’s USE of time, as a
teaching aid to happiness and peace. Take this very instant, NOW, and think of
it as ALL THERE IS of time. Nothing can reach you here, out of the past, and it
is here that you are COMPLETELY absolved, COMPLETELY free, and WHOLLY without
condemnation. From this holy instant, wherein holiness is born, you will go
forth in time without fear, and with no sense of change WITH time.
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T 15 B 9. Time is inconceivable without change, and holiness does NOT change.
Learn from this instant more than merely hell does not exist. IN THIS REDEEMING
INSTANT LIES HEAVEN. And Heaven will NOT change, for the birth into the holy
present is SALVATION from change. Change is an illusion, taught by those who
could not see themselves as guiltless. There is no change in Heaven, because
THERE IS NO CHANGE IN GOD.
T 15 B 10. In the holy instant, in which you see yourself as bright with
freedom, you WILL remember God. For remembering Him IS to remember freedom.
Whenever you are tempted to be dispirited by the thought of HOW LONG it would
take to change your mind so completely, ask yourself, "How long is an instant?"
Could you not give so SHORT a time to the Holy Spirit, for your Salvation? He
asks no more, for He has no need of more. It takes far longer to teach you how
to be willing to Give Him this, than for Him to use this tiny instant to offer
you the whole of Heaven. In exchange for this instant, He stands ready to give
you the remembrance of Eternity.
T 15 B 11. You will never give this holy instant to the Holy Spirit on behalf
of YOUR release, while you are unwilling to give it to your brothers on behalf
of THEIRS. For the instant of holiness is SHARED, and CANNOT be yours alone.
Remember, then, when you are tempted to attack a brother, that HIS instant of
release is YOURS. Miracles ARE the instant of release you offer, and will
RECEIVE. They attest to YOUR willingness to BE released, and to offer time to
the Holy Spirit, for HIS use of it. How long is an instant? It is as short for
your brothers, as it is for you. Practice GIVING this blessed instant of freedom
to all who are ENSLAVED by time, and thus make time their friend FOR them.
T 15 B 12. The Holy Spirit gives their blessed instant TO you, through your
giving it. As you GIVE it, He offers it to YOU. Be not unwilling to give what
you would receive of Him, for you join WITH Him in giving. In the crystal
cleanness of the release you GIVE, is YOUR INSTANTANEOUS escape from guilt. You
MUST be holy, if you OFFER holiness. How long is an instant? As long as it takes
to
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re-establish perfect sanity, perfect peace, and perfect love for everyone, for
God, and for YOURSELF. As long as it takes to remember immortality, and your
immortal creations, who share it with you. As long as it takes to exchange hell
for Heaven. Long enough to transcend ALL of the ego’s making, and ascend unto
your Father.
T 15 B 13. Time is your friend, if you leave it to the Holy Spirit to use. He
needs but very little, to restore God’s Whole power to you. He Who transcends
time FOR you, understands what it is FOR. Holiness lies not in time, but in
Eternity. There never WAS an instant in which God’s Son could lose his purity.
His changeless state is BEYOND time, for his purity remains forever beyond
attack, and without variability. Time stands still in his holiness, and changes
not. And so it is no longer time at all. For, caught in the single instant of
the eternal sanctity of God’s creation, it is TRANSFORMED into forever.
T 15 B 14. GIVE the eternal instant, that eternity may be remembered FOR you,
in that shining instant of perfect release. Offer the miracle of the holy
instant THROUGH the Holy Spirit, and leave His giving it to you to Him.
T 15 C. Time and Eternity
394 [split paragraph]
T 15 C 1. The Atonement is in time, but not FOR time. Being for YOU, it is for
the eternal. What holds remembrance of God, CANNOT be bound by time. No more are
you. For, unless GOD is bound, you CANNOT be. An instant, offered to the Holy
Spirit, is offered to God on your behalf, and in that instant, you will awaken
gently in Him.
T 15 C 2. In the blessed instant, you will let go ALL your past learning, and
the Holy Spirit will quickly offer you the WHOLE lesson of peace. What can take
time, when ALL the obstacles to learning it have been removed? Truth is so far
beyond time, that ALL of it happens at once. For as it was created one, so its
oneness depends not on time at all. Be not concerned with time, and fear not the
instant of holiness which will remove ALL fear. For the instant of peace is
eternal, BECAUSE it is wholly WITHOUT fear. It WILL come, being the lesson God
gives you, through the Teacher HE has appointed, to translate time to eternity.
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T 15 C 3. Blessed is God’s Teacher, Whose joy it is to teach God’s holy Son
his holiness. His joy is not contained in time. His teaching is for you, BECAUSE
His joy is yours. Through Him, YOU stand before God’s altar, where He gently
translated hell into Heaven. For it is only in Heaven that God would have you
be. How long can it take, to be where God would have you? For you ARE where you
have forever been, and will forever be. All that you have, you have forever. The
blessed instant reaches out to ENCOMPASS time, as God extends Himself to
encompass you.
T 15 C 4. You who have spent days, hours, and even years, in chaining your
brothers TO your egos, in an attempt to support it, and uphold its WEAKNESS, do
not perceive the Source of STRENGTH. In the holy instant, you will unchain ALL
of your brothers, and refuse to support either THEIR weakness, OR YOUR OWN. You
do not realize how much you have MISUSED your brothers, by seeing them as
sources of EGO support. As a result, they witness TO the ego in your perception,
and SEEM to provide reasons for NOT letting it go. Yet they are far stronger,
and MUCH more compelling witnesses for the Holy Spirit. And they support His
STRENGTH.
T 15 C 5. It is, therefore, your choice, whether they support the ego or the
Holy Spirit IN YOU. And you will know which you have chosen, by THEIR reactions.
A Son of God who has been released through the Holy Spirit in a brother, IF THE
RELEASE IS COMPLETE, is ALWAYS recognized. He cannot BE denied. As long as YOU
remain uncertain, it can be ONLY because you have not given COMPLETE release.
And, because of this, you have not yet given one single instant COMPLETELY to
the Holy Spirit. For, when you HAVE, you will be SURE you have. You will be
sure, because the witness TO Him will speak so clearly OF Him, that you will
hear, and UNDERSTAND.
T 15 C 6. You WILL doubt, until you hear ONE witness whom you have WHOLLY
released through the Holy Spirit. And then you will doubt no more. The holy
instant has not yet happened to you. But it will, and you will recognize it,
with perfect certainty. No gift of God is recognized in any other
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way. You can practice the mechanics of the holy instant, and will learn much
from doing so. But its shining and glittering brilliance, which will literally
blind you to this world by its OWN vision, you can NOT supply. And here it is,
ALL in this instant, complete, accomplished, and GIVEN WHOLLY.
T 15 C 7. Start NOW, to practice your little part in SEPARATING OUT the holy
instant. You will receive very specific instructions, as you go along. To learn
to separate out this single second, and begin to experience it as timeless, is
to begin to experience yourself as NOT separate. Fear not that you will not be
given help in this. God’s Teacher, and His lesson will support your strength. It
is only your weakness that will depart from you in this practice, for it is the
practice of the power of God in you. Use it but for one instant, and you will
never deny it again. Who can deny the Presence of what the universe bows to, in
appreciation and gladness? Before the recognition of the universe, which
witnesses to it, YOUR doubts MUST disappear.
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T 15 D. Littleness versus Magnitude
December 10, 1966
T 15 D 1. Be not content with littleness, but be sure you understand what
littleness is, and why you could never BE content with it. Littleness is the
offering you gave YOURSELF. You offered this in place of magnitude, AND ACCEPTED
IT. Everything in this world is little, because it is a world made out of
littleness, in the strange belief that littleness CAN content you. When you
strive for anything in the world, WITH THE BELIEF THAT IT WILL BRING YOU PEACE,
you are belittling yourself, and blinding yourself to glory. Littleness and
glory are the choices open to your striving and your vigilance. You will ALWAYS
choose one AT THE EXPENSE of the other.
T 15 D 2. But what you do not realize, each time you choose, is that your
choice is your evaluation OF YOURSELF. Choose littleness, and you will NOT have
peace, for you will have judged yourself UNWORTHY of it. And whatever you offer
as a substitute, is much too poor a gift to satisfy you. It is essential that
you accept the fact, and accept it gladly, that there is NO form of littleness
that can EVER content you. You are free to try as many as you wish, but all you
will be doing is to delay your home-coming. For you will be content ONLY in
magnitude, which IS your home.
T 15 D 3. There is a deep responsibility you owe yourself, and one which you
must learn to remember ALL the time. The lesson will seem hard at first, but you
will learn to love it, when you realize that it is true, and constitutes a
tribute to your power. You who have sought AND FOUND littleness, remember this:
Every decision that you make stems from WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE, and represents
the value that you PUT upon yourself. Believe the little can content you, and,
by LIMITING yourself, you will NOT be satisfied. For your function is NOT
little, and it is only by finding your function, and fulfilling it that you can
ESCAPE from littleness.
T 15 D 4. There is no doubt about what your function IS, for the Holy Spirit
KNOWS what it is. There is no doubt about its magnitude, for it reaches you
through Him, FROM Magnitude. You do not have to strive for it, because you HAVE
it. All your striving must be directed AGAINST LITTLENESS, for it DOES
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require vigilance to protect your magnitude in this world. To hold your
magnitude in perfect awareness, in a world of littleness, is a task the little
cannot undertake. Yet it is asked of you, in tribute to your magnitude, and NOT
your littleness. Nor is it asked of you alone.
T 15 D 5. The power of God will support every effort you make on behalf of the
magnitude of His dear Son. Search for the little, and you DENY yourself His
power. God is not willing that His Son be content with less than everything. For
He is not content without His Son, and His Son cannot be content with less than
His Father has given him. We asked you once before, "Would you be hostage to the
ego or host to God?" Let this question be asked you by the Holy Spirit in you,
EVERY time you make a decision. For every decision you make DOES answer this,
and invites sorrow or joy, accordingly.
T 15 D 6. When God GAVE Himself to you in your creation, He ESTABLISHED you as
host to Him forever. He has NOT left you, and YOU have not left HIM. All your
attempts to deny His magnitude, and make His Son hostage to the ego, CANNOT make
little whom God has joined with Him. Every decision you make is made for Heaven
or for hell, and will bring you AWARENESS of what you decided FOR. The Holy
Spirit can hold your magnitude, clean of ALL littleness, clearly and in perfect
safety in your minds, untouched by every little gift the world of littleness
would offer you. But for this, you cannot side AGAINST Him in what He wills for
you.
T 15 D 7. Decide for God through Him. For littleness, and the belief that you
can be CONTENT with littleness, are the decisions YOU have made about yourself.
The power and the glory that lie in you, from God, are for all who, like you,
perceive themselves as little, and have deceived themselves into believing that
littleness can be blown up, BY THEM, into a sense of magnitude that can content
them. Neither GIVE littleness, nor ACCEPT it. All honor is due the host of God.
Your littleness deceives you, but your magnitude is of Him Who dwells in you,
and in Whom you dwell. Touch no-one, then, with littleness, in the Name of
Christ, eternal Host unto His Father.
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December 12, 1966
T 15 D 8. In this season, which celebrates the birth of holiness into this
world, join with me who decided for holiness for YOU. It is our task TOGETHER to
restore the awareness of magnitude, to the host whom God appointed for Himself.
It is beyond ALL your littleness to give the gift of God, but NOT beyond YOU.
For God would give Himself THROUGH you. He reaches from you to everyone, and
beyond everyone, to His Son’s creations, but WITHOUT leaving you. Far beyond
your little world, but still in you, He extends forever. Yet He brings all his
extensions to you, as host to Him.
T 15 D 9. Is it a sacrifice to leave littleness behind, and wander not in
vain? It is not sacrifice to wake to glory. But it IS a sacrifice to accept
anything LESS than glory. Learn that you MUST be worthy of the Prince of Peace,
born in you, in honor of Him Whose host you are. You know not what love means
because you have sought to purchase it with little gifts, thus VALUING it too
little to be able to understand its magnitude. LOVE IS NOT LITTLE, and love
dwells in you, for you are host to Him. Before the greatness that lives in you,
your poor appreciation of yourself, and all the little offerings you have given,
slip into nothingness.
T 15 D 10. Holy Child of God, when will you learn that ONLY holiness can
content you, and give you peace? Remember that you learn not for yourself alone,
no more than I did. It is BECAUSE I learned for YOU, that you can learn of ME. I
would but teach you what is yours, so that, together, we can replace the shabby
littleness, that binds the host of God to guilt and weakness, with the glad
awareness of the glory that is in him. My birth in you is your awakening to
grandeur. Welcome me not into a manger, but into the altar to holiness, where
holiness abides in perfect peace.
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T 15 D 11. My Kingdom is not of this world, because it is in YOU. And YOU are
of your Father. Let us join in honoring you, who MUST remain forever BEYOND
littleness. Decide with me, who have decided to abide with you. I will as my
Father wills, knowing His Will is constant, and at peace forever with Itself.
You will be content with nothing BUT His Will. Accept no less, remembering that
everything I learned is yours. What my Father loves, I love as He does, and I
can no more accept it as what it is NOT, than He can. And no more can YOU.
T 15 D 12. When you have learned to accept what you are, you will make no more
gifts to offer to yourselves, for you will know you are COMPLETE, in need of
nothing, and unable to accept ANYTHING for yourself. But you will gladly give,
HAVING received. The host of God need not seek to find ANYTHING. If you are
wholly willing to leave Salvation to the plan of God, and UNwilling to attempt
to grasp for peace YOURSELF, Salvation will be GIVEN you. But think not you can
substitute YOUR plan for His. Rather, join with me in His, that we may release
all those who would be bound, proclaiming together that the Son of God is host
to Him.
T 15 D 13. Thus will we let no-one forget what YOU would remember. And thus
WILL you remember it. Call forth in everyone ONLY the remembrance of God, and of
the Heaven that is in him. For where you would help your brother be, there will
you think YOU are. Hear not his call for hell and littleness, but only his call
for Heaven and greatness. Forget not that his call is yours, and answer him with
me. God’s power is forever on the side of His host, for it protects ONLY the
peace in which He dwells. Lay not littleness before His holy altar, which rises
above the stars, and reaches even to Heaven, because of what is GIVEN it.
T 15 E. Practicing the Holy Instant
T 15 E 1. This course is not beyond IMMEDIATE learning, unless you prefer to
believe that WHAT GOD WILLS TAKES TIME. And this means ONLY that you would
rather DELAY the recognition that His Will IS so. The holy instant is THIS
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one, and EVERY one. The one you WANT it to be, it IS. The one you would NOT have
it be, is lost to you. YOU must decide on WHEN it is. Delay it not. For beyond
the past and future, in which you will NOT find it, it stands in shimmering
readiness for your acceptance.
T 15 E 2. Yet you cannot bring it into glad awareness while you do not want
it, for it holds the whole RELEASE from littleness. Your practice MUST therefore
rest upon your willingness to let all littleness go. The instant in which
magnitude will dawn upon you, is but as far away as your DESIRE for it. As long
as you desire it not, and cherish littleness instead, by so much is it far from
you. By so much as you want it, will you bring it nearer. Think not that you can
find Salvation in your own way, and HAVE it.
T 15 E 3. Give over EVERY plan that you have made for your Salvation, in
exchange for God’s. HIS will content you, for there IS nothing else that can
bring you peace. For peace is of God, and of no-one beside Him. Be humble before
Him, and yet great IN Him. And value NO plan of the ego, BEFORE the plan of God.
For you leave your place in His plan, which you MUST fulfill if you would join
with me, empty by your decision to join in any plan BUT His. I call you to
fulfill your holy part in the plan that He has given to the world, for its
release from littleness. God would have His host abide in perfect freedom.
T 15 E 4. Every allegiance to a plan of Salvation that is APART from Him,
diminishes the value of His Will for you in your own minds. And yet, it is your
mind that IS the host to Him. Would you learn how perfect and immaculate is the
holy altar on which your Father has placed HIMSELF? This you WILL recognize, in
the holy instant in which you willingly and gladly give over EVERY plan but His.
For there lies peace, PERFECTLY clear, because you have been willing to meet its
conditions.
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T 15 E 5. You can claim the holy instant ANY time and ANYWHERE you want it. In
your practice, try to give over EVERY plan you have accepted, for finding
magnitude in littleness. IT IS NOT THERE. USE the holy instant ONLY to recognize
that you alone CANNOT know where it is, and can only DECEIVE yourself. I stand
within the holy instant, as clear as you would have me. And the extent to which
you learn to be willing to ACCEPT me, IS the measure of the time in which the
holy instant will be yours. I call to you to make the holy instant yours AT
ONCE, for the release from littleness in the mind of the host of God, depends on
willingness, and NOT on time.
T 15 E 6. The reason why this course is simple, is that TRUTH is simple.
Complexity is of the ego, and is nothing more than the ego’s attempt to obscure
the obvious. You could live forever in the holy instant, BEGINNING NOW and
reaching to eternity, but for a very simple reason. Do not obscure the
simplicity of this reason, for, if you do, it will be ONLY because you prefer
NOT to recognize it, and NOT to let it go. The simple reason, stated simply as
what it is: The holy instant is a time in which you receive AND GIVE perfect
communication. This means, however, that it is a time in which your mind is
OPEN, both to receive AND give. It is the recognition that all minds ARE in
communication. It therefore seeks to CHANGE nothing, but merely to ACCEPT
everything.
T 15 E 7. How can you do this when you would prefer to have PRIVATE thoughts,
AND KEEP THEM? The ONLY way you COULD do this, is to DENY the perfect
communication that makes the holy instant WHAT IT IS. You BELIEVE that it is
possible to harbor thoughts you would NOT share, and that Salvation lies in
keeping your thoughts TO YOURSELF ALONE. For, in private thoughts, KNOWN ONLY TO
YOURSELF, you think you find a way to keep what you would HAVE alone, and share
what YOU would share.
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And then you wonder why it is that you are not in full communication with those
around you, and with God, Who surrounds ALL of you together.
T 15 E 8. Every thought you would keep hidden shuts communication off, BECAUSE
YOU WOULD HAVE IT SO. It is impossible to RECOGNIZE perfect communication, while
BREAKING communication holds value to you. Ask yourselves honestly, "Would I
WANT to have perfect communication, and am I WHOLLY willing to let EVERYTHING
that INTERFERES WITH IT, go forever?" If the answer is "no," then the Holy
Spirit’s readiness to GIVE it to you, is not enough to make it yours, for you
are NOT ready to share it WITH Him. And it cannot come into a mind that has
decided to OPPOSE it. For the holy instant is given and received with EQUAL
willingness, being the acceptance of the SINGLE Will that governs ALL thought.
T 15 E 9. The necessary condition for the holy instant, does NOT require that
you have no thoughts that are not pure. But it DOES require that you have none
that you would KEEP. Innocence is not of your making. It is GIVEN you, the
instant you would HAVE it. But it would not BE Atonement, if there were no NEED
for Atonement. You will not be able to ACCEPT perfect communication, as long as
you would HIDE it from yourself. For what you would hide IS hidden. In your
practice, then, try only to be vigilant AGAINST DECEPTION, and seek not to
PROTECT the thoughts you would keep unto yourself. Let the Holy Spirit’s purity
shine them away, and bring ALL your awareness to the READINESS for purity He
offers you. Thus will He make you ready to acknowledge that you ARE host to God,
and hostage to no-one and to nothing.
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T 15 F. The Holy Instant and Special Relationships
December 14, 1966
T 15 F 1. The holy instant is the Holy Spirit’s most useful learning device
for teaching you love’s meaning. For its purpose is to SUSPEND JUDGMENT
ENTIRELY. Judgment ALWAYS rests on the past, for PAST experience is the basis on
which you judge. Judgment becomes impossible without the past, for WITHOUT it
you do NOT understand anything. You would make no ATTEMPT to judge, because it
would be quite apparent to you that you do not know WHAT ANYTHING MEANS. You are
afraid of this, because you believe that, WITHOUT THE EGO, all would be chaos.
Yet I assure you that, without the ego, ALL WOULD BE LOVE.
T 15 F 2. The past is the EGO’S chief learning device, for it is in the past
that you learned to define your OWN needs, and acquired methods for meeting them
ON YOUR OWN TERMS. We said before that, to limit love to PART of the Sonship, is
to bring guilt into your relationships, and thus MAKE THEM UNREAL. If you seek
to separate out certain ASPECTS of the totality, and look TO THEM to meet your
imagined needs, you are attempting to USE SEPARATION TO SAVE YOU. How, then,
could guilt NOT enter? For separation IS the source of guilt, and to APPEAL to
it for salvation IS TO BELIEVE YOU ARE ALONE.
T 15 F 3. To be alone IS to be guilty. For to experience yourself AS alone, is
to deny the Oneness of the Father and His Son, and thus to ATTACK REALITY. You
cannot love PARTS of reality, and understand what love MEANS. If you would love
UNlike to God, Who KNOWS no special love, how CAN you understand it? To believe
that SPECIAL relationships, with SPECIAL love, can offer you salvation, IS the
belief that separation is salvation. For it is the COMPLETE EQUALITY of the
Atonement, in which salvation lies. How can YOU decide that special aspects of
the Sonship CAN GIVE YOU MORE THAN OTHERS? The past HAS taught you this. But the
holy instant teaches you IT IS NOT SO.
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T 15 F 4. Because of guilt, ALL special relationships have some elements of
fear in them. And this is why they shift and change so frequently. They are NOT
based on changeless love alone. And love, where fear has entered, CANNOT be
depended on, because it is NOT perfect. In His function as Interpreter of what
you have made, the Holy Spirit USES special relationships, which YOU have chosen
to support the ego, as a learning experience which points to truth. Under His
teaching, EVERY relationship becomes a lesson in love.
T 15 F 5. The Holy Spirit knows NO-ONE IS SPECIAL. But He also perceives that
you have MADE special relationships, which He would purify, and NOT let YOU
destroy. However UNholy the reason why you made them may be, He can TRANSLATE
them into holiness, by removing AS MUCH FEAR AS YOU WILL LET HIM. You can place
ANY relationship under His care, and be sure that it will NOT result in pain, if
you offer Him your willingness TO HAVE IT SERVE NO NEED BUT HIS. All the guilt
in it arises from YOUR use of it. All the love, from His. Do not, then, be
AFRAID to let your IMAGINED need, which would DESTROY the relationship, go. Your
ONLY need IS His.
T 15 F 6. Any relationship which you would SUBSTITUTE FOR ANOTHER, has not
been offered to the Holy Spirit, for His use. There IS no substitute for love.
If you would attempt to substitute ONE aspect of love for ANOTHER, you have
placed LESS value on one, and MORE on another. You have not only SEPARATED them,
but have also JUDGED AGAINST BOTH. Yet you had judged against yourself FIRST, or
you would never have imagined that you needed them AS THEY WERE NOT. Unless you
had seen yourself as WITHOUT love, you COULD not have judged them to be LIKE you
in lack.
T 15 F 7. The ego’s use of relationships is so fragmented, that it frequently
goes even further; one PART of one aspect suits its purposes, while it prefers
DIFFERENT parts of another aspect. Thus does it ASSEMBLE reality to its own
capricious liking, offering for YOUR seeking, a picture whose likeness DOES NOT
EXIST. For there is nothing in Heaven OR earth that it resembles,
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and so, however much you seek for its reality, you CANNOT find it, because it is
NOT real.
T 15 F 8. Everyone on earth has formed special relationships, and, although
this is not so in Heaven, the Holy Spirit knows how to bring a touch of Heaven
to them here. In the holy instant, no-one is special, for your PERSONAL needs
INTRUDE on no-one, to MAKE them different. Without the values from the past you
WOULD see them all the same, and LIKE YOURSELF. Nor would you see ANY separation
between yourself and them. In the holy instant, you see, in each relationship,
what it WILL be, when you perceive ONLY the present.
T 15 F 9. God knows you NOW. He remembers NOTHING, having ALWAYS known you
exactly as He knows you now. The holy instant PARALLELS His knowing, by bringing
ALL perception OUT of the past, thus removing the frame of reference you have
built, by which to JUDGE your brothers. Once this is gone, the Holy Spirit
substitutes His frame of reference FOR it. His frame of reference is simply God.
The Holy Spirit’s timelessness lies simply here. For in the holy instant, FREE
of the past, you see that LOVE IS IN YOU, and you HAVE no need to look WITHOUT,
and snatch it guiltily from where you THOUGHT it was.
T 15 F 10. ALL your relationships are blessed in the holy instant, BECAUSE THE
BLESSING IS NOT LIMITED. In the holy instant, the Sonship gains AS ONE. And,
UNITED in your blessing, it BECOMES one TO YOU. The meaning of love is the
meaning God GAVE to it. Give to it ANY meaning APART from His, and it is
IMPOSSIBLE to understand it. Every brother God loves as He loves you; neither
less nor more. HE NEEDS THEM ALL EQUALLY, and so do YOU. In time, you have been
told to offer miracles as Christ directs, and let the Holy Spirit bring to you
those who are seeking you. But in the holy instant, you unite DIRECTLY with God,
and ALL your brothers join in Christ.
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T 15 F 11. Those who are joined in Christ are in no way separate. For Christ is
the Self the Sonship shares, as God shares His Self with Christ. Think you that
you can judge the Self of God? God has created It BEYOND judgment, out of HIS
need to extend His love. With Love in you, you HAVE no need EXCEPT TO EXTEND IT.
In the holy instant, there is no conflict of needs, for there is ONLY ONE. For
the holy instant reaches to eternity, and to the Mind of God. And it is only
there that love HAS meaning, and ONLY there CAN it be understood.
T 15 F 12. It is impossible to use one relationship AT THE EXPENSE of another,
and NOT suffer guilt. And it is equally impossible to condemn PART of a
relationship and find peace WITHIN it. Under the Holy Spirit’s teaching, ALL
relationships are seen as TOTAL commitments, yet they do not conflict with one
another in ANY way. Perfect faith in each one, for its ability to satisfy you
COMPLETELY, arises only from perfect faith in YOURSELF. And this you cannot
have, while guilt remains. And there WILL be guilt, as long as you accept the
possibility, AND CHERISH IT, that you can make a brother WHAT HE IS NOT, because
YOU would have him so.
T 15 F 13. You have so little faith in yourself, because you are unwilling to
accept the fact that perfect love is IN you. And so you seek WITHOUT for what
you CANNOT find without. I offer you MY perfect faith in you, IN PLACE of all
YOUR doubts. But forget not that my faith MUST be as perfect in ALL your
brothers as it is in you, or it would be a limited gift to YOU. In the holy
instant, we SHARE our faith in God’s Son, because we recognize, together, that
he is wholly worthy OF it, and, in our appreciation of his worth, we CANNOT
doubt his holiness. And so we love him.
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T 15 G. The Holy Instant and the Laws of God
T 15 G 1. All separation vanishes, as holiness is shared. For holiness is
power, and by SHARING it, it GAINS in strength. If you seek for satisfaction in
gratifying your needs as YOU perceive them, you MUST believe that strength comes
from ANOTHER, and that WHAT YOU GAIN HE LOSES. Someone must ALWAYS lose, if you
perceive yourself as weak. Yet there is another interpretation of relationships,
which TRANSCENDS the concept of the LOSS of power completely.
T 15 G 2. You do NOT find it difficult to believe that, when ANOTHER calls on
God for love, YOUR call remains as strong. Nor do you think that, by God’s
answer to HIM, YOUR hope of answer is diminished. On the contrary, you are far
more inclined to regard HIS success, as witness to the possibility of YOURS.
That is because you recognize, however dimly, that God is an IDEA, and so YOUR
faith in Him is STRENGTHENED by sharing. What you find difficult to accept is
the fact that, LIKE your Father, YOU are an idea. And like Him, YOU can give
yourself COMPLETELY, wholly without loss, and ONLY WITH GAIN.
T 15 G 3. Herein lies peace, for here there IS no conflict. In the world of
scarcity, love HAS no meaning, and peace is impossible. For gain and loss are
BOTH accepted, and so no-one is aware that perfect Love is IN him. In the holy
instant, you recognize the IDEA of love in you, and UNITE this idea with the
Mind that thought It, AND COULD NOT RELINQUISH IT. By HOLDING it within Itself,
THERE WAS no loss. The holy instant thus becomes a lesson in how to hold ALL of
your brothers in YOUR mind, experiencing not loss, but COMPLETION.
T 15 G 4. From this, it follows you can ONLY give. And this IS love, for this
alone is natural, under the laws of God. In the holy instant, the laws of God
prevail, and only THEY have meaning. The laws of this world cease to
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hold any meaning at all. When the Son of God ACCEPTS the laws of God as what he
gladly wills, it is impossible that he be bound, or limited in ANY way. In this
instant, he IS as free as God would have him be. For, the instant that he
refuses to BE bound, he is NOT bound.
T 15 G 5. In the holy instant, nothing happens that has not always been. Only
the veil, that has been drawn ACROSS reality, is lifted. Nothing has changed.
But the AWARENESS of changelessness comes swiftly, as the veil of time is pushed
aside. No-one who has not yet experienced the lifting of the veil, and felt
himself drawn irresistibly into the Light behind it, can have faith in love
WITHOUT fear. Yet the Holy Spirit GIVES you this faith, because He offered it to
me and I ACCEPTED IT.
T 15 G 6. Fear not the holy instant will be denied you, for I denied IT not.
And, through me, the Holy Spirit GAVE it unto you, as YOU will give it. Let no
need that YOU perceive, obscure your need of THIS. For, in the holy instant, you
will recognize the ONLY need the aspects of the Son of God share equally, and,
BY this recognition, you will join with me in OFFERING what is needed. It is
through US that peace will come. Join me in the IDEA of peace, for, in ideas,
minds CAN communicate.
T 15 G 7. If you would GIVE YOURSELF as your Father gives His Self, you will
learn to understand Selfhood. And therein is love’s meaning understood. But
remember that understanding is OF THE MIND, and, ONLY of the mind. KNOWLEDGE is
therefore of the mind, and its CONDITIONS are in the mind, WITH it. If you were
not ONLY an idea, and NOTHING ELSE, you would not be in full communication with
all that ever was. But, as long as you prefer to be something else, or would
attempt to be NOTHING ELSE and SOMETHING ELSE together, the language of
communication, WHICH YOU KNOW PERFECTLY, you will not remember.
T 15 G 8. In the holy instant, God is remembered, and the language of
communication with ALL your brothers, is remembered WITH Him. For communication
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is remembered TOGETHER, as is truth. There is NO exclusion in the holy instant,
because the past is gone, and, with it, goes the whole basis FOR exclusion.
Without ITS source, exclusion vanishes. And this permits YOUR Source, and that
of all your brothers, to REPLACE it in your awareness. God, and the power of
God, will take their rightful place in you, and you will experience the full
communication of ideas with ideas. Through your ability to do this, you will
learn what you MUST be, because you will begin to understand what your Creator
is, and what His creation is, along WITH Him.
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T 15 H. The Holy Instant and Communication
December 16, 1966.
T 15 H 1. Beyond the poor attraction of the special love relationship, and
ALWAYS obscured by it, is the powerful attraction of the Father for His Son.
There is no OTHER love that can satisfy you, because there IS no other love.
This is the ONLY love that is fully given, AND FULLY RETURNED. Being complete,
it asks nothing. Being wholly pure, everyone joined in it HAS everything. This
is NOT the basis for ANY love relationship in which the ego enters. For EVERY
relationship on which the ego embarks IS special. The ego establishes
relationships ONLY to GET something. And it would keep the giver BOUND TO
ITSELF, through guilt.
T 15 H 2. It is impossible for the ego to enter into any relationship without
anger, for the ego believes that ANGER MAKES FRIENDS. This is NOT its statement,
but it IS its purpose. For the ego REALLY BELIEVES that it can get, and KEEP, by
MAKING GUILTY. This is its ONE attraction. An attraction so weak, that it would
have no hold at all, except that NO-ONE RECOGNIZES IT. For the ego always SEEMS
to attract through love, and has no attraction at all to anyone who perceives
that IT ATTRACTS THROUGH GUILT.
T 15 H 3. The sick attraction of guilt MUST be recognized FOR WHAT IT IS. For,
having been made REAL to you, it is essential to look at it clearly, and, by
withdrawing your INVESTMENT in it, to LEARN TO LET IT GO. No-one would choose to
let go what he believes has value. Yet the attraction of guilt has value to you
ONLY because you have NOT looked at what it IS, and have judged it as valuable
COMPLETELY in the dark. As we bring it to light, your ONLY question will be why
it was you EVER WANTED it. You have NOTHING to lose by looking open-eyed at
this, for ugliness such as this belongs not in your holy mind. The host of God
CAN have no REAL investment here.
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T 15 H 4. We said before that the ego attempts to maintain and INCREASE guilt,
but in such a way, that you do NOT recognize what it would do to YOU. For it is
the ego’s fundamental doctrine that, what you do to others, YOU HAVE ESCAPED.
The ego wishes NO-ONE well. But its survival DEPENDS on your belief that YOU are
exempt from its evil intentions. It counsels, therefore, that if you are HOST to
it, IT will enable you to direct the anger that it holds outward, thus
protecting YOU. And thus, it embarks on an endless, unrewarding chain of special
relationships, forged out of anger, and dedicated to but one insane belief; that
the more anger you invest OUTSIDE yourself, the safer YOU become.
T 15 H 5. It is this chain that binds the Son of God to guilt, and it is this
chain the Holy Spirit would REMOVE from his holy mind. For the chain of savagery
belongs not around the chosen host of God, who CANNOT make himself host to the
ego. In the name of his release, and in the Name of Him Who would release him,
let us look more closely at the relationships that the ego contrives, and let
the Holy Spirit judge them truly. For it is certain that, if you LOOK at them,
you will offer them gladly TO Him. What HE can make of them you do NOT know, but
you WILL become willing to find out, if you are willing, first, to perceive what
YOU have made of them.
T 15 H 6. In one way or another, every relationship which the ego makes is
based on the idea that, by SACRIFICING itself, IT BECOMES BIGGER. The
"sacrifice," which it regards as purification, is actually the root of its
bitter resentment. For it would much prefer to attack directly, and avoid
delaying what it REALLY wants. Yet the ego acknowledges "reality" as it sees it,
and recognizes that NO-ONE could interpret DIRECT attack as love. Yet to make
guilty IS direct attack, but does not SEEM to be. For the guilty EXPECT attack,
and, having ASKED for it, they are ATTRACTED to it.
T 15 H 7. In these insane relationships, the attraction of what you do NOT
want seems to be much stronger than the attraction of what you DO. For each one
thinks
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that he has SACRIFICED something to the other, AND HATES HIM FOR IT. Yet this is
what he thinks he WANTS. He is NOT in love with the other at all; he merely
believes he is IN LOVE WITH SACRIFICE. And FOR this sacrifice, which he demanded
OF HIMSELF, HE demands the other ACCEPT the guilt, and SACRIFICE HIMSELF as
well. Forgiveness becomes impossible, for the ego believes, that to forgive
another, IS TO LOSE HIM. For it is only by attack WITHOUT forgiveness, that the
ego can ensure the guilt which holds ALL its relationships together.
T 15 H 8. Yet they only SEEM to be together. For relationships, to the ego,
mean ONLY that BODIES are together. It is always PHYSICAL closeness that the ego
demands, and it does not object where the MIND goes, or what it thinks, for this
seems unimportant. For, as long as the BODY is there, to receive its sacrifice,
it is content. To the ego, THE MIND IS PRIVATE, and only the body CAN be shared.
Ideas are basically of no concern, except as they draw the BODY of another
closer or farther. And it is in these terms that it evaluates ideas as "good" or
"bad." What makes another guilty, AND HOLDS HIM THROUGH GUILT, is "good." What
releases him FROM guilt is "bad," because he would no longer believe that BODIES
communicate, and so he would be "gone."
T 15 H 9. Suffering and sacrifice are the gifts with which the ego would
"bless" all unions. And those who are united at its altar ACCEPT suffering and
sacrifice as the PRICE of union. In their angry alliances, born of the fear of
loneliness, and yet dedicated to the CONTINUANCE of loneliness, they seek RELIEF
from guilt, by INCREASING it in the other. For they believe that this DECREASES
it in them. The other seems always to be attacking and wounding them, perhaps in
little ways, perhaps "unconsciously," yet never without demand of sacrifice. The
fury of those joined at the ego’s altar, far exceeds your awareness of it. For
what the ego really, wants you do NOT realize.
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T 15 H 10. Whenever you are angry, you can be sure that you have formed a
special relationship which the ego has "blessed," for anger IS its "blessing."
Anger takes many forms, but it cannot long deceive those who will learn that
LOVE BRINGS NO GUILT AT ALL, and what brings guilt CANNOT be love, and MUST be
anger. ALL anger is nothing more than an attempt to MAKE SOMEONE FEEL GUILTY,
and this attempt is the ONLY basis which the ego accepts for special
relationships. Guilt is the only need the ego has, and, as long as you identify
WITH it, guilt will remain ATTRACTIVE to you.
T 15 H 11. But remember this; to be WITH A BODY is NOT communication. And,
if you think it IS, you will feel guilty about COMMUNICATION, and will be AFRAID
to hear the Holy Spirit, recognizing in His voice, your OWN need to communicate.
The Holy Spirit CANNOT teach through fear. And how can He communicate with you,
while you believe that, to communicate, is to MAKE YOURSELF ALONE? It is CLEARLY
insane to believe that, by communicating, you will be abandoned. And yet, you DO
believe it. For you think that your minds must be kept PRIVATE, or you will LOSE
them. And, if your BODIES are together, your minds remain your own.
T 15 H 12. The union of bodies thus becomes the way in which you would KEEP
MINDS APART. For bodies cannot forgive. They can do only as the mind directs.
The illusion of the autonomy of the body, and ITS ability to overcome
loneliness, is but the working of the ego’s plan to establish its OWN autonomy.
As long as you believe that, to be with a body, is companionship, you will be
COMPELLED to attempt to keep your brother IN his body, HELD THERE BY GUILT. And
you will see SAFETY IN GUILT, and DANGER IN COMMUNICATION. For the ego will
ALWAYS teach that loneliness is solved by guilt, and that communication is the
CAUSE of loneliness. And, despite the evident insanity of this lesson, YOU HAVE
LEARNED IT.
T 15 H 13. Forgiveness lies in communication, as surely as damnation lies in
guilt. It is the Holy Spirit’s teaching function to instruct those who
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believe that communication is damnation, that communication is salvation. And He
will do so, for the power of God in Him AND YOU is joined in REAL relationship,
so holy and so strong, that it can overcome even this, WITHOUT fear. It is
through the holy instant that what SEEMS impossible is ACCOMPLISHED, making it
evident that it is NOT impossible. In the holy instant, guilt holds NO
attraction, since communication HAS BEEN restored. And guilt, whose ONLY purpose
is to DISRUPT communication, HAS no function here.
T 15 I. The Holy Instant and Real Relationships
T 15 I 1. Here, there is no concealment, and no private thoughts. The
WILLINGNESS to communicate attracts communication TO it, and overcomes
loneliness completely. There is complete forgiveness here, for there is no
desire to exclude ANYONE from your completion, in sudden recognition of the
value of his part in it. In the protection of YOUR wholeness, all are invited
and made welcome. And you understand that YOUR completion is God’s, Whose only
need is to have you Be complete. For your completion MAKES you His, in YOUR
awareness. And here it is that you experience yourself as you were created, AND
AS YOU ARE.
T 15 I 2. The holy instant does not REPLACE the need for learning, for the
Holy Spirit must not leave you as your Teacher, until the holy instant has
extended far beyond time. For a teaching assignment such as His, He must use
EVERYTHING in this world for your release. He must side with EVERY sign or token
of your willingness to learn of Him what truth MUST be. He is swift to utilize
WHATEVER you offer Him, on behalf of this. His concern and care for you are
limitless. In the face of your fear of forgiveness, which He perceives as
clearly as He knows forgiveness IS release, He will teach you to remember always
that forgiveness is NOT loss, BUT YOUR SALVATION. And that, in COMPLETE
forgiveness, in which you recognize that there is nothing to forgive, YOU are
absolved completely.
T 15 I 3. Hear Him gladly, and learn of Him that you have need of no special
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relationships at all. You but seek in them what you have THROWN AWAY. And,
through THEM, you will never learn the value of what you have cast aside, but
what you still desire with all your hearts. Let us join together in making the
holy instant all that there is, by desiring that it BE all that there is. God’s
Son has such great need of your willingness to strive for this, that you cannot
conceive of need so great. Behold the only need that God and His Son share, and
will to meet together. You are NOT alone in this. The will of your creations
call to you, to share your will with them. Turn, then, in peace, from guilt to
God and them.
T 15 I 4. Relate only with what will never LEAVE you, and what YOU cannot
leave. The loneliness of God’s Son is the loneliness of his Father. Refuse not
the awareness of your completion, and seek not to restore it to yourselves. Fear
not to give redemption over to your Redeemer’s love. He will NOT fail you, for
He comes from One Who CANNOT fail. Accept YOUR sense of failure as nothing more
than a mistake in WHO YOU WERE. For the holy host of God is BEYOND failure, and
NOTHING that he wills can BE denied. You are forever in a relationship so holy,
that it calls to everyone to ESCAPE from loneliness, and join you in your Love.
And where YOU are must everyone seek, and FIND you there.
T 15 I 5. Think but an instant on this; God gave the Sonship to you, to ensure
your perfect creation. This was His Gift, for, as He withheld Himself not from
you, He withheld not His creation. Nothing that ever was created, but is not
yours. Your relationships are with the universe. And this universe, being of
God, is far beyond the petty sum of all the separate bodies YOU perceive. For
all its parts are joined in God through Christ, where they become like to their
Father. For Christ knows of no separation FROM His Father, Who is His One
relationship, in which He gives as His Father gives to Him.
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T 15 I 6. The Holy Spirit is God’s attempt to free you of what He does not
understand. And, because of the Source of the attempt, IT WILL SUCCEED. The Holy
Spirit asks you to respond as God does, for He would teach you what YOU do not
understand. God would respond to EVERY need, WHATEVER form it takes. And so He
has kept this Channel open to receive His communication to you, AND YOURS TO
HIM. God does NOT understand your problem in communication, for He does NOT
share it with you. It is only YOU, who believe that it IS understandable.
T 15 I 7. The Holy Spirit KNOWS that it is not understandable, and yet He
UNDERSTANDS it, because you have MADE it. In Him alone, lies the awareness of
what God CANNOT know, and what YOU do NOT understand. It is His holy function to
ACCEPT THEM BOTH, and, by removing EVERY element of DISagreement, to join them
into one. He will do this, BECAUSE it is His function. Leave, then, what seems
to you to be impossible, to Him Who knows it MUST be possible, because it is the
Will of God. And let Him, Whose teaching is ONLY of God, teach you the ONLY
meaning of relationships. For God Himself created the only relationship that HAS
meaning, and that is His relationship with YOU.
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December 18, 1966.
T 15 I 8. As the ego would limit your perception of your brothers to the body,
so would the Holy Spirit RELEASE your vision, and let you see the Great Rays
shining from them, so unlimited that they reach to God. It is this shift in
vision which is accomplished in the holy instant. Yet it is needful for you to
learn just what this shift entails, so you will become willing to make it
permanent. Given this willingness, it will NOT leave you, for it IS permanent.
For, once you have accepted it as the ONLY PERCEPTION THAT YOU WANT, it is
translated into knowledge, by the part that God Himself plays in the Atonement,
for it is the ONLY step in it He understands. Therefore, in this there will be
NO delay, when YOU are ready for it. God is ready NOW, but YOU are not.
T 15 I 9. Our task is but to continue, as fast as possible, the necessary
process of looking straight at ALL the interference, and seeing it EXACTLY as it
is. For it is impossible to recognize as WHOLLY without gratification, WHAT YOU
THINK YOU WANT. The body is the symbol of the ego, as the ego is the symbol of
separation. And both are nothing more than attempts to LIMIT communication, and
thereby TO MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE. For communication MUST be UNlimited in order to
HAVE meaning, and DEPRIVED of meaning, it will NOT satisfy YOU completely. Yet
it remains the ONLY means by which you CAN establish real relationships.
T 15 I 10. Real relationships HAVE no limits, having been established by God.
In the holy instant, where the Great Rays REPLACE the body in awareness, the
recognition of relationships WITHOUT limits is given you. But to SEE this, it is
necessary to give up EVERY use the ego has for the body, and to accept the fact
that the ego has NO purpose you would SHARE with it. For the ego would limit
everyone TO a body for ITS purposes, and, while you think it HAS a purpose, you
will choose to utilize the means by which IT tries to turn its purpose into
accomplishment. This will never BE accomplished.
T 15 I 11. Yet you have surely recognized that the ego, whose goals are
altogether UNattainable, will strive for them with all its might. And will do
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so with the strength that YOU have given it. Yet it is impossible to DIVIDE your
strength between Heaven and hell, God and the ego, and RELEASE your power unto
creation, which is the ONLY purpose for which it was GIVEN you. For love would
always give INCREASE. Limits are DEMANDED, representing the ego’s demands to
make little and ineffectual. Limit your vision of a brother to his body, which
you WILL do, as long as you would not release him FROM it, and you have denied
HIS gift to YOU. HIS BODY CANNOT GIVE IT. And seek it not through YOURS.
T 15 I 12. But your minds are ALREADY continuous, and THEIR union need only be
accepted, and the loneliness in Heaven is gone. If you would but let the Holy
Spirit tell you of the Love of God for you, and the need that your creations
have to be with you forever, you would experience the attraction of the Eternal.
For no-one can hear Him speak of this, and long remain willing to linger here.
For it IS your will to be in Heaven, where you are complete and quiet, in such
sure and loving relationships, that ANY limits are impossible. Would you not
exchange your little relationships for this? For the body IS little and limited,
and only those whom you would see WITHOUT the limits that the ego would impose
on them, can offer YOU the gift of freedom.
T 15 I 13. You have no conception of the limits you have placed on your
perception, and no idea of all the loveliness that you COULD see. But this you
must remember; the attraction of guilt OPPOSES the attraction of God. His
attraction for you remains unlimited, but, because your power, BEING His, is AS
GREAT as His, you can TURN AWAY from love. What you invest in guilt, you
withdraw from God. And your sight grows weak and dim and limited, for you have
attempted to SEPARATE the Father from the Son, and LIMIT their communication.
Seek not Atonement in FURTHER separation. And limit not your vision of God’s Son
to what INTERFERES with his release, and what the Holy Spirit must UNDO to set
him free. For his belief in limits HAS imprisoned him.
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T 15 J. The Time of Christ
T 15 J 1. When the body ceases to attract you, and when you place no value on
it as a means of GETTING ANYTHING, then there will be NO interference in
communication. And your thoughts will be as free as God’s. As you let the Holy
Spirit teach you how to use the body ONLY for purposes of communication, and
RENOUNCE its use for separation and attack, which the EGO sees in it, you will
learn you have no need of a body at all. In the holy instant, there ARE no
bodies. And you experience ONLY the attraction of God. Accepting it as
undivided, you join Him wholly, in an instant. For you would place NO limits on
your union WITH Him. The reality of THIS relationship becomes the only truth
that you could ever WANT. ALL Truth IS here.
T 15 J 2. It IS in your power, IN TIME, to delay the perfect union of the
Father and the Son. For in this world, the attraction of guilt DOES stand
between them. Neither time nor season means anything in eternity. But here, it
is the Holy Spirit’s function to use them both, NOT as the ego uses them. This
is the season when you would celebrate my birth into this world. Yet you know
not how to do it. Let the Holy Spirit teach you, and let ME celebrate YOUR birth
through Him. The only gift I can accept of you, is the gift I GAVE you. Release
ME, as I willed YOUR release. The time of Christ we celebrate TOGETHER. For it
HAS no meaning, if we are apart.
T 15 J 3. The holy instant is truly the time of Christ. For, in this
liberating instant, no guilt is laid upon the Son of God, and his unlimited
power is thus restored to him. What OTHER gift can you offer me, when ONLY THIS
I will to offer YOU? And to see me, is to see me in everyone, and offer everyone
the gift you offer me. I am incapable of receiving sacrifice as God is. And
every sacrifice you ask of YOURSELF, you ask of me. Learn NOW that sacrifice, of
ANY kind, is nothing but a LIMITATION IMPOSED ON GIVING. And, BY this
limitation, you have limited YOUR acceptance of the gift I offer YOU.
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T 15 J 4. We who are one, cannot give separately. When you are willing to
accept OUR relationship AS REAL, guilt will hold NO attraction for you. For, in
OUR union, you will accept ALL of our brothers. The gift of union is the only
gift that I was born to give. Give it to ME, that YOU may have it. The time of
Christ is the time appointed for the gift of freedom, offered to everyone. And,
by YOUR acceptance of it, you have offered it TO everyone. It IS in your power
to make this season holy. For it is in your power to make the time of Christ be
NOW.
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December 23, 1966.
T 15 J 5. It is possible to do this all at once, because there is but ONE
shift in perception that is necessary. For you made but ONE mistake. It SEEMS
like many, but it is all the same. For, though the ego takes many forms, it is
ALWAYS the same idea. What is NOT love is always fear, and nothing else. It is
not necessary to follow fear through all of the circuitous routes by which it
burrows underground, and hides in darkness, to emerge in FORMS quite different
from what it IS. It IS necessary to examine each one, as long as you would
retain the PRINCIPLE which governs all of them. But when you are willing to
regard them, NOT as separate, but as DIFFERENT MANIFESTATIONS OF THE SAME IDEA,
and ONE YOU DO NOT WANT, they go together.
T 15 J 6. The idea is simply this; you believe that it is possible to be host
to the ego, or hostage to God. This is the choice you think you have, and the
decision that you believe that you must make. You see no other alternatives. For
you can NOT accept the fact that SACRIFICE GETS NOTHING. Sacrifice is so
essential to your thought-system, that salvation, APART from sacrifice, means
NOTHING to you. Your confusion of sacrifice and love is so profound that you
cannot conceive of love WITHOUT sacrifice. And it is THIS that you must look at;
SACRIFICE IS ATTACK, NOT LOVE. If you would accept but this ONE idea, your fear
of love would vanish.
T 15 J 7. Guilt CANNOT last, when the idea of sacrifice has been removed. For,
if there MUST be sacrifice, as you are convinced, someone must pay, and someone
must get. And the ONLY question that remains to BE decided is HOW MUCH is the
price, for getting WHAT. As host to the ego, you believe that you can give ALL
your guilt away, WHATEVER you think, and purchase peace. For the payment DOES
NOT SEEM TO BE YOURS. While it is obvious that the ego DOES demand payment, it
NEVER seems to be demanding it OF YOU. For you are unwilling to recognize that
the ego, which you INVITED, is treacherous only to those who think they are its
host.
T 15 J 8. The ego will NEVER let you perceive this, for this recognition WILL
make it homeless. For, when this recognition dawns clearly, you will NOT be
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deceived by ANY form the ego takes, to protect itself FROM your sight. Each form
will be recognized as but a cover, for the one idea that hides behind them all.
That love demands sacrifice, and is therefore INSEPARABLE from attack and fear.
And that GUILT IS THE PRICE OF LOVE, which MUST be paid BY fear. How fearful,
then, has God become to you, and how great a sacrifice do you believe His Love
demands! For total love would demand total sacrifice. And so the ego seems to
demand LESS of you than God, and of the two is judged as the LESSER of two
evils, one to be feared a little, but the Other TO BE DESTROYED.
T 15 J 9. For you see love AS DESTRUCTIVE, and your only question is WHO is to
be destroyed, you or another? You seek to answer this question in your special
relationships, in which you are both destroyer and destroyed IN PART, but with
the idea of being able to be neither completely. And this you think SAVES YOU
FROM GOD, whose TOTAL Love would COMPLETELY destroy you. You think that everyone
OUTSIDE yourself demands your sacrifice, but you do NOT see that ONLY you demand
sacrifice, and ONLY of yourself. Yet the demand of sacrifice is so savage and so
fearful, that you CANNOT accept it WHERE IT IS. But the REAL price of NOT
accepting this has been so great, that you have GIVEN GOD AWAY, rather than look
at it.
T 15 J 10. For, if GOD would demand total sacrifice of you, you thought it
safer to project Him outward and AWAY from you, and NOT be host to Him. For to
Him you ascribed the EGO’S treachery, inviting it to take His place, and PROTECT
you FROM Him. And you do not recognize that it is WHAT YOU INVITED IN that would
destroy you, and DOES demand total sacrifice of you. No partial sacrifice will
appease this savage guest, for it is an invader who but SEEMS to offer kindness,
but ALWAYS to MAKE THE SACRIFICE COMPLETE. You will NOT succeed in being PARTIAL
hostage to the ego, for it keeps NO bargains, and would leave you NOTHING. Nor
can you be partial HOST to it.
T 15 J 11. You will have to choose between TOTAL freedom and TOTAL bondage, for
there are no alternatives but these. You have tried many compromises, in the
attempt to avoid recognizing the one decision that MUST be made. And
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yet, it is the RECOGNITION of the decision, JUST AS IT IS, that makes the
decision so easy! Salvation is simple, being of God, and therefore VERY easy to
understand. But do not try to project it FROM you, and see it OUTSIDE yourself.
In YOU are both the question and the Answer; the demand for sacrifice and the
peace of God.
T 15 K. The End of Sacrifice
T 15 K 1. Fear not to recognize as SOLELY OF YOUR MAKING the whole idea of
sacrifice. And seek not safety by attempting to PROTECT yourself from where it
is NOT. Your brothers and your Father have become VERY fearful to you, and you
would bargain with them for a few special relationships, in which you think you
see some scraps of safety. Do not try longer to KEEP APART your thoughts and the
Thought that has been GIVEN you. When they are brought together, and perceived
WHERE THEY ARE, the choice BETWEEN them is nothing more than a gentle awakening,
and as simple as opening your eyes to daylight, when you have no more need of
sleep.
T 15 K 2. The sign of Christmas is a star, a light in darkness. See it not
OUTSIDE of yourself, but shining in the Heaven within, and accept it as the sign
the time of Christ has come. He comes demanding NOTHING. No sacrifice of ANY
kind, of ANYONE, is asked by Him. In His Presence, THE WHOLE IDEA of sacrifice
loses ALL meaning. For He is Host to God. And you need but invite Him in Who is
there ALREADY, by recognizing that His Host is One. And no thought ALIEN to His
Oneness can abide with Him there. Love MUST be total to give Him welcome, for
the Presence of holiness CREATES the holiness which surrounds It. No fear can
touch the Host Who cradles God in the time of Christ, for the Host is as holy as
the Perfect Innocence that He protects, and Whose Power protects HIM.
T 15 K 3. This Christmas, give the Holy Spirit EVERYTHING that would hurt you.
LET yourself be healed completely, that you may JOIN with Him in healing. And
let us celebrate our release together, by releasing everyone WITH us. Leave
nothing behind, for release is TOTAL And when you have accepted it WITH me, you
will GIVE it with me. All pain and sacrifice and littleness will disappear in
OUR relationship, which is as innocent as our relationship with
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our Father, and as powerful. Pain will be brought to us, and disappear in our
presence. And, WITHOUT pain, there can BE no sacrifice. And WITHOUT SACRIFICE,
there love MUST be.
T 15 K 4. You who believe that sacrifice IS love, must learn that sacrifice is
SEPARATION FROM love. For sacrifice brings guilt, as surely as love brings
peace. Guilt is the CONDITION of sacrifice, as peace is the condition for the
awareness of your relationship with God. For through guilt, you EXCLUDE your
Father and your brothers FROM yourself. And through peace, you will invite them
back, and realize that they are where your invitation bids them be. What you
excluded from yourself seems fearful, for you ENDOWED it with fear, and tried to
CAST IT OUT, though it was part of you. Who can perceive part of himself as
loathsome, and live within himself in peace? And who can try to resolve the
perceived conflict of Heaven and hell IN HIM by casting Heaven out, and GIVING
IT the attributes of hell, WITHOUT experiencing himself as incomplete and
lonely?
T 15 K 5. As long as you perceive the body as your reality, so long will you
perceive yourself as lonely and deprived. And so long will you also perceive
yourself as a VICTIM OF SACRIFICE, JUSTIFIED in sacrificing others. For who
could thrust Heaven and its Creator aside, WITHOUT a sense of sacrifice and
loss? And who can suffer sacrifice and loss, without attempting to RESTORE
himself? Yet how could you accomplish this yourselves, when the basis of your
attempts is the belief in the REALITY OF THE DEPRIVATION? For deprivation breeds
attack, BEING the belief that attack IS justified. And, as long as you would
RETAIN the deprivation, attack becomes salvation, and sacrifice becomes love.
T 15 K 6. So is it that, in all your seeking for love, YOU SEEK FOR SACRIFICE,
and FIND it. Yet you find NOT love. For it is impossible to DENY what love IS,
and still RECOGNIZE it. The meaning of love lies in what you have cast OUTSIDE
yourself, and it HAS no meaning at all, APART from you. It is what you preferred
to KEEP, that has no meaning. While all that you would KEEP
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AWAY hold all the meaning of the universe, and holds the universe together in
its meaning. For, unless the universe were joined in YOU, it would be APART FROM
God, and to be without Him IS to be without meaning.
T 15 K 7. In the holy instant, the condition of love is met, for minds are
joined without the body’s INTERFERENCE, and where there is communication, there
is peace. The Prince of Peace was born to re-establish the CONDITION of love, by
teaching that communication remains unbroken, even if the body is destroyed,
PROVIDED THAT you see NOT the body as the necessary means of communication. And
if you UNDERSTAND this lesson, you will realize that, to sacrifice the BODY, is
to SACRIFICE NOTHING. And communication, which MUST be of the mind, CANNOT be
sacrificed. Where, then, is sacrifice?
T 15 K 8. The lesson I was born to teach, and still would teach to all my
brothers, is that sacrifice is nowhere and love is everywhere. For communication
EMBRACES EVERYTHING, and in the peace it re-establishes, love comes of itself.
Let no despair darken the joy of Christmas, for the time of Christ is
meaningless APART from joy. Let us join in celebrating peace by demanding no
sacrifice of anyone, for so will you offer me the love I offer you. What can be
more joyous than to perceive WE ARE DEPRIVED OF NOTHING? Such is the message of
the time of Christ, which I give you, that YOU may give it, and return it to the
Father, Who gave it to me.
T 15 K 9. For in the time of Christ, communication is restored, and He joins
us in the celebration of His Son’s Creation. God offers thanks to the holy host
who would receive Him, and let Him enter, and abide where He would be. And BY
your welcome, does HE welcome you into Himself. For what is contained in you who
welcome Him is RETURNED to Him. And we but celebrate HIS Wholeness, as we
welcome Him into ourselves. Those who receive the Father are one with Him, being
host to Him Who created them. And by allowing Him to enter, the remembrance of
the Father enters with Him, and with Him they remember the only relationship
they ever had, and ever want to have.
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December 28, 1966
T 15 K 10. This is the week-end in which a new year will be born from the time
of Christ. I have perfect faith in you, to do all that you would accomplish.
Nothing will be lacking, and you will MAKE COMPLETE, and NOT destroy. Say and
UNDERSTAND this:
I give you to the Holy Spirit, as part of myself.
I know that you will be released, UNLESS I WANT TO
USE YOU TO IMPRISON MYSELF.
In the name of MY freedom, I WILL your release,
Because I recognize that we will be released TOGETHER.
So will the year begin in joy and freedom. There is much to do, and we have been
long delayed. Accept the holy instant as this year is born, and take your place,
so long left unfulfilled, in the Great Awakening. Make this year different, by
making it ALL THE SAME. And let ALL your relationships be made holy FOR you.
This is OUR will.
Amen.
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Chapter XIV - 16 - The Forgiveness Of Illusions
T 16 A. Introduction
December 30, 1966
T 16 A 1. To empathize does NOT mean to JOIN IN SUFFERING, for this is what
you must REFUSE to understand. This is the EGO’S interpretation of empathy, and
is ALWAYS used to form a special relationship, in which SUFFERING is shared. The
CAPACITY to empathize is VERY useful to the Holy Spirit, provided you let Him
use it in His way. He does NOT understand suffering, and would have you teach IT
IS NOT UNDERSTANDABLE. When He relates through you, He does NOT relate through
the ego to another ego. He does NOT join in pain, knowing that HEALING pain is
NOT accomplished by delusional attempts to ENTER INTO IT, and lighten it by
SHARING the delusion.
T 16 A 2. The clearest proof that empathy, as the ego uses it, is DESTRUCTIVE,
lies in the fact that it is applied ONLY to certain types of problems, and in
certain people. These it SELECTS OUT and JOINS WITH. And it NEVER joins, except
to strengthen itself. Having identified with what it THINKS it understands, it
sees ITSELF, and would INCREASE itself by sharing what is LIKE itself. Make no
mistake about this maneuver; the ego always EMPATHIZES TO WEAKEN. And to weaken
is ALWAYS to attack.
T 16 A 3. You do NOT know what empathizing means. But of this you may be sure;
if you will merely sit quietly by, and let the Holy Spirit relate THROUGH you,
you will EMPATHIZE WITH STRENGTH, and both of you will gain in strength, and NOT
in weakness. Your part is only to remember this; you do not want anything that
YOU value to come of the relationship. You will neither to hurt it, NOR TO HEAL
IT in your own way. You do NOT know what healing IS. All you have learned of
empathy IS FROM THE PAST. And there is NOTHING from the past that you would
share, for there is nothing there that YOU WOULD KEEP.
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December 30, 1966 (CONTINUED)
T 16 A 4. Do NOT use empathy to MAKE THE PAST REAL, and so perpetuate it. Step
gently aside, and let the healing be done FOR you. Keep but one thought in mind,
and do not lose sight of it, however tempted you may be to judge the situation,
and DETERMINE your response BY judging it. Focus your mind only on this;
"I am not alone, and I would not intrude the past upon my Guest.
I have invited Him, and He is here.
I need do nothing except NOT TO INTERFERE."
T 16 B. True Empathy
T 16 B 1. True empathy is of Him Who knows what it is. YOU will learn HIS
interpretation of it, if you let Him use YOUR capacity for strength, and NOT for
weakness.
T 16 B 2. He will NOT desert you, but be sure that YOU desert not Him.
Humility is strength in this sense only; to recognize and ACCEPT the fact that
you do NOT know, is to recognize and accept the fact that He DOES know. You are
not sure that He will do His part, because you have NEVER YET DONE YOURS
COMPLETELY. You will NOT know how to respond to what you do NOT understand. Be
tempted not in this and yield not to the ego’s triumphant use of empathy, for
ITS glory. The triumph of weakness is NOT what you would offer to a brother. And
yet you know no triumph but this. This is NOT knowledge, and the form of empathy
that would bring it about, is so distorted that it would imprison what it would
release.
T 16 B The unredeemed cannot redeem. Yet they HAVE a Redeemer. Attempt to teach
Him not. YOU are the learner; He the Teacher. Do not confuse your role with His,
for this will never bring peace to anyone. Offer your empathy to Him, for it is
HIS perception and His strength that you would share. And let Him offer you HIS
strength and HIS perception, to be shared THROUGH you.
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The meaning of love is lost in any relationship which looks to weakness, and
hopes to find it there. The POWER of love, which IS its meaning, lies in the
strength of God, which hovers over it and blesses it silently, by enveloping it
in healing wings. LET THIS BE, and do not try to substitute YOUR "miracle" for
this.
T 16 B 4. We once said that, if a brother asks a foolish thing of you, to do
it. But be certain that this does NOT mean to do a foolish thing that would hurt
either him or you, for what would hurt one WILL hurt the other. Foolish requests
ARE foolish, for the simple reason THAT THEY CONFLICT, because they contain an
element of specialness. Only the Holy Spirit recognizes foolish needs, AS WELL
AS real ones. And He will teach you how to meet BOTH, without losing either.
T 16 B 5. YOU will be able to do this ONLY IN SECRECY. And you will think
that, by meeting the needs of one, you do NOT jeopardize another, because you
keep them SEPARATE, and secret from each other. This is NOT the way, for it
leads not to light and truth. No needs will long be left unmet, if you leave
them ALL to Him Whose FUNCTION is to meet them. This is His function, and NOT
YOURS. He will NOT meet them secretly, for He would share everything you give
through Him. And that is WHY He gives it. What you give through Him is for the
whole Sonship, NOT FOR PART OF IT. Leave Him His function, for He WILL fulfill
it, if you but ask Him to enter your relationships, and bless them FOR you.
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T 16 C. The Magnitude of Holiness
Jan. 1, 1967
T 16 C 1. You still think holiness is difficult, because you cannot see how it
can be extended to include EVERYONE, and you HAVE learned that it must include
everyone, to be holy. Concern yourselves not with the EXTENSION of holiness, for
the nature of miracles you do NOT understand. Nor do you DO them. It is their
extension, far beyond the limits you perceive, that demonstrates you did not do
them. Why should you worry how the miracle extends to all the Sonship, when you
do not understand the miracle itself? One ATTRIBUTE is no more difficult to
understand than is the whole. If miracles are at all, their attributes would
have to be miraculous, being PART of them.
T 16 C 2. There is a tendency to fragment, and then to be concerned about the
truth of just a little PART of the whole. And this is but a way of avoiding, or
looking away FROM the whole, to what you think you might be better able to
understand. And this is but another way in which you would still try to keep
understanding TO yourself. A better and far more helpful way to think of
miracles is this: You do NOT understand them, either in part or whole. Yet you
have DONE them. Therefore, your understanding CANNOT be necessary. Yet it is
still impossible to accomplish what you do not understand. And so there must be
Something IN you that does understand.
T 16 C 3. To you the miracle cannot seem natural, because what you have done
to hurt your minds, has made THEM so unnatural that they do not remember what is
natural to them. And when you are told about it, you cannot UNDERSTAND it. The
recognition of the part as whole, and of the whole in every part, is perfectly
natural. For it is the way GOD thinks, and what is natural to Him, IS natural to
you. WHOLLY natural perception would show you instantly that order of difficulty
in miracles is quite impossible, for it involves a contradiction of what
miracles MEAN. And, if you could understand their MEANING, their ATTRIBUTES
could hardly cause you perplexity.
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T 16 C 4. You have done miracles, but it is QUITE apparent that you have NOT
done them alone. You have succeeded whenever you have reached another mind, and
joined with it. When two minds join as one, and share one idea equally, the
first link in the awareness of the Sonship as one has been made. When you have
made this joining, as the Holy Spirit bids you, and have OFFERED it to Him to
use as HE knows how, His natural perception of your gift enables him to
understand it, and you to USE His understanding on YOUR behalf. It is impossible
to convince you of the reality of what has clearly been accomplished, through
your willingness, as long as you believe that you must understand it, or else IT
is not real.
T 16 C 5. You think your LACK of understanding is a loss to you, and so you
are unwilling to believe that what HAS happened is true. Yet can you really
believe that all that has happened, EVEN THOUGH you do not understand it, HAS
not HAPPENED? Yet this is your position. You would have PERFECT faith in the
Holy Spirit, and in the EFFECTS of His teaching, if you were not AFRAID to
acknowledge what He taught you. For this acknowledgement MEANS that what has
happened you do NOT understand, but that you are willing to ACCEPT it, because
it has happened. How can faith in reality be yours, while you are bent on making
it UNreal? And are you really safer in maintaining the UNreality of what has
happened, than you would be in joyously accepting it FOR WHAT IT IS, and giving
thanks for it?
T 16 C 6. Honor the truth that has been given you, and be glad you do NOT
understand it. Miracles are natural to God, and to the One Who speaks for Him.
For His task is to TRANSLATE the miracle into the knowledge which it REPRESENTS,
and which IS lost to you. Let HIS understanding of the miracle be enough for
you, and do not turn away from all the witnesses that He has given you to His
reality.
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NO evidence will convince you of the truth of what you do NOT want. Yet your
relationship with Him is real, and has been demonstrated. Regard this not with
fear, but with rejoicing. The One you called upon is with you. Bid Him welcome,
and honor His witnesses, who bring you the glad tidings that He HAS come.
T 16 C 7. It IS true, JUST AS YOU FEAR, that to acknowledge Him, is to deny
ALL that you think you know. But it was NEVER true. What gain is there to you in
clinging to it, and denying the evidence for truth? For you have come too near
to truth to renounce it now, and you will yield to its compelling attraction.
You can delay this now, but only a little. The host of God has called to you,
and you have heard. Never again will you be wholly willing NOT to listen. This
is a year of joy, in which your listening will increase, and peace will grow
with its increase.
T 16 C 8. The power of holiness AND THE weakness OF ATTACK, have both been
brought into awareness. And this has been accomplished in minds firmly convinced
that holiness is weakness, and attack is power. Should not that be a sufficient
miracle to teach you that your Teacher is not of you? But remember also that,
whenever you have listened to HIS interpretation, the results have brought YOU
joy. Would you PREFER the results of your interpretation, considering honestly
what they have been? God wills you better. Could you not look with greater
charity, on whom God loves with perfect love? Do not interpret against His love
for you. For you have many witnesses that speak of it so clearly, that only the
blind and deaf could fail to see and hear them.
T 16 C 9. This year, determine NOT to deny what has been given you BY God, to
use for Him. He has Himself reminded you of Him. A for that is the only reason
He has called to you. His Voice has spoken clearly, and yet you have so little
faith in what you heard, because you have preferred to place
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still greater faith in the disaster you have made. Today, let us resolve
together to accept the joyful tidings that disaster is NOT real, and that
reality is NOT disaster. Reality is safe and sure and wholly kind to everyone
and everything. There is no greater love than to accept this, and be glad. For
love asks only that YOU BE happy, and will GIVE you everything that makes for
happiness.
T 16 C 10. You have never given ANY problem to the Holy Spirit He has not
solved. NOR will you ever do so. You have never tried to solve ANYTHING yourself
and been successful. Is it not time you brought these facts together, and made
sense of them? This is the year for the application of the ideas that have been
given you. For the ideas are mighty forces, to be USED, and not held idly by.
They have ALREADY proved their power sufficiently for you to place your faith in
THEM, and NOT in their denial. This year, invest in truth, and let it work in
peace. Have faith in what has faith in YOU. Think what you have REALLY seen and
heard, and RECOGNIZE it. Can you BE alone, with witnesses like these?
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T 16 D. The Reward of Teaching
January 2, 1967
T 16 D 1. You have taught well, and yet you have not learned how to ACCEPT the
comfort of your teaching. If you will consider WHAT you have taught, and how
alien it is to what you THOUGHT you knew, you will be COMPELLED to recognize
that your Teacher came from BEYOND your thought-system, and so could look upon
it fairly, and perceive it was untrue. And He MUST have done so from the basis
of a very different thought-system, and one with NOTHING IN COMMON WITH YOURS.
For certainly, what He has taught, and what you taught THROUGH Him, HAS nothing
in common with what you taught BEFORE He came. And the results have been to
bring peace where there was pain, and suffering has disappeared, to be replaced
by joy.
T 16 D 2. You HAVE taught freedom, but you have NOT learned how to be free. We
once said, "By their fruits ye shall know them, and they shall know themselves."
For it is certain that you judge YOURSELF according to your teaching. The ego’s
teaching produces IMMEDIATE results, because ITS decisions are immediately
ACCEPTED AS YOUR CHOICE. And this acceptance MEANS that you are willing to judge
yourself accordingly. Cause and effect are very clear in the ego’s
thought-system, because all your learning has been directed towards ESTABLISHING
the relationship between them. And would you NOT have faith in what you have so
diligently taught yourself to believe? But remember how much care you have
exerted in choosing its witnesses, and in AVOIDING those who spoke for the Cause
of truth, and ITS effects.
T 16 D 3. Does not the fact that you have NOT learned what you HAVE taught,
show you that you do NOT perceive the Sonship as one? And does it not also show
you that you do not regard YOURSELF as one? For it is impossible to teach
successfully, WHOLLY without conviction, and it is equally impossible that
conviction be OUTSIDE you. You could never have taught freedom, unless you DID
believe in it. And it MUST be that what you taught CAME FROM YOURSELF.
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And yet, this self you clearly DO NOT KNOW, and do not recognize EVEN THOUGH IT
FUNCTIONS. What functions, must be THERE. And it is ONLY if you deny WHAT IT HAS
DONE, that you could possibly deny its presence.
T 16 D 4. This is a course in how to KNOW yourself. You have TAUGHT what you
are, but have NOT let what you are, teach YOU. You have been VERY careful to
avoid the obvious, and NOT to see the REAL cause and effect relationship that is
PERFECTLY apparent. Yet, within you, is EVERYTHING you taught. What can it be,
that has NOT learned it? It must be this that is REALLY outside yourself, NOT by
your own projection, BUT IN TRUTH. And it is this, that you have TAKEN IN, that
is NOT you. What YOU accept into your minds, does not REALLY change them.
Illusions are but beliefs in WHAT IS NOT THERE. And the seeming conflict between
truth and illusion can ONLY be resolved by SEPARATING YOURSELF FROM THE
ILLUSION, and NOT from truth.
T 16 D 5. Your teaching has already DONE this, for the Holy Spirit is PART OF
YOU. Created by God, He left neither God nor His creation. He is both God and
you, as you are God and Him together. For God’s answer to the separation added
more to you than you tried to TAKE AWAY. He protected both your creations AND
you together, keeping one with you what you would EXCLUDE. And they will TAKE
THE PLACE of what YOU took in, to replace THEM. They are QUITE real, and part of
the self you do not know. And they communicate to you through the Holy Spirit,
and their power and gratitude to you for THEIR creation, they offer gladly to
your teaching of your self, who is their home.
T 16 D 6. You who are host to God, are also host to THEM. For nothing real has
ever left the mind of its Creator. And what is NOT real was NEVER there. You are
NOT two selves in conflict. What is BEYOND GOD? If you who hold Him, and whom He
holds, ARE the universe, all else must be OUTSIDE, where NOTHING is.
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YOU have taught this, and from far off in the universe, yet NOT beyond yourself,
the witnesses to your teaching have gathered to help you learn. Their gratitude
has joined with yours and God’s, to strengthen your faith in what you taught.
FOR WHAT YOU TAUGHT IS TRUE. Alone, you stand OUTSIDE your teaching and APART
from it. But WITH them, you MUST learn that you but taught YOURSELF, and LEARNED
from the conviction you SHARED with them.
T 16 D 7. This year you will begin to learn, and make learning COMMENSURATE
with teaching. You have CHOSEN this, by your own willingness to teach. Though
you seemed to suffer for it, the joy of teaching will yet be yours. For the joy
of teaching is IN THE LEARNER, who offers it to the teacher in gratitude, and
shares it WITH him. As you learn, your gratitude to your SELF, Who teaches you
what He IS, will grow and help you honor Him. And you will learn His power and
strength and purity, and love Him as His Father does. His Kingdom has no limits
and no end, and there is nothing in Him that is not perfect and eternal. All
this is YOU, and nothing OUTSIDE of this IS you. To your most Holy Self all
praise is due, for what you are, and for what He is Who created you AS you are.
T 16 D 8. Sooner or later must everyone bridge the gap which he imagines
exists between his selves. Each one builds this bridge, which CARRIES HIM ACROSS
the gap, as soon as he is willing to expend some little effort on behalf of
bridging it. His little efforts are powerfully supplemented by the strength of
Heaven, and by the united will of all who make Heaven what it is, being joined
within it. And so the one who would cross over, is literally transported there.
Your bridge is builded stronger than you think, and your foot is planted firmly
on it. Have no fear that the attraction of those who stand on the other side and
wait for you, will not draw you safely across. For you WILL come where you would
be, and where your Self awaits you.
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T 16 E. Illusion and Reality of Love
January 5, 1967
T 16 E 1. Be not afraid to look upon the special hate relationship, for
freedom lies here. It would be impossible NOT to know the meaning of love,
EXCEPT FOR THIS. For the special love relationship, IN WHICH THE MEANING OF LOVE
IS LOST, is undertaken SOLELY to OFFSET this, but NOT to LET IT GO. Your
salvation will rise clearly before your open eyes, as you look on this. YOU
CANNOT LIMIT HATE. The special love relationship will NOT offset it, but will
merely DRIVE IT UNDERGROUND, and out of sight. It is essential to bring it INTO
sight, and to make NO attempt to hide it. For it is the attempt to BALANCE hate
with love that makes love meaningless to you.
T 16 E 2. The extent of the split that lies in this you do NOT realize. And
until you do, the split will remain unrecognized, AND THEREFORE UNHEALED. The
symbols of hate against the symbols of love play out a conflict that does not
exist. For symbols stand for something ELSE, and the SYMBOL of love IS without
meaning, if love is everything. You will go through this last undoing quite
unharmed, and will at last emerge AS YOURSELF. This is the last step in the
readiness for God. Be not unwilling now, you are too near, and you WILL cross
the bridge in perfect safety, translated quietly from war to peace. For the
ILLUSION of love will NEVER satisfy you. But its REALITY, which awaits you on
the other side, WILL give you everything.
T 16 E 3. The special love relationship is an attempt to limit the destructive
EFFECTS of hate, by finding a haven in the storm of guilt. It makes NO attempt
to RISE ABOVE the storm, into the sunlight. On the contrary, it EMPHASIZES guilt
OUTSIDE the haven, by attempting to build barricades AGAINST it, and keep WITHIN
them. The special love relationship is NOT perceived as a value IN ITSELF, but
as a place of safety, from which hatred is split off, and KEPT APART. The
special love partner is acceptable ONLY as long as he serves this purpose.
Hatred can enter, and, indeed, is WELCOME in some ASPECTS of the relationship,
but it is still held together by the illusion of love.
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If the illusion goes, the relationship is broken or becomes unsatisfying, on the
grounds of DISillusionment.
T 16 E 4. LOVE IS NOT AN ILLUSION. It is a FACT. Where DISillusionment is
possible, there was NOT love, but HATE. For hate IS an illusion, and what can
change was NEVER love. It is certain that those who select certain ones as
partners in ANY aspect of living, and use them for ANY purpose which they would
NOT share with others, are trying to LIVE WITH guilt rather than DIE OF it. This
is the choice they see. And love to them is only AN ESCAPE FROM DEATH. They seek
it desperately, NOT in the peace in which it would gladly come quietly TO them.
And when they find the fear of death is still upon them, the "love" relationship
loses the illusion that it IS what it is NOT. For, when the barricades against
it are broken, fear rushes in and hatred triumphs.
T 16 E 5. There are no triumphs of love. Only hate is concerned with the
triumph of love at all. The ILLUSION of love CAN triumph over the illusion of
hate, but ALWAYS at the price of making BOTH illusions. As long as the illusion
of hatred lasts, so long WILL love be an illusion to you. And then the ONLY
choice that remains possible, is which illusion you prefer. There IS no conflict
in the choice between truth and illusion. Seen in THESE terms, NO-ONE would
hesitate. But conflict enters the instant the choice seems to be one BETWEEN
ILLUSIONS, for this choice does NOT matter. Where one choice IS as dangerous as
the other, the decision MUST be one of despair.
T 16 E 6. Your task is NOT to seek for love, but merely to seek and FIND all
of the barriers WITHIN YOURSELF that you have built AGAINST it. It is NOT
necessary to seek for what is true, but it IS necessary to seek for what is
FALSE. Every illusion is one of fear, WHATEVER form it takes.
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And the attempt to escape from one illusion INTO ANOTHER, MUST fail. If you seek
love OUTSIDE yourself, you can be certain that you perceive hatred within, AND
ARE AFRAID OF IT. Yet peace will never come from the ILLUSION of love, but ONLY
from its reality.
T 16 E 7. Recognize this, for it is true, and truth MUST be recognized, if it
is to be distinguished from illusion:
T 16 E 8. The special love relationship is an attempt TO BRING LOVE INTO
SEPARATION. And, as such, it is nothing more than an attempt to bring love into
fear, and MAKE IT REAL IN FEAR. In fundamental violation of love’s one
condition, the special love relationship would thus ACCOMPLISH THE IMPOSSIBLE.
How but in illusion COULD this be done? It is essential that we look VERY
closely at exactly what it is you THINK you can do, to solve a dilemma which
seems very real to you, but which does not exist. You have come very close to
truth. And only this stands between you and the bridge that leads you into it.
Heaven waits silently, and your creations are holding out their hands to help
you cross, and welcome them.
T 16 E 9. FOR IT IS THEY YOU SEEK. You seek but for your own COMPLETION, and
it is they who render you complete. The special love relationship is but a
shabby substitute for what makes you whole IN TRUTH, NOT in illusion. Your
relationship with them IS without guilt, and THIS enables you to look on all
your brothers with gratitude, because your creations were created in union WITH
them. Acceptance of your creations IS the acceptance of the oneness of creation,
without which you would never BE complete. No specialness can offer you what God
has given, and what YOU are joined WITH Him in giving. Across the bridge IS your
completion, for you will be WHOLLY in God, willing for NOTHING special, but only
to be wholly like unto Him, completing Him by your completion.
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T 16 E 10. Fear not to cross to the abode of peace and perfect holiness. Only
there is the completion of God and of His Son established forever. Seek not for
this in the bleak world of illusion, where nothing is certain, and where
everything fails to satisfy. And, in the Name of God, be wholly willing to
abandon ALL illusion. In any relationship in which you are wholly willing to
accept completion, and ONLY this, there is God completed, and His Son WITH Him.
The bridge that leads to union IN YOURSELF, MUST lead to knowledge, for it was
built with God beside you. And will lead you straight to Him, where YOUR
completion rests, WHOLLY compatible with His.
T 16 E 11. Every illusion which you accept into your mind, BY JUDGING IT
ATTAINABLE, removes your own sense of completion, and thus denies the Wholeness
of your Father. Every fantasy, be it of love OR hate, DEPRIVES you of knowledge,
for fantasies ARE the veil behind which truth is hidden. To lift the veil, which
seems so dark and heavy, it is only needful to VALUE truth beyond ALL fantasy,
and to be entirely UNwilling to settle for illusion IN PLACE of truth. Would you
not go THROUGH fear to Love? For such the journey SEEMS to be. Love calls,
though hate would bid you stay.
T 16 E 12. Hear not the call of hate, and see no fantasies. For your completion
lies in truth, and NOWHERE ELSE. See in the call of hate, and in every fantasy
that rises to delay you, but the call for help, that rises ceaselessly from you
to your Creator. Would He not answer you; whose completion is His? He loves you,
wholly WITHOUT illusion, as you must love. For love IS wholly without illusion,
and therefore wholly WITHOUT FEAR. Whom God remembers, MUST be whole. And God
has NEVER forgotten what makes HIM whole. In YOUR completion lies the memory of
HIS wholeness, and His gratitude to you for His completion.
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T 16 E 13. In His link with you lie both His INABILITY to forget, and YOUR
ability to remember. In Him are joined your WILLINGNESS to love, and all the
love of God, Who forgot you not. Your Father can no more forget the truth in
you, than you can fail to remember it. The Holy Spirit is the bridge to Him,
made from your willingness to UNITE with Him, and created by His joy, in union
WITH you. The journey that SEEMED to be endless is ALMOST complete, for what IS
endless is very near. YOU HAVE ALMOST RECOGNIZED IT. Turn with me firmly away
from ALL illusion NOW, and let nothing stand in the way of truth. We will take
the last foolish journey AWAY FROM truth together. And then TOGETHER we go
straight to God, in joyous answer to His call for His completion.
T 16 E 14. If special relationships of ANY kind would HINDER God’s completion,
CAN they have any value TO YOU? What would interfere with God, MUST interfere
with you. Only in time does interference in God’s completion SEEM to be
possible. The bridge that He would carry you across, lifts you FROM time into
eternity. Waken from time, and answer fearlessly the call of Him Who gave
eternity to you in your creation. On this side of the bridge to timelessness,
you understand nothing. But, as you step lightly across it, upheld BY
Timelessness, you are directed straight to the heart of knowledge. At Its
center, and ONLY there, you are safe forever, BECAUSE YOU ARE COMPLETE FOREVER.
There is no veil the love of God in us together CANNOT lift. The way to Truth is
open. Follow it with me.
T 16 F. Specialness and Guilt
442
T 16 F 1. In looking at the special relationship, it is necessary first to
realize that it involves a great amount of pain. Anxiety, despair, guilt, and
attack all enter into it, BROKEN INTO by periods in which they SEEM to be gone.
All these must be understood for what they ARE. Whatever form they take, they
are always an attack on the self, TO MAKE THE OTHER GUILTY.
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We have spoken of this before, but there are some aspects of what is REALLY
being attempted, that we have not touched upon. Very simply, the attempt to make
guilty is ALWAYS directed against God. For the ego would have you see Him, AND
HIM ALONE, as guilty, leaving the Sonship OPEN to attack, and unprotected from
it.
January 6, 1967
T 16 F 2. The special love relationship is the ego’s chief weapon for keeping
you from Heaven. It does not APPEAR to be a weapon, but if you consider HOW you
VALUE it, and why, you will realize what it MUST be. The special love
relationship is the ego’s most boasted gift, and the one that has the most
appeal to those unwilling to relinquish guilt. The "dynamics" of the ego are
clearest here, for, counting on the attraction of this offering, the fantasies
which center around this, are often quite open. Here, they are usually judged to
be acceptable, and even NATURAL. No-one considers it bizarre to love and hate
together, and even those who believe that hate is "sin", merely feel guilty, but
do NOT correct it.
T 16 F 3. This IS the "natural" condition of the separation. And those who
learn that it is NOT natural at all, seem to be the UNnatural ones. For this
world IS the opposite of Heaven, having been made to BE its opposite. And
EVERYTHING here takes a direction EXACTLY opposite to what is true. In Heaven,
where the meaning of love is known, love is the same as UNION. Here, where the
ILLUSION of love is accepted IN ITS PLACE, love is perceived as separation and
EXCLUSION.
T 16 F 4. It is in the special relationship, born of the hidden wish for
special love from God, that the ego’s hatred triumphs. For the special
relationship is THE RENUNCIATION OF THE LOVE OF GOD, and the attempt to secure
for the self the specialness that He denied. And it is essential
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to the preservation of the ego, that you believe this specialness is NOT hell,
but HEAVEN. For the ego would never have you see that the separation can ONLY BE
LOSS, being the one condition in which Heaven CANNOT be.
T 16 F 5. To everyone, Heaven is completion. There CAN be no disagreement on
this, because both the ego AND the Holy Spirit accept it. They are, however, in
complete DISagreement on what completion IS, and HOW it is accomplished. The
Holy Spirit knows that self completion lies first in union, and then in the
EXTENSION of union. To the ego, completion lies in triumph, and in the extension
of the "victory," even to the final triumph over God. In THIS it sees the
ultimate FREEDOM of the self, for nothing would remain to interfere with IT.
This IS its idea of Heaven. From this it follows that union, which is a
condition in which the EGO cannot interfere, MUST BE HELL.
T 16 F 6. The special relationship is a strange and unnatural ego device for
joining hell and Heaven, and making them indistinguishable. And the attempt to
find the imagined "best" of BOTH worlds, has merely led to FANTASIES of both,
and to the inability to perceive either one AS IT IS. The special relationship
is the triumph of this confusion. It is a kind of union from which UNION IS
EXCLUDED, and the BASIS for the ATTEMPT at union RESTS on exclusion. What better
example could there be of the ego’s maxim, "Seek, and do NOT find?"
T 16 F 7. Most curious of all is the concept of the self, which the ego
fosters in the special relationship. This "self" SEEKS the relationship, to MAKE
ITSELF COMPLETE. Yet, when it finds the special relationship in which it thinks
it can ACCOMPLISH this, IT GIVES ITSELF AWAY, and tries to TRADE itself for the
self of another. This is NOT union, for there is
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NO increase and NO extension. Each partner tries to sacrifice the self he does
NOT want, for one he thinks he would PREFER. He feels guilty for the "sin" of
TAKING, and of giving nothing of value in return. For how much value CAN he
place upon a self that he would GIVE AWAY to get a BETTER one?
T 16 F 6. The "better" self the ego seeks is ALWAYS one that is MORE special.
And whoever SEEMS to possess a special self is "loved," FOR WHAT CAN BE TAKEN
FROM HIM. Where both partners see this special self IN EACH OTHER, the EGO sees
"a union made in Heaven." For NEITHER will recognize that HE HAS ASKED FOR HELL,
and so he will NOT interfere with the ego’s ILLUSION of Heaven, which it offered
him TO INTERFERE WITH HEAVEN. Yet if ALL illusions are of fear, and they CAN be
of nothing else, the illusion of Heaven is nothing more than an ATTRACTIVE form
of fear, in which the guilt is buried deep, and rises in the form of "love."
T 16 F 7. The appeal of hell lies ONLY in the terrible attraction of guilt,
which the ego holds out to those who place their faith in littleness. The
conviction of littleness lies in EVERY special relationship, for only the
deprived COULD value specialness. The "demand" for specialness, and the
perception of the GIVING of specialness AS AN ACT OF LOVE, would MAKE LOVE
HATEFUL. And the REAL purpose of the special relationship, in strict accordance
with the ego’s goals, is to DESTROY reality and SUBSTITUTE ILLUSION. For the ego
is ITSELF an illusion, and ONLY illusions can BE the witnesses to its reality.
T 16 F 8. If you perceived the special relationship as a triumph over God,
WOULD YOU WANT IT? Let us not think of its fearful nature, nor of the guilt it
MUST entail, nor of the sadness and the loneliness. For these are only
ATTRIBUTES of the whole religion of the separation, and the total
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context in which it is thought to occur. The central theme in its litany to
sacrifice is that GOD MUST DIE SO YOU CAN LIVE. And it is this theme that is
acted out in the special relationship. Through the death of YOUR self, you think
you can ATTACK another self, and snatch it FROM the other, to REPLACE the self
that you despised. And you despise it BECAUSE YOU DO NOT THINK IT OFFERS YOU THE
SPECIALNESS THAT YOU DEMAND. And, HATING it, YOU have made it little and
unworthy, BECAUSE YOU ARE AFRAID OF IT.
T 16 F 9. How can you grant unlimited power to what you think you have
ATTACKED? For so fearful has the truth become that, UNLESS it is weak, and
little, and unworthy of value, you would not dare to look upon it. You think it
safer to endow the little self which YOU have made, with power you WRESTED FROM
truth, triumphing over it, and leaving IT helpless. See how EXACTLY is this
ritual enacted in the special relationship. An altar is erected IN BETWEEN two
separate people, on which each seeks to kill his self, and on his body, raise
another self that TAKES HIS POWER FROM ITS DEATH.
T 16 F 10. Over and over and over, this ritual is enacted. And it is NEVER
completed, nor ever will BE completed. For the RITUAL of completion CANNOT
complete, and life arises not from death, nor Heaven from hell. Whenever ANY
form of special relationship tempts you to seek for love in ritual, remember
love is CONTENT, and NOT form of ANY kind. The special relationship is a RITUAL
OF FORM, aimed at the raising of the form to take the place of God, at the
EXPENSE of content. There IS no meaning in the form, AND THERE WILL NEVER BE.
The special relationship MUST be recognized for what it is; a senseless ritual,
in which strength is extracted from the
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death of God, and invested in His killer, as the sign that form has triumphed
over content, and love has LOST its meaning.
T 16 F 11. Would you WANT this to be possible, even APART from its evident
impossibility? For, if it WERE possible, you would have made YOURSELF helpless.
God is not angry. He merely could not let this happen. You can NOT change His
Mind. No rituals that you have set up, in which the dance of death delights you,
can bring death to the Eternal. Nor can your chosen substitute for the Wholeness
of God, have ANY influence at all upon It. See in the special relationship
nothing more than a meaningless attempt to raise other gods before Him, and, by
worshipping them, to obscure THEIR tininess, AND HIS GREATNESS.
T 16 F 12. In the name of YOUR completion, you do not WANT this. And every idol
that you raise to place BEFORE Him, stands before YOU, in place of what YOU are.
Salvation lies in the simple fact that illusions are NOT fearful, BECAUSE THEY
ARE NOT TRUE. They but SEEM to be fearful to the extent to which you fail to
recognize them FOR WHAT THEY ARE. And you WILL fail to do this, to the extent to
which you WANT them to be true. And, to the same extent, you are DENYING truth,
and so are making YOURSELF unable to make the simple choice between truth and
illusion, fantasy and God.
T 16 F 13. Remember this, and you will have no difficulty in perceiving the
decision as just what it IS, and nothing more. The core of the separation
delusion lies simply in the fantasy DESTRUCTION of love’s meaning. And, unless
it’s meaning is RESTORED to you, you CANNOT know yourself, who SHARE its
meaning. Separation is only the decision NOT to know yourself. Its whole
thought-system is a carefully-contrived learning experience, designed to lead
AWAY from truth, and into fantasy.
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Yet, for every learning that would hurt you, God offers you correction, and
COMPLETE escape from ALL its consequences.
T 16 F 14. The decision whether or not to listen to this course and follow it is
but the choice between truth and illusion. For here IS truth, SEPARATED from
illusion, and NOT confused with it at all. How simple does this choice become
when it is perceived as only what it is. For ONLY fantasies made confusion in
choosing possible, and they are totally UNreal. This year is thus the time to
make the EASIEST decision that ever confronted you, and also the ONLY one. You
will cross the bridge into reality, simply because you will recognize that God
is on the other side AND NOTHING AT ALL IS HERE. It is impossible NOT to make
the natural decision, as this is realized.
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T 16 G. The Bridge to the Real World
January 7, 1967.
T 16 G 1. The search for the special relationship is the sign that you equate
your self with the ego, and NOT with God. For the special relationship has value
ONLY to the ego. To IT, UNLESS a relationship HAS special value, IT HAS NO
MEANING. And it perceives ALL love as special. Yet, this CANNOT be natural, for
it is UNlike the relationship of God and His Son, and ALL relationships that are
unlike this One, MUST be unnatural. For God created love as He would have it be,
and GAVE it as it IS. Love HAS no meaning except as its Creator defined it, by
His Will. It is impossible to define it otherwise, and UNDERSTAND it.
T 16 G 2. LOVE IS FREEDOM. To look for it by placing yourself in BONDAGE, is
to SEPARATE yourself from it. For the love of God, no longer seek for union in
separation, nor for freedom in bondage! As you release, so will you BE released.
FORGET THIS NOT, or love will be unable to find you, and comfort you. There is a
way in which the Holy Spirit asks YOUR help, if you would have His. The holy
instant is His most helpful tool in protecting you from the attraction of guilt,
the REAL lure in the special relationship. You do NOT recognize that this IS its
REAL appeal, for the ego has taught you that FREEDOM lies in it.
T 16 G 3. Yet, the closer you look at the special relationship, the more
apparent it becomes that it MUST foster guilt, and therefore must IMPRISON. The
special relationship is totally without meaning WITHOUT A BODY. And, if you
VALUE it, you must also VALUE THE BODY. And what you value, you WILL keep. The
special relationship is a device for limiting Your self to a body, and for
limiting your perception of others to THEIRS. The Great Rays would establish the
total LACK of value of the special relationship, IF THEY WERE SEEN. For, in
seeing THEM, the body WOULD disappear, BECAUSE ITS VALUE WOULD BE LOST. And so
your whole INVESTMENT in seeing it would be WITHDRAWN from it.
T 16 G 4. YOU SEE THE WORLD YOU VALUE. On this side of the bridge, you see
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the world of separate bodies, seeking to join each other in SEPARATE UNIONS, and
to become one BY LOSING. When two INDIVIDUALS seek to become ONE, they are
trying to DECREASE their magnitude. Each would DENY his power, for the SEPARATE
union EXCLUDES THE UNIVERSE. Far more is LEFT OUTSIDE than would be taken in.
For God is left WITHOUT, and NOTHING taken in. If one such union were made IN
PERFECT FAITH, the universe WOULD enter into it. Yet the special relationship
which the EGO seeks, does NOT include even ONE whole individual. For the ego
WANTS but part of him, and sees ONLY this part, and nothing else.
T 16 G 5. Across the bridge, it is so different! For a time the body is still
seen, but NOT exclusively, as it is seen here. For the little spark that holds
the Great Rays within it, is ALSO visible, and this spark cannot be limited long
to littleness. Once you have crossed the bridge, the VALUE of the body is so
diminished in YOUR sight, that you will see no need at all to MAGNIFY it. For
you will realize that the ONLY value that the body has, is to enable you to
bring your brothers TO the bridge WITH you. And to be RELEASED TOGETHER there.
T 16 G 6. The bridge itself is nothing more than a transition in your
PERSPECTIVE of reality. On this side, everything you see is grossly distorted,
and COMPLETELY out of perspective. What IS little and insignificant is
magnified, and what is strong and powerful, cut down to littleness. In the
transition, there is a period of confusion, in which a sense of actual
disorientation seems to occur. But fear it not, for it means nothing more than
that you have been willing to LET GO your hold on the distorted frame of
reference, that SEEMED to hold your world together. This frame of reference is
BUILT around the special relationship. Without THIS illusion, there can BE no
meaning you would still seek here.
T 16 G 7. Fear not that you will be abruptly lifted up, and hurled into
reality. Time is kind, and, if you use it FOR reality, it will keep gentle pace
with you, in your transition. The urgency is only in dislodging
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your minds from their FIXED position here. This will not leave you homeless, and
WITHOUT a frame of reference. The period of disorientation, which precedes the
actual transition, is far shorter than the time it took to fix your minds so
firmly on illusions. Delay will hurt you now MORE THAN BEFORE, ONLY because you
realize it IS delay, and that escape from pain IS REALLY POSSIBLE. Find hope and
comfort, rather than despair, in this:
T 16 G 8. You could no longer find even the ILLUSION of love in ANY special
relationship here. For you are no longer WHOLLY insane, and you WOULD recognize
the guilt of SELF-betrayal FOR WHAT IT IS. Nothing you seek to strengthen, in
the special relationship, is REALLY part of you. And you cannot keep PART of the
thought-system that taught you it WAS real, and understand the Thought that
REALLY knows what you are. You HAVE allowed the Thought of your reality to enter
your minds, and, because YOU invited it, it WILL abide with you. Your love for
it will not allow you to betray yourself, and you COULD not enter into a
relationship WHERE IT COULD NOT GO WITH YOU, for you would NOT be APART from it.
T 16 G 9. Be glad you have escaped the mockery of salvation that the ego
offered you, and look not back with longing on the travesty it made of your
relationships. Now, no-one need suffer, for you have come too far to yield to
the illusion of the beauty and holiness of guilt. Only the wholly insane could
look on death and suffering, sickness and despair, and see it thus. What guilt
has wrought is ugly, fearful, and very dangerous. See no illusion of truth and
beauty there. And be you thankful that there IS a place where truth and beauty
wait for you.
T 16 G 10. Go on to meet them gladly, and learn how much awaits you, for the
simple willingness to give up nothing, BECAUSE it is nothing. The new
perspective you will gain, from crossing over, will be the understanding of
WHERE HEAVEN IS. From HERE, it seems to be outside, and ACROSS the bridge. But,
as you cross to JOIN it, IT will JOIN WITH YOU, and BECOME ONE with you. And you
will think, in glad astonishment, that for all this, YOU GAVE
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UP NOTHING! The joy of Heaven, which HAS no limit, is INCREASED with each light
that returns, to take its rightful place within it. Wait no longer, for the Love
of God and YOU. And may the holy instant speed you on the way, as it will surely
do, if you but LET it come to you.
T 16 G 11. The Holy Spirit asks only this little help of you. Whenever your
thoughts wander to a special relationship which still ATTRACTS you, enter with
Him into a holy instant, and there, LET HIM RELEASE YOU. He needs only your
willingness to SHARE His perspective, to give it to you completely. And your
willingness need not be complete, BECAUSE HIS IS PERFECT. It is His task to
atone for your UNwillingness by His perfect faith. And it is HIS faith you share
with Him there. Out of YOUR recognition of your UNwillingness for your release,
His PERFECT willingness is GIVEN you. Call upon Him, for Heaven is at His call.
And LET Him call on Heaven FOR you.
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T 16 H. The End of Illusions
January 10, 1967.
T 16 H 1. It is impossible to let the past go WITHOUT relinquishing the
special relationship. For the special relationship is an attempt to RE-ENACT the
past, AND CHANGE IT. Imagined slights, remembered pain, past disappointments,
perceived injustices and deprivations, all enter into the special relationship,
which becomes a way in which you seek to restore your wounded SELF-esteem. What
basis would you have for choosing a special partner, WITHOUT the past? EVERY
such choice is made because of something "evil" in the past, TO WHICH YOU CLING,
and for which must SOMEONE ELSE "atone."
T 16 H 2. The special relationship TAKES VENGEANCE ON THE PAST. By seeking to
remove suffering IN THE PAST, it OVERLOOKS the present, in its preoccupation
with the past, and its TOTAL COMMITMENT to it. NO SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP IS
EXPERIENCED IN THE PRESENT. Shades of the past envelop it, and make it what it
is. It HAS no meaning in the present, and, if it means nothing NOW, it cannot
have any REAL meaning at all. How can you change the past, EXCEPT in fantasy?
And who can give you what you think THE PAST deprived you of? The past is
nothing. Do not seek to lay the blame for deprivation on it, for the past IS
GONE.
T 16 H 3. You cannot REALLY not let go what has ALREADY gone. It MUST be,
therefore, that YOU are maintaining the illusion that it has NOT gone, because
you think it serves some purpose that you WANT FULFILLED. And it must also be
that this purpose COULD NOT BE FULFILLED IN THE PRESENT, but ONLY in the past.
Do not underestimate the intensity of the ego’s drive for vengeance on the past.
It is COMPLETELY savage, and COMPLETELY insane. For the ego remembers everything
that YOU have done that offended it, and seeks retribution OF YOU. The fantasies
it brings to the special relationships it chooses, in which to act out its hate,
are fantasies of YOUR destruction.
T 16 H 4. For the ego holds the past AGAINST YOU, and, in your ESCAPE from
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it, it sees ITSELF deprived of the vengeance it believes that you so justly
merit. Yet, without your ALLIANCE in your own destruction, the ego could not
hold you to the past. In the special relationship, YOU ARE ALLOWING YOUR
DESTRUCTION TO BE. That this is insane, is obvious. But what is LESS obvious to
you, is that the PRESENT is useless to you, while you pursue the ego’s goal, as
its ally. The past is gone; seek not to preserve it in the special relationship,
which binds you to it, and would teach you that SALVATION is past, and that you
must RETURN to the past, to FIND salvation. There is NO fantasy that does not
contain the dream of retribution for the past. Would you ACT OUT the dream, or
let it go?
T 16 H 5. In the special relationship, it does not SEEM to be an acting out of
vengeance that you seek. And, even when the hatred and the savagery break
briefly through into awareness, the illusion of love is not profoundly shaken.
But the one thing which the ego NEVER allows to reach awareness, is that the
special relationship is the acting out of VENGEANCE OF YOURSELF. Yet what else
COULD it be? In seeking the special relationship, you look not for glory IN
YOURSELF. You have DENIED that it is there. And the relationship becomes your
SUBSTITUTE for it. And vengeance becomes YOUR substitute for Atonement, and
ESCAPE from vengeance becomes your LOSS.
T 16 H 6. Against the ego’s insane notion of salvation, the Holy Spirit gently
lays the holy instant. We said before that the Holy Spirit must teach through
comparisons, and uses opposites to point to truth. The holy instant is the
OPPOSITE of the ego’s fixed belief in salvation through vengeance for the past.
In the holy instant, it is ACCEPTED that the past is gone, and WITH its passing
the drive for vengeance HAS BEEN uprooted, and has disappeared. The stillness
and the peace of NOW, enfold you in perfect gentleness. Everything is gone,
EXCEPT THE TRUTH.
T 16 H 7. For a time, you may attempt to bring illusions INTO the holy
instant, to hinder your full awareness of the COMPLETE DIFFERENCE, in ALL
respects, between your EXPERIENCE of truth and illusion. But you will not
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attempt this long. In the holy instant, the power of the Holy Spirit WILL
prevail BECAUSE YOU JOINED HIM. The illusions you bring with you, will weaken
the EXPERIENCE of Him for a while, and will prevent you from KEEPING the
experience in your mind. Yet the holy instant IS eternal, and your illusions of
time will NOT prevent the timeless from being what it is, nor you from
EXPERIENCING it as it is.
T 16 H 8. What God has given you is truly given. AND WILL TRULY RECEIVED. For
God’s gifts HAVE no reality, APART from your receiving them. YOUR receiving
completes HIS giving. You will receive, BECAUSE it is His Will to give. He gave
the holy instant, to be given you. And it is impossible that you receive it not,
BECAUSE He gave it. When He willed that His Son be free, His Son WAS free. In
the holy instant is His reminder that His Son will ALWAYS be EXACTLY as he was
created. And EVERYTHING the Holy Spirit teaches you, is to remind you that you
HAVE received what God has given you.
T 16 H 9. There is nothing you CAN hold against reality. All that must be
forgiven are the ILLUSIONS you have held against your brothers. Their reality
HAS no past, and ONLY illusions can BE forgiven. God holds nothing against
ANYONE, for He is INCAPABLE of illusions of ANY kind. Release your brothers from
the slavery of THEIR illusions, by forgiving them for the illusions which YOU
perceive in them. Thus will you learn that YOU have been forgiven, for it is YOU
who offered THEM illusions. In the holy instant, this is done for you IN TIME,
to bring to you the true condition of Heaven.
T 16 H 10. Remember that you ALWAYS choose between truth and illusion, between
the REAL Atonement which would heal, and the ego’s "atonement," that would
destroy. The power of God, and all His Love, without limit, will support you, as
you seek only your place in the plan of Atonement arising from His Love. Be an
ally of God, and NOT the ego, in seeking how Atonement can come to you. His help
suffices, for His Messenger understands
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how to restore the Kingdom TO you, and to place ALL your investment in salvation
in your relationship with Him.
T 16 H 11. Seek and FIND His message in the holy instant, where ALL illusions
are forgiven. From here the miracle extends to bless everyone, and to resolve
ALL problems; to be they perceived as great or small, possible or impossible.
There is NOTHING that will not give place to Him, and to His Majesty. To join in
close relationship with Him, is to accept relationships AS REAL. And, through
THEIR reality, give over ALL illusions, for the reality of your relationship
with God. Praise be to your relationship with Him, and to no other. The truth
lies here, AND NOWHERE ELSE. You choose this, or NOTHING.
T 16 H 12. Forgive us our illusions, Father, and help us to accept our true
relationship with You, in which there are NO illusions, and where none can ever
enter. Our holiness is YOURS. What can there be in us that NEEDS forgiveness,
when YOURS is perfect? The sleep of forgetfulness is only the unwillingness to
remember YOUR forgiveness and Your Love. Let us not wander into temptation, for
the temptation of the Son of God is NOT Your Will. And let us receive ONLY what
YOU have given, and accept but this into the minds which You created, and which
You love. Amen.
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Chapter XVII - 17 - Forgiveness And Healing
T 17 A. Introduction
January 12, 1967
T 17 A 1. The betrayal of the Son of God lies only in illusions, and all his
‘sins’ are but his own imagining. His reality is forever sinless. He need not be
forgiven but AWAKENED. In his dreams he HAS betrayed himself, his brothers and
his God. Yet what is done in dreams has not been REALLY done. It is impossible
to convince the dreamer that this is so, for dreams are what they are BECAUSE of
their illusion of reality. Only in waking is the full release from them, for
only then does it become perfectly apparent that they had no effect on reality
at all, and did not change it.
T 17 A 2. FANTASIES CHANGE REALITY. That is their purpose. They CANNOT do so
IN reality, but they CAN do so in the mind that would HAVE REALITY DIFFERENT. It
is, then, only your WISH to change reality that is fearful, because, by your
wish you think you have ACCOMPLISHED what you wish. This strange position, in a
sense, ACKNOWLEDGES your power, yet by DISTORTING it, and devoting it to ‘evil,’
it also MAKES IT UNREAL. You cannot be faithful to two masters, who ask of you
conflicting things. What you use in fantasy, you DENY to truth. But what you
GIVE to truth, to use FOR you, is SAFE from fantasy.
T 17 B. Fantasy and Distorted Perception
T 17 B 1. When you maintain that there MUST be order of difficulty in
miracles, all you mean is that there are some things you would WITHHOLD from
truth. You believe that truth cannot deal with them, ONLY because YOU would keep
them FROM truth. Very simply, your lack of faith in the Power that heals ALL
pain, arises from YOUR wish to retain some ASPECTS of reality FOR FANTASY. If
you but realized what this MUST do to your appreciation of the whole! What you
RESERVE UNTO YOURSELF, you TAKE AWAY from Him Who would release you. Unless you
GIVE IT BACK, it is inevitable that YOUR perspective on reality be warped and
uncorrected.
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T 17 B 2. As long as you would have this be, so long will the ILLUSION of
order of difficulty in miracles REMAIN with you. For YOU have established this
order in REALITY, by giving some of it to one teacher, and some to another. And
so you learn to deal with PART of truth in one way, and in ANOTHER way the OTHER
part. To FRAGMENT truth is to DESTROY it by rendering it meaningless. ORDERS of
reality is a perspective without understanding, a frame of reference FOR reality
to which it cannot REALLY be compared at all. Think you that you can bring truth
to fantasy, and learn what truth MEANS from the perspective of illusions?
T 17 B 3. Truth HAS no meaning in illusion. The frame of reference FOR its
meaning MUST BE ITSELF. When you try to bring TRUTH to illusions, you are trying
to MAKE THEM REAL, and KEEP them by JUSTIFYING your belief in them. But to give
illusions to Truth is to enable truth to teach that the ILLUSIONS are unreal,
and thus enable you to ESCAPE from them. Reserve not one idea aside from truth,
or you ESTABLISH orders of reality which MUST imprison you. There IS no order in
reality because EVERYTHING there is true.
T 17 B 4. Be willing, then, to give ALL you have held OUTSIDE the truth to Him
Who KNOWS the truth, and in Whom all is brought to truth. Salvation from
separation will be COMPLETE, or will not be at all. Be not concerned with
anything except YOUR WILLINGNESS TO HAVE THIS BE ACCOMPLISHED. HE will
accomplish it; not you. But forget not this; when you become disturbed and lose
YOUR peace of mind because ANOTHER is attempting to solve his problems through
fantasy, you are refusing to FORGIVE YOURSELF for just this same attempt. And
you are holding BOTH of you AWAY from truth, and from salvation. As you FORGIVE
him, you RESTORE to truth what was denied by BOTH OF YOU. And you WILL see
forgiveness where YOU have given it.
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T 17 C. The Forgiven World
January 13, 1967.
T 17 C 1. Can you imagine how beautiful those you forgive will look to you? In
no fantasy have you ever seen anything so lovely. Nothing you see here, sleeping
or waking, comes near to such loveliness, and nothing will you value like unto
this, nor hold so dear. Nothing that you remember, that made your heart seem to
sing with joy, has ever brought you even a little part of the happiness this
sight will bring you. FOR YOU WILL SEE THE SON OF GOD. You will behold the
beauty that the Holy Spirit loves to look upon, and which He thanks the Father
for. He was created to see this FOR YOU, until you learn to see it for yourself.
And all His teaching leads to seeing it and giving thanks with Him.
T 17 C 2. This loveliness is NOT a fantasy. It is the real world, bright, and
clean and new, with everything sparkling under the open sun. Nothing is hidden
here, for everything has BEEN forgiven, and there ARE no fantasies to hide the
truth. The bridge between that world and this is SO little and SO easy to cross
that you could not believe it is the meeting-place of worlds so different. Yet
this little bridge is the strongest thing that touches on this world at all.
This little step, so small it has escaped your notice, is a stride through time
into eternity, and beyond all ugliness, into beauty that will enchant you, and
will never cease to cause you wonderment at its perfection.
T 17 C 3. This step, the smallest ever taken by anything, is still the
greatest accomplishment of all, in God’s plan of Atonement. All else is learned,
but THIS is GIVEN, complete and wholly perfect. No-one but Him Who PLANNED
salvation could complete it thus. The real world, in its loveliness, YOU learn
to reach. Fantasies are all undone, and no-one and nothing remains still bound
by them, and, by YOUR OWN forgiveness, you are FREE to
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SEE. And WHAT you see is only what YOU HAVE MADE, with the blessing of your
forgiveness on it. And, with this final blessing of God’s Son UPON HIMSELF, the
REAL perception, born of the new perspective he has learned, has served its
purpose.
T 17 C 4. The stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the
world to beauty, will vanish. Perception will be meaningless, when it has been
perfected. For everything that has been used for learning, will have no
function. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no
variations which made perception possible, will occur. The perception of the
real world will be so short, that you will barely have time to thank God for it.
For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world,
and have been made ready for Him.
T 17 C 5. The real world is attained simply by the COMPLETE forgiveness of the
old; the world you see WITHOUT forgiveness. The Great Transformer of perception
will undertake WITH you the careful searching of the mind that MADE this world,
and uncover TO YOU the SEEMING reasons for your making it. In the light of the
REAL reason which He brings, as you follow Him, He will SHOW you that there is
NO reason here at all. Each spot HIS reason touches, grows alive with beauty.
And what SEEMED ugly, in the darkness of your LACK of reason, is suddenly
released to loveliness. Not even what the Son of God made in insanity, could be
without a hidden spark of beauty, that gentleness could release.
T 17 C 6. All this beauty will rise to bless your sight, as you look upon the
world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally TRANSFORMS vision, and lets
you see the real world, reaching quietly and gently across chaos, and removing
all illusions which had twisted your perception, and fixed it on the
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past. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign
of God’s perfection. From the forgiven world, the Son of God is lifted easily
into his home. And there, he knows that he has ALWAYS rested there in peace.
T 17 C 7. Even salvation will become a dream, and vanish from his mind. For
salvation IS the end of dreams, and, with the closing of the dream, will have no
meaning. Who, awake in Heaven, could dream that there COULD ever be NEED of
salvation? How much do you WANT salvation? It will GIVE you the real world,
trembling with readiness to BE given you. The eagerness of the Holy Spirit to
give you this, is so intense He would not wait, although He waits in patience.
MEET His patience with your IMpatience at delay in meeting Him. Go out in
gladness to meet with your Redeemer, and walk with Him, in trust, out of this
world, and into the real world of beauty and forgiveness.
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T 17 D. Shadows of the Past
January 15, 1967.
T 17 D 1. To forgive is merely to remember ONLY the LOVING thoughts you gave
in the past, and those that were given you. ALL the rest, must be forgotten.
Forgiveness is a selective remembering, based NOT on YOUR selection. For the
shadow figures YOU would make immortal, ARE ‘enemies’ of reality. Be willing to
forgive the Son of God for what he did NOT do. The shadow figures are the
witnesses you bring WITH you, to demonstrate he DID what he DID NOT. BECAUSE you
brought them, YOU WILL HEAR THEM. And you who KEPT them BY YOUR OWN SELECTION,
do NOT understand how they came into your minds, and what their purpose is.
T 17 D 2. THEY REPRESENT THE EVIL THAT YOU THINK WAS DONE TO YOU. You bring
them with you ONLY that you may "return" evil FOR evil, hoping that THEIR
witness will enable you to think guiltily of another, and NOT harm yourself.
They speak so clearly for the separation, that no-one NOT obsessed with KEEPING
separation, COULD hear them otherwise. They offer you the ‘reasons’ why you
should enter into unholy alliances, which support the ego’s goals, and make your
relationships the witness to ITS power. It is these shadow figures which would
MAKE THE EGO holy in your sight, and teach you what you do to keep IT safe, is
really LOVE.
T 17 D 3. The shadow figures ALWAYS speak for vengeance, and ALL relationships
into which they enter, are totally insane. WITHOUT EXCEPTION, these
relationships have, AS THEIR PURPOSE, the EXCLUSION of the truth about the
other, AND OF YOURSELF. This is why you see, IN BOTH what is not there, and MAKE
of both the slaves of vengeance. And why whatever reminds you of your PAST
grievances, no matter how distorted the associations by which you ARRIVE at the
remembrance may be, ATTRACTS you, and seems to you to go by the name of love.
And, finally, why all such relationships become the attempt at union THROUGH THE
BODY, for ONLY bodies CAN be seen as means for vengeance.
T 17 D 4. That bodies are central to all unholy relationships is evident. Your
OWN experience has taught you this. But what you do NOT realize, are
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ALL the reasons which go to MAKE the relationship unholy. For UNholiness seeks
to RE-INFORCE itself, by gathering TO itself, what it perceives as LIKE itself,
as holiness does. In the unholy relationship, it is NOT the body of the OTHER
with which union is attempted, but the bodies of those WHO ARE NOT THERE. Even
the BODY of the other, ALREADY a severely limited perception of him, is NOT the
central focus as it is, or in entirety. What can be used for fantasies of
vengeance, and what can be most readily associated with those on whom vengeance
is REALLY sought, are centered on, and SEPARATED OFF, as being the only parts OF
VALUE.
T 17 D 5. Every step taken in the making, the maintaining, and the breaking
off of the unholy relationship, is a move toward further fragmentation and
unreality. The shadow figures enter more and more, and the one in whom they SEEM
to be, DECREASES in importance. Time is indeed unkind to the unholy
relationship. For time IS cruel in the ego’s hands, as it is kind when used for
gentleness. The attraction of the unholy relationship begins to fade and to be
questioned, almost at once. Once it is formed, doubt MUST enter in, because its
purpose IS impossible. The only such relationships which RETAIN the fantasies
which center on them, are those which have been DREAMED of, but have NOT been
made at all.
T 17 D 6. Where NO reality has entered, there is NOTHING to intrude upon the
DREAM of happiness. But consider what this means; the more REALITY that enters
into the unholy relationship, the LESS SATISFYING it becomes. And the more the
FANTASIES can encompass, the greater the satisfaction seems to be. The ‘ideal’
of the unholy relationship thus becomes one in which the REALITY of the other
does not ENTER AT ALL, to ‘spoil’ the dream. And the LESS the other REALLY
brings to it, the ‘better’ it becomes. Thus, the attempt at union becomes a way
of EXCLUDING even the one with whom the union was sought. For it was FORMED to
GET HIM OUT OF IT, and join with fantasies in uninterrupted ‘bliss.’
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T 17 D 7. How can the Holy Spirit bring HIS interpretation of the body, as a
means of communicating into relationships whose ONLY purpose is SEPARATION from
reality? What forgiveness IS, enables Him to do so. If all but loving thoughts
have been forgotten, what remains IS eternal, and the TRANSFORMED past is made
LIKE THE PRESENT. No longer does the past CONFLICT with now. THIS continuity
EXTENDS the present, by increasing its reality, AND ITS VALUE, in your
perception of it. In these loving thoughts is the spark of beauty, hidden in the
ugliness of the unholy relationship in which the HATRED is remembered, yet there
to COME ALIVE as the relationship is given to Him Who GIVES it life and beauty.
T 17 D 8. That is why Atonement centers ON THE PAST, which is the SOURCE of
separation, and where it must be undone. For separation must be corrected WHERE
IT WAS MADE. The EGO seeks to ‘resolve’ ITS problems, NOT at their source, but
where they were NOT made. And thus it seeks to guarantee there WILL be no
solution. The Holy Spirit wills only to make HIS resolutions complete and
perfect. And so He seeks and FINDS the source of problems WHERE IT IS, and there
UNDOES it. And, with each step in HIS undoing, is the SEPARATION more and more
undone, and UNION brought closer. HE is not at all confused by ANY ‘reasons’ for
separation. ALL He perceives in it is that it MUST BE UNDONE.
T 17 D 9. Let Him uncover the hidden spark of beauty in your relationships,
and SHOW it to you. Its loveliness will so attract you, that you will be
unwilling ever to lose the sight of it again. And you will LET it transform the
relationship, so you can see it more and more. For you will want it more and
more, and become increasingly unwilling to LET it be hidden from you. And you
will learn to seek for, and ESTABLISH, conditions in which this, beauty CAN be
seen. All this you will do gladly, if you but let Him hold the spark before you,
to light your way, and make it CLEAR to you.
T 17 D 10. God’s Son is one, Whom God has JOINED as one, the ego CANNOT break
apart. The spark of holiness MUST be safe, however hidden it may be,
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in EVERY relationship. For the Creator of the one relationship, has LEFT no part
of it without HIMSELF. THIS is the only part of the relationship the Holy Spirit
sees, because He knows that ONLY this is true. YOU have made the relationship
unreal, and THEREFORE unholy, by seeing it WHERE it is not, and as it IS not.
Give the past to Him Who can change YOUR mind about it, FOR you. But first, be
SURE you fully realize what YOU have made the past to REPRESENT, and why.
T 17 D 11. In brief, the past is NOW your justification for entering into a
continuing, unholy alliance with the ego AGAINST THE PRESENT. For the present IS
forgiveness. Therefore, the relationships which the unholy alliance dictates are
not perceived NOR FELT as now. Yet the frame of reference to which the present
is REFERRED for meaning, is an ILLUSION of the past, in which those elements
which FIT the purpose of the unholy alliance are retained and ALL THE REST GO.
And what is thus let go, is all the truth the past could ever OFFER to the
present, as witnesses for ITS reality, while what is KEPT, but witnesses to the
reality of dreams.
T 17 D 12. It is still up to you to choose to be willing to join with truth or
illusion. But remember that to choose ONE, is to LET THE OTHER GO. Which one you
choose, YOU will endow with beauty and reality, because the choice DEPENDS on
which you value more. The spark of beauty, or the veil of ugliness; the real
world, or the world of guilt and fear; truth or illusion; freedom or slavery, -
it is all the same. For you can NEVER choose EXCEPT between God and the ego.
Thought-systems are but true or false, and all their ATTRIBUTES come simply from
what they ARE. Only the Thoughts of God ARE true. And all that follows FROM
them, COMES FROM what they are, and is as true as is the holy Source from which
they came.
T 17 D 13. My holy brothers, I would enter into all your relationships, and
step between you and your fantasies. Let MY relationship to you be REAL to you,
and let me bring REALITY to your perception of your brothers. They
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were not created to enable you to HURT yourselves through them. They were
created to CREATE with you. This is the truth that I would interpose, between
you and your goal of madness. Be not separate from me, and let not the holy
purpose of Atonement be lost to you, in dreams of vengeance. Relationships in
which such dreams are cherished have EXCLUDED me. Let me enter, in the Name of
God, and bring YOU peace, that YOU may offer peace to me.
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T 17 E. Perception and the Two Worlds
January 17, 1967
T 17 E 1. God established His relationship with you TO MAKE YOU HAPPY, and
nothing YOU do which does NOT share His purpose CAN be real. The purpose GOD
ascribed to anything IS its only function. Because of HIS reason for creating
HIS relationship with you, the function of relationships became forever ‘to make
happy.’ AND NOTHING ELSE. To fulfill this function, you relate to your creations
as GOD to HIS. For nothing God created is APART from happiness, and nothing God
created but would EXTEND happiness, as its Creator did. Whatever fulfills this
function NOT, CANNOT BE REAL.
T 17 E 2. In this world, it is impossible to create. Yet it IS possible to
make happy. We have said repeatedly that the Holy Spirit would not DEPRIVE you
of your special relationships, but would TRANSFORM them. And by that, all that
is meant is that He will RESTORE to them the function GIVEN them, by God. The
function YOU have given them is clearly NOT to make happy. But the holy
relationship SHARES God’s purpose, rather than aiming to make a SUBSTITUTE for
it. Every special relationship that YOU have made IS a substitute for God’s
Will, and glorifies yours instead of His, BECAUSE OF THE DELUSION THEY ARE
DIFFERENT.
T 17 E 3. You have VERY REAL relationships, even in this world, which you do
not recognize, simply because you have raised their SUBSTITUTES to such
predominance that, when truth calls to you, as it does constantly, YOU ANSWER
WITH A SUBSTITUTE. Every special relationship which you have ever undertaken
has, as its fundamental purpose, the aim of occupying your minds so completely
that YOU WILL NOT HEAR the call of truth. In a sense, the special relationship
was the EGO'S answer to the creation of the Holy Spirit, Who was God’s answer to
the separation. For, although the ego did not understand WHAT had been created,
it WAS aware of threat.
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T 17 E 4. The whole defense system that the ego evolved, to PROTECT the
separation from the Holy Spirit, was in response to the Gift with which God
blessed it, and BY His blessing enabled it to be HEALED. This Blessing holds,
WITHIN ITSELF, the truth about everything. And the truth is that the Holy Spirit
IS in close relationship with you, because, in Him, is your relationship with
God restored to you. The relationship with Him has never been broken, because
the Holy Spirit has not been separate from anyone SINCE the separation. And
through Him, have all your holy relationships been carefully preserved, to serve
God’s purpose FOR you.
T 17 E 5. The ego IS hyperalert to threat, and the part of your mind into
which the ego was accepted is VERY anxious to preserve its reason, AS IT SEES
IT. It does NOT realize that it is totally insane. And YOU must realize JUST
WHAT THIS MEANS, if YOU would be restored to sanity. The insane PROTECT their
thought systems, BUT THEY DO IT INSANELY. And ALL their defenses are AS INSANE
AS WHAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT. The separation has NOTHING in it, no PART,
NO ‘reason,’ and NO attribute, that is NOT insane. And its ‘protection’ IS part
of it, as insane as the whole. The special relationship, which is its chief
defense, MUST therefore be insane. You have but little difficulty now in
realizing that the thought-system it protects, is but a system of delusions. You
recognize, at least in general terms, that the ego is insane. Yet the special
relationship still seems to you somehow TO BE DIFFERENT. Yet we have looked at
it far closer than at many other ASPECTS of the ego’s thought-system which you
have been more willing to let go. While this ONE remains, you will not LET the
others go. FOR THIS ONE IS NOT DIFFERENT. RETAIN this one, and you HAVE retained
the whole.
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T 17 E 6. It is essential to realize that ALL defenses DO what they would
DEFEND. The underlying basis for their effectiveness is that they OFFER what
they defend. What they defend is placed IN them for safe-keeping, and as THEY
operate, THEY BRING IT TO YOU. Every defense operates BY GIVING GIFTS, and the
gift is ALWAYS a miniature of the thought-system the defense protects, set in a
golden frame. The frame is very elaborate, all set with jewels, and deeply
carved and polished. Its purpose is to be of value IN ITSELF, and to divert YOUR
attention from what it encloses. But the frame WITHOUT the picture, you CANNOT
have. Defenses operate TO MAKE YOU THINK YOU CAN.
T 17 E 7. The special relationship has the most imposing and deceptive frame
of all the defenses the ego uses. Its thought-system is offered here, surrounded
by a frame so heavy and so elaborate, that the picture is almost obliterated by
its imposing structure. Into the frame are woven all sorts of fanciful and
fragmented illusions of love, set with dreams of sacrifice and
self-aggrandizement, and interlaced with gilded threads of self-destruction. The
glitter of blood shines like rubies, and the tears are faceted like diamonds,
and gleam in the dim light in which the offering is made.
T 17 E 8. LOOK AT THE PICTURE. Do NOT let the frame distract you. This gift is
given you for your damnation, and if you TAKE it, you WILL believe that you are
damned. YOU CANNOT HAVE THE FRAME WITHOUT THE PICTURE. What you VALUE is the
FRAME, for THERE you see no conflict. But the frame is only the wrapping for the
GIFT of conflict. THE FRAME IS NOT THE GIFT. Be not deceived by the most
superficial ASPECTS of this thought-system, for these aspects enclose the whole,
complete with EVERY aspect. Death lies in this glittering gift. Let not your
gaze dwell on the hypnotic gleaming of the frame. LOOK AT THE PICTURE, and
realize that DEATH is offered you.
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T 17 E 9. That is why the holy instant is so important in the defense of
truth. The truth itself NEEDS no defense, but YOU DO need defense against your
own ACCEPTANCE of the gift of death. When you who ARE truth, accept an idea so
DANGEROUS to truth, YOU THREATEN TRUTH WITH DESTRUCTION. And YOUR defense must
now be undertaken, TO KEEP TRUTH WHOLE. The power of Heaven, the Love of God,
the tears of Christ and the joy of His Eternal Spirit are marshaled to defend
you from your own attack. For you attack THEM, being PART of them, and they must
SAVE you, for they love themselves.
T 17 E 10. The Holy instant is a miniature of Heaven, sent you FROM Heaven. It
is a picture, too, set in a frame. But if you accept THIS gift, you will NOT see
the frame at all, because the gift can only BE accepted through your willingness
to focus ALL your attention ON THE PICTURE. The holy instant is a miniature of
eternity. It is a picture of timelessness, set in a frame of time. If you focus
on the picture, you will realize that it was only the frame that made you THINK
it was a picture. WITHOUT the frame, the picture IS SEEN AS WHAT IT REPRESENTS.
For, as the whole thought-system of the ego lies in ITS gifts, so the whole of
Heaven lies in this instant, borrowed from eternity, and set in time for YOU.
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T 17 E 11. Two gifts are offered you. Each is complete, and cannot be partially
accepted. Each is a picture of all that you can have, SEEN VERY DIFFERENTLY. You
CANNOT compare their value by comparing a picture to a frame. It MUST be the
PICTURES ONLY that you compare, or the comparison is wholly without meaning.
Remember that it is the picture that is the gift. And ONLY on this basis are you
REALLY free to choose. LOOK AT THE PICTURES. BOTH of them. One is a tiny
picture, hard to see at all beneath the heavy shadows of its enormous and
disproportionate enclosure. The other is lightly framed, and hung in light,
lovely to look upon for what it IS.
T 17 E 12. You who have tried so hard, and are STILL trying, to fit the better
picture into the wrong frame, and so combine what cannot BE combined, accept
this and be glad; These pictures are each framed perfectly, for what they
represent. One is FRAMED to be out of focus, and NOT seen. The other is framed
for perfect clarity. The picture of darkness and of death grows less convincing
as you search it out amid its wrappings. As each senseless stone that SEEMS to
shine in darkness from the frame is EXPOSED TO LIGHT, it becomes dull and
lifeless, and ceases to distract you from the picture. And finally, you look
upon the PICTURE ITSELF, seeing at last that, unprotected by its FRAME, it HAS
no meaning.
T 17 E 13. The other picture is lightly framed, for time cannot contain
eternity. There is NO distraction here. The picture of Heaven and eternity grows
MORE convincing, as you look at it.
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And now, by REAL comparison, a TRANSFORMATION of both pictures can at last
occur. And each is given its RIGHTFUL place, when both are seen IN RELATION TO
EACH OTHER. The dark picture, BROUGHT TO LIGHT, is NOT perceived as fearful. But
the fact that IT IS JUST A PICTURE is brought home at last. And what you SEE,
there YOU will recognize as what it is; a picture of what YOU THOUGHT WAS REAL,
and nothing more. For, BEHIND this picture, YOU WILL SEE NOTHING.
T 17 E 14. The picture of light, in clear-cut and unmistakable contrast, is
transformed into what lies BEYOND the picture. As you look on THIS, you realize
that IT IS NOT A PICTURE, but a reality. This is no figured REPRESENTATION of a
thought-system, but the Thought Itself. What IT represents is THERE. The frame
fades gently, and God rises to your remembrance, offering you the whole of
creation, in exchange for your little picture, wholly without value, and
entirely deprived of meaning. As God ascends into HIS rightful place and you to
yours, you will experience again the MEANING of relationship, and know it to be
true.
T 17 E 15. Let us ascend, in peace together, to the Father, by giving HIM
ascendance in our minds. We will gain EVERYTHING by giving HIM the power and the
glory, and keeping NO illusions of where they are. They ARE in us, through HIS
ascendance. What He has given is HIS. It shines in every part of Him, as in the
Whole. The whole reality of your relationship with Him lies in OUR relationship
to one another. The holy instant shines alike on ALL relationships, for in it,
they ARE one. For here is only healing, ALREADY complete and perfect. For here
is God, and where HE is, only the perfect and complete CAN be.
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T 17 F. The Healed Relationship
January 18, 1968
T 17 F 1. The holy relationship is the EXPRESSION of the holy instant, in
living in this world. Like EVERYTHING about salvation, the holy instant is a
PRACTICAL device, WITNESSED by its results. The holy instant NEVER fails. The
EXPERIENCE of it is ALWAYS felt. But, without EXPRESSION, IT IS NOT REMEMBERED.
The holy relationship is a constant reminder of the experience in which the
relationship became what it is. And, as the UNholy relationship is a continuing
hymn of hate in praise of ITS maker, so is the holy relationship a happy song of
praise to the REDEEMER of relationships. The holy relationship, a MAJOR step
toward the perception of the real world, is LEARNED. It is the old, unholy
relationship, transformed and seen anew.
T 17 F 2. The holy relationship is a phenomenal teaching accomplishment. In
all its aspects, as it begins, develops, and becomes accomplished, it represents
the REVERSAL of the unholy relationship. Be comforted in this; The ONLY
difficult phase is the beginning. For here, the GOAL of the relationship is
abruptly shifted to the EXACT OPPOSITE of what it was. This is the FIRST result
of OFFERING the relationship to the Holy Spirit, to use for HIS purposes. This
invitation is ACCEPTED IMMEDIATELY, and the Holy Spirit wastes no time in
introducing the practical results of asking Him to enter. AT ONCE, HIS goal
REPLACES yours.
T 17 F 3. This is accomplished very rapidly. But it makes the relationship
seem disturbed, disjunctive and even quite distressing. The reason is quite
clear. For the relationship, AS IT IS, is out of line with its own goal, and
clearly unsuited to the purpose which has been ACCEPTED for it. In its UNholy
condition, YOUR goal was all that SEEMED to give it meaning. Now, it seems to
make NO sense. Many relationships have been broken off at this point, and the
pursuit of the old goal re-established in ANOTHER relationship. For, once the
unholy relationship has ACCEPTED the goal of holiness, it can
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never again be what it was.
T 17 F 4. The temptation of the ego becomes extremely intense, with this shift
in goals. For the relationship has NOT, as yet, been changed sufficiently to
make its former goal completely WITHOUT attraction, and its structure is
‘threatened’ by the recognition of its inappropriateness for meeting its new
purpose. The conflict between the goal and the structure of the relationship is
SO apparent that they CANNOT co-exist. Yet now, THE GOAL WILL NOT BE CHANGED.
Set firmly in the unholy relationship, there IS no course except to CHANGE THE
RELATIONSHIP to fit the goal. Until this HAPPY solution is seen and accepted as
the ONLY WAY OUT of this conflict, the RELATIONSHIP seems to be severely
strained.
T 17 F 5. It would NOT be kinder to shift the goal more slowly. For the
CONTRAST would be obscured, and the ego given time to re-interpret each slow
step, according to its liking. Only a radical shift in purpose COULD induce a
COMPLETE change of mind about what the whole relationship IS FOR. As this change
develops, and is finally accomplished, it grows increasingly beneficent and
joyous. But, at the beginning, the situation is experienced as very precarious.
A relationship, undertaken by two individuals for their unholy purposes,
suddenly has HOLINESS for its goal.
T 17 F 6. As these two CONTEMPLATE their relationship from the point of view
of this new purpose, they are inevitably appalled. Their perception of the
relationship may even become quite disorganized. And yet, the FORMER
organization of their perception, no longer serves the purpose THEY have agreed
to set.
T 17 F 7. THIS IS THE TIME FOR FAITH. You LET this goal be set for you. That
WAS an act of faith. Do not ABANDON faith, now that the REWARDS of faith are
being introduced. If you believed the Holy Spirit was THERE to ACCEPT the
relationship, why would you now not STILL believe that He is there,
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to PURIFY what He has taken under His guidance?
T 17 F 8. Have faith in EACH OTHER in what but SEEMS to be a trying time. THE
GOAL IS SET. And your relationship has SANITY as its purpose. Now you find
yourselves in an INSANE relationship, RECOGNIZED as such IN THE LIGHT OF ITS
GOAL. Now the ego counsels thus; substitute for this ANOTHER relationship, to
which your FORMER goal was QUITE appropriate. You can ESCAPE from your distress,
ONLY BY GETTING RID OF EACH OTHER. You need not part entirely, if you choose not
to do so. But you MUST exclude MAJOR AREAS of fantasy FROM each other, TO SAVE
YOUR SANITY.
T 17 F 9. Hear not this now! Have faith in Him Who ANSWERED you. He heard; has
He not been very explicit in His answer? You are NOT now wholly insane. Can you
DENY that He HAS given a MOST explicit statement? Now He asks for faith a little
longer, even in bewilderment. For this will go, and you will see the
JUSTIFICATION for your faith emerge, to bring you shining conviction. Abandon
Him not now, NOR EACH OTHER. This relationship HAS BEEN reborn as holy. Accept
with gladness what you do not understand, and LET it be explained to you, as you
perceive its purpose work in it, to MAKE it holy.
T 17 F 10. You will find many opportunities to blame EACH OTHER for the
‘failure’ of your relationship. For it will seem, at times, to have NO purpose.
A sense of aimlessness will come to haunt you, and to remind you of all the ways
you once SOUGHT for satisfaction, and THOUGHT you found it. Forget not now the
misery you REALLY found, and do not now breathe live into your failing egos. For
your relationship has NOT been disrupted. IT HAS BEEN SAVED. You are very new in
the ways of salvation, and think you have LOST your way. YOUR way IS lost, but
think not this is LOSS.
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T 17 F 11. In your newness, remember that you have started again, TOGETHER. And
take each other’s hand, to walk together along a road far more familiar than you
now believe. Is it not certain, that you will remember a goal unchanged
throughout eternity? For you have chosen but the goal of God, from which your
true intent was NEVER absent. Throughout the Sonship is the song of freedom
heard, in joyous echo of your choice. You have joined with many, in the holy
instant, and THEY have joined with you. Think not your choice will leave YOU
comfortless. For God Himself has blessed your special relationship. JOIN in His
blessing, and withhold not yours upon it. For all it needs now IS your blessing,
that you may see that in it rests salvation.
T 17 F 12. Condemn salvation not, for it HAS come to you. And welcome it
TOGETHER, for it has come to JOIN you together, in a relationship in which ALL
the Sonship is together blessed. You undertook, together to invite the Holy
Spirit into your relationship. He could not have entered otherwise. And, though
you have made many mistakes since then, you have also made enormous efforts to
help Him do His work. And He has NOT been lacking in appreciation for all you
have done for Him, nor does He see the mistakes at all.
T 17 F 13. Have you been similarly grateful to each other? Have you
consistently appreciated the GOOD efforts, and OVERLOOKED mistakes? Or has your
appreciation flickered and grown dim, in what SEEMED to be the LIGHT of the
mistakes? You are now entering upon a campaign to blame EACH OTHER for the
discomfort of the situation in which you find yourselves. And by this LACK of
thanks and gratitude, you make YOURSELVES unable to EXPRESS the holy instant,
and thus you lose sight of it. The experience of an instant, HOWEVER compelling
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it may be, is easily forgotten, if you allow time to close over it. It must be
kept shining and gracious, in your awareness of time, but not CONCEALED within
it. The instant remains. But where are YOU?
T 17 F 14. To give thanks to each other is to APPRECIATE the holy instant, and
thus enable its RESULTS to be accepted AND SHARED. To ATTACK each other is not
to LOSE the instant, but TO MAKE IT POWERLESS IN ITS EFFECTS. You HAVE received
the holy instant, but you have established a condition IN WHICH YOU CANNOT USE
IT. As a result, you do not realize that it is WITH YOU STILL. And, by CUTTING
YOURSELF OFF from its EXPRESSION, you have denied yourself its benefit. You
REINFORCE this, every time YOU ATTACK EACH OTHER, for the attack MUST blind you
to YOURSELF. And it IS impossible to DENY yourself, and recognize what has been
given, and RECEIVED by you.
T 17 F 15. You stand together in the holy Presence of Truth Itself. Here is the
goal, together WITH you. Think you not the goal ITSELF will gladly arrange the
MEANS for its accomplishment? It is just this same DISCREPANCY between the
purpose that has BEEN accepted and the means as they stand now, that SEEMS to
make you suffer, but which makes Heaven glad. If Heaven were OUTSIDE you, you
could NOT share in its gladness. But, because it is WITHIN, the gladness, too,
IS yours. You ARE joined in purpose, but remain still separate and divided on
the means. Yet the GOAL is fixed, firm and unalterable. And the means will
surely fall in place, BECAUSE the goal is sure.
T 17 F 16. And YOU will share the gladness of the Sonship that it is so. As you
begin to recognize, and ACCEPT the gifts you have so freely given to EACH OTHER,
you will also accept the EFFECTS of the holy instant, and use them to correct
ALL your mistakes, and free you from THEIR results. And, learning this, you will
have ALSO learned how to release ALL the Sonship, and offer it in gladness and
thanksgiving to Him Who gave you YOUR release, and Who would EXTEND it through
you.
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T 17 G. Practical Forgiveness
Jan. 20, 1967
T 17 G 1. The practical application of the Holy Spirit’s purpose is extremely
simple, but it IS unequivocal. In fact, in ORDER to be simple, it MUST be
unequivocal. The simple is merely what is EASILY UNDERSTOOD, and for this, it is
apparent that IT MUST BE CLEAR. The setting of the Holy Spirit’s goal is
GENERAL. Now He will work WITH you, TO MAKE IT SPECIFIC, for application IS
specific. There are certain VERY specific guidelines He provides for ANY
situation, but remember that you do not yet realize their universal application.
Therefore, it is essential, at this point, to use them in each situation
separately, until you can more safely look BEYOND each situation, in an
understanding far broader than you now possess.
T 17 G 2. In any situation in which YOU are uncertain, the FIRST thing to
consider, very simply, is, ‘What do I want to come of this? What is it FOR?’ The
clarification of the goal belongs at the BEGINNING, for it is this that will
determine the outcome. In the ego’s procedure, this is reversed. The SITUATION
becomes the determiner of the outcome, WHICH CAN BE ANYTHING. The reason for
this disorganized approach is evident. The ego does not know what it WANTS to
come of it. It IS aware of what it does NOT want, but only that. It has no
POSITIVE goal at all.
T 17 G 3. Without a clear-cut, positive goal, set at the outset, the situation
just seems to happen, and makes no sense until it has ALREADY HAPPENED. Then you
look BACK at it, and try to piece together what it MUST have meant. AND YOU WILL
BE WRONG. Not only is your judgment IN THE PAST, but you have no idea what
SHOULD have happened. No goal was set, with which to bring the means IN LINE.
And now, the only judgment LEFT to make is whether or not the ego LIKES it; is
it acceptable, or does it call for vengeance. The absence of a criterion for
outcome, SET IN ADVANCE, makes understanding doubtful
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and evaluation impossible.
T 17 G 4. The value of deciding, in advance, what you WANT to happen, is
simply that you will perceive the situation as a means to MAKE it happen. You
will therefore make every effort to OVERLOOK what interferes with the
accomplishment of your objective, and concentrate on everything that helps you
meet it. It is quite noticeable that THIS approach has brought you closer to the
Holy Spirit’s SORTING OUT of truth and falsity. The "true" becomes what can be
used to MEET the goal. The "false" becomes the useless FROM THIS POINT OF VIEW.
The situation now HAS meaning, but only because the goal has MADE it meaningful.
T 17 G 5. The goal of truth has further practical advantages. If the situation
is used for truth and sanity, its outcome MUST be peace. And this is quite APART
from what the outcome IS. For if peace is the CONDITION of truth and sanity, and
CANNOT be WITHOUT them, where peace is, they MUST be. Truth comes of itself. If
you experience PEACE, it is because the truth HAS come to you. And you WILL see
the outcome truly, for deception cannot prevail against you. And you will
RECOGNIZE the outcome, BECAUSE you are at peace. Here, again, you see the
OPPOSITE of the ego’s way of looking. For the EGO believes the situation BRINGS
the experience. The Holy Spirit knows the situation IS as the goal determines
it, and is experienced ACCORDING to the goal.
T 17 G 6. The goal of truth REQUIRES FAITH. Faith is implicit in the
acceptance of the Holy Spirit’s purpose. AND THIS FAITH IS ALL-INCLUSIVE. Where
the goal of truth is set, there faith MUST be. The Holy Spirit sees the
situation AS A WHOLE. The goal establishes the fact that EVERYONE involved in it
WILL play his part in its accomplishment. THIS IS INEVITABLE. No-one will fail
in anything.
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This SEEMS to ask for faith BEYOND you, and beyond what you can GIVE. But this
is so ONLY from the viewpoint of the ego, for the ego believes in ‘solving’
conflicts through FRAGMENTATION, and does NOT perceive the situation as a whole.
Therefore, it seeks to split off SEGMENTS of the situation and deal with them
SEPARATELY. For it has faith in separation, and NOT in wholeness.
T 17 G 7. Confronted with any ASPECT of the situation which SEEMS to be
difficult, the ego will attempt to TAKE THIS ASPECT ELSEWHERE, and resolve it
there. And it will SEEM to be successful. Except that this attempt CONFLICTS
WITH UNITY, and MUST obscure the goal of truth. And peace will not be
experienced, EXCEPT in fantasy. Truth has NOT come, because faith has been
DENIED, being WITHHELD from where it rightfully belonged. Thus do you LOSE the
understanding of the situation the goal of truth would bring. For fantasy
solutions bring but the ILLUSION of experience, and the illusion of peace is NOT
the condition in which the truth can enter.
T 17 G 8. The substitutes for ASPECTS of the situation are the witnesses to
your LACK of faith. They demonstrate that you did NOT believe that the situation
AND THE PROBLEM were in the same place. The problem WAS this lack of faith. And
it is THIS you demonstrate, when you REMOVE it from its source, and place it
elsewhere. As a result, YOU DO NOT SEE THE PROBLEM. Had you not lacked the faith
it COULD be solved, the PROBLEM would be gone. And the situation would have been
MEANINGFUL to you, because the INTERFERENCE in the way of understanding, would
have been removed. To remove the problem ELSEWHERE is to KEEP it. For you remove
yourself FROM it, and MAKE it unsolvable.
T 17 H. The Need for Faith
T 17 H 1. There is NO problem in ANY situation that faith will not solve.
There is no SHIFT in any ASPECT of the problem, but will make SOLUTION
IMPOSSIBLE.
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T 17 H 2. For if you shift PART of the problem elsewhere, the meaning of the
problem MUST be lost, and the SOLUTION to the problem is INHERENT in its
meaning. Is it not possible that ALL your problems HAVE BEEN solved, but you
have removed YOURSELF from the solution? Yet faith MUST be where something has
BEEN done, and where you SEE it done. A situation is a relationship, being the
joining of thoughts. If problems are perceived, it is because the thoughts are
judged to be IN CONFLICT. But if the goal is TRUTH, this is impossible. Some
idea of bodies MUST have entered, for minds can NOT attack.
T 17 H 3. The thought of bodies IS the sign of faithlessness, for bodies
CANNOT solve anything. And it is their INTRUSION on the relationship, an error
in YOUR thoughts ABOUT the situation, which then became the JUSTIFICATION for
your lack of faith. You WILL make this error, but be not at all concerned with
that. The error does not matter. But do not USE the error to what SEEMS to be to
your advantage, for that DOES matter. Faithlessness brought to faith, will never
interfere with truth. But faithlessness used AGAINST truth will ALWAYS destroy
faith. If you lack faith, ask that it be restored WHERE IT WAS LOST, and seek
not to have it MADE UP TO YOU elsewhere, as if you had been unjustly DEPRIVED of
it.
T 17 H 4. Only what YOU have not given CAN be lacking in ANY situation. But
remember this; the goal of holiness was set for YOUR relationship, AND NOT BY
YOU. YOU did not set it, because holiness can NOT BE SEEN except through faith,
and your relationship was not holy BECAUSE your faith in one another was so
limited and little. Your faith must grow, to meet the goal that has been set.
The goal’s REALITY will call this forth. For you will see that peace and faith
will not come separately. What situation can you be in WITHOUT FAITH, and remain
faithful to each other? EVERY situation in which
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you find yourself, is but a means to meet the purpose set for YOUR relationship.
See it as something ELSE, and you ARE faithless.
T 17 H 5. USE NOT YOUR FAITHLESSNESS. Let it enter, and look upon it calmly,
but DO NOT USE IT. Faithlessness is the servant of illusion, and wholly faithful
to its master. USE it, and it will carry you straight to illusions. Be tempted
not by what it offers you. It interferes, not with the goal, but with the VALUE
of the goal TO YOU. Accept not the illusion of peace it offers, but look upon
its offering, and recognize it IS illusion. The GOAL of illusion is as closely
tied to faithlessness, as faith to truth. If you lack faith in ANYONE to
fulfill, AND PERFECTLY, his part in ANY situation dedicated IN ADVANCE to truth,
YOUR dedication is divided. And so you have been faithless TO EACH OTHER, and
USED your faithlessness AGAINST each other.
T 17 H 6. No relationship is holy, unless its holiness goes with it
EVERYWHERE. As holiness and faith go hand in hand, so must its faith go
everywhere WITH it. The goal’s reality will call forth, AND ACCOMPLISH, every
miracle needed for its fulfillment. Nothing too small or too enormous, nothing
too insignificant or too imposing, too weak or too compelling, but will be
gently turned to its use and purpose. The universe will serve it gladly, as it
serves the universe. BUT DO NOT INTERFERE. The power set in you, in whom the
Holy Spirit’s goal has been established, is so far beyond your little conception
of the infinite, that you have no idea how great the strength that goes with
you.
T 17 H 7. And you can use THIS in perfect safety. Yet, for all its might, so
great it reaches past the stars and to the universe that lies beyond them, your
little faithlessness can make IT useless, if you would use the faithlessness
instead. Yet think on this, and learn the CAUSE of faithlessness; you think you
hold against the other what he has done to you. But what you REALLY blame
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him for is WHAT YOU DID TO HIM. It is not HIS past but YOURS, you hold against
him. And you lack faith in HIM, because of what YOU were. Yet YOU are as
innocent of what you were, as HE is. What never was is causeless, and IS NOT
THERE to interfere with truth. There IS no cause for faithlessness, but there IS
a Cause for faith.
T 17 H 8. That Cause has entered ANY situation that shares its purpose. The
light of truth shines from the center of the situation, and touches everyone to
whom the situation’s purpose calls. IT CALLS TO EVERYONE. There is NO situation
that does NOT involve your WHOLE RELATIONSHIP, in every aspect and complete in
every part. You can leave NOTHING of yourself outside it, and keep the situation
holy. For it shares the purpose of your whole relationship, and derives its
meaning FROM it. Enter each situation with the faith that you would give each
other, or you ARE faithless to your own relationship. YOUR faith will call the
others to SHARE your purpose, as this same purpose called forth the faith in
you.
T 17 H 9. And you will see the means you once employed to lead you to
illusions, transformed to means for truth. Truth calls for faith, and faith
makes room FOR TRUTH. When the Holy Spirit CHANGED the purpose of your
relationship by exchanging yours for His, the goal He placed there WAS extended
to every situation in which you entered, or will EVER enter. And EVERY situation
was thus MADE FREE of the past, which WOULD have made it purposeLESS. You CALL
FOR faith, because of Him Who walks with you in every situation. You are no
longer wholly insane, NOR NO LONGER ALONE. For loneliness in God MUST be a
dream. You whose relationship SHARES the Holy Spirit’s goal, are SET APART from
loneliness, because the truth has come. Its call for faith is strong. Use not
your faithlessness against it, for it calls you to salvation and to peace.
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T 17 I. The Conditions of Forgiveness
T 17 I The holy instant is nothing more than a special case, or an extreme
example, of what EVERY situation is MEANT to be. The meaning that the Holy
Spirit’s purpose has GIVEN it, is also given to EVERY situation. It calls forth
just the same SUSPENSION of faithlessness, withheld and left UNUSED, that faith
might answer to the call of truth. The holy instant is the shining example, the
clear and unequivocal demonstration of the meaning of EVERY relationship, and
EVERY situation SEEN AS A WHOLE. Faith has ACCEPTED every ASPECT of the
situation, and faithlessness has not forced ANY exclusion on it. It is a
situation of perfect peace, simply because YOU have LET IT BE WHAT IT IS.
T 17 I 1. This simple courtesy is all the Holy Spirit asks of you. Let Truth
be what it is. Do not INTRUDE upon it, do not ATTACK it, do NOT interrupt its
coming. Let it encompass EVERY situation, and bring you peace. Not even faith is
asked of you, for Truth asks nothing. Let it enter, and IT will call forth, and
SECURE for you, the faith you need for peace. But rise you not AGAINST it, for
against YOUR opposition it CANNOT come. Would you not WANT to make a holy
instant of EVERY situation? For such is the gift of faith, freely given wherever
faithlessness is laid aside, UNUSED.
T 17 I 2. And THEN the power of the Holy Spirit’s purpose is free for use
instead. This power INSTANTLY transforms ALL situations into one sure and
continuous means for ESTABLISHING His purpose, and DEMONSTRATING its reality.
What has been DEMONSTRATED has called for faith, and has been GIVEN it. Now it
becomes a fact, from which faith can no longer BE withheld. The strain of
REFUSING faith to truth is enormous, and far greater than you realize. But to
ANSWER truth with faith entails no strain at all.
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T 17 I 3. To you who have ACKNOWLEDGED the call of your Redeemer, the strain
of NOT responding to His call SEEMS to be GREATER than before. This is not so.
Before, the strain was there, but you attributed it TO SOMETHING ELSE, believing
that the ‘something else’ PRODUCED it. This was NEVER true. But what the
‘something else’ produced was sorrow and depression, sickness and pain, darkness
and dim imaginings of terror, cold fantasies of fear, and fiery dreams of hell.
And it was nothing but the intolerable strain of your refusal to give faith to
truth, and see its evident reality.
T 17 I 4. Such was the crucifixion of the Son of God. His faithlessness did
this to him. Think carefully before you let yourself use faithlessness against
him. For he IS risen, and YOU have accepted the cause of his awakening AS YOURS.
You have assumed your part in his redemption, and you are now fully responsible
to him. Fail him not now, for it has been given you to realize what your lack of
faith in him MUST mean to YOU. His salvation is your ONLY purpose. See only this
in EVERY situation, and it WILL be a means for bringing ONLY this.
T 17 I 5. When you accepted truth as the goal for your relationship, you
became givers of peace, as surely as your Father gave peace to YOU. For the goal
of peace cannot BE accepted, APART from its conditions. And you had faith in it,
for no-one accepts what he does NOT believe is REAL. YOUR PURPOSE HAS NOT
CHANGED, and WILL not change, for you ACCEPTED what can NEVER change. And
nothing that it needs to BE forever changeless, can you now WITHHOLD from it.
Your release is certain. Give as you have received. And demonstrate that you
have risen FAR beyond ANY situation that could hold you back, and keep you
SEPARATE from Him Whose call you answered.
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Chapter XVIII - 18 - The Dream And The Reality
T 18 A. Introduction
January 25, 1967
T 18 A 1. To substitute is to ACCEPT INSTEAD. If you would but consider
exactly what this entails, you would perceive at once how much at variance this
is with the goal the Holy Spirit has given you and would accomplish FOR you. To
substitute is to CHOOSE BETWEEN, renouncing one IN FAVOR of the other. For this
SPECIAL purpose, one is judged more valuable, and the other is REPLACED by him.
The relationship in which the substitution occurred is thus fragmented, and ITS
PURPOSE SPLIT accordingly. To fragment IS TO EXCLUDE, and substitution is the
strongest defense the ego has for separation.
T 18 A 2. The Holy Spirit NEVER substitutes. Where the ego perceives one
person as a REPLACEMENT FOR another, the Holy Spirit sees them joined and
indivisible. He does not judge BETWEEN them, KNOWING they are one. Being united,
they are one BECAUSE THEY ARE THE SAME. Substitution is clearly a process in
which they are PERCEIVED AS DIFFERENT. One would UNITE; the other SEPARATE.
NOTHING can come BETWEEN what God has joined, and what the Holy Spirit sees as
one. But everything SEEMS to come between the fragmented relationships the ego
sponsors, to destroy.
T 18 A 3. The one emotion in which substitution is impossible, is love. But
fear involves substitution by definition, for it is love’s REPLACEMENT. Fear is
both a fragmented AND FRAGMENTING emotion. It SEEMS, to take many forms, and
each seems to require a DIFFERENT form of acting out, for satisfaction. While
this appears to introduce quite variable BEHAVIOR, a far more serious effect
lies in the fragmented PERCEPTION from which the behavior stems. NO-ONE IS SEEN
COMPLETE. The body is emphasized, with special emphasis on certain parts, and
USED AS THE STANDARD FOR COMPARISON for either acceptance or rejection of
suitability for acting out a special FORM of fear.
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T 18 B. Substitution as a Defense
January 27, 1967
T 18 B 1. You who believe that God is fear made but ONE substitution. It has
taken many forms, because it was the substitution of fragmentation for
wholeness. It has become splintered and subdivided and divided again, over and
over, that it is now almost impossible to perceive it once was one, and still IS
what it was. That ONE error, which brought truth to illusion, infinity to time,
and life to death, was all you ever made. Your whole world rests upon it.
Everything you see reflects it. And every special relationship which you have
ever made is PART of it.
T 18 B 2. You have expressed surprise at hearing how VERY different is reality
from what YOU see. You do not realize the magnitude of that ONE error. It was so
vast and so COMPLETELY incredible, that from it, a world of total unreality HAD
to emerge. What else COULD come of it? Its fragmented ASPECTS are fearful
enough, as you begin to LOOK at them. But nothing you have seen BEGINS to show
you the enormity of the ORIGINAL error, which seemed to cast you out of Heaven,
to shatter knowledge into meaningless bits of disunited perceptions, and TO
FORCE YOU TO FURTHER SUBSTITUTIONS.
T 18 B 3. That was the first projection of error outward. The world arose to
hide it, and became the screen on which it was projected, and drawn between you
and truth. For truth extends INWARD, where the idea of loss is meaningless, and
only INCREASE is conceivable. Do you REALLY think it strange that a world in
which EVERYTHING is backward and upside-down, arose from this? IT WAS
INEVITABLE. For truth brought to THIS could only remain within in quiet, and
take no part in all the mad projection by which this world was made.
T 18 B 4. Call it not sin, but madness, for such it was, and so it still
remains. Invest it not with guilt, for guilt implies it was accomplished IN
REALITY. And, above all, BE NOT AFRAID OF IT. When you seem to see some twisted
form of the original error rise to frighten you, say only, ‘God is NOT fear, but
love,’ and it will disappear. THE TRUTH WILL SAVE YOU. It has NOT left you,
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to go out into the mad world and so DEPART FROM YOU. Inward is sanity; INsanity
is OUTSIDE you. You but BELIEVE it is the other way; that truth is OUTSIDE, and
error and guilt within.
T 18 B 5. Your little, senseless substitutions, touched with insanity, and
swirling lightly off on a mad course like a feather dancing insanely in the
wind, HAVE no substance. They fuse and merge and separate in shifting and
totally meaningless patterns, which need not be judged at all. To judge them
INDIVIDUALLY is pointless. Their tiny differences in form are not REAL
differences at all. NONE OF THEM MATTERS. THAT they have in common, and nothing
else, but what else is NECESSARY to make them all the same? Let them go, dancing
in the wind, dipping and turning till they disappear from sight, far, far
OUTSIDE you. And turn you to the stately calm within, where, in holy stillness,
dwells the living God you never left, and Who never left you.
T 18 B 6. The Holy Spirit takes you gently by the hand, and retraces WITH you
your mad journey OUTSIDE yourself, leading you gently back to the truth and
safety within. He brings all your insane projections and your wild substitutions
which YOU have placed OUTSIDE you, to the truth. Thus, He REVERSES the course of
insanity, and restores you to reason. In your relationship where He has taken
charge of everything at your request, He has set the course inward, to the truth
you SHARE. In the mad world OUTSIDE you, nothing CAN be shared, but only
SUBSTITUTED, and sharing and substituting have NOTHING in common in reality.
T 18 B 7. Within yourselves, you love each other with perfect love. Here is
holy ground, in which no substitutes can enter, and where only the TRUTH about
each other can abide. Here you are joined in God, as much together as you are
with Him. The original error has not entered here, nor never will. Here is the
radiant truth, to which the Holy Spirit submitted your relationship.
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Let Him bring it here, where YOU would have it be. Give Him but a little faith
in each other, to help Him show you that no substitute you made for Heaven can
keep you from it.
T 18 B 8. In you there is no separation, and no substitute can keep you from
each other. Your reality was GOD’S creation, and HAS no substitute. You are so
firmly joined in truth, that only God is there. And He could NEVER accept
something else INSTEAD of you. He loves you both, equally and as one. And as He
loves you, so you ARE. You are NOT joined together by illusions, but in the
Thought so holy and so perfect that illusions cannot remain to darken the holy
place in which you stand together. God is with you, my brothers. Let us join in
Him in peace and gratitude, and accept His gift of our most holy and perfect
reality, that we share in Him.
T 18 B 9. Heaven is restored to all the Sonship through your relationship. For
in it lies the Sonship, whole and beautiful, safe in your love. Heaven has
answered quietly, for all illusions have been gently brought unto the truth in
you, and Love has shined upon you, blessing your relationship with truth. God
and His whole Creation has entered it together. How lovely and how holy is your
relationship, with the truth shining upon it! Heaven beholds it, and rejoices
that you have let it come to you. And God Himself is glad that your relationship
is as it was created. The universe within you stands with you together. And
Heaven looks with love on what is joined in it, along with its Creator.
T 18 B 10. Whom God hath called should hear no substitutes. Their call is but
an echo of the original error which shattered Heaven. For what became of peace,
in those who heard? Return with me to Heaven, walking together out of this
world, and through another to the loveliness and joy the other holds within it.
Would you still further weaken and break apart what is already
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broken and hopeless? Is it HERE that you would look for happiness? Or would you
not prefer to HEAL what has been broken, and join in making whole what has been
ravaged by separation and disease?
T 18 B 11. You have been called, together, to the most holy function that this
world contains. It is the ONLY one that has no limits, and that reaches out to
every broken fragment of the Sonship, with healing and uniting comfort. This is
offered YOU, in your holy relationship. Accept it HERE, and you WILL give as you
have accepted and received. The peace of God is given you, with the glowing
purpose in which you join. The holy light that brought you together MUST extend,
as YOU accept it.
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T 18 C. The Basis of the Dream
January 30, 1967
T 18 C 1. Does not a world that seems quite real arise in dreams? But think
what this world is. It is clearly NOT the world you saw BEFORE you slept.
Rather, it is a DISTORTION of the world, planned solely around what you have
PREFERRED. Here, you are ‘free’ to make over whatever SEEMED to attack you, and
CHANGE it into a TRIBUTE to your ego, which was outraged by the attack. This
would not be YOUR wish unless you saw yourself AS ONE with the ego, which ALWAYS
looks upon itself, and therefore on you, as UNDER attack, and highly VULNERABLE
to it.
T 18 C 2. Dreams are chaotic BECAUSE they are governed by your conflicting
wishes. And therefore they have NO concern with what is true. They are the best
example you could have of how perception can be utilized to substitute illusions
for truth. You do not take them seriously on awaking, because the fact that, in
them, reality is so OUTRAGEOUSLY violated, becomes apparent. Yet they ARE a way
of LOOKING at the world, and CHANGING it TO SUIT THE EGO BETTER. They provide
STRIKING examples, both of the ego’s INABILITY to tolerate reality, and your
willingness to CHANGE reality on its behalf.
T 18 C 3. You do not find the differences between what you see in sleep and on
awaking disturbing. You recognize that what you see on waking is blotted out in
dreams. Yet, on awakening, you do NOT expect it to be gone. In dreams, YOU
arrange everything. People BECOME what you would have them be, and what they do
YOU order. No limits on substitution are laid upon you; for a time, it seems as
if the world were GIVEN you, to make it what you will. You do NOT realize that
YOU are ATTACKING it, trying to triumph over it and MAKE it serve you.
T 18 C 4. Dreams are perceptual temper tantrums, in which you literally
scream, ‘I want it THUS!’ And thus it seems to be. And yet, the dream can NOT
escape its origin. Anger and fear pervade it, and in an instant the illusion of
satisfaction is invaded by the illusion of terror. For the
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dream of your ability to CONTROL reality by substituting a world that you prefer
IS terrifying. Your attempts to BLOT OUT reality are VERY fearful, but THIS you
are NOT willing to accept. And so you SUBSTITUTE the fantasy that REALITY is
fearful, NOT what you would DO to it. And thus is guilt MADE REAL.
T 18 C 5. Dreams show you that you HAVE the power to make a world as you would
have it, and that, BECAUSE you WANT it, you SEE it. And WHILE you see it, you do
NOT doubt that it is real. Yet here is a world, clearly WITHIN your mind, that
SEEMS to be outside. You do NOT respond to it as though you made it, nor do you
realize that the emotions which the dream produces MUST come from you. It is the
FIGURES in the dream, and what THEY do that seem to MAKE THE DREAM. You do not
realize that you are making them act out FOR you, for if you did, the guilt
would not be theirs, and the illusion of satisfaction would be gone.
T 18 C 6. In dreams these features are not obscure. You seem to waken, and the
dream is gone. But what you fail to recognize is that what CAUSED the dream, has
NOT gone with it. Your WISH to make another world that is NOT real, REMAINS with
you. And what you seem to WAKE to, is but another FORM of this same world you
see in dreams. All your time is spent in dreaming. Your sleeping and your waking
dreams have different forms, and that is all. THEIR CONTENT IS THE SAME. They
are your protest AGAINST reality, and your fixed and insane wish to CHANGE it.
T 18 C 7. In your WAKING dreams, the special relationship has a special place.
It is the means by which you try to make your SLEEPING dreams COME TRUE. From
this, you do not waken. The special relationship is your DETERMINATION to keep
your hold on unreality, and to PREVENT yourself from waking. And while you see
more VALUE in sleeping than in waking, you will NOT let go of it. The Holy
Spirit, ever practical in His wisdom, ACCEPTS your dreams, and uses them
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as means for WAKING. YOU would have used them to remain ASLEEP.
T 18 C 8. We once said that the first change, before dreams disappear, is that
your dreams of fear are changed to HAPPY dreams. That is what the Holy Spirit
does in your special relationship. He does NOT destroy it, nor snatch it away
from you. But He does use it differently, as a help to make HIS purpose REAL to
you. Your special relationships will remain, NOT as a source of pain and guilt,
but as a source of joy and freedom. It will NOT be for you alone, for therein
lay its misery. As its UNholiness kept it as a thing apart, its HOLINESS will
become an offering to everyone.
T 18 C 9. Your special relationship will be a means for UNDOING guilt in
everyone blessed through your holy relationship. It will be a happy dream, and
one which you will SHARE with all who come within your sight. Through it, the
blessing that the Holy Spirit has laid upon it, will be EXTENDED. Think not that
He has forgotten anyone, in the purpose He has given you. And think not that He
has forgotten YOU, to whom He GAVE this gift. He uses everyone who calls on Him,
as means for the salvation of everyone. And He will waken everyone through you,
who offered your relationship to Him.
T 18 C 10. If you but recognized His gratitude! Or mine through His! For we are
joined as one in purpose, being of one mind with Him. Let not the dream take
hold to close your eyes. It is not strange that dreams can make a world that is
unreal. The WISH to make it IS incredible. Your relationship has become one in
which the wish has been REMOVED, because its purpose has been changed from one
of dreams to one of truth. You are not sure of this, because you think it may be
THIS that is the dream. You are so used to choosing between dreams, you do not
see that you have made, at last, the choice between the truth and ALL ILLUSIONS.
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T 18 C 11. Yet Heaven IS sure. THIS IS NO DREAM. Its coming means that you have
chosen truth, and it has come, because you have been willing to let your special
relationship meet its conditions. In your relationship, the Holy Spirit has
gently laid the real world; the world of happy dreams, from which awaking is so
easy and so natural. For, as your sleeping and your waking dreams represent the
same wishes in YOUR mind, so do the real world and the truth of Heaven join in
the Will of God. The dream of waking is easily transferred to its reality. For
this dream comes from your will, JOINED with the Will of God. And what THIS will
would HAVE accomplished, has never NOT been done.
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T 18 D. Light in the Dream
Feb. 2, 1967
T 18 D 1. You who have spent your lives in bringing truth to illusion, reality
to fantasy, HAVE walked the way of dreams. For you have gone from waking to
sleeping, and on and on to a yet deeper sleep. Each dream has led to other
dreams, and every fantasy that SEEMED to bring a light into the darkness but
made the darkness deeper. Your GOAL was darkness, in which no ray of light could
enter. And you sought a blackness so complete that you could hide from truth
forever, in complete insanity. What you forgot was simply that God CANNOT
destroy Himself. The light is IN you. Darkness can COVER it, but CANNOT put it
out.
T 18 D 2. As the light comes nearer, you WILL rush to darkness, shrinking from
the truth, sometimes retreating to the lesser forms of fear, and sometimes to
stark terror. But you WILL advance, because your goal IS the advance from fear
to truth. YOU KNOW THIS. The goal which you accepted IS the goal of knowledge,
for which you signified your willingness. Fear seems to live in darkness. WHEN
YOU ARE AFRAID, you have stepped back. Let us then join quickly in an instant of
light, and it will be enough to remind you that your goal IS light. Truth has
rushed to meet you, since YOU called upon it.
T 18 D 3. If you knew Who walks beside you on THIS way, which YOU have chosen,
fear would be impossible. You do NOT know, because the journey into darkness has
been long and cruel, and you have gone deep into it. A little flicker of your
eyelids, closed so long, has not yet been sufficient to give you confidence in
yourselves, so long despised. You go TOWARD love, still hating it, and TERRIBLY
afraid of its judgment upon you. And you do NOT realize that you are NOT afraid
of love, but only OF WHAT YOU MADE OF IT.
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T 18 D 4. You are advancing to love’s MEANING, and away from ALL illusions in
which you have surrounded it. When you retreat to the illusions, YOUR FEAR
INCREASES, for there is little doubt that what YOU think it means IS fearful.
But what is that to us who travel surely and very swiftly AWAY from fear?
T 18 D 5. You who hold each other’s hand also hold mine, for when you joined
each other you were not alone. Do you believe that I would leave you in the
darkness you agreed to leave with ME? In your relationship is this world’s
light. And fear MUST disappear before you now. Be tempted not to snatch away the
gift of faith you offered to each other. You will succeed only in frightening
yourselves. The gift is given forever, for God Himself received it. You CANNOT
take it back. You have accepted God. The holiness of your relationship is
established in Heaven. You do not understand what you accepted, but remember
that your understanding is not necessary. All that was necessary was merely the
WISH to understand. That wish was the desire to be holy. The will of God is
granted you. For you desire the only thing you ever had, or ever were.
T 18 D 6. Each instant that we spend together will teach you that this goal is
possible, and will strengthen your desire to reach it. And in your desire lies
its accomplishment. Your desire is now in complete accord with all the power of
the Holy Spirit’s Will. No little, faltering footsteps that you may take can
separate your desire from His Will and from His strength. I hold your hand as
surely as you agreed to take each other’s. You will not separate for I stand
with you, and walk with you in your advance to truth. And where we go we carry
God with us.
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T 18 D 7. In your relationship, you have joined with me in bringing Heaven to
the Son of God, who hid in darkness. You have been willing to bring the darkness
to light, and this willingness has given strength to everyone who would remain
in darkness. Those who would see WILL see. And they will join with me in
carrying their light into the darkness, when the darkness in them is offered to
the light, and is removed forever. My need for you, joined with me in the holy
light of your relationship, is YOUR need for salvation. Would I not give you
what you gave to me? For when you joined each other, you answered me.
T 18 D 8. You who are now the bringers of salvation have the function of
bringing light to darkness. The darkness in you HAS been brought to light. Carry
it back to darkness, from the holy instant to which you brought it. We are made
whole in our desire to make whole. Let not time worry you, for all the fear that
you experience is really past. Time has been re-adjusted to help us do,
together, what your separate pasts would hinder. You have gone past fear, for no
two minds can join in the desire for love without love’s joining THEM.
T 18 D 9. Not one light in Heaven but goes with you. Not one ray that shines
forever in the Mind of God but shines on you. Heaven is joined with you in your
advance to Heaven. When such great light has joined with you to give the little
spark of your desire the power of God Himself, CAN you remain in darkness? You
are coming home together, after a long and meaningless journey which you
undertook apart, and which led nowhere. You have found each other, and will
light each other’s way. And from this light will the great rays extend back into
darkness and forward unto God, to shine away the past and so make room for His
eternal Presence, in Which everything is radiant in the light.
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T 18 E. The Little Willingness
February 5, 1967.
T 18 E 1. The holy instant is the result of your determination to be holy. It
is the ANSWER. The desire and the willingness to let it come precedes its
coming. You prepare your minds for it only to the extent of recognizing that you
want it above all else. It is not necessary that you do more; indeed, it is
necessary that you realize that you CANNOT do more. Do not attempt to give the
Holy Spirit what He does not ask, or you will add the ego unto Him, and confuse
the two. He asks but little. It is HE Who adds the greatness and the might. He
joins with you to make the holy instant far greater than you can understand.
T 18 E 2. It is your realization that you need do so little that enables Him
to give so much. Trust not your good intentions. They are not enough. But trust
implicitly your willingness, whatever else may enter. Concentrate only on this,
and be not disturbed that shadows surround it. That is why you came. If you
could come without them, you would not NEED the holy instant. Come to it not in
arrogance, assuming that you must achieve the state its coming brings with it.
The miracle of the holy instant lies in your willingness to let it be what it
is. And in your willingness for this lies also your acceptance of yourself as
YOU were meant to be.
T 18 E 3. Humility will never ask that you remain content with littleness. But
it DOES require that you be NOT content with less than greatness which comes not
of you. Your difficulty with the holy instant arises from your fixed conviction
that you are not worthy of it. And what is this but the determination to be as
you would MAKE yourself? God did not create His dwelling-place unworthy of Him.
And if you believe He cannot enter where He wills to be, you must be INTERFERING
with His Will. You do not need the strength of willingness to come from YOU, but
only from HIS Will.
T 18 E 4. The holy instant does not come from your little willingness alone.
It is always the result of your SMALL willingness COMBINED with the unlimited
power of HIS Will. You have been wrong in thinking that it is
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needful to prepare YOURSELF for Him. It is impossible to make arrogant
preparations for holiness, and NOT believe that it is up to you to establish the
conditions for peace. GOD has established them. They do not wait upon your
willingness for what they are. Your willingness is needed only to make it
possible to TEACH you what they are.
T 18 E 5. If you maintain you are unworthy of learning this, you are
interfering with the lesson by believing that you make the LEARNER different.
You did not make the learner, nor CAN you make him different. Would you first
make a miracle yourself, and then expect one to be made FOR you? YOU merely ask
the question. The answer is GIVEN. Seek not to answer it, but merely RECEIVE the
answer as it is given. In preparing for the holy instant, do not attempt to make
yourself holy to be ready to receive it. That is but to confuse your role with
God’s. Atonement cannot come to those who think that THEY must first atone, but
only to those who offer it nothing more than simple willingness to make way for
it.
T 18 E 6. Purification is of God alone, and therefore for you. Rather than
seek to prepare yourself for Him, try to think thus:
"I who am host to God AM worthy of Him.
He Who ESTABLISHED His dwelling-place in me created it as He would have it be.
It is not needful that I make it ready for Him, but only that I DO NOT INTERFERE
with His plan to RESTORE to me my own awareness of my readiness, which is
eternal.
I need ADD nothing to His plan.
But to RECEIVE it, I must be willing NOT to
substitute my own IN PLACE of it."
T 18 E 7. And that is all. Add MORE, and you will merely TAKE AWAY the little
that is asked. Remember YOU MADE GUILT, and that your plan for the ESCAPE from
guilt has been to bring Atonement TO it, and MAKE SALVATION FEARFUL. And it is
ONLY fear that you will add, if you prepare YOURSELF for love. The preparation
for the holy instant belongs to Him Who gives it. RELEASE
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yourselves to Him Whose function IS release. Do NOT assume His function FOR Him.
Give Him but what He asks, that you may learn how LITTLE is your part, and how
great is HIS.
T 18 E 8. It is this that makes the holy instant so easy and so natural. You
make it difficult, because you insist there must be more that you need do. You
find it difficult to ACCEPT the idea that you need give so LITTLE, to receive so
much. And it is very hard for you to realize that it is not personally insulting
that your contribution and the Holy Spirit’s are so extremely disproportionate.
You are still convinced YOUR understanding is a powerful contribution to the
truth, and makes it what it is. Yet we have emphasized that you need understand
nothing. Salvation is easy just BECAUSE it asks nothing that you cannot give
RIGHT NOW.
T 18 E 9. Forget not that it has been your decision to make everything that IS
natural and easy for you impossible. What you believe to be impossible will BE,
if God so wills it, but you will remain quite unaware of it. If you believe the
holy instant is difficult for you, it is because you have become the arbiter of
what is possible, and remain unwilling to give place to One Who KNOWS. The whole
belief in orders of difficulty in miracles is centered on this. Everything God
wills is not only possible, but has already HAPPENED. And that is why the past
has gone. It NEVER happened in reality. Only in your minds, which thought it
did, is its undoing needful.
T 18 F. The Happy Dream
T 18 F 1. Prepare you NOW for the undoing of what never was. If you already
UNDERSTOOD the difference between truth and illusion, the Atonement would HAVE
no meaning. The holy instant, your holy relationship, the Holy Spirit’s
teaching, and all the means by which salvation is accomplished, would have no
purpose. For they are all but aspects of the plan to change your dreams of fear
to happy dreams, from which you waken easily to knowledge. Put yourself not in
charge of this, for you cannot distinguish between advance and retreat. Some of
your greatest advances you have judged as failures, and some of your deepest
retreats you have evaluated as success.
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T 18 F 2. Never approach the holy instant after YOU have tried to remove all
fear and hatred from your mind. That is ITS function. Never attempt to overlook
your guilt BEFORE you ask the Holy Spirit’s help. That is HIS function. Your
part is only to offer Him a little willingness to LET Him remove all fear and
hatred, and to BE forgiven. On your little faith, joined with His understanding,
HE will build your part in the Atonement, and make sure that you fulfill it
easily. And with Him, YOU will build a ladder planted in the solid rock of
faith, and rising even to Heaven. Nor will you use it to ascend to Heaven alone.
T 18 F 3. Through your holy relationship, reborn and blessed in every holy
instant which you do not arrange, thousands will rise to Heaven with you. Can
YOU plan for this? Or could you prepare YOURSELVES for such a function? Yet it
is possible, because God wills it. Nor will He change His Mind about it. The
means and purpose BOTH belong to Him. You have accepted one; the other will be
provided. A purpose such as this, without the means, is inconceivable. He will
provide the means to ANYONE who shares His purpose.
T 18 F 4. Happy dreams come true, NOT because they are dreams, but only
because they are HAPPY. And so they must be loving. Their message is, ‘Thy Will
be done,’ and not, ‘I want it otherwise.’ The alignment of means and purpose is
an undertaking impossible for you to understand. You do not even realize you
HAVE accepted the Holy Spirit’s purpose as your own, and you would merely bring
unholy means to its accomplishment. The little faith it needed to change the
purpose is all that is required to receive the means and USE them.
T 18 F 5. It is no dream to love your brother as yourself. Nor is your holy
relationship a dream. All that remains of dreams within it is that it is still a
SPECIAL relationship. Yet it is very useful to the Holy Spirit, Who HAS a
special function here. It will become the HAPPY dream through which He can
spread joy to thousands on thousands who believe that love is
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fear, not happiness. Let Him fulfill the function that He gave to your
relationship by accepting it FOR you, and nothing will be wanting that would
make of it what He would have it be.
T 18 F 6. When you feel the holiness of your relationship is threatened by
anything, stop instantly and offer the Holy Spirit your willingness, IN SPITE of
fear, to let Him exchange this instant for the holy one which you would rather
have. He will never fail in this. But forget not that your relationship is one,
and so it must be that whatever threatens the peace of one is an equal threat to
the other. The power of joining and its blessing lie in the fact that it is now
impossible for either of you to experience fear alone, or to attempt to deal
with it alone. Never believe that this is necessary, or even possible.
T 18 F 7. But, just as THIS is impossible, so is it equally impossible that
the holy instant come to either of you WITHOUT the other. And it WILL come to
both at the REQUEST of either. Whichever is saner at the time when the threat
is perceived, should remember how deep is his indebtedness to the other, and how
much gratitude is due him, and be glad that he can pay his debt, by bringing
happiness to both. Let him remember this, and say:
"I desire this holy instant for myself
That I may share it with my brother, whom I love.
It is not possible that I can have it without him, or he without me.
Yet it is wholly possible for us to share it NOW.
And so I choose this instant as the one to offer to the Holy Spirit, That His
blessing may descend on us, and keep us BOTH in peace."
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T 18 G. Dreams and the Body
Jan. [Feb.?] 12, 1967
T 18 G 1. THERE IS NOTHING OUTSIDE YOU. That is what you must ultimately
learn, for it is in that realization that the Kingdom of Heaven is restored to
you. For God created only this, and He did not depart from it, nor leave it
separate from Himself. The Kingdom of Heaven is the dwelling place of the Son of
God, who left not his Father, and dwells not apart from Him. Heaven is not a
place nor a condition. It is merely an awareness of perfect Oneness, and the
knowledge that there is nothing else. Nothing OUTSIDE THIS Oneness, and NOTHING
ELSE within.
T 18 G 2. What could God give, but knowledge of Himself? What else IS there to
give? The belief that you could give AND GET something, else, something OUTSIDE
yourself, has cost you the awareness of Heaven, and the loss of knowledge of
your identity. And you have done a stranger thing than you yet realize. You have
displaced your guilt to your bodies, FROM YOUR MINDS. Yet a body CANNOT be
guilty, for it can do nothing of itself. You who think you hate your bodies,
deceive yourselves. YOU HATE YOUR MINDS, for guilt has entered into them, and
they would remain separate, which they CANNOT DO.
T 18 G 3. Minds ARE joined; bodies are not. Only by assigning to the mind the
properties OF THE BODY, does separation SEEM to be possible. And it is MIND that
seems to be fragmented and private and ALONE. Its guilt, which KEEPS it
separate, is projected to the body, which suffers and dies, BECAUSE IT IS
ATTACKED to hold the separation in the mind, and let it NOT KNOW its unity. Mind
cannot attack, but it CAN make fantasies, and direct the body to act them out.
But it is never what the BODY does that seems to satisfy. Unless the mind
BELIEVES the body is ACTUALLY acting out ITS fantasies, it
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will attack the body by INCREASING the projection of its guilt upon it.
T 18 G 4. In this, the mind is clearly delusional. It cannot attack, but
maintains it CAN, and USES what it does to hurt the body, to PROVE it can. The
mind can not attack, but it CAN deceive itself. And this is ALL it does, when it
believes it has attacked the body, It CAN project its guilt, but it will NOT
lose it through projection. And though it clearly can MISPERCEIVE the function
of the body, it CANNOT change its function from what the Holy Spirit ESTABLISHES
it to be. The body was NOT made by love. But love does not condemn it, and can
use it lovingly, respecting what the Son of God has made, and using it to SAVE
him from illusions. Would you not have the instruments of separation
REINTERPRETED as means for salvation, and USED for purposes of love? Would you
not welcome AND SUPPORT the shift from fantasies of vengeance to release from
them? Your PERCEPTION of the body can clearly be sick, but project this not upon
the body. For your wish to make destructive what CANNOT destroy, can have no
REAL effect at all. And what God created is only what He would have it be, being
His Will.
T 18 G 5. You cannot make His Will destructive. You can make FANTASIES, in
which your will CONFLICTS with His, but that is all. It is insane to use the
body as the scapegoat for guilt; DIRECTING its attack, and BLAMING it for what
you wished it to do. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ACT OUT FANTASIES. For it is still the
FANTASIES you want, and they have nothing to do with what the body does.
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IT does not dream of them, and they but make IT a liability, where it COULD be
an asset. For fantasies have made your body your "enemy," weak, vulnerable, and
treacherous, "worthy" of the hate which you invest in it.
T 18 G 6. How has this served you? You have IDENTIFIED with this thing you
hate, the instrument of vengeance, and the perceiv(ed) source of your guilt. YOU
have done this to a thing that has no meaning, proclaiming it to be the dwelling
place of the Son of God, and turning it AGAINST him. This is the host of God
that YOU have made. And neither God nor His most holy Son can enter an abode
which harbors hate, and where you have sown the seeds of vengeance, violence,
and death.
T 18 G 7. This thing you made to serve your guilt, stands between you and
other minds. The minds ARE joined, but you do not IDENTIFY with them. You SEE
yourself as locked in a separate prison, remote and unreachable, incapable of
reaching out as being reached, You HATE the prison that you made, and would
destroy it. Yet you would NOT escape from it, leaving it unharmed, WITHOUT your
guilt upon it. But only thus CAN you escape. The home of vengeance is not yours;
The place you set aside to house your hatred is NOT a prison, but an ILLUSION OF
YOURSELF.
T 18 G 8. The body is a limit imposed on the universal communication which is
an eternal property of mind. But the communication is INTERNAL. Mind reaches to
ITSELF. [It is NOT made up of different PARTS, which reach each other.] It does
not go OUT. Within
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ITSELF, it HAS no limits, and there is nothing OUTSIDE it. It encompasses
EVERYTHING. It encompasses you ENTIRELY; you within it, and it within you. There
IS nothing else, anywhere or ever. The body is OUTSIDE you, and SEEMS to
surround you, shutting you off from others, and keeping you APART from them, and
them from you.
T 18 G 9. IT IS NOT THERE. There IS no barrier between God and His Son, nor
can His Son be separated from himself, except in illusion. This is NOT his
reality, though he believes it IS. Yet this could only BE, IF God were wrong.
God would have had to create DIFFERENTLY, and to have separated HIMSELF from His
Son, to make this possible. He would have had to create DIFFERENT things, and to
establish different ORDERS of reality, only SOME of which were love. Yet love
must be forever like itself, changeless forever, and forever WITHOUT
alternative. And so it is.
T 18 G 10. YOU cannot put a barrier around yourself, because God placed none
between HIMSELF and you. Your hand can stretch out, and reach to Heaven. You
whose hands are joined have begun to reach BEYOND the body, but NOT outside
yourselves. To reach your shared identity TOGETHER. Could this be OUTSIDE you?
Where God is not? Is He a body, and did He create you as He is not, and where He
CANNOT be? You are surrounded ONLY by Him. What limits CAN there be on you, whom
HE encompasses?
T 18 G 11. Everyone has experienced what he would call a sense of being
transported BEYOND himself. This feeling of liberation FAR exceeds the DREAM of
freedom sometimes experienced in special relationships. It is a sense of actual
ESCAPE from limitations.
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T 18 G 12. If you will consider what this "transportation" REALLY entails, you
will realize that it is a sudden UNawareness of the body, and a joining of your
self and SOMETHING ELSE, in which your mind ENLARGES to encompass it. It becomes
PART of you, as you UNITE with it. And BOTH become whole, as NEITHER is
perceived as separate.
T 18 G 13. What REALLY happens is that you have GIVEN UP the illusion of a
LIMITED awareness, and lost your fear of union. The love that INSTANTLY replaces
it EXTENDS to what has freed you, and UNITES you with it. And, while this lasts,
you are NOT uncertain of your identity, and would not limit it. You have escaped
from fear to peace, asking no questions of reality, but merely ACCEPTING it. You
have accepted this INSTEAD of the body, and have LET yourself be ONE with
something beyond it, simply by NOT letting your mind be limited BY it.
T 18 G 14. This can occur REGARDLESS of the physical distance that SEEMS to be
between you and what you join; of your respective positions in space; and of
your differences in size and seeming quality. Time is not relevant; it can occur
with something past, present, or anticipated. The "something" can be anything
and ANYWHERE; a sound, a sight, a thought, a memory, even a more GENERAL idea,
WITHOUT specific reference. But, in every case, you join it without RESERVATION,
because you love it, and would BE with it. And so you rush to meet it, letting
your limits melt away, suspending ALL the "laws" your body obeys, and gently
SETTING THEM ASIDE.
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T 18 G 15. There is no violence at all in this escape. The body is NOT
attacked, but merely PROPERLY PERCEIVED. It does not limit you, merely because
YOU would not have it so. You are not really "lifted out" of it; it cannot
CONTAIN you. You go where you would be; GAINING, NOT losing, a sense of self. In
these instants of release from physical restrictions, you experience much of
what happens in the holy instant; the lifting of the barriers of time and space,
the sudden experience of peace and joy, and, above all, the LACK of awareness of
the body, and of the questioning WHETHER OR NOT ALL THIS IS POSSIBLE. It IS
possible, BECAUSE YOU WANT IT.
T 18 G 16. The sudden EXPANSION of the self that takes place with your DESIRE
for it, is the irresistible appeal the holy instant holds. It calls to you to be
yourself, within its safe embrace. There are the laws of limit lifted FOR you,
to welcome you to openness of mind, and freedom. Come to this place of refuge,
where you can be yourself in peace. NOT through destruction, NOT through a
"breaking out," but merely by a quiet "melting in." For peace will join you
there, simply because YOU have been willing to let go the limits YOU have placed
on love, and JOINED it where it is, and where it led you, in answer to its
gentle call to be at peace.
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Ed. Note 6 March 2006, Doug Thompson .. Next 3 pages from SM out of temporal
and numerical order in HLC. It is the HLC sequence and chapter/section headings
and order being used here.
T 18 H. "I Need Do Nothing"
SPECIAL MESSAGE May 31, 1967
T 18 H 1. You still have too much faith in the body as a source of strength.
What plans do you make that do NOT involve its comfort or protection or
enjoyment in some way? This makes it an end and not a means in your
interpretation, and this ALWAYS means YOU STILL FIND SIN ATTRACTIVE. No-on
accepts Atonement for himself who still accepts sin as his goal. You have thus
not met your one responsibility. Atonement is not welcomed by those who PREFER
pain and destruction.
T 18 H 2. You have made much progress, and are really trying to make still
more, but there is one thing you have never done; not for one instant have you
utterly forgotten the body. It has faded at times from your sight, but it has
not yet COMPLETELY DISAPPEARED. You are not asked to let this happen for more
than an instant, but it is in this instant that the miracle of Atonement
happens. Afterwards, you will see the body again, but never quite the same. And
every instant that you spend WITHOUT awareness of it gives you a different view
of it, when you return.
T 18 H 3. At no SINGLE instant does the body exist at all. It is always
remembered or anticipated, but NEVER experienced just now. Only its past and
future make it seem real. Time controls it entirely. For sin is never present.
In any SINGLE instant, the attraction of guilt would be experienced as pain and
nothing else, and would be avoided. IT HAS NO ATTRACTION NOW. Its whole
attraction is imaginary, and therefore MUST be thought of from the past, or in
the future.
T 18 H 4. It is impossible to accept the holy instant WITHOUT RESERVATION
unless, JUST FOR AN INSTANT, you are willing to see no past or future. You
cannot PREPARE for it without placing it in the FUTURE. Release is given you the
INSTANT you desire it. Many have spent a lifetime in preparation, and have,
indeed, achieved their instants of success. This course does not attempt to
teach more than they learned in time. But it does aim at SAVING time.
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T 18 H 5. You are attempting to follow a very long road to the goal you have
accepted. It is extremely difficult to reach Atonement by fighting against sin.
Enormous effort is expended in the attempt to make holy what is hated and
despised. Nor is a lifetime of contemplation, and long periods of meditation
aimed at DETACHMENT from the body necessary. All such attempts will ultimately
succeed, because of their purpose. But the means are tedious and very time
consuming, for all of them LOOK TO THE FUTURE for release from a state of
present unworthiness and inadequacy.
T 18 H 6. Your way will be different. NOT in purpose, but in means. A HOLY
RELATIONSHIP IS A MEANS OF SAVING TIME. One instant spent TOGETHER restores the
universe to BOTH of you. You ARE prepared. Now you need but remember YOU NEED DO
NOTHING. It would be FAR more profitable now merely to concentrate on this, than
to consider what you SHOULD do.
T 18 H 7. When peace comes at last to those who wrestle with temptation, and
fight against giving in to sin; when the light comes at last into the mind given
to contemplation, or when the goal is finally achieved by anyone, it ALWAYS
comes with just ONE happy realization, -- "I need do nothing." Here is the
ultimate release that everyone will one day find in his own way, at his own
time. We do not need this time. Time has been SAVED for you, because you are
together. This is the special means this course is using, to save you time.
T 18 H 8. You are not making use of the course if you insist on using means
that have served others well, neglecting what was made for YOU. Save time for me
by only this one preparation, and practice doing NOTHING ELSE. "I need do
nothing" is a statement of allegiance, a truly undivided loyalty. Believe it for
just one instant, and you will accomplish more than is given to a century of
contemplation, or of struggle against temptation.
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T 18 H 9. To DO anything involves the body. And, if you recognize you NEED do
nothing, you HAVE withdrawn the body’s value from your mind. Here is quick and
open door through which you slip past centuries of effort, and ESCAPE from time.
This is the way in which sin loses ALL attraction RIGHT NOW. For here is time
denied, and past and future gone. Who need do nothing has no need for time. To
do nothing is to rest, and make a place within you where the activity of the
body ceases to demand attention. Into this place the Holy Spirit comes, and
there abides.
T 18 H 10. He will remain when you forget, and the body’s activities return to
occupy your conscious mind. But there will always be this place of rest, to
which you can return. And you will be more aware of the quiet center of the
storm, than all its raging activity. This quiet center, IN WHICH YOU DO NOTHING,
will remain with you, giving you rest in the midst of every busy doing on which
you are sent. For, FROM this center, will you be directed how to use the body
sinlessly. It is this center, from which the body is ABSENT, that will keep it
so, in your awareness of it.
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509 .
T 18 I. The Purpose of the Body
Feb. 16, 1967
T 18 I 1. It is only the awareness of the body that makes love seem limited.
For the body IS a limit on love. The belief in limited love was its origin, and
it was MADE to limit the UNlimited. Think not that this is merely allegorical;
for it was made to limit YOU. Can you who see yourselves WITHIN a body, know
yourself AS AN IDEA? Everything you recognize you identify by EXTERNALS,
something OUTSIDE itself. You cannot even think of God without a body, or some
form you think you recognize. The body cannot KNOW. And while you limit your
awareness to its tiny senses, you will not see the grandeur that surrounds you.
T 18 I 2. God cannot come into a body, nor can you join Him there. Limits on
love will ALWAYS seem to shut Him out, and to keep you APART from Him. The body
is a tiny fence around a little part of a glorious and completely limitless
idea. It draws a circle, infinitely small, around a very little segment of
Heaven, splintered from the whole, proclaiming that, within it, is YOUR Kingdom,
where God can enter not. Within this kingdom the ego rules, and cruelly. And, to
defend this little speck of dust, it bids you fight against the universe.
T 18 I 3. This fragment of your mind is such a tiny part of it that, could you
but appreciate the whole, you would see instantly that it is like the smallest
sunbeam is to the sun. Or like the faintest ripple on the surface of the ocean.
In its amazing arrogance, this tiny sunbeam has decided it IS the sun; this
almost imperceptible ripple hails itself as the ocean. Think how alone and
frightened is this little thought, this infinitesimal illusion, holding itself
apart, against the universe. The sun becomes the sunbeam’s "enemy," which would
devour it. And the ocean terrifies the little ripple, and "wants" to swallow it.
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510 .
T 18 I 4. Yet neither sun nor ocean is even aware of all this strange and
meaningless activity. They merely continue, unaware that they are feared and
hated by a tiny segment of themselves.
T 18 I 5. Even that segment is not LOST to them, for it could not survive
APART from them And what IT thinks it is in no way changes its total dependence
on them FOR ITS BEING. Its whole existence still remains IN THEM. Without the
sun, the sunbeam WOULD be gone; the ripple WITHOUT the ocean IS inconceivable.
T 18 I 6. Such is the strange position in which those in a world inhabited by
bodies seem to be. Each body seems to house a SEPARATE mind, a DISCONNECTED
thought, living alone and in no way joined to the Thought by which it was
created. Each tiny fragment seems to be self-contained, needing each other for
SOME things, but by no means TOTALLY depended on their One Creator for
EVERYTHING. And needing the whole to give them ANY meaning, for by themselves,
they DO mean nothing. Nor HAVE they any life apart, and by themselves.
T 18 I 7. Yet, like the sun and ocean, your Self continues, unmindful that
this tiny part regards ITSELF as you. It is not missing; it could not EXIST if
it were separate, nor would the whole BE whole without it. It is not a separate
kingdom, ruled by an IDEA of separation from the rest. Nor does a fence surround
it, preventing it from JOINING with the rest, and keeping it apart from its
Creator. This little aspect is NO DIFFERENT from the whole, being continuous
with it, and at one with it. It leads no separate life, because its life IS in
the Oneness in which its being was created.
T 18 I 8. Do not accept this little, fenced-off aspect as your Self. The sun
and ocean are as nothing, beside what YOU are. The sunbeam sparkles only in the
sunlight, and the ripple dances as it rests upon the ocean. Yet in neither sun
nor ocean is the power that rests in you. Would you remain WITHIN your tiny
kingdom, a sorry king, a bitter ruler of all he surveys, who
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511 .
looks on nothing, but who would still die to DEFEND it? This little self is NOT
your kingdom Arched high above it, and surrounding it, with love, is the
glorious whole, which offers all its happiness and deep content to EVERY part.
T 18 I 9. The little aspect that you think you set apart is no exception. Love
knows no bodies, and reaches to everything created like itself. Its total lack
of limit IS its meaning. It is COMPLETELY impartial in its giving, encompassing
ONLY to preserve and KEEP COMPLETE what it would give. In your tiny kingdom you
have so little! Should it not, then, be there that you would call on love to
enter? Look at the desert, dry and unproductive, scorched and joyless, that
makes up your little kingdom. And realize the life and joy that love would bring
to it, from where IT comes, and where it would return WITH you.
T 18 I 10.
The Thought of God surrounds your little kingdom, waiting at the barrier you
built, to come in and shine upon the barren ground. See how life springs up
everywhere! The desert becomes a garden, green and deep and quiet, offering rest
to those who lost their way, and wander in the dust. Give them a place of
refuge, prepared by love from them, where once a desert was. And every one you
welcome will bring love with him, from Heaven for you. They enter one by one
into this holy place, but they will not depart as they had come, alone.
T 18 I 11. The love they BROUGHT with them will STAY with them, as it will stay
with YOU. And, under its beneficence, your little garden will expand, and reach
out to everyone who thirsts for living water, but has grown too weary to go on
alone. Go out and FIND them, for they bring your Self with them. And lead them
gently to your quiet garden, and receive their blessing there. So will it grow,
and stretch across the desert, leaving no lonely little kingdoms locked away
from love, and leaving YOU outside.
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512
And you will RECOGNIZE yourself, and see your little garden gently transformed
into the Kingdom of Heaven, with all the love of its Creator shining upon it.
T 18 I 12. The holy instant is your invitation to love, to enter into your
bleak and joyless kingdom, and transform it into a garden of peace and welcome.
Love’s answer is inevitable. It will come, because you came WITHOUT the body,
and interposed no barriers which would INTERFERE with its glad coming. In the
holy instant, you ask of love only what it offers everyone, neither less nor
more. Asking for EVERYTHING, you will receive it. And your shining Self will
lift the tiny aspect that you tried to hide from Heaven, straight into Heaven.
No part of love calls on the whole in vain. No son of God remains OUTSIDE His
Fatherhood.
T 18 I 13. Be sure of this; love has entered your special relationship, and
entered fully, at your weak request. You do NOT recognize that love has come,
because you have not yet let go of ALL the barriers you hold against EACH OTHER.
And you will NOT BE ABLE TO GIVE love welcome separately. You could no more know
God alone, than He knows you without your brother. But, TOGETHER, you could no
more be UNAWARE of love, than love could know you not, or fail to recognize
ITSELF in you.
T 18 I 14. You have reached the end of an ancient journey not realizing yet
that it is over. You are still worn and tired, and the desert’s dust still seems
to cloud your eyes, and keep you sightless. Yet He Whom you welcomed has come to
you, and would welcome YOU. He has waited long to give you this. Receive it now
of Him, for He would have you KNOW Him. Only a little wall of dust still stands
between you. Blow on it lightly and with happy laughter, and it will fall away.
And walk into the garden love has prepared for BOTH of you.
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513
T 18 J. The Delusional Thought System
T 18 J 1. You have been told to bring the darkness to the light, and guilt to
holiness. And you have also been told that error must be corrected at its
source. Therefore, it is the tiny part of your self, the little thought that
seems split off and separate, that the Holy Spirit needs. The rest is fully in
God’s keeping, and needs no guide. But this wild and delusional thought needs
help, because, in its delusions, it thinks it is the Son of God, whole and
omnipotent, sole ruler of the kingdom it set apart, to tyrannize by madness into
obedience and slavery.
T 18 J 2. This is the LITTLE part of you, you think you stole from Heaven.
Give it back to Heaven. Heaven has not lost it, but YOU have lost sight of
Heaven. Let the Holy Spirit remove it from the withered kingdom in which you set
it up, surrounded by darkness, guarded by attack, and reinforced by hate. Within
its barricades is still a tiny segment of the Son of God, complete and holy,
serene and unaware of what you think surrounds it. Be you not separate, for the
One Who DOES surround it has brought union to you, returning your little
offering of darkness to the Eternal Light.
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Feb. 20, 1967
T 18 J 3. How is this done? It is extremely simple, being based on what this
little kingdom really IS. The barren sands, the darkness, and the lifelessness
are seen only through the body’s eyes. ITS vision IS distorted, and the messages
IT transmits to you, who MADE it to limit your awareness, ARE little and
limited, so fragmented that they are meaningless. From the world of bodies, MADE
by insanity, insane messages seem to be returned to the mind which made it. And
these messages bear witness to this world, pronouncing it as true. For YOU sent
forth these messengers, to bring this BACK to you.
T 18 J 4. Everything these messages relay to you is quite external. There are
NO messages that speak of what lies underneath, for it is NOT the body that
could speak of this. Its eyes perceive it not, its senses remain quite UNAWARE
of it, its tongue can not relay ITS messages. Yet God can bring you there, if
you are willing to follow the Holy Spirit through seeming terror, trusting Him
not to abandon you, and LEAVE you there. For it is not HIS purpose to frighten
you, but only YOURS. YOU are severely tempted to abandon HIM at the outside ring
of fear. But HE would lead you safely through, and FAR beyond.
T 18 J 5. The circle of fear lies just below the level the body sees, and
SEEMS to be the whole foundation on which the world is based. Here are all the
illusions, all the twisted thoughts, all the insane attacks, the fury,
vengeance, and betrayal that were made to keep the guilt in place, so that the
world could RISE from it, and keep IT hidden. Its SHADOW rises to the surface,
enough to hold its most external manifestation in darkness, and to bring despair
and loneliness to it, and keep it joyless. But its INTENSITY is veiled by its
heavy coverings, and kept APART from what was made to keep it hidden.
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T 18 J 6. The body cannot see this, for the body AROSE from this for its
protection, which must ALWAYS depend on keeping it NOT seen. The body’s eyes
will NEVER look on it. Yet they will SEE what it dictates. The body will remain
guilt’s messenger, and will act as it directs, as long as YOU believe that guilt
is real. For the REALITY of guilt is the illusion which seems to make it heavy
and opaque, impenetrable, and a REAL foundation for the ego’s thought system.
Its thinness and transparency are not apparent, until you see the light BEHIND
it. And then you see it as a fragile veil, before the light.
T 18 J 7. This heavy-seeming barrier, this artificial floor that looks like
rock, is like a bank of low, dark clouds that seem to be a solid wall before the
sun. Its impenetrable appearance is WHOLLY an illusion. It gives way softly to
the mountain tops that rise above it, and has no power at all to hold back
anyone willing to climb above it, to see the sun. It is not strong enough to
stop a button’s fall, nor hold a feather. Nothing can rest upon it, for it is
but an ILLUSION of a foundation. Try but to touch it, and it disappears; attempt
to grasp it, and your hands hold nothing.
T 18 J 8. Yet in this cloud bank it is easy to see a whole world rising. A
solid mountain range, a lake, a city, all arise in your imagination, and FROM
the clouds, the messengers of your perception return to you, assuring you that
it is all THERE. Figures stand out and move about, actions seem real, and forms
appear and shift from loveliness to the grotesque. And back and forth they go,
as long as you would play the game of children’s "make believe." Yet, however
long you play it, and regardless of how much imagination you bring to it, you do
NOT confuse it with the world below, nor seek to make it real.
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T 18 J 9. So should it be with the dark clouds of guilt, no more impenetrable
and no more substantial. You will NOT bruise yourself against them, in traveling
through. Let your Guide TEACH you their UNsubstantial nature, as He leads you
PAST them. For BENEATH them is a world of light, whereon they cast no shadows.
Their shadows lie upon the world BEYOND them, still FURTHER from the light. But
from them TO the light, their shadows CANNOT fall. This world of light, this
circle of brightness, is the real world, where guilt meets with forgiveness.
Here, the world OUTSIDE is seen anew, WITHOUT the shadow of guilt upon it.
T 18 J 10. Here are YOU forgiven, for here you have forgiven everyone. Here is
the new perception, where everything is bright and shining with innocence,
washed in the waters of forgiveness, and cleansed of every evil thought you laid
upon it. Here there is no attack upon the Son of God, and YOU are welcome. Here
is your innocence, waiting to clothe you and protect you, and make you ready for
the final step in the journey inward. Here are the dark and heavy garments of
guilt laid by, and gently replaced by purity and joy.
T 18 J 11. Yet even forgiveness is not the end. Forgiveness DOES make lovely,
but it does NOT create. It IS the source of healing, but it is the MESSENGER of
love, and not its Source. Here you are led, that God Himself can take the final
step unhindered. For here does nothing INTERFERE with love, letting it be
Itself. A step BEYOND this holy place of forgiveness. A step still further
inward, but one you CANNOT take, transports you to something COMPLETELY
different. Here is the Source of light; nothing perceived, forgiven, nor
transformed. But merely KNOWN.
T 18 K. The Passing of the Dream
T 18 K 1. This course will LEAD to knowledge, but knowledge itself is still
beyond the scope of our curriculum. Nor is there any need for us to try to speak
of what must forever lie beyond words. We need remember only that
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whoever attains the real world, beyond which learning cannot go, WILL go beyond
it, but in a different way. Where learning ends, there God begins, for learning
ends before Him Who is complete where He begins, and where there IS no end.
T 18 K 2. It is not for us to dwell on what cannot BE attained. There is too
much to learn. The readiness for knowledge still must be attained. Love is not
learned. Its meaning lies in Itself. And learning ends when you have recognized
all it is NOT. That is the INTERFERENCE; that is what needs to be undone. Love
is not learned, because there never WAS a time in which you knew it not.
Learning is useless in the Presence of your Creator, Whose ACKNOWLEDGMENT of
you, AND YOURS OF HIM, so FAR transcends ALL learning, that EVERYTHING you
learned is meaningless, replaced forever by the knowledge of love and its One
meaning.
T 18 K 3. Your relationship has been uprooted from the world of shadows, and
its unholy purpose has been safely brought through the barriers of guilt, washed
with forgiveness, and set shining and firmly rooted in the world of light. From
there it calls to you to follow the course it took, lifted high above the
darkness, and gently placed before the gates of Heaven. The holy instant in
which you were united, is but a messenger of love, sent from BEYOND forgiveness
to REMIND you of all that lies beyond it. Yet it is THROUGH forgiveness that it
will BE remembered.
T 18 K And when the memory of God has come to you, in the holy place of
forgiveness, you will remember nothing else. And memory will be as useless as
learning, for your ONLY purpose will be creating. Yet this you cannot know,
until every perception has been cleansed and purified, and finally removed
forever. Forgiveness removes ONLY the UNtrue, lifting the shadows from the
world, and carrying it, safe and sure within its gentleness, to the bright world
of new and clean perception. There is YOUR purpose now. And it is there that
peace awaits you.
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Feb. 23, 1967
Chapter XIX - 19 - Beyond The Body
T 19 A. Introduction
T 19 A 1. We said before that, when a situation has been dedicated WHOLLY to
truth, peace is inevitable. Its attainment is the criterion by which the
wholeness of the dedication can be safely assumed. Yet we also said that peace
without faith will NEVER be attained, for what is WHOLLY dedicated to truth as
its only goal is brought to truth BY faith. This faith encompasses everyone
involved, for only thus the situation is perceived as meaningful and as a WHOLE.
And everyone must be involved in it, or else your faith is limited, and your
dedication incomplete.
T 19 A 2. Every situation, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity to heal
the Son of God. And he is healed BECAUSE you offered faith to him, giving him to
the Holy Spirit and RELEASING him from every demand your ego would make of him.
Thus do you SEE HIM FREE, and in this vision does the Holy Spirit SHARE. And
since He SHARES it He HAS given it, and so He heals THROUGH YOU. It is this
JOINING Him in a UNITED purpose that MAKES this purpose real because YOU make it
WHOLE. And this IS healing. The BODY is healed BECAUSE YOU CAME WITHOUT IT and
joined the Mind in which all healing rests.
T 19 B. Healing and the Mind
T 19 B 1. The body cannot heal, because it cannot MAKE ITSELF SICK. It NEEDS no
healing. Its health or sickness depends ENTIRELY on how the mind perceives it,
and the purpose which the mind would use it FOR. And it IS obvious that a
segment of the mind CAN see itself as SEPARATED from the Universal Purpose. When
this occurs, the body becomes its weapon, used AGAINST this Purpose to
DEMONSTRATE the "fact" that separation has occurred. The body thus becomes the
instrument of illusion, acting accordingly; seeing what is not there, HEARING
what truth has never said, and BEHAVING INSANELY, being imprisoned BY insanity.
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T 19 B 2. Do not overlook our earlier statement that faithlessness leads
straight to illusions. For faithlessness IS the perception of a brother AS a
body, and the body CANNOT be used for purposes of union. If, then, you SEE him
as a body, YOU have established a condition in which UNITING with him becomes
impossible. Your faithlessness has thus opposed the Holy Spirit’s purpose, and
brought illusions, CENTERED ON THE BODY, to stand BETWEEN you. And the body WILL
seem to be sick, for you have made of it an "enemy" of healing, and the OPPOSITE
of truth.
T 19 B 3. It CANNOT be difficult to realize that faith MUST be the opposite of
faithLESSness. But the difference in how they operate is less apparent, though
it follows directly from the fundamental difference in what they ARE.
Faithlessness would always LIMIT AND ATTACK; faith would remove ALL limitations,
and MAKE WHOLE. Faithlessness would destroy and SEPARATE; faith would unite and
HEAL. Faithlessness would interpose illusions between the Son of God and his
Creator; faith would remove ALL obstacles that SEEM to rise between them.
Faithlessness is wholly dedicated to illusions; faith wholly to truth.
T 19 B 4. PARTIAL DEDICATION IS IMPOSSIBLE. Truth is the ABSENCE of illusion;
illusion the ABSENCE of truth. Both cannot BE together, nor perceived in the
SAME PLACE. To dedicate yourself to BOTH, is to set up a goal forever impossible
to attain. For PART of it is sought through the body, THOUGHT OF as a means for
seeking out reality through ATTACK. While the OTHER part would HEAL, and
therefore calls upon the mind, and NOT the body. The INEVITABLE compromise is
the belief that the BODY must be healed, and NOT the mind. For this divided goal
has given both an EQUAL reality, and can SEEM to be possible only if the mind is
limited TO the body, and divided into little parts with SEEMING wholeness, but
WITHOUT CONNECTION.
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T 19 B 5. This will NOT harm the body. But it WILL keep the delusional
thought-system IN THE MIND. Here, then, is healing needed. And it is here that
healing IS. For God gave healing not APART from sickness, nor established remedy
where sickness CANNOT be. They ARE together, and when they are SEEN together,
ALL attempts to KEEP both truth AND illusion in the mind, where both MUST be,
are recognized as DEDICATION TO ILLUSION. And GIVEN UP when BROUGHT to truth,
and seen as totally UNRECONCILABLE with truth, in ANY aspect, or in any WAY.
T 19 B 6. Truth and illusion HAVE no connection. This will remain FOREVER
true, however much YOU seek to connect them. But ILLUSIONS are ALWAYS connected,
AS IS TRUTH. Each is united, a COMPLETE thought-system, but totally DISconnected
to EACH OTHER. Where there is NO overlap, there separation MUST be complete. And
to perceive THIS is to recognize where separation IS, and WHERE IT MUST BE
HEALED. The RESULT of an idea is NEVER separate from its source. The IDEA of
separation PRODUCED the body, and remains connected TO it, MAKING it sick
because of its identification WITH it.
T 19 B 7. You THINK you are PROTECTING the body by HIDING this connection. For
this concealment SEEMS to keep your identification safe from the "attack" of
truth. If you but understood how much this strange concealment has hurt your
mind, and how confused your own identification has become to you, BECAUSE of it!
T 19 B 8. You do not see how great the devastation wrought by your
faithlessness. For faithlessness is an attack, which SEEMS to be justified by
its RESULTS. For, by withholding faith, you see what IS unworthy of it, and
cannot look beyond the barrier to what is joined with you.
T 19 B 9. To have faith is to heal. It is the sign that you have accepted the
Atonement for yourself, and would therefore share it. By faith, you offer the
gift of freedom from the past, which you have received. You do not use anything
your brother has done before to condemn him NOW. You freely choose to overlook
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his errors, looking past all barriers between your self and his, and seeing them
as one. And in that one you see your faith is fully justified. There IS no
justification for faithlessness. but faith is ALWAYS justified.
T 19 B 10. Faith is the OPPOSITE of fear, as much a part of love, as fear is of
attack. Faith is the acknowledgment of UNION. It is the gracious acknowledgment
of everyone as a Son of your most loving Father, loved by Him like as you, and
therefore loved by you as yourself. It is HIS Love that joins you, and FOR His
Love you would keep no-one separate from YOURS. Each one APPEARS just as he is
perceived in the holy instant, united in YOUR purpose to be RELEASED from guilt.
You saw the Christ in him, and he was healed, because you looked on what makes
faith FOREVER justified in EVERYONE.
T 19 B 11. Faith is the gift of God, through Him Whom God has GIVEN you.
Faithlessness looks upon the Son of God, and judges him UNWORTHY of forgiveness.
But, through the eyes of faith, the Son of God is seen ALREADY forgiven, free of
all the guilt he laid upon himself. Faith sees him only NOW, because it looks
not to the past to judge him, but would see in him ONLY what it would see in
YOU. It sees NOT through the body’s eyes, nor looks to bodies for its
justification. It is the messenger of the NEW perception, sent forth to gather
witnesses unto its coming, and to return their messages to YOU. Faith is as
easily exchanged for knowledge as is the real world. For faith ARISES from the
Holy Spirit’s perception, and is the sign you share it WITH Him. Faith is a gift
you offer to the Son of God THROUGH Him, and WHOLLY acceptable to his Father as
to him. And therefore offered YOU. Your holy relationship, with its NEW purpose,
offers you faith to give unto EACH OTHER. Your faithlessness had driven you
APART, and so you did not RECOGNIZE salvation in each other. BUT faith UNITES
you in the holiness you see, NOT through the body’s eyes, but in the sight of
Him Who
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joined you, and in Whom YOU are united.
T 19 B 12. Grace is not given to a BODY, but to a MIND. And the mind that
RECEIVES it, looks INSTANTLY beyond the body, and sees the holy place where IT
was healed. THERE is the altar where the grace was given, in which IT stands. Do
you, then, offer grace and BLESSING to each other, for you stand at the SAME
altar, where grace was laid for BOTH of you. And be you healed by grace
TOGETHER, that YOU may heal through faith.
T 19 B 13. In the holy instant, you stand before the altar God has raised unto
Himself and BOTH of you. Lay faithlessness aside, and come to it TOGETHER. There
will you see the miracle of your relationship, as it was made again through
faith. And there it is that you will realize that there is NOTHING faith can NOT
forgive. NO error INTERFERES with its calm sight, which brings the miracle of
healing with equal ease to ALL of them. For what the messengers of love are sent
to do THEY DO. Returning the glad tidings that it was done, to you who stand
together before the altar from which they were sent forth, TOGETHER.
T 19 B 14. As faithlessness will keep your little kingdoms barren and separate,
so will faith help the Holy Spirit prepare the ground for the most holy garden
that He would make of it. For faith brings peace, and so it calls on truth to
enter and make lovely, what has already BEEN prepared for loveliness. Truth
FOLLOWS faith and peace, completing the process of making lovely that they
begin. For faith is still a learning goal, no longer needed when the lesson has
been learned. But Truth will stay forever.
T 19 B 15. Let, then, your dedication be to the eternal. And learn how NOT to
interfere with it, and make it slave to time. For what you think you do to the
eternal, you do to YOU. Whom God created as His Son is slave to nothing, being
lord of all, along with his Creator. You CAN enslave a body, but an IDEA is
free, INCAPABLE of being kept in prison, or limited in ANY way,
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EXCEPT BY THE MIND THAT THOUGHT IT. For it remains JOINED to its source, which
is its jailor or its liberator, according to which it chooses as ITS purpose FOR
ITSELF. Feb. 24, 1967
T 19 C. Sin versus Error
T 19 C 1. It is ESSENTIAL that error be not confused with "sin." And it is
this distinction which makes salvation possible. For error can be corrected, and
the wrong made right. But sin, were it possible, WOULD be irreversible. The
belief in sin is necessarily based on the firm conviction that minds, NOT
bodies, can attack. And thus the mind IS guilty, and will forever so remain,
unless a mind NOT part of it can give it absolution. Sin calls for punishment,
as error for correction. And the belief that punishment IS correction is clearly
insane.
T 19 C 2. Sin is not error. For sin entails an arrogance which the idea of
error lacks. To sin would be to violate reality, AND TO SUCCEED. Sin is the
proclamation that attack is real, and guilt is JUSTIFIED. It assumes the Son of
God IS guilty, and has thus SUCCEEDED in losing his innocence, and making
himself what God created NOT. Thus is creation seen as NOT eternal, and the Will
of God open to opposition AND DEFEAT. Sin is the "grand illusion" underlying all
the ego’s grandiosity. For by it, God HIMSELF is changed and rendered
incomplete.
T 19 C 3. The Son of God CAN be mistaken; he CAN deceive himself; he can even
turn the power of his mind AGAINST himself. But he can NOT sin. There is NOTHING
he can do that would REALLY change his reality in ANY way, nor make him REALLY
guilty. That is what sin WOULD do, for such is its PURPOSE. Yet for all the wild
insanity inherent in the whole IDEA of sin, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. For the wages of
sin IS death, and how can the immortal die?
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T 19 C 4. A MAJOR tenet in the ego’s insane religion is that sin is NOT error,
but TRUTH. And it is INNOCENCE that would deceive. Purity is seen as arrogance,
and the acceptance of the self as SINFUL is perceived as holiness. And it is
this doctrine that REPLACES the reality of the Son of God as his Father created
him, and willed that he be forever. Is this humility? Or is it, rather, an
attempt to wrest creation AWAY from truth, and keep it separate?
T 19 C 5. ANY attempt to reinterpret sin as error is always indefensible to
the ego. The IDEA of sin is WHOLLY sacrosanct in its thought-system, and quite
unapproachable except through reverence and awe. It is the most "holy" concept
in the ego’s system; lovely and powerful, wholly true, and NECESSARILY protected
with every defense at its disposal. For here lies its "best" defense, which all
the others serve. Here is its armor, its protection, and the fundamental purpose
of the special relationship in its interpretation.
T 19 C 6. It can indeed be said the ego MADE its world on sin. Only in such a
world COULD everything be upside down. This IS the strange illusion which makes
the clouds of guilt seem heavy and impenetrable. The solidness this world’s
foundation SEEMS to have is FOUND in this. For sin has changed creation from an
Idea of God to an IDEAL the ego wants; a world IT rules, made up of bodies,
mindless, and capable of COMPLETE corruption and decay. If this is a MISTAKE, it
can be undone easily by truth. ANY mistake can be corrected, if TRUTH be left to
judge it. But, if the mistake is given the STATUS of truth, to what CAN it be
brought? The "holiness" of sin is kept in place by just this strange device. As
TRUTH, it IS inviolate, and everything is brought to IT for judgment. As a
MISTAKE, IT must be brought to truth. It is impossible to have faith in sin, for
sin IS faithlessness. But it IS possible to have faith that a MISTAKE can be
corrected.
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T 19 C 7. There is no stone in all the ego’s embattled citadel more heavily
defended than the idea that sin is real; the NATURAL expression of what the Son
of God has MADE himself to be, AND WHAT HE IS. To the ego, THIS IS NO MISTAKE.
For this IS its reality; this is the "truth" from which escape WILL ALWAYS be
impossible. This is his past, his present, and his future. For he has somehow
managed to corrupt his Father, and change His Mind COMPLETELY. Mourn then the
death of God, Whom sin has killed!
T 19 C 8. And this WOULD be the ego’s wish, which, in its madness, it thinks
it has ACCOMPLISHED. Would you not RATHER that all this be nothing more than a
MISTAKE, ENTIRELY correctable, and so easily escaped from that its whole
correction is like walking through a mist into the sun? For that is all it IS.
Perhaps you would be tempted to AGREE with the ego, that it is far better to be
sinful than mistaken. But think you carefully before you allow yourself to make
this choice. Approach it not lightly, for it IS the choice of hell or Heaven.
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T 19 D. The Unreality of Sin
Feb. 27, 1976
T 19 D 1. The attraction of guilt is found in sin, NOT error. Sin will be
repeated, BECAUSE of this attraction. Fear can become so acute that the sin is
denied the acting out, but, while the guilt REMAINS attractive, the mind will
suffer, and not let go the IDEA of the sin. For guilt still calls to it, and the
mind hears it and yearns for it, making it a willing captive to its sick appeal.
Sin is an idea of evil that can not BE corrected, and will be forever DESIRABLE.
As an ESSENTIAL part of what the ego thinks you ARE, you will ALWAYS want it.
And only an AVENGER, with a mind UNLIKE your own, could stamp it out through
FEAR.
T 19 D 2. The ego does not think it possible that love, NOT fear, is really
called upon by sin, AND ALWAYS ANSWERS. For the ego brings sin to FEAR,
demanding punishment. But punishment is but another form of guilt’s protection.
For what is deserving punishment must have been REALLY DONE. Punishment is
always the great preserver of sin; treating it with respect, and honoring its
enormity. What must be punished, MUST BE TRUE. And what is true MUST be
eternal, and WILL be repeated endlessly. For what you think is real YOU WANT,
and will NOT let it go.
T 19 D 3. An ERROR, on the other hand, is NOT attractive . What you See
clearly AS A MISTAKE, you WANT corrected. Sometimes a sin can be repeated over
and over, with OBVIOUSLY distressing results, but WITHOUT the loss of its
appeal. And suddenly you change its status from a sin to a MISTAKE. Now you will
not repeat it; you will merely stop, and let it go. UNLESS THE GUILT REMAINS.
For then, you will but change the FORM of sin, granting that it was an error,
but KEEPING IT UNCORRECTABLE. This is not really a change in your perception,
for it is SIN that calls for punishment, NOT error.
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T 19 D 4. The Holy Spirit CANNOT punish sin. Mistakes He recognizes, and would
correct them all, as God entrusted Him to do. But SIN He knows not, nor can He
RECOGNIZE mistakes that cannot be corrected. For a mistake that cannot be
corrected is meaningless to Him. Mistakes are FOR correction. They call for
NOTHING ELSE. What calls for punishment, must call for NOTHING. Every mistake
MUST be a call for love. What, then, is sin? What COULD it be but a mistake you
would keep hidden; a call for help that you would keep UNHEARD, and thus
UNANSWERED?
T 19 D 5. In time, the Holy Spirit CLEARLY sees the Son of God can make
mistakes. On this, you SHARE His vision. Yet you do not share His recognition of
the difference between time and eternity. And when correction is completed, time
IS eternity. Time is like a downward spiral that seems to travel down from a
long, unbroken line, along another plane, but which in no way BREAKS the line,
or interferes with its smooth continuousness. Along the spiral, it SEEMS as if
the line MUST have been broken, but, at the LINE, its wholeness is apparent.
T 19 D 6. Everything seen from the spiral is misperceived. But, as you
approach the line, you realize that IT was not affected by the drop into another
plane at all. But, FROM this plane, the LINE seems discontinuous. And this is
but an error in perception, which can be easily corrected IN THE MIND, although
the body’s eyes will see no change. The eyes see many things the mind corrects,
and YOU respond, NOT to the eyes’ illusions, BUT TO THE MIND’S CORRECTIONS. You
SEE the line as broken, and as you shift to different aspects of the spiral, the
line looks different. Yet in your mind is One Who KNOWS it is unbroken, and
forever changeless.
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T 19 D 7. This One can teach you how to look on time differently and to see
BEYOND it. But NOT while you believe in sin. In error, yes, for this CAN be
corrected by the mind. But sin is the belief that YOUR perception is
UNCHANGEABLE, and that the MIND must ACCEPT AS TRUE what it is told THROUGH it.
If it does not obey, the MIND is judged insane. The ONLY power that could CHANGE
perception is thus kept impotent, held to the body by the FEAR of changed
perception, which its Teacher, Who is One with it, would bring.
T 19 D 8. When you are tempted to believe that sin is real, remember this: If
sin is real, both God AND YOU are not. If creation is EXTENSION, the Creator
MUST have extended HIMSELF, and it is impossible that what is PART of Him is
totally unlike the rest. If sin is real, God must be at war WITHIN HIMSELF. HE
must be split, and torn between good and evil; partly sane and partially insane.
For He must have created what wills to destroy Him, AND HAS THE POWER TO DO SO.
Is it not EASIER to believe that YOU have been mistaken than to believe in this?
T 19 D 9. While you believe that YOUR reality, or your brother’s, is bounded
by a body, you will believe in sin. While you believe that BODIES can unite, you
will find guilt attractive, and believe that sin is precious. For the belief
that bodies LIMIT the mind leads to a perception of the world in which the PROOF
of separation seems to be everywhere. And God and His creation seem to be split
apart, and overthrown. For sin would PROVE what God created holy could not
prevail against it, nor remain ITSELF before the power of sin.
T 19 D 10. Sin is perceived as mightier than God, before which God HIMSELF must
bow, and offer His creation to its conqueror. Is this humility, or madness? If
sin were real it would forever be beyond the hope of healing.
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For there would be a power BEYOND God’s, capable of making another will, which
could attack His Will, and OVERCOME it; and give His Son a will apart from His,
and STRONGER. And each part of His fragmented creation would have a DIFFERENT
will OPPOSED to His, and in eternal opposition to Him AND TO EACH OTHER.
T 19 D 11. Your holy relationship has, as its purpose now, the goal of proving
THIS is impossible. Heaven has smiled upon it, and the belief in sin has been
uprooted in its smile of love. You see it still, because you do not realize that
its FOUNDATION has gone. Its SOURCE has been removed, and so it can be cherished
but a little while, before it vanishes. Only the habit of LOOKING for it still
remains.
T 19 D 12. And yet you look with Heaven’s smile upon YOUR lips, and Heaven’s
blessing on your sight.
T 19 D 13. You will NOT see it long. For, in the NEW perception, the mind
CORRECTS it when it SEEMS to be seen, and it becomes invisible. But ERRORS are
quickly recognized, and quickly given to correction, to be healed, NOT hidden.
YOU will be healed of sin and all its ravages, the INSTANT that you give it no
power over EACH OTHER. And you will HELP each other overcome MISTAKES, by
joyously RELEASING one another from the belief in sin. In the holy instant, you
will see the smile of Heaven shining on BOTH of you. And you will shine upon
each other, in glad acknowledgment of the grace that has been GIVEN you.
T 19 D 14. For sin will NOT prevail against a union Heaven has smiled upon.
Your perception was HEALED in the holy instant Heaven gave you. Forget what you
HAVE seen, and raise your eyes, in faith, to what you now CAN see. The barriers
to Heaven will disappear before your holy sight. For you who were sightless have
been GIVEN vision, and you CAN see. Look not for what has been REMOVED, but for
the glory that has been RESTORED, for you to see.
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Look upon your Redeemer, and behold what He would show you in each other. And
let not sin arise again, to blind your eyes. For sin would keep you separate,
but your Redeemer would have you look upon each other as yourself.
February 28, 1967.
T 19 D 15. Your relationship is now a temple of healing, a place where all the
weary ones can come and find rest. Here is the rest that waits for all, after
the journey. And it is brought NEARER to all, by your relationship. As this
peace expands, from deep inside yourselves, to embrace ALL the Sonship and give
it rest, it will encounter many obstacles. Some of them, YOU will try to impose.
Others will seem to arise from elsewhere; from your brothers, and from various
aspects of the world OUTSIDE. But peace will gently cover them, extending past,
COMPLETELY unhindered.
T 19 D 16. The extension of the Holy Spirit’s purpose, from YOUR relationship
to others, to bring them gently IN, has already begun. This is the way in which
He will bring means and goal in line. The peace He laid, deep within BOTH of
you, will quietly extend to EVERY aspect of your lives, surrounding both of you
with glowing happiness, and the calm awareness of COMPLETE protection. And you
will carry its message of love and safety and freedom to everyone who draws nigh
unto your temple, where healing waits for him.
T 19 D 17. You will NOT wait to give him this, for you will CALL to him and he
will answer you, RECOGNIZING in your call the call of God. And you will draw him
in and give him rest, as it was given YOU. All this will you do. But the peace
which already lies deeply within, must first expand, and FLOW ACROSS the
obstacles YOU place before it. THIS WILL IT DO. For nothing undertaken WITH the
Holy Spirit, remains unfinished. You can indeed be sure of NOTHING you see
OUTSIDE you, but of this you CAN be sure.
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T 19 D 18. The Holy Spirit asks that you offer Him a resting-place, where YOU
will rest in Him. He answered you, and entered your relationship. Would you not
now RETURN His graciousness, and enter into a relationship with Him? For it is
HE Who offered YOUR relationship the gift of holiness, without which it would
have been forever impossible to appreciate each other. The gratitude you owe to
Him, He asks but that YOU receive FOR Him. And, when you look with gentle
graciousness upon each other, you ARE beholding Him. For you are looking where
He IS, and NOT apart from you.
T 19 D 19. You CANNOT see the Holy Spirit, but you CAN see your brothers truly.
And the light in them will show you all that you NEED to see. When the peace in
you has been extended to encompass EVERYONE, the Holy Spirit’s function here
will be accomplished. What NEED is there for SEEING, then? When God has taken
the last step Himself, the Holy Spirit will gather ALL your thanks and gratitude
which you have offered Him, and lay them gently before His Creator, in the name
of His most holy Son. And the Father will ACCEPT them in HIS Name. What need is
there of seeing, in the presence of HIS gratitude?
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T 19 E. Obstacles to Peace –I. The Desire to Get Rid of It
March 1, 1967
T 19 E 1. The first obstacle that peace must flow across is your desire to get
RID of it. For it cannot extend, UNLESS you keep it. YOU are the center from
which it radiates outward, to call the others IN. You are its home; its tranquil
dwelling-place, from which it gently reaches out, but NEVER leaving YOU. If YOU
would make it homeless, how can it abide within the Son of God? If it would
spread across the whole creation, it MUST begin with you. And, FROM you, reach
to everyone who calls, and bring him rest by JOINING you.
T 19 E 2. Why would you want peace homeless? What do you think that it must
DISPOSSESS, to dwell in you? What SEEMS to be the cost you are so unwilling to
pay? The little barriers of sand still stand between you. Would you reinforce
them NOW? You are NOT asked to let them go for yourselves alone. Christ asks it
of you, for HIMSELF. He would bring peace to everyone. And how can He do this,
EXCEPT through you? Would you let a little bank of sand, a wall of dust, a tiny
seeming barrier, stand between your brothers and salvation?
T 19 E 3. And yet it IS this little remnant of attack you cherish still
against each other, that is the first obstacle the peace in you encounters, in
its going forth. This little wall of hatred would STILL oppose the Will of God,
and keep It limited. The Holy Spirit’s purpose rests in peace within you. Yet
you are STILL unwilling to let it JOIN you wholly. You still oppose the Will of
God, just by a little. But that little IS a limit you would place upon the
whole. God’s Will is One, NOT many. It HAS no opposition, for there is none
BESIDE It.
T 19 E 4. What you would still contain behind your little barrier, and keep
SEPARATE from each other, is mightier than the universe. For it would HOLD BACK
the universe AND ITS CREATOR. This little wall would hide the purpose
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of Heaven, and keep it FROM Heaven. Would you thrust salvation AWAY from the
GIVER of salvation? For such have YOU become. Peace could no more DEPART from
you than from God. Fear not this little obstacle. It can NOT contain the Will of
God. Peace WILL flow across it, and join you WITHOUT hindrance.
T 19 E 5. Salvation cannot BE withheld from you. It IS your PURPOSE. You
CANNOT will APART from this. You HAVE no purpose apart from each other, nor
apart from the one you asked the Holy Spirit to SHARE with you. The little wall
will fall away so quietly, beneath the wings of peace! For it will send its
messengers from you to all the world. And barriers will fall away before their
coming, as easily as those which YOU would interpose will be surmounted. To
overcome the world is no more difficult than to surmount your little wall. For
in the miracle of YOUR relationship, WITHOUT this barrier, is EVERY miracle
contained.
T 19 E 6. There is no order of difficulty in miracles, for they ARE all the
same. Each is a gentle WINNING OVER, from the appeal of guilt to the appeal of
love. How can this FAIL to be accomplished, WHEREVER it is undertaken? Guilt can
raise no REAL barriers against it. And all that seems to stand between you MUST
fall away, because of the appeal YOU answered. And from you who answered, He Who
answered you would call. His home is in your holy relationship. Do not attempt
to stand BETWEEN Him and His holy purpose, for it IS yours. But let Him quietly
EXTEND the miracle of your relationship to everyone CONTAINED in it, as it was
given.
T 19 E 7. There is a hush in Heaven, a happy expectancy, a little pause of
gladness, in acknowledgment of the journey’s end. For Heaven knows you well, as
you know Heaven. No illusions stand between you. Look not upon the little
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wall of shadows. The sun has risen OVER it. How can a shadow KEEP you from the
sun? No more can YOU be kept by shadows from the light in which illusions end.
EVERY miracle is but the end of an illusion. Such was the journey; such its
ending. And in the goal of truth, which you accepted must ALL illusions end.
T 19 E 8. The little, insane wish to get rid of Him Whom you invited IN, and
push Him OUT, MUST produce conflict. As you look upon the world, this little
wish, uprooted and floating aimlessly, can land and settle briefly upon
ANYTHING. For it HAS no purpose now. BEFORE the Holy Spirit entered to abide
with you, it SEEMED to have a MIGHTY purpose; the fixed and unchangeable
dedication to sin and its results. Now it is aimless, wandering pointlessly,
causing no more than tiny interruptions in love’s appeal.
T 19 E 9. This feather of a wish, this tiny illusion, this microscopic remnant
of the belief in sin, is all that remains of what once SEEMED to be the world.
It is no longer an unrelenting barrier to peace. Its pointless wandering makes
its results APPEAR to be more erratic and unpredictable than before. Yet what
COULD be more unstable than a tightly-organized delusional system? Its SEEMING
stability is its pervasive WEAKNESS, which extends to EVERYTHING. The
VARIABILITY which the little remnant induces, merely indicates its LIMITED
results.
T 19 E 10. How mighty can a little feather be, before the great wings of truth?
Can it oppose an eagle’s flight, or hinder the advance of summer? Can it
interfere with the EFFECTS of summer’s sun upon a garden covered by the snow?
See but how easily this little whisp is lifted up and carried away, never to
return. And part with it in gladness, not regret. For it is nothing in itself,
and STOOD FOR nothing when you had greater faith in its protection. Would you
not rather greet the summer sun, than fix your gaze upon a disappearing
snowflake, and shiver in remembrance of the winter’s cold?
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T 19 F. The Attraction of Guilt
March 3, 1967
T 19 F 1. The attraction of guilt produces fear of love. For love would NEVER
look on guilt at all. It is the NATURE of love to look upon ONLY the truth, for
there it sees itself, with which it would unite in holy union and completion. As
love must look past fear, so must fear see love not. For love contains the END
of guilt, as surely as fear DEPENDS on it. Love is attracted ONLY to love.
Overlooking guilt completely, IT SEES NO FEAR. Being wholly without attack, it
COULD not be afraid.
T 19 F 2. Fear is attracted to what love sees NOT. And each believes that what
the other looks upon does not exist. Fear looks on guilt with just the same
devotion that love looks on itself. And each has messengers which they send
forth, and which return to them with messages written in the language in which
their going forth was asked. Love’s messengers are gently sent, and return with
messages of love and gentleness. The messengers of fear are harshly ordered to
seek out guilt, and cherish every scrap of evil and sin that they can find,
losing none of them on pain of death, and laying them respectfully before their
lord and master.
T 19 F 3. Perception cannot obey two masters, each asking for messages of
different things, in different languages. What fear would feed upon, love
overlooks. What fear DEMANDS, love cannot even SEE.
T 19 F 4. The fierce attraction that guilt holds for fear, is wholly absent
from love’s gentle perception. What love would look upon is meaningless to fear,
and quite invisible. Relationships in this world are the result of how the world
is seen. And this depends on which emotion was called on to send its messengers
to look upon it, and return with word of what they saw.
T 19 F 5. Fear’s messengers are trained through terror, and they tremble when
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their master calls upon them to serve him. For fear is merciless even to its
friends. Its messengers steal guiltily away in hungry search of guilt, for they
are kept cold and starving, and made very vicious by their master, who allows
them to feast only upon what they return to him. No little shred of guilt
escapes their hungry eyes. And in their savage search for sin, they pounce on
any living thing they see, and carry it screaming to their master, to be
devoured.
T 19 F 6. Send not these savage messengers into the world, to feast upon it,
and to prey upon reality. For they will bring you word of bones and skin and
flesh. They have been taught to seek for the corruptible, and to return with
gorges filled with things decayed and rotted. To them, such things are
beautiful, because they seem to allay their savage pangs of hunger. For they are
frantic with the pain of fear, and would avert the punishment of him who sends
them forth, by offering him what THEY hold dear.
T 19 F 7. The Holy Spirit has given you love’s messengers, to send INSTEAD of
those YOU trained through fear. THEY are as eager to return to you what they
hold dear, as are the others. If you send THEM forth, they will see only the
blameless and the beautiful, the gentle and the kind. They will be as careful to
let no little act of charity, no tiny expression of forgiveness, no little
breathe of love, escape their notice. And they will return, with all the happy
things they found, to share them lovingly with you. Be not AFRAID of them. They
offer you salvation. Theirs are the messages of SAFETY. For THEY see the world
as kind.
T 19 F 8. If you send forth ONLY the messengers the Holy Spirit gave you,
WANTING no messages but theirs, you will see fear no more. The world will be
transformed before your sight, cleansed of all guilt, and softly brushed with
beauty. The world contains no fear that you laid not upon it.
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And none you cannot ask love’s messengers to REMOVE from it, and see it still.
The Holy Spirit has given HIS messengers, to send each other, and return to each
with what love sees. They have been given to REPLACE the hungry dogs of fear you
sent instead. And they go forth to signify the END of fear.
T 19 F 9. Love, too, would set a feast before you, on a table covered with a
spotless cloth, set in a quiet garden, where no sound but singing and a softly
joyous whispering is ever heard. This is a feast which honors your holy
relationship, and at which everyone is welcomed as an honored guest. And in a
holy instant grace is said by everyone together, as they join in gentleness
before the table of communion. And I will join you there, as long ago I
promised, and promise still. For in your new relationship am I made welcome, and
where I am made welcome, there I AM.
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March 6, 1967
T 19 F 10. I am made welcome in the state of grace, which means YOU HAVE AT
LAST FORGIVEN ME. For I became the symbol of your sin, and so I had to die
INSTEAD of you. To the ego, sin MEANS death, and so Atonement IS ACHIEVED
THROUGH MURDER. Salvation is looked upon as a way by which the Son of God was
killed, instead of YOU. Yet would I offer you my BODY, you whom I love, KNOWING
its littleness? Or would I teach that bodies cannot keep us apart? Mine was of
no greater value than yours; no better means for the COMMUNICATION of salvation,
but NOT its Source.
T 19 F 11. No one can die for anyone, and death does not atone for sin. But you
can LIVE to show it is not REAL. The body DOES appear to be the symbol of sin,
while you believe that it can get you what you want. While you believe that it
can give you pleasure, you will ALSO believe that it can bring you pain. To
think you could be satisfied and happy with so little, IS to hurt yourself. And
to LIMIT the happiness that you would have, CALLS upon pain to fill your meager
store, and make your lives complete. This IS completion, as the ego sees it. For
guilt creeps in where happiness has been removed, and SUBSTITUTES for it.
T 19 F 12. Communion is another kind of completion, which goes beyond guilt
BECAUSE it goes beyond the body. Communion comes with peace, and peace MUST
transcend the body.
T 19 G. Obstacles to Peace – II. The Belief the Body is Valuable for What it
Offers
[split paragraph]
T 19 G 1. We said that peace must first surmount the obstacle of your desire
to get rid of it. Where the attraction of guilt holds sway, peace is NOT WANTED.
The second obstacle that peace must flow across, and closely related to the
first, is the belief that the body is valuable FOR WHAT IT OFFERS. For here is
the attraction of guilt MADE MANIFEST in the body, and SEEN in it.
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T 19 G 2. THIS is the value that you think peace would ROB you of. This is
what you believe that it would dispossess, and leave YOU homeless. And it is
this for which YOU would deny a home to peace. This "sacrifice" you feel to be
too great to make, too much to ask of you. Is it a SACRIFICE, or a RELEASE? What
has the body REALLY given you, that justifies your strange belief that in it
lies salvation? Do you not see that this is the belief in DEATH? Here is the
focus of the perception of Atonement as murder. Here is the SOURCE of the idea
that love is fear.
T 19 G 3. The Holy Spirit’s messengers are sent far beyond the body, calling
the mind to join in holy communion, and be at peace. Such is the message that I
gave them, for YOU. It is only the messengers of FEAR that see the body, for
they look for what can suffer. Is it a sacrifice to be REMOVED from what can
suffer? The Holy Spirit does not DEMAND you "sacrifice" the hope of the body’s
pleasures. It HAS no hope of pleasure. But neither can it bring you fear of
pain. Pain is the ONLY "sacrifice" the Holy Spirit asks. And this He WOULD
remove.
T 19 G 4. Peace is extended from you only to the eternal. And it reaches out
FROM the eternal in YOU. It flows across all else. The second obstacle is nor to
LIMIT it. What are these obstacles that you would interpose between peace and
its going forth, but barriers you place between your will and its
accomplishment? You WANT communion, NOT the feast of fear. You WANT salvation,
NOT the pain of guilt. AND YOU WANT YOUR FATHER, NOT a little mound of clay, to
be your home.
T 19 G 5. In your holy relationship is your Father’s Son. He has NOT lost
communion with Him. NOR WITH HIMSELF. When you agreed to join each other, you
acknowledged this is so. This has NO cost. But it HAS release from cost. You
have paid very dearly for your illusions. And NOTHING you have paid for brought
you peace. Are you not GLAD that Heaven can not BE sacrificed?
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And sacrifice can not BE asked of you? There IS no obstacle that you can place
before our union, for in your holy relationship I am there ALREADY. We will
surmount all obstacles TOGETHER, for we stand WITHIN the gates, and not outside.
T 19 G 6. How easily the gates are opened from within, to let peace through to
bless the tired world! Can it be difficult for us to walk past barriers
together, when you have JOINED the limitless? The end of guilt is in your hands,
to give. Would you stop now, to LOOK for guilt in each other? Let me be to you
the symbol of the END of guilt, and look upon each other, as you would look on
me. Forgive me for all the sins you think the Son of God committed. And in the
light of your forgiveness, he will remember who he is, and forget what never
was.
T 19 G 7. I ask for your forgiveness, for if YOU are guilty, so must I be. And
if I surmounted guilt and overcame the world, you were WITH me. Would you see in
me the symbol of guilt, or of the END of guilt? Remembering that what I signify
to you, you see within YOURSELF? From your holy relationship, Truth proclaims
the truth, and Love looks on itself. Salvation flows from deep within the home
you offered to my Father and to me. And we are there together, in the quiet
communion in which the Father and the Son are joined.
T 19 G 8. Oh come ye faithful, to the holy union of the Father and Son in YOU!
And keep YOU not apart from what is offered you, in gratitude for giving peace
its home in Heaven. Send forth to all the world the joyous message of the end of
guilt, and all the world will answer. Think of your happiness, as everyone
offers you witness of the end of sin, and shows you that its power is gone
forever. Where can guilt be, when the belief in sin is gone? And where is death,
when its great advocate is heard no more?
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T 19 G 9. Forgive me your illusions, and release me from punishment for what I
have NOT done. So will YOU learn the freedom that I taught ,by teaching freedom
to each other, and so releasing me. I am within your holy relationship, yet you
would imprison me behind the obstacles you RAISE to freedom, and bar my way to
YOU. Yet it is not possible to keep AWAY One Who is there ALREADY. And IN Him,
it IS possible that our communion, where we are ALREADY joined, will be the
focus of the new perception that will bring light to all the world, contained in
YOU.
T 19 H. Pleasure and Pain
T 19 H 1. Your little part is but to give the Holy Spirit the whole IDEA of
sacrifice. And to ACCEPT the peace He gave, instead. WITHOUT the limits which
would hold its extension back, and so would limit YOUR awareness of it. For what
He gives MUST be extended, if YOU would have its limitless power, and use it for
the Son of God’s release. It is not this you would be rid of, and having it, you
CANNOT limit it. If peace is homeless, so are you. And so am I. And He Who IS
our home, is homeless WITH us.
T 19 H 2. Is this your will? Would you forever be a wanderer in search of
peace? Would you invest your hope of peace and happiness in what MUST fail?
Faith in the eternal is ALWAYS justified, for the eternal is forever kind,
infinite in its patience, and wholly loving. It will accept you wholly, and give
you peace. But it can unite only with what ALREADY is at peace in you, immortal
as itself. The body can bring you neither peace nor turmoil; not pain nor joy.
It is a means, and NOT an end. It has NO purpose of itself, but only what is
GIVEN it to do. The body will seem to BE whatever is the means for reaching the
goal that you ASSIGN to it.
T 19 H 3. Only the mind can set a purpose, and only mind can see the means for
its accomplishment, and justify its use. Peace and guilt are both conditions of
the mind, to be ATTAINED. And these conditions are the home of the emotion that
called them forth, and therefore is COMPATIBLE with it. But think you
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which it is that is compatible with YOU. Here is your choice, and it IS free.
But all that LIES in it WILL come with it. And what you think you are can NEVER
be APART from it.
T 19 H 4. The body is the great SEEMING betrayer of faith. In it lies
disillusionment and the seeds of faithlessness. But ONLY if you asked of it what
it CANNOT give. Can THIS mistake be reasonable grounds for depression and
disillusionment, and for retaliative attack on what you think has failed you?
Use not your ERROR as the justification for your faithlessness. You have NOT
sinned, but you HAVE been mistaken in what is faithful. And the correction of
YOUR mistake will GIVE you grounds for faith.
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March 9, 1967
T 19 H 5. It is impossible to seek for pleasure through the body and NOT find
pain. It is essential that this relationship be understood, for it is one the
ego sees as proof of sin. It is not REALLY punitive at all. It is but the
inevitable result of equating yourself WITH the body, which is the INVITATION to
pain. For it invites FEAR to enter, and become your PURPOSE. The attraction of
guilt MUST enter with it, and WHATEVER fear directs the body to do IS therefore
painful. It will share the pain of ALL illusions, and the illusion of pleasure
will BE the same as pain.
T 19 H 6. Is not this inevitable? Under fear’s orders, the body WILL pursue
guilt, serving its master, whose attraction to guilt maintains the whole
illusion of his existence. This, then, IS the attraction to PAIN. Ruled by this
perception, the body becomes the servant of pain, seeking it dutifully, and
obeying the idea that pain is pleasure. It is this IDEA that underlies all of
the ego’s heavy investment in the body. And it is this insane relationship which
it keeps hidden, and yet feeds upon. To YOU, it teaches that the body’s pleasure
is happiness, but to ITSELF it whispers, "It is death."
T 19 H 7. Why should the body be ANYTHING to you? Certainly what it is MADE of
is not precious. And, just as certainly, IT has no feeling. It transmits TO YOU
the feelings that you WANT. Like any communication medium, the body receives and
sends the messages that it is given. It has NO feeling for them. All of the
feeling with which they are invested is given by the sender and the receiver.
The ego and the Holy Spirit both recognize this. And both also recognize that
here, THE SENDER AND RECEIVER ARE THE SAME. The Holy Spirit TELLS you this with
joy. The ego HIDES it, for it would keep you unaware of it.
T 19 H 8. Who would send messages of hatred and attack ,if he but understood
he sends them to HIMSELF? Who would accuse, make guilty and condemn HIMSELF?
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The ego’s messages are ALWAYS sent AWAY from you, in the belief that, for your
message of attack and guilt, will someone OTHER than yourself suffer. And, even
if YOU suffer, yet someone ELSE will suffer more. The great deceiver recognizes
that this is not so, but as the "enemy" of peace, it urges you to SEND OUT all
your messages of hate, and free YOURSELF. And, to convince you this is possible,
it bids the body search for pain in attack upon another, calling it pleasure,
and OFFERING it to you as freedom FROM attack.
T 19 H 9. Hear not its madness, and believe not the impossible is true. Forget
not that the ego has DEDICATED the body to the goal of sin, and places in it ALL
its faith that this can be accomplished. Its sad disciples chant the body’s
praise continually, in solemn celebration of the ego’s rule. Not one but MUST
believe that YIELDING to the attraction of guilt is the ESCAPE from pain. Not
one but MUST regard the body as himself, WITHOUT which he would die, and yet
WITHIN which is his death equally inevitable.
T 19 H 10. It is not given to the ego’s disciples to realize that they have
dedicated themselves to death. This has been OFFERED them, but they have not
accepted it. And what is offered must also be received, to be truly given. For
the Holy Spirit, too, is a communication medium, receiving from the Father, and
offering His messages unto the Son. Like to the ego, the Holy Spirit is both the
sender and receiver. For what is sent through Him RETURNS to Him, seeking itself
along the way, and FINDING what it seeks. So does the ego FIND the death it
seeks, returning it to YOU.
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T 19 I. Obstacles to Peace - III. The Attraction of Death
March 10, 1967
T 19 I 1. To you, into whose special relationship the Holy Spirit entered, it
IS given to release and be released from the dedication to death. For it was
offered you, and you ACCEPTED. But you must learn still more about this strange
devotion, for it contains the third of the obstacles which peace that flow
across. No-one can die unless he chooses death. What seems to be the FEAR of
death, is really its ATTRACTION. Guilt, too, is feared and fearful. Yet it could
have no hold at all, except on those who are attracted to it, and seek it out.
And so it is with death. Made by the ego, its dark shadow falls across all
living things, because the ego is the "enemy" of life.
T 19 I 2. And yet, a shadow cannot kill. What is a shadow to the living? They
but walk past, and it is gone. But what of those whose dedication it is NOT to
live? The black-draped "sinners," the ego’s mournful chorus, plodding so heavily
AWAY from life, dragging their chains and marching in the slow procession that
honors their grim master, lord of death? Touch any one of them with the gentle
hand of forgiveness, and watch the chains fall away, along with YOURS. See him
throw aside the black robe he was wearing to his funeral, and hear him laugh at
death. The sentence sin would lay upon him, he can escape with your forgiveness.
T 19 I 3. This is NOT arrogance. It is the Will of God. What is impossible to
you who choose His Will as yours? What is death to you? Your dedication is NOT
to death, nor to its master. When you accepted the Holy Spirit’s purpose in
place of the ego’s, you RENOUNCED death, exchanging it for life. We know that
the RESULT of an idea leaves not its source. And death is the result of the
thought we call the ego, as surely as life is the result of the Thought of God.
T 19 J. The Incorruptible Body
545 [split paragraph]
T 19 J 1. From the ego came sin and guilt and death, in OPPOSITION to life and
innocence, and to the WILL of God Himself. Where can such opposition lie, but in
the sick minds of the insane, dedicated to madness, and set AGAINST the peace of
Heaven?
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T 19 J 2. One thing is sure; God, Who created neither sin nor death, wills not
that you be bound by them. He knows of neither sin NOR its result. The shrouded
figures in the funeral procession march not in honor of their Creator, Whose
Will it is they LIVE. They are not following it; they are OPPOSING it. And what
is the black-draped body they would bury? A body THEY dedicated to death, a
symbol of corruption, a sacrifice to sin, OFFERED to sin to feed upon, and keep
ITSELF alive. A thing condemned, damned by its maker, and lamented by every
mourner who looks upon it as himself.
T 19 J 3. You who believe you can condemn the Son of God to this ARE arrogant.
But you who would release him are but honoring the Will of his Creator. The
arrogance of sin, the pride of guilt, the sepulchre of separation, all are part
of your unrecognized dedication to death. The glitter of guilt you laid upon the
body would KILL it. For what the ego loves ,it kills for its obedience. But what
obeys it not, it CANNOT kill. You have ANOTHER dedication which would keep the
body incorruptible and perfect as long as it is useful for your holy purpose.
The body no more dies than it can feel. IT DOES NOTHING. Of itself, it is
neither corruptible nor incorruptible. IT IS NOTHING. It is the result of a
tiny, mad IDEA of corruption, WHICH CAN BE CORRECTED. For God has ANSWERED this
insane idea with His Own, an Answer which left Him not, and therefore brings the
Creator to the awareness of every mind which heard His Answer, and ACCEPTED it.
You who are dedicated to the incorruptible, have been given, through YOUR
acceptance, the power to RELEASE from corruption. What better way to teach the
first and fundamental principle in a course on miracles than by showing you the
one that SEEMS to be the hardest can be accomplished FIRST?
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T 19 J 4. The body can but serve your purpose. As you look upon it, so will it
seem to be. Death, were it true, would be the final and complete disruption of
communication, which IS the ego’s goal. Those who fear death see not how often
and how loudly they CALL to it, and bid it come to SAVE them from communication.
For death is seen as SAFETY, the great dark saviour from the light of truth, the
answer to the Answer, the silencer of the Voice that speaks for God. Yet the
retreat to death is NOT the end of conflict. Only God’s ANSWER is its end.
T 19 J 5. The obstacle of your seeming love for death, which peace must flow
across, SEEMS to be very great. For in it lies hidden all the ego’s secrets, all
its strange devices for deception, all its sick ideas and weird imaginings. Here
is the final end of union, the triumph of the ego’s making over creation, the
victory of lifelessness on life Itself. Under the dusty edge of its distorted
world. the ego would lay the Son of God, slain by its orders, proof in his decay
that God Himself is powerless before the ego’s might, unable to protect the life
that He created, against the ego’s savage wish to kill.
T 19 J 6. My brothers, children of our Father, this is a DREAM of death. There
is no funeral, no dark altars, no grim commandments, nor twisted rituals of
condemnation, to which the BODY leads you. Ask not release of IT. But FREE it
from the merciless and unrelenting orders you laid upon it, and forgive it what
you ordered it to do. In its exaltation, you COMMANDED it to die, for only death
COULD conquer life. And what but insanity could look upon the defeat of God, and
think it REAL?
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T 19 J 7. The fear of death will go as its appeal is yielded to love’s REAL
attraction. The end of sin, which nestles quietly in the safety of your
relationship, protected by your union, ready to grow into a mighty force for
God, is very near. The infancy of salvation is carefully guarded by love,
preserved from every thought that would attack it, and quietly made ready to
fulfill the mighty task for which it was GIVEN you. Your new-born purpose is
nursed by angels, cherished by the Holy Spirit, and protected by God Himself. It
NEEDS not your protection; it is YOURS. For it is deathless, and within it lies
the END of death. What danger can assail the wholly innocent? What can attack
the guiltless? What fear can enter and disturb the peace of sinlessness? What
has been given you, even in its infancy, is in full communication with God AND
you. In its tiny hands, it holds, in perfect safety, every miracle you will
perform, held out to YOU. The miracle of life is ageless, born in time, but
nourished in eternity. Behold this infant, to whom you gave a resting-place by
your forgiveness of EACH OTHER, and see in it the Will of God. Here is the babe
of Bethlehem reborn. And everyone who gives him shelter will follow him, NOT to
the cross, but to the Resurrection and the Life.
T 19 J 8. When anything seems to you to be a source of fear, when any
situation strikes you with terror and makes your body tremble and the cold sweat
of fear comes over it, remember it is ALWAYS for ONE reason; the ego has
perceived it as a symbol of fear, a sign of sin and death. Remember, then, that
neither sign nor symbol should be CONFUSED with source, for they must STAND FOR
something OTHER than themselves. Their meaning CANNOT lie in them, but must be
sought in what they REPRESENT. And they may thus mean everything or nothing,
according to the truth or falsity of the IDEA which they reflect.
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T 19 J 9. Confronted with such seeming uncertainty of meaning, judge it not.
Remember the holy Presence of the One GIVEN you to be the Source of judgment.
Give it to Him to judge FOR you, and say:
"Take this from me and look upon it,judging it for me.
Let me not see it as a sign of sin and death, nor use it for destruction.
Teach me how NOT to make of it an OBSTACLE to peace,
But let You use it FOR me, to FACILITATE its coming."
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T 19 K. Obstacles to Peace - IV. The Fear of God
March 13, 1967
T 19 K 1. What would you see, WITHOUT the fear of death? What would you feel
and think, if death held NO attraction for you? Very simply, YOU WOULD REMEMBER
YOUR FATHER. The Creator of life, the Source of everything that lives, the
Father of the Universe, and of the Universe of universes, and of everything that
lies even BEYOND them would you remember. And, as this Memory rises in your
mind, peace must still surmount a final obstacle, AFTER which is salvation
completed, and the Son of God ENTIRELY restored to sanity. For here your world
DOES end.
T 19 K 2. The fourth obstacle to be surmounted, hangs like a heavy veil before
the face of Christ. Yet as His face rises beyond it, shining with joy because He
is in His Father’s Love, peace will lightly brush the veil aside and run to meet
Him, and to JOIN with Him at last. For this dark veil, which seems to make the
face of Christ Himself like to a leper’s, and the bright rays of His Father’s
Love which light His face with glory appear as streams of blood, fades in the
blazing light BEYOND it when the fear of death is gone.
T 19 K 3. This is the darkest veil, -- upheld by the belief in death, and
protected by its attraction. The dedication to death and to its sovereignty is
but the solemn vow, the promise made in secret to the ego, never to lift this
veil, not to approach it, nor even to SUSPECT that it is there. This is the
secret bargain, made with the ego, to keep what lies BEYOND the veil forever
blotted out and unremembered. Here is your promise never to allow union to call
you OUT of separation; the great amnesia in which the memory of God seems quite
forgotten; the cleavage of your Self from you; THE FEAR OF GOD, the final step
in your dissociation.
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T 19 K 4. See how the belief in death would seem to ‘save’ you. For, if this
is gone, what can you fear but life? It is the attraction of death that makes
life seem to be ugly, cruel, and tyrannical. You are no more afraid of death
than of the ego. These are your chosen FRIENDS. For, in your secret alliance
with them, you have agreed never to let the fear of God be lifted, so you could
look upon the face of Christ, and join Him in His Father. Every obstacle that
peace must flow across is surmounted in just the same way; the fear that RAISED
it yields to the love beneath, and so the fear is gone. And so it is with this.
T 19 K 5. The desire to get rid of peace and drive the Holy Spirit FROM you
fades in the presence of the quiet recognition that you love Him. The exaltation
of the body is given up in favor of the Spirit, which you love as you could
NEVER love the body. And the appeal of death is lost forever, as love’s
attraction stirs and calls to you. From BEYOND each of the OBSTACLES to love,
Love Itself has called, and each has been surmounted by the power of the
attraction of what lies BEYOND. Your WANTING fear SEEMED to be holding them in
place. Yet when you heard the voice of love BEYOND them, you answered, and they
disappeared.
T 19 K 6. And now you stand in terror before what you swore never to look
upon. Your eyes look down, remembering your promise to your ‘friends.’ The
‘loveliness’ of sin; the delicate appeal of guilt, the ‘holy’ waxen image of
death, and the fear of vengeance of the ego you swore in blood not to desert,
all rise and bid you NOT to raise your eyes. For you realize that if you look on
THIS and LET the veil be lifted, THEY WILL BE GONE FOREVER. All of your
‘friends,’ your ‘protectors,’ and your ‘home,’ will vanish. Nothing that you
remember NOW, will you remember.
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T 19 K 7. It seems to you the world will utterly abandon you, if you but raise
your eyes. Yet all that WILL occur is YOU will leave the world forever. This is
the re-establishment of YOUR will. Look upon it, open-eyed, and you will
nevermore believe that you are at the mercy of things BEYOND you, forces you
CANNOT control, and thoughts that come to you AGAINST your will. It IS YOUR WILL
TO LOOK ON THIS. No mad desire, no trivial impulse to forget again, no stab of
fear, nor the cold sweat of seeming death, CAN stand against your will. And what
attracts you from BEYOND the veil, is also deep WITHIN you, unseparated from it,
and COMPLETELY One.
T 19 L. The Lifting of the Veil
T 19 L 1. Forget not that you came this far TOGETHER. And it was surely NOT the
ego that led you here. No obstacle to peace can BE surmounted through ITS help.
It does not open up its secrets, and bid you look on them, and go BEYOND them.
It would not have you see its weakness and learn it has NO power to KEEP you
from the truth. The Guide Who brought you here REMAINS with you, and when you
raise your eyes, you WILL be ready to look on terror with no fear at all. But
first, lift up your eyes and look upon each other in innocence, born of complete
forgiveness of each other’s illusions, and through the eyes of faith, which see
them not.
T 19 L 2. No-one can look upon the fear of God unterrified, unless he has
ACCEPTED the Atonement, and learned illusions are not real. No-one can stand
before this obstacle alone, for he could not have REACHED it unless his brother
walked beside him. And no-one would dare to LOOK on it, without COMPLETE
forgiveness of his brother in his heart. Stand you here a while, and tremble
not. You will be ready. Let us join together in a holy instant, here in this
place where the purpose, GIVEN in a holy instant, has led you. And let us join
in faith that He Who brought us here together will OFFER you the innocence you
need, and that you will ACCEPT it for my love and His.
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March 17, 1963
T 19 L 3. Nor is it POSSIBLE to look on this too soon. This is the place to
which everyone must come, when he is ready. Once he has found his brother, he IS
ready. But merely to REACH a place is not enough. A journey without purpose is
still meaningless, and even when it is over, it seems to make no sense. How can
you KNOW that it is over, unless you realize its purpose IS accomplished? Here,
with the journey’s end before you, you SEE its purpose. And it is here you
choose whether to look upon it, or wander on, only to return and make the choice
again.
T 19 L 4. To look upon the fear of God DOES need some preparation. Only the
sane can look on stark insanity and raving madness with pity and compassion, but
NOT with fear. For only if they SHARE in it does it seem fearful, and you DO
share in it until you look upon each other with perfect faith and love and
tenderness. Before complete forgiveness, you still stand unforgiving. You are
afraid of God BECAUSE you fear each other. Those you do not forgive, YOU FEAR.
And no-one reaches love, with FEAR beside him.
T 19 L 5. This brother, who stands beside you, still seems to be a stranger.
You do NOT know him, and your INTERPRETATION of him is VERY fearful. And you
attack him still, to keep what seems to be YOURSELF unharmed. Yet in his hands
IS your salvation. You see his madness, which you hate because you SHARE in it.
And all the pity and forgiveness that would HEAL it gives way to fear. Brothers,
you NEED forgiveness of each other for you will share in madness or in Heaven
TOGETHER. And you will raise your eyes in FAITH together, or not at all.
T 19 L 6. Beside each of you is one who offers you the chalice of Atonement,
for the Holy Spirit is in him. Would you hold his sins AGAINST him, or accept
his gift to YOU? Is this giver of Salvation your friend or enemy? Choose which
he is, remembering that you will RECEIVE of him according to your choice.
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He has IN HIM the power to forgive YOUR sins, as you for HIM. Neither can give
it to himself alone. And yet your Saviour stands beside each one. Let him be
what he IS, and seek not to make of love an enemy.
T 19 L 7. Behold your Friend, the Christ Who stands beside you. How holy and
how beautiful He is! You THOUGHT He sinned ,because you cast the veil of sin
upon Him to HIDE His loveliness. Yet still He holds forgiveness out to you, to
SHARE His holiness. This ‘enemy,’ this ‘stranger’ still offers you salvation as
His Friend. The ‘enemies’ of Christ, the worshippers of sin, know not Whom they
attack. This is your brother, crucified by sin, and waiting for release from
pain. Would you not OFFER him forgiveness, when only he can offer it to you?
T 19 L 8. For HIS redemption he will give you yours, as surely as God created
every living thing, and loves it. And he will give it truly, for it will be both
offered and RECEIVED. There is no grace of Heaven that you cannot OFFER to each
other, and receive from your most holy Friend. Let him withhold it not, for by
receiving it, you offer it to HIM. For he WILL receive of you what YOU received
of him. Redemption has been given you to give EACH OTHER, and thus receive it.
Whom you forgive IS free. And what you give, YOU SHARE. Forgive the sins your
brother THINKS he has committed, and all the guilt YOU see in him.
T 19 L 9. Here is the holy place of RESURRECTION, to which we come again; to
which we will RETURN until redemption is accomplished AND RECEIVED. Think who
your brother IS, before you would condemn him. And offer thanks to God that he
is holy, and has been given the gift of holiness for YOU. Join him in gladness,
and remove all trace of guilt from his disturbed and tortured mind. Help him to
lift the heavy burden of sin you laid upon him, and he ACCEPTED as his own, and
toss it lightly and with happy laughter AWAY from him. Press it not like thorns
against his brow, nor nail him, to it unredeemed and hopeless.
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T 19 L 10. Give each other faith, for faith and hope and mercy ARE yours to
give. Into the hands that give, the gift is given. Look on your brother, and see
in him the gift of God you would RECEIVE. It is almost Easter, the time of
Resurrection. Let us give redemption to each other, and SHARE in it, that we may
rise as one in resurrection, and not SEPARATE in death. Behold the gift of
freedom that I gave the Holy Spirit, for BOTH of you. And be you free together,
as you offer TO the Holy Spirit this SAME gift, and giving it, receive it OF
Him, in RETURN for what you gave.
T 19 L 11. He leadeth you and me together, that we might meet here in this holy
place, and make the SAME decision. Free your brother here, as I freed you. Give
him the self-same gift, nor look upon him with condemnation of ANY kind. See him
as guiltless as I look on you, and OVERLOOK the sins he THINKS he sees within
himself. Offer each other freedom and complete release from sin, here in the
garden of seeming agony and death. So will we prepare TOGETHER the way unto the
Resurrection of God’s Son. And let him rise again to glad remembrance of his
Father, Who knows no sin, no death, but ONLY life eternal.
T 19 L 12. Together we will disappear into the Presence BEYOND the veil, not to
be lost, but FOUND; not to be seen, but to be KNOWN. And, knowing, nothing in
the plan God has established for salvation will be left undone. This is the
journey’s purpose, WITHOUT which IS the journey meaningless. Here is the Peace
of God, given to you eternally by Him. Here is the rest and quiet that you seek,
the REASON for the journey from its beginning. Heaven is the gift you OWE each
other, the debt of gratitude you offer to the Son of God, in thanks for what he
is, and what his Father created him to be.
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T 19 L 13. Think carefully how you would look upon the giver of this gift, for
as you look on HIM, so will the gift ITSELF appear to be. As HE is seen as
either the giver of guilt or of salvation, so will his OFFERING be seen, and so
RECEIVED. The crucified give pain, because they ARE in pain. But the redeemed
give joy, because they have been HEALED of pain. Everyone gives as he receives,
but HE must choose what it will BE that he receives. And he will RECOGNIZE his
choice by what he gives, and what is given HIM. Nor is it given anything in hell
or Heaven to INTERFERE with his decision.
T 19 L 14. You came this far because the journey WAS your choice. And no-one
undertakes to do what he believes is meaningless. What you had faith in still is
faithful, and watches over you in faith so gentle, yet so strong, that it would
lift you far beyond the veil, and place the Son of God safely within the sure
protection of his Father. Here is the ONLY purpose that gives this world, and
the long journey THROUGH this world, whatever meaning lies in them. Beyond this,
they ARE meaningless. You stand together, still without conviction they HAVE a
purpose. Yet it is GIVEN you to SEE this purpose in your holy Friend, and
RECOGNIZE it as your own.
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557
Chapter XX - 20 - The Promise Of The Resurrection
T 20 A. Introduction
March 19, 1967
T 20 A 1. This is Palm Sunday, the celebration of victory, and the acceptance
of the truth. Let us not spend this holy week brooding on the crucifixion of
God’s Son, but happily in the celebration of his release. For Easter is the sign
of peace, not pain. A slain Christ has no meaning. But a RISEN Christ becomes
the symbol of the Son of God’s forgiveness upon himself; the sign he looks upon
himself as healed and whole.
T 20 B. Holy Week
557 [split paragraph]
T 20 B 1. This week begins with palms and ends with lilies, the white and holy
sign the Son of God is innocent. Let no dark signs of crucifixion intervene
between the journey and its purpose; between the acceptance of the truth and its
expression.
T 20 B 2. This week we celebrate eternal life, not death. And we honor the
perfect purity of the Son of God, and not his sins. Offer each other the gift of
lilies, not the crown of thorns; the gift of love, and not the "gift" of fear.
You stand beside each other, thorns in one hand and lilies in the other,
uncertain which to give. Join now with me, and throw away the thorns, offering
the lilies to replace them. This Easter I would have the gift of your
forgiveness, offered by you to me, and returned by me to you. We CANNOT be
united in crucifixion and in death. Nor can the resurrection be complete ‘til
your forgiveness rests on Christ, along with mine.
T 20 B 3. A week is short, and yet this holy week is the symbol of the whole
journey that the Son of God has undertaken. He started with the sign of victory,
the promise of the resurrection, already given him. Let him not wander into the
temptation of crucifixion, and delay him there. Help him go in peace beyond it,
with the light of his own innocence lighting his way to his redemption and
release. Hold him not back with thorns and nails, when his redemption is so
near. But let the whiteness of your shining gift of lilies speed him on his way
to resurrection.
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T 20 B 4. Easter is not the celebration of the COST of sin, but of it’s END.
If you see glimpses of the face of Christ behind the veil, looking between the
snow white petals of the lilies you have received and given as your gift, you
will behold each other’s face and RECOGNIZE it. I was a stranger, and you took
me in, not knowing who I was. But, for your gift of lilies, you WILL know. In
your forgiveness of this stranger, alien to you and yet your ancient Friend, lie
his release, and your redemption with him. The time of Easter is a time of joy,
and not of mourning. Look on your risen Friend, and celebrate his holiness,
along with me. For Easter is the time of YOUR salvation, along with mine.
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T 20 C. Thorns and Lilies
March 26, 1967
T 20 C 1. Look upon all the trinkets made to hang upon the body or to cover
it, or for its use. See all the useless things made for its eyes to see. Think
on the many offerings made for its pleasure, and remember all these were made to
make seem lovely what you hate. Would you employ this hated thing to draw your
brother to you, and to attract his body’s eyes? Learn you but offer him a crown
of thorns, not recognizing it for what it is, and trying to justify your own
interpretation of its value by his acceptance. Yet still the gift proclaims his
worthlessness to you, as his acceptance and delight acknowledges the lack of
value he places on himself.
T 20 C 2. Gifts are not made through bodies, if they be truly given and
received. For bodies can neither offer nor accept; hold out or take. Only the
mind can value, and only the mind decides on what it would receive and give. And
every gift it offers depends on what it WANTS. It will adorn its chosen home
most carefully, making it ready to receive the gifts it wants, by offering them
to those who come unto its home, or those it would attract to it. And there they
will exchange their gifts, offering and receiving what their minds judge to be
worthy of them.
T 20 C 3. Each gift is an evaluation of the receiver and the GIVER. No-one but
sees his chosen home an altar to himself. No-one but seeks to draw to it the
worshippers of what he placed upon it, making it worthy of their devotion. And
each has set a light upon his altar, that they may see what he has placed upon
it, and take it for their own. Here is the value that you lay upon your brother,
and on yourself. Here is your gift to BOTH;
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your judgment upon the Son of God for what he is. Forget not that it is your
Saviour to whom the gift is offered. Offer him thorns, and YOU are crucified.
Offer him lilies, and it is YOURSELF you free.
T 20 C 4. I have great need for lilies, for the Son of God has not forgiven
me. And can I offer him forgiveness, when he offers thorns to me? For he who
offers thorns to anyone is against me still, and who is whole without him? Be
you his Friend for me, that I may be forgiven, and you may look upon the Son of
God as whole. But look you first upon the altar in your chosen home, and see
what you have laid upon it, to offer me. If it be thorns, whose points gleam
sharply in a blood-red light, the body is your chosen home, and it is separation
that you offer me.
T 20 C 5. And yet the thorns are gone. Look you still closer at them now, and
you will see your altar is no longer what it was. You look still with the body’s
eyes. And they CAN see but thorns. But you have asked for AND RECEIVED another
sight. Those who accept the Holy Spirit’s purpose as their own, share also His
vision. And what enables Him to see His purpose shine forth from every altar,
now is yours as well as His. He sees no strangers only dearly loved and loving
Friends. He sees no thorns, but only lilies, gleaming in the gentle glow of
peace that shines on everything He looks upon and loves.
T 20 C 6. This Easter, look with different eyes upon each other. You HAVE
forgiven me. And yet, I cannot use your gift of lilies, while you see them not.
Nor can you use what I have given, unless
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you share it. The Holy Spirit’s vision is no idle gift, no plaything to be
tossed about a while and laid aside. Listen and hear this carefully, nor think
it but a dream; -- a careless thought to play with, or a toy you would pick up
from time to time and then put by. For if you do, so will it be to you. You have
the vision to look past ALL illusions. It has been given you to see no thorns,
no strangers, and no obstacles to peace.
T 20 C 7. The fear of God is nothing to you now. Who is afraid to look upon
illusions, knowing his Saviour stands beside him? With him, your vision has
become the greatest power for the Undoing of illusion that God Himself could
give. For what God gave the Holy Spirit, you have received. The Son of God looks
unto you for his release. For you have asked for and been given the strength to
look upon this final obstacle, and see no thorns nor nails to crucify the Son of
God, and crown him king of death. Your chosen home is on the other side, beyond
the veil. It has been carefully prepared for you, and it is ready to receive you
now.
T 20 C 8. You will not see it with the body’s eyes. But all you need, you
have. Your home has called to you since time began, nor have you ever failed
entirely to hear. You heard, but knew not HOW to look, nor WHERE. And now you
know. In you the knowledge lies, ready to be unveiled and freed from all the
terror that kept it hidden. There IS no fear in love. The song of Easter is the
glad refrain the Son of God was NEVER crucified. Let us lift up our eyes
together, not in fear, but faith. And there WILL be no fear in us, for in our
vision will be no illusions. Only a pathway to the open door
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of Heaven, the home we share in quietness, and where we live in gentleness and
peace, as One together.
T 20 C 9. Would you not have your holy brother lead you there? His innocence
will light your way, offering you its guiding light and sure protection, and
shining from the holy altar within him, where you laid the lilies of
forgiveness. Let him be to you the Saviour from illusions, and look on him with
the new vision that looks upon the lilies, and brings YOU joy. We go beyond the
veil of fear, lighting each other’s way. The holiness that leads us is WITHIN
us, as is our home. So will we find what we were meant to find, by Him Who leads
us.
T 20 C 10. This is the way to Heaven and to the peace of Easter, in which we
join in glad awareness that the Son of God is risen from the past, and has
awakened to the present. Now is he free, unlimited in his communion with all
that is within him. Now are the lilies of his innocence untouched by guilt, and
perfectly protected from the cold chill of fear and withering blight of sin
alike. Your gift has saved him from the thorns and nails, and his strong arm is
free to guide you safely through them, and beyond. Walk with him now rejoicing,
for the Saviour from illusions has come to greet you, and lead you home with
him.
T 20 C 11. Here is your Saviour and your Friend, released from crucifixion
through your vision, and free to lead you now where HE would be. He will not
leave you, nor forsake the Saviour from his pain. And gladly will you walk the
way of innocence together, singing as you behold the open door of Heaven, and
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recognize the home that called to you. Give joyously to one another the freedom
and the strength to lead you there. And come before each other’s holy altar,
where the strength and freedom wait, to offer and receive the bright awareness
that leads you home. The lamp is lit in both of you, for one another. And by the
hands that gave it to each other, shall both of you be led past fear to Love.
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T 20 D. Sin as an Adjustment
March 30, 1967
T 20 D 1. The belief in sin is an ADJUSTMENT. And an adjustment is a CHANGE, a
shift in perception, or a belief that what was so before has been made
different. Every adjustment is therefore a distortion, and calls upon defenses
to uphold it against reality. Knowledge requires NO adjustment, and, in fact, is
lost if any shift or change is undertaken. For this reduces it at once to mere
perception; a way of LOOKING in which certainty is lost, and doubt has entered.
To this impaired condition are adjustments necessary. because they are not true.
Who need adjust to truth, which calls upon only what he is, to understand?
T 20 D 2. Adjustments of any kind are of the ego. For it is the ego’s fixed
belief that all relationships DEPEND upon adjustments, to make of them what it
would have them be. Direct relationships, in which there are no interferences,
are ALWAYS seen as dangerous. The ego is the self-appointed mediator of all
relationships, making whatever adjustments it deems necessary, and interposing
them between those who would meet, to keep them separate and prevent their
union. It is this studied interference which makes it difficult to recognize
your holy relationship for what it is.
T 20 D 3. The holy do not interfere with truth. They are not afraid of it, for
it is within it that they recognized their holiness, and rejoiced at what they
saw. They looked on it directly, without attempting to adjust themselves to it,
or it to them. And so they saw that it was IN them, not deciding first where
they would have it be. Their looking merely asked a question, and it was what
they SAW that answered . YOU make the world and THEN adjust to it. and it to
you. Nor is there any difference between yourself and it in your perception,
which made them BOTH.
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T 20 D 4. A simple question yet remains, and needs an answer. Do you LIKE what
you have made? a world of murder and attack, through which you thread your timid
way through constant dangers, alone and frightened, hoping at most that death
will wait a little longer. before it overtakes you, and you disappear. YOU MADE
THIS UP. It is a picture of what you think YOU are; of how you see yourself. A
murderer IS frightened, and those who kill FEAR death. All these are but the
fearful thoughts of those who would adjust themselves to a world made fearful by
their adjustments. And they look out in sorrow from what is sad within, and see
the sadness THERE.
T 20 D 5. Have you wondered what the world is REALLY like? How it would look
through HAPPY eyes? The world you see is but a judgment on yourself. It is not
there at all. But judgment lays a sentence on it, justifies it, and makes it
REAL. Such is the world you see; a judgment on yourself, and made by YOU. This
sickly picture of yourself is carefully preserved by the ego, whose image it is
and which it loves, and placed outside you, in the world. And to this world must
you adjust, as long as you believe this picture is outside, and has you at its
mercy.
T 20 D 6. This world IS merciless, and, were it outside you, you should indeed
be fearful. But it is you who made it merciless. And now, if mercilessness seems
to look back at you, it can be CORRECTED.
T 20 D 7. Who, in a holy relationship, can long remain unholy? The world the
holy see is one with them, just as the world the ego looks upon is like itself.
The world the holy see is beautiful because they see their innocence in it. They
did not tell it what it was. They did not make adjustments to fit their orders.
They gently questioned it and whispered, "what are you?" And He Who watches over
all perception answered.
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T 20 D 8. Take not the judgment of the world as answer to the question, "what
am I?" The world BELIEVES in sin, but the belief that made it as you see it, is
not outside you. Seek not to make the Son of God ADJUST to his insanity. There
IS a stranger in him, who wandered carelessly into the home of Truth, and who
will wander off. He came without a purpose. But he will not remain before the
shining light the Holy Spirit offered, and you accepted. For there the stranger
is made homeless, and YOU are welcome. Ask not this transient stranger, "who am
I?" He is the only thing in all the universe that does not know.
T 20 D 9. Yet it is he you asked, and it is to his answer you would adjust.
This one wild thought, fierce in its arrogance and yet so tiny and so
meaningless it slips unnoticed through the universe of truth, becomes your
guide. To it you turn, to ask the meaning of the universe. And of the one blind
thing in all the seeing universe of truth you ask, "how shall I look upon the
Son of God?" Does one ask judgment of what is totally BEREFT of judgment? And if
you have, would you BELIEVE the answer? And adjust to it as if it were the
truth? The world you look on is the answer that it gave you. And YOU have given
it power to adjust the world to MAKE its answer true.
T 20 D 10. You asked this puff of madness for the meaning of your unholy
relationship, and adjusted it according to its insane answer. How happy did it
make you? Did you meet with joy, to bless the Son of God, and give him thanks
for all the happiness he held out to you? Did you recognize each other as the
eternal gift of God to you? Did you see the holiness that shone in both of you,
to bless the other? That is the purpose of your HOLY relationship. Ask not the
means of its attainment of the one thing that still would have it be unholy.
Give it NO power to adjust the means and end.
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T 20 D 11. Prisoners bound with heavy chains for years, starved and emaciated,
weak and exhausted, and with eyes so long cast down in darkness they remember
not the light, do not leap up in joy the instant they are made free. It takes a
while for them to understand what freedom IS. You groped but feebly in the dust
and found each other’s hand, uncertain whether to let it go, or to take hold on
life so long forgotten. Strengthen your hold, and raise your eyes unto your
strong companion, in whom the meaning of your freedom lies. He seemed to be
crucified beside you. And yet his holiness remained untouched and perfect, and
with him beside you shall you this day enter with him to Paradise, and know the
peace of God.
T 20 D 12. Such is my will for both of you, and for each of you for one
another, and for himself. Here there is only holiness, and joining without
limit. For what is Heaven but union, direct and perfect, and without the veil of
fear upon it? Here are we one, looking with perfect gentleness upon each other,
and on ourselves. Here, all thought of any separation between us becomes
impossible. You who were prisoners in separation are now made free in Paradise.
And here would I unite with you, my friends, my brothers, and my Self. Your gift
unto each other has given me the certainty our union will be soon. Share then
this faith with me, who know that it is justified.
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T 20 D 13. There is no fear in perfect love, BECAUSE it knows no sin. And it
must look on others as on itself. Looking with charity within, what can it fear
WITHOUT? The innocent see safety, and the pure see God within His Son, and look
unto the Son to lead them to the Father. And where else would they go, but where
they will to be? Each of you now will lead the other to the Father, as surely as
God created His Son holy, and kept him so. In your brother is the light of God’s
eternal promise of your immortality. See HIM as sinless, and there can BE no
fear in you.
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T 20 E. Entering the Ark
April 5, 1967
T 20 E 1. Nothing can hurt you, unless you give it the power to do so. For you
give power as the laws of this world interpret giving; as you give, you LOSE. It
is not up to you to give power at all. Power is of God, given by Him, and
re-awakened by the Holy Spirit, Who knows that, as you give you GAIN. He gives
no power to sin, and therefore it HAS none. Nor to its results, as this world
sees them; sickness and death and misery and pain. These things have not
occurred, because the Holy Spirit sees them not, and gives no power to their
seeming source. Thus would He keep you free of them.
T 20 E 2. Being without illusion of what you are, the Holy Spirit merely gives
everything to God, Who has already given and received all that is true. The
untrue He has neither received NOR given.
T 20 E 3. Sin has no place in Heaven, where its results are alien, and can no
more enter than can their source. And therein lies your need to see your brother
sinless. In him is Heaven. See sin in him instead, and Heaven is lost to you.
But see him as he is, and what is yours shines from him to you.
T 20 E 4. Your Saviour gives you only love. But what you would RECEIVE of him,
is up to you. It lies in him to overlook all your mistakes, and therein lies his
OWN salvation. And so it is with yours. Salvation is a lesson in giving, as the
Holy Spirit interprets it. It is the re-awakening of the laws of God in minds
that have established other laws, and given them power to enforce what God
created not. Your insane laws were made to guarantee that you would make
mistakes, and give them power over you by accepting their results as your just
due.
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T 20 E 5. What could this be but madness? And is it this that you would see
within your Saviour from insanity? He is as free from this as you are, and in
the freedom that you see in him, you see your own. For this you SHARE. What God
has given follows His laws, and His alone. Nor is it possible for those who
follow them to suffer the results of any other source. Those who choose freedom
will experience only its results. Their power is of God. And they will give it
only to what God has given, to share with them.
T 20 E 6. Nothing but this can touch them, for they see only this, sharing
their power according to the Will of God. And thus their freedom is established
and maintained. It is upheld through all temptations to imprison and to be
imprisoned. It is them, who learned of freedom, that you should ask what freedom
is. Ask not the sparrow how the eagle soars, for those with little wings have
not accepted for themselves the power to share with you. The sinless give as
they received. See, then, the power of sinlessness within your brother, and
share with him the power of the release from sin you offered him.
T 20 E 7. To each who walks this earth in seeming solitude is a Saviour given,
whose special function here is to release him, and so to free himself. In the
world of separation, each is appointed separately, though they are all the same.
But those who KNOW that they are all the same, need not salvation. And each one
finds his Saviour, when he is ready to look upon the face of Christ, and see Him
sinless. The plan is not of you, nor need you be concerned with anything except
the part that has been given you to learn. For He Who knows the rest will see to
it without your help. But think not that He does not need your part, to help Him
with the rest. For in your part lies ALL of it, without which is no part
complete, nor is the whole completed without your part. The ark of peace is
entered two by two, yet the beginning of another world goes with them. Each holy
relationship
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must enter here, to learn its special function in the Holy Spirit’s plan, now
that it shares His purpose. And as this purpose is fulfilled, a new world rises,
in which sin can enter not, and where the Son of God can enter without fear. And
where he rests a while, to forget imprisonment, and to remember freedom.
T 20 E 8. How can he enter, to rest and to remember, without YOU? Except you
be there, he is not complete, and it is his completion that he remembers there.
This is the purpose given you. Think not that your forgiveness of each other
serves but you two alone. For the whole new world rests in the hands of every
two who enter here, to rest. And as they rest, the face of Christ shines on
them, and they remember the laws of God, forgetting all the rest, and yearning
only to have His laws perfectly fulfilled in them and all their brothers.
T 20 E 9. Think you, when this has been achieved, that you will rest WITHOUT
them? You could no more leave one of them outside than I could leave you and
forget part of myself. You may wonder how you can be at peace when, while you
are in time, there is so much that must be done before the way to peace is open.
Perhaps this seems impossible to you. But ask yourself if it is possible that
God would have a plan for your salvation that does NOT work. Once you accept His
plan as the one function that you would fulfill, there will be nothing else the
Holy Spirit will not arrange for you, WITHOUT your effort.
T 20 E 10. He will go before you, making straight your path, and leaving in
your way no stones to trip on, and no obstacles to bar your way. Nothing you
need will be denied you. Not one seeming difficulty but will melt away before
you reach it. You need take thought for nothing, careless of everything except
the only purpose that you would fulfill. As that was given you, so will its
fulfillment be. God’s guarantee will hold against
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all obstacles, for it rests on certainty and not contingency. It rests on YOU.
And what can be more certain than the Son of God?
T 20 F. Heralds of Eternity
T 20 F 1. In this world, God’s Son comes closest to himself in a holy
relationship. There he begins to find the certainty his Father has in him. And
there he finds his function of restoring his Father’s laws to what was held
outside them, and finding what was lost. Only in time can anything be lost, but
never lost forever. So do the parts of God’s Son gradually join in time, and
with each joining is the end of time brought nearer. Each miracle of joining is
a mighty herald of eternity. No-one who has a single purpose, unified and sure,
can be afraid. No-one who shares his purpose with him can NOT be one with him.
T 20 F 2. Each herald of eternity sings of the end of sin and fear. Each
speaks in time of what is far beyond it. Two voices, raised together, call to
the hearts of everyone, and let them beat as one. And in that single heart beat
is the unity of love proclaimed and given welcome. Peace to your holy
relationship, which has the power to hold the unity of the Son of God together.
You give to one another for everyone. And in your gift is everyone made glad.
Forget not Who has given you the gifts you give. And through your not forgetting
this, will you remember Who gave the gifts to Him to give to you.
T 20 F 3. It is impossible to over-estimate your brother’s value. Only the ego
does this, but all it means is that it wants the other for itself, and therefore
values him too little. What is inestimable clearly cannot BE evaluated. Do you
recognize the fear that rises from the meaningless attempt to judge what lies so
far beyond your judgment you cannot even see it? Judge not what is invisible to
you, or you will NEVER see it. But wait in patience for its coming. -à
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It will be given you to see your brother’s worth, when all you want for him is
peace. And what you want for him, you will receive.
April 6, 1967
T 20 F 4. How can you estimate the worth of him who offers peace to you? What
would you want except his offering? His worth has been established by his
Father, and you will recognize it as you receive his Father’s gift through him.
What is in him will shine so brightly in your grateful vision, that you will
merely love him, and be glad. You will not think to judge him. Who would see the
face of Christ, and yet insist that judgment still has meaning? For this
insistence is of those who do NOT see. Vision or judgment is your choice, but
never both of these.
T 20 F 5. Your brother’s body is as little use to you as it is to him. When it
is used only as the Holy Spirit teaches, it has no function. For minds need not
the body to communicate. The sight that sees the body, has no use which serves
the purpose of a holy relationship. And while you look upon each other thus, the
means and end have not been brought in line. Why should it take so many holy
instants to let this be accomplished, when one would do? There IS but one. The
little breath of eternity that runs through time like golden light is all the
same. Nothing before it; nothing afterwards.
T 20 F 6. You look upon each holy instant as a different point in time. IT
never changes. All that it ever held or will ever hold is here right now. The
past takes nothing from it, and the future will add no more. Here, then, is
everything. Here is the loveliness of your relationship, with means and ends in
perfect harmony ALREADY. Here is the perfect faith that you will one day offer
to each other, ALREADY offered you. And here the limitless forgiveness you will
give each other is ALREADY given; the face of Christ you yet will look upon
ALREADY seen.
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T 20 F 7. Can you evaluate the giver of a gift like this? Would you exchange
this gift for any other? This gift returns the laws of God to your remembrance.
And merely by remembering them, the laws that held you prisoner to pain and
death MUST be forgotten. This is no gift your brother’s body offers you. The
veil that hides the gift hides him as well. He IS the gift, and yet he knows it
not. No more do you. And yet have faith that He Who sees the gift in both of
you, will offer and receive it for you both. And through His vision will you see
it, and through His understanding recognize it, and love it as your own.
T 20 F 8. Be comforted, and feel the Holy Spirit watching over you, in love
and perfect confidence in what He sees. He knows the Son of God. And shares his
Father’s certainty the universe rests in his gentle hands in safety and in
peace. Let us consider now what he must learn, to share his Father’s confidence
in him. What is he, that the Creator of the universe should offer it to him, and
know it rests in safety? He looks upon himself not as his Father knows him. And
yet it is impossible the confidence of God should be misplaced.
T 20 G. The Temple of the Holy Spirit
573
T 20 G 1. The meaning of the Son of God lies solely in his relationship with
his Creator. If it were elsewhere, it would rest upon contingency, but there IS
nothing else. And this is wholly loving and forever. Yet has the Son of God
invented an unholy relationship between him and his Father. His real
relationship is one of perfect union, and unbroken continuity. The one he made
is partial, self-centered, broken into fragments and full of fear. The one
created by his Father is wholly self-encompassing and self-extending. The one he
made is wholly self-destructive and self-limiting.
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April 7, 1967
T 20 G 2. Nothing can show the contrast better than the experience of both a
holy and an unholy relationship. The first is based on love, and rests on it
serene and undisturbed. The body does not intrude upon it. Any relationship in
which the body enters is based, not on love, but on idolatry. Love wishes to be
known, completely understood, and shared. It has no secrets; nothing that it
would keep apart and hide. It walks in sunlight, open-eyed and calm, in smiling
welcome, and in sincerity so simple and so obvious it cannot BE misunderstood.
T 20 G 3. But idols do not share. Idols accept, but never make return. They
can be loved, but cannot love. They do not understand what they are offered, and
any relationship in which they enter, has lost its meaning. The love of THEM has
MADE love meaningless. They live in secrecy, hating the sunlight, and happy in
the body’s darkness, where they can hide, and keep their secrets hidden, along
with them. And they have NO relationships, for no-one else is welcome there.
They smile on no-one, and those who smile on them they do not see.
T 20 G 4. Love has no darkened temples, where mysteries are kept obscure and
hidden from the sun. It does not seek for power, but for relationships. The body
is the ego’s chosen weapon for seeking power THROUGH relationships. And its
relationships MUST be unholy, for what they are, it does not even see. It wants
them solely for the offerings on which its idols thrive. The rest it merely
throws away, for all that it could offer, is seen as valueless. Homeless, the
ego seeks as many bodies as it can collect, to place its idols in, and so
establish them as temples to itself.
T 20 G 5. The Holy Spirit’s temple is not a body, but a relationship. The body
is an isolated speck of darkness; a hidden secret room, a tiny spot of senseless
mystery, a meaningless enclosure carefully protected, yet
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hiding nothing. Here, the unholy relationship escapes reality, and seeks for
crumbs to keep itself alive. Here it would drag its brothers, holding them here
in its idolatry. Here it is "safe," for here love cannot enter. The Holy Spirit
does not build His temples where love can never be. Would He Who sees the face
of Christ choose as His home the only place in all the universe where it can NOT
be seen?
T 20 G 6. You CANNOT make the body the Holy Spirit’s temple, and it will NEVER
be the seat of love. It is the home of the idolator, and of love’s condemnation.
For here is love made fearful, and hope abandoned. Even the idols that are
worshipped here are shrouded deep in mystery, and kept apart from those who
worship them. This is the temple dedicated to no relationships, and no return.
Here is the "mystery" of separation perceived in awe and held in reverence. What
God would have NOT be, is here kept "safe" from Him. But what you do not realize
is what you fear within your brother, and would not see in him, is what makes
God seem fearful and kept unknown.
T 20 G 7. Idolators will always be afraid of love. For nothing so severely
threatens them as love’s approach. Let love draw near them and overlook the
body, as it will surely do, and they retreat in fear, feeling the seeming firm
foundation of their temple begin to shake and loosen. Brothers, you tremble with
them. But what you fear is but the herald of escape. This place of darkness is
not your home. Your temple is not threatened. You are idolators no longer. The
Holy Spirit’s purpose lies safe in your relationship, and not your bodies. You
have ESCAPED the body. Where you are now, the body cannot enter, for the Holy
Spirit has set HIS temple there.
T 20 G 8. There is no order in relationships. They either ARE, or not. An
unholy relationship is NO relationship. It is a state of isolation, which seems
to be what it is not. No more than that. The instant that the
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mad idea of making your relationship with God unholy seemed to be possible, all
relationships were made meaningless. In that unholy instant time was born, and
bodies made to house the mad idea, and give it the illusion of reality. And so
it seemed to have a home, that held together for a little while in time, and
vanished. For what could house this mad idea against reality, but for an
instant?
T 20 G 9. Idols MUST disappear, and leave no trace behind their going. The
unholy instant of their seeming power is frail as is a snowflake, but without
its loveliness. Is this the substitute you WANT, for the eternal blessing of the
holy instant, and its unlimited beneficence? Is the malevolence of the unholy
relationship, so seeming powerful and so bitterly misunderstood, and so invested
in false attraction, your preference to the holy instant, which offers peace and
understanding? Then lay aside the body and quietly transcend it, rising to
welcome what you REALLY want. And from His holy temple look you not back on what
you have awakened from. For no illusions CAN attract the minds that have
transcended them, and left them far behind.
T 20 G 10. The holy relationship reflects the true relationship the Son of God
has with his Father in reality. The Holy Spirit rests within it, in the
certainty it will endure forever. Its firm foundation is eternally upheld by
truth, and love shines on it with the gentle smile and tender blessing it offers
to its own. Here the unholy instant is exchanged in gladness for the holy one of
safe return. Here is the way to true relationships held gently open, through
which you walk together, leaving the body thankfully behind, and resting in the
Everlasting Arms. Love’s arms are open to receive you, and give you peace
forever.
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T 20 G 11. The body is the ego’s idol; the belief in sin made flesh, and then
projected outward. This produces what seems to be a wall of flesh around the
mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden unto death,
and given but an instant in which to sigh and grieve and die in honor of its
master. And this unholy instant seems to be life. An instant of despair, a tiny
island of dry sand, bereft of water, and set uncertainly upon oblivion. Here
does the Son of God stop briefly by, to offer his devotion to death’s idols, and
then pass on.
T 20 G 12. And here he is more dead than living. But it is also here he makes
his choice again, between idolatry and love. Here it is given him to choose to
spend this instant paying tribute to the body, or let himself be given freedom
from it. Here he can accept the holy instant, offered him to replace the unholy
one he chose before. And here can he learn relationships are his SALVATION, not
his doom. You who are learning this may still be fearful, but you are not
immobilized. The holy instant is of greater value now to you than its unholy
seeming counterpart, and you have learned you really want but one.
T 20 G 13. This is no time for sadness. Perhaps confusion, but hardly
discouragement. You have a REAL relationship. And it HAS meaning. It is as like
your real relationship with God, as equal things are like themselves. Idolatry
is past and meaningless. Perhaps you fear each other a little yet; perhaps a
shadow of the fear of God remains with you. But what is that to those who have
been given one true relationship, BEYOND the body? Can they be long held back
from looking on the face of Christ? And can they long withhold the memory of
their relationship with their Father from themselves, and keep remembrance of
His Love apart from their awareness?
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T 20 H. The Consistency of Means and End
April 10, 1967
T 20 H 1. We have said much about discrepancies of means and end, and how
these must be brought in line before your holy relationship can bring you only
joy. But we have also said the means to meet the Holy Spirit’s goal will come
from the same Source as does His purpose. Being so simple and direct, this
course has nothing in it that is not consistent. The seeming inconsistencies, or
parts you find more difficult than others, are merely indications of areas where
means and end are still discrepant. And this produces great discomfort. This
need not be. This course requires almost nothing of you. It is impossible to
imagine one that asks so little, or could offer more.
T 20 H 2. The period of discomfort that follows the sudden change in a
relationship from sin to holiness, should now be almost over. To the extent you
still experience it, you are refusing to leave the means to Him Who changed the
purpose. You recognize you want the goal. Are you not also willing to accept the
means? If you are not, let us admit that YOU are inconsistent. A purpose is
ATTAINED by means. And if you want a goal, you MUST be willing to want the means
as well. How can one be sincere and say, "I want this above all else, and yet I
do not want to learn the means to get it" ?
T 20 H 3. To obtain the goal, the Holy Spirit indeed asked little. He asks no
more to give the means as well. The means are second to the goal. And, when you
hesitate, it is because the PURPOSE frightens you, and NOT the means. Remember
this, for otherwise you will make the error of believing the means are
difficult. Yet how can they be difficult if they are merely GIVEN you? They
guarantee the goal. And they are perfectly in line with it. Before we look at
them a little closer, remember that if you think they are impossible, your
wanting of the PURPOSE has been shaken. For if a goal is possible to reach, the
means to do so must be possible as well.
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T 20 H 4. It IS impossible to see your brother sinless, and yet to look upon
him as a body. Is this not perfectly consistent with the goal of holiness? For
holiness is merely the result of letting the effects of sin be lifted, so what
was always true is recognized. To see a sinless body is impossible. For holiness
is positive, and the body is merely neutral. It is not sinful, but neither is it
sinless. As nothing, which it is, the body cannot meaningfully be invested with
attributes of Christ OR of the ego. Either must be an error, for both would
place the attributes where they cannot be. And both must be undone, for purposes
of truth.
T 20 H 5. The body IS the means by which the ego tries to make the unholy
relationship seem real. The unholy instant IS the time of bodies. But the
PURPOSE here is sin. It cannot be attained but in illusion. And so the illusion
of a brother as a body is quite in keeping with the purpose of unholiness.
Because of this consistency, the means remain unquestioned while the end is
cherished. Vision adapts to wish, for sight is always secondary to desire. And
if you see the body, you have chosen judgment, and not vision. For vision, like
relationships, has no order. You either SEE, or not.
T 20 H 6. Who sees a brother’s body has laid a judgment on him, and sees him
not. He does not really see him as sinful; he does not see him at all. In the
darkness of sin, he is invisible. He can but be imagined in the darkness, and it
is here that the illusions you hold about him are not held up to his reality.
Here are illusions and reality kept separated. Here are illusions never brought
to truth, and always hidden from it. And here, in darkness, is your brother’s
reality imagined as a body, in unholy relationships with other bodies, serving
the cause of sin an instant, before he dies.
T 20 H 7. There is indeed a difference between this vain imagining and vision.
The difference lies not in them, but in their purpose. Both are but means, each
one appropriate to the end for which it is employed. Neither can serve
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the purpose of the other, for each one is a choice of purpose, employed on its
behalf. Either is meaningless without the end for which it was intended, nor is
it valued as a separate thing, apart from the intention. The means seem real
because the GOAL is valued. And judgment has no value unless the goal is sin.
The body can not be looked upon except through judgment. To see the body is the
sign that you lack vision, and have denied the means the Holy Spirit offers you,
to serve HIS purpose.
T 20 H 8. How can a holy relationship achieve its purpose through the means of
sin? Judgment you taught yourself; vision is learned from Him Who would UNDO
your teaching. His vision cannot see the body, because it cannot look on sin.
And thus it leads you to reality. Your holy brother, sight of whom is your
release, is no illusion. Attempt to see him not in darkness, for your imaginings
about him WILL seem real there. You closed your eyes to shut him out. Such was
your purpose, and while this purpose seems to have any meaning, the means for
its attainment will be evaluated as worth the seeing, and so you will not see.
T 20 H 9. Your question should not be, "How can I see my brother without the
body?" Ask only, "Do I REALLY wish to see him sinless?" And, as you ask, forget
not that his sinlessness is YOUR escape from fear. Salvation is the Holy
Spirit’s goal. The means is vision. For what the seeing look upon IS sinless.
No-one who loves can judge, and what he sees is free of condemnation. And what
he sees he did not make, for it was given him to see, as was the vision which
made his seeing possible.
T 20 II. The Vision of Sinlessness
580 [split paragraph]
T 20 I 1. Vision will come to you at first in glimpses, but they will be
enough to show you what is given you who see your brother sinless.
T 20 I 2. Truth is restored to you through your desire, as it was lost to you
through your desire for something else. Open the holy place which you closed off
by valuing the something else, and what was never lost will
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quietly return. It has been saved for you. Vision would not be necessary, had
judgment not been made. Desire now its whole undoing, and it is done for you. Do
you not WANT to know your own identity? Would you not happily exchange your
doubts for certainty? Would you not willingly be free of misery, and learn again
of joy? Your holy relationship offers all this to you. As it was given you, so
will be its effects.
T 20 I 3. And as its holy purpose was not made by you, the means by which its
happy end is yours is also not of you. Rejoice in what is yours but for the
asking. And think not that you need make either means or end. All this is given
you, who would but see your brother sinless. All this is given, waiting on your
desire but to receive it. Vision is freely given to those who ask to see. Your
brother’s sinlessness is given you in shining light, to look on with the Holy
Spirit’s vision, and to rejoice in, along with Him. For peace will come to all
who ask for it with real desire and sincerity of purpose, shared with the Holy
Spirit, and at one with Him on what salvation IS.
T 20 I 4. Be willing, then, to see your brother sinless, that Christ may rise
before your vision and give you joy. And place no value on your brother’s body,
which holds him to illusions of what he is. It is HIS desire to see his
sinlessness, as it is YOURS. And bless the Son of God in your relationship, nor
see in him what you have made of him. The Holy Spirit guarantees that what God
willed and given shall be yours. This is your purpose now, and the vision that
makes it yours is ready to be given. You have the vision that enables you to see
the body not. -à
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April 11, 1967
T 20 I 5. And as you look upon each other, you will see an altar to your
Father, holy as Heaven, glowing with radiant purity, and sparkling with the
shining lilies you laid upon it.
T 20 I 6. What can you value more than this? Why do you think the body is a
better home, a safer shelter for God’s Son? Why would you rather look on it than
on the truth? How can the engine of destruction be PREFERRED, and chosen to
replace the holy home the Holy Spirit offers, where He will dwell with you? The
body is the sign of weakness, vulnerability and loss of power. Can such a
Saviour HELP you? Would you turn, in your distress and need for help, unto the
helpless? Is the pitifully little the perfect choice to call upon for strength?
Judgment WILL seem to make your Saviour weak. But it is YOU who need his
strength.
T 20 I 7. There is no problem, no event or situation, no perplexity, that
vision will not solve. All is redeemed, when looked upon with vision. For this
is not YOUR sight, and brings with it the laws beloved of Him Whose sight it IS.
Everything looked upon with vision falls gently into place, according to the
laws brought to it by His calm and certain sight. The end, for everything He
looks upon, is always sure. For it will meet His purpose, seen in unadjusted
form, and suited perfectly to meet it. Destructiveness becomes benign, and sin
is turned to blessing under His gentle gaze.
T 20 I 8. What can the body’s eyes perceive, with power to CORRECT? Its eyes
ADJUST to sin, unable to overlook it in any form, and
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seeing it everywhere, in everything. Look through its eyes, and everything will
stand condemned before you. All that could save you, you will never see. Your
holy relationship, the source of your salvation, will be deprived of meaning,
and its most holy purpose bereft of means for its accomplishment. Judgment is
but a toy, a whim, the senseless means to play the idle game of death in your
imagination. But vision sets all things right, bringing them gently within the
kindly sway of Heaven’s laws.
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April 14, ‘67
T 20 I 9. What if you recognized this world is a hallucination? What if you
really understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who seem to
walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are
wholly unreal? Could you have faith in what you see, if you ACCEPTED this? And
would you SEE it? Hallucinations disappear when they are recognized for what
they are. This is the healing and the remedy. Believe them not, and they are
gone. And all you need to do is recognize YOU did this. Once you accept this
simple fact, and take unto yourself the power you gave them, YOU are released
from them.
T 20 I 10. One thing is sure; hallucinations serve a purpose, and when that
purpose is no longer held, they disappear. Therefore, the question never is
whether you want THEM, but always do you want the purpose that they serve? This
world seems to hold out many purposes, each different, and with different
values. Yet they are all the same. Again, there is no order, but a seeming
hierarchy of values. Only two purposes are possible. And one is sin; the other
holiness. Nothing is in between, and which you choose determines what you see.
For what you see is merely how you elect to meet your goal.
T 20 I 11. Hallucinations serve to meet the goal of madness. They are the means
by which the outside world, projected from within, adjusts to sin, and seems to
witness to its reality. It still is true that nothing is without. Yet, upon
nothing, are ALL projections made. For it is the projection which gives the
"nothing" all the meaning that it holds. What has no meaning, cannot BE
perceived. And meaning always looks within, to find itself. And THEN looks out.
All meaning that you give the world outside, must thus reflect the sight you saw
within. Or better, if you saw at all, or merely judged against.
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T 20 I 12. Vision is the means by which the Holy Spirit translates your
nightmares into happy dreams; your wild hallucinations, that show you all
fearful outcomes of imagined sin, into the calm and reassuring sights with which
He would replace them. These gentle sights and sounds are looked on happily, and
heard with joy. They are His substitutes for all the terrifying sights and
screaming sounds the ego’s purpose brought to your horrified awareness. They
step away from sin, reminding you that it is not reality that frightens you, and
that the errors which you made can be corrected.
T 20 I 13. When you have looked on what seemed terrifying, and seen it change
to sights of loveliness and peace; when you have looked on scenes of violence
and death, and watched them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies,
with clear life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that
never waste away; who need persuade you to accept the gift of vision? And after
vision, who is there who could refuse what MUST come after? Think but an instant
just on this. You can behold the holiness God gave His Son. And never need you
think that there is something else for you to see.
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Chapter XXI - 21 - The Inner Picture
T 21 A. Introduction
April 16, 1967
T 21 A 1. Projection makes perception; the world you see is what you GAVE it,
nothing more than that. But, though it is no more than that, it is not less.
Therefore, to you, it is important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the
outside picture of an inward condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive.
Therefore, seek not to change the world, but will to change your mind ABOUT the
world. Perception is a RESULT, and not a cause. And that is why order of
miracles is meaningless. Everything looked upon with vision is healed and holy.
Nothing perceived without it means anything. And where there is no meaning,
there is chaos.
T 21 A 2. Damnation is your judgment on YOURSELF. And this you WILL project
upon the world. See it as damned, and all you see is what you did to hurt the
Son of God. If you behold disaster and catastrophe, you tried to crucify him. If
you see holiness and hope, you joined the Will of God to set him free. There is
no choice that lies between these two decisions. And you will see the witness to
the choice you made, and learn from this to RECOGNIZE the one you made. The
world you see but shows you how much joy YOU have allowed yourself to see in
you, and to accept as YOURS. And, if this IS its meaning, then the power to GIVE
it joy MUST lie WITHIN you.
T 21 B. The Imagined World
585
T 21 B 1. Never forget the world the sightless "see" must be imagined. And
what it really looks like is unknown to them. They must infer what could be
seen, from evidence forever indirect, and reconstruct their inferences as they
stumble and fall because of what they did not recognize, or walk unharmed
through open doorways that they thought were closed. And so it is with
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you. You do not see. Your cues for inference are wrong, and so you stumble and
fall down upon the stones you did not recognize. But fail to be aware you CAN go
through the doors you thought were closed, but which stand open before unseeing
eyes, waiting to welcome you.
T 21 B 2. How foolish it is to attempt to judge what could be seen instead. It
is not necessary to imagine what the world must look like. It must be seen,
before you recognize it for what it is. You can be shown which doors are open,
and you can see where safety lies. And which way leads to darkness; which to
light. Judgment will ALWAYS give you false directions But vision SHOWS you where
to go. Why should you guess? There is no need to learn through pain. And gentle
lessons are acquired joyously, and are remembered gladly. What gives you
happiness you WANT to learn and not forget.
T 21 B 3. It is not this you would deny. YOUR question is whether the means by
which this course is learned will bring the joy it promises. If you believed it
would, the learning of it would be no problem. You are not happy learners yet,
because you still remain uncertain that vision gives you MORE than judgment
does, and you have learned that both you cannot have. The blind become
accustomed to their world by their adjustments to it. They think they know their
way about in it. They learned it not through joyous lessons, but through the
stern necessity of limits they believed they could not overcome. And, still
believing this, they hold those lessons dear, and cling to them BECAUSE they
cannot see.
T 21 B 4. They do not understand the lessons KEEP them blind. This they do not
believe. And so they keep the world they learned to
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"see" in their imagination, believing that their choice is that, or nothing.
They hate the world they learned through pain. And everything they think is in
it serves to remind them that they are incomplete and bitterly deprived. Thus
they DEFINE their life and where they live it, adjusting to it as they think
they must, afraid to lose the little that they have. And so it is with all who
see the body as all they have, and all their brothers have. They try to reach
each other, and they fail. And fail again. And they adjust to loneliness,
believing that to keep the body is to save the little that they have.
T 21 B 5. Listen, and try to think if you remember what we will speak of now.
Listen, -- perhaps you catch a hint of an ancient state not quite forgotten;
dim, perhaps, and yet not altogether unfamiliar. Like a song whose name is long
forgotten, and the circumstances in which you heard completely unremembered. Not
the whole song has stayed with you, but just a little whisp of melody, attached
not to a person or a place, or anything particular. But you remember, from just
this little part, how lovely was the song, how wonderful the setting where you
heard it, and how you loved those who were there, and listened with you.
T 21 B 6. The notes are nothing; yet you have kept them with you, not for
themselves, but as a soft reminder of what would make you weep, if you
remembered how dear it was to you. You could remember, yet you are afraid,
believing you would lose the world you learned since then. And yet you know that
nothing in the world you learned is half so dear as this. Listen, and see if you
remember an ancient song you knew so long ago, and held more
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dear than any melody you taught yourself to cherish since. Beyond the body,
beyond the sun and stars, past everything you see and yet somehow familiar, is
an arc of golden light that stretches, as you look, into a great and shining
circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes.
T 21 B 7. The edges of the circle disappear, and what is in it no longer is
contained at all. The light expands and covers everything, extending to
infinity, forever shining, and with no break or limit anywhere. Within it,
everything is joined in perfect continuity. Nor is it possible to imagine that
anything could be outside. For there is nowhere that this light is not. This is
the vision of the Son of God, whom you know well. Here is the sight of him who
knows his Father. Here is the memory of what you are; a part of this, with all
of it within you, and joined to all of it as surely as all is joined to you.
T 21 B 8. Accept the vision that can show you this, and not the body. You know
the ancient song, and know it well. Nothing will ever be as dear to you as is
this ancient hymn of love the Son of God sings to his Father still. And now the
blind can see, for that same song they sing in honor of their Creator, gives
praise to them as well. The blindness that they made will not withstand the
memory of this song. And they will look upon the vision of the Son of God,
remembering who he is they sing of. What is a miracle, but this remembering? And
who is there in whom this memory lies not? The light in one, awakens it in all.
And, when you see it in each other, you ARE remembering for everyone.
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T 21 C. The Responsibility for Sight
April 18, 1967
T 21 C 1. We have repeated how little is asked of you to learn this course. It
is the same small willingness you need to have your whole relationship
transformed to joy. The little gift you offer to the Holy Spirit for which He
gives you everything. The very little, on which salvation rests. The tiny change
of mind by which the crucifixion is changed to Resurrection. And, being true, it
is so simple that it cannot fail to be completely understood. Rejected yes, but
NOT ambiguous. And if you choose against it now, it will not be because it is
obscure, but rather that this little cost seemed, in your judgment, to be too
much to pay for peace.
T 21 C 2. This is the only thing that you need do for vision, happiness,
release from pain, and the complete escape from sin, all to be given you. Say
only this, but mean it with no reservations, for here the power of salvation
lies:
T 21 C 3. "I AM responsible for what I see. I CHOSE the feelings I experience,
and I DECIDED ON the goal I would achieve. And everything that SEEMS to happen
TO me, I ASKED FOR and received as I had asked."
T 21 C 4. Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what
is done to you. Acknowledge but that you have been mistaken, and all effects of
your mistakes will disappear.
T 21 C 5. It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events outside
him. It is impossible that the happenings that come to him were not his choice.
His power of decision is the determiner of every situation in which he seems to
find himself by chance or accident. No accident or chance is possible within the
universe as God created it, outside of which is nothing. Suffer, and you decided
sin was your goal. Be happy, and you gave the power of decision to Him Who must
decide for God for you. This is the little gift you offer to the Holy Spirit,
and even this He gave to you to give yourself. For, by this gift ,is given you
the power to release your Saviour, that he
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may give salvation unto you.
T 21 C 6. Begrudge not, then, this little offering. Withhold it, and you keep
the world as now you see it. Give it away, and everything you see goes with it.
Never was so much given for so little. In the holy instant is this exchange
effected and maintained. Here is the world you do not want, brought to the one
you do. And here the one you do is given you, BECAUSE you want it. But, for
this, the power of your wanting must first be recognized. You must accept its
STRENGTH, and not its weakness. You must perceive that what is strong enough to
make a world, can let it go. And can accept correction, if it is willing to see
that it was wrong.
T 21 C 7. The world you see is but the idle witness that you were right. This
witness is insane. You trained it in its testimony, and, as it gave it back to
you, you listened and convinced yourself that what it saw was true. You did this
tO YOURSELF. See only this, and you will also see how circular the reasoning on
which your "seeing" rests. This was not given you. This was your gift to you and
to your brother. Be willing, then, to have it taken from him and be replaced
with truth. And, as you look upon the change in him, it will be given you to see
it in YOURSELF.
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April 20, 1967
T 21 C 8. Perhaps you do not see the need for you to give this little
offering. Look closer, then, at what it IS. And, very simply, see in it the
whole exchange of separation for salvation. All that the ego is, is an idea that
it is possible that things should [99] happen to the Son of God, WITHOUT his
will. And thus, without the Will of his Creator, Whose Will cannot BE separated
from his own. This is the Son of God’s REPLACEMENT for his will, a mad revolt
against what must forever be. This is the statement that he has the power to
make God powerless. And so to take it from himself, and leave himself without
what God has willed for him.
T 21 C 9. This is the mad idea you have enshrined upon your altars, and which
you worship. And anything that threatens this, seems to attack your faith. For
here it is invested. Think not that you are faithless, for your belief and trust
in this is strong indeed. The Holy Spirit can give you faith in holiness, and
vision to see it, easily enough. But you have not left open and unoccupied the
altar where the gift belongs. Where THEY should be, you have set up your idols
to something else. This other will, which seems to tell you what must happen,
you gave reality. And what would show you otherwise must therefore seem unreal.
T 21 C 10. All that is asked of you is to make room for truth. You are not
asked to make or do what lies beyond your understanding. All you are asked to do
is LET IT IN. Only to stop your interference with what will happen of itself.
Simply to recognize again the presence of what you thought you gave away. Be
willing, for an instant, to leave your altars free of what you placed upon them
and what is really there you CANNOT fail to see. The holy instant is not an
instant of creation, but of recognition. For recognition comes of vision and
suspended judgment. Then only is it possible to look within and see what MUST be
there, plainly in sight, and wholly independent of inference and judgment.
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April 21, 1967
T 21 C 11. Undoing is not your task, but it IS up to you to welcome it or not.
Faith and desire go hand in hand. For everyone believes in what he wants. We
have already said that wishful thinking is how the ego deals with what it wants,
to make it so. There is no better demonstration of the power of wanting, and
therefore of faith, to make its goals seem real and possible. Faith in the
unreal leads to adjustments of reality, to make it fit the goal of madness. The
goal of sin induces the perception of a fearful world, to justify its purpose.
What you desire you WILL see. And if its reality is false, you will uphold it by
not realizing all the adjustments you have introduced, to make it so.
T 21 C 12. When vision is denied, confusion of cause and effect becomes
inevitable. The purpose now becomes to keep obscure the cause of the effect, and
make effect appear to be a cause. This seeming independence of effect enables it
to be regarded as standing by itself, and capable of serving as a cause of the
events and feelings its maker thinks it causes. Long ago, we spoke of your
desire to create your own Creator, and be father and not Son to Him. This is the
same desire. The Son is the effect, whose Cause he would deny. And so he seems
to BE the cause, producing real effects.
T 21 C 13. Nothing can have effects without a cause, and to confuse the two is
merely to fail to understand them both. It is as needful that you recognize you
made the world you see, as that you recognize that you did not create yourself.
THEY ARE THE SAME MISTAKE. Nothing created not by your Creator, has any
influence over you. And if you think what you have made can tell you what you
see and feel, and place your faith in its ability to do so, you are denying your
Creator, and believing that you made yourself. For, if you think the world you
made has power to make you what it wills, you ARE confusing Son and Father;
effect and Source.
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T 21 C 14. The Son’s creations are like his Father’s. But, in creating them,
the Son does not delude himself that he is independent of his Source. His union
with It is the Source of his creating. APART from this, he has no power to
create, and what he makes is meaningless. It changes nothing in creation,
depends entirely upon the madness of its maker, and can not serve to justify the
madness. Your brother thinks he made the world with you. Thus he denies
creation. With you, he thinks the world he made, made him. Thus he denies he
made it.
T 21 C 15. Yet the truth is you were both created by a loving Father, Who
created you together and as one. See what "proves" otherwise, and you deny your
whole reality. But grant that everything that seems to stand between you,
keeping you from each other and separate from your Father, you made in secret,
and the instant of release has come to you. All its effects are gone, because
its source has [become] been uncovered. It is its seeming independence of its
source that kept you prisoner. This is the same delusion that you are
independent of the Source by which you were created, and have never left.
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T 21 D. Faith, Belief and Vision
April 23, 1967
T 21 D 1. All special relationships have sin as their goal. For they are
bargains with reality, toward which the seeming union is adjusted. Forget not
this; to bargain is to set a limit, and any brother with whom you have a limited
relationship YOU HATE. You may attempt to keep the bargain in the name of
fairness, sometimes demanding payment of your self, perhaps more often of the
other. And in this "fairness," you attempt to ease the guilt that comes from the
accepted purpose of the relationship. And that is why the Holy Spirit must
change its purpose, to make it useful unto HIM, and harmless unto YOU.
T 21 D 2. If you accept this change, you have accepted the idea of making room
for truth. The SOURCE of sin is gone. You may imagine that you still experience
its effects, but it is not your purpose. And you no longer WANT it. No-one
allows a purpose to be replaced while he desires it. For nothing is so cherished
and protected, as is a goal the mind accepts. This it will follow, grimly or
happily, but always with faith, and with the persistence that faith inevitably
brings. The power of faith is NEVER recognized, if it is placed in sin. But it
is ALWAYS recognized, if it is placed in love.
T 21 D 3. Why is it strange to you that faith can move mountains? This is
indeed a little feat for such a power. For faith can keep the Son of God in
chains, as long as he believes he IS in chains. And, when he is released from
them, it will be simply because he no longer believes in them, withdrawing faith
that they can hold him, and placing it in his freedom instead. It is impossible
to
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place equal faith in opposite directions. What faith you give to sin, you TAKE
AWAY from holiness. And what you offer holiness, has been REMOVED from sin.
T 21 D 4. Faith and belief and vision are the means by which the goal of
holiness is reached. Through them, the Holy Spirit leads you to the real world,
and away from all illusions where your faith was laid. This is His direction,
the only one He ever sees. And, when you wander, He reminds you there IS but
one. His faith and His belief and vision, are all for you. And, when you have
accepted them completely, instead of yours, you will have need of them no
longer. For faith and vision and belief are meaningful only BEFORE the state of
certainty is reached. In Heaven they are unknown. Yet Heaven is reached through
them.
T 21 D 5. It is impossible that the Son of God lack faith. But he can choose
where he would have it BE. Faithlessness in not a lack of faith, but faith in
NOTHING. Faith given to illusions does not lack power, for, by it, does the Son
of God believe that he is powerless. Thus is he faithless to himself, but strong
in faith in his illusions ABOUT himself. For faith, perception, and belief YOU
made, as means for losing certainty, and finding sin. This mad direction was
your choice, and by your faith in what you chose, you made what you desired.
T 21 D 6. The Holy Spirit has a use for all the means for sin by which you
sought to find it. But as He uses them, they lead AWAY from sin, because His
purpose lies in the opposite direction. He sees the MEANS you use, but not the
purpose for which you made them. He would not take them from you, for He sees
their value as a means for what HE wills for you. You made perception, that
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you might choose among your brothers, and seek for sin with them. The Holy
Spirit sees perception as a means to teach you that the vision of a holy
relationship is all you WANT to see.
T 21 D 7. Then will you give your faith to holiness, desiring and believing in
it BECAUSE of your desire. Faith and belief become attached to vision, as all
the means that once served sin are redirected now toward holiness. For what you
think is sin is LIMITATION; and whom you try to limit to the body you hate
because you feaR. In your refusal to forgive him, you would condemn him to the
body, because the means for sin is dear to you. And so the body has your faith
and your belief. But holiness would set your brother free, removing hatred by
removing fear, not as a symptom, but at its source.
T 21 D 8. Those who would free their brothers from the body, can HAVE no fear.
They have renounced the means for sin, by choosing to let all limitations be
removed. Desiring to look upon their brothers in holiness, the power of belief
and faith goes far beyond the body, SUPPORTING vision, not obstructing it. But
first they chose to recognize how much their faith had limited their
understanding of the world, desiring to place its power elsewhere, should
another point of view be given them. The miracles that follow this decision, are
also born of faith. For all who choose to look away from sin are given vision,
and are led to holiness.
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T 21 D 9. Those who believe in sin MUST think the Holy Spirit asks for
sacrifice. For this is how they think THEIR purpose is accomplished. Brothers,
the Holy Spirit knows that sacrifice brings NOTHING. He makes no bargains. And
if you seek to limit Him, you will hate Him because you are afraid. The gift
that He has given you is more than anything that stands this side of Heaven. The
instant for its recognition is at hand. Join your awareness to what has been
ALREADY joined. The faith you give each other can accomplish this. For He Who
loves the world is seeing it for you, without one spot of sin upon it, and in
the innocence which makes the sight of it as beautiful as Heaven.
T 21 D 10. Your faith in sacrifice has given it great power in your sight.
Except you do not realize you cannot see, BECAUSE of it. For sacrifice must be
exacted of a body, and by another body. The mind could neither ask it nor
receive it of itself. And no more could the body.
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The intention is in the mind, which tries to use the body to carry out the means
for sin, in which the MIND believes. Thus is the joining of mind and body an
inescapable belief of those who value sin. And so is sacrifice invariably a
means for limitation. And thus for hate.
T 21 D 11. Think you the Holy Spirit is concerned with THIS? He gives not what
it is His purpose to lead you FROM. You think He would deprive you for your
good. But "good" and "deprivation" are opposites, and cannot meaningfully join
in any way. It is like saying that the moon and sun are one because they come
with night and day. And so they MUST be joined. Yet sight of one is but the sign
the other has disappeared from sight. Nor is it possible that what gives light,
be one with what depends on darkness to be seen. Neither demands the sacrifice
of the other. Yet on the ABSENCE of the other does each depend.
T 21 D 12. The body was made to be a sacrifice to sin. And, in the darkness so
it still is seen. Yet in the light of vision it is looked upon quite
differently. You CAN have faith in it to serve the Holy Spirit’s goal. And give
it power to serve as means to help the blind to see. But, in their seeing, they
look PAST it, as do you. The faith and the belief you gave it BELONG beyond. You
gave perception and belief and faith from mind to body. Let them now be given
back to what produced them, and can use them still to save itself from what it
made.
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T 21 E. The Fear to Look Within
April 24, 1967
T 21 E 1. The Holy Spirit will NEVER teach you that you are sinful. Errors He
will correct, but this makes no-one fearful. You are indeed afraid to look
within, and see the sin you think is there. This you would not be fearful to
admit. Fear in association with sin the ego deems quite appropriate, and smiles
approvingly. It has no fear to let you feel ashamed. It doubts not your belief
and faith in sin. Its temples do not shake because of this. Your faith that sin
is there but witnesses your desire that it BE there to see. This merely seems to
be the source of fear. Remember that the ego is not alone. Its rule IS tempered.
And its unknown "enemy," Whom it cannot even see, it fears.
T 21 E 2. Loudly the ego tells you not to look inward, for if you do, your
eyes will light on sin, and God will strike you blind. This you believe, and so
you do not look. Yet this is not the ego’s hidden fear, nor yours who serve it.
Loudly indeed the ego claims it is. TOO loudly and TOO often. For underneath
this constant shout and frantic proclamation, the ego is not certain it is so.
Beneath your fear to look within because of sin is yet another fear, and one
which makes the ego tremble. What if you looked within, and saw NO sin? This
"fearful" question is one the ego NEVER asks. And you who ask it now are
"threatening" the ego’s whole defensive system too seriously for it to bother to
pretend it is your friend.
T 21 E 3. Those who have joined their brothers HAVE detached themselves from
their belief that their identity lies in the ego. A holy relationship is one in
which you join with what is part of you in TRUTH. And your belief in sin has
been ALREADY shaken, nor are you now entirely unwilling to look within and see
it not. Your liberation still is only partial; still limited and incomplete, yet
born within you. Not wholly mad, you have been willing to look on much of your
insanity, and recognize its madness.
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Your faith is moving inward, past insanity and on to reason. And what your
reason tells you now, the ego would not hear.
T 21 E 4. The Holy Spirit’s purpose was accepted by the part of your mind the
ego knows not of. No more did YOU. And yet this part, with which you now
identify, is not afraid to look upon itself. It KNOWS that it is sinless. How,
otherwise, could it have been willing to see the Holy Spirit’s purpose as its
own? This part has seen your brother, and recognized him perfectly, since time
began. And it desired nothing but to join with him and to be free again, as once
it was. It has been waiting for the birth of freedom; the acceptance of release
to come to you. And now you recognize that it was not the ego that joined the
Holy Spirit’s purpose, and so there MUST be something else.
T 21 E 5. Think not that THIS is madness. For this your REASON tells you. And
it follows perfectly from what you have already learned. There is no
inconsistency in what the Holy Spirit teaches. This is the reasoning of the
SANE. You have perceived the ego’s madness, and not been made afraid, because
you did not choose to share in it. At times it still deceives you. Yet, in your
saner moments, its ranting strikes no terror in your hearts. For you have
realized that all the gifts it would withdraw from you in rage at your
"presumptuous" wish to look within, you do not WANT. The few remaining trinkets
still seem to shine and catch your eye. Yet you would not "sell" Heaven to have
them.
T 21 E 6. And now the ego IS afraid. But what it hears in terror, the other
part hears as the sweetest music; the song it longed to hear since first the ego
came into your minds. The ego’s weakness is its strength. The song of freedom,
which sings the praises of another world, brings to it hope of peace. For it
REMEMBERS Heaven. And now it sees that Heaven has come to earth at last, from
which the ego’s rule has kept it out so long. Heaven has come because it
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found a home in your relationship on earth. And earth can hold no longer what
has been given Heaven as its own.
T 21 E 7. Look gently on each other, and remember the ego’s weakness is
revealed in both your sight. What it would keep apart has met and joined, and
looks upon the ego unafraid. Little children, innocent of sin, follow in
gladness the way to certainty. Be not held back by fear’s insane insistence that
sureness lies in doubt. This has no meaning. What matters it to you how loudly
it is proclaimed? The senseless is not made meaningful by repetition and by
clamor. The quiet way is open. Follow it happily, and question not what must be
so.
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T 21 F. Reason and Perception
April 25, 1967
T 21 F 1. Perception selects, and makes the world you see. It literally picks
it out, as mind directs. The laws of size and shape and brightness would hold,
perhaps, if other things were equal. They are NOT equal. For what you look for
you are far more likely to discover, REGARDLESS of its color, shape, or size,
than what you would prefer to overlook. The still small Voice for God ,is not
drowned out by all the ego’s raucous screams and senseless ravings, to those who
WANT to hear. Perception is a choice, and not a fact.
T 21 F 2. But on this choice depends far more than you may realize as yet.
For, on the voice you choose to hear, and on the sights you choose to see,
depends entirely your whole belief in what you ARE. Perception is a witness but
to this, and never to reality. Yet it can show you the conditions in which
awareness of reality is possible, or those where it could never be. Reality
needs no cooperation from you, to be itself. But your awareness of it needs your
help, because it is your choice.
T 21 F 3. Listen to what the ego says, and see what it directs you see, and it
is sure that you will see yourself as tiny, vulnerable, and afraid. You will
experience depression, a sense of worthlessness, and feelings of impermanence
and unreality. You will believe that you are helpless prey to forces far beyond
your own control, and far more powerful than you. And you will think the world
you made directs your destiny. For this will be your FAITH. But never believe,
because it is your faith, it makes reality. There is another vision and another
voice, in which your freedom lies, awaiting but your choice. And, if you place
your faith in them, you will perceive another Self in you.
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April 26, 1967
T 21 F 4. This other self sees miracles as natural. They are as simple and
natural to it as breathing to the body. They are the obvious response to calls
for help, the only one it makes. Miracles seem unnatural to the ego, because it
does not understand how separate minds can influence each other. Nor COULD they
do so. But minds cannot BE separate. This other self is perfectly aware of this.
And thus it recognizes that miracles do not affect another’s mind, only its Own.
They always change YOUR mind. There IS no other.
T 21 F 5. You do not realize the whole extent to which the idea of separation
has interfered with reason. Reason lies in the other self you have cut off from
your awareness. And nothing you have allowed to stay in it is capable of reason.
How can the segment of the mind devoid of reason understand what reason is? Or
grasp the information it would give? All sorts of questions may arise in it,
but, if the basic question stems from reason, it will not ask it. Like all that
stems from reason, the basic question is obvious, simple, and remains unasked.
But think not reason could not answer it.
T 21 F 6. God’s plan for your salvation could not have been established
without your will and your consent. It must have been accepted by the Son of
God, for what God wills for him, he MUST receive. For God wills not, apart from
him. Nor does the Will of God wait upon time to be accomplished. Therefore, what
joined the Will of God must be in you NOW, being eternal. You must have set
aside a place in which the Holy Spirit can abide, and where He IS. He must have
been there since the need for Him arose, and was fulfilled in the same instant.
T 21 F 7. Such would your reason tell you, if you listened. Yet such is
clearly not the ego’s "reasoning." Its alien nature, to the ego, is proof you
will not find the answer there. Yet if it must be so, it must exist. And, if it
exists for you, and has your freedom as the purpose given it, you must be
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free to FIND it. God’s plan is simple; never circular, and never self-defeating.
He has no Thoughts except the self-EXTENDING, and in this, your will must be
included. Thus there must be a part of you that knows His Will and shares It.
T 21 F 8. It is not meaningful to ask if what must be is so. But it IS
meaningful to ask why you are UNAWARE of what is so. For this must have an
answer, if the plan of God for your salvation is complete. And it must BE
complete, because its Source knows not of incompletion. Where would the answer
be, but in the Source? And where are YOU but there, where this same answer is?
Your identity, as much a true effect of this same Source as is this Answer, must
therefore be together and the same.
T 21 F 9. Oh yes, you know this. And more than this alone. But any part of
knowledge threatens dissociation as much as all of it. And all of it will come
with any part. Here is the part you can accept. What reason points to, you can
see, because the witnesses on its behalf are clear. Only the totally insane can
disregard them. And you have gone past this. Reason is a means which serves the
Holy Spirit’s purpose in its own right. It is not REinterpreted and REDIRECTED
from the goal of sin, as are the others. For reason is beyond the ego’s range of
means.
T 21 F 10. Faith and perception and belief can be misplaced, and serve the
great deceiver’s needs, as well as truth. But reason has no place at all in
madness, nor can it be adjusted to fit its ends. Faith and belief are strong in
madness, guiding perception toward what the mind has valued. But reason enters
not at all in this. For the perception would fall away at once, if reason were
applied. There IS no reason in insanity, for it depends entirely on reason’s
absence. The ego never uses it, because it does not realize that it exists.
T 21 F 11. The partially insane have access to it. And only they have need of
it. Knowledge does not depend on it, and madness keeps it out. The part of mind
where reason lies was dedicated, by your will in union with your Father’s, to
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the undoing of insanity. Here was the Holy Spirit’s purpose accepted and
accomplished, both at once. Reason is alien to insanity, and those who use it
have gained a means which cannot be applied to sin. Knowledge is far beyond
attainment of any kind. But reason can serve to open doors you closed against
it.
T 21 F 12. You have come very close to this. Faith and belief have shifted, and
you have asked the question that the ego will NEVER ask. Does not your reason
tell you now the question must have come from something that you do not know,
but must belong to you? Faith and belief, upheld by reason, cannot fail to lead
to changed perception. And in this change, is room made way for vision. Vision
extends beyond itself, as does the purpose which it serves, and all the means
for its accomplishment.
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T 21 G. Reason and Correction
May 1, 1967
T 21 G 1. Reason cannot see sin, but CAN see errors, and leads to their
correction. It does not value them, but their correction. But reason will also
tell you when you think you sin you call for help, but if you will not accept
the help you call for, you will not believe that it is yours to give. And so you
will not give it, thus MAINTAINING the belief. For uncorrected error of any kind
deceives you about the power that is in you, to MAKE correction. If it can
correct, and you allow it not to do so, you deny it to yourself and to your
brother. And, if he shares this same belief, you both will think that you are
damned.
T 21 G 2. This you could spare him and YOURSELF. For reason would not make way
for correction in you alone. Correction cannot be accepted or refused by you,
without your brother. Sin would maintain you can. But reason tells you that you
cannot see your brother or yourself as sinful, and still perceive the other
innocent. Who looks upon himself as guilty, and sees a sinless world? And who
can see a sinful world, and look upon himself apart from it? Sin would maintain
you must be separate. But reason tells you that this must be wrong.
T 21 G 3. If you are joined, how could it be that you have private thoughts?
And how could thoughts that enter into what but seems like yours alone, have no
effect at all on what IS yours? If minds are joined, this is impossible. No-one
can think but for himself, as God thinks not without His Son. Only were both in
bodies could this be. Nor could one mind think only for itself, unless the body
WERE the mind. For only bodies can be separate, and therefore unreal. The home
of madness cannot be the home of reason. Yet it is easy to leave the home of
madness, if you see reason.
T 21 G 4. You do not leave insanity by going somewhere else. You leave it
simply by accepting reason, where madness was. Madness and reason see the same
things, but it is certain that they look upon them differently. Madness is an
attack on reason, that drives it out of mind, and takes its place. Reason does
not
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attack, but takes the place of madness quietly, replacing madness if it be the
will of the insane to listen to it. But the insane know not their will. For they
believe they see the body, and let their madness tell them it is real. Reason
would be incapable of this. And, if you would defend the body against your
reason, you will not understand the body or yourself.
T 21 G 5. The body does not separate you from your brother. And, if you think
it does, you are insane. But madness has a purpose, and believes it also has the
means to make its purpose real. To see the body as a barrier between what reason
tells you MUST be joined, must be insane. Nor could you see it, if you heard the
voice of reason. What can there be that stands between what is continuous? And
if there is nothing in between, how can what enters part be kept away from other
parts? Reason would tell you this. But think what you must recognize, if it be
so. If you choose sin instead of healing, you would condemn the Son of God to
what can never be corrected.
T 21 G 6. You tell him, by your choice, that he is damned; separate from you
and from his Father, forever and without a hope of safe return. You teach him
this, and you will learn of him EXACTLY what you taught. For you can teach him
only that he is as you would have him. And what you chose he be, is but your
choice for YOU. Yet think not this is fearful. That you are joined to him is but
a fact, not an interpretation. How can a fact be fearful, unless it disagrees
with what you hold more dear than truth? Reason will tell you that this fact is
your RELEASE. Neither your brother nor yourself can be attacked alone. But
neither can accept a miracle instead, WITHOUT the other being blessed by it, and
healed of pain.
T 21 G 7. Reason, like love, would reassure you, and NOT seek to frighten you.
The power to heal the Son of God is given you, because he MUST be one with you.
You ARE responsible for how he sees himself. And reason tells you it is given
you to change his whole mind, which is one with you, in just an instant. And any
instant serves to bring complete correction of his errors, and make him whole.
The instant that you choose to let YOURSELF be healed, in that
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same instant is his whole salvation seen as complete with yours. Reason is given
you to understand that this is so. For reason, kind as is the purpose for which
it is the means, leads steadily away from madness, toward the goal of truth.
T 21 G 8. And here you will lay down the burden of denying truth. THIS is the
burden that is terrible, and not the truth. That you are joined is your
salvation; the gift of Heaven, not the gift of fear. Does Heaven seem to be a
burden to you? In madness, yes; and yet what madness sees, must be dispelled by
reason. Reason assures you Heaven is what you WANT, and ALL you want. Listen to
Him Who speaks with reason, and brings your reason in line with His. Be willing
to let reason be the means by which He would direct you how to leave insanity
behind. Hide not behind insanity, in order to escape from reason.
T 21 G 9. What madness would conceal, the Holy Spirit still holds out, for
everyone to look upon with gladness. You ARE your brother’s Saviour. He is
YOURS. Reason speaks happily indeed of this. This gracious plan was given love
by Love. And what Love plans is like Itself in this: Being united, It would have
you learn what YOU must be. And being one with It, it must be given you to give
what It has given, and gives still. Spend but an instant in the glad acceptance
of what is given you to give your brother, and learn, with him, what has been
given BOTH of you.
T 21 G 10. To give is no more blessed than to receive. But neither is it less.
The Son of God is ALWAYS blessed as one. And, as his gratitude goes out to you
who blessed him, reason will tell you that it cannot be you stand apart from
blessing. The gratitude he offers you reminds you of the thanks your Father
gives you for completing Him. And here alone does reason tell you that you can
understand what you must be. Your Father is as close to you as is your brother.
Yet what is there that could be nearer you, than is your Self?
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T 21 G 11. The power that you have over the Son of God is not a threat to his
reality. It but ATTESTS to it. Where could his freedom lie but in himself, if he
be free already? And who could bind him but himself, if he deny his freedom? God
is not mocked; no more His Son can be imprisoned, save by his own desire. And it
is by his own desire that he is freed. Such is his strength, and not his
weakness. He IS at his own mercy. And where he chooses to be merciful, there is
he free. But where he chooses to condemn instead, there is he held a prisoner,
waiting in chains his pardon on himself to set him free.
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T 21 H. Perception and Wishes
May 5, 1967
T 21 H 1. Do you not see that all your misery comes from the strange belief
that you are powerless? Being helpless is the COST of sin. Helplessness is sin’s
condition; the one requirement that it demands, to be believed. Only the
helpless COULD believe in it. Enormity has no appeal, save to the little. And
only those who first believe that they are little, could see attraction there.
Treachery to the Son of God is the defense of those who do not identify with
him. And you are for him or against him; either you love him or attack him;
protect his unity, or see him shattered and slain by your attack.
T 21 H 2. No-one believes the Son of God is powerless. And those who see
themselves as helpless MUST believe that they are not the Son of God. What can
they be, except his enemy? And what can they do but envy him his power, and by
their envy, make themselves afraid of it? These are the dark ones, silent and
afraid, alone and not communicating, fearful the power of the Son of God will
strike them dead, and raising up their helplessness against him. They join the
army of the powerless, to wage their war of vengeance, bitterness, and spite on
him, to make him one with them.
T 21 H 3. Because they do not know that they are one with him, they know not
whom they hate. They are indeed a sorry army, each one as likely to attack his
brother or turn upon himself, as to remember they thought they had a common
cause. Frantic and loud and strong the dark ones seem to be. Yet they know not
their enemy, except they HATE him. In hatred they have come together, but have
not joined each other. For, had they done so, hatred would be impossible. The
army of the powerless must be disbanded in the presence of strength.
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T 21 H 4. Those who are strong are NEVER treacherous, because they have no
need to dream of power, and to act out their dream. How would an army act in
dreams? Any way at all. It could be seen attacking anyone, with anything. Dreams
have no reason in them. A flower turns into a poisoned spear, a child becomes a
giant, and a mouse roars like a lion. And love is turned to hate as easily. This
is no army, but a madhouse. What seems to be a planned attack is bedlam. The
army of the powerless is weak indeed. It has no weapons and it has no enemy.
T 21 H 5. Yes, it can overrun the world, and SEEK an enemy. But it can never
find what is not there. Yes, it can DREAM it found an enemy, but this will shift
even as it attacks, so that it runs at once to find another, and never comes to
rest in victory. And, as it runs, it turns against itself, thinking it caught a
glimpse of the great enemy which always eludes its murderous attack by turning
into something else. How treacherous does this enemy appear, who changes so, it
is impossible even to recognize him! Yet hate must have a target. There can be
no faith in sin without an enemy.
T 21 H 6. Who that believes in sin would DARE believe he has no enemy? Could
he admit that no-one made him powerless? Reason would surely bid him seek no
longer what is not there to find. Yet first he must be willing to perceive a
world where it is not. It is not necessary that he understand HOW he can see it.
Nor should he try. For, if he focuses on what he cannot understand, he will but
emphasize his helplessness, and let sin tell him his enemy must be HIMSELF. But
let him only ask himself these questions, which he must decide to have it done
for him:
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"Do I DESIRE a world I rule , instead of one where I AM ruled ?
Do I DESIRE a world where I am powerful , instead of helpless ?
Do I DESIRE a world in which I have no enemies , and cannot sin?
And do I want to see what I deny [ied] , BECAUSE it is the truth ?"
T 21 H 7. You have already answered the first three questions, but not yet the
last. For this one still seems fearful, and unlike the others. Yet reason would
assure you they are all the same. We said this year would emphasize the sameness
of things that ARE the same. This final question which is indeed the last you
need decide, still seems to hold a threat the rest have lost for you. And this
imagined difference attests to your belief that truth may be the enemy you yet
may find. Here, then, would seem to be the last remaining hope of finding sin,
and not accepting power.
T 21 H 8. Forget not that the choice of truth or sin, power or helplessness,
is the choice of whether to attack or heal. For healing comes of power, and
attack of helplessness. Whom you attack, you CANNOT want to heal. And whom you
would have healed, must be the one you chose to be PROTECTED from attack. And
what is this decision, but the choice whether to see him through the body’s
eyes, or let him be revealed to you through vision? HOW this decision leads to
its effects is not your problem. But what you WANT to see, MUST be your choice.
This is a course in CAUSE, and not effect.
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T 21 H 9. Consider carefully your answer to the last question you have left
unanswered still. And let your reason tell you that it must be answered, and IS
answered in the other three. And then it will be clear to you that, as you look
on the effects of sin, in any form, all you need do is simply ask yourself, "Is
this what I would see?" Do I WANT this?" This is your one decision; this the
condition for what occurs. It is irrelevant to HOW it happens, but not to WHY.
You HAVE control of this. And if you choose to see a world without an enemy, in
which you are not helpless, the means to see it WILL be given you.
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May 6 1967
T 21 H 10. Why is the final question so important? Reason will tell you why. It
is the same as are the other three, except in TIME. The others are decisions
which can be made, and then unmade, and made again. But truth is constant, and
implies a state where vacillations are impossible. You can desire a world you
rule, which rules you not, and change your mind. You can desire to exchange your
helplessness for power, and lose this same desire as a little glint of sin
attracts you. And you can want to see a sinless world, and let an "enemy" tempt
you to use the body’s eyes, and change what you desire.
T 21 H 11. In content all the questions ARE the same. For each one asks if you
are willing to exchange the world of sin for what the Holy Spirit sees. For it
is this the world of sin denies. And therefore those who look on sin are seeing
the denial of the real world. Yet the last question adds the wish for CONSTANCY
in your desire to see the real world, so the desire becomes the ONLY one you
have. By answering the final question "yes," you add sincerity to the decisions
you have already made to all the rest. For only then have you renounced the
option to change your mind again. When it is this you do NOT want, the rest are
really answered.
T 21 H 12. Why do you think you are unsure the others HAVE been answered? Could
it be necessary they be asked so often, if they had? Until the last decision has
been made, the answer is both yes and no. For you have answered "yes," without
perceiving that yes MUST mean not no. No-one decides against his happiness. But
he may do so, if he does not know he does it. And, if he sees his happiness as
ever-changing, now this, now that, and now an elusive shadow attached to
nothing, he DOES decide against it.
T 21 H 13. Elusive happiness, or happiness in changing forms that shift with
time and place, is an illusion that has no meaning. Happiness MUST be constant,
because it is attained by giving up the wish for the INconstant. Joy cannot be
perceived, EXCEPT through constant vision. And constant
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vision can be given only those who WISH for constancy. The power of the Son of
God’s desire remains the proof that he is wrong who sees himself as helpless.
Desire what you will, and you shall look on it, and think it real. No thought
but has the power to release or kill. And none can leave the thinker’s mind, or
leave him unaffected.
T 21 I. The Inner Shift
T 21 I 1. Are thoughts, then, dangerous? To bodies, YES. The thoughts that
seem to kill are those which teach the thinker that he CAN be killed. And so he
dies, BECAUSE of what he learned. He goes from life to death, the final proof he
valued the inconstant more than constancy. Surely he THOUGHT he wanted
happiness. Yet he did not desire it BECAUSE it was the truth, and therefore MUST
be constant. The constancy of joy is a condition quite alien to your
understanding. Yet, if you could even imagine what it must be, you would desire
it, although you understand it not.
T 21 I 2. The constancy of happiness has no exceptions, no change of any kind.
It is unshakable as is the Love of God for His creation. Sure in its vision as
its Creator is in what He knows, it looks on everything and sees it is the same.
It sees not the ephemeral, for it desires that everything be like itself, and
sees it so. Nothing has power to confound its constancy, because its own desire
can not be shaken. It comes as surely unto those who see the final question is
necessary to the rest, as peace must come to those who choose to heal, and not
to judge.
T 21 I 3. Reason will tell you that you CANNOT ask for happiness inconstantly.
For, if what you desire you receive, and happiness is constant, then you need
ask for it but ONCE, to have it ALWAYS. And, if you do not have it always, being
what it is, you did not ask for it. For no-one fails to ask for his desire of
something he believes holds out some promise of the power of giving it. He may
be wrong in what he asks, where, and of what. Yet he WILL ask, because desire is
a request, an asking for, and made by one whom God Himself will never fail to
answer.
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T 21 I 4. God has already given him all that he REALLY wants. But what he is
uncertain of, God CANNOT give. For he does not desire it while he remains
uncertain, and God’s giving must be incomplete unless it is received. You who
complete His Will and are His happiness, whose will is powerful as His, -- a
power that is not lost in your illusions, -- think carefully why it should be
you have not yet decided how you would answer the final question. Your answer to
the others has made it possible to help you be but partially insane. And yet it
is the final one that really asks if you are willing to be WHOLLY sane.
T 21 I 5. What is the holy instant but God’s appeal to you to recognize what
He has given you? Here is the great appeal to reason; the awareness of what is
always there to see; the happiness that could be always yours. Here is the
constant peace you could experience forever. Here is what denial has denied,
REVEALED to you. For here the final question is ALREADY answered, and what you
ask for, given. Here is the future NOW, for time is powerless because of your
desire for what will never change. For you have asked that nothing stand between
the holiness of your relationship, and your AWARENESS of its holiness.
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Chapter XXII - 22 - Salvation And The Holy Relationship
T 22 A. Introduction
May 7, 1967.
T 22 A 1. Take pity on yourselves, so long enslaved. Rejoice whom God hath
joined have come together, and need no longer look on sin apart. No two can look
on sin together, for they could never see it in the same place and time. Sin is
a strictly individual perception, seen in the other, yet believed by each to be
within himself. And each one seems to make a different error, and one the other
cannot understand. Brothers, it IS the same, made by the same, and forgiven for
its maker in the same way.
T 22 A 2. The holiness of your relationship forgives you both, undoing the
effects of what you both believed and saw. And, with their going, is the NEED
for sin gone with them. Who has need for sin? Only the lonely and alone, who see
their brothers different from themselves. It is this difference, seen but not
real, that makes the need for sin, not real but seen, seem justified. And all
this would be real, if sin were so. For an unholy relationship is based on
differences, where each one thinks the other has what he has not.
T 22 A 3. They come together, each to complete himself and rob the other. They
stay until they think there’s nothing left to steal, and then move on. And so
they wander through a world of strangers, unlike themselves, living with their
bodies perhaps beneath a common roof that shelters neither; in the same room and
yet a world apart. A holy relationship starts from a different premise. Each one
has looked within, and seen no lack. Accepting his completion, he would extend
it by joining with another, whole as himself.
T 22 A 4. He sees no differences between these selves, for differences are
only of the body. Therefore, he looks on nothing he would take. He
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denies not his own reality BECAUSE it is the truth. Just under Heaven does he
stand, but close enough not to return to earth. For this relationship has
Heaven’s holiness. How far from home can a relationship so like to Heaven be?
Think what a holy relationship can teach! Here is belief in differences undone.
Here is the faith in differences shifted to sameness. And here is sight of
differences transformed to VISION.
T 22 A 5. And reason now can lead you to the logical conclusion of your union.
It must extend, as you extended when you joined. It must reach out beyond
itself, as you reached out beyond the body to LET yourselves be joined. And now
the sameness which you saw extends, and finally removes all sense of
differences, so that the sameness that lies beneath them all becomes apparent.
Here is the golden circle, where you recognize the Son of God. For what is born
into a holy relationship can NEVER end.
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T 22 B. The Message of the Holy Relationship
May 13, 1967
T 22 B 1. Let reason take another step. If you attack whom God would heal and
hate the one He loves, then you and your Creator have a DIFFERENT will. Yet, if
you ARE His Will, what you MUST then believe is that you are not yourself. You
can, indeed, believe this, and you DO. And you HAVE faith in this, and see much
evidence on its behalf. And where, you wonder, does your strange uneasiness,
your sense of being disconnected, and your haunting fear of lack of meaning in
yourself arise? It is as though you wandered in, without a plan of any kind
except to wander off, for only that seems certain.
T 22 B 2. Yet we have heard a very similar description earlier. But it was not
of you. And yet, this strange idea which it DOES accurately describe, you think
IS you. Reason would tell you that the world you see through eyes that are not
yours, MUST make no sense to you. To whom would vision such as this send back
its messages? Surely not you, whose sight is wholly independent of the eyes
which look upon the world. If this is not your vision, what can it show to you?
The brain can not interpret what YOUR vision sees. This you would understand.
The brain interprets to the body, of which it is a part. But what it says, YOU
cannot understand.
T 22 B 3. Yet you have listened to it. And long and hard you tried to
understand its messages. You did not realize it is impossible to understand what
fails entirely to reach you. You have received no messages at all you
understood. For you have listened to what can never communicate at all. Think,
then, what happened. Denying what you are, and firm in faith that you are
something else, this something else, which you have made to be yourself, BECAME
your sight. Yet it must be the something else which sees, and, as NOT you,
explains its sight to you.
T 22 B 4. YOUR vision would, of course, render this quite unnecessary. But, if
your eyes are closed, and you have called upon this thing to lead you, asking it
to explain to you the world it sees, you have no reason not to listen, nor to
suspect that what it tells you is not true. Reason would tell you that it can’t
be true, BECAUSE you do not understand it. God has no secrets. He does not lead
you through a world of misery, waiting
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to tell you, at the journey’s end, why He did this to you. What could be secret
from His Will? Yet you believe that YOU have secrets. What could your secrets be
except ANOTHER will, that is your own, apart from His?
T 22 B 5. Reason would tell you that this is no secret, that need be hidden as
a sin. But a mistake indeed! Let not your fear of sin protect it from
correction, for the attraction of guilt is only fear. Here is the one emotion
that you made, whatever it may seem to be. And it is the emotion of secrecy, of
private thoughts, and of the body. This is the one emotion that opposes love,
and always leads to sight of differences, and loss of sense of sameness. Here is
the one emotion that keeps you blind, dependent on the self you think you made,
to lead you through the world it made for you.
T 22 B 6. Your sight was given you, along with everything that you can
understand. You will perceive no difficulty in understanding what this vision
tells you. For everyone sees only what he thinks he IS. And what your sight will
show you, you will understand BECAUSE it is the truth. Only your vision can
convey to you what YOU can see. It reaches you directly, without a need to be
interpreted to you. What needs interpretation MUST be alien. Nor will it ever be
made understandable, by an interpreter you cannot understand. Of all the
messages you have received and failed to understand, this course alone is OPEN
to your understanding, and CAN be understood.
T 22 B 7. This is your language. You do not understand it yet, only because
your whole communication is like a baby’s. The sounds a baby makes, and what he
hears, are highly unreliable, meaning different things to him at different
times. Neither the sounds he hears, nor sights he sees, are stable yet. Yet what
he hears and does not understand will be his native tongue, through which he
will communicate with those around him, and they with him. And the strange,
shifting ones he sees about him will become to him his comforters, and he will
recognize his home, and see them there with him.
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T 22 B 8. So, in each holy relationship, is the ability to communicate instead
of separate reborn. Yet a holy relationship, so recently reborn itself from an
unholy relationship, and yet more ancient than the old illusion that it has
replaced, IS like a baby now, in its rebirth. Yet, in this infant is your vision
returned to you, and he will speak the language both of you can understand. He
is not nurtured by the "something else" you thought was you. He was not given
there, nor was received by anything except yourself. For no two people can unite
except through Christ, Whose vision sees them one.
T 22 B 9. Think what is given you, my holy brothers. This child will teach you
what you do not understand, and make it plain. For his will be no alien tongue.
He will need no interpreter to you. For it was you who taught him what he knows,
BECAUSE you knew it. He could not come to anyone but you, never to something
else. Where Christ has entered, no-one is alone, for never could He find a home
in separate ones. Yet must He be reborn into His ancient home, so seeming new
and yet as old as He, a tiny newcomer, dependent on the holiness of your
relationship, to let Him live.
T 22 B 10. Be certain God does not entrust His Son to the unworthy. Nothing but
what is part of Him is worthy of being joined. Nor is it possible that anything
not part of Him CAN join. Communication must have been restored to those that
join, for this they could not do through bodies. What, then, has joined them?
Reason will tell you that they must have seen each other through a vision not of
the body, and communicated in a language the body does not speak. Nor could it
be a fearful sight or sound that drew them gently into one. Rather, in each, the
other saw a perfect shelter where his Self could be reborn in safety and in
peace. Such did his reason tell him; such he believed BECAUSE it is the truth.
T 22 B 11. Here is the first direct perception that you have made. You made it
through awareness older than perception, and yet reborn in just an instant. For
what is time to what was always so? Think what that instant brought; the
recognition that the "something else" you thought was you
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is an illusion. And truth came instantly to show you where your self must be. It
is denial of illusions that calls on truth. For to deny illusions is to
recognize that fear is meaningless. Into the holy home where fear is powerless,
love enters thankfully, grateful that it is one with you who joined to let it
enter.
T 22 B 12. Christ comes to what is like Himself; the same, not different. For He
is always drawn unto Himself. What is as like Him as a holy relationship? And
what draws you together, draws Him to you. Here is His sweetness, and His gentle
innocence protected from attack. And here can He return in confidence, for faith
in one another is always faith in Him. You are indeed correct in looking on each
other as His chosen home. For here you willed with Him and with His Father. This
is your Father’s Will for you, and yours with Him. And who is drawn to Christ is
drawn to God, as surely as both are drawn to every holy relationship, the home
prepared for them as earth is turned to Heaven.
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T 22 C. Your Brother’s Sinlessness
May 15, 1967
T 22 C 1. The opposite of illusions is not disillusionment, but truth. Only to
the ego, to which truth is meaningless, do they appear to be the only
alternatives, and different from each other. In truth, they are the same. Both
bring the same amount of misery, though each one seems to be the way to lose the
misery the other brings. Every illusion carries pain and suffering in the dark
folds of the heavy garments with which it hides its nothingness. Yet, in these
dark and heavy garments, are those who seek illusions covered, and hidden from
the joy of truth. Truth is the opposite of illusions, because it offers joy.
T 22 C 2. What else but joy could be the opposite of misery? To leave one kind
of misery and seek another, is hardly an escape. To change illusions is to make
no change. The search for joy in misery is senseless. For how could joy be found
in misery? All that is possible in the dark world of misery is to select some
aspects out of it, see them as different, and define the difference as joy. Yet
to perceive a difference where none exists will surely fail to MAKE a
difference. Illusions carry only guilt and suffering, sickness and death, to
their believers. The form in which they are accepted is irrelevant. No form of
misery, in reason’s eyes, can be confused with joy.
T 22 C 3. Joy is eternal. You can be sure indeed that any seeming happiness
which does not last is really fear. Joy does not turn to sorrow, for the eternal
cannot change. But sorrow CAN be turned to joy, for time gives way to the
eternal. Only the timeless must remain unchanged. But everything in give time
can change with time. Yet, if the change be real and not imagined, illusions
must way to truth, and not to other dreams which are but equally unreal. This is
no difference. Reason will tell you that the only way to escape from misery is
to recognize it, AND GO THE OTHER WAY.
T 22 C 4. Truth is the same and misery the same, but they ARE different from
each other. In every way, in every instance, and without exception. To believe
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that one exception can exist, is to confuse what is the same with what is
different. ONE illusion cherished and defended against the truth, makes ALL
truth meaningless and ALL illusions real. Such is the power of belief. It cannot
compromise. And faith in innocence is faith in sin, if the belief excludes one
living thing, and holds it out, apart from its forgiveness. Both reason and the
ego will tell you this. But what they MAKE of it is not the same.
T 22 C 5. The ego will assure you now that it is impossible for you to see no
guilt in anyone. And if this vision is the ONLY means by which escape from guilt
can be attained, then the belief in sin must be eternal. Yet reason looks on
this another way. For reason sees the SOURCE of an idea as what will make it
true or false. This must be so, if the idea is LIKE its source. Therefore, says
reason, if escape from guilt was given to the Holy Spirit as His purpose, and by
One to Whom nothing He wills CAN be impossible, the means for its attainment are
MORE than possible. They must be there, and you must HAVE them.
T 22 C 6. This is a crucial period in this course. For here, the separation of
you and the ego must be made complete. For, if you HAVE the means to let the
Holy Spirit’s purpose be accomplished, they can be used. And, THROUGH their use,
will you gain faith in them. Yet, to the ego, they must be impossible, and
no-one undertakes to do what holds no hope of ever being done. You know what
your Creator wills is possible. But what you made believes it is not so. Now
must you choose between yourself and the ILLUSION of yourself. NOT both, but
ONE.
T 22 C 7. There is no point in trying to avoid this one decision. It MUST be
made. Faith and belief can fall to either side, but reason tells you that misery
lies only on one side, and joy upon the other. FORSAKE not now each other.
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For you who are the same will not decide alone. or differently. Either you give
each other life or death; either you are each other’s Saviour or his judge,
offering him sanctuary or condemnation. This course will be believed entirely,
or not at all. For it is wholly true or wholly false, and cannot be but
partially believed. And you will either escape from misery entirely, or not at
all.
T 22 C 8. Reason will tell you that there is no middle ground where you can
pause uncertainly, waiting to choose between the joy of Heaven and the misery of
hell. Until you choose Heaven, you ARE in hell and misery. There is no part of
Heaven you can take, and weave into illusions. Nor is there one illusion you can
enter Heaven with. A Saviour cannot be a judge, nor mercy condemnation. And
vision cannot damn, but only bless. Whose function is to save, will save. HOW He
will do it is beyond your understanding, but WHEN must be your choice. For time
you made, and time you CAN command. You are no more a slave to time than to the
world you made.
T 22 C 9. Let us look closer at the whole illusion that what you made has
power to enslave its maker. This is the same belief that caused the separation.
It is the meaningless idea that thoughts can leave the thinker’s mind, be
different from it, and IN OPPOSITION to it. If this were true, thoughts would
not be the mind’s extensions, but its enemies. And here we see again another
form of the same fundamental illusion we have seen many times before. Only if it
were possible the Son of God could leave his Father’s Mind, make himself
different, and oppose His Will, would it be possible that the self he made, and
all it made, should be his master.
T 22 C 10. Behold the great projection, but look on it with the decision that
it must be healed, and not with fear. Nothing you made has any power over you,
unless you still would be apart from your Creator, and with a will opposed to
His. For only if you would believe His Son could be His enemy, does it
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seem possible that what YOU made is yours. You would condemn His joy to misery,
and make Him different. And all the misery you made has been your own. Are you
not GLAD to learn it is not true? Is it not welcome news to hear not one of the
illusions that you made replaced the truth?
T 22 C 11. Only YOUR thoughts have been impossible. Salvation CANNOT be. It IS
impossible to look upon your Saviour as your enemy, and recognize him. Yet it IS
possible to recognize him for what he is, if God would have it so. What God has
given to your holy relationship is THERE. For what He gave the Holy Spirit to
give to you, He GAVE. Would you not look upon the Saviour Who has been given
you? And would you not exchange, in gratitude and gladness, the function of an
executioner you gave him for the one he has in truth? Receive of him what God
has given him for you, not what you tried to give.
T 22 C 12. Beyond the bodies that you interposed between you, and shining in
the golden light which reaches it from the bright endless circle that extends
forever, is your holy relationship, beloved of God, and holy as Himself. How
still it rests, in time and yet beyond, immortal yet on earth. How great the
power that lies in it. Time waits upon its will, and earth will be as it would
have it be. Here is no separate will, nor the desire that ANYTHING be separate.
Its will has no exceptions, and what it wills is true. Every illusion brought to
its forgiveness is gently overlooked, and disappears. For, at its center, Christ
has been reborn, to light His home with vision that overlooks the world.
T 22 C 13. Would you not have this holy home be yours as well? No misery is
here but only joy. All you need do to dwell in quiet here with Christ is share
His vision. Quickly and gladly is His vision given to anyone who is but willing
to see his brother sinless. And no-one can remain beyond this willingness, if
you would be released entirely from all effects of sin. Would you have partial
forgiveness for yourself? Can you reach Heaven while a single sin still tempts
you to remain in misery? Heaven is the home of perfect purity. And God created
it for YOU. Look on your holy brother, sinless as yourself, and let him lead you
there.
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T 22 D. Reason and the Holy Relationship
T 22 D 1. The introduction of reason into the ego's thought system is the
beginning of its undoing. For reason and the ego are contradictory. Nor is it
possible for them to co-exist in your awareness. And reason's goal is to make
plain, and therefore obvious. You can SEE reason. This is not a play on words,
for here is the beginning of a vision that has meaning. Vision is sense, quite
literally. If it is not the body's sight, it MUST be understood. For it is
PLAIN, and what is obvious is not ambiguous. It CAN be understood. And here do
reason and the ego separate, to go their different ways.
T 22 D 2. The ego's whole continuance depends on its belief you cannot learn
this course. Share this belief, and reason will be unable to see your errors and
make way for their correction. For reason sees THROUGH errors, telling you what
you thought was real is not. Reason can see the difference between sin and
mistakes because it WANTS correction. Therefore, it tells you what you thought
was uncorrectable CAN be corrected, and thus it must have been an error. The
ego's opposition to correction leads to its fixed belief in sin, and disregard
of errors. It looks on NOTHING that can be corrected. Thus does the ego damn,
and reason save.
T 22 D 3. Reason is not salvation in itself, but it makes way for peace, and
brings you to a state of mind in which salvation can be given you. Sin is a
block, set like a heavy gate, locked and without a key, across the road to
peace. No-one who looks on it without the help of reason would try to pass it.
The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it would be madness to
attempt to pass it. Yet reason sees through it easily BECAUSE it is an error.
The form it takes cannot conceal its emptiness from reason's eyes.
T 22 D 4. ONLY the form of error attracts the ego. Meaning it does not
recognize, and does not know if it is there or not. Everything which the body's
eyes can see
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is a mistake, an error in perception, a distorted fragment of the whole, without
the meaning that the whole would give. And yet mistakes, regardless of their
form, can be corrected. Sin is but error in a special form the ego venerates. It
would preserve all errors, and make them sins. For here is its own stability,
its heavy anchor in the shifting world it made; the rock on which its church is
built, and where its worshippers are bound to bodies, and believe the body's
freedom is their own.
T 22 D 5. Reason will tell you that the form of error is not what makes it a
mistake. If what the form CONCEALS is a mistake, the form cannot prevent
correction. The body's eyes see ONLY form. They cannot see beyond what they were
MADE to see. And they were made to look on error, and not see past it. Theirs is
indeed a strange perception, for they can see only illusions, unable to look
beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of nothing. To
this distorted form of vision, the outside of everything, the wall that stands
between you and the truth, is wholly true. Yet how can sight which stops at
nothingness, as if it were a solid wall, see truly? It is held back by form,
having been made to guarantee that nothing else but form will be perceived.
T 22 D 6. These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see. For the idea they
represent left not its maker, and it is their maker that sees through them. What
was its maker's GOAL but not to see? For this the body's eyes are perfect means,
but not for SEEING. See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and cannot go
beyond. Watch how they stop at nothingness, unable to go beyond the form to
meaning. Nothing so blinding as perception of form. For sight of form means
understanding has been obscured.
T 22 D 7. Only MISTAKES have different forms, and so they can deceive. You can
change form BECAUSE it is not true. It could not be reality BECAUSE it can be
changed. Reason will tell you that if form is not reality, it must be an
illusion, and is not THERE to see.
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And, IF you see it, you MUST be mistaken, for you are seeing what can NOT be
real as if it WERE. What cannot see beyond what is not there MUST be distorted
perception, and must perceive illusions as the truth. Could it, then, RECOGNIZE
the truth?
T 22 D 8. Let not the FORM of his mistakes keep you from him whose holiness is
yours. Let not the vision of his holiness, the sight of which would show you
your forgiveness, be kept from you by what the body's eyes can see. Let your
awareness of your brother not be blocked by your perception of his sins, and of
his body. What is there in him that you would attack except what you associate
with his body, which YOU believe can sin? Beyond his errors is HIS holiness and
YOUR salvation. You gave him not his holiness, but tried to see your sins in him
to save yourself. And yet, his holiness IS your forgiveness. Can YOU be saved by
making sinful the one whose holiness is your salvation?
T 22 D 9. A holy relationship, however newly born, must value holiness above
all else. Unholy values will produce confusion, and in AWARENESS. In an unholy
relationship, each one is valued because he seems to justify the other's sin. He
sees within the other what impels him to sin against his will. And thus he lays
his sins upon the other, and is attracted to him to PERPETUATE his sins. And so
it must become impossible for each to see himself as CAUSING sin by his desire
to have sin real. Yet reason sees a holy relationship as what it is; a common
state of mind, where both give errors gladly to correction that both may happily
be healed as one.
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T 22 E. The Branching of the Road
[Special Message: March 11, 1968]
March 11, 1968
T 22 E 1. Special Message:
When you come to the place where the branch in the road is quite apparent, you
cannot go ahead. You MUST go one way or the other. For now, if you go straight
ahead, the way you were going before you came to the branch, YOU WILL GO
NOWHERE. The whole purpose of coming this far is to decide WHICH BRANCH YOU WILL
TAKE FROM HERE ON. The way you came no longer matters. IT CAN NO LONGER SERVE.
T 22 E 2. No-one who reaches this far CAN make the wrong decision. But he CAN
delay. And there is no part of the journey that seems more hopeless and futile
than standing where the road branches, and not deciding which way to go. It is
only the first few steps along the right way that seem hard, because you HAVE
chosen, but you still think you can go back and make the other choice.
T 22 E 3. This is not so. A choice made with the power of Heaven to uphold it
cannot BE undone. Your way IS decided.
T 22 E 4. There will be nothing you will NOT be told, if you acknowledge this.
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May 24, 1967
T 22 E 5. And so you stand, here in this holy place, before the veil of sin
that hangs between you and the face of Christ. LET it be lifted! Raise it
together, for it is but a veil that stands between you. Either alone will see it
as a solid block, nor realize how thin the drapery that separates you now. Yet
it is almost over, in your awareness, and peace has reached you even here,
before the veil. Think what will happen after! The love of Christ will light
your faces, and shine from them into a darkened world that NEEDS the light. And,
from this holy place He will return with you, not leaving it or you.
T 22 E 6. You will become His messengers, returning Him unto Himself. Think of
the loveliness that you will see, who walk with Him! And think how beautiful
will each of you look to the other! How happy you will be to be together, after
such a long and lonely journey where you walked alone. The gates of Heaven, open
now for you, will you now open to the sorrowful. And none who looks upon the
Christ in you but will rejoice. How beautiful the sight you saw beyond the veil,
which you will bring to light the tired eyes of those as weary now as once you
were. How thankful will they be to see you come among them, offering Christ’s
forgiveness to dispel their faith in sin.
T 22 E 7. Every mistake you make the other will gently have corrected for you.
For, in his sight, your loveliness is his salvation, which he would protect from
harm. And each will be the other’s strong protector from everything that seems
to rise between you. So shall you walk the world with me, whose message has not
yet been given everyone. For you are here to let it be RECEIVED. God’s offer
still is open; yet it waits acceptance. From you who have accepted it, is it
received. Into your joined hands is it safely given. For you who share it have
become its willing guardians and protectors.
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T 22 E 8. To all who share the love of God the grace is given to be the givers
of what they have received. And so they learn that it is theirs forever. All
barriers disappear before their coming, as every obstacle was finally surmounted
that seemed to rise and block their way before. This veil you lift together
opens the way to truth to more than you. Those who would let illusions be lifted
from their minds are this world’s Saviours, Walking the world with their
Redeemer, and carrying His message of hope and freedom and release from
suffering to everyone who needs a miracle to save him.
T 22 E 9. How easy is it to offer this miracle to everyone! No-one who has
received it for himself could find it difficult. For, by receiving it, he
learned it was not given him alone. Such is the function of a holy relationship;
to receive together, and give as you received. Standing before the veil, it
still seems difficult. But hold out your joined hands and touch this
heavy-seeming block, and you will learn how easily your fingers slip through its
nothingness. It is no solid wall. And only an illusion stands between you and
the holy Self you share.
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T 22 F. Weakness and Defensiveness
May 25, 1967
T 22 F 1. How does one overcome illusions? Surely not by force or anger. Nor
by opposing them in any way. Merely by letting reason tell you that they
CONTRADICT reality. They go against what must be true. The opposition comes from
them, and not reality. Reality opposes nothing. What merely is, needs no
defense, and offers none. Only illusions need defense, because of weakness. And
how can it be difficult to walk the way of truth, when only weakness interferes?
YOU are the strong ones in this seeming conflict. And you need no defense.
Everything that needs defense you do not want. For anything that needs defense
will WEAKEN you.
T 22 F 2. Consider what the ego wants defenses FOR. Always to justify what
goes against the truth, flies in the face of reason, and makes no sense. Can
this BE justified? What can this be, except an invitation to insanity, to save
you from the truth? And what would you be saved from, but what you fear? Belief
in sin needs great defense, and at enormous cost. All that the Holy Spirit
offers must be defended against, and sacrificed. For sin is carved into a block
out of your peace, and laid between you and its return. Yet how can peace be so
fragmented? It is still whole, and nothing has been taken from it.
T 22 F 3. See how the means and the material of evil dreams are nothing! In
truth, you stand together, with nothing in between. God holds your hands, and
what can separate whom He has joined as one with Him? It is your Father Whom you
would defend against. Yet it remains impossible to keep Love out. God rests with
you in quiet, undefended and wholly undefending. For in this quiet state alone
is strength and power. Here can no weakness enter, for here is no attack, and
therefore no illusions. Love rests in certainty. Only uncertainty can be
defensive. And all uncertainty is doubt about YOURSELF.
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T 22 F 4. How weak is fear; how little and how meaningless! How insignificant
before the quiet strength of those whom love has joined! This is your "enemy;" a
frightened mouse which would attack the universe. How likely is it that it will
succeed? Can it be difficult to disregard its feeble squeaks that tell of its
omnipotence, and would drown out the hymn of praise to its Creator that every
heart throughout the universe forever sings as one? Which is the stronger? Is it
this tiny mouse, or everything that God created? You are not joined together by
this mouse, but by the Will of God. And can a mouse betray whom God has joined?
T 22 F 5. If you but recognized how little stands between you and your
awareness of your union! Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size
and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body’s
eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain. Yet,
within you, there is a force which no illusions can resist. This body only seems
to be immovable. This force is irresistible in truth. What, then, must happen
when they come together? Can the illusion of immovability be long defended for
what is quietly past through and gone beyond?
6. Forget not, when you feel the need arise to be defensive about anything,
you have identified your self with an illusion. And therefore feel that you are
weak, because you are alone. This is the cost of ALL illusions. Not one but
rests on the belief that you are separate. Not one that does not seem to stand,
heavy and solid and unmovable, between you and your brother. And not one that
truth can not pass over lightly, and so easily that you must be convinced, in
spite of what you thought it was, that it was nothing. If you forgive each
other, this MUST happen. For it is your unwillingness to overlook what seems to
stand between you that makes it look impenetrable, and defends the illusion of
its immovability.
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T 22 G. Freedom and the Holy Spirit
June 3, 1967
T 22 G 1. Do you want freedom of the body, or of the mind? For both you cannot
have. Which do you value? Which is your goal? For one you see as means; the
other, end. And one must serve the other, and lead to its predominance,
increasing its importance by diminishing its own. Means serve the end, and as
the end is reached, the value of the means decreases, and is eclipsed entirely
when they are recognized as functionless. No-one but yearns for freedom, and
tries to find it. But he will seek for it where he believes it is, and can be
found. He will believe it possible of mind or body, and he will make the other
serve his choice, as means to find it.
T 22 G 2. Where freedom of the body has been chosen, the mind is used as
means, whose value lies in its ability to contrive ways to achieve the body’s
freedom. Yet freedom of the body has no meaning. And so the mind is dedicated to
serve illusions. This is a situation so contradictory and so impossible that
anyone who chooses this has no idea of what is valuable. Yet even in this
confusion, so profound it cannot be described, the Holy Spirit waits in gentle
patience, as certain of the outcome as He is sure of His Creator’s love. He
knows this mad decision was made by one as dear to His Creator as Love is to
Itself.
T 22 G 3. Be not disturbed at all to think how He can change the role of means
and end so easily in what God loves, and would have free forever. But be you,
rather, grateful that YOU can be the means to serve His end. This is the only
service which leads to freedom. To serve this end, the body must be perceived as
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sinless, because the goal is sinlessness. The lack of contradiction makes the
soft transition from means to end as easy as is the shift from hate to gratitude
before forgiving eyes. You WILL be sanctified by one another, using your bodies
only to serve the sinless. And it will be impossible for you to hate what serves
what you would heal.
T 22 G 4. This holy relationship, lovely in its innocence, mighty in strength,
and blazing with a light far brighter than the sun which lights the sky you see,
is chosen of your Father as a means for His Own plan. Be thankful that it serves
yours not at all. Nothing entrusted to it can be misused. And nothing given it
but will be used. This holy relationship has the power to heal all pain,
regardless of its form. Neither of you alone can serve at all. Only in your
joint will does healing lie. For here YOUR healing is, and here will you accept
Atonement. And in your healing is the Sonship healed, BECAUSE your wills are
joined.
T 22 G 5. Before a holy relationship there is no sin. The form of error is no
longer seen. And reason, joined with love, looks quietly on all confusion,
observing merely, "this was a mistake." And then the same Atonement you accepted
in your relationship, corrects the error, and lays a part of Heaven in its
place. How blessed are you, who let this gift be given! Each part of Heaven that
you bring, is given YOU. And every empty place in Heaven that you fill again
with the Eternal Light you bring, shines now on YOU. The means of sinlessness
can know no fear, because they carry only love with them.
T 22 G 6. Children of peace, the light HAS come to you. The light you bring
you do not recognize, and yet you will remember. Who
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can deny himself the vision that he brings to others? And who would fail to
recognize a gift he let be laid in Heaven through himself? The gentle service
that you give the Holy Spirit is service to yourself. You who are now His means
must love all that He loves. And what you bring is your remembrance of
everything that is eternal. No trace of anything in time can long remain in
minds that serve the timeless. And no illusion can disturb the peace of a
relationship which has become the means of peace.
T 22 G 7. When you have looked upon each other with complete forgiveness, from
which no error is excluded and nothing kept hidden, what mistake can there be
anywhere you can not overlook? What form of suffering could block your sight,
preventing you from seeing past it? And what illusion could there be you will
not recognize as a mistake; a shadow through which you walk completely
undismayed? God would let nothing interfere with those whose wills are His. And
they will recognize their wills are His, BECAUSE they serve His Will. AND SERVE
IT WILLINGLY. How can it NOT be theirs? And COULD remembrance of what they are
be long delayed?
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June 5, 1967
T 22 G 8. You will see your value through each other’s eyes, and each one is
released as he beholds his Saviour in place of the attacker who he thought was
there. Through this releasing is the world released. This is your part in
bringing peace. For you have asked what is your function here, and have been
answered. Seek not to change it, nor to substitute another goal. This one was
GIVEN you, and ONLY this. Accept this one, and serve it willingly, for what the
Holy Spirit does with the gifts you give each other, to whom He offers them, and
where and when, is up to Him.
T 22 G 9. He will bestow them where they are received and welcomed. He will
use every one of them for peace. Nor will one little smile, or willingness to
overlook the tiniest mistake, be lost to anyone. What can it be but universal
blessing to look on what your Father loves with charity? Extension of
forgiveness is the Holy Spirit’s function. Leave this to Him. Let your concern
be only that you give to Him that which can BE extended. Save no dark secrets
that He cannot use. But offer Him the tiny gifts He can extend forever.
T 22 G 10. He will take each one, and make of it a potent force for peace. He
will withhold no blessing from it, or limit it in any way. He will join to it
all the power that God has given Him, to make each little gift of love a source
of healing for everyone. Each little gift you offer to the other lights up the
world. Be not concerned with darkness; look away from it, and toward each other.
And let the darkness be dispelled by Him Who knows the light, and lays it gently
in each quiet smile of faith and confidence with which you bless each other.
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June 8, 1967
T 22 G 11. On your learning depends the welfare of the world. And it is only
arrogance that would deny the power of your will. Think you the Will of God is
powerless? Is this humility? You do not see what this belief has done. You see
yourself as vulnerable, frail, and easily destroyed. And at the mercy of
countless attackers more powerful than you. Let us look straight at how this
error came about, for here lies buried the heavy anchor that seems to keep the
fear of God in place, unmovable and solid as a rock. While this remains, so will
it seem to be.
T 22 G 12. Who can attack the Son of God and NOT attack his Father? How can
God’s Son be weak and frail and easily destroyed, UNLESS his Father is? You do
not see that every sin and every condemnation which you perceive and justify IS
an attack upon your Father. And that is why it has not happened, nor COULD be
real. You do not see that this is your attempt, because you think the Father and
the Son are separate. And you MUST think that they are separate, because of
fear. For it seems safer to attack another or yourself, than to attack the great
Creator of the universe, Whose power you KNOW.
T 22 G 13. If you were one with Him, and RECOGNIZED this oneness, you would
know His power is YOURS. But you will not remember this, while you believe
attack of any kind means anything. It is unjustified in any form, BECAUSE it has
no meaning. The only way it could be justified is if each one of you were
separate from the other, and all were separate from your Creator. For only then
would it be possible to attack a part of the creation without the whole; the Son
without the Father. And to attack another, without yourself; or hurt yourself,
without the other feeling pain.
T 22 G 14. And this belief, you WANT. Yet wherein lies its value, except in the
desire to attack in safety? Attack is neither safe nor dangerous. It is
IMPOSSIBLE. And this is so, BECAUSE the universe is one. You would not
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choose attack on its reality, if it were not essential to attack to see it
SEPARATE FROM ITS CREATOR. And thus it seems as if love could attack, and become
fearful. Only the DIFFERENT can attack. So you conclude, BECAUSE you can attack,
you must be different. Yet does the Holy Spirit explain this differently.
BECAUSE you are not different, you CAN NOT attack.
T 22 G 15. Either position is a logical conclusion, if only the different can
attack. Either could be maintained, but never both. The only question to be
answered to decide which must be true, is whether you ARE different. From the
position of what you understand, you seem to be. And therefore can attack. Of
the alternatives, this seems more natural, and more in line with your
experience. And therefore it is necessary that you have other experiences, more
in line with truth, to teach you what IS natural and true. This is the function
of your holy relationship. For what one thinks, the other will experience with
him. What can this mean, EXCEPT your minds are one?
T 22 G 16. Look not with fear upon this happy fact, and think not that it lays
a heavy burden on you. For, when you have accepted it with gladness, you will
realize that your relationship is a reflection of the union of the Creator and
His Son. From loving minds, there IS no separation. And every thought in one
brings gladness to the other, BECAUSE they are the same. Joy is unlimited,
because each shining thought of Love extends its being, and creates more of
itself. There is no difference anywhere within it. For every thought is like
itself.
T 22 G 17. The light that joins you shines throughout the universe. And,
because it joins you, so it makes you one with your Creator. And, in Him, is all
creation joined. Would you regret you cannot fear alone, when your relationship
can also teach the power of love is there, which makes all fear impossible? Do
not attempt to keep a little of the ego with this gift. For it was given to be
USED, and not obscured. What teaches you
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638
you cannot separate, DENIES the ego. Let truth decide if you be different or the
same, and teach you which is true.
Chapter XXIII - 23 - The War Against Yourself
T 23 A. Introduction
June 12, 1967
T 23 A 1. Do you not see the opposite of frailty and weakness is sinlessness?
Innocence is strength, and nothing else is strong. The sinless cannot fear. And
fear of any kind is weakness. The show of strength attack would use to cover
frailty, conceals it not. For how can the unreal be hidden? No-one is strong who
has an enemy. And no-one can attack, unless he thinks he has. Belief in enemies
is therefore the belief in weakness. And what is weak is NOT the Will of God.
Being opposed to It, it is Its "enemy." And God is feared, as an OPPOSING will.
T 23 A 2. How strange indeed becomes this war against yourself! You will
believe that everything you use for sin can hurt you, and become your enemy. And
you will fight against it, and try to weaken it, because of this. And you will
think that you succeeded, and attack again. It is as certain you will fear what
you attack, as it is sure that you will love what you perceive as sinless. He
walks in peace who travels sinlessly along the way love shows him. For love
walks with him there, protecting him from fear. And he will see only the
sinless, who can not attack.
T 23 A 3. Walk you in glory, with your head held high, and fear no evil, The
innocent are safe, because they share their innocence. Nothing they see is
harmful, for their awareness of the truth releases everything from the illusion
of harmfulness. And what seemed harmful now stands shining in their innocence,
released from sin and fear, and happily returned to love. They share the
strength of love BECAUSE they looked on innocence. And every error disappeared,
because they saw it not. Who looks for glory finds it where it IS. Where could
it be, but in the innocent?
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T 23 A 4. Let not the little interferers pull you to littleness. There CAN be
no attraction of guilt in innocence. Think what a happy world you walk, with
truth beside you! Do not give up this world of freedom, for a little sigh of
seeming sin, nor for a tiny stirring of guilt’s attraction. Would you, for all
these meaningless distractions, lay Heaven aside? Your destiny and purpose are
far beyond them, in the clean place where littleness does not exist. Your
purpose is at variance with littleness of any kind. And so it is at variance
with sin.
T 23 A 5. Let us not let littleness lead God’s Son into temptation. His glory
is BEYOND it, measureless and timeless as eternity. Do not let time intrude upon
your sight of him. Leave him not frightened and alone in his temptation. But
help him rise above it, and perceive the light of which he is a part. Your
innocence will light the way to his, and so is yours protected, and KEPT in your
awareness. For who can know his glory, and perceive the little and the weak
about him? Who can walk trembling in a fearful world, and realize that Heaven’s
glory shines in him?
T 23 A 6. Nothing around you but is part of you. Look on it lovingly, and see
the light of Heaven in it. So will you come to understand all that is given you.
In kind forgiveness will the world sparkle and shine, and everything you once
thought sinful now will be re-interpreted as part of Heaven. How beautiful it is
to walk, clean and redeemed and happy, through a world in bitter need of the
redemption that your innocence bestows upon it! What can you value more than
this? For here is your salvation and your freedom. And it must be complete, if
YOU would recognize it.
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T 23 B. The Irreconcilable Beliefs
June 20, 1967
T 23 B 1. The memory of God comes to the quiet mind. It cannot come where
there is conflict, for a mind at war against itself remembers not eternal
gentleness. The means of war are not the means of peace. And what the warlike
would remember is not love. War is impossible unless belief in victory is
cherished. Conflict within you must imply that you believe the ego has the power
to BE victorious. Why else would you identify with it? Surely you realize the
ego is at war with God. Certain it is it has no enemy. But just as certain is
its fixed belief it has an enemy that it must overcome, and WILL succeed.
T 23 B 2. Do you not realize a war against yourself would BE a war on God? Is
victory conceivable? And if it were, is this a victory that you would WANT? The
death of God, if it were possible, would be YOUR death. Is this a VICTORY? The
ego ALWAYS marches to defeat, because it thinks that triumph over you is
possible. And God thinks otherwise. This is no war. Only the mad belief the Will
of God can be attacked and overthrown. You may IDENTIFY with this belief, but
never will it be more than madness. And fear will reign in madness, and will
seem to have replaced love there. This is the conflict’s PURPOSE. And to those
who think that it is possible, the means seem real.
T 23 B 3. Be certain that it is impossible God and the ego, or yourself and
it, will EVER meet. You SEEM to meet, and make your strange alliances, on
grounds that have no meaning. For your beliefs converge upon the body, the ego’s
chosen home, which you believe is YOURS. You meet at a mistake;-- an error in
your self-appraisal. The ego joins with an illusion of yourself you SHARE with
it. And yet illusions cannot join. They are the same, and they are nothing.
Their joining lies in nothingness;
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two are as meaningless as one, or as a thousand. The ego joins with nothing,
BEING nothing. The victory it seeks is meaningless as is itself.
T 23 B 4. Brothers, the war against yourself is almost over. The journey’s end
is at the place of peace. Would you not now accept the peace offered you here?
This enemy you fought as an intruder on your peace is here transformed before
your sight into the giver of your peace. Your "enemy" was God Himself, to Whom
all conflict, triumph, and attack of any kind are all unknown. He loves you
perfectly, completely, and eternally. The Son of God at war with his Creator is
a condition as ridiculous as nature roaring at the wind in anger, and
proclaiming that it is part of itself no longer.
T 23 B 5. Could nature possibly establish this, and make it true? Nor IS it up
to you to say what shall be part of you, and what is kept apart. The war against
yourself was undertaken to teach the Son of God that he is not himself, and not
his Father’s Son. For this, the memory of his Father MUST be forgotten. It IS
forgotten in the body’s life, and, if you think you are a body, you will believe
you HAVE forgotten it. But truth can never be forgotten by ITSELF. And you have
NOT forgotten what you are. Only a strange illusion of yourself, a wish to
triumph over what you are, remembers not.
T 23 B 6. The war against yourself is but the battle of two illusions,
struggling to make them different from each other, in the belief the one which
conquers will be true. There IS no conflict between them and the TRUTH. Nor ARE
they different from each other. Both are not true. And so it matters not what
form they take. What made them is insane, and they remain part of what made
them. Madness holds out no menace to reality, and has no influence upon it.
Illusions CANNOT triumph over truth, nor can they
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threaten it in any way. And the reality which they deny is not a part of them.
T 23 B 7. What YOU remember IS a part of you. For you MUST be as God created
you. Truth does not fight against illusions, nor do illusions fight against the
truth. Illusions battle only with themselves. Being fragmented, they fragment.
But truth is indivisible, and far beyond their little reach. You will remember
what you know when you have learned you cannot be in conflict. One illusion
about yourself can battle with another, yet the war of two illusions is a state
where NOTHING happens. There is no victor, and there is no victory. And truth
stands radiant, apart from conflict, untouched and quiet, in the peace of God.
T 23 B 8. Conflict must be between two forces. It can not exist between one
power and nothingness. There is nothing you could attack that is not part of
you. And, BY attacking it, you make two illusions of yourself, in conflict with
each other. And this occurs whenever you look on anything that God created with
anything but love. Conflict is fearful, for it is the birth of fear. Yet what is
born of nothing cannot win reality through battle. Why would you fill your world
with conflicts with yourself? Let all this madness be undone for you, and turn
in peace to the remembrance of God, still shining in your quiet mind.
T 23 B 9. See how the conflict of illusions disappears, when it is brought to
truth! For it seems real only as long as it is seen as war between conflicting
truths, the conqueror to be the truer, the more real, the vanquisher of the
illusion that was less real, made an illusion by defeat. For conflict is the
choice BETWEEN illusions, one to be crowned as real, the other vanquished and
despised. Here will the Father NEVER be remembered. Yet no illusion can invade
His home, and drive Him out of what He loves forever. And what He loves must be
forever quiet and at peace BECAUSE it
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is His home. And you who are beloved of Him are no illusions, being as true and
holy as Himself.
T 23 B 10. The stillness of your certainty of Him and of yourself is home to
both of you, who dwell as one, and not apart. Open the doors of His most holy
home, and let forgiveness sweep away all trace of the belief in sin that keeps
God homeless, and His Son with Him. You are not strangers in the house of God.
Welcome your brother to the home where God has set him in serenity and peace,
and dwells with him. Illusions have no place where love abides, protecting you
from everything that is not true. You dwell in peace as limitless as its
Creator. And everything is given those who would remember Him.
T 23 B 11. Over His home the Holy Spirit watches, sure that its peace can never
be disturbed. How can the resting place of God turn on itself, and seek to
overcome the One Who dwells there? And think what happens when the house of God
perceives itself divided. The altar disappears, the light grows dim, the temple
of the Holy One becomes a house of sin. And nothing is remembered, except
illusions. Illusions can conflict, because their forms are different. And they
do battle only to establish which form is true.
T 23 B 12. Illusion meets illusion; truth, itself. The meeting of illusions
leads to war. Peace looking on itself extends itself. War is the condition in
which fear is born, and grows and seeks to dominate. Peace is the state where
love abides, and seeks to share itself. Conflict and peace are opposites; where
one abides, the other cannot be; where either goes, the other disappears. So is
the memory of God obscured in minds that have become illusion’s battleground.
Yet far beyond this senseless war it shines, ready to be remembered when you
side with peace.
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T 23 C. The Laws of Chaos
June 28, 1967
T 23 C 1. The "laws of chaos" can be brought to light, though never
understood. Chaotic laws are hardly meaningful, and therefore out of reason’s
sphere. Yet they appear to constitute an obstacle to reason and to truth. Let
us, then, look upon them calmly, that we may look beyond them, understanding
what they are, not what they would maintain. It is essential it be understood
what they are for, because it is their purpose to make meaningless, and to
attack the truth. Here are the laws that rule the world you made. And yet they
govern nothing, and need not be broken; merely looked upon and gone beyond.
T 23 C 2. The first chaotic law is that the truth is different for everyone.
Like all these principles, this one maintains that each is separate, and has a
different set of thoughts which sets him off from others. This principle evolves
from the belief there is a hierarchy of illusions; some are more valuable, and
therefore true. And each establishes this for himself, and MAKES it true by his
attack on what another values. This is justified because the values differ, and
those who hold them seem to be unlike, and therefore enemies.
T 23 C 3. Think how this seems to interfere with the first principle of
miracles. For this establishes degrees of truth among illusions, making it
appear that some of them are harder to overcome than others. If it were realized
that they are all the same and equally untrue, it would be easy, then, to
understand that miracles apply to ALL of them. Errors of any kind can be
corrected, BECAUSE they are untrue. When brought to truth, instead of to EACH
OTHER, they merely disappear. No part of nothing can be more resistant to the
truth than can another.
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T 23 C 4. The second law of chaos, dear indeed to every worshipper of sin, is
that each one must sin, and therefore deserves attack and death. This principle,
closely related to the first, is the demand that errors call for punishment, and
not correction. For the destruction of the one who makes the error places him
beyond correction, and beyond forgiveness. What he has done is thus interpreted
as an irrevocable sentence on himself, which God Himself is powerless to
overlook. Sin cannot be remitted, being the belief the Son of God can make
mistakes for which his own destruction becomes inevitable.
T 23 C 5. Think what this seems to do to the relationship between the Father
and the Son. Now it appears that they can never be one again. For One must
always be condemned, and by the OTHER. Now are they different, and ENEMIES. And
their relationship is one of opposition, just as the separate aspects of the Son
meet only to conflict, but not to join. One becomes weak, the other strong by
his defeat. And fear of God, and of each, other now appears as sensible, made
real by what the Son of God has done, both to himself and his Creator.
T 23 C 6. The arrogance on which the laws of chaos stand could not be more
apparent than emerges here. Here is a principle which would define what the
Creator of reality must be; what He must think, and what He must believe; and
how He must respond, believing it. It is not seen as even necessary that He be
asked about the truth of what has been established for His belief. His Son can
tell Him this, and He has but the choice whether to take his word for it, or be
mistaken.
T 23 C 7. This leads directly to the third preposterous belief that seems to
make chaos eternal. For if God cannot BE mistaken, then He must accept his Son’s
belief in what he is, and hate him for it. See how the fear of God is reinforced
by this third principle. Now it becomes impossible to turn to Him for help in
misery. For now He has become the "enemy" Who "caused" it, and to Whom appeal is
useless. Nor can salvation lie within the Son,
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whose every aspect seems to be at war with Him, and justified in its attack.
T 23 C 8. And now is conflict made inevitable, and beyond the help of God. And
now salvation must remain impossible, because the Saviour has become the enemy.
There can be no release and no escape. Atonement thus becomes a myth, and
vengeance, not forgiveness, is the Will of God. From where all this begins,
there is no sight of help that can succeed. Only destruction can BE the outcome.
And God Himself seems to be siding with it, to overcome His Son. Think not the
ego will enable you to find escape from what it wants. That is the function of
this course, which does not value what the ego cherishes.
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June 29, 1967
T 23 C 9. The ego values only what it TAKES. This leads to the fourth law of
chaos which, if the others are accepted, must be true. This seeming law is the
belief you HAVE what you have taken. By this, another’s loss becomes your gain,
and thus it fails to recognize that you can never " take away" save from
YOURSELF. Yet all the other laws must lead to this. For enemies do not give
willingly to one another, nor would they seek to share the things they value.
And what your enemies would keep from you must be worth having, just because
they keep it hidden from your sight.
T 23 C 10. All of the mechanisms of madness are seen emerging here. The
"enemy," made strong by keeping hidden the valuable inheritance which should be
yours; your justified possession, and attack for what has been withheld; and the
inevitable loss the enemy must suffer, to save yourself. Thus do the guilty ones
protest their innocence. Were they not forced into this foul attack by the
unscrupulous behavior of the enemy, they would respond with only kindness. But,
in a savage world, the kind cannot survive. So they must take, or else be taken
from.
T 23 C 11. And now there is a vague, unanswered question, not yet "explained."
What is this precious thing, this priceless pearl, this hidden secret treasure,
to be wrested in righteous wrath from this most treacherous and cunning enemy?
It must be what you want, and never found. And now you "understand" the reason
why you found it not. For it was taken from you by the enemy, and hidden where
you would not think to look. He hid it in his body, making it the cover for his
guilt; the hiding place for what belongs to you.
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T 23 C 12. Now must his body be destroyed and sacrificed, that you may have
that which belongs to you. His treachery demands his death, that YOU may live.
And you attack only in self-defense. But what is it you want, that NEEDS his
death? Can you be sure your murderous attack is justified, unless you know what
it is FOR? And here a final principle of chaos comes to the "rescue." It holds
there is a SUBSTITUTE for love. This is the "magic" that will cure all of your
pain; the missing factor in your madness that makes it "sane." This is the
reason why you must attack. Here is what makes your vengeance justified.
T 23 C 13. Behold, unveiled, the ego’s secret gift, torn from your brother’s
body, hidden there in malice and in hatred for the one to whom the gift belongs.
He would deprive you of the secret ingredient which would give meaning to your
life. The substitute for love, born of your enmity to one another, must be
salvation. It has no substitute, and there is only one. And all relationships
have but the purpose of seizing it, and making it your own. Never is your
possession made complete. And never will your brother cease his own attack on
you, for what you stole. Nor will God end His vengeance upon both, for, in His
madness, He must have this substitute for love, and kill you both.
T 23 C 14. You who believe you walk in sanity, with feet on solid ground, and
through a world where meaning can be found, consider this: These ARE the laws on
which your "sanity" appears to rest. These ARE the principles which makes the
ground beneath your feet seem solid. And it IS here you look for meaning. These
are the laws you made for your salvation. They hold in place the substitute for
Heaven that you prefer. This is their purpose; they were made for this. There is
no point in asking what they
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June 30, 1967
mean. This is apparent. The means of madness must be insane. Are you as certain
that you realize the GOAL is madness?
T 23 C 15. No-one WANTS madness, nor does anyone cling to his madness if he
sees that this is what it IS. What protects madness is the belief that it is
TRUE. It is the function of insanity to take the PLACE of truth. It must be seen
as truth, to be believed. And if it is the truth, then must its opposite, which
was the truth before, be madness now. Such a reversal, completely turned around,
with madness sanity, illusions true, attack a kindness, hatred love, and murder
benediction, is the goal the laws of chaos serve. These are the means by which
the laws of God appear to be reversed. Here do the laws of sin appear to hold
love captive, and let sin go free.
T 23 C 16. These do not SEEM to be the goals of chaos. For, by the great
reversal, they appear to be the laws of ORDER. How could it not be so? Chaos is
lawlessness, and HAS no laws. To be believed, its seeming laws must be perceived
as real. Their goal of madness must be seen as sanity. And fear, with ashen lips
and sightless eyes, blinded and terrible to look upon, is lifted to the throne
of love, its dying conqueror, its substitute, the saviour from salvation. How
lovely do the laws of fear make death appear! Give thanks unto the hero on
love’s throne, who saved the Son of God for fear and death!
T 23 C 17. And yet, how can it be that laws like these can be believed? There
is a strange device that makes this possible. Nor is it unfamiliar; we have seen
how it appears to function many times before. In truth, it does NOT function,
yet in dreams, where only shadows play the major roles, it seems most powerful.
No law of chaos could compel belief, but for the emphasis on form and disregard
of CONTENT. No-one who thinks that one of them is true SEES what it says. Some
forms it takes seem
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to have meaning, and that is all.
T 23 C 18. How can some forms of murder NOT mean death? Can an attack in ANY
form be love? What FORM of condemnation is a blessing? Who makes his Saviour
powerless, and FINDS salvation? Let not the form of the attack on him deceive
you. You CANNOT seek to harm him, and be saved. Who can find safety from attack
by turning on himself? How can it matter what the form this madness takes? It is
a judgment that defeats itself, condemning what it says it wants to save. Be not
deceived when madness takes a form you think is lovely. What is intent on your
destruction, is NOT your friend.
T 23 C 19. You would maintain, and think it true, that you do not believe such
senseless laws, nor act upon them. And, when you look at what they SAY, they
cannot be believed. Brothers, you DO believe them. For how else could you
perceive the form they take, with content such as this? Can ANY form of this be
tenable? Yet you believe them FOR the forms they take, and do not RECOGNIZE the
content. It never changes. Can you paint rosy lips upon a skeleton, dress it in
loveliness, pet it and pamper it, and make it LIVE? And can you be content with
an illusion that you are living?
T 23 C 20. There IS no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, there
life must be. In any state apart from Heaven, life is illusion. At best, it
seems like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is not
life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. Life not in Heaven is
impossible, and what is not in Heaven is not anywhere. Outside of Heaven, only
the conflict of illusions stands; senseless, impossible and beyond all reason,
and yet perceived as an eternal barrier to Heaven. Illusions ARE but forms.
Their content is NEVER true.
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T 23 C 21. The laws of chaos govern all illusions. Their forms conflict, making
it seem quite possible to value some above the others. Yet each one rests as
surely on the belief the laws of chaos are the laws of order, as do the others.
Each one upholds these laws completely, offering a certain witness that these
laws are true. The seeming gentler form of the attack is no less certain in its
witnessing, or its results. Certain it is illusions will bring fear, because of
the beliefs that they imply, not for their form. And lack of faith in love, in
ANY form, attests to chaos as reality.
T 23 C 22. From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos MUST follow. It is
because it follows that it seems to be a logical conclusion; a valid step in
ordered thought. The steps to chaos DO follow neatly from their starting-point.
Each is a different form in the progression of truth’s reversal, leading still
deeper into terror, and away from truth. Think not one step is smaller than
another, nor that return from one is easier. The whole descent from Heaven lies
in each one. And where your thinking starts, there must it end.
T 23 C 23. Brothers, take not one step in the descent to hell. For having taken
one, you will not recognize the rest for what they are. And they WILL follow.
Attack in any form has placed your foot upon the twisted stairway that leads
from Heaven. Yet, any instant, it is possible to have all this undone. How can
you know whether you chose the stairs to Heaven or the way to hell? Quite
easily. What do you feel? Is peace in your awareness? Are you certain which way
you go? And are you sure the goal of Heaven CAN be reached? If not, you walk
alone. Ask, then, your Friend to join with you, and GIVE you certainty of where
you go.
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T 23 D. Salvation Without Compromise
July10, 1967
T 23 D 1. Is it not true you do not recognize some of the forms attack can
take? If it is true attack in any form will hurt you, and will do so just as
much as in another form which you DO recognize, then it must follow that you do
not always recognize the source of pain. Attack in ANY form is equally
destructive. Its purpose does not change. Its sole intent is murder, and what
form of murder serves to cover the massive guilt and frantic fear of punishment
the murderer must feel? He may deny he is a murderer, and justify his savagery
with smiles as he attacks.
T 23 D 2. Yet he will suffer, and will look on his intent in nightmares, where
the smiles are gone, and where the purpose rises to meet his horrified
awareness, and pursue him still. For no-one thinks of murder and escapes the
guilt the thought entails. If the intent is death, what matter the form it
takes? Is death in any form, however lovely and charitable it may seem to be, a
blessing and a sign the Voice for God speaks through you to your brother? The
wrapping does not make the gift you give. An empty box, however beautiful and
gently given, still contains nothing, and neither the receiver nor the giver is
long deceived. Withhold forgiveness from your brother, and you attack him. You
give him nothing, and receive of him but what you gave.
T 23 D 3. Salvation is no compromise of any kind. To compromise is to accept
but part of what you want; to take a little; and give up the rest. Salvation
gives up nothing. It is complete for everyone. Let the idea of compromise but
enter, and the awareness of salvation’s purpose is lost, because it is not
recognized. It is denied where compromise has been accepted. For compromise is
the belief salvation is impossible. It would maintain you can attack a little,
love a little, and know the DIFFERENCE. Thus it would
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teach a little of the same can still be different, and yet the same remain
intact, as one. Does this make sense? Can it BE understood?
T 23 D 4. This course is easy just because it makes no compromise. Yet it
seems difficult to those who still believe that compromise is possible. They do
not see that, if it is, salvation is ATTACK. Yet it is certain the belief that
salvation is impossible can not uphold a quiet, calm assurance it has come.
Forgiveness cannot be withheld a little. Nor is it possible to attack for this
and love for that, and understand forgiveness. Would you not WANT to recognize
assault upon your peace in any form, if only thus does it become impossible that
YOU lose sight of it? It can be kept shining before your vision, forever clear
and never out of sight, if you defend it not.
T 23 D 5. Those who believe that peace can BE defended, and that attack is
justified on its behalf, can not perceive it lies within them. How could they
know? Could they accept forgiveness side by side with the belief that murder
takes some forms by which their peace is saved? Would they be willing to accept
the fact their savage purpose is directed against themselves? No-one unites with
enemies, nor is at one with them in purpose. And no-one compromises with an
enemy but hates him still, for what he kept from him. Mistake not truce for
peace, nor compromise for the escape from conflict.
T 23 D 6. To be released from conflict means that it is OVER. The door is
open; you have LEFT the battleground. You have not lingered there in cowering
hope, because the guns are stilled an instant and the fear that haunts the place
of death is not apparent, that it will not return. There IS no safety in a
battleground. You can look down on it in safety from above, and not be touched.
But, from within it, you can find NO safety. Not one tree left standing still
will shelter you. Not one illusion of protection stands against the faith in
murder. Here stands the body, torn between
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the natural desire to communicate and the unnatural intent to murder and to die.
T 23 D 7. Think you the FORM that murder takes can offer safety? Can guilt be
ABSENT from a battlefield?
T 23 E. The Fear of Life
654 [split paragraph]
T 23 E 1. Do not remain in conflict, for there IS no war without attack. The
fear of God is fear of life, and not of death. Yet He remains the only place of
safety. In Him is no attack, and no illusion in any form stalks Heaven. Heaven
is wholly true. No difference enters. And what is all the same cannot conflict.
You are not asked to fight against your wish to murder. But you ARE asked to
realize the form it takes conceals the same intent. And it is THIS you fear, and
not the form.
T 23 E 2. What is not love is murder. What is not loving MUST be an attack.
Every illusion is an assault on truth. And every one does violence to the idea
of love, because it seems to be of equal truth. What can be equal to the truth,
yet different? Murder and love are incompatible. Yet, if they both are true,
then must they be the same, and indistinguishable from one another. So will they
be, to those who see God’s Son a body. For it is not the body that is like the
Son’s Creator. And what is lifeless cannot BE the Son of Life.
T 23 E 3. How can a body be extended to hold the universe? Can it create, and
BE what it creates? And can it offer its creations all that it is, and never
suffer loss? God does not share His function with a body. He gave the function
to create unto His Son, because it is His Own. It is not sinful to believe the
function of the Son is murder. But it IS insanity. What is the same can HAVE no
different function. Creation is the means for God’s extension. And what is His
must be His Son’s as well. Either the Father AND the Son are murderers, or
neither is. Life makes not death, creating like itself.
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T 23 E 4. The lovely light of your relationship is like the love of God. It
cannot yet assume the holy function God gave His Son, for your forgiveness of
one another is not complete as yet. And so it cannot be extended to all
creation. Each form of murder and attack that still attracts you, and that you
do not recognize for what it is, limits the healing and the miracles you have
the power to extend to all. Yet does the Holy Spirit understand how to increase
your little gifts, and make them mighty. Also He understands how your
relationship is raised above the battleground, in it no more.
T 23 E 5. This is your part; to realize that murder, in ANY form, is not your
will. The OVERLOOKING of the battleground is now your purpose. Be lifted up, and
from a higher place look down upon it. From there, will your perspective be
quite different. Here, in the midst of it, it DOES seem real. Here you have
CHOSEN to be part of it. Here murder IS your choice. Yet, from above, the choice
is miracles, instead of murder. And the perspective coming from this choice
shows you the battle is not real, and easily escaped. Bodies may battle, but the
clash of forms is meaningless. And it is over, when you realize it never was
begun. How can a battle be perceived as nothingness, when you engage in it? How
can the truth of miracles be recognized, if murder is your choice? When the
temptation to attack rises to make your mind darkened and murderous, remember
you CAN see the battle from above. Even in forms you do not recognize, the signs
you know. There is a stab of pain, a twinge of guilt, and, above all, a loss of
peace. This you know well. When it occurs, leave not your place on high, but
quickly choose a miracle INSTEAD of murder. And God Himself and all the lights
of Heaven, will gently lean to you, and hold you up. For you have chosen to
remain where He would have you. And NO illusion can attack the peace of God
together with His Son.
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T 23 E 6. See no-one from the battleground, for there you look on him from
nowhere. You have no reference point from where to look, where meaning can be
given what you see. For only bodies could attack and murder, and if this is your
purpose, then you must be one with them. Only a purpose unifies, and those who
share a purpose have a mind as one. The body HAS no purpose of itself, and must
be solitary. From below, it cannot be surmounted. From above, the limits it
exerts on those in battle still, are gone and not perceived. The body stands
between the Father and the Heaven He created for His Son. BECAUSE it has no
purpose.
T 23 E 7. Think what is given those who share their Father’s purpose, and who
know that it is theirs! They want for nothing. Sorrow of any kind is
inconceivable. Only the light they love is in awareness, and only love shines
upon them forever. It is their past, their present, and their future. always the
same, eternally complete, and wholly shared. They know it is impossible their
happiness could ever suffer change of any kind. Perhaps you think the
battleground can offer something that you can win. Can it be anything that
offers you a perfect calmness, and a sense of love so deep and quiet that no
touch of doubt can ever mar your certainty? And that will last forever?
T 23 E 8. Those with the strength of God in their awareness could never think
of battle. What could they gain but LOSS of their perfection? For everything
fought for on the battleground is of the body; something it seems to offer or to
own. No-one who knows that he has everything could seek for limitation, nor
could he value the body’s offerings. The senselessness of conquest is quite
apparent from the quiet sphere above the battleground. What can conflict with
everything? And what is there that offers less yet could be wanted more? Who,
with the love of God upholding him, could find the choice of miracles or murder
hard to make?
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Chapter XXIV - 24 - Specialness And Separation
T 24 A. Introduction
July 17, 1967
T 24 A 1. Forget not that the motivation for this course is the attainment and
the KEEPING of the state of peace. Given this state, the mind is quiet, and the
condition in which God is remembered is attained. It is not necessary to tell
Him what to do. He will not fail. Where He can enter, there He is already. And
can it be He canNOT enter where He wills to be? Peace will be yours BECAUSE it
is His Will. Can you believe a shadow can hold back the Will that holds the
universe secure? God does not wait upon illusions to let Him be Himself. No more
His Son. They are. And what illusions that idly seem to drift between them has
the power to defeat what IS Their Will?
T 24 A 2. To learn this course requires willingness to question EVERY value
that you hold. Not one can be kept hidden and obscure, but it will jeopardize
your learning. NO belief is neutral; every one has the power to dictate each
decision you make. For a decision is a CONCLUSION, based on EVERYTHING that you
believe. It is the OUTCOME of belief, and follows it as surely as does suffering
follow guilt, and freedom sinlessness. There IS no substitute for peace. What
God creates has NO alternative. The truth arises from what He knows. And your
decisions come from your beliefs as certainly as all creation rose in His Mind
BECAUSE of what He knows.
T 24 B. Specialness as a Substitute for Love
T 24 B 1. Love IS extension. To withhold the smallest gift is not to know
love’s purpose. Love offers everything forever. Hold back but ONE belief, ONE
offering, and love is gone, because you asked a substitute to take its place.
And now must war, the SUBSTITUTE for peace, come with the one alternative that
you CAN choose for love. Your CHOOSING it has given it ALL the reality it seems
to have. Beliefs will never OPENLY attack each other, because conflicting
outcomes ARE impossible. But an UNRECOGNIZED
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T 24 B 2. belief is a decision to war in secret, where the results of conflict
are kept unknown and NEVER brought to reason, to be considered sensible or not.
T 24 B 3. And many senseless outcomes HAVE been reached, and meaningless
decisions have been made and kept hidden, to become beliefs now GIVEN power to
direct all subsequent decisions. Mistake you not the power of these hidden
warriors to disrupt your peace. For it IS at their mercy while you decide to
leave it there. The secret enemies of peace, your least decisions to choose
attack instead of love, unrecognized and swift to challenge YOU to combat and to
violence far more inclusive than you think, are there by your election. Do not
deny their presence nor their terrible results. All that can BE denied is their
REALITY, but NOT their outcome.
T 24 B 4. All that is ever cherished as a hidden belief, to be defended though
unrecognized, is FAITH IN SPECIALNESS. This takes many forms, but ALWAYS clashes
with the reality of God’s creation, and with the grandeur which He gave His Son.
What else COULD justify attack? For who could hate someone whose Self is his,
and which He KNOWS? Only the special COULD have enemies, for they are different,
and NOT the same. And difference of ANY kind imposes orders of reality, and a
need to judge that cannot BE escaped. What God created cannot be attacked, for
there is nothing in the universe unlike itself.
T 24 B 5. But what is different CALLS for judgment, and this MUST come from
someone "better," someone incapable of being like what he condemns, "above" it,
sinless BY COMPARISON with it. And thus does specialness become a means and end
at once. For specialness not only sets apart, but serves as grounds from which
attack on those who seem "beneath" the special one is "natural" and "just." The
special ones feel weak and frail BECAUSE of differences. For what would make
them special IS their enemy. Yet they PROTECT its enmity, and call it "friend."
On its behalf they fight against the universe,
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for nothing in the world they value more.
T 24 B 6. Specialness is the great dictator of the wrong decisions. Here is
the grand illusion of what you are and what your brother is. And here is what
MUST make the body dear, and WORTH preserving. SPECIALNESS MUST BE DEFENDED.
Illusions CAN attack it, and they DO. For what your brother MUST become, to KEEP
your specialness, IS an illusion. He who is "worse" than you MUST be attacked,
so that your specialness can live on his defeat. For specialness is triumph, and
its victory IS his defeat and shame. How can he live, with all your sins upon
him? And who MUST be his conqueror but you?
T 24 B 7. Would it be POSSIBLE for you to hate your brother if you were like
him? COULD you attack him if you realized you journey WITH him, to a goal that
is the SAME? Would you not help him reach it, in every way you could, if his
attainment of it were yours? You ARE his enemy in specialness; his Friend in a
SHARED purpose. Specialness can NEVER share, for it depends on goals that you
ALONE can reach. And he must NEVER reach them, or YOUR goal is jeopardized. Can
love HAVE meaning where the goal is triumph? And what decision CAN be made for
this, that will NOT hurt you?
T 24 B 8. Your brother is your Friend BECAUSE his Father created him like you.
There IS no difference. You have been GIVEN to each other that love might be
extended, NOT cut off from one another. What you KEEP is lost to you. God gave
you both Himself. And to remember this is now the ONLY purpose that you share.
And so it is the only one you HAVE. Could you attack each other if you chose to
see NO specialness of any kind between you? Look fairly at whatever makes you
give each other partial welcome, or would let you think that you are better off
apart. Is it not ALWAYS your belief your specialness is LIMITED by your
relationship? And is not THIS the "enemy" that makes you both illusions to each
other?
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T 24 B 9. The fear of God, and of each other, comes from each unrecognized
belief in specialness. For each demands the other bow to it AGAINST HIS WILL.
And God Himself must honor it, or suffer vengeance. Every twinge of malice, or
stab of hate, or wish to separate arises here. For here the purpose that you
share becomes obscured from BOTH of you. You would oppose this course because it
teaches you, YOU ARE ALIKE. You have NO purpose that is not the same. And none
your Father does not share with you. For your relationship has been made clean
of special goals. And would you now DEFEAT the goal of holiness that Heaven gave
it?
T 24 B 10. What perspective can the special have that does NOT change with
every seeming blow, each slight, or fancied judgment on itself? Those who are
special MUST defend illusions against the truth. For what is specialness but an
attack upon the Will of God? You love your brother not while it is this you
would defend AGAINST him. This is what HE attacks and YOU protect. Here is the
ground of battle which you wage against him. Here MUST he be your enemy, and NOT
your Friend. Never can there be peace among the different. He is your friend
BECAUSE you are the same.
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T 24 C. The Treachery of Specialness
August 7, 1967
T 24 C 1. Comparison MUST be an ego device, for love makes none. Specialness
ALWAYS makes comparisons. It is ESTABLISHED by a lack seen in another, and
maintained by searching for and keeping clear in sight all lacks it can
perceive. This does it seek, and this it looks upon. And ALWAYS whom it thus
diminishes would be your Saviour, had you not chosen to make of him a tiny
measure of your specialness instead. Against the littleness you see in him you
stand as tall and stately, clean and honest, pure and unsullied by comparison
with what you see.
T 24 C 2. Nor do you understand it is YOURSELF that you diminish thus. Pursuit
of specialness is always at the cost of peace. Who can attack his Saviour, and
cut him down, yet recognize his strong support? Who can detract from his
omnipotence, and SHARE his power? And who can use him as the gauge for
littleness, and be RELEASED from limits? You have a function in salvation. ITS
pursuit will bring you joy. But the pursuit of specialness MUST bring you pain.
Here is the goal that would defeat salvation, and thus run COUNTER to the Will
of God. To value specialness is to esteem an alien will to which illusions of
yourself ARE dearer than the truth.
T 24 C 3. Specialness is the idea of sin MADE REAL. Sin is impossible even to
imagine, without this base. For sin arose from it, out of nothingness, an evil
flower with no roots at all. Here is the self-made saviour the creator who
creates UNLIKE the Father, and which made His Son like to itself, and NOT like
unto Him. His SPECIAL sons are many, NEVER one, each one in exile from himself
and Him of Whom they are a part. Nor do they love the Oneness which created them
as One with Him. They chose their specialness INSTEAD of Heaven and INSTEAD of
peace, and wrapped it carefully in sin, to keep it "safe" from truth.
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T 24 C 4. You are NOT special. If you think you are, and would defend your
specialness against the truth of what you REALLY are, how can you know the
truth? What answer that the Holy Spirit gives can reach you, when it is your
specialness to which you listen, and which asks and answers? Its tiny answer,
soundless in the melody which pours from God to you eternally in loving praise
of what you are, is all you listen to. And that vast song of honor and of love
for what you are seems silent and unheard before ITS mightiness. You strain your
ears to hear ITS soundless voice, and yet the Call of God Himself is soundless
to you.
T 24 C 5. You CAN defend your specialness, but never will you hear the Voice
for God beside it. They speak a different language, and they fall on different
ears. To every special one a DIFFERENT message, and one with DIFFERENT meaning,
is the truth. Yet how CAN truth be different to each one? The special messages
the special hear convince them THEY are different and apart; each in his special
sins and safe from love, which does not see his specialness at all. Christ’s
Vision IS their enemy, for it sees not what THEY would look upon. And it WOULD
show them that the specialness they think they see IS an illusion.
T 24 C 6. What would they see instead? The shining radiance of the Son of God,
so like his Father that the memory of Him springs instantly to mind. And with
this memory, the Son remembers his own creations, as like to him as he is to his
Father. And all the world he made, and all his specialness, and all the sins he
held in its defense AGAINST himself, will vanish as his mind accepts the truth
about himself, as it returns to take their place. This is the only "cost" of
truth. You will no longer see what never was, nor hear what makes no sound. Is
it a sacrifice to give up nothing, and to receive the Love of God forever?
T 24 C 7. You who have chained your Saviour to your specialness, and given it
HIS place, remember this: He has NOT lost the power to forgive you all the sins
you think you placed between him and the function of salvation GIVEN
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him for you. Nor will you CHANGE his function, any more than you can change the
truth in him and in yourself. But be you certain that the truth is just the same
in both. It gives no different messages, and has ONE meaning. And it is one you
BOTH can understand, and one which brings release to BOTH of you. Here stands
your brother with the key to Heaven in his hand, held out to you. Let not the
dream of specialness remain between you. What is one IS joined in truth.
T 24 C 8. Think of the loveliness that you will see within yourself, when you
have looked on him as on a Friend. He IS the enemy of specialness, but ONLY
friend to what is real in you. Not one attack you thought you made on him has
taken from him the gift that God would have him give to you. His need to give it
is as great as yours to have it. Let him forgive you all your specialness, and
make you whole in his mind and one with him. He waits for your forgiveness only
that he may return it unto you. It is not God Who has condemned His Son. But
ONLY you, to save his specialness, and kill his Self.
T 24 C 9. You have come far along the way of truth; too far to falter now.
Just one step more, and every vestige of the fear of God will melt away in love.
Your brother’s specialness and yours ARE enemies, and bound in hate to kill each
other and DENY they are the same. Yet it is not illusions that have reached this
final obstacle that seems to make God and His Heaven so remote that they cannot
be reached. Here, in this holy place, does truth stand waiting to receive you
both in silent blessing, and in peace so real and so encompassing that NOTHING
stands outside.
T 24 C 10. Leave all illusions of yourself OUTSIDE this place, to which you
come in hope and honesty. Here is your Saviour FROM your specialness. He is in
need of your acceptance of himself as part of you, as you for his. You are alike
to God as God is to Himself. He is not special, for He would not keep one part
of what He is unto Himself, NOT given to His Son, but kept
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for Him alone. And it is this you fear; for, if He is not special, then He
willed His Son be like Him, and your brother IS like you. Not special, but
possessed of everything, INCLUDING you.
T 24 C 11. Give him but what he has, remembering God gave Himself to BOTH of
you in equal love, that both might share the universe with Him Who chose that
love could never be divided and kept separate from what it IS and must forever
be. You ARE your brother’s; part of love was not DENIED to him. But can it be
that YOU have lost because HE is complete? What has been given him makes YOU
complete, as it does him. God’s Love gave you to him and him to you, because He
gave Himself. What is the same as God IS One with Him. And ONLY specialness
could make the truth of God and you AS One seem anything BUT Heaven. And the
hope of peace at last in sight.
T 24 C 12. Specialness is the seal of treachery upon the gift of love. Whatever
serves its purpose MUST be given to kill. No gift that bears its seal but offers
treachery to giver and receiver. Not one glance from eyes it veils but looks on
sight of death. Not one believer in its potency but seeks for bargains and for
compromise that would establish sin love’s substitute, and serve it faithfully.
And no relationship that holds its purpose dear but clings to murder as safety’s
weapon, and the great defender of all illusions from the "threat" of love.
T 24 C 13. The hope of specialness makes it seem possible God made the body as
the prison-house which keeps His Son from Him. For it DEMANDS a special place
God cannot enter, and a hiding-place where none is welcome but your tiny self.
Nothing is sacred here but unto you, and you alone, apart and separate from all
your brothers; safe from ALL intrusions of sanity upon illusions; safe from God,
and safe for conflict everlasting.
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Here are the gates of hell you closed upon yourself, to rule in madness and in
loneliness your special kingdom, APART from God, AWAY from truth and from
salvation.
T 24 C 14. The key you threw away God gave your brother, whose holy hands would
offer it to you, when you were ready to accept His plan for your salvation in
place of yours. How could this readiness be reached save through the sight of
all your misery, and the awareness that your plan has failed, and will forever
fail to bring you peace and joy of any kind? Through this despair you travel
now, yet it is but ILLUSION of despair. The death of specialness is NOT your
death, but your awaking into Life Eternal. You but emerge from an illusion of
what you are, to the acceptance of yourself as God created you.
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T 24 D. The Forgiveness of Specialness
August 15, 1967
T 24 D 1. Forgiveness is the end of specialness. Only illusions can BE
forgiven, and then they disappear. Forgiveness is release from ALL illusions,
and that is why it is impossible but PARTLY to forgive. No-one who clings to ONE
illusion can see himself as sinless, for he holds one error to himself as lovely
still. And so he calls it "unforgivable," and makes it sin. How can he then give
HIS forgiveness wholly, when he would not receive it for himself? For it is sure
he WOULD receive it wholly, the instant that he gave it so. And thus HIS secret
guilt would disappear, forgiven by himself.
T 24 D 2. Whatever form of specialness you cherish, you have made sin.
Inviolate it stands, strongly defended with all your puny might against the Will
of God. And thus it stands against YOURSELF, YOUR enemy, not God’s. So does it
seem to split you off from God, and make you separate from Him as its defender.
YOU would protect what God created not. And yet, this idol that seems to GIVE
you power has taken it away. For you have given your brother’s birthright to it,
leaving HIM alone and unforgiven, and yourself in sin beside him, both in
misery, before the idol that can save you not.
T 24 D 3. It is not YOU that is so vulnerable and open to attack that just a
word, a little whisper that you do not like, a circumstance that suits you not,
or an event that you did not anticipate upsets your world, and hurls it into
chaos. Truth is not frail. Illusions leave it perfectly unmoved and undisturbed.
But specialness is NOT the truth in you. IT can be thrown off balance by
ANYTHING. What rests on nothing NEVER can be stable. However large and
over-blown it SEEMS to be, it still must rock and turn and whirl about with
every breeze.
T 24 D 4. Without foundation nothing is secure. Would God have left His Son in
such a state, where safety HAS no meaning? No, -- His Son is safe, resting on
Him. It is your specialness that is attacked by everything that walks and
breathes, or creeps or crawls, or even lives at all. Nothing
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is safe from its attack, and it is safe from nothing. It will forever more BE
unforgiving, for that is what it IS. A secret vow that what God wants for you
will never be, and that you will oppose His Will forever. Nor is it possible the
two can ever be the same, while specialness stands like a flaming sword of death
between them, and makes them enemies.
T 24 D 5. God asks for your forgiveness. He would have no separation, like an
alien will, rise between what He wills for you, and what YOU will. THEY are the
same, for neither one wills specialness. How could they will the death of love
itself? Yet they are powerless to make attack upon illusions. They are NOT
BODIES; as One Mind they wait for all illusions to be BROUGHT to them, and left
behind. Salvation challenges not even death. And God Himself, Who knows that
death is NOT your will, must say, "Thy will be done," because YOU think it is.
T 24 D 6. Forgive the great Creator of the universe, the Source of life, of
love and holiness, the perfect Father of a perfect Son, for your illusions of
your specialness. Here is the hell you chose to be your home. He chose not this
for you. Ask not He enter this. The way is barred to love and to salvation. Yet
if you would release your brother from the depths of hell, you have forgiven Him
Whose Will it is you rest forever in the arms of peace, in perfect safety, and
without the heat and malice of one thought of specialness to mar your rest.
Forgive the Holy One the specialness He could not give and yet you made instead.
T 24 D 7. The special ones are all asleep, surrounded by a world of loveliness
they do not see. Freedom and peace and joy stand there, beside the bier on which
they sleep, and call them to come forth and waken from their dream of death. Yet
they hear nothing. They are lost in dreams of specialness. They hate the call
that would awaken them. And they curse God because He did not make their dream
reality. Curse God and die, but not by Him Who made not death, but only in the
dreams. Open your eyes a little;
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see the Saviour God gave to you that you might look on him, and give him back
his birthright. It is YOURS.
T 24 D 8. The slaves of specialness will yet be free. Such is the Will of God,
and of His Son. Would God condemn HIMSELF to hell and to damnation? And do YOU
will that this be done unto your Saviour? God calls to you from him to join His
Will to save you BOTH from hell. Look on the print of nails upon his hands that
he holds out for your forgiveness. God asks your mercy on His Son, and on
Himself. Deny them not. They ask of you but that your will be done. They seek
your love that you may love yourself. Love not your specialness instead of them.
The print of nails are on your hands as well. Forgive your Father it was NOT His
Will that you be crucified.
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T 24 E. Specialness and Salvation
August 17, 1963 [?]
T 24 E 1. Specialness is a lack of trust in anyone except yourself. Faith is
invested in yourself alone. Everything else becomes your enemy, feared and
attacked, deadly and dangerous, hated and worthy only of destruction. Whatever
gentleness it offers is but deception, but its hate is real. In danger of
destruction, it MUST kill, and YOU are drawn to it, to kill it first. And such
is guilt’s attraction. Here is death enthroned as saviour; crucifixion is now
redemption, and salvation can ONLY mean destruction of the world, EXCEPT
YOURSELF.
T 24 E 2. What could the purpose of the body BE but specialness? And it is
this that makes it frail and helpless in its own defense. It was CONCEIVED to
make YOU frail and helpless. The goal of separation is its curse. But bodies
HAVE no goal. Purpose is of the mind. And minds can change, as they desire. What
they ARE, and all their attributes, CANNOT change. But what they hold as purpose
CAN be changed, and body states must shift accordingly. Of itself the body can
do nothing. See it as means to hurt, and it is hurt. See it as means to heal,
and it is healed.
T 24 E 3. YOU CAN BUT HURT YOURSELF. This has been oft repeated, but is
difficult to grasp as yet. To minds intent on specialness, it is impossible. Yet
to those who wish to heal and NOT attack, it is quite obvious. The purpose of
attack is in the MIND, and its effects are felt but where it IS. Nor is mind
limited; so must it be that harmful purpose hurts the mind AS ONE. Nothing could
make LESS sense to specialness. Nothing could make MORE sense to miracles. For
miracles are merely change of purpose from hurt to healing.
T 24 E 4. This shift in purpose DOES "endanger" specialness, but only in the
sense that all illusions are "threatened" by the truth. They will NOT stand
before it. Yet what comfort has ever been in them, that you would keep the
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gift your Father asks from Him, and give it there instead? Given to HIM, the
universe is yours. Offered to THEM, no gifts can be returned. What you have
given specialness has left you bankrupt, and your treasure-house barren and
empty, with an open door inviting everything that would disturb your peace to
enter and destroy.
T 24 E 5. Long ago we said consider not the means by which salvation is
attained, nor how to reach it. But DO consider, and consider well, whether it be
your WISH that you might see your brother sinless. To specialness the answer
MUST be "no." A sinless brother IS its enemy, while sin, if it were possible,
WOULD be its friend. Your brother’s "sins" would justify itself, and GIVE it
meaning that the truth denies. All that is real proclaims his sinlessness. All
that is false proclaims his sins as real. If HE is sinful, then is YOUR reality
not real, but just a dream of specialness which lasts an instant, crumbling into
dust.
T 24 E 6. Do not defend this senseless dream, in which God is bereft of what
He loves, and you remain beyond salvation. Only this is certain, in this
shifting world which has NO meaning in reality: When peace is not with you
ENTIRELY, and when you suffer pain of ANY kind, you have beheld some sin within
your brother, AND HAVE REJOICED at what you thought was there. Your specialness
seemed safe BECAUSE of it. And thus you saved what YOU appointed to be your
saviour, and crucified the one whom God has given you instead. So are you bound
with him, for you ARE one with him. And so is specialness HIS enemy, and YOURS
as well.
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T 24 F. The Resolution of the Dream
August 28, 1967
T 24 F 1. The Christ in you is very still. He looks on what He loves, and
knows it as Himself. And thus does He rejoice at what He sees, because He knows
that it is one with Him, and with His Father. Specialness, too, takes joy in
what it sees, although it is not true. Yet what you seek for IS a source of joy,
as you conceive it. What you wish, IS true for you. Nor is it possible that you
can wish for something, and LACK faith that it is so. WISH MAKES REAL, as surely
as does Will create. The power of a wish upholds illusions as strongly as does
Love extend Itself. Except that one deludes; the other heals.
T 24 F 2. There is no dream of specialness, however hidden or disguised its
form, however lovely it may seem to be, however much it delicately offers the
hope of peace and the escape from pain, in which you suffer not your
condemnation. In dreams effect and cause are interchanged, for here the maker of
the dream believes that what he made is happening TO him. He does NOT realize he
picked a thread from here, a scrap from there, and wove a picture out of
nothing. For the parts do NOT belong together, and the whole contributes nothing
to the parts to GIVE them meaning.
T 24 F 3. Where could your peace arise BUT from forgiveness? The Christ in you
looks ONLY on the truth, and sees no condemnation that could NEED forgiveness.
He is at peace BECAUSE He sees no sin. Identify with Him, and what has He that
you have not? He is in your eyes, your ears, your hands, your feet. How gentle
are the sights He sees, the sounds He hears. How beautiful His hand that holds
His brother’s, and how lovingly He walks beside him, showing him what CAN be
seen and heard, and where he will see nothing, and there IS no sound to hear.
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T 24 F 4. Yet let your specialness direct his way, and YOU will follow. And
both will walk in danger, each intent, in the dark forest of the sightless,
unlit but by the shifting, tiny gleams that spark an instant from the fireflies
of sin and then go out, to lead the other to a nameless precipice and hurl him
over it. For what can specialness delight in but to kill? What does it seek for
but the sight of death? Where does it lead but to destruction? Yet think not
that it looked upon your brother FIRST, nor hated him BEFORE it hated you. The
sin its eyes behold in him, and love to look upon it saw in you, and looks on
still with joy.
T 24 F 5. Yet IS it joy to look upon decay and madness, and believe this
crumbling thing, with flesh already loosened from the bone and sightless holes
for eyes, is like yourself? Rejoice you HAVE no eyes with which to see; no ears
to listen, and no hands to hold nor feet to guide. Be glad that only Christ can
lend you His, while you have need of them. They are illusions, too, as much as
yours. And yet, because they serve a different purpose, the strength their
PURPOSE holds is given THEM. And what THEY see and hear and hold and lead is
given light, that YOU may lead as you were led.
T 24 F 6. The Christ in you is very still. He knows where you are going, and
He leads you there in gentleness and blessing all the way. His love for God
replaces ALL the fear you thought you saw within yourself. His holiness shows
you Himself in him whose hand you hold, and whom you lead to Him. And what you
see IS like yourself. For what but Christ IS there to see and hear and love and
follow home? He looked upon you FIRST, but recognized that you were not
complete. And so He sought for your completion in each living thing that He
beholds and loves. And seeks it still, that each might offer YOU the Love of
God.
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T 24 F 7. Yet is He quiet, for He knows that Love is in you now, and safely
held in you by that same hand that holds your brother’s in your own. Christ’s
hand holds all His brothers in Himself. He gives them vision for their sightless
eyes, and sings to them of Heaven, that their ears may hear no more the sound of
battle and of death. He reaches through them, holding out His hand, that
everyone may bless all living things, and see their holiness. And He rejoices
that these sights are YOURS, to look upon with Him and share His joy. His
perfect LACK of specialness He offers you, that you may save all living things
from death, receiving from each one the gift of Life that your forgiveness
offers to your Self.
T 24 F 8. The sight of Christ is all there is to see. The song of Christ is
all there is to hear. The hand of Christ is all there is to hold. There is no
journey but to walk with Him. You who would be content with specialness, and
seek salvation in a war with Love, consider this: The holy Lord of Heaven has
Himself come down to you to offer you your own completion. What is His is yours,
because in your completion is His Own. He Who willed not to be without His Son
could never will that you be Brotherless. And would He give a Brother unto you
except he be as perfect as yourself, and just as like to Him in holiness as YOU
must be?
T 24 F 9. There must be doubt BEFORE there can be conflict. And EVERY doubt
must be about yourself. Christ HAS no doubt, and from His certainty His quiet
comes. He will exchange His certainty for ALL your doubts, if you agree that He
is one with you, and that this Oneness is endless, timeless, and within your
grasp BECAUSE your hands are his. He is within you, yet He walks beside you and
before, leading the way that He must go to find Himself complete. His quietness
becomes YOUR certainty. And where is doubt, when certainty has come?
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T 24 G. Salvation from Fear
Sept. 25, 1967
T 24 G 1. Before your brother’s holiness the world is still, and peace
descends on it in gentleness and blessing so complete, that not one trace of
conflict still remains to haunt you in the darkness of the night. He is your
Saviour from the dreams of fear. He is the healing of your sense of sacrifice,
and fear that what you have will scatter with the wind, and turn to dust. In him
is your assurance God is here, and with you now. While he is what he is, you can
be sure that God is knowable, and WILL be known to you. For He could never leave
His own creation. And the sign that this is so lies in your brother, offered you
that all your doubts about yourself may disappear before his holiness.
T 24 G 2. See in him God’s creation. For in him his Father waits for your
acknowledgment that He created YOU as part of Him. Without you, there would be a
lack in God, a Heaven incomplete, a Son without a Father. There could be no
universe, and no reality. For what God wills is whole, and part of Him BECAUSE
His Will is One. Nothing alive that is not part of Him, and nothing IS but IS
alive in Him. Your brother’s holiness shows you that God is One with him AND
you; that what he has is yours BECAUSE you are not separate from him OR from his
Father.
T 24 G 3. Nothing is lost to you in all the universe. Nothing that God created
has He failed to lay before you lovingly, as yours forever. And no thought
within His Mind is absent from your own. It is His Will you SHARE His love for
you, and look upon yourself as lovingly as He conceived of you before the world
began, and as He knows you still. God changes not His Mind about His Son with
passing circumstance which has no meaning in eternity where He abides, and you
with Him. Your brother IS as He created him. And it is this that saves YOU from
a world that He created not.
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T 24 G 4. Forget not that the healing of God’s Son is all the world is for.
That is the ONLY purpose the Holy Spirit sees in it, and thus the only one it
HAS. Until you see the healing of the Son as all you wish to be accomplished by
the world, by time and ALL appearances, you will NOT know the Father OR
yourself. For you will use the world for what is NOT its purpose, and will NOT
escape its laws of violence and death. Yet it is GIVEN you to be BEYOND its laws
in ALL respects, in EVERY way and EVERY circumstance; in ALL temptation to
perceive what is NOT there, and ALL belief God’s Son can suffer pain because he
sees himself as he is not.
T 24 G 5. Look on your brother, and behold in him the whole reversal of the
laws that SEEM to rule this world. See in his freedom YOURS, for such it IS. Let
not his specialness obscure the truth in him, for not one law of death you bind
him to will YOU escape. And not one sin you see in him but keeps you BOTH in
hell. Yet will his perfect sinlessness RELEASE you both, for holiness is quite
impartial, with one judgment made for all it looks upon. And that is made, not
of itself, but through the Voice that speaks for God in everything that lives,
and shares His Being.
T 24 G 6. It is HIS sinlessness that eyes that see can look upon. It is HIS
loveliness they see in everything. And it is HE they look for everywhere, and
find no sight nor place nor time where He is NOT. Within your brother’s
holiness, the perfect frame for YOUR salvation and the world’s, is set the
shining memory of Him in Whom your brother lives, and you along with him. Let
not your eyes be blinded by the veil of specialness that hides the face of
Christ from him, and you as well. And let the fear of God no longer hold the
vision you were MEANT to see from you. Your brother’s BODY shows not Christ to
you. He IS set forth within his holiness.
T 24 G 7. Choose, then, his body OR his holiness as what you WANT to see, and
which you choose is yours to look upon. Yet will you choose in countless
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situations, and through time which seems to have no end, until the truth be your
decision. For eternity is NOT regained by still one more denial of the Christ in
him. And where is YOUR salvation, if he is but a body? Where is YOUR peace, but
in his holiness? And where is God Himself but in that part of Him He set forever
in your brother’s holiness, that YOU might see the truth about yourself, set
forth at last in terms you recognized and understood?
T 24 G 8. Your brother’s holiness is sacrament and benediction unto YOU. His
errors can NOT withhold God’s blessing from himself, nor you who see him truly.
His mistakes can cause delay, which it is given YOU to take from him, that both
may end a journey that has never been begun, and NEEDS no end. What never was is
NOT a part of you. Yet you will think it is, until you realize that it is not a
part of him who stands beside you. He is the mirror of yourself, wherein you see
the judgment you have laid on BOTH of you. The Christ in you beholds his
holiness. Your specialness looks on his body, and beholds him not.
T 24 G 9. See him as what he IS, that YOUR deliverance may not be long. A
senseless wandering, without a purpose and without accomplishment of any kind,
is all the other choice can offer you. Futility of function not fulfilled will
haunt you while your brother lies asleep, ’til what has been assigned to you is
done, and he is risen from the past. He who condemned himself, and you as well,
is given you to save from condemnation, along with you. And both shall see God’s
glory in His Son, whom you mistook as flesh, and bound to laws that have NO
power over him at all.
T 24 G 10. Would you not gladly realize these laws are not for YOU? Then see
HIM not as prisoner to them. It CANNOT be what governs part of God holds not for
all the rest. You place YOURSELF under the laws you see as ruling HIM. Think,
then, how great the Love of God for YOU must be, that
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He has given you a part of Him, to save from pain and give YOU happiness. And
never doubt but that your specialness will disappear before the Will of God Who
loves each part of Him with equal love and care. The Christ in you CAN see your
brother truly. And would you decide AGAINST the holiness He sees?
T 24 G 11. Specialness is the function which you gave yourself. It stands for
you alone, as self-created, self-maintained, in need of nothing, and unjoined
with anything beyond the body. In its eyes, you are a separate universe, with
all the power to hold itself complete within itself, with every entry shut
against intrusion, and every window barred against the light. Always attacked
and always furious, with anger always fully justified, you have pursued this
goal with vigilance you never thought to yield, and effort that you never
thought to cease. And all this grim determination was for this: YOU WANTED
SPECIALNESS TO BE THE TRUTH.
T 24 G 12. Now you are merely asked that you pursue another goal with far less
vigilance; with little effort and with little time, and with the power of God
maintaining it, and promising success. Yet, of the two, it is THIS one you find
more difficult. The SACRIFICE of self you understand, nor do you deem THIS cost
too heavy. But a tiny willingness, a nod to God, a greeting to the Christ in
you, you find a burden wearisome and tedious, too heavy to be borne. Yet to the
dedication to the truth as God established it, NO sacrifice is asked, NO strain
called forth, and all the power of Heaven and the might of truth itself is given
to provide the means, and GUARANTEE the goal’s accomplishment.
T 24 G 13. You who believe it easier to see your brother’s body than his
holiness, be sure you understand what made this judgment. Here is the voice of
specialness heard clearly, judging AGAINST the Christ, and setting forth for
YOU, the purpose that you CAN attain, and what you can NOT do. Forget not that
this
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judgment must apply to what you do with IT as your ally. For what you do through
Christ it does not know. To Him, this judgment makes no sense at all, for ONLY
what His Father wills is possible, and there IS no alternative for Him to see.
Out of His LACK of conflict comes your peace. And from His purpose comes the
means for effortless accomplishment and rest.
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T 24 H. The Meeting-Place
Sept. 27, 1967
T 24 H 1. How bitterly does everyone tied to this world defend the specialness
he WANTS to be the truth! His wish is law to him, and he obeys. Nothing his
specialness demands does he withhold. Nothing it needs does he deny to what he
loves. And, while it calls to him, he hears no other Voice. No effort is too
great, no cost too much, no price too dear, to save his specialness from the
least slight, the tiniest attack, the whispered doubt, the hint of threat, or
anything but deepest reverence. This is your son, beloved of you as you are to
your Father. Yet it stands in place of your creations, who ARE son to you, that
you might SHARE the Fatherhood of God, not snatch it FROM Him.
T 24 H 2. What IS this son that you have made to be your strength? What is
this child of earth, on whom such love is lavished? What is this parody of God’s
creation, that takes the place of YOURS? And where are THEY, now that the host
of God has found another son which he prefers to them? The memory of God shines
not alone. What is within your brother still contains ALL of creation,
everything created and creating, born and unborn as yet, still in the future or
apparently gone by. What is in him is changeless, and YOUR changelessness is
recognized in its acknowledgment. The holiness in you belongs to him. And, BY
your seeing it in him, returns to YOU.
T 24 H 3. All of the tribute you have given specialness belongs to him, and
thus returns to you. All of the love and care, the strong protection, the
thought by day and night, the deep concern, the powerful conviction this is you,
belong to him. Nothing you gave to specialness but is HIS due. And nothing due
him is NOT due to you. How will you KNOW your worth, while specialness claims
you instead? How can you FAIL to know it, in his holiness? Seek not to make your
specialness the truth, FOR, if it were, you would be lost indeed. Be thankful,
rather, it is given you to see
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his holiness BECAUSE it is the truth. And what is true in him MUST be as true in
you.
T 24 H 4. Ask yourself this: CAN YOU PROTECT THE MIND? The body, yes, a
little; not from time, but temporarily. And much you think to save, you hurt.
What would you save it FOR? For in that choice lie both its health AND harm.
Save it for show, as bait to catch another fish, to house your specialness in
better style, or weave a frame of loveliness around your hate, and you condemn
it to decay and pain. And if you see this purpose in your brother’s, such is
your condemnation of your own. Weave rather, then, a frame of holiness around
him, that the truth may shine in him, and give YOU safety from decay.
T 24 H 5. The Father keeps what HE created safe. YOU cannot touch it with the
false ideas you made, BECAUSE it was created not by you. Let not your foolish
fancies frighten you. What is immortal cannot BE attacked; what is but temporal
HAS no effect. Only the PURPOSE that you see in it has meaning, and if THAT is
true, its safety rests secure. If not, it HAS no purpose, and is means for
nothing. Whatever is perceived as means for truth SHARES in its holiness, and
rests in light as safely as Itself. Nor will that light go out when it is gone.
Its holy purpose GAVE it immortality, setting another light in Heaven, where
your creations recognize a gift from YOU, a sign that you have NOT forgotten
them.
T 24 H 6. The test of EVERYTHING on earth is simply this: "What is it FOR?"
The answer makes it what it IS for you. It has NO meaning of itself, yet you can
GIVE reality to it, according to the purpose which YOU serve. Here, YOU are but
means, along with it. God is a Means as well as End. In Heaven, means and end
are one, and One with Him. This is the state of true creation, found not within
time, but in eternity. To no-one here is this describable. Nor is there any way
to learn what this condition means. Not ’til you go PAST learning to the Given;
not ’til you make again
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a holy home for your creations is it understood.
T 24 H 7. A co-creator with the Father must have a Son. Yet must this Son have
been created like Himself. A perfect Being, all-encompassing and
all-encompassed, nothing to add and nothing taken FROM; not born of size nor
weight nor time, nor held to limits or uncertainties of ANY kind. Here do the
means and end unite as One, nor does this One have any end at all. All this is
true, and yet it has no meaning to anyone who still retains one unlearned lesson
in his memory; one thought with purpose still uncertain, or one wish with a
divided aim.
T 24 H 8. This course makes no attempt to teach what cannot easily be learned.
Its scope does not exceed your own. Except to say that what is yours will come
to you when you are ready. Here, are the means and purpose separate because they
were so made and so perceived. And therefore do we deal with them as if they
were. It is essential it be kept in mind that ALL perception still is upside
down, until its PURPOSE has been understood. Perception does not SEEM to be a
means. And it is this that makes it hard to grasp the whole extent to which it
MUST depend on what you see it FOR.
T 24 H 9. Perception seems to TEACH you what you see. Yet it but witnesses to
what YOU taught. It is the outward picture of a wish, an image that you WANTED
to be true. Look at yourself, and you will see a body. Look at this body in a
different light, and it looks different. And without a light, it seems that it
is gone. Yet you are reassured that it is there, because you still can feel it
with your hands, and hear it move.
T 24 H 10. Here is an image that you WANT to be yourself. It is the means to
make your wish come true. It GIVES the eyes with which you look on it, the hands
that feel it, and the ears with which you listened to the sounds it makes. IT
PROVES ITS OWN REALITY TO YOU. Thus is the body made a THEORY of yourself, with
NO provisions made for evidence BEYOND itself, and NO escape within
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its sight. Its course is sure, when seen through its own eyes. It grows and
withers, flourishes and dies. And you cannot conceive of you APART from it. You
brand it sinful, and you hate its acts, judging it evil. Yet your specialness
whispers, "Here is my own beloved son, with whom I am well pleased."
T 24 H 11. Thus does the son become the MEANS to serve his father’s purpose.
NOT identical, not even like, but still a means to offer to the father WHAT HE
WANTS. Such is the travesty on God’s creation. For, as His Son’s creation gave
HIM joy and witness to HIS Love and shared HIS Purpose, so does the body testify
to the idea that made it, and speak for ITS reality and truth. And thus are two
sons made, and BOTH appear to walk this earth without a meeting place, and NO
encounter. One do you see OUTSIDE yourself, your OWN beloved son. The other
rests within, His Father’s Son, within your brother as he is in you.
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Sept. 29, 1967
T 12. Their difference does not lie in how they look, nor where they go, nor
even what they do. THEY SHARE A DIFFERENT PURPOSE. It is this that joins them to
their like, and separates each from all aspects with a DIFFERENT purpose. The
Son of God retains his Father’s Will. The son of man perceives an alien will,
AND WISHES IT WERE SO. And thus does his perception serve his wish, by giving it
APPEARANCES of truth. Yet can perception serve ANOTHER goal. It is not bound to
specialness, but by your choice, And it IS given you to make a different choice,
and use perception FOR A DIFFERENT PURPOSE. And what you see will serve that
purpose well, and prove ITS own reality to you.
Chapter XXV - 25 - The Remedy
T 25 A. Introduction
T 25 A 1. The Christ in you inhabits NOT a body. Yet He IS in you. And thus
MUST it be that YOU are not within a body. What is within you CANNOT be outside.
And it is certain that YOU cannot be APART from what is at the very CENTER of
your life. What gives you life cannot be housed in death. NO MORE CAN YOU.
Christ is within a frame of holiness, whose ONLY purpose is that He may be made
manifest to those who know Him not; that He may call to them to come to Him, and
see Him where they THOUGHT their bodies were. Then will their bodies melt away,
that they may frame His holiness in them.
T 25 A 2. No-one who carries Christ in him can fail to recognize Him
everywhere. EXCEPT IN BODIES. And, as long as they believe they are in bodies,
where they think they are He CANNOT be. And so they carry Him unknowingly, and
do not make Him manifest. And thus they do not recognize Him where He IS. The
son of man is NOT the risen Christ. Yet does the Son of God abide EXACTLY where
he is, and walks with him ,within his holiness, as plain to see as is his
specialness set forth within his body.
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T 25 A 3. The body needs NO healing. But the mind that thinks it IS a body is
sick indeed! And it is here that Christ sets forth the remedy. His PURPOSE folds
the body in His light, and fills it with the holiness that shines from HIM. And
nothing that the body says or does but makes HIM manifest. To those who know Him
not it carries Him, in gentleness and love, to heal their minds. Such is the
mission that your brother has for YOU. And such it MUST be that YOUR mission is
for HIM.
T 25 B. The Appointed Task
T 25 B 1. It CANNOT be that it is hard to do the task that Christ appointed
you to do, since it is HE that does it. And, in the DOING of it will you learn
the body merely SEEMS to be the means to do it. For the Mind is HIS. And so it
MUST be yours. HIS holiness directs the body THROUGH the mind at one with Him.
And YOU are manifest unto your holy brother, as he to you. Here is the meeting
of the holy Christ unto Himself. Nor ANY differences perceived to stand between
the aspects of His holiness, which meet and join, and raise Him to His Father,
whole and pure, and worthy of His Everlasting Love.
T 25 B 2. How can you manifest the Christ in you, EXCEPT you look on holiness,
and see Him there? Perception tells you, YOU are manifest in what you see.
Behold the body, and you WILL believe that you are there. And every body that
you look upon reminds you of yourself; YOUR sinfulness, YOUR evil, and, above
all YOUR death. And would you not despise the one who tells you this, and seek
HIS death instead? The message and the messenger ARE one. And you MUST see your
brother as yourself. Framed in his body you will see YOUR sinfulness, wherein
YOU stand condemned. Set in his holiness, the Christ in him proclaims HIMSELF as
you.
T 25 B 3. Perception is a choice of what you want YOURSELF to be; the world
you WANT to live in, and the state in which you think your mind will be content
and satisfied. It chooses where you think your safety lies, AT YOUR DECISION. It
reveals yourself to you, as YOU would have you be.
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And ALWAYS is it faithful to your purpose, from which it never separates, nor
gives the slightest witness unto anything the purpose IN YOUR MIND upholdeth
not. Perception is a PART of what it is your purpose to behold, for means and
end are NEVER separate. And thus you learn what SEEMS to have a life APART has
none.
T 25 B 4. YOU are the means for God. NOT separate, nor with a life apart from
His. HIS Life is manifest in you who are His Son. Each aspect of Himself is
framed in holiness and perfect purity, in love celestial and so complete It
wishes ONLY that It may release ALL that It looks upon unto Itself. Its radiance
shines through each body that It looks upon, and brushes ALL its darkness into
light merely by looking PAST it TO the Light. The veil is lifted through Its
gentleness, and NOTHING hides the face of Christ from its beholders. And BOTH of
you stand there, before Him now, to let HIM draw aside the veil that SEEMS to
keep you separate and apart.
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October 2, 1967
T 25 B 6. Since you believe that YOU are separate, Heaven presents itself to
you as separate, too. NOT that it is the truth, but that the link that has been
given you to JOIN the truth may reach to you through what you understand. Father
and Son and Holy Spirit are as One, as all your brothers join as one in truth.
Christ and His Father NEVER have been separate, and Christ abides within your
understanding, in the part of you that SHARES His Father’s Will. The Holy Spirit
links the other part, the tiny, mad desire to be separate, different, and
special, TO the Christ, to make the Oneness clear to what is REALLY One. In this
world, this is not understood, but CAN be taught.
T 25 B 6. The Holy Spirit serves Christ’s purpose in your mind, so that the
aim of specialness CAN be corrected where the error lies. Because His purpose
still is One with both the Father AND the Son, He KNOWS the Will of God, and
what you REALLY will. But this is understood by mind PERCEIVED as one, AWARE
that it is one, AND SO EXPERIENCED. It is the Holy Spirit’s function to teach
you HOW this Oneness is experienced; WHAT you must do that it can BE
experienced; and WHERE you should go to do it. All this takes note of time and
place AS IF they were discrete, for while YOU think that part of YOU is
separate, the concept of a Oneness JOINED as one is meaningless.
T 25 B 7. It is apparent that a mind so split could NEVER be the teacher of a
Oneness Which unites ALL things within Itself. And so what IS within this mind,
and DOES unite all things together MUST be its teacher. Yet must It use the
language which this mind can understand in the condition which it THINKS it is.
And It must use all learning to transfer illusions TO the truth, taking all
FALSE ideas of what you are, and leading you BEYOND them to the truth that IS
beyond them. All this can very simply be reduced to this: What is the same can
NOT be different, and what is One can NOT have separate parts.
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T 25 C. The Savior from the Dark
October 5, 1967
T 25 C 1. Is it not evident that what the body’s eyes perceive FILLS YOU WITH
FEAR? Perhaps you think you find a hope of satisfaction there. Perhaps you fancy
to attain some peace and satisfaction in the world as YOU perceive it. Yet it
MUST be evident the outcome DOES NOT CHANGE. Despite your hopes and fancies,
ALWAYS does despair result. And there is NO exception, nor will there ever be.
The ONLY value that the past can hold is that you learn it gave you NO rewards
that you would WANT to keep, nor only thus will you be WILLING to relinquish it,
and have it gone forever.
T 25 C 2. Is it not strange that you should cherish still some hope of
satisfaction from the world you see? In NO respect, at ANY time or place, has
ANYTHING but fear and guilt been your reward. How long is needed for you to
realize the chance of CHANGE in this regard is hardly worth delaying change that
might result in better outcome? For one thing is sure; the way YOU see, and long
HAVE seen, gives NO support to base your future hopes, and NO suggestions of
success at all. To place your hopes where no hope lies MUST make you hopeless.
Yet is this hopelessness your choice, while you would seek for hope where none
is EVER found.
T 25 C 3. Is it not ALSO true that you have found some hope APART from this;
some glimmering, inconstant, wavering, yet dimly seen, that hopefulness IS
warranted, on grounds that are NOT in this world? And yet your hope that they
may STILL be here prevents you still from giving up the hopeless and unrewarding
task you set YOURSELF. Can it make sense to hold the fixed belief that there IS
reason to uphold pursuit of what has ALWAYS failed on grounds that it will
suddenly succeed, and bring what it has NEVER brought before?
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Oct. 8, 1967
T 25 C 4. Its past HAS failed. Be glad that it is gone within your mind to
darken what IS there. Take not the form for content, for the form is but a MEANS
for content. And the frame is but a means to hold the picture up, so that it can
be seen. A frame that HIDES the picture has no purpose. It cannot BE a frame if
IT is what you see. WITHOUT the picture is the frame without its meaning. Its
PURPOSE is to set the PICTURE off, and not itself. Who hangs an empty frame upon
a wall, and stands before it, deep in reverence, as if a masterpiece were there
to see?
T 25 C 5. Yet, if you see your brother as a body, it IS but this you do. The
masterpiece that God has set within this frame is all there IS to see. The body
holds it, for a while, without obscuring it in any way. But what God has created
NEEDS no frame, for what He has created HE supports, and frames within Himself.
His masterpiece He offers YOU to see. And would you rather see the frame INSTEAD
of this? And see the picture not at all? The Holy Spirit is the frame God set
around the part of Him that YOU would see as separate. Yet its frame is JOINED
to its Creator, One with Him AND with His masterpiece.
T 25 C 6. This IS its purpose, and you do NOT make the frame INTO the picture
when you choose to see it in its place. The frame that God has given it but
serves HIS purpose, not yours APART from His. It is your SEPARATE purpose that
OBSCURES the picture, and cherishes the frame INSTEAD of it. But God has set His
masterpiece within a frame that will endure forever, when yours has crumbled
into dust. But think you not the picture is destroyed in ANY way. What God
creates is safe from ALL corruption, unchanged and perfect in eternity.
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T 25 C 7. Accept HIS frame instead of yours, and you WILL see the masterpiece.
Look at its loveliness, and understand the Mind that thought it, NOT in flesh
and bones, but in a frame as lovely as Itself. Its holiness lights up the
sinlessness the frame of darkness hides, and casts a veil of light across the
picture’s face, which but reflects the light which shines from it to its
Creator. Think not this face was ever darkened because YOU saw it in a frame of
death. God kept it safe that YOU might look on it, and SEE the holiness that He
has given it. Within the darkness see the Saviour FROM the dark, and understand
your brother as his Father’s Mind shows him to you.
T 25 C 8. He will step forth from darkness as you look on him, and YOU will
see the dark no more. The darkness touched him not, nor you who BROUGHT him
forth for YOU to look upon. His sinlessness but pictures YOURS. His gentleness
becomes YOUR strength, and BOTH will gladly look within and see the holiness
that MUST be there BECAUSE of what you looked upon in him. HE is the frame in
which YOUR holiness is set, and what God gave him MUST be given you. However
much he overlooks the masterpiece in him, and sees only a frame of darkness, it
is still YOUR only function to behold in him what he sees not. And, in this
seeing, is the vision SHARED that looks on Christ INSTEAD of seeing death.
T 25 C 9. How could the Lord of Heaven NOT be glad if you appreciate His
masterpiece? What COULD He do but offer thanks to you who love His Son as He
does? Would He not make KNOWN to you His Love, if you but SHARE His praise of
what He loves? God cherishes
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creation as the perfect Father that He is. And so His joy is made complete when
any part of Him JOINS in His praise, to SHARE His joy. This brother is His
perfect gift to you. And He is glad and thankful that you thank His perfect Son
for being what he IS. And ALL His thanks and gladness shine on you who would
COMPLETE His joy, along with Him.
T 25 C 10. And thus is YOURS completed. Not one ray of darkness can be seen by
those who will to make their Father’s happiness complete, and theirs along with
His. The gratitude of God Himself is freely offered to everyone who shares His
Purpose. It is not His Will to be alone. And neither is it YOURS. Forgive your
brother, and you CANNOT separate yourself from him, nor from his Father. YOU
need NO forgiveness, for the wholly pure have never sinned. Give, then, what He
has given you, that YOU may see His Son as one, and thank his Father, as He
thanks YOU. Nor believe that all His praise is given not to you. For what you
give is HIS, and giving it, you learn to understand His gift to you. And give
the Holy Spirit what He offers unto the Father AND the Son alike.
T 25 C 11. Nothing has power over you EXCEPT His Will AND yours, who but EXTEND
His Will. It was for this YOU were created, and your brother WITH you, and at
ONE with you. YOU are the same, as God Himself is One, and NOT divided in His
Will. And YOU must have one purpose, since He gave the same to BOTH of you. His
Will is brought together as you join in will that you be made complete by
offering completion to your brother. See not in him the sinfulness HE sees, but
give him honor that you may esteem yourself AND him. To each of you is given the
power of salvation, that escape from darkness into light be yours to share,
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that you may see as one what never HAS been separate, nor apart from ALL His
Love as given equally.
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T 25 D. The Fundamental Law of Perception
October 12, 1967
T 25 D 1. To the extent to which you value guilt, to that extent will you
perceive a world in which attack is justified. To the extent to which you
recognize that guilt is meaningless, to that extent will you perceive attack
cannot BE justified. This is in strict accord with vision’s FUNDAMENTAL law: You
see what you believe is there, and you believe it there because you WANT it
there. Perception HAS no other law than this. The rest but stems from this, to
hold it up and offer it support. This is perception’s form, adapted to this
world, of God’s more basic law; that Love creates Itself, and nothing BUT
Itself.
T 25 D 2. God’s laws do not obtain directly to a world perception rules, for
such a world could not have been created by the Mind to which perception has no
meaning. Yet are His laws reflected everywhere. NOT that the world where this
reflection is, is real at all. ONLY because His Son BELIEVES it is, and from His
Son’s belief He COULD not let Himself be separate entirely. He could not enter
His Son’s insanity with him, but He could be sure His sanity went there WITH
him, so he could not be lost forever in the madness of his wish.
T 25 D 3. Perception rests on choosing; knowledge does not. Knowledge has but
one law BECAUSE it has but One Creator. But this world has two who made it, and
they do NOT see it as the same. To each it has a DIFFERENT purpose, and to each
it is a perfect means to serve the goal for which it is perceived. For
specialness it is the perfect frame to set it off; the perfect battleground to
wage its wars, the perfect shelter for the illusions which it would make real.
Not one but it upholds in its perception; not one but can be fully justified.
T 25 D 4. There is another Maker of the world, the simultaneous Corrector of
the mad belief that ANYTHING could be established and maintained without some
link that kept it still within the Laws of God. NOT as the Law Itself
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upholds the universe as God created it. But in some form adapted to the need the
Son of God believes he has. Corrected error IS the error’s end. And thus has God
protected still His Son, even in error. There IS another purpose in the world
that error made because it has another Maker, Who CAN reconcile its goal with
His Creator’s Purpose.
T 25 D 5. In His perception of the world, nothing is seen but justifies
forgiveness and the sight of perfect sinlessness. Nothing arises but is met with
instant and complete forgiveness. Nothing remains an instant, to obscure the
sinlessness that shines unchanged, beyond the pitiful attempts of specialness to
put it out of mind, where it MUST be, and light the BODY up INSTEAD of it. The
lamps of Heaven are NOT for it to choose to see them where it will. If it elects
to see them elsewhere from their home, as if they lit a place where they could
never be, AND YOU AGREE, then must the Maker of the world correct your error,
lest you still remain in darkness, where the lamps are NOT.
T 25 D 6. Everyone here has entered darkness, yet no-one has entered it alone.
Nor need he stay more than an instant. For he has come with Heaven’s help within
him, ready to lead him OUT of darkness into light at any time. The time he
chooses can be ANY time, for help is there, awaiting but his choice. And when he
chooses to AVAIL himself of what is given him, then will he see each situation
that he thought before was means to justify his anger, turned to an event which
justifies his love.
T 25 D 7. He will hear plainly that the calls to war he heard before are
really calls to peace. He will perceive that where he gave attack is but another
altar where he can with equal ease and FAR more happiness, bestow forgiveness.
And he will reinterpret ALL temptation as just another chance to bring him joy.
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How CAN a misperception be a sin? Let ALL your brother’s errors be to you
nothing except a chance for YOU to see the workings of the Helper given YOU to
see the world HE made, instead of yours.
T 25 D 8. What, then, IS justified? WHAT DO YOU WANT? For these two questions
ARE the same, and, when you see them AS the same, your choice is made. For it is
SEEING them as one that brings release from the belief there are two ways to
see. This world has much to offer to your peace, and many chances to extend your
own forgiveness. Such its PURPOSE is, to those who WANT to see peace and
forgiveness descend on THEM, and offer THEM the light. The Maker of the world of
gentleness has perfect power to offset the world of violence and hate that SEEMS
to stand BETWEEN you and His gentleness. It is not there in His forgiving eyes.
And THEREFORE it need not be there in yours.
T 25 D 9. Sin is the fixed belief perception CANNOT change. What has been
damned IS damned and damned forever, BEING FOREVER UNFORGIVABLE. If, then, it IS
forgiven, sin’s perception MUST have been wrong. And thus is change made
possible. The Holy Spirit, too, sees what He sees as far beyond the chance of
change. But on His Vision sin can NOT encroach, for sin HAS BEEN corrected by
His sight. And thus IT MUST HAVE BEEN AN ERROR, NOT a sin. For what it claimed
could never be, HAS BEEN. Sin is ATTACKED by punishment, and so PRESERVED. But
to forgive it is to change its state from error into truth.
T 25 D 10. The Son of God could NEVER sin, but he CAN wish for what would hurt
him. And he HAS the power to think he CAN BE hurt. What could this be EXCEPT a
misperception of himself? Is this a sin or a mistake; forgivable or not? Does he
need help or condemnation? Is it YOUR purpose that he be saved or damned?
Forgetting not that what he is to YOU will make this
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choice YOUR future. For you MAKE IT NOW, the instant when ALL time becomes a
means to reach a goal. Make, then, your choice, but recognize that in this
choice, the purpose of the world you see is chosen, and WILL be justified.
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T 25 E. The Joining of Minds
October 17, 1967
T 25 E 1. Minds that are joined, AND RECOGNIZE THEY ARE, can feel no guilt.
For they CANNOT attack, and they REJOICE that this is so, seeing their safety in
this happy fact. Their joy is in the INNOCENCE they see. And thus they seek for
it, because it is their PURPOSE to behold it and rejoice. Everyone seeks for
what will bring him joy as he defines it. It is NOT the aim, as such, that
varies. Yet it IS the way in which the aim is seen that makes the choice of
means inevitable, and beyond the hope of change UNLESS THE AIM IS CHANGED. And
THEN the means are chosen once again, as what will bring rejoicing is defined
ANOTHER way, and sought for differently.
T 25 E 2. Perception’s basic law could thus be said: "You will rejoice at what
you see BECAUSE you see it TO rejoice." And, while you think that suffering and
sin will bring you joy, so long will they be there for you to see. Nothing is
harmful or beneficent APART from what you wish. It is your wish that MAKES it
what it is in its effect on you. BECAUSE you chose it as a means to GAIN these
same effects, believing them to be the bringers of rejoicing and of joy. Even in
Heaven does this law obtain. The Son of God creates to bring him joy, sharing
his Father’s purpose in his own creation, that his joy might be increased, and
God’s along with his.
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Oct. 23, 1967
T 25 E 3. You makers of a world that is not so, take rest and comfort in
another world where peace abides. This world you bring with you to all the weary
eyes and tired hearts that look on sin and beat its sad refrain. From you can
come their rest. From you can rise a world they will rejoice to look upon, and
where their hearts are glad. In you there is a Vision which extends to all of
them, and covers them in gentleness and light. And in this widening world of
light the darkness they thought was there is pushed away, until it is but
distant shadows, far away, not long to be remembered, as the sun shines them to
nothingness.
T 25 E 4. And all their evil thoughts and sinful hopes, their dreams of guilt
and merciless revenge, and every wish to hurt and kill and die, will disappear
before the sun you bring. Would you not do this, for the Love of God? And for
YOURSELF? And think what it would do for YOU. YOUR "evil" thoughts that haunt
YOU now will seem increasingly remote and far away from YOU. And they go farther
and farther off, because the sun in you has risen that they may be pushed away
before its light. They linger for a while, a LITTLE while, in twisted forms too
far away for recognition, and are gone forever.
T 25 E 5. And in the sunlight YOU will stand in quiet, in innocence and wholly
unafraid. And from you will the rest YOU found extend, so that YOUR peace can
never fall away, and leave YOU homeless. Those who offer peace to everyone have
found a home in Heaven the world can NOT destroy. For it is large enough to hold
the world within its peace. In YOU is all of Heaven; every leaf that falls is
given life in you. Each bird that ever sang will sing again in you. And every
flower that ever bloomed has saved its perfume and its loveliness for you.
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T 25 E 6. What aim can supersede the Will of God and of His Son, that Heaven be
restored to him for whom it was created as his ONLY home? Nothing before and
nothing after it. No other place, no other state nor time. Nothing beyond nor
nearer. Nothing else. In ANY form. This can YOU bring to ALL the world, and ALL
the thoughts that entered it, and were mistaken for a little while. How better
could your OWN mistakes be brought to truth than by your willingness to bring
the light of Heaven with you, as you walk BEYOND the world of darkness into
light?
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T 25 F. The State of Sinlessness
October 29, 1967
T 25 F 1. The state of sinlessness is merely this: The WHOLE desire to attack
is gone, and so there is no reason to perceive the Son of God as other than he
is. The NEED for guilt is gone, because it has no purpose, and is meaningless
without the goal of sin. Attack and sin are bound as ONE illusion, each the
cause and aim and JUSTIFIER of the other. Each is meaningless alone, but SEEMS
to draw a meaning from the other. Each depends upon the other for whatever sense
it seems to have. And no-one COULD believe in one unless the other were the
truth, for each attests the other MUST be true.
T 25 F 2. Attack makes Christ your enemy, and God along with Him. MUST you not
be afraid, with enemies like these? And must you not be fearful of YOURSELF? For
you HAVE hurt yourself, and made your Self your enemy. And now you MUST believe
you are not you, but something alien to yourself and "something else," a
"something" to be feared instead of loved. Who would attack whatever he
perceives as wholly innocent? And who, BECAUSE he wishes to attack, can FAIL to
think it MUST be guilty to DESERVE the wish and leave HIM innocent? And who
would see the Son of God as innocent, and wish him dead?
T 25 F 3. Christ stands before you both, each time you look on one another. He
has NOT gone because your eyes are closed. But what is there to see by searching
for your Saviour, seeing Him through sightless eyes? It is NOT Christ you see by
looking thus. It is the enemy, CONFUSED with Christ, you look upon. And HATE
BECAUSE there is no sin in him for you to see. Nor do you hear his plaintive
call, unchanged in content in WHATEVER form the call is made, that you UNITE
with him, and JOIN with him
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T 25 F 4. in innocence and peace. And yet, beneath the ego’s senseless
shrieks, such IS the Call that God has given him, that YOU might hear in him His
Call to YOU, and answer by returning unto God what is His own.
T 25 F 5. The Son of God asks only this of you; that you return to him what is
his due, that you may SHARE in it with him. Alone does NEITHER have it. So must
it remain useless to both. Together, it will give to each an EQUAL strength to
save the other, and save himself along WITH him. FORGIVEN by you, your Saviour
offers YOU salvation. CONDEMNED by you, he offers death to you. In everyone you
see but the reflection of what you chose to have HIM be to you. If you decide
against his proper function, the ONLY one he has in truth, you are depriving him
of all the joy he WOULD have found if he fulfilled the role God gave to him. But
think not Heaven is lost to him alone. Nor can it be regained unless the way is
shown to him through YOU, that YOU may find it, walking by his side.
T 25 F 6. It is no sacrifice that he be saved, for BY his freedom will you
gain your own. To let HIS function be fulfilled is but the means to let YOURS
be. And so you walk towards Heaven or towards hell, but NOT alone. How beautiful
his sinlessness will be, when you perceive it! And how great will be YOUR joy
when he is free to offer you the gift of sight God gave to him for you. He HAS
no need but this; that you allow him freedom to complete the task God gave to
him. Remembering but this; that what HE does YOU do, along with him. And AS you
see him, so do YOU define
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the function he will have for you, until you see him differently, and LET him be
what God APPOINTED that he be to you.
T 25 F 7. Against the hatred that the Son of God may cherish toward himself is
God believed to be without the power to save what He created from the pain of
hell. But in the love he shows himself is God made free to LET His Will be done.
In each of you, you see the picture of your OWN belief in what the Will of God
MUST be for you. In YOUR forgiveness will you understand His Love for you.
Through your attack, believe He hates you, thinking Heaven must be hell. Look
once again upon your brother, NOT without the understanding that he is the way
to Heaven or to hell, as YOU perceive him. But forget not this; the role you
give to him is given YOU, and YOU will walk the way you pointed out to him,
BECAUSE it is your judgment made upon yourself.
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T 25 G. The Special Function
Nov. 3, 1967
T 25 G 1. The grace of God rests gently on forgiving eyes, and everything they
look on speaks of Him to the beholder. He can see no evil; nothing in the world
to fear, and no-one who is different from himself. And, as he loves them, so he
looks upon HIMSELF with love and gentleness. He would no more condemn himself
for HIS mistakes than damn another. He is not an arbiter of vengeance, nor a
punisher of sin. The kindness of his sight rests on himself with all the
tenderness it offers others. For he would ONLY heal and ONLY bless. And, being
IN ACCORD with what God wills, he HAS the power to heal and bless all those he
looks on with the grace of God upon his sight.
T 25 G 2. Eyes become used to darkness, and the light of brilliant day seems
painful to the eyes grown long accustomed to the dim effects perceived at
twilight. And they turn away from sunlight, and the clarity it brings to what
they look upon. Dimness seems better; easier to see, and better recognized.
Somehow, the vague and more obscure seems EASIER to look upon; LESS painful to
the eyes than what is wholly clear and unambiguous. Yet this is NOT what eyes
are FOR. And who can say that he PREFERS the darkness, and maintain he WANTS to
see?
T 25 G 3. The WISH to see calls down the grace of God upon your eyes, and
brings the gift of light that makes sight possible. Will you behold your
brother? God is glad to have you look on him. He does not will your Saviour be
unrecognized by you. Nor does He will that he remain without the function that
He gave to him. Let him no more be lonely, for the lonely ones are those who see
no function in the world for them to fill; no place where they are needed, and
no aim which ONLY they can perfectly fulfill.
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T 25 G 4. Such is the Holy Spirit’s kind perception of specialness; His use of
what you made, to heal INSTEAD of harm. To each He gives a special function in
salvation he alone can fill; a part for ONLY him. Nor is the plan complete until
he finds his special function, and fulfills the part assigned to him, to make
himself complete within a world where incompletion rules. Here, where the laws
of God do NOT prevail in perfect form, can he yet do ONE perfect thing, and make
ONE perfect choice. And, BY this act of special faithfulness, to one perceived
as OTHER than himself, he learns the gift was given TO himself, and so they MUST
be one.
T 25 G 5. Forgiveness is the ONLY function meaningful in time. It is the means
the Holy Spirit uses to TRANSLATE specialness from sin into salvation.
Forgiveness is for all. But, when it RESTS on all, it is complete, and every
function of this world completed with it. Then is time no more. But WHILE in
time, there is still much to do. And each must do what is allotted him, for, on
HIS part, does ALL the plan depend. He HAS a special part in time, for so he
chose, and choosing it, he made it for himself. His wish was not denied, but
changed in form, to let it serve his brother AND himself, and thus become a
means to save INSTEAD of lose.
T 25 G 6. Salvation is no more than a reminder this world is NOT your home;
its laws are NOT imposed on you, its values are NOT yours. And nothing that you
THINK you see in it is REALLY there at all. And this is seen AND UNDERSTOOD as
each one takes his part in its UNDOING, as he did in MAKING it. He HAS the means
for either, as he always did. The specialness he chose to HURT himself did God
appoint to be the means for his salvation, from the very instant that the choice
was made. His special sin was made his special grace. His special hate became
his special love.
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T 25 G 7. The Holy Spirit needs YOUR special function, that HIS may be
fulfilled. Think not you lack a special value here. You wanted it, and it IS
given you. ALL that you made can serve salvation easily and well. The Son of God
can make NO choice the Holy Spirit cannot employ on his BEHALF, and NOT against
himself. Only in darkness does your specialness APPEAR to be attack. In light,
you see it as your SPECIAL FUNCTION in the plan to save the Son of God from ALL
attack, and let him understand that he is safe, as he has ALWAYS been, and will
remain in time and in eternity alike. This is the function given each of you for
one another. Take it gently, then, from one another’s hand, and let salvation be
perfectly fulfilled in BOTH of you. Do this ONE thing, that EVERYTHING be given
you.
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T 25 H. Commuting the Sentence
November 9, 1967
T 25 H 1. And, if the Holy Spirit can commute each sentence that you laid upon
yourself into a blessing, then it CANNOT be a sin. Sin is ONE thing in all the
world that CANNOT change. It is immutable. And ON its changelessness the world
depends. The magic of the world can SEEM to hide the pain of sin from sinners,
and deceive with glitter and with guile. Yet each one knows the cost of sin is
death. And so it IS. For sin is a REQUEST for death, a wish to make this world’s
foundation sure as love, dependable as Heaven, and as strong as God Himself. The
world IS safe from love to everyone who thinks sin possible. Nor WILL it change.
T 25 H 2. Yet IS it possible what God created NOT should SHARE the attributes
of His creation, when it OPPOSES it in every way? It CANNOT be the "sinner’s"
wish for death is just as strong as is God’s Will for Life. Nor CAN the basis of
a world He did NOT make be firm and sure as Heaven. How COULD it be that hell
and Heaven are the same? And is it possible that what He did NOT will can NOT be
changed? What is immutable BESIDES His Will? And what can share Its attributes
EXCEPT Itself? What wish can rise AGAINST His Will, and BE immutable?
T 25 H 3. If you could realize NOTHING is changeless BUT the Will of God, this
course would not be difficult for you. For it is this that you do not believe.
Yet there is nothing ELSE you COULD believe, if you but looked at what it really
IS. Let us go back to what we said before, and think of it more carefully. It
MUST be so that either God is mad, or is this world a place of madness. Not ONE
Thought of His makes ANY sense at all within this world. And NOTHING that the
world believes as true has ANY meaning in His Mind at all.
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T 25 H 4. What makes no sense and has no meaning IS insanity. And what is
madness CANNOT be the truth. If ONE belief so deeply valued here were true, then
every Thought God ever had is an illusion. And if but ONE Thought of His is
true, then ALL beliefs the world gives ANY meaning to are false, and make no
sense at all. This IS the choice you make. Do not attempt to see it differently,
nor twist it into something it is not. For only THIS decision CAN you make. The
rest is up to God, and NOT to you.
T 25 H 5. To justify ONE value that the world upholds is to DENY your Father’s
sanity AND YOURS. For God and His beloved Son do NOT think differently. And it
is the AGREEMENT of their Thought that makes the Son a co-creator with the Mind
Whose Thought created him. And if he chooses to believe ONE thought OPPOSED to
truth, he has decided he is NOT his Father’s Son, because the Son is mad, and
sanity must lie apart from both the Father AND the Son. THIS YOU BELIEVE. Think
way, is justified in ANYTHING it thinks, or is maintained by ANY form of reason,
not that this belief depends upon the form it takes. Who thinks the world is
sane in any way; is justified in ANYTHING it thinks, or is maintained by ANY
form of reason, believes this to be true.
T 25 H 6. Sin is not real BECAUSE the Father and the Son are not insane. This
world is meaningless BECAUSE it rests on sin. Who could create the changeless,
if it does NOT rest on truth? The Holy Spirit HAS the power to change the whole
foundation of the world you see to something else; a basis NOT insane, on which
a sane perception can be based, another world perceived. And one in which is
nothing contradicted that would lead the Son of God to sanity and joy. Nothing
attests to death and cruelty; to separation and to differences. For here is
everything perceived as one, and no-one loses, that each one may gain.
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T 25 H 7. Test EVERYTHING that you believe against this ONE requirement. And
understand that everything that meets this ONE demand is worthy of your faith.
But nothing else. What is not love is sin, and either one perceives the other as
insane and meaningless. Love is the basis for a world perceived as wholly mad to
sinners, who believe theirs is the way to sanity. But sin is equally insane
within the sight of love, whose gentle eyes would look BEYOND the madness, and
rest peacefully on truth. Each sees a world immutable, as each defines the
changeless and eternal truth of what YOU are. And each reflects a view of what
the Father and the Son MUST be, to make that viewpoint meaningful and sane.
T 25 H 8. Your special function is the special form in which the fact that God
is NOT insane appears most sensible and meaningful to you. The CONTENT is the
same. The FORM is suited to your special needs, and to the special time and
place in which you think you find yourself, and where you can be free of place
and time, and ALL that you believe must limit you. The Son of God can NOT be
bound by time or place, or anything God did NOT will. Yet, if His Will is seen
as madness, then the FORM of sanity which makes it most acceptable to those who
ARE insane requires special choice. Nor CAN this choice be made BY the insane,
whose problem IS their choices are NOT free, and made with reason in the light
of sense.
T 25 H 9. It WOULD be madness to entrust salvation to the insane. BECAUSE He
is not mad, has God appointed One as sane as He to raise a saner world to meet
the sight of everyone who chose insanity as his salvation. To this One is given
the choice of form most suitable to him; one which will NOT attack the world he
sees, but enter into it in quietness, and SHOW him it is mad. This One but
points to an ALTERNATIVE, ANOTHER way of looking at what he has seen before, and
recognizes as the world in which he lives, and thought he understood before. Now
MUST he question this, because the
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form of the alternative is one which he can NOT deny, nor overlook, nor fail
completely to perceive at all.
T 25 H 10. To each his special function is designed to be perceived as
possible, and more and more desired, as it PROVES to him that it is an
alternative he WANTS. From this position does his sinfulness, and ALL the sin he
sees within the world, offer him less and less. Until he comes to understand it
COST him sanity, and stands BETWEEN him and whatever hope he has of BEING sane.
Nor is he left without ESCAPE from madness, for he has a special part in
EVERYONE’S escape. He can no more be left outside, WITHOUT a special function in
the hope of peace, than could the Father overlook His Son, and pass him by in
careless thoughtlessness.
T 25 H 11. What is dependable EXCEPT God’s Love? And where does sanity abide
EXCEPT in Him? The One Who speaks for Him can show you this, in the alternative
He chose especially for you. It is God’s Will that you remember this, and so
emerge from deepest mourning into perfect joy. Accept the function that has been
assigned to you in God’s Own plan to show His Sons that hell and Heaven are
different; NOT the same. But that, in Heaven THEY are all the same, WITHOUT the
differences that WOULD have made a hell of Heaven, and a heaven of hell, had
such insanity been possible.
T 25 H 12. The whole belief that someone loses but reflects the underlying
tenet God must be insane. For in this world it seems that one must gain BECAUSE
another loses. If THIS were true, then God is mad indeed. But what IS this
belief, except a form of the more basic tenet, "Sin is real, and rules the
world?" For every little gain, must someone lose, and pay exact amount in blood
and suffering. For otherwise would evil triumph, and destruction be the total
cost of any gain at all. You who believe that God is mad, look carefully at
this, and understand that it MUST be that EITHER God OR this must
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be insane, but hardly both.
T 25 H 13. Salvation is rebirth of the idea no-one CAN lose for ANYONE to gain.
And everyone MUST gain, if anyone WOULD BE a gainer. Here is sanity restored.
And on this single rock of truth can faith in God’s eternal saneness rest, in
perfect confidence and perfect peace. Reason is satisfied, for ALL insane
beliefs can be corrected here. And sin MUST be impossible, if THIS is true. This
is the rock on which salvation rests; the vantage point from which the Holy
Spirit gives meaning and direction to the plan in which your special function
has a part. For here your special function is made whole, because it shares the
FUNCTION of the whole.
T 25 H 14. Remember all temptation is but this; a mad belief that God’s
insanity would make YOU sane, and GIVE you what you want. That either God OR you
must LOSE to madness, because your aims can NOT be reconciled. Death demands
life, but life is NOT maintained at ANY cost. No-one CAN suffer for the Will of
God to be fulfilled. SALVATION is His Will BECAUSE you share it. NOT for you
alone, but for the Self which IS the Son of God. He CANNOT lose, for if he
could, the loss would be his Father’s, and in Him NO loss is possible. And this
is sane BECAUSE it is the truth.
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T 25 I. The Principle of Salvation
November 13, 1967
T 25 I 1. The Holy Spirit can use ALL that you give to Him for your salvation.
But He CANNOT use what you withhold, for He can NOT take it from you, WITHOUT
your willingness. For, if He did, you would believe He wrested it from you
AGAINST your will. And so you would not learn it IS your will to be without it.
You need not give it to Him WHOLLY willingly, for if you could, you had no need
for Him. But this He needs; that you PREFER He take It, than that you keep it
for yourself alone, and recognize that what brings loss to no-one YOU WOULD NOT
KNOW. This much is necessary to add to the idea no-one CAN lose for you to gain.
And nothing more.
T 25 I 2. Here is the ONLY principle salvation needs. Nor is it necessary that
your faith in it be strong, unswerving, and without attack from all beliefs
opposed to it. You HAVE no fixed allegiance. But remember salvation is not
needed by the saved. You are NOT called upon to do what one divided still
against himself WOULD find impossible. Have little faith that wisdom COULD be
found in such a state of mind. But be you thankful that only little faith is
ASKED of you. What BUT a little faith remains to those who still believe in sin?
What COULD they know of Heaven and the justice of the saved?
T 25 I 3. There is a kind of justice in salvation of which the world knows
nothing. To the world, justice and VENGEANCE are the same, for sinners see
justice ONLY as their punishment, perhaps sustained by someone ELSE, but NOT
escaped. The laws of sin DEMAND a victim. WHO it may be makes little difference.
But death MUST be the cost and MUST be paid. This is NOT justice, but insanity.
Yet how could justice BE defined WITHOUT insanity, where love means hate, and
death is seen as victory and triumph over eternity and timelessness and life?
T 25 I 4. You who know not of justice still can ask, and learn the answer.
Justice looks on all in the same way. It is NOT just that one should lack for
what another has. For that is vengeance, in WHATEVER form it takes. Justice
demands NO sacrifice, for ANY sacrifice is made that sin MAY BE PRESERVED and
KEPT.
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It is a payment offered for the cost of sin, BUT NOT THE TOTAL COST. The rest is
taken from another, to be laid beside your LITTLE payment, to "atone" for all
that you would keep and NOT give up. So is the victim seen as PARTLY you, with
someone ELSE by far the greater part. And in the TOTAL cost, the greater his,
the less is yours. And justice, being blind, is satisfied by being paid, it
matters not by whom.
T 25 I 5. Can this BE justice? God knows not of this. But justice DOES He
know, and knows it well. For He is wholly fair to everyone. Vengeance is alien
to His Mind BECAUSE He knows of justice. To be just is to be fair, AND NOT be
vengeful. Fairness AND vengeance are impossible, for each one contradicts the
other, and denies that it is real. It is impossible for you to SHARE the Holy
Spirit’s justice, with a mind that can conceive of specialness at all. Yet how
could HE be just if He condemns a sinner for the crimes he did not do, but
THINKS he did? And where would justice be if He demanded of the ones obsessed
with the idea of punishment that they lay it aside, unaided, and perceive it is
not true?
T 25 I 6. It is extremely hard for those who still believe sin meaningful to
understand the Holy Spirit’s justice. They believe He shares their OWN
confusion, and can NOT avoid the vengeance that their own belief in justice MUST
entail. And so they fear the Holy Spirit, and perceive the "wrath" of God in
Him. They are unjust indeed to Him. Nor can they trust Him NOT to strike them
dead with lightening bolts torn from the fires of Heaven by God’s Own angry
hand. They DO believe that Heaven is hell, and ARE afraid of love. And deep
suspicion and the chill of fear come over them when they are told that they have
NEVER sinned. Their world DEPENDS on sin’s stability. And they perceive the
"threat" of what God KNOWS as justice to be more destructive to themselves and
to their world than vengeance, which they understand and love.
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T 25 I 7. So do they think the LOSS of sin a curse. And flee the blessing of
the Holy Spirit as if He were a messenger from hell, sent from above in
treachery and guile, to work God’s vengeance on them in the guise of a deliverer
and friend. What COULD He be to them except a devil dressed to deceive, within
an angel’s cloak? And what escape has He for them, except a door to hell that
SEEMS to look like Heaven’s gate? Yet justice cannot punish those who ask for
punishment, but have a Judge Who knows that they are wholly innocent in truth.
In justice He is BOUND to set them free, and GIVE them all the honor they
deserve, and have denied themselves because they are NOT fair, and CANNOT
understand that they ARE innocent.
T 25 I 8. Love is NOT understandable to sinners. BECAUSE they think that
justice is SPLIT OFF from love, and stands for something else. And thus is love
perceived as weak and vengeance strong. For love has LOST when judgment left its
side, and is too weak to SAVE from punishment. But vengeance WITHOUT love has
GAINED in strength by being separate and apart from love. And what BUT vengeance
now can help and save, while love stands feebly by, with helpless hands, bereft
of justice and vitality, and powerless to save? What can Love ask of you who
think that all of this is true? Could He, in justice AND in love believe in your
confusion you HAVE much to give?
T 25 I 9. You are NOT asked to trust Him far. No further than what you SEE He
offers you, and what you recognize you COULD not give yourself. In God’s Own
justice does He recognize all you deserve, but understands as well that you can
NOT accept it for yourself. It is His Special Function to hold out to you the
gifts the innocent DESERVE. And every one that you accept brings joy to Him AS
WELL as you. He knows that Heaven is richer made by each one you accept. And God
rejoices as His Son receives what loving justice KNOWS to be his due. For love
and justice are NOT different. BECAUSE they are the same does mercy stand at
God’s right Hand, and GIVE the Son of God
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the power to forgive HIMSELF of sin.
T 25 I 10. To him who merits EVERYTHING, how can it be that ANYTHING is kept
FROM him? For that would be injustice, and unfair indeed to all the holiness
that IS in him, however much he recognize it not. God knows of NO injustice. He
would not allow His Son be judged by those who seek his death, and COULD not see
his worth at all. What honest witnesses could THEY call forth, to speak on his
behalf? And who would come to plead FOR him, and not AGAINST his life? No
justice would be given him by you. Yet God ensured that justice WOULD be done
unto the Son He loves, and would protect from ALL unfairness you might seek to
offer, believing vengeance IS his proper due.
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November 14, 1967
T 25 I 11. As specialness cares not who pays the cost of sin, so it BE paid,
the Holy Spirit heeds not who looks on innocence at last, provided it IS seen
and recognized. For just ONE witness is enough, if he sees truly. Simple justice
asks no more. Of each one does the Holy Spirit ask if he will be that one, so
justice may return to love, and there be satisfied. Each special function He
allots is but for this; that each one learn that love and justice are NOT
separate. And both are strengthened by their union with each other. Without love
is justice prejudiced and weak. And love WITHOUT justice is impossible. For love
is fair, and cannot chasten without cause. What cause can BE to warrant an
attack upon the innocent? In justice, then, does love correct mistakes, but NOT
in vengeance. For that would be unjust to innocence.
T 25 I 12. You can be perfect witness to the power of love AND justice, if you
understand it is impossible the Son of God COULD merit vengeance. You need NOT
perceive, in every circumstance, that this is true. Nor need you look to your
experience WITHIN the world, which is but shadows of all that is REALLY
happening within yourself. The understanding which you need comes NOT of you,
but from a larger Self, so great and holy that He COULD not doubt His innocence.
Your special function is a call to Him, that He may smile on you whose
sinlessness He shares. HIS understanding will be YOURS. And so the Holy Spirit’s
Special Function has been fulfilled. God’s Son has found a witness unto his
sinlessness, and NOT his sin. How LITTLE need you give the Holy Spirit, that
simple justice may be given YOU.
T 25 I 13. Without impartiality there IS no justice. How CAN specialness be
just? Judge not because you cannot, NOT because you are a miserable sinner too.
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How can the special REALLY understand that justice is the same for everyone? To
take from one to give another MUST be an injustice to them both, since they are
equal in the Holy Spirit’s sight. Their Father gave the SAME inheritance to
both. Who would have more OR less is not aware that he has everything. He is no
judge of what MUST be another’s due, because he thinks HE is deprived. And so
MUST he be envious, and try to take away from whom he judges. He is NOT
impartial, and CANNOT fairly see another’s rights BECAUSE his own have been
obscured to him.
T 25 I 14. You have the right to all the universe; to perfect peace, complete
deliverance from ALL effects of sin, and to the life eternal, joyous, and
complete in EVERY way, as God appointed for His holy Son. This is the ONLY
justice Heaven knows, and all the Holy Spirit brings to earth. Your special
function shows you nothing else BUT perfect justice CAN prevail for you. And you
ARE safe from vengeance in ALL forms. The world deceives, but it can NOT replace
God’s justice with a version of its own. For only love IS just, and CAN perceive
what justice must accord the Son of God. Let love decide, and never fear that
you, in your unfairness, will deprive yourself of what GOD’S justice has
allotted you.
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T 25 J. The Justice of Heaven
November 21, 1967
T 25 J 1. What can it be but arrogance to think your little errors CANNOT be
undone by Heaven’s justice? And what COULD this mean, except that they are sins,
and NOT mistakes, forever uncorrectable, and to be met with vengeance, NOT with
justice? ARE you willing to be released from ALL effects of sin? You CANNOT
answer this until you see all that the answer MUST entail. For if you answer
"yes," it means you will forego ALL values of this world, in favor of the peace
of Heaven. Not one sin would you retain. AND NOT ONE DOUBT THAT THIS IS POSSIBLE
will you hold dear, that sin be kept in place. You mean that truth has greater
value now than ALL illusions. And you recognize that truth must be REVEALED to
you, because YOU know not what it is.
T 25 J 2. To give reluctantly is not to gain the gift. BECAUSE YOU ARE
RELUCTANT TO ACCEPT IT. It IS saved for you, until reluctance to receive it
disappears, and you are WILLING it be given you. God’s justice warrants
gratitude, NOT fear. Nothing you give is lost to you or anyone, but cherished
and preserved in Heaven, where all of the treasures given to God’s Son are kept
for him, and offered anyone who but holds out his hand in willingness they be
received. Nor is the treasure LESS as it is given out. Each gift but ADDS to the
supply. For God IS fair. He does not fight AGAINST His Son’s reluctance to
perceive salvation as a gift from Him. Yet would His justice not be satisfied
until it is received by everyone.
T 25 J 3. Be certain any answer to a problem the Holy Spirit solves will
ALWAYS be one in which NO-ONE loses. And this MUST be true BECAUSE He asks no
sacrifice of anyone. An answer which demands the slightest loss to ANYONE has
not RESOLVED the problem, but has added TO it, and made it greater, HARDER to
resolve, AND MORE UNFAIR. It is impossible the Holy Spirit could SEE unfairness
as a resolution. To Him, what is unfair must be corrected BECAUSE it is unfair.
And EVERY error is a perception in which one, at least, is seen unfairly. Thus
is justice NOT accorded to the Son of God. When ANYONE
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is seen as losing, HE HAS BEEN CONDEMNED. And punishment becomes his due,
INSTEAD of justice.
T 25 J 4. The sight of innocence makes punishment impossible, and justice
sure. The Holy Spirit’s perception leaves no GROUNDS for an attack. Only a LOSS
could justify attack, and loss of ANY kind He cannot see. The world solves
problems in another way. IT sees a resolution as a state in which it is DECIDED
who shall win and who shall lose; HOW MUCH the one shall take, and HOW MUCH can
the loser still defend. Yet does the problem still remain unsolved, for ONLY
justice can set up a state in which there IS no loser; no-one left unfairly
treated and deprived, and thus with grounds for vengeance. Problem SOLVING can
NOT be vengeance, which at best can bring another problem ADDED to the first, in
which the murder is not obvious.
T 25 J 5. The Holy Spirit’s problem solving is the way in which the problem
ENDS. It has been solved BECAUSE it has been met with justice. And UNTIL it has,
it will recur because it has NOT yet been solved. The principle that justice
MEANS no-one can lose is crucial to this course. For miracles DEPEND on justice.
NOT as it is seen through this world’s eyes, but as God knows it, and as
knowledge is reflected in sight the Holy Spirit gives. NO-ONE deserves to lose.
And what would be UNJUST to him can NOT occur. Healing must be for everyone
BECAUSE he does not merit an attack of any kind. What order CAN there be in
miracles, unless someone deserves to suffer MORE, and others LESS? And is this
justice to the wholly innocent?
T 25 J 6. A miracle IS justice. It is NOT a special gift to some, to be
WITHHELD from others as LESS worthy, MORE condemned, and thus APART from
healing. Who is there who can be separate from salvation, if its PURPOSE is the
end of specialness? Where is salvation’s justice if SOME errors are
unforgivable, and WARRANT vengeance IN PLACE of healing and return of peace?
Salvation cannot SEEK to help God’s Son be MORE unfair than HE has sought to be.
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If miracles, the Holy Spirit’s gift, were given specially to an elect and
special group, and kept APART from others as LESS deserving, then is He ALLY to
specialness. What He cannot perceive He bears no witness to. And everyone is
EQUALLY entitled to His gift of healing and deliverance and peace.
T 25 J 7. To give a problem to the Holy Spirit to solve FOR you means that you
WANT it solved. To keep it for yourself to solve WITHOUT His help is to decide
it should remain UNsettled, UNresolved, and lasting in its power of injustice
and attack. No-one can BE unjust to you, unless you have decided first to BE
unjust. And then MUST problems rise to block your way, and peace be scattered by
the winds of hate. Unless you think that ALL your brothers have an equal right
to miracles with you, you will not claim YOUR right to them, because you were
unjust to one with EQUAL rights. Seek to deny, and you WILL feel denied. Seek to
deprive, and you HAVE BEEN deprived.
T 25 J 8. A miracle can NEVER be received because another could receive it
NOT. Only forgiveness OFFERS miracles. And pardon MUST be just to everyone. The
little problems that you keep and hide become your secret sins BECAUSE you did
not choose to let them be removed FOR you. And so they gather dust and grow,
until they cover EVERYTHING that you perceive, and leave you fair to no-one. Not
ONE right do YOU believe you have. And bitterness, with vengeance justified and
mercy lost, condemns you as UNWORTHY of forgiveness. The unforgiven HAVE no
mercy to bestow upon another. That is why your sole responsibility MUST be to
take forgiveness for yourself.
T 25 J 9. The miracle that you receive you GIVE. Each one becomes an
illustration of the law on which salvation rests; that justice MUST be done to
all, if ANYONE is to be healed. No-one can lose, and everyone MUST benefit. Each
miracle is an example of what justice can accomplish, when it is offered to
everyone alike. It is received and GIVEN equally. It IS awareness that giving
and receiving ARE the same. BECAUSE it does not make the same unlike,
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it sees no differences where none exist. And thus it is the SAME for everyone,
because it sees no differences in THEM. Its offering is universal, and it
teaches but one message. What is God’s BELONGS to everyone, and IS his due.
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Chapter XXVI - 26 - The Transition
T 26 A. Introduction
November 27,1967
T 26 A 1. In the "dynamics" of attack is sacrifice a key idea. It is the pivot
upon which ALL compromise, ALL desperate attempts to strike a bargain, and ALL
conflicts achieve a seeming balance. It is the symbol of the central theme that
SOMEBODY MUST LOSE. Its focus on the BODY is apparent, for it is ALWAYS an
attempt to LIMIT LOSS. The body is ITSELF a sacrifice; a giving up of power, in
the name of saving just a little for yourself. To see a brother in ANOTHER body,
SEPARATE from yours, is the expression of a wish to see a little PART of him,
and sacrifice the rest. Look at the world, and you will see nothing attached to
ANYTHING beyond itself. All seeming entities can come a little nearer, or go a
little farther off, but CANNOT join.
T 26 B. The "Sacrifice" of Oneness
T 26 B 1. The world you see is based on SACRIFICE of oneness. It is a picture
of a COMPLETE disunity and total LACK of joining. Around each entity is built a
wall so seeming solid that it looks as if what is inside can never reach
without, and what is out can never reach and join with what is locked away
within the wall. Each part must SACRIFICE the other part to keep itself
complete. For if they joined, each one would LOSE its own identity, and BY their
separation are their selves maintained. The little that the body fences off
BECOMES the self, preserved through sacrifice of all the rest. And all the rest
must LOSE this little part, remaining incomplete to keep its own identity
intact.
T 26 B 2. In THIS perception of your self the BODY’S loss would be a sacrifice
indeed. And sight of bodies becomes the sign that sacrifice IS limited, and
something still remains for you alone. And FOR this little to belong to you, are
limits placed on EVERYTHING outside, just as they are on everything you think is
YOURS. For giving and receiving ARE the same. And to ACCEPT the limits of a body
is to IMPOSE these limits on each brother whom you see. For you MUST see him as
you see yourself. The body IS a loss, and CAN be made to sacrifice. And while
you see your brother as a body,
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APART from you and separate in his cell, you are demanding sacrifice of him AND
you.
T 26 B 3. What greater sacrifice could be demanded than that God’s Son
perceive himself without his Father? And his Father be without His Son? Yet
EVERY sacrifice demands that they be separate and without the other. The memory
of God MUST be denied, if ANY sacrifice is asked of ANYONE. What witness to the
wholeness of God’s Son is seen within a world of separate bodies, however much
he witnesses to truth? He is INVISIBLE in such a world. Nor can his song of
union and of love be heard at all. Yet is it given him to make the world recede
before his song and sight of him REPLACE the body’s eyes.
T 26 B 4. Those who would see the witnesses to truth INSTEAD of to illusion
merely ask that they might see a PURPOSE in the world that gives it sense and
makes it meaningful. WITHOUT your special function HAS this world no meaning for
you. Yet it can become a treasure house as rich and limitless as Heaven Itself.
No instant passes here in which your brother’s holiness can NOT be seen, to add
a limitless supply to every meager scrap and tiny crumb of happiness that you
allot yourself. You CAN lose sight of oneness, but can NOT make sacrifice of its
reality. Nor can you LOSE what you would sacrifice, nor keep the Holy Spirit
from His task of showing you that it has NOT been lost.
T 26 B 5. Hear, then, the song your brother sings to you. And LET the world
recede, and TAKE the rest his witness offers on behalf of peace. But judge him
not, for you will hear no song of liberation for yourself, nor see what it is
given him to witness to, that YOU may see it and rejoice WITH him. Make not his
holiness a sacrifice to your belief in sin. You sacrifice YOUR innocence with
his, and die each time you see in him a sin deserving death. Yet every instant
can you be reborn, and given life again. His holiness gives life to you, who
CANNOT die because his sinlessness is known to God, and
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can no more be sacrificed by you than can the light in you be blotted out
because he sees it not.
T 26 B 6. You who would make a sacrifice of life, and make your eyes and ears
bear witness to the death of God and of His holy Son, think not that you have
power to make of them what God willed not they be. In Heaven God’s Son is NOT
imprisoned in a body, nor is sacrificed in solitude to sin. And as he is in
Heaven, so MUST he be eternally and everywhere. He is the same forever. Born
again each instant, untouched by time, and FAR beyond the reach of ANY sacrifice
of life OR death. For neither did he make, and only ONE was given him, by One
Who KNOWS His gifts can NEVER suffer sacrifice and loss.
T 26 B 7. God’s justice rests in gentleness upon His Son, and keeps him safe
from ALL injustice the world would lay upon him. COULD it be that YOU could make
his sins reality, and sacrifice his Father’s Will for him? Condemn him not by
seeing him within the rotting prison where he sees himself. It is your special
function to ensure the door be opened, that he may come forth to shine on you,
and give you back the gift of freedom by receiving it of you. What is the Holy
Spirit’s Special Function but to release the holy Son of God from the
imprisonment he made to KEEP himself from justice? Could YOUR function be a task
apart and SEPARATE from His Own?
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T 26 C. The Forms of Error
November 28, 1967
T 26 C 1. It is NOT difficult to understand the reasons why you do not ask the
Holy Spirit to solve ALL problems for you. HE has not greater difficulty in
resolving some than others. Every problem is the CAME to Him, because each one
is solved in just the SAME respect, and through the SAME approach. The aspects
that NEED solving do not change, whatever FORM the problem seems to take. A
problem can appear in MANY forms, and it will do so while the problem lasts. It
serves no purpose to attempt to solve it in a SPECIAL form. It WILL recur, and
then recur again and yet again, until it has been answered for ALL time, and
will not rise again in ANY form. And ONLY then are you RELEASED from it.
T 26 C 2. The Holy Spirit offers you release from EVERY problem that you think
you have. They are the SAME to Him, because each one, regardless of the form it
seems to take, is a demand that someone suffer loss, and make a sacrifice that
you might gain. And, when the situation is worked out so NO-ONE loses, is the
problem gone, because it was an error in perception, which now has been
corrected. One mistake is NOT more difficult for Him to bring to truth than is
another. For there IS but one mistake; the whole idea that loss is
possible, and COULD result in gain for anyone. If THIS were true, then God WOULD
be unfair; sin WOULD be
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possible, attack be justified, and vengeance fair. This ONE mistake, in (904)ANY
form, has ONE correction. There IS no loss; to think there IS, is a mistake.
T 26 C 3. You HAVE no problems, though you THINK you have. And yet you COULD
not think so, if you saw them vanish one by one, WITHOUT regard to size,
complexity, or place and time, or ANY attribute which you perceive that makes
each one seem different from the rest. Think not the limits YOU impose on what
you see can limit God in ANY way. The miracle of justice can correct ALL errors.
Every problem IS an error. It does injustice to the Son of God,
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T 26 C 4. and therefore is not true. The Holy Spirit does not evaluate
injustices as great or small, or more or less. They have NO properties to Him.
They are mistakes from which the Son of God IS suffering, but needlessly. And so
He takes the thorns and nails away. He does not pause to judge whether the hurt
be large or little. He makes but one judgment; that to hurt God’s Son MUST be
unfair, and therefore is not so.
T 26 C 5. You who believe it safe to give but SOME mistakes to be corrected
while you keep the others to yourself, remember this: Justice is total. There IS
no such thing as partial justice. If the Son of God is guilty then is he
condemned, and he DESERVES no mercy from the God of justice. But ask not God to
punish him because YOU find him guilty, and would have him die. God OFFERS you
the means to see his innocence. Would it be fair to punish him because you will
not LOOK at what is there to see? Each time you keep a problem for YOURSELF to
solve, or judge that it is one which HAS no resolution, you have made it great,
and past the hope of healing. You deny the miracle of justice CAN be fair.
T 26 C 6. If God is just, then CAN there be NO problems that justice cannot
solve. But YOU believe that some injustices ARE fair and good, and necessary to
preserve yourself. It is THESE problems that you think are great, and cannot BE
resolved. For there are those you WANT to suffer loss, and NO-ONE whom you wish
to be preserved from sacrifice entirely. Consider once again your special
function. ONE is given you to see in him his perfect sinlessness. And you will
ASK no sacrifice of him, because you could not will he suffer loss. The miracle
of justice you call forth will rest on you as surely as on him. Nor will the
Holy Spirit be content until it is received by everyone. For what you give to
Him IS everyone’s, and BY your giving it can He ensure that everyone receives it
equally.
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T 26 C 7. Think, then, how great your OWN release will be, when you are
willing to receive correction for ALL your problems. You will not keep ONE, for
pain in ANY form you will not WANT. And you will see each little hurt resolved
before the Holy Spirit’s gentle sight. For all of them ARE little in His sight
and worth no more than just a tiny sigh before they disappear, to be forever
undone and unremembered. What seemed once to be a SPECIAL problem, a mistake
WITHOUT a remedy, or an affliction WITHOUT a cure, has been transformed into a
universal blessing. Sacrifice is gone. And in its place, the Love of God can be
remembered, and will shine away all memory of sacrifice and loss.
T 26 C 8. He cannot BE remembered until justice is loved INSTEAD of feared. He
cannot be unjust to anyone or anything, because He knows that EVERYTHING that is
belongs to Him, and will forever be as He created it. Nothing He loves but MUST
be sinless and beyond attack. Your special function opens wide the door beyond
which is the memory of His Love kept perfectly intact and undefiled. And all you
need to do is but to wish that Heaven be given you instead of hell, and every
bolt and barrier that seems to hold the door securely barred and locked, will
merely fall away, and disappear. For it is NOT your Father’s Will that you
should offer or receive LESS than He gave, when He created you in perfect Love.
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T 26 D. The Borderland
December 1, 1967
T 26 D 1. Complexity is not of God. How COULD it be, when all He knows is One?
He knows of ONE creation, ONE reality, ONE truth, and but ONE Son. Nothing
CONFLICTS with Oneness. How, then, COULD there be complexity in Him? What IS
there to decide? For it is CONFLICT that makes choice possible. The truth is
simple; it is one, WITHOUT an opposite. And how could strife enter in its simple
Presence, and bring complexity where Oneness is? The truth makes NO decisions,
for there is nothing to decide BETWEEN. And ONLY if there were could choosing be
a necessary step in the advance toward Oneness. What is everything leaves room
for NOTHING ELSE.
T 26 D 2. Yet is this magnitude beyond the scope of this curriculum. Nor is it
necessary we dwell on anything that cannot be immediately grasped. There is a
borderland of thought that stands between this world and Heaven. It is not a
place, and WHEN you reach it is APART from time. Here is the meeting place where
thoughts are brought TOGETHER; where conflicting values MEET, and ALL illusions
are laid down beside the truth, where they are judged to be untrue. This
borderland is just beyond the gate of Heaven. Here is every thought made pure
and wholly simple. Here is sin denied, and everything that IS received instead.
T 26 D 3. This is the journey’s end. We have referred to it as the "real
world." And yet there is a contradiction here, in that the words imply a LIMITED
reality, a PARTIAL truth, a SEGMENT of the universe made true. This is because
knowledge makes NO attack upon perception. They are brought together, and only
ONE continues past the gate where Oneness is. Salvation IS a borderland, where
place and time and choice have meaning still, and yet it can be seen that they
are temporary, OUT of place, and EVERY choice has been ALREADY made.
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T 26 D 4. Nothing the Son of God believes can be destroyed. But what is truth
to him must be brought to the last comparison that he will ever make; the last
evaluation that will be possible, the final judgment upon this world. It is the
judgment of the truth upon illusion, of knowledge on perception; IT HAS NO
MEANING AND DOES NOT EXIST. This is NOT your decision. It is but a simple
statement of a simple fact. But in this world there ARE no simple facts, because
what is the same and what is different remain unclear. The one ESSENTIAL thing
to make a choice at all is this distinction. And herein lies the difference
between the worlds. In this one, choice IS made impossible. In the real world,
is choosing simplified.
T 26 D 5. Salvation stops just short of Heaven, for only perception NEEDS
salvation. Heaven was never lost, and so cannot be saved. Yet who can make a
choice BETWEEN the wish for Heaven and the wish for hell, unless he recognizes
they are NOT the same? This difference is the learning goal this course has set.
It will not go beyond this aim. Its ONLY purpose is to teach what is the same
and what is different, leaving room to make the only choice which CAN be made.
There is no basis FOR choice in this complex and over-complicated world. For
no-one understands what is the same, and seems to choose where no choice really
is. The real world is the area of choice made real, NOT in the outcome, but in
the perception of alternatives FOR choice.
T 26 D 6. That there IS choice is an illusion. Yet, within this ONE lies the
undoing of every illusion, NOT excepting this. Is not this like your special
function, where the separation is undone by change of PURPOSE in what once was
specialness, and now IS union? ALL illusions are but one. And, in the
recognition this is so, lies the ability to give up ALL attempts to choose
BETWEEN them, and to make them different. How simple is the choice between two
things so clearly UNalike. There IS no conflict here. No sacrifice
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is possible in the relinquishment of an illusion RECOGNIZED as such. Where ALL
reality has been withdrawn from what was NEVER true, can it BE hard to give it
up, and choose what MUST be true?
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T 26 E. Where Sin Has Left
December 4, 1967
T 26 E 1. Forgiveness is this world’s equivalent of Heaven’s justice. It
translates the world of sin into a simple world, where justice can be reflected
from BEYOND the gate behind which total lack of limits lies. Nothing in
boundless love could NEED forgiveness. And what is charity WITHIN the world
gives way to simple justice past the gate that opens into Heaven. No-one
forgives unless he has believed in sin, and STILL believes that he has much to
be forgiven. Forgiveness thus becomes the means by which he learns HE has done
nothing to forgive. Forgiveness always rests upon the one who offers it, until
he sees HIMSELF as needing it no more. And thus is he returned to his REAL
function of creating, which his forgiveness offers him again.
T 26 E 2. Forgiveness turns the world of sin into a world of glory, wonderful
to see. Each flower shines in light, and every bird sings of the joy of Heaven.
There is no sadness and there is no parting here, for everything is TOTALLY
forgiven. And what has been forgiven MUST join, for nothing stands BETWEEN, to
keep them separate and apart. The sinless MUST perceive that they are one, for
nothing stands between, to push the other off, and in the space which sin left
vacant do they JOIN as one, in gladness recognizing what is part of them has NOT
been kept apart and separate. The holy place on which you stand is but the space
that sin has left. And here you see the Face of Christ arising in its place.
T 26 E 3. Who could behold the Face of Christ, and NOT recall His Father as He
really is? Who could fear love, and stand upon the ground where sin has left a
place for Heaven’s altar to rise and tower far above the world, and reach beyond
the universe to touch the heart of ALL creation? What IS Heaven, but a song of
gratitude and love and praise, by everything created, to the Source of its
creation? The holiest of altars is set where once sin was believed to be. For
here does every light of heaven come, to be rekindled and increased in joy. For
here is what was lost to them restored, for here is what was lost to them
restored, and all their radiance made whole again.
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T 26 E 4. Forgiveness brings no little miracles to lay before the gate of
Heaven. Here the Son of God Himself comes to receive each gift that brings him
nearer to his home. Not one is lost, and none is cherished more than any other.
Each reminds him of His Father’s Love as surely as the rest. And each one
teaches him that what he feared he loves the most. What BUT a miracle could
change his mind, so that he understands that love cannot BE feared? What other
miracle is there but this? And what else NEED there be to make the space between
you disappear? Where sin once was perceived will rise a world which will become
an altar to the truth. And YOU will join the lights of Heaven there, and sing
their song of gratitude and praise.
T 26 E 5.
For as they come to YOU to be complete, so will you go with them. For no-one
hears the song of Heaven, and remains without a voice that adds its power to the
song, and makes it sweeter still. And each one joins the singing at the altar
which was raised within the tiny spot that sin proclaimed to be its own. And
what WAS tiny then has soared into a magnitude of song, in which the universe
has joined with but a single voice. This tiny spot of sin that stands between
you still is holding back the happy opening of Heaven’s gate. How LITTLE is the
hindrance which withholds the wealth of Heaven from you. And how GREAT will be
the joy in Heaven when you join the mighty chorus to the Love of God.
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T 26 F. The Little Hindrance
December 10, 1967
T 26 F 1. A little hindrance can seem large indeed to those who do not
understand that miracles are all the same. Yet teaching that is what this course
is FOR. This is its only purpose, for only that is all there is to learn. And
you can learn it many different ways. All learning is a help or hindrance to the
gate of Heaven. Nothing in between is possible. There are TWO teachers only, who
point in different ways. And you will go along the way your chosen teacher
leads. There are but TWO directions you can take, while time remains and choice
is meaningful. For never will another road be made, except the way to Heaven.
You but choose whether to go TOWARDS Heaven, or away to nowhere. There is
nothing else to choose.
T 26 F 2. Nothing is ever lost but time, which in the end IS nothing. For it
is but a little hindrance to eternity, quite meaningless to the real Teacher of
the world. Yet since you DO believe in its reality, why should you waste it
going nowhere, when it CAN be used to reach a goal as high as learning can
achieve? Think not the way to Heaven’s gate is difficult at all. Nothing you
undertake with certain purpose and high resolve and happy confidence, holding
each other’s hand and keeping step to Heaven’s song, is difficult to do. But it
is hard indeed to wander off, alone and miserable, down a road which leads to
nothing, and which HAS no purpose.
T 26 F 3. God gave His Teacher to REPLACE the one you made, NOT to CONFLICT
with it. And what He would replace HAS BEEN replaced. Time lasted but an instant
in your mind, with NO effect upon eternity. And so is ALL time passed, and
everything EXACTLY as it was before the way to nothingness was made. The tiny
tick of time, in which
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the first mistake was made, and ALL of them within that ONE mistake, held also
the CORRECTION for that one, and ALL of them that came within the first. And in
that tiny instant time was gone, for that was all it ever was. What God gave
Answer to IS answered and IS gone.
T 26 F 4. To you who still believe you live in time, and know not it is gone,
the Holy Spirit still guides you through the infinitely small and senseless maze
you still perceive in time, though it has long since gone. You think you live in
what is past. Each thing you look upon you saw but for an instant, long ago,
before its unreality gave way to truth. Not one illusion still remains
unanswered in your mind. Uncertainty was brought to Certainty so long ago that
it is hard indeed to hold it to your heart, as if it were before you still. The
tiny instant you would keep, and make eternal, passed away in Heaven too soon
for anything to notice it had come.
T 26 F 5. What disappeared too quickly to affect the simple knowledge of the
Son of God, can hardly still be there for you to choose to be your teacher. Only
in the past, – an ancient past, too short to make a world in answer to creation,
– did this world APPEAR to rise. So VERY long ago, for such a tiny interval of
time that not one note in Heaven’s song was missed. Yet, in each unforgiving act
or thought, in every judgment, and in all belief in sin is that one instant
still called back, as if it could be made again in time. You keep an ancient
memory before your eyes. And he who lives in memories alone is unaware of where
he IS.
[missing pages 733-739] [100]
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T 26 F 6. Forgiveness is the great release from time. It is the key to
learning that the past is over. Madness speaks no more. There IS no OTHER
teacher and no OTHER way. For what has been undone no longer is. And who can
stand upon a distant shore, and dream himself across an ocean, to a place and
time that have long since gone by? How REAL a hindrance can this dream be to
where he really IS? For this is fact, and does NOT change whatever dreams he
has. Yet can he still IMAGINE he is elsewhere, and in another time. In the
extreme he can delude himself that this is true, and pass from mere imagining
into belief and into madness, quite convinced that where he would prefer to be,
he IS.
T 26 F 7. Is this a HINDRANCE to the place whereon he stands? Is any echo from
the past that he may hear a fact in what is there to hear where he is now? And
how much can his own delusions about time and place affect a change in where he
REALLY is? The unforgiven is a voice that calls from out a past forever more
gone by. And everything which points to it as real is but a wish that what is
gone could be made real again, and seen as here and now, in place of what is
REALLY now and here. Is this a HINDRANCE to the truth the past is gone, and
CANNOT be returned to you? And do you WANT that fearful instant kept, when
Heaven seemed to disappear, and God was feared and made a symbol of your hate?
T 26 F 8. Forget the time of terror that has been so long ago corrected and
undone. Can sin withstand the Will of God? Can it be up to you to see the past,
and put it in the present? You can NOT go back. And everything that points the
way in the direction of the past but sets you on a mission whose accomplishment
can ONLY be unreal.
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Such is the justice your ever loving Father has ensured MUST come to you. And
from your own unfairness to yourself has He protected you. You CANNOT lose your
way, because there is no WAY but His, and nowhere CAN you go, except to Him.
Would God allow His Son to lose his way along a road long since a distant memory
of time gone by?
T 26 F 9. This course will teach you ONLY what is now. A dreadful instant in a
distant past, now perfectly corrected, is of no concern nor value. Let the dead
and gone be peacefully forgotten. Resurrection has come to take its place. And
now you are a part of Resurrection, NOT of death. No past illusions have the
power to keep you in a place of death, a vault God’s Son entered an instant, to
be instantly restored unto His Father’s Perfect Love. And how can he be kept in
chains long since removed, and gone forever from his mind? The Son that God
created is as free as God created him. He was reborn the instant that he chose
to die, instead of live. And will you not forgive him now, because he made an
error in the past that God remembers not, and is not there?
T 26 F 10. Now are you shifting back and forth, between the past and present.
Sometimes the past seems real, as if it WERE the present. Voices FROM the past
are heard, and then are doubted. You are like to one who still hallucinates, but
lacks conviction in what he perceives. This is the borderland between the
worlds, the bridge between the past and present. Here the shadow of the past
remains, but still a present Light is dimly recognized. Once it is seen, this
Light can never be forgotten. It must draw you from the past into the present,
where you really ARE. The shadow voices do not CHANGE the laws of time or of
eternity. They come from what is past and gone, but hinder not the true
existence of the here and now.
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T 26 F 11. The real world is the second part of the hallucination time and
death are real, and have existence which can be perceived. This terrible
illusion was denied in but the time it took for God to give His Answer to
illusion for ALL time and EVERY circumstance. And then it was no more, to be
experienced as there. Each day, and every minute in each day, and every instant
that each minute holds, you but relive the single instant when the time of
terror was replaced by Love. And so you die each day to live again, until you
cross the gap between the past and present, which is NOT a gap at all.
T 26 F 12. Such is each life; a seeming interval from birth to death, and on to
life again, a repetition of an instant gone by long ago, which cannot BE
relived. And ALL of time is but the mad belief that what is over is still here
and now. Forgive the past and let it go, for it IS gone. You stand no longer on
the ground that lies between the worlds. You HAVE gone on, and reached the world
that lies at Heaven’s gate. There is no hindrance to the Will of God, nor any
need that you repeat again a journey that was over long ago. Look gently on each
other, and behold the world in which perception of your hate has been
transformed into a world of Love.
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T 26 G. The Appointed Friend
December 14, 1967
T 26 G 1. Anything in this world that you believe is good and valuable and
worth striving for can hurt you, and will do so. NOT because it has the power to
hurt, but just because YOU have denied it is but an illusion, and MADE IT REAL.
And it IS real to you. It is NOT nothing. And through its perceived reality has
entered all the world of sick illusions. All belief in sin, in power of attack,
in hurt and harm, in sacrifice and death, has come to you. For no-one can make
one illusion real, and still escape the rest. For who can choose to keep the
ones which he prefers, and find the safety that the truth alone can give? Who
can believe illusions are the same, and still maintain that even one is best?
T 26 G 2. Lead not your little lives in solitude, with one illusion as your
only friend. This is no friendship worthy of God’s Son, nor one with which he
could remain content. Yet God has given him a better Friend, in whom all power
in earth and Heaven rests. The one illusion that you THINK is friend obscures
HIS grace and majesty from you, and keeps his friendship and forgiveness from
your welcoming embrace. Without him you are friendless. Seek not another friend
to take his place. There IS no other friend. What God appointed HAS no
substitute, for what illusion CAN replace the truth?
T 26 G 3. Who dwells with shadows is alone indeed, and loneliness is NOT the
Will of God. Would you allow one shadow to usurp the throne that God appointed
for your Friend, if you but realized ITS emptiness has left YOURS empty and
unoccupied? Make NO illusion friend, for if you do, it CAN but take the place of
him whom God has called your Friend. And it is he who is your ONLY Friend in
truth. He brings you gifts that are not of this world, and only he to whom they
have been given, CAN make sure that you receive them. He will place them on YOUR
throne, when you make room for him on his.
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T 26 H. Review of Principles
December 21, 1967
T 26 H 1. This is a course in miracles. And, as such, the laws of healing must
be understood before the purpose of the course can be accomplished. Let us
review the principles that we have covered, and arrange them in a way that
summarizes all that must occur for healing to be possible. For when it once is
possible it MUST occur. ALL sickness comes from separation. When the separation
is denied, it goes. For it IS gone as soon as the idea which brought it has been
healed, and been replaced by sanity. Sickness and sin are seen as consequence
and cause, in a relationship kept hidden from awareness, that it may be
carefully preserved from reason’s light.
T 26 H 2. Guilt ASKS FOR punishment, and its request is granted. NOT in truth,
but in the world of shadows and illusions BUILT on sin. The Son of God perceives
what he would see, because perception IS a wish fulfilled. Perception changes,
MADE to take the place of changeless knowledge. Yet is truth unchanged. It
cannot BE perceived, but only known. What is perceived takes many forms, but
NONE has meaning. Brought to truth, its senselessness is quite apparent. Kept
APART from truth, it SEEMS to have a meaning and be real. Perception’s laws are
OPPOSITE to truth, and what IS true of knowledge is NOT true of ANYTHING that is
apart from it. Yet has God given Answer to the world of sickness, Which applies
to ALL its forms.
T 26 H 3. God’s Answer is eternal, though It operates in time, where It is
needed. But, because It IS of God, the laws of time do not affect Its workings.
It is in this world, but NOT a part of it. For It is real, and dwells where all
reality MUST be. Ideas leave not their source, and their effects but SEEM to be
apart from them. Ideas are of the mind. What is projected OUT, and seems to be
EXTERNAL to the mind, is NOT outside at all, but an effect of what is in, and
has NOT left its source. God’s Answer lies where the belief in sin MUST be, for
only there can its effects be utterly undone, and without cause.
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T 26 H 4. Perception’s laws must be reversed, because they ARE reversals of
the laws of truth. The laws of truth FOREVER will be true, and cannot BE
reversed; yet can be SEEN as upside down. And this must be corrected where the
illusion of reversal lies. It is impossible that one illusion be LESS amenable
to truth than are the rest. But it IS possible that some are given greater
VALUE, and less willingly OFFERED to truth for healing and for help. NO illusion
has ANY truth in it. Yet it appears some are MORE true than others, although
this clearly makes no sense at all. All that a hierarchy of illusions can show
is PREFERENCE, NOT reality.
T 26 H 5. What relevance has preference to the truth? Illusions are illusions,
and are false. Your preference gives them NO reality. Not one is true in ANY
way, and all must yield with equal ease to what God gave as Answer to them all.
God’s Will is One. And ANY wish that SEEMS to go AGAINST His Will has NO
foundation in the truth. Sin is not error, for it goes BEYOND correction to
impossibility. Yet the belief that it is real has made some errors seem forever
PAST the hope of healing, and the lasting grounds for hell. If this were so,
would Heaven be opposed by its own opposite, as real as it.
T 26 H 6. Then would God’s Will be split in two, and all creation be subjected
to the laws of two opposing powers, until God becomes impatient, splits the
world apart, and relegates attack unto Himself. Thus has He lost His Mind,
proclaiming sin has taken His reality from Him, and brought His Love at last to
vengeance’ heels. For such an insane picture, an insane defense can be expected,
but can NOT establish that the picture must be true. Nothing GIVES meaning where
no meaning IS. And truth needs NO defense to make it true. Illusions HAVE no
witnesses, and no effects. Who looks on them is but deceived.
T 26 H 7. Forgiveness is the only function here, and serves to bring the joy
this world denies to every aspect of God’s Son where sin was thought to rule.
Perhaps you do not see the role forgiveness plays in ending death, and ALL
beliefs
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that rise from mists of guilt. Sins are beliefs which you impose between your
brother and yourself. They limit you to time and place, and give a little space
to you; ANOTHER little space to him. This separating off is symbolized, in your
perception, by a body which is clearly separate and a thing apart. Yet what this
symbol REPRESENTS is but your wish to BE apart and separate.
T 26 H 8. Forgiveness TAKES AWAY what stands between your brother and
yourself. It is the wish that you be JOINED with him, and NOT apart. We call it
"wish" because it still conceives of other choices, and has not yet reached
beyond the world of choice entirely. Yet is this wish in line with Heaven’s
state, and not in OPPOSITION to God’s Will. Although it falls far short of
giving you your full inheritance, it DOES remove the obstacles which YOU have
placed between the Heaven where you are, and RECOGNITION of where and what you
are. Facts are unchanged. Yet facts can be denied and thus unknown, though they
were known BEFORE they were denied.
T 26 H 9. Salvation, perfect and complete, asks but a LITTLE wish that what is
true be true; a LITTLE willingness to overlook what is not there. A LITTLE sigh
that speaks for Heaven as a preference to this world which death and desolation
seem to rule. In joyous answer will creation rise within you, to REPLACE the
world you see with Heaven, wholly perfect and complete. What is forgiveness, but
a willingness that truth be true? What can remain unhealed and broken from a
Unity Which holds all things within Itself? There is NO sin. And EVERY miracle
is possible the INSTANT that the Son of God perceives his wishes and the Will of
God are One.
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December 25, 1967
T 26 H 10. What is the Will of God? He wills His Son have everything. And this
He guaranteed when He created him AS everything. It is impossible that anything
be lost, if what you HAVE is what you ARE. This is the miracle by which creation
became YOUR function, sharing it with God. It is not understood APART from Him,
and therefore has no meaning in this world. Here does the Son of God ask NOT too
much, but FAR too little. He would sacrifice his own identity WITH everything,
to find a LITTLE treasure of his own. And this he cannot do, without a sense of
isolation, loss, and loneliness. This IS the treasure he has sought to find. And
he COULD only be afraid of it.
T 26 H 11. Is fear a treasure? Can uncertainty be what you WANT? Or is it a
mistake about your will, and what you REALLY are? Let us consider what the error
IS, so it can be corrected, NOT protected. Sin is belief attack can be projected
OUTSIDE the mind where the belief arose. Here is the firm conviction that ideas
CAN leave their source made real and meaningful. And FROM this error does the
world of sin and sacrifice arise. This world is an attempt to prove your
innocence, while cherishing attack. Its failure lies in that you STILL FEEL
guilty, though without understanding WHY. Effects are SEPARATED from their
source. They SEEM to be BEYOND you to control or to prevent.
T 26 H 12. What has been KEPT apart can never join. Cause and effect are one,
NOT separate. God wills you learn what always has been true. That he created you
as part of Him, and this must still be true BECAUSE ideas leave not their
source. Such is creation’s law; that each idea
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the mind conceives but ADDS to its abundance, NEVER takes away. This is as true
of what is idly wished as what is truly willed, because the mind can wish to be
deceived, but CANNOT make it be what it is not. And to believe ideas can leave
their source is to invite illusions to be true, WITHOUT SUCCESS. For never will
success BE possible in trying to deceive the Son of God.
T 26 H 13. The miracle is possible when cause and consequence are brought
together, NOT kept separate. The healing of effect WITHOUT the cause can merely
shift effects to other forms. And this is NOT release. God’s Son could never be
content with LESS than full salvation, and ESCAPE from guilt. For otherwise he
still demands that he must make SOME sacrifice, and thus denies that EVERYTHING
is his, unlimited by loss of any kind. A tiny sacrifice is just the same in its
EFFECTS as is the WHOLE idea of sacrifice. If loss in ANY form is possible, then
is God’s Son made incomplete and not himself. Nor will he know himself, nor
recognize his will. He has foresworn his Father AND himself, and made them both
his enemies in hate.
T 26 H 14. Illusions serve the purpose they were MADE to serve. And FROM their
purpose, they derive whatever meaning that they seem to have. God gave to ALL
illusions that were made ANOTHER purpose that would justify a miracle, WHATEVER
form they took. In every miracle ALL healing lies, for God gave Answer to them
all as one. And what is one to Him must BE the same. If you believe what is the
same is different, you but deceive yourself. What God calls one will be forever
one, NOT separate. His Kingdom IS united; thus it was created, and thus will it
ever be. The miracle but calls your ancient name, which you will recognize
because the truth is in your memory. And to this name your brother calls
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for his release and yours. Heaven is shining on the Son of God. Deny him not,
that YOU may be released.
T 26 H 15. Each instant is the Son of God reborn, until he chooses NOT to die
again. In every wish to hurt he chooses death, instead of what his Father wills
for him. Yet every instant offers life to him, because his Father wills that he
should live. In crucifixion is redemption laid, for healing is not needed where
there is no pain or suffering. Forgiveness is the ANSWER to attack of any kind.
So is attack DEPRIVED of its effects, and hate is answered in the Name of Love.
To you to whom it has been given to save the Son of God from crucifixion and
from hell and death, all glory be forever. For you HAVE power to save the Son of
God because his Father willed that it be so. And in your hands does ALL
salvation lie, to be both offered and received as one.
T 26 H 16. To use the power God has given you as He would have it used is
natural. It is NOT arrogant to be as He created you, or to make use of what He
gave to answer ALL His Son’s mistakes, and set him free. But it IS arrogant to
LAY ASIDE the power that He gave, and choose a little, senseless wish instead of
what He wills. The gift of God to you is limitless. There is NO circumstance it
cannot answer, and NO problem which is not resolved within its gracious light.
Abide in peace, where God would have you be. And be the means whereby your
brother finds the peace in which YOUR wishes are fulfilled. Let us unite in
bringing blessing to the world of sin and death. For what can save each one of
us, can save us all. There is no difference among the Sons of God.
T 26 H 17. The Unity that specialness denies will save them all, for what is
One can HAVE no specialness. And EVERYTHING belongs to each of them. No wishes
lie between a brother and his own. To get from one is to deprive them all. And
yet to bless but one gives blessing
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to them all as one. Your ancient name belongs to everyone, as theirs to you.
Call on your brother’s name and God will answer, for on Him you call. Could He
refuse to answer when He has ALREADY answered all who call on Him? A miracle can
make no change at all. But it Can make what always has been true be RECOGNIZED
by those who know it not. And by this little gift of truth but let to be itself;
the Son of God allowed to be himself, and all creation freed to call upon the
Name of God as one.
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T 26 I. The Immediacy of Salvation
December 29, 1967
T 26 I 1. The one remaining problem that you have is that you see an interval
between the TIME when you forgive, and will receive the benefits of trust. This
but reflects the little you would keep between YOURSELVES, that you might be a
LITTLE separate. For time and space are ONE illusion, which takes different
forms. If it has been projected BEYOND your minds, you think of it as time. The
nearer it is brought to where it IS, the more you think of it in terms of space.
There is a DISTANCE you would keep apart from one another. And this space you
see as time, because you still believe you are EXTERNAL to each other. This
makes trust impossible. And you can NOT believe that trust would settle every
problem NOW.
T 26 I 2. Thus do you think it SAFER to remain a LITTLE careful and a LITTLE
watchful of interests perceived as separate. From this perception, you cannot
conceive of gaining what forgiveness offers NOW. The interval you think lies in
between the giving and receiving of the gift SEEMS to be one in which you
sacrifice, and suffer loss. You see EVENTUAL salvation; not IMMEDIATE results.
Salvation IS immediate. Unless you so perceive it, you WILL be afraid of it,
believing that the risk of loss is great between the time its PURPOSE is made
yours and its EFFECTS will come to you. In this form is the error still obscured
that is the SOURCE of fear. Salvation WOULD wipe out the space you see between
you still, and let you INSTANTLY become as one. And it is HERE you fear the loss
would lie.
T 26 I 3. Do not project this fear to time, for time is NOT the enemy that you
perceive. Time is as neutral as the body is, except in terms of what you see it
FOR. If you would keep a little SPACE between you still, you want a little TIME
in which forgiveness is withheld a little while. This makes the interval BETWEEN
the time in which forgiveness is withheld and given seem dangerous, with terror
justified. Yet space between you is apparent NOW, and cannot BE perceived in
future time. No more can it be OVERLOOKED, except within the present.
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FUTURE loss is not your fear. But PRESENT joining IS your dread.
T 26 I 4. Who can feel desolation except NOW? A FUTURE cause as yet HAS no
effects. And therefore MUST it be that, if you fear, there is a PRESENT cause.
And it is THIS that needs correction, NOT a future state. The plans YOU make for
safety all are laid within the future, where you CANNOT plan. No purpose has
been GIVEN it as yet, and what WILL happen has as yet no cause. Who can predict
effects without a cause? And who could fear effects UNLESS he thought they had
BEEN caused, and judged disastrous NOW? Belief in sin arouses fear, and like its
cause, is looking forward; looking back, but OVERLOOKING what is here and now.
T 26 I 5. Yet only here and now its cause must be, if its effects ALREADY have
been judged as fearful. And, in overlooking THIS, is it protected and kept
separate from healing. For a miracle is NOW. It stands ALREADY there, in present
grace, within the only interval of time which sin and fear have overlooked, but
which is all there IS to time. The working out of ALL correction takes no time
at all. But the ACCEPTANCE of the working out can SEEM to take forever. The
change of purpose the Holy Spirit brought to your relationship has IN it all
effects that you will see. They can be looked at NOW. Why wait till they unfold
in time, and fear they may NOT come, although already THERE?
T 26 I 6. You have been told that everything brings good that comes from God.
And yet it SEEMS as if this is not so. Good in disaster’s form is difficult to
credit in advance. Nor is there really SENSE in this idea. Why SHOULD the good
appear in evil’s form? And is it not deception if it does? Its CAUSE is here, if
it appears at all. Why are not its effects apparent, then? Why in the future?
And you seek to be content with sighing, and with "reasoning," you do not
understand it now, but WILL some day. And THEN its meaning will be clear. This
is NOT reason, for it is unjust, and clearly hints at punishment until the time
of liberation is at hand.
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T 26 I 7. Given a change of purpose for the good, there is NO reason for an
interval in which disaster strikes, to be perceived as good some day, but now in
form of pain. This is a SACRIFICE of now, which COULD not be the cost the Holy
Spirit asks for what he gave WITHOUT a cost at all. Yet this illusion has a
cause which, though untrue, must be ALREADY in your mind. And THIS illusion is
but one effect which it engenders, and one form in which its outcome is
perceived. This interval in time, when retribution is perceived to be the form
in which the good appears, is but one aspect of the little space that lies
between you, unforgiven still.
T 26 I 8. Be not content with future happiness. It has NO meaning, and is NOT
your just reward. For you have cause for freedom NOW. What profits freedom in a
prisoner’s form? Why SHOULD deliverance be disguised as death? Delay is
senseless, and the "reasoning" which would maintain effects of PRESENT cause
must be delayed until a FUTURE time is merely a denial of the fact that
consequence and cause MUST come as one. Look not to time, but to the little
space between you still, to be delivered FROM. And do not let it be DISGUISED as
time, and so preserved BECAUSE its form is changed, and what it IS cannot be
recognized. The Holy Spirit’s purpose NOW is yours. Should not His happiness be
yours as well?
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T 26 J. For They Have Come
January 2, 1968
T 26 J 1. Think but how holy you must be, from whom the Voice for God calls
lovingly unto your brother, that you may awake in him the Voice that answers to
YOUR call. And think how holy HE must be, when in him sleeps your OWN salvation,
with HIS freedom joined. However much you wish he be condemned, God is in him.
And never will you know He is in YOU as well, while you attack His chosen home,
and battle with His host. Regard him gently. Look with loving eyes on him who
carries Christ within him, that you may behold His glory, and rejoice that
Heaven is NOT separate from you.
T 26 J 2. Is it too much to ask a little trust for him who carries Christ to
you, that you may be forgiven ALL your sins, and left without a single one you
cherish still. Forget not that a shadow held between your brother and yourself
obscures the Face of Christ and memory of God. And would you trade Them for an
ancient hate? The ground whereon you stand is holy ground BECAUSE of Them Who,
standing there with you, have blessed it with Their innocence and peace. The
blood of hatred fades, to let the grass grow green again, and let the flowers be
all white and sparkling in the summer sun. What was a place of death has now
become a living temple in a world of light.
T 26 J 3. Because of Them. It is Their Presence Which has lifted holiness
again to take its ancient place upon an ancient throne. Because of Them have
miracles sprung up as grass and flowers on the barren ground which hate had
scorched and rendered desolate. What hate has wrought have They undone. And now
you stand on ground so holy Heaven leans to join with it, and make it like
Itself. The shadow of an ancient hate has gone, and all the blight and withering
have passed forever from the land where They have come.
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T 26 J 4. What is a hundred or a thousand years to Them, or tens of thousands?
When They come, time’s purpose is fulfilled. What never WAS passes to
nothingness when They have come. What hatred claimed is given up to love, and
freedom lights up every living thing and lifts it into Heaven, where the lights
grow ever brighter as each one comes home. The incomplete is made complete
again, and Heaven’s joy has been increased because what is its own has been
restored to it. The bloodied earth is cleansed, and the insane have shed their
garments of insanity, to join Them on the ground whereon you stand.
T 26 J 5. Heaven is grateful for this gift of what has been withheld so long.
For They have come to gather in Their Own. What has been locked is opened; what
was held APART from light is given up, that light may shine on it, and leave no
space nor distance lingering between the light of Heaven and the world. The
holiest of all the spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a
present love. And They come quickly to the living temple, where a home for Them
has been set up. There is no place in Heaven holier. And They HAVE come to dwell
within the temple offered them, to be THEIR resting place as well as YOURS.
T 26 J 6. What hatred has released to love becomes the brightest light in
Heaven’s radiance. And all the lights in Heaven brighter grow in gratitude for
what has been restored. Around you angels hover lovingly, to keep away all
darkened thoughts of sin, and KEEP the light where it has entered in. Your
footprints lighten up the world, for where you walk forgiveness goes with you.
No-one on earth but offers thanks to one who has restored his home, and
sheltered him from bitter winter and the freezing cold. And shall the Lord of
Heaven and His Son give LESS in gratitude for so much MORE?
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T 26 J 7. Now is the temple of the Living God rebuilt as host again to Him by
Whom it was created. Where He dwells, His Son dwells with Him, NEVER separate.
And They give thanks that They are welcome made at last. Where stood a cross
stands now the risen Christ, and ancient scars are healed within His sight. An
ancient miracle has come to bless and to REPLACE an ancient enmity that came to
kill. In gentle gratitude do God the Father AND the Son return to what is
Theirs, and will forever be. Now is the Holy Spirit’s purpose done. For They
have come! For They have come at last!
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T 26 K. The Remaining Task
January 8, 1968
T 26 K 1. What, then, remains to be undone, for you to REALIZE Their Presence?
Only this; you have a DIFFERENTIAL view of WHEN attack is justified, and WHEN
you think it is unfair, and NOT to be allowed. When you perceive it AS unfair,
you think that a response of anger now is just. And thus you see what IS the
same as DIFFERENT. Confusion is not limited. If it occurs at all, it WILL be
total. And its presence, in WHATEVER form, will hide Their Presence. They are
known with clarity, or not at all. Confused perception will block knowledge. It
is NOT a question of the SIZE of the confusion, or HOW MUCH it interferes. Its
simple PRESENCE shuts the door to Theirs, and keeps Them there unknown.
T 26 K 2. What does it MEAN if you perceive attack in certain FORMS to be
unfair to you? It means that there MUST be some forms in which YOU THINK IT
FAIR. For otherwise, how could some be evaluated as UNfair? Some, then, are
GIVEN meaning, and perceived as sensible. And only SOME are seen as meaningLESS.
And this DENIES the fact that ALL are senseless; EQUALLY without a cause or
consequence, and CANNOT have effects of ANY kind. Their Presence is obscured by
ANY veil which stands between Their shining innocence and your awareness it is
your own, and EQUALLY belongs to every living thing along with you. God limits
not. And what is limited can NOT be Heaven. So it MUST be hell.
T 26 K 3. Unfairness and attack are ONE mistake, so firmly joined that where
one is perceived, the other MUST be seen. You cannot BE unfairly treated. The
belief you ARE is but another form of the idea you are deprived by someone NOT
yourself. PROJECTION of the cause of sacrifice is at the root of everything
perceived to be unfair, and NOT your just deserts. Yet it is YOU who ask this of
yourself, in deep injustice to the Son of God. You HAVE no enemy except
yourself, and you are enemy indeed to him, because you do not know him AS
yourself. What COULD be more unjust than that he be deprived of what he IS,
denied the right to be himself, and asked to sacrifice his Father’s Love and
yours, as NOT his due?
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T 26 K 4. Beware of the temptation to perceive yourself unfairly treated. In
this view, you seek to find an innocence which is NOT Theirs, but yours alone,
and at the cost of someone ELSE’S guilt. Can innocence be purchased by the
giving of YOUR guilt to someone else? And IS this innocence, which your attack
on him attempts to get? Is it not retribution for your own attack upon the Son
of God you seek? Is it not SAFER to believe that you are innocent of this, and
victimized despite your innocence? Whatever way the game of guilt is played,
THERE MUST BE LOSS. Someone must LOSE his innocence that someone ELSE can take
it from him, making it his own.
T 26 K 5. You think your brother is unfair to you BECAUSE you think that one
must be unfair to MAKE the other innocent. And in this game do you perceive one
PURPOSE for your whole relationship. And this you seek to ADD unto the purpose
GIVEN it. The Holy Spirit’s purpose is to let the Presence of your holy Guests
be known to you. And TO this purpose nothing CAN be added, for the world is
purposeless except for this. To add or take away from this ONE goal is but to
take away ALL purpose from the world and from yourself. And each unfairness that
the world appears to lay upon you, you have laid on it, by rendering it
purposeless, without the function that the Holy Spirit sees. And simple justice
has been thus denied to every living thing upon the earth.
T 26 K 6. What this injustice does to you who judge unfairly, and who see as
you have judged, you cannot calculate. The world grows dim and threatening, and
not a trace of all the happy sparkle that salvation brought can you perceive, to
lighten up your way. And so you see YOURSELF deprived of light, abandoned to the
dark, unfairly left without a purpose in a futile world. The world is fair
because the Holy Spirit has brought injustice to the Light within, and there has
ALL unfairness been resolved, and been REPLACED with justice and with love. If
you perceive injustice anywhere, you need but say,
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"By this do I DENY the Presence of the Father and the Son. And I would rather
know of Them than see injustice, which Their Presence shines away."
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Chapter XXVII - 27 - The Body And The Dream
T 27 A. Introduction
January 19,1967
T 27 A 1. The wish to be unfairly treated is a compromise attempt that would
COMBINE attack and innocence. Who can combine the wholly incompatible, and make
a unity of what can NEVER join? Walk you the gentle way, and you will fear no
evil and no shadows in the night. But place no terror symbols on the path, or
you will weave a crown of thorns from which your brother and yourself will NOT
escape. You CANNOT crucify yourself alone. And if you are unfairly treated, he
MUST suffer the unfairness that you see. You CANNOT sacrifice yourself alone.
For sacrifice is total. If it could occur at all, it would entail the whole of
God’s creation, and the Father with the sacrifice of his beloved Son.
T 27 A 2. In your RELEASE from sacrifice is HIS made manifest, and shown to be
his own. But every pain you suffer do you see as proof that HE is guilty of
attack. Thus would you make yourself to be the sign that he has LOST his
innocence, and need but look on you to realize that HE has been condemned. And
what to YOU has been unfair will come to HIM in righteousness. The unjust
vengeance that you suffer now belongs to HIM, and when it RESTS, on him are YOU
set free. Wish not to make yourself a living symbol of his guilt, for you will
NOT escape the death you make for him, and in HIS innocence you find your own.
T 27 B. The Picture of the Crucifixion
T 27 B 1. Whenever you consent to suffer pain, to be deprived, unfairly
treated, or in need of ANYTHING, you but accuse your brother of attack upon
God’s Son. You hold a picture of your crucifixion before his eyes, that he may
see his sins are writ in Heaven in your blood and death, and go before him,
closing off the gate, and damning him to hell. Yet this is writ in hell and NOT
in Heaven, where you are BEYOND attack, and prove his INNOCENCE. The picture of
yourself you offer him you show YOURSELF, and give it all your faith. The Holy
Spirit offers you, to give to him, a picture of yourself in which there is
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NO pain, and NO reproach at all. And what was martyred to his guilt becomes the
perfect witness to his innocence.
T 27 B 2. The power of witness is beyond belief, because it brings conviction
in its wake. The witness is believed BECAUSE he points beyond himself, to what
he REPRESENTS. A sick and suffering you but represents your brother’s guilt; the
witness which you send, lest he forget the injuries he gave, from which you
swear he never will escape. This sick and sorry picture YOU accept, if only it
can serve to punish him. The sick are merciless to everyone, and in contagion do
they seek to kill. Death seems an easy price, if they can say, "Behold me,
brother, at your hand I die." For sickness is the witness to his guilt, and
death would prove his errors MUST be sins.
T 27 B 3. Sickness is but a "little" death; a form of vengeance not yet total.
Yet it speaks with certainty for what it represents. The bleak and bitter
picture you have sent your brother, YOU have looked upon in grief. And
everything that it has shown to him have you believed, BECAUSE it witnessed to
the guilt in him, which you perceived and loved. Now in the hands made gentle by
His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of
a body still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured. But THIS one
has NOT been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at
all. IT witnesses to the eternal truth that you can not BE hurt, and points
BEYOND itself to both YOUR innocence and HIS.
T 27 B 4. Show THIS unto your brother, who will see that every scar is healed,
and every tear is wiped away in laughter and in love. And he will look on his
forgiveness there, and with healed eyes will look BEYOND it, to the innocence
that he beholds in you. Here is the proof that he has NEVER sinned; that NOTHING
that his madness bid him do was ever done, or ever had effects of any kind. That
NO reproach he laid upon his heart was EVER justified, and NO attack can touch
him with the poisoned sting of fear. Attest his
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innocence and NOT his guilt. YOUR healing is his comfort and HIS health. BECAUSE
it proves illusions were not true.
T 27 B 5. It is not Will for Life, but wish for death, that is the motivation
for this world. Its ONLY purpose is TO PROVE GUILT REAL. No worldly thought or
act or feeling has a motivation other than this one. These are the witnesses
that are called forth to be believed, and lend conviction to the system they
speak for and represent. And each has many voices, speaking to your brother and
yourself in different tongues. And yet to both the message is the same.
Adornment of the body seeks to show how lovely are the witnesses for guilt.
Concerns about the body demonstrate how frail and vulnerable is your life; how
easily destroyed is what you love. Depression speaks of death and vanity of real
concern with anything at all.
T 27 B 6. The strongest witness to futility, which bolsters all the rest and
helps them paint the picture in which sin is justified, is sickness in whatever
form it takes. The sick have reason for each one of their unnatural desires and
strange needs. For who could live a life so soon cut short, and NOT esteem the
worth of passing joys? What pleasures COULD there be that will endure? Are not
the frail ENTITLED to believe that every stolen scrap of pleasure is their
righteous payment for their little lives? Their death will pay the price for all
of them, if they enjoy their benefits or not. The end of life must come,
whatever way that life be spent. And so take pleasure in the quickly passing and
ephemeral.
T 27 B 7. These are NOT sins, but witnesses unto the strange belief that sin
and death are real, and innocence and sin will end alike, within the termination
of the grave. If this were true, there WOULD be reason to remain content to seek
for passing joys, and cherish little pleasures where you can. But in this
picture is the body NOT perceived as neutral and WITHOUT a goal inherent in
itself. For it becomes the symbol of reproach,
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the sign of guilt whose consequences still are there to see, so that the cause
can NEVER be denied. Your function is to PROVE to him that sin can HAVE no
cause. How futile MUST it be to see yourself a picture of the proof that what
your function IS can never be.
T 27 B 8. The Holy Spirit’s picture changes not the body into something it is
not. It only takes away from it ALL signs of accusation and of blamefulness.
Pictured WITHOUT a purpose, it is seen as neither sick nor well, nor bad nor
good. No grounds are offered that it may be judged in ANY way at all. It has no
life, but neither is it dead. It stands apart from ALL experience of fear OR
love. For now it witnesses to NOTHING yet, its purpose being open, and the mind
made free again to choose what it is FOR. Now is it not condemned, but waiting
for a purpose to be GIVEN, that it may fulfill the function that it will
receive.
T 27 B 9. Into this empty space, from which the GOAL of sin has been removed,
is Heaven free to be remembered. Here its peace can come, and perfect healing
take the place of death. The body can become a sign of life, a promise of
redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the
fetid scent of death. Let it have healing as its PURPOSE. Then will it send
forth the message it received, and by its health and loveliness proclaim the
truth and value that it represents. Let it receive the power to represent an
endless life, forever unattacked. And to your brother let its message be,
"Behold me, brother, at your hand I live."
T 27 B 10. The simple way to let this be achieved is merely this; to let the
body have no purpose from the past, when you were sure you KNEW its purpose was
to foster guilt. For this insists your crippled picture is a lasting sign of
what it represents. This leaves no space in which a DIFFERENT view, ANOTHER
purpose, can be given it. You do NOT know its purpose. You but gave ILLUSIONS of
a purpose to a thing you made to hide your function from yourself. This thing
WITHOUT a purpose cannot hide the function that the Holy Spirit gave. Let, then,
ITS purpose and YOUR function both be reconciled at last, and seen as one.
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T 27 C. The Fear of Healing
January 22, 1968
T 27 C 1. Is healing frightening? To many, yes. For accusation is a bar to
love, and damaged bodies ARE accusers. They stand firmly in the way of trust and
peace, proclaiming that the frail can HAVE no trust, and that the damaged HAVE
no grounds for peace. Who has been injured BY his brother, and could love and
trust him still? He HAS attacked, and will attack again. Protect him not,
because your damaged body shows that you must be protected FROM him. To forgive
may be an act of charity, but NOT his due. He may be PITIED for his guilt, but
NOT exonerated. And if you forgive him his transgressions, you but ADD to all
the guilt that he has really earned.
T 27 C 2. The unhealed CANNOT pardon. For they are the witnesses that pardon
is unfair. They would retain the CONSEQUENCES of the guilt they overlook. Yet
no-one CAN forgive a sin which he believes is real. And what has consequences
MUST be real, because what it has DONE is there to see. Forgiveness is NOT pity,
which but seeks to pardon what it knows to be the truth. Good cannot BE returned
for evil, for forgiveness does not first ESTABLISH sin, and THEN forgive it. Who
can say and MEAN, "My brother, you have injured me, and yet, because I am the
BETTER of the two, I pardon you my hurt." HIS pardon and YOUR hurt can NOT exist
together. One DENIES the other, and MUST make it false.
T 27 C 3. To witness sin and yet forgive it is a paradox which reason cannot
see. For it maintains what has been done to you DESERVES no pardon. And, by
GIVING it, you grant your brother mercy, but retain the proof he is not REALLY
innocent. The sick remain accusers. They cannot forgive their brothers AND
themselves as well. For no-one in whom true forgiveness reigns can suffer. He
holds not the proof of sin, before his brother’s eyes. And thus he MUST have
overlooked it, and removed it from his own. Forgiveness CANNOT be for one, and
not the other. Who forgives IS healed. And in his healing lies the PROOF that he
has truly pardoned, and retains no trace of condemnation that
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he still would hold against himself or any living thing.
T 27 C 4. Forgiveness is not real UNLESS it brings a healing to your brother
AND yourself. YOU must attest his sins had no effect on YOU, to demonstrate they
were not real. How else COULD he be guiltless? And how COULD his innocence be
justified UNLESS his sins have no effect to WARRANT guilt? Sins are beyond
forgiveness just BECAUSE they would entail effects which CANNOT be undone and
overlooked entirely. In their UNDOING lies the proof that they were merely
errors. LET yourself be healed, that you may be forgiving, offering salvation to
your brother AND yourself. A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed. A
miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect.
T 27 C 5. What you would prove to him you will believe. The power of witness
COMES from your belief. And everything you say or do or think but testifies to
what you teach to him. Your body can be means to teach that it has never
suffered pain because of him. And in its healing can it offer him mute testimony
to his innocence. It is THIS testimony that can speak with power greater than a
thousand tongues. For here is his forgiveness PROVED to him. A miracle can offer
nothing LESS to him than it has given unto you. So does your healing show your
mind is healed, and has forgiven what he did NOT do. And so is HE convinced his
innocence was never lost, and healed along with you.
T 27 C 6. Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never BE
undone. And hopelessness and death MUST disappear before the ancient clarion
call of life. This call has power FAR beyond the weak and miserable cry of death
and guilt. The ancient Calling of the Father to His Son, and of the Son unto his
own, will yet be the last trumpet that the world will ever hear. Brother, there
is no death. And this you learn when you but wish to show your brother that you
had no hurt of him. He thinks your blood is on his hands, and so he stands
condemned. But it is given you
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to SHOW him, by your healing, that his guilt is but the fabric of a senseless
dream.
T 27 C 7. How just are miracles! For they bestow an equal gift of full
deliverance from guilt upon your brother AND yourself. YOUR healing saves HIM
pain, as well as you. And YOU are healed BECAUSE you wished him well. This is
the law the miracle obeys; That healing sees no specialness at all. It does NOT
come from pity, but from love. And love would prove ALL suffering is but a vain
imagining, a foolish wish, with NO effects. Your health is a result of your
desire to see your brother with no blood upon his hands, nor guilt upon his
heart made heavy with the proof of sin. And what you wish is GIVEN you to see.
T 27 C 8. The "cost" of your serenity is his. This is the "price" the Holy
Spirit and the world interpret differently. The world perceives in it a
statement of the "fact" that your salvation SACRIFICES his. The Holy Spirit
knows YOUR healing is the witness UNTO his, and CANNOT be apart from him at all.
As long as he consents to suffer, YOU will be unhealed. But you can show him his
suffering is purposeless and wholly without cause. Show him YOUR healing, and he
will consent no more to suffer. For his innocence HAS BEEN established in your
sight AND his. And laughter will REPLACE your sighs BECAUSE God’s Son remembered
that he IS God’s Son.
T 27 C 9. Who, then, fears healing? Only those to whom their brother’s
sacrifice and pain is seen to represent their own serenity. Their helplessness
and weakness represent grounds on which they justify his pain. The constant
sting of guilt he suffers serves to prove that he is slave, and they are free.
The constant pain THEY suffer demonstrates that they are free BECAUSE they hold
him bound. And sickness is desired to prevent a shift of balance in the
sacrifice. How could the Holy Spirit be deterred an instant, even less, to
reason with an argument for sickness such as this? And need YOUR healing be
delayed because you pause to listen to insanity?
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January 24, 1968
T 27 C 10. Correction is NOT your function. It belongs to One Who knows of
fairness, NOT of guilt. If you assume correction’s role, you LOSE the function
of forgiveness. No-one can forgive until he learns correction is BUT to forgive,
and NEVER to accuse. Alone, you CANNOT see they are the same, and therefore is
correction NOT of you. Identity and function are the same, and BY your function
do you know yourself. And thus, if you confuse your function with the function
of Another, you MUST be confused about yourself and who you are. What is the
separation but a wish to take God’s Function from Him and DENY that it is His?
Yet if it is NOT His it is not YOURS, for YOU must lose what you would take
away.
T 27 C 11. In a split mind, identity MUST seem to be divided. Nor can anyone
perceive a function unified which has conflicting purposes and different ends.
Correction, to a mind so split, MUST be a way to punish sins you think are YOURS
in someone else. And thus does he become your victim, NOT your brother,
DIFFERENT from you in that he is MORE GUILTY, thus in need of your correction,
as the one MORE INNOCENT than he. This splits HIS function off from yours, and
gives you both a DIFFERENT role. And so you CANNOT be perceived as one, and with
a single function that would MEAN a shared identity with but ONE end.
T 27 C 12. Correction YOU would do MUST separate, because that is the function
given it BY you. When you perceive correction is the SAME as pardon, then you
also know the Holy Spirit’s Mind and yours are One. And so your OWN identity is
found. Yet must He work with what is GIVEN Him, and you allow Him only HALF your
mind. And thus He represents the OTHER half, and seems to have a DIFFERENT
purpose from the one you cherish, and you THINK is yours. Thus does your
function seem DIVIDED, with a half IN OPPOSITION to a half. And these two halves
appear to represent a split within a self perceived as two.
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T 27 C 13. Consider how this self perception MUST extend, and do not overlook
the fact that EVERY thought extends, because that is its purpose, being what it
really IS. From an idea of self AS TWO, there comes a NECESSARY view of function
split BETWEEN the two. And what you would correct is only HALF the error, which
you think is ALL of it. Your BROTHER’S sins become the central target for
correction, lest your errors and his own be seen as one. YOURS are mistakes, but
HIS are sins, and NOT the same as yours. HIS merit punishment, while yours, in
fairness, should be overlooked.
T 27 C 14. In THIS interpretation of correction, your own mistakes you will not
even SEE. The FOCUS of correction has been placed OUTSIDE yourself, on one who
CANNOT be a part of you while this perception lasts. What is condemned can never
be returned to its accuser, who has hated it, AND HATES IT STILL. This is your
brother, focus of your hate, unworthy to be part of you, and thus OUTSIDE your
self, the other half, which is denied. Only what is left, WITHOUT his presence,
is perceived as ALL of you. To this remaining half the Holy Spirit must
represent the OTHER half, until you recognize it IS the other half. And this He
does by giving BOTH of you a function that is one, NOT different.
T 27 C 15. Correction IS the function given both, but neither one alone. And
when it is fulfilled as SHARED, it MUST correct mistakes in both of you. It
CANNOT leave mistakes in one unhealed, and make the other free. THAT is DIVIDED
purpose, which cannot BE shared, and so it CANNOT be the function which the Holy
Spirit sees as His. And you can rest assured that He will NOT fulfill a function
that He cannot understand, and recognize as His. For only thus can he keep YOURS
preserved intact, DESPITE your separate views of what your function IS. If He
UPHELD divided function, you were lost indeed. His INABILITY to see His goal
divided and distinct for each of you preserves your Self from being made aware
of any function OTHER than Its Own.
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T 27 C 16. And thus is healing given BOTH of you. Correction MUST be left to
One Who knows correction and forgiveness ARE the same. With HALF a mind, this is
NOT understood. Leave, then, correction to the Mind That IS united, functioning
as One BECAUSE It is not split in purpose, and conceives a single function as
Its ONLY one. Here is the function GIVEN It conceived to be Its Own, and NOT
apart from that Its Giver keeps BECAUSE it has been shared. In His ACCEPTANCE of
this function lies the means whereby your mind is unified. His SINGLE purpose
unifies the halves of you that you perceive as separate. And each forgives the
other, that he may accept his OTHER half as PART of him.
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T 27 D. The Symbol of the Impossible
Jan. 26, 1968
T 27 D 1. Power can NOT oppose. For opposition would WEAKEN it, and weakened
power is a contradiction in ideas. Weak strength is meaningless. And power used
to weaken is EMPLOYED to limit. Thus it MUST be limited and weak, because that
is its purpose. Power is UNopposed, to be itself. No weakness CAN intrude upon
it without changing what it IS, to something it is not. To weaken IS to limit,
and impose an opposite that CONTRADICTS the concept it attacks. And BY its
contradiction does it JOIN to the idea a something it is not, and make it
unintelligible. Who can understand a double concept, such as "weakened-power,"
or as "hateful-love?"
T 27 D 2. You have decided that your brother IS a symbol for a "hateful-love,"
a "weakened-power," and, above all, a "living-death." And so he has NO meaning
to you, for he stands for what is meaningless. He represents a double thought,
where half is cancelled out by the remaining half. Yet even this is quickly
contradicted by the half it cancelled out, and so they BOTH are gone. And now he
stands for nothing. Symbols which but represent ideas that cannot BE, must stand
for empty space and nothingness. Yet nothingness and empty space can NOT be
interference. What CAN interfere with the awareness of reality is the belief
that there is SOMETHING THERE.
T 27 D 3. The picture of your brother that you see means nothing. There is
nothing to attack or to deny; to love or hate, or to endow with power or to see
as weak. The picture has been wholly cancelled out, because it symbolized a
contradiction which cancelled out the THOUGHT it represents. And thus the
picture has no cause at all. Who can perceive effect WITHOUT a cause? What can
the causeless BE but nothingness. The picture of your brother that you see is
wholly absent, and has never been. Let, then, the empty space it occupies be
RECOGNIZED as vacant, and the time devoted to its seeing be perceived as idly
spent, a time unoccupied.
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T 27 D 4. An empty space which is NOT seen as filled, an unused interval of
time NOT seen as spent and fully occupied, become a silent invitation to the
truth to enter, and to make Itself at home. No preparation CAN be made that
would enhance the invitation’s real appeal. For what you leave as vacant GOD
will fill, and where HE is, there MUST the truth abide. Unweakened Power, with
NO opposite, is what creation IS. For this there are NO symbols. Nothing points
BEYOND the truth, for what can stand for MORE than everything? Yet true undoing
must be kind. And so the first replacement for your picture is ANOTHER picture,
of ANOTHER kind.
T 27 D 5. As nothingness cannot BE pictured, so there IS no symbol for
totality. Reality is ultimately known WITHOUT a form, unpictured and unseen.
Forgiveness is not yet a Power known as wholly free of limits. Yet it sets no
limits YOU have chosen to impose. Forgiveness is the means by which the truth is
represented TEMPORARILY. It lets the Holy Spirit make EXCHANGE of pictures
possible, until the time when aids are meaningless, and learning done. No
learning aid has use which can extend BEYOND the goal of learning. When its aim
HAS BEEN accomplished, it is functionless. Yet, in the learning interval, it HAS
a use which now you fear, but yet will love.
T 27 D 6. The picture of your brother GIVEN you to occupy the space so lately
left unoccupied and vacant, will not need defense of ANY kind. For you will give
it OVERWHELMING preference. Nor delay an instant in deciding that it is the ONLY
one you want. It does NOT stand for double concepts. Though it is but HALF the
picture, and IS incomplete, WITHIN itself it is the same. The other half of what
it represents remains unknown, but is not cancelled out. And thus is God left
free to take the final step Himself. For this you need NO pictures and NO
learning aids. And what will ultimately take the place of EVERY learning aid
will merely BE.
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T 27 D 7. Forgiveness vanishes and symbols fade, and nothing that the eyes
have ever seen, or ears have heard, remains to be perceived. A Power wholly
limitless has come, NOT to destroy, but to RECEIVE Its Own. There is no CHOICE
of function anywhere. The choice you fear to lose you never HAD. Yet only this
APPEARS to interfere with power unlimited and SINGLE thoughts, complete and
happy, WITHOUT opposite. You do not know the peace of power which opposes
NOTHING. Yet no OTHER kind can be at all. Give welcome to the Power beyond
forgiveness, and beyond the world of symbols and of limitations. He would merely
BE, and so He merely IS.
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T 27 E. The Quiet Answer
January 30, 1968
T 27 E 1. In quietness are all things answered, and is every problem quietly
resolved. In conflict there can BE no answer and no resolution. For its PURPOSE
is to make NO resolution possible, and to ensure NO answer will be plain. A
problem set in conflict HAS no answer, for it is seen in different ways. And
what would be an answer from one point of view is NOT an answer in another
light. You ARE in conflict. Thus it must be clear you cannot answer anything at
all, for conflict HAS no limited effects. Yet, if God gave an Answer, there MUST
be a way in which your problems are resolved, for what He wills already has been
done.
T 27 E 2. Thus it MUST be that time is not involved, and every problem can be
answered now. Yet it must also be that in your state of mind, solution is
impossible. Therefore, God must have given you a way of reaching to ANOTHER
state of mind, in which the answer is ALREADY THERE. Such is the Holy Instant.
It is here that ALL your problems should be brought and LEFT. Here they BELONG,
for here THEIR answer is. And where its answer is, a problem MUST be simple and
be easily resolved. It MUST be pointless to attempt to solve a problem where the
answer cannot be. Yet, just as surely, it MUST be resolved, if it is brought to
where the answer IS.
T 27 E 3. Attempt to solve NO problems but within the Holy Instant’s surety.
For there the problem WILL be answered and resolved. Outside, there will be no
solution, for there IS no answer there that could be found. Nowhere outside a
single, simple question is ever ASKED. The world can ONLY ask a double question,
with MANY answers, none of which will do. It does not ask a question to BE
answered, but only to restate its point of view. All questions asked within this
world are but a way of LOOKING, NOT a question asked. A question asked in hate
cannot be answered, because it IS an answer in itself. A double question asks
and answers, both attesting the same thing, in different form.
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T 27 E 4. The world asks but ONE question. It is this: "Of these illusions,
which of them are true? Which ones establish peace and offer joy? And which can
bring escape from all the pain of which this world is made?" Whatever form the
question takes, its purpose is the same. It asks but to ESTABLISH sin is real,
and answers in the form of preference. "Which sin do you prefer?" That is the
one that you should choose. The OTHERS are not true. What can the body get that
you would want the most of all? It is your servant and your friend. But tell it
what you want, and it will serve you lovingly and well. And this is NOT a
question, for it TELLS you WHAT you want, and WHERE to go to ask for it. It
leaves no room to question its beliefs, except that what it states takes
question’s FORM.
T 27 E 5. A pseudo-question has no answer. It DICTATES the answer, even as it
asks. Thus is all questioning within the world a form of propaganda for itself.
Just as the body’s witnesses are but the senses from WITHIN itself, so are the
answers to the questions of the world contained within the questions. Where
answers represent the QUESTIONS they add nothing new, and nothing has been
learned. An HONEST question is a learning tool which asks for something that you
do NOT know. It does NOT set conditions for response, but merely asks what the
RESPONSE should be. But no-one in a conflict state is free to ASK this question,
for he does not WANT an honest answer, where the conflict ENDS.
T 27 E 6. Only within the Holy Instant can an honest question honestly be
asked. And from the meaning of the QUESTION does the meaningfulness of the
answer come. Here is it possible to separate your wishes FROM the answer, so it
can be GIVEN you, and also be RECEIVED. The answer is provided everywhere, but
it is only here it can be HEARD. An honest answer asks NO sacrifice, because it
answers questions truly asked. The questions of the world but ask of whom is
sacrifice demanded, asking NOT if sacrifice is meaningful at all. And so, UNLESS
the answer tells "of whom," it will remain unrecognized, unheard, and thus the
QUESTION is preserved intact, because it gave the answer to ITSELF.
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T 27 E 7. The Holy Instant is the interval in which the mind is still enough
to hear an answer that is NOT entailed within the question asked. It offers
something new and DIFFERENT from the question. How COULD it be answered if it
but repeats itself. Therefore, attempt to solve NO problem in a world from which
the answer has been barred. But bring the problem to the only place which holds
the answer lovingly FOR you. Here are the answers which will SOLVE your
problems, because they stand APART from them, and see what CAN be answered; what
the QUESTION is. Within the world, the answers merely raise ANOTHER question,
though they leave the first unanswered. In the holy instant, you can bring the
question TO the answer, and receive the answer that was MADE for you.
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T 27 F. The Healing Example
Feb. 1, 1968
T 27 F 1. The ONLY way to heal is to be healed. The miracle extends WITHOUT
your help, but you ARE needed that it can BEGIN. ACCEPT the miracle of healing,
and it WILL go forth because of what it IS. It is its NATURE to extend itself
the instant it is born. And it is born the instant it is offered and RECEIVED.
No-one can ask ANOTHER to be healed. But he can let HIMSELF be healed, and thus
offer the other what he has received. Who can bestow upon another what he does
not HAVE? And who can SHARE what he denies HIMSELF? The Holy Spirit speaks to
YOU. He does not speak to someone ELSE. Yet BY your listening, His Voice
extends, BECAUSE you have accepted what He says.
T 27 F 2. Health is the witness unto health. As long as it is unattested, it
remains without conviction. Only when DEMONSTRATED has it BEEN proved, and MUST
compel belief. No-one is healed through double messages. If you wish ONLY to be
healed, you heal. Your single PURPOSE makes this possible. But if you are AFRAID
of healing, then it cannot come through you. The ONLY thing that is required for
a healing is a lack of fear. The fearful are NOT healed, and cannot heal. This
does NOT mean the conflict must be gone forever from your mind. For if it were,
there were no NEED for healing anymore. But it DOES mean, if only for an
instant, you love without attack. An instant is sufficient. Miracles wait not on
time.
T 27 F 3. The holy instant is the miracle’s abiding-place. From there, each
one is born into this world, as witness to a state of mind which has TRANSCENDED
conflict, and has reached to peace. It carries comfort from the place of peace
into the battle-ground, and DEMONSTRATES that war has no effects. For all the
hurt that war has sought to bring; the broken bodies and the shattered limbs,
the screaming dying and the silent dead, are gently lifted up and comforted.
There IS no sadness, where a miracle has come to heal. And nothing more than
just ONE instant of your love WITHOUT attack is necessary, that all this occur.
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T 27 F 4. In that ONE instant are you healed, and in that single instant is
all healing done. What stands APART from you, when you accept the blessing that
the holy instant brings? Be not afraid of blessing for the One Who blesses you
loves all the world, and leaves nothing within the world that COULD be feared.
But if you SHRINK from blessing, will the world indeed seem fearful, for you
have WITHHELD its peace and comfort, leaving it to die. Would not a world so
bitterly bereft be looked on as a condemnation by the one who COULD have saved
it, but stepped back because he was AFRAID of being healed? The eyes of all the
dying bring reproach, and suffering whispers, "What is there to fear?"
T 27 F 5. Consider well its question. It is asked of you on your behalf. A
dying world asks only that you rest an instant from attack upon yourself, that
it be healed. Come to the holy instant and be healed, for nothing that is there
received is left behind, on your returning to the world. And BEING blessed, you
will bring blessing. Life is given you, to give the dying world. And suffering
eyes no longer will accuse, but shine in thanks to you who blessing gave. The
holy instant’s radiance will light YOUR eyes, and give them sight to see beyond
ALL suffering, and see Christ’s Face INSTEAD. Healing REPLACES suffering. Who
looks on one cannot PERCEIVE the other, for they CANNOT both be there. And what
YOU see the world will witness, and will witness TO.
T 27 F 6. Thus is YOUR healing everything the world requires, that it may be
healed. It needs ONE lesson that has perfectly been learned. And then, when YOU
forget it, will the world remind you gently of what you have taught. No
reinforcement will its thanks withhold from you who let yourself be healed, that
it might live. It will call forth its witnesses to show the Face of Christ to
you who brought the sight to them, by which THEY witnessed it. The world of
accusation is replaced by one in which all eyes look lovingly upon the
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friend who brought them their release. And happily your brother will perceive
the many friends he thought were enemies.
T 27 F 7. Problems are not specific, but they take specific forms, and these
specific shapes make up the world. And no-one understands the nature of his
problem. If he DID, it would be there no more for him to see. Its very NATURE is
that it is NOT. And thus, WHILE he perceives it, he can NOT perceive it as it
is. But HEALING is apparent in specific instances, and generalizes to include
them all. This is because they really ARE the same, DESPITE their different
forms. All learning aims at transfer, which becomes complete within two
situations which are seen as one. For ONLY common elements are there. But this
can only be attained by One Who does not see the DIFFERENCES you see.
T 27 F 8. The total transfer of your learning is NOT made by you. But that it
HAS been made, IN SPITE of all the differences you see, convinces YOU that they
could not be real. Your healing WILL extend, and WILL be brought to problems
that you thought were NOT your own. And it will ALSO be apparent that your many
DIFFERENT problems will be solved, as any ONE of them has been escaped. It
CANNOT be their differences which made this possible, for learning does not jump
from situations to their opposites, and bring the SAME effects. All healing MUST
proceed in lawful manner, in accord with laws that have been properly perceived,
but NEVER violated. Fear you not the way that YOU perceive them. You ARE wrong,
but there is One within you Who is RIGHT.
T 27 F 9. Leave, then, the transfer of your learning to the One Who REALLY
understands its laws, and Who will guarantee that they remain unviolated and
unlimited. Your part is merely to apply what He has taught you TO YOURSELF, and
He will do the rest. And thus the power of your learning will be PROVED to you,
by all the many DIFFERENT witnesses it finds. Your brother FIRST among them will
be seen, but thousands stand behind him, and beyond each one them there are a
thousand more. Each one may SEEM to have a problem which is DIFFERENT
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from the rest. Yet they are solved TOGETHER. And their common Answer shows the
QUESTIONS could not have been separate.
T 27 F 10. Peace be to you whom is healing offered. And you will learn that
peace is given you, when you accept the healing for yourself. Its TOTAL value
need not be appraised by YOU, to let you understand that you have benefited from
it. What occurred within the instant which love entered in WITHOUT attack, will
stay with you forever. YOUR healing will be ONE of its effects, as will your
brother’s. Everywhere you go, will you behold its multiplied effects. Yet all
the witnesses that you behold will be FAR less than all there really ARE.
Infinity cannot be understood by merely counting up the separate parts. God
thanks you for your healing, for He knows it is a gift of love unto His Son, and
therefore is it given unto Him.
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T 27 G. The Purpose of Pain
Feb. 4, 1968
T 27 G 1. Pain demonstrates the body must be real. It is a loud, obscuring
voice, whose shrieks would silence what the Holy Spirit says, and keep His words
from your awareness. Pain compels attention, drawing it away from Him, and
focusing upon itself. Its purpose is the same as pleasure, for they both are
means TO MAKE THE BODY REAL. What shares a common purpose IS the same. This is
the law of purpose, which unites all those who share in it within itself.
Pleasure and pain are EQUALLY unreal, because their purpose CANNOT be achieved.
Thus are they means for nothing, for they have a goal without a meaning. And
they share the lack of meaning that their PURPOSE has.
T 27 G 2. Sin shifts from pain to pleasure, and again to pain. For EITHER
witness is the same, and carries but one message, "You are here, WITHIN this
body, and you CAN be hurt. You can have pleasure, too, but ONLY at the cost of
pain." These witnesses are joined by many more. Each one SEEMS different because
it has a different NAME, and so it seems to answer to a different SOUND. Except
for this, the witnesses of sin are all alike. Call pleasure "pain," and it will
hurt. Call pain a pleasure, and the pain BEHIND the pleasure will be felt no
more. Sin’s witnesses but shift from name to name, as one steps forward, and
another, back. Yet which is foremost makes NO difference. Sin’s witnesses hear
but the call of death.
T 27 G 3. This body, purposeless within itself, holds all your memories and
all your hopes. You use its eyes to see, its ears to hear, and let it TELL you
what it is it feels. IT DOES NOT KNOW. It tells you but the NAMES you gave it to
use, when YOU call forth the
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witnesses to its reality. You cannot choose AMONG them which are real, for any
one you choose is like the rest. This name or that, but nothing more, you
choose. You do not MAKE a witness true, because you called him by truth’s NAME.
The truth is found in him IF IT IS TRUTH HE REPRESENTS. And otherwise he lies,
if you should call him by the Holy Name of God Himself.
T 27 G 4. God’s Witness sees no witnesses AGAINST the body. Neither does He
harken to the witnesses by OTHER names which speak in OTHER ways for its
reality. He KNOWS it is not real. For NOTHING could contain what you believe it
holds within. Nor COULD it tell a Part of God Himself what It should feel, and
what Its Function is. Yet must He love whatever YOU hold dear. And for each
witness to the body’s death, He sends a witness to your Life in Him Who knows no
death. Each miracle He brings is witness that the body is NOT real. Its pains
and pleasures does He heal alike, for ALL sin’s witnesses do His replace.
T 27 G 5. The miracle makes NO distinctions in the names by which sin’s
witnesses are called. It merely proves that what they REPRESENT has no effects.
And this it proves BECAUSE its own effects have come to take their place. It
matters not the name by which you called your suffering. IT IS NO LONGER THERE.
The One Who brings the miracle perceived them all as one, and called by name of
"fear." As fear is witness unto death, so is the miracle the witness unto Life.
It is a witness no-one can deny, for it is the EFFECTS of life it brings. The
dying live, the dead arise, and pain has vanished. Yet a miracle speaks not but
for itself, but what it REPRESENTS. Love, too, has symbols in a world of sin.
The miracle forgives BECAUSE
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it stands for what is past forgiveness, and is TRUE.
T 27 G 6. How foolish and insane it is to think a miracle is BOUND by laws
which it came solely to UNDO. The laws of SIN have different witnesses, with
different strengths. And THEY attest to different suffering. Yet to the One Who
sends forth miracles to bless the world, a tiny stab of pain, a little worldly
pleasure, and the throes of death itself are but a single sound; a call for
healing, and a plaintive cry for help within a world of misery. It is their
SAMENESS that the miracle attests. It is their SAMENESS that it PROVES. The laws
which call them DIFFERENT are dissolved, and SHOWN as powerless. The PURPOSE of
a miracle is to accomplish this. And God Himself has GUARANTEED the strength of
miracles for what they witness TO.
T 27 G 7. Be witnesses unto the miracle, and NOT the laws of sin. There is no
NEED to suffer any more. But there IS need that you be healed, because the
suffering of the world has made it deaf to its salvation and deliverance. The
resurrection of the world awaits YOUR healing and YOUR happiness, that you may
DEMONSTRATE the healing of the world. The holy instant will replace ALL sin, if
you but carry its effects with you. And no-one will ELECT to suffer more. What
better function COULD you serve than this? Be healed that you may heal, and
suffer not the laws of sin to be applied to YOU. And Truth WILL be revealed to
you who chose to let Love’s symbols TAKE THE PLACE of sin.
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T 27 H. The Illusion of Suffering
February 9, 1968
T 27 H 1. Suffering is an emphasis upon all that the world has done to injure
YOU. Here is the world’s demented version of salvation clearly shown. Like to a
dream of punishment, in which the dreamer is unconscious of what brought on the
attack against himself, he sees himself attacked unjustly, and by something NOT
himself. HE is the victim of this "something else," a thing OUTSIDE himself for
which he has no reason to be held responsible. He must be innocent BECAUSE he
knows not what HE does, but what is done TO him. Yet is his own attack upon
himself apparent still, for it is he who bears the suffering. And he CANNOT
escape BECAUSE its source is seen outside himself.
T 27 H 2. Now you are being shown you CAN escape. All that is needed is you
look upon the problem as it IS, and NOT the way that you have set it up. How
COULD there be another way to solve a problem which is VERY simple, but has been
obscured by heavy clouds of complication, which were MADE to keep the problem
unresolved? WITHOUT the clouds, the problem will emerge in all its primitive
simplicity. The choice will NOT be difficult, because the problem is absurd when
clearly seen. No-one has difficulty making up his mind to let a simple problem
be resolved, if it is SEEN as hurting him, and also very easily removed.
T 27 H 3. The "reasoning" by which the world is made, on which it rests, by
which it is maintained, is simply this: "YOU are the cause of what I do. Your
presence JUSTIFIES my wrath, and you exist and think APART from me. While YOU
attack, I MUST be innocent. And what I suffer from IS your attack." No-one who
looks upon this "reasoning" EXACTLY as it is could fail to see it does NOT
follow, and it makes NO sense. Yet it SEEMS sensible because it LOOKS as if the
world WERE hurting you. And so it seems as if there is no NEED to go beyond the
obvious in terms of cause.
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T 27 H 4. There is INDEED a need. The world’s ESCAPE from condemnation is a
need which those WITHIN the world are joined in sharing. Yet they do not
recognize their common need. For each one thinks that, if he does his part, the
condemnation of the world will rest on him. And it is this that he perceives to
BE his part in its deliverance. Vengeance must have a focus. Otherwise, is the
avenger’s knife in his own hand, and pointed to himself. And he MUST see it in
ANOTHER hand, if he would be a victim of attack he did NOT choose. And thus he
suffers from the wounds a knife he does not HOLD has made upon himself.
T 27 H 5. This is the PURPOSE of the world he sees. And, LOOKED AT thus, the
world provides the means by which this purpose SEEMS to be fulfilled. The means
ATTEST the purpose, but are NOT themselves a cause. Nor will the CAUSE be
changed by seeing it APART from its effects. The cause PRODUCES the effects,
which then bear witness to the CAUSE, and NOT themselves. Look, then, BEYOND
effects. It is NOT here the CAUSE of suffering and sin must lie. And dwell not
on the suffering and sin, for they are but REFLECTIONS of their cause. The part
you play in SALVAGING the world from condemnation IS your own escape.
T 27 H 6. Forget not that the witness to the world of evil cannot speak EXCEPT
for what has seen a NEED for evil in the world. And this is where YOUR guilt was
first beheld. In separation from your brother was the first attack upon yourself
begun. And it is THIS the world bears witness to. Seek not another cause, nor
look among the mighty legions of its witnesses for its undoing. They SUPPORT its
claim on your allegiance. What CONCEALS the truth is not where you should look
to FIND the truth. The witnesses to sin all stand within ONE little space. And
it is HERE you find the CAUSE of your perspective on the world.
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February 12, 1968.
T 27 H 7. Once you were unaware of what the cause of everything the world
appeared to thrust upon you, uninvited and unasked, must REALLY be. Of one thing
you were sure; of all the many causes you perceived as bringing pain and
suffering to you, your guilt was NOT among them. Nor did you, in ANY way,
REQUEST them for yourself. This is how ALL illusions come about. The one who
makes them does NOT see himself as making them, and their reality does NOT
depend on him. Whatever cause they have is something quite APART from him, and
what he sees is SEPARATE from his mind.
T 27 H 8. He CANNOT doubt his dreams’ reality BECAUSE he does not see the part
he plays in MAKING them, and MAKING them seem real. No-one can waken from a
dream the world is dreaming FOR him. He becomes a part of someone ELSE’S dream.
He CANNOT choose to waken from a dream he did not make. Helpless he stands, a
victim to a dream conceived and cherished by a SEPARATE mind. Careless indeed of
him this mind must be, as thoughtless of his peace and happiness as is the
weather, or the time of day. It loves him not, but casts him as it will, in any
role that satisfies its dream.
T 27 H 9. So little is his worth that he is but a dancing shadow, leaping up
and down, according to a senseless plot conceived within the idle dreaming of
the world. This is the ONLY picture you can see, the ONE alternative that you
can choose, the OTHER possibility of cause, if you be NOT the dreamer of your
dreams. And this IS what you choose, if you deny the cause of suffering is in
YOUR mind. Be glad indeed it is, for thus are YOU the ONE decider of your
destiny in time. The choice IS yours to make between a sleeping death and dreams
of evil, or a happy wakening and joy of life.
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T 27 H 10. What COULD you choose between, but life or death, waking or
sleeping, war or peace, your dream or your reality? But if the choice is REALLY
given you, then you must see the causes of the things you choose BETWEEN exactly
AS they are and WHERE they are. What choices can be made between two states, but
ONE of which is clearly recognized? Who could be free to choose BETWEEN effects,
when only ONE is seen as up to you? An honest choice could NEVER be perceived as
one in which the choice is split between a tiny you and an enormous world, with
DIFFERENT dreams about the truth in you.
T 27 H 11. The gap between reality and dreams lies not between the dreaming of
the world and what you dream in secret. THEY are one. The dreaming of the world
is but a part of your own dream you gave away, and saw as if it were its start
and ending, both. Yet was it started by your SECRET dream, which you do NOT
perceive, although it CAUSE the part you see and do not doubt is real. How COULD
you doubt it, while you lie asleep, and dream in secret that its CAUSE is real?
A brother SEPARATED from yourself, an ancient enemy, a murderer who stalks you
in the night and plots your death, yet plans that it be lingering and slow,-
T 27 H 12. Of this you dream. And, UNDERNEATH this dream, is yet another, in
which YOU become the murderer, the secret enemy, the scavenger and the destroyer
of the brother and the world you fear alike. Here is the CAUSE of suffering, the
space BETWEEN your dreams and your reality. The little gap you do not even see,
the birthplace of illusions and of fear, the time of terror and of ancient hate,
the instant of disaster;- all are here. Here is the CAUSE of unreality. And it
is here that it will be undone. YOU are the dreamer of the world of dreams. No
OTHER cause it has, nor ever will.
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T 27 H 13. Nothing more fearful than an idle dream has terrified God’s Son, and
made him think that he has lost his innocence, denied his Father, and made war
upon himself. So fearful is the dream, so seeming real, he could not waken to
reality without the sweat of terror and a scream of mortal fear, unless a
gentler dream preceded his awaking, and allowed his calmer mind to welcome, NOT
to fear, the Voice that called with love to waken him. A gentler dream, in which
his suffering was healed, and where his brother was his friend. God willed he
waken gently, and with joy. And GAVE him means to waken WITHOUT fear. Accept the
dream He gave, INSTEAD of yours. It is NOT difficult to shift a dream, when once
the dreamer has been recognized.
T 27 H 14. Rest in the Holy Spirit, and allow His gentle dreams to take the
place of those you dreamed in terror, and in fear of death. He brings FORGIVING
dreams, in which the choice is NOT who is the murderer, and who shall be the
victim. In the dreams HE brings, there IS no murder, and there IS no death. The
dream of guilt is fading from your sight, although your eyes are closed. A smile
has come to lighten up your sleeping face. The sleep is peaceful now, for these
are happy dreams. Dream softly of your sinless brother, who unites with you in
holy innocence. And, from THIS dream, the Lord of Heaven will Himself awaken His
beloved Son.
T 27 H 15. Dream of your brother’s kindnesses INSTEAD of dwelling in your
dreams on his mistakes. Select his thoughtfulness to dream about, INSTEAD of
counting up the hurts he gave. Forgive him his illusions, and give thanks to him
for all the helpfulness he gave. And do not brush aside his many gifts, because
he is not perfect in your dreams. He represents his Father, Whom you see as
offering both life AND death to you. Brother, He gives BUT life, and what you
see as gifts your brother offers REPRESENT the gifts you dream your Father gives
to you. Let all your brother’s gifts be seen in light of charity and kindness
offered you. And let no pain disturb your dream of deep appreciation for his
gifts to you.
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T 27 I. The "Hero" of the Dream
February 14, 1968.
T 27 I 1. The body is the central figure in the dreaming of the world. There
IS no dream without it, nor does it exist without the dream, in which it acts as
if it were a person, to be seen and be believed. It takes the central place in
every dream, which tells the story of how it was made by OTHER bodies, born into
the world OUTSIDE the body, lives a little while, and dies, to be united in the
dust with other bodies, dying like itself. In the brief time allotted it to
live, it seeks for other bodies as its friends and enemies. Its safety is its
main concern. Its comfort is its guiding rule. It tries to look for pleasure,
and avoid the things that would be hurtful. Above all, it tries to teach itself
its pains and joys are different, and CAN be told apart.
T 27 I 2. The dreaming of the world takes many forms, because the body seeks
in many ways to PROVE it is autonomous and real. It puts things on itself that
it has bought with little metal discs or paper strips the world proclaims as
valuable and good. It works to get them, doing senseless things, and tosses them
away for senseless things it does not NEED, and does not even WANT. It hires
OTHER bodies, that they may protect it, and collect more senseless things that
it can call its own. It looks about for special bodies which can SHARE its
dream. Sometimes it dreams it is a conqueror of bodies weaker than itself. But
in some phases of the dream, it is the slave of bodies which would hurt and
torture it.
T 27 I 3. The body’s serial adventures, from the time of birth to dying is the
theme of every dream the world has ever had. The "hero" of this dream will never
change, nor will its purpose. Though the dream itself takes many forms, and
SEEMS to show a great variety of places and events wherein its "hero" finds
itself, the dream has but ONE purpose, taught in many ways. This single lesson
does it try to teach again, and still again, and yet once more; - that it is
CAUSE and NOT effect. And YOU are ITS effect, and CANNOT be its cause. Thus are
you NOT the dreamer, but the DREAM. And so you wander idly in and out of places
and events that IT contrives.
T 27 I 4. That this is all the BODY does is true, for it IS but a figure in a
dream. But who REACTS to figures in a dream UNLESS he sees them as if they were
real?
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The INSTANT that he sees them as they ARE, they HAVE no more effects on him
BECAUSE he understands he GAVE them their effects BY CAUSING THEM, and MAKING
them seem real. How willing are you to ESCAPE effects of all the dreams the
world has ever had? Is it your wish to let NO dream appear to be the cause of
what it is YOU do? Then let us merely look upon the dream’s beginning, for the
part you see is but the SECOND part, whose CAUSE lies in the first.
T 27 I 5. No-one asleep and dreaming in the world remembers his attack upon
himself. No-one believes there really was a time when he knew nothing of a body,
and could never have conceived this world as real. He would have seen at once
that these ideas are one illusion, too ridiculous for anything but to be laughed
away. How serious they now appear to be! And no-one can remember when they would
have met with laughter and with disbelief. We CAN remember this, if we but look
directly at their CAUSE. And we will see the grounds for laughter, NOT a cause
for fear. Let us return the dream he gave away unto the dreamer, who perceives
the dream as SEPARATE from himself, and done to him.
T 27 I 6. Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at
which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought
become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects.
Together, we can laugh them BOTH away, and understand that time can NOT intrude
upon eternity. It IS a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity,
which MEANS there is no time. A timelessness in which is time made real; a Part
of God Which can attack Itself; a separate brother as an enemy; a mind WITHIN a
body; all are forms of circularity, whose ending starts at its beginning, ending
at its cause.
T 27 I 7. The world you see depicts EXACTLY what you thought YOU did. Except
that NOW you think that what you did is being done to YOU. The guilt for what
YOU thought is being placed OUTSIDE yourself, and on a guilty world which dreams
your dreams and thinks your thoughts INSTEAD of you. It brings ITS vengeance,
not your own. IT keeps you narrowly confined within a body, which it punishes
because of all the sinful things the body does within ITS dream. You have NO
power to make the body stop its evil deeds, because you did NOT make it, and can
NOT
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control its actions, or its purpose, or its fate.
T 27 I 8. The world but demonstrates an ancient truth; you WILL believe that
others do to you EXACTLY what you think you did to them. But, once deluded into
blaming THEM, you will not see the CAUSE of what they do BECAUSE you WANT the
guilt to rest on them. How childish is this petulant device to keep your
innocence by pushing guilt OUTSIDE yourself, but NEVER letting it go! It is not
easy to perceive the jest, when all around you do your eyes behold its heavy
consequences, but WITHOUT their trifling cause. Without the cause do its effects
seem serious and sad indeed. Yet they but follow. And it is their CAUSE which
follows nothing, and is but a jest.
T 27 I 9. In gentle laughter does the Holy Spirit perceive the cause, and
looks NOT to effects. How else could He correct YOUR error, who have OVERLOOKED
the cause entirely? He bids you bring each terrible effect to Him, that you may
look TOGETHER on its foolish cause, and laugh with Him a while. YOU judge
effects, but HE has judged their CAUSE. And by His judgment are effects removed.
Perhaps you come in tears, but hear Him say, "My brother, Holy Son of God,
behold your idle dream, in which this could occur," and you will leave the holy
instant with your laughter and your brother’s JOINED with His.
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February 15, 1968
T 27 I 10. The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO
YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever
takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems
to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true. For you
would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming.
Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on
you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned
will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes.
T 27 I 11. The Holy Spirit will repeat this ONE inclusive lesson of
deliverance, until it has been learned, REGARDLESS of the form of suffering that
brings you pain. Whatever hurt you bring to Him, He will make answer with this
very simple truth. For this one answer TAKES AWAY the cause of every form of
sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach
you but the SINGLE cause of all of them, no matter WHAT their form. And you will
understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing,
and it is this I would undo."
T 27 I 12. Bring, then, all forms of suffering to Him Who knows that every one
is like the rest. He sees NO differences where none exist, and He will teach you
how each one is CAUSED. None has a DIFFERENT cause from all the rest, and ALL of
them are easily undone by but a SINGLE lesson truly learned. Salvation is a
secret you have kept but from yourself. The universe proclaims it so. But, to
its witnesses, you pay no heed at all. For they attest the thing you do not WANT
to know. They seem to keep it secret FROM you. Yet you need but learn you choose
but NOT to listen, NOT to see.
T 27 I 13. How differently will you perceive the world, when this is
recognized! When you forgive the world YOUR guilt, YOU will be free of it. Its
innocence does NOT demand your guilt, nor does YOUR guiltlessness rest on ITS
sins. This is the obvious; a secret kept from no-one but yourself. And it is
this that has
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maintained you SEPARATE from the world, and kept your brother SEPARATE from you.
Now need you but to learn that BOTH of you are innocent OR guilty. The one thing
that is impossible is that you be UNLIKE each other; that they BOTH be true.
This is the only secret yet to learn. And it will be NO secret you are healed.
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Chapter XXVIII - 28 - The Undoing Of Fear
T 28 A. Introduction
February 19, 1968
T 28 A 1. THE MIRACLE DOES NOTHING. All it does is to UNdo. And thus it
cancels out the interference to what HAS BEEN done. It does not add, but merely
takes away. And what it takes away is long since gone, but, being kept in
memory, APPEARS to have immediate effects. This world was over long ago. The
thoughts that made it are no longer in the mind that thought of them, and loved
them for a while. The miracle but shows the past is gone, and what has truly
gone HAS no effects. REMEMBERING a cause can but produce ILLUSIONS of its
presence, NOT effects.
T 28 A 2. All the effects of guilt are here no more. For guilt is over. In its
passing went its consequences, left without a cause. Why would you cling to it
in memory, if you did not DESIRE its effects? Remembering is as selective as
perception, being its past tense. It is perception of the past, as if it were
occurring NOW and still were there to see. Memory, like perception, is a skill
made up by you, to take the place of what God GAVE in your creation. And, like
all the things you made, it can be used to serve ANOTHER purpose, and to be
means for something ELSE. It can be used to heal, and NOT to hurt, if you so
wish.
T 28 A 3. Nothing employed for healing represents an effort to do anything at
all. It is a recognition that you HAVE no needs which mean that something must
be DONE. It is an unselective memory, which is NOT used to INTERFERE with truth.
All things the Holy Spirit can employ for healing have been given Him WITHOUT
the content and the purposes for which they have been made. They are but skills
WITHOUT an application. They AWAIT their use. They have NO dedication and NO
aim.
T 28 B. The Present Memory
793 [split paragraph]
T 28 B 1. The Holy Spirit can indeed make use of memory, for God Himself is
there. But this is NOT a memory of past events, but ONLY of a PRESENT state.
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T 28 B 2. You are so long accustomed to believe that memory holds only what is
past, that it is hard for you to realize it is a skill that CAN remember NOW.
The limitations on remembering the world imposes on it are as vast as those you
let the world impose on YOU. There IS no link of memory to the past. If YOU
would have it there, then there it IS. But ONLY your desire made the link, and
ONLY you have held it to a part of time where guilt appears to linger still. The
Holy Spirit’s use of memory is quite APART from time. He does NOT seek to use it
as a means to KEEP the past, but rather as a way TO LET IT GO.
T 28 B 3. Memory holds the message it receives, and does what it is GIVEN it
to do. It does NOT write the message, nor appoint what it is FOR. Like to the
body, it is purposeless within itself. And if it seems to serve to cherish
ancient hate, and offer you the pictures of injustices and hurts which you were
saving, this is what you asked its message BE, and this is what it IS. Committed
to its vaults, the history of all the body’s past is hidden there. All of the
strange associations made to keep the past alive, the present dead, are stored
within it, waiting your command that they be brought to you, and lived again.
And thus do their effects appear to be INCREASED by time, which TOOK AWAY their
cause.
T 28 B 4. Yet time is but another phase of what DOES NOTHING. It works hand in
hand with all the other attributes with which you sought to keep concealed the
truth about yourself. Time neither takes away, nor can restore. And yet you make
strange use of it, as if the past had CAUSED the present, which is but a
CONSEQUENCE, in which no change can be made possible, because its cause has
GONE. And change must have a cause that will endure, or else it will not last.
No change can be made in the present, if its cause is PAST. ONLY the past is
held in memory, as you make use of it, and so it is a way to hold the past
AGAINST the now.
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T 28 B 5. Remember NOTHING that you taught yourself, for you were badly
taught. Who would keep a senseless lesson in his mind, when he can learn and can
preserve a BETTER one? When ancient memories of hate appear, remember that their
cause is gone. And so you CANNOT understand what they are FOR. Let not the cause
that you would give them NOW be what it was that made them what they were, or
seemed to be. Be GLAD that it is gone, for this is what you would be pardoned
FROM. And see, instead, the NEW effects of cause accepted NOW, with consequences
HERE.
T 28 B 6. They will surprise you with their loveliness. The ancient NEW ideas
they bring will be the happy consequences of a cause so ancient that it FAR
exceeds the span of memory which your perception sees. This is the Cause the
Holy Spirit has remembered FOR you, when you would forget. It is NOT past,
because He let It not be unremembered. It has never changed, because there never
was a time in which He did not keep It safely in your mind. Its consequences
will indeed SEEM new, because you thought that you remembered not their Cause.
Yet, was It NEVER absent from your mind, for it was NOT your Father’s Will that
He be unremembered by His only Son.
T 28 B 7. What YOU remember never WAS. It came from causelessness which you
CONFUSED with cause. It CAN deserve but laughter, when you learn you have
remembered consequences which were causeless, and could never BE effects. The
miracle reminds you of a Cause forever present, perfectly untouched by time and
interference. NEVER changed from what It IS. And YOU are Its effects, as
changeless and as perfect as Itself. Its memory does NOT lie in the past, nor
waits the future. It is NOT revealed in miracles. They but remind you that It
has not gone. When you forgive It for YOUR sins, It will no longer BE denied.
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T 28 B 8. You who have sought to lay a judgment on your own Creator cannot
understand it is NOT He Who laid a judgment on His Son. You would DENY Him His
effects, yet have they never BEEN denied. There WAS no time in which His Son
could be condemned for what was causeless, and AGAINST His Will. What YOUR
remembering would witness to, is but the fear of God. He has not DONE the thing
you fear. No more have YOU. And so your innocence has NOT been lost. You need NO
healing to be healed. In quietness, see in the miracle a lesson in allowing
Cause to have Its OWN effects, and doing NOTHING that would interfere.
T 28 B 9. The miracle comes quietly into the mind that stops an instant, and
is still. It reaches gently from that quiet time, and from the mind it healed in
quiet then, to other minds to SHARE its quietness. And they will JOIN in doing
nothing to prevent its radiant extension back into the Mind that caused ALL
minds to be. Born out of sharing, there can BE no pause in time to cause the
miracle delay in hastening to all unquiet minds, and bringing them an instant’s
stillness, when the memory of God returns to them. Their OWN remembering is
quiet now, and what has come to take its place will not be wholly unremembered
afterwards.
T 28 B 10. He to Whom time is given offers thanks for every quiet instant given
Him. For in that instant is His memory allowed to offer all its treasures to the
Son of God, for whom they have been kept. How gladly does He offer them unto the
one for whom He has been given them! And His Creator SHARES His thanks, because
He would not be deprived of His effects. The instant’s silence that His Son
accepts gives welcome to eternity and Him, and lets Them enter where They would
abide. For in that instant does the Son of God do NOTHING that would make
himself afraid.
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T 28 B 11. How instantly the memory of God arises in the mind that has no fear
to keep the memory away. Its own remembering has gone. There IS no past to keep
its fearful image in the way of glad awakening to present peace. The trumpets of
eternity resound throughout the stillness, yet disturb it not. And what is NOW
remembered is not fear, but, rather, is the Cause that fear was made to render
unremembered and undone. The stillness speaks in gentle sounds of love the Son
of God remembers from BEFORE his own remembering came IN BETWEEN the present and
the past, to shut them out.
T 28 B 12. Now is the Son of God at last aware of PRESENT Cause and Its benign
effects. Now does he understand what he has made is causeless, making NO effects
at all. He HAS done nothing. And in seeing THIS, he understands he never had a
NEED for doing ANYTHING, and never did. His Cause IS Its effects. There never
WAS a cause besides It, that could generate a DIFFERENT past or future. ITS
effects are changelessly eternal, BEYOND fear, and PAST the world of sin
entirely. What has been lost, to see the causeless NOT? And where is sacrifice,
when memory of God has come to TAKE THE PLACE of loss?
T 28 B 13. What better way to close the little gap between illusions and
reality than to allow the memory of God to flow ACROSS it, making it a bridge an
instant will suffice to reach beyond? For God has closed it with Himself. His
memory has NOT gone by, and left a stranded Son forever on a shore where he can
glimpse ANOTHER shore which he can never reach. His Father wills that he be
lifted up, and gently carried over. HE has built the bridge, and it is He Who
will transport His Son across it. Have no fear that He will fail in what He
wills. Nor that you be excluded from the Will that IS for you.
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T 28 C. Reversing Effect and Cause
February 26, 1968.
T 28 C 1. Without a cause there can be no effects, and yet, without effects,
there is no CAUSE. The cause a cause is MADE by its effects; the Father IS a
father by His Son. Effects do not CREATE their cause, but they ESTABLISH its
causation. Thus the Son gives fatherhood to his Creator, and RECEIVES the gift
that he has given Him. It is BECAUSE he is God’s Son that he must ALSO be a
father, who creates as God created him. The circle of creation has no end. Its
starting and its ending are the same. But, in itself, it holds the universe of
all creation, without beginning AND without an end.
T 28 C 2. Fatherhood is creation. Love MUST be extended. Purity is not
confined. It is the NATURE of the innocent to be forever uncontained, without a
barrier or limitation. Thus is purity NOT of the body. Nor can it be FOUND where
limitation is. The body CAN be healed by its EFFECTS, which are as limitless as
is itself. Yet must all healing come about because the mind is recognized as NOT
within the body, and its innocence is quite APART from it, and where ALL healing
IS. Where, then, is healing? ONLY where its cause is GIVEN its effects. For
sickness is a meaningless attempt to give effects to causelessness, and MAKE it
be a cause.
T 28 C 3. Always in sickness does the Son of God attempt to make himself his
cause, and NOT allow himself to be his Father’s Son. For this impossible desire,
he does not believe that he is Love’s EFFECTS, and must be cause BECAUSE of what
he is. The cause of healing is the ONLY Cause of everything. It has but ONE
effect. And, in that recognition, causelessness is GIVEN no effects, and none
are SEEN. A mind within a body, and a world of other bodies, each with SEPARATE
minds, are your "creations," you the "other" mind, creating with effects UNLIKE
yourself. And, AS their father, you must be like them.
T 28 C 4. Nothing at all has happened but that you have put yourself to sleep,
and dreamed a dream in which you were an alien to yourself, and but a part of
someone ELSE’S dream. The miracle does not awaken you, but merely shows you
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who the DREAMER is. It teaches you there IS a choice of dreams while you are
still asleep, depending on the PURPOSE of your dreaming. Do you wish for dreams
of healing, or for dreams of death? A dream is like a memory, in that it
pictures what you WANTED shown to you. An empty storehouse, with an open door,
holds ALL your shreds of memories and dreams.
T 28 C 5. Yet, if you are the DREAMER, you perceive this much at least; that
YOU have caused the dream, and can accept ANOTHER dream as well. But, for this
change in content of the dream, it MUST be realized that it is YOU who dreamed
the dreaming that you do not like. It is but an effect that YOU have caused, and
you would not BE cause of this effect. In dreams of murder and attack are YOU
the victim, in a dying body slain. But, in forgiving dreams is NO-ONE asked to
be the victim and the sufferer. These are the happy dreams the miracle exchanges
for your own. It does NOT ask you make another; ONLY that you see you made the
one you would EXCHANGE for this.
T 28 C 6. This world is CAUSELESS, as is every dream that anyone has dreamed
within the world. No plans are possible, and no design exists that could be
found and understood. What else could be EXPECTED from a thing that has no
cause? Yet if it HAS no cause, IT HAS NO PURPOSE. You may cause a dream, but
never will you give it real EFFECTS. For that would change its CAUSE, and it is
this you CANNOT do. The dreamer of a dream is NOT awake, but does NOT know he
sleeps. He sees ILLUSIONS of himself as sick or well, depressed or happy, but
without a stable cause with GUARANTEED effects.
T 28 C 7. The miracle establishes you dream a dream, and that its content is
not true. This is a crucial step in dealing with illusions. No-one is AFRAID of
them, when he perceives HE MADE THEM UP. The fear was held in place BECAUSE he
did not see that he was AUTHOR of the dream, and not a figure IN the dream. He
gives HIMSELF the consequences that he dreams he gave his brother. And it is but
this the dream has put together and has offered him, to show him that his wishes
have been done. Thus does he fear his OWN attack, but sees it at another’s
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hands. As victim, he is suffering from its effects, but NOT their cause. He
authored NOT his own attack, and he is innocent of what he caused.
T 28 C 8. The miracle does nothing but to show him that HE has done nothing.
What he fears is cause WITHOUT the consequences which would MAKE it cause. And
so it never was. The separation started with the dream the Father was deprived
of His effects, and powerless to keep them, since He was no longer their
Creator. In the dream, the dreamer made HIMSELF, but what he made has TURNED
against him, taking on the role of its creator, as the dreamer had. And, as he
hated HIS Creator, so the figures in the dream have hated HIM. His body is their
slave, which they abuse because the motives HE has given it have THEY adopted as
their own. And hate it for the vengeance IT would offer THEM.
T 28 C 9. It is THEIR vengeance on the body which appears to prove the dreamer
COULD not be the maker of the dream. Effect and cause are first split off, and
then REVERSED, so that effect becomes a cause; the cause, effect. This is the
separation’s final step, with which salvation, which proceeds to go the OTHER
way, begins. This final step is an effect of what has gone before, APPEARING as
a cause. The miracle is the first step in giving BACK to cause the function of
causation, NOT effect. For THIS confusion has produced the dream, and, while it
lasts, will wakening be feared. Nor will the Call to wakening be heard, because
it SEEMS to be the call to fear.
T 28 C 10. Like EVERY lesson which the Holy Spirit requests you learn, the
miracle is clear. It DEMONSTRATES what He would have you learn, and SHOWS you
its effects are what you WANT. In its forgiving dream, are the EFFECTS of yours
undone, and hated enemies perceived as friends, with merciful intent. Their
enmity is seen as causeless now, BECAUSE they did not make it. And you can
accept the role of maker of their hate BECAUSE you see that it has no effects.
Now are you freed from this much of the dream; the world is neutral, and the
bodies which still seem to move about as separate things NEED NOT BE FEARED. And
so they are NOT sick.
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T 28 C 11. The miracle returns the CAUSE of fear to you who made it. But it
ALSO shows that, HAVING no effects it is NOT cause, because the function of
causation is to HAVE effects. And where effects are gone, there IS no cause.
Thus is the body healed by miracles BECAUSE they show the mind MADE sickness,
and employed the body to be victim, or EFFECT, of what it made. But HALF the
lesson will not teach the whole. The miracle is useless if you learn but that
the BODY can be healed, for this is NOT the lesson it was sent to teach. The
lesson is the MIND was sick that thought the body COULD be sick; projecting OUT
its guilt caused NOTHING, and had NO effects.
T 28 C 12. This world is full of miracles. They stand in shining silence next
to every dream of pain and suffering, of sin and guilt. They are the dream’s
ALTERNATIVE, the choice to be the dreamer, rather than deny the active role in
making up the dream. They are the glad effects of taking back the consequence of
sickness to its cause. The body is released, because the mind acknowledges "this
is not DONE TO me, but I am doing this." And thus the mind is free to make
another choice instead. Beginning here, salvation will proceed to change the
course of every step in the descent to separation, until all the steps have been
retraced, the ladder gone, and ALL the dreaming of the world undone.
T 28 D. The Agreement to Join
T 28 D 1. What waits in perfect certainty BEYOND salvation is not our concern.
For you have barely started to allow your first, uncertain steps to be directed
up the ladder separation led you down. The miracle alone is your concern at
present. Here is where we MUST begin. And, having started, will the way be made
serene and simple in the rising up to waking and the ending of the dream. When
you accept a miracle, you do not ADD your dream of fear to one that is ALREADY
being dreamed. Without SUPPORT the dream will fade away, without effects. For it
is your SUPPORT that strengthens it. No mind is sick until another mind AGREES
that they are separate. And thus, it is their JOINT decision to be sick.
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T 28 D 2. If you WITHHOLD agreement, and accept the part YOU play in making
sickness real, the other mind cannot project its guilt without your aid in
LETTING it perceive itself as separate and apart from YOU. Thus is the body NOT
perceived as sick by BOTH your minds, from SEPARATE points of view. UNITING with
a brother’s mind prevents the CAUSE of sickness, and perceived effects. Healing
is the effect of minds that join, as sickness comes from minds which separate.
The miracle does nothing just BECAUSE the minds ARE joined, and CANNOT separate.
Yet, in the dreaming, has this been reversed, and separate minds are seen as
bodies, which ARE separated, and which cannot JOIN.
T 28 D 3. Do not allow your brother to be sick, for if he is, have YOU
abandoned him to his own dream, by SHARING it with him. He has not seen the
cause of sickness where it is, and YOU have overlooked the gap between you,
where the sickness has been bred. Thus are you JOINED in sickness, to preserve
the little gap unhealed, where sickness is kept carefully protected, cherished,
and upheld by firm belief, lest God should come to bridge the little gap that
leads to Him. Fight not His coming with illusions, for it is His coming that you
WANT above all things that seem to glisten in the dream. The end of dreaming is
the end of FEAR, and love was NEVER in the world of dreams.
T 28 D 4. The gap IS little. Yet it holds the seeds of pestilence and every
form of ill, because it is a WISH to keep apart, and NOT to join. And thus it
seems to give a CAUSE to sickness which is NOT its cause. The PURPOSE of the gap
is all the cause that sickness has. For it was made to keep you separated in a
body which you see as if it were the CAUSE of pain. The cause of pain is
separation, NOT the body, which is only its EFFECT. Yet separation is but empty
space, enclosing nothing, doing nothing, and as unsubstantial as the vacant
place between the ripples that a ship has made in passing by. And covered just
as fast, as water rushes in to close the gap, and as the waves, in joining,
cover it.
T 28 D 5. Where is the gap BETWEEN the waves, when they have joined, and
covered up the space which seemed to keep them separate for a little while?
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Where is the grounds for sickness when the minds have joined to close the gap
BETWEEN them, where the seeds of sickness seemed to grow? God builds the bridge,
but only in the space left clean and vacant by the miracle. The weeds of
sickness and the shame of sin He CANNOT bridge, for He cannot destroy the alien
will that He created not. Let its effects be gone, and clutch them not with
eager hands, to keep them for yourself. The miracle will brush them all aside,
and thus make room for Him Who wills to come, and bridge His Son’s returning to
Himself.
T 28 D 6. Count, then, the silver miracles and golden dreams of happiness as
all the treasures you would keep within the storehouse of the world. The door is
open, NOT to thieves, but to your starving brothers, who mistook for gold
shining pebble, and who stored away a heap of snow that shone like silver. They
have nothing left behind the open door. What is the world except a little gap,
perceived to tear eternity apart, and break it into days and months and years?
And what are YOU who live within the world, except a picture of the Son of God
in broken pieces, each concealed within a separate and uncertain bit of clay?
T 28 D 7. Be not afraid, but let your world be lit with miracles. And where
the gap was seen to stand BETWEEN you, join your brother there. And sickness
will be seen WITHOUT a cause. The dream of healing in forgiveness lies, and
gently shows you, YOU have never sinned. The miracle would leave NO proof of
guilt to bring you witness to what never WAS. And, in your storehouse, it will
make a place of welcome for your Father and your Self. The door is open, that
all those may come who would no longer starve, and would enjoy the feast of
plenty set before them there. And they will meet with your invited Guests the
miracle has asked to come to you.
T 28 D 8. This is a feast unlike indeed to those the dreaming of the world has
shown. For HERE, the more that anyone receives, the more is left for all the
rest to share. The Guests have brought unlimited supply with Them. And no-one is
deprived, or can deprive. Here is a feast the Father lays before His Son, AND
shares it equally with him. And in Their sharing there can BE no gap, in
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which abundance falters and grows thin. Here can the lean years enter not, for
time waits not upon this feast, which HAS no end. For Love has set Its table in
the space that seemed to keep your Guests APART from you.
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T 28 E. The Greater Joining
March 3, 1968
T 28 E 1. Accepting the Atonement for yourself means NOT to give support to
someone’s dream of sickness and of death. It means that you share NOT his wish
to separate, and let him turn illusions on himself. Nor do you wish that they be
turned instead on YOU. Thus have they NO effects. And YOU are free of dreams of
pain because you let HIM be. UNLESS you help him, you will suffer pain with him
because that is your wish. And you become a figure in HIS dream of pain, as he
in YOURS. So do you BOTH become illusions and without identity. You could be
anyone or anything, depending on whose evil dream you share. You can be sure of
just ONE thing; that you are evil, for you share in dreams of fear.
T 28 E 2. There is a way of finding certainty RIGHT HERE AND NOW. Refuse to be
a part of fearful dreams WHATEVER form they take. For you will lose identity in
them. You FIND yourself by NOT accepting them as causing you, and GIVING you
effects. You stand apart from them, but NOT apart from him who dreams them. Thus
you separate the dreamer from the dream, and join with ONE, but let the OTHER
go. The dream is but illusion in the mind. And with the MIND you WOULD unite,
but NEVER with the dream. It is the DREAM you fear, and NOT the mind. You see
them as the same, because you think that YOU are but a dream. And what is real
and what is but illusion IN YOURSELF you do not know and cannot tell apart.
T 28 E 3. Like you, your brother thinks HE is a dream. Share not in his
illusion of himself, for YOUR identity depends on his reality. Think, rather, of
him as a mind in which illusions still persist, but as a mind which brother is
to you. He is not brother made by what he DREAMS, nor is his body, "hero" of the
dream, your brother. It is his REALITY that is your brother, as is yours to him.
Your mind and his ARE joined in brotherhood. His body and his dreams but SEEM to
make a little gap, where yours have joined with his. And yet, between your MINDS
there IS no gap. To join his dreams is thus to meet him NOT, because his dreams
would SEPARATE from you.
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T 28 E 4. Therefore release him, merely by your claim on brotherhood, and NOT
on dreams of fear. Let him acknowledge who he IS, by not supporting his
illusions by your faith, for if you do, you will have faith in YOURS. With faith
in yours, HE will not be released, and YOU are kept in bondage to his dreams.
And dreams of fear will haunt the little gap, inhabited but by illusions which
you have SUPPORTED in each other’s minds. Be certain, if you do YOUR part, he
will do his, for he will JOIN you where YOU stand. Call not to him to meet you
in the gap BETWEEN you, or you MUST believe that it is YOUR reality, as well as
his. You CANNOT do his part, but this you DO when you become a passive figure in
his dream INSTEAD of dreamer of your own.
T 28 E 5. Identity in dreams is meaningless BECAUSE the dreamer and the dream
are one. Who SHARES a dream must BE the dream he shares, because, BY sharing is
a cause produced. You share confusion, and you ARE confused, for in the gap no
stable self exists. What is the same seems different, because what IS the same
appears to be unlike. His dreams are yours, because you LET them be. But, if you
took your OWN away would he be free of them, and of his own as well. Your dreams
are witnesses to his, and his attest the truth of yours. But if you see there IS
no truth in yours, his dreams will disappear before his eyes, and he will
understand what MADE the dream.
T 28 E 6. The Holy Spirit is in BOTH your minds, and He IS One, because there
is no gap that separates His Oneness from Itself. The gap between your bodies
matters not, for what is joined in Him is ALWAYS one. No-one is sick, if someone
ELSE accepts his union WITH him. His desire to be a sick and separated mind can
NOT remain without a witness or a cause. And both ARE gone, if someone wills to
be united with him. He has dreams that he was separated from his brother, who,
by sharing NOT his dream, has left the space between them vacant. And the Father
comes to join His Son the Holy Spirit joined.
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T 28 E 7. The Holy Spirit’s Function is to take the broken picture of the Son
of God, and put the pieces into place again. This holy picture, healed entirely,
does He hold out to every separate piece that thinks it is a picture IN ITSELF.
To each he offers his identity, which the WHOLE picture represents, instead of
just a little, broken bit, which he insisted was himself. And when he sees THIS
picture, he will RECOGNIZE himself. If you share not your brother’s evil dreams,
this IS the picture that the miracle will place within the little gap, left
clean of all the seeds of sickness and of sin. And here the Father will receive
His Son, because His Son was gracious to himself.
T 28 E 8. I thank you, Father, knowing you will come to close each little gap
that lies between the broken pieces of Your holy Son. Your Holiness, complete
and perfect, lies in every one of them. And they ARE joined, because what is in
one IS in them all. How holy is the smallest grain of sand, when it is
recognized as being part of the completed picture of God’s Son! The forms the
broken pieces seem to take mean nothing. For the Whole is in each one. And every
aspect of the Son of God is just the same as every other part. Join not your
brother’s dreams, but join with HIM, and where you join His Son, the Father IS.
T 28 E 9. Who seeks for substitutes when he perceives HE HAS LOST NOTHING? Who
would WANT to have the "benefits" of sickness, when he has received the simple
happiness of health? What God has given cannot BE a loss, and what is not of Him
has NO effects. What, then, would you perceive within the gap? The seeds of
sickness come from the belief that there is JOY in separation, and its giving up
WOULD BE A SACRIFICE. But miracles are the result, when you do not insist on
seeing in the gap what is not there. Your willingness to LET illusions go is all
the Healer of God’s Son requires. He will place the miracle of healing where the
seeds of sickness were. And there will be NO loss, but ONLY gain.
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T 28 F. The Alternate to Dreams of Fear
March 5, 1968
T 28 F 1. What is a sense of sickness but a sense of limitation? Of a
splitting OFF and separating FROM? A gap perceived BETWEEN ourselves and what is
seen as health? The good is seen OUTSIDE; the evil, IN. And thus is sickness
separating OFF the self from good, and KEEPING evil there. God is the ALTERNATE
to dreams of fear. Who shares in them can NEVER share in Him. But who WITHDRAWS
his mind from sharing them IS sharing Him. There IS no other choice. Except you
share it, NOTHING can exist. And YOU exist because God shared His Will with you,
that His creation might create.
T 28 F 2. It is the SHARING of the evil dreams, of hate and malice, bitterness
and death, of sin and suffering, of pain and loss, that makes them real.
UNSHARED they are perceived as meaningless. The fear is gone from them BECAUSE
YOU DID NOT GIVE THEM YOUR SUPPORT. Where fear has gone, there love MUST come,
because there ARE but these alternatives. Where one appears, the other
DISappears. And which you SHARE becomes the only one you HAVE. You HAVE the one
which you accept, because it is the only one you WANT. You share NO evil dreams,
if you forgive the dreamer, and perceive that he is NOT the dream he made. And
so he CANNOT be a part of YOURS, from which you BOTH are free. Forgiveness
SEPARATES the dreamer from the evil dream, and thus releases him.
T 28 F 3. Remember if you SHARE an evil dream, you will believe you ARE the
dream you share. And, fearing it, you will not WANT to know your own identity,
because you think that IT is fearful. And you WILL deny your Self, and walk upon
an alien ground which your Creator did not make, and where you seem to be a
"something" you are not. You WILL make war upon your Self, Which SEEMS to be
your enemy, and WILL attack your brother, as a part of what you hate. There is
no compromise. You are your Self or an illusion. What CAN be between illusion
and the truth? A middle ground, where you can be a thing that is NOT you, MUST
be a dream, and CANNOT be the truth.
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March 12, 1968
T 28 F 4. You have conceived a little gap between illusions and the truth to
be the place where all your safety lies, and where your Self is safely hidden by
what you have made. Here is a world established that is sick, and this the world
the body’s eyes perceive. Here are the sounds it hears; the voices which its
ears were made to hear. Yet sights and sounds the body can perceive are
meaningless. It cannot see nor hear. It does not know what seeing IS; what
listening is FOR. It is as little able to perceive as it can judge, or
understand, or know. Its eyes are blind, its ears are deaf. It CANNOT think, and
so it cannot HAVE effects.
T 28 F 5. What is there God created to be sick? And what that He created not
can BE? Let not your eyes behold a dream; your eyes bear witness to illusion.
They were made to look upon a world that is not there; to hear the voices that
can make no sounds. Yet are there other sounds and other sights which CAN be
seen and heard and UNDERSTOOD. For eyes and ears are senses without sense, and
what they see and hear they but report. It is not THEY that hear and see, but
YOU, who PUT TOGETHER every jagged piece, each senseless scrap and shred of
evidence, and MAKE a witness to the world you want.
T 28 F 6. Let not the body’s ears and eyes perceive these countless fragments
seen within the gap that YOU imagined, and let THEM persuade their maker his
imaginings were real. Creation proves reality because it SHARES the function ALL
creation shares. It is not made of little bits of glass, a piece of wood, a
thread or two perhaps, and put together to ATTEST its truth. Reality does not
depend on THIS. There IS no gap which separates the truth from dreams and from
illusions. Truth has left no room for them in ANY place or time. For It fills
every place and every time, and makes them wholly indivisible.
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T 28 F 7. You who believe there IS a little gap between you do not understand
that it is HERE that you are kept as prisoners in a world perceived to be
EXISTING here. The world you see does not exist BECAUSE the place where you
perceive it is not real. The gap is carefully concealed in fog, and misty
pictures rise to cover it with vague, uncertain forms and changing shapes,
forever unsubstantial and unsure. Yet in the gap is NOTHING. And there ARE no
awesome secrets and no darkened tombs where terror rises from the bones of
death. Look at the little gap, and you behold the innocence and emptiness of sin
that you will see within yourself, when you have lost the fear of recognizing
love.
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T 28 G. The Secret Vows
March 23, 1968
T 28 G 1. Who punishes the body is insane. For here the little gap is SEEN,
and yet it is NOT here. It has not judged ITSELF, nor made itself to be what it
is not. IT does not seek to make of pain a joy, and look for lasting pleasure in
the dust. It does not TELL you what its purpose is, and CANNOT understand what
it is for. IT DOES NOT VICTIMIZE, because it has no will, no preferences, and NO
DOUBTS. It does not wonder what it is. And so it has no NEED to be competitive.
It CAN be victimized, but CANNOT feel itself as victim. It accepts no role, but
does what it is told, WITHOUT attack.
T 28 G 2. It is indeed a senseless point of view to hold responsible for sight
a thing that cannot see, and blame it for the sounds you do not like, although
it cannot hear. IT suffers not the punishment you give, because it HAS no
feeling. It behaves in ways you want, but NEVER makes the choice. It is not born
and does not die. It can but follow aimlessly the path on which it has been set.
And if that path is changed, it walks as easily another way. It takes no sides,
and judges not the road it travels. It perceives no gap because IT DOES NOT
HATE. It can be USED for hate, but it cannot be hateful MADE thereby.
T 28 G 3. The thing you hate and fear and loathe and WANT, the body does not
know. You send it forth to SEEK for separation and BE separate. And THEN you
hate it, NOT for what it is, but for the uses you have MADE of it. You shrink
from what IT sees and what IT hears, and hate its frailty and its littleness.
And you despise its acts, but NOT your own. It sees and acts for YOU. It hears
YOUR voice. And it is frail and little by YOUR wish. It SEEMS to punish you, and
thus DESERVE your hatred for the limitations which it brings to you. Yet you
have made of it a symbol of the limitations which you want your MIND to have and
see and KEEP.
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T 28 G 4. The body REPRESENTS the gap between the little bit of mind you call
your own, and all the rest of what is REALLY yours. You hate it, yet you think
it IS your self, and that, WITHOUT it, would your self be lost. This is the
secret vow that you have made with every brother who would walk apart. This is
the secret oath you take again, whenever you perceive yourself attacked. No-one
can suffer if he does NOT see himself attacked, AND LOSING BY ATTACK. Unstated
and unheard in consciousness is every pledge to sickness. Yet it is a promise to
another to be hurt by him, and to attack him in return.
T 28 G 5. Sickness is anger taken out upon the body, so that IT will suffer
pain. It is the obvious effect of what was made in secret, IN AGREEMENT with
another’s secret wish to be apart from you, as you would be apart from him.
Unless you BOTH agree this is your wish, it CAN have no effects. Whoever says,
"There IS no gap between my mind and yours," has kept GOD’S promise, NOT his
tiny oath to be forever faithful unto death. And by his healing IS his brother
healed. Let THIS be your agreement with each one; that you be one with him and
NOT apart. And he will keep the promise that you make with him, because it is
the one which he has made to God, as God has made to him.
T 28 G 6. God keeps His promises; His Son keeps his. In his creation did his
Father say, "You are beloved of Me and I of you forever. Be you perfect as
Myself, for you can never be apart from Me." His Son remembers not that he
replied "I will," though in that promise he was born. Yet God reminds him of it
every time he does not share a promise to be sick, but lets his mind be healed
and unified. His secret vows are powerless before the Will of God, Whose
promises he shares. And what he substitutes is NOT his will, who has made
promise of himself to God.
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T 28 H. The Beautiful Relationship
March 26, 1968
T 28 H 1. God asks for nothing, and His Son, like Him, need ask for nothing.
For there is no lack in him. An empty space, a little gap, would BE a lack. And
it is only there that he could want for something he has not. A space where God
is not, a gap between the Father and the Son is NOT the Will of either, who have
promised to be One. God’s promise is a promise to HIMSELF, and there is no-one
who could BE untrue to what He wills as part of what He IS. The promise that
there IS no gap between Himself and what He is cannot BE false. What will can
come between what MUST be One, and in Whose wholeness there can BE no gaps?
T 28 H 2. The beautiful relationship you have with all your brothers is a part
of you BECAUSE it is a part of God Himself. Are you not sick, if you deny
yourself your wholeness and your health, the Source of help, the Call to healing
and the Call to heal? Your Saviour waits for healing, and the world waits with
him. Nor are YOU apart from it. For healing will be one, or not at all, its
oneness being where the healing LIES. What could CORRECT for separation but its
opposite? There is no middle ground, in ANY aspect of salvation. You accept it
wholly, or accept it not. What is unseparated must be JOINED. And what is joined
cannot BE separate.
T 28 H 3. Either there IS a gap between you and your brother, or you ARE as
one. There is no in between, no other choice, and no allegiance to be split
BETWEEN the two. A split allegiance is but faithlessness to both, and merely
sets you spinning round, to grasp uncertainly at any straw that seems to hold
some promise of relief. Yet who can build his home upon a straw, and count on it
as shelter from the wind? The body can be made a home like this, BECAUSE it
lacks foundation in the truth. And yet, BECAUSE it does, it can be seen as NOT
your home, but merely as an aid to help you reach the home where God abides.
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T 28 H 4. With THIS as purpose IS the body healed. It is NOT used to witness
to the dream of separation and disease. Nor is it idly blamed for what it did
not do. It serves to help the HEALING of God’s Son, and, for THIS purpose, it
cannot BE sick. It will not join a purpose not your own, and you have chosen
that it NOT be sick. All miracles are based upon this choice, and GIVEN you the
instant it is made. No forms of sickness are immune, because the choice cannot
be MADE in terms of form. The choice of SICKNESS seems to be a form, yet it is
one, as is its opposite. And YOU are sick or well, accordingly.
T 28 H 5. But NEVER you alone. This world is but the dream that you can BE
alone, and think without affecting those apart from you. To be alone MUST mean
you are apart, and if you are, you cannot BUT be sick. This SEEMS to prove that
you must be APART. Yet all it means is that you tried to keep a promise to be
true to faithlessness. Yet faithlessness IS sickness. It is like the house set
upon straw. It SEEMS to be quite solid and substantial IN ITSELF. But its
stability cannot be judged APART from its foundation. If it rests on straws,
there is no need to bar the door and lock the windows, and make fast the bolts.
The wind WILL topple it, and rain WILL come, and carry it into oblivion.
T 28 H 6. What is the SENSE in seeking to be safe in what was MADE for danger
and for fear? Why burden it with further locks and chains and heavy anchors,
when its weakness lies, NOT in itself, but in the frailty of the little gap of
nothingness whereon it stands? What CAN be safe which rests upon a shadow? Would
you build your home upon what WILL collapse beneath a feather’s weight? Your
home is built upon your brother’s health; upon his happiness, his sinlessness,
and everything his Father promised him. No secret promise you have made INSTEAD
has shaken the Foundation of his home.
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T 28 H 7. The winds will blow upon it, and the rain will beat against it, but
with NO effect. The world will wash away, and yet this house will stand forever,
for its strength lies not within itself alone. It is an ark of safety, resting
on God’s promise, that His Son is safe forever in Himself. What gap can
interpose itself between the safety of this shelter and its Source? From here,
the body can be seen as what it is, and neither less nor more in worth than the
extent to which it can be used to liberate God’s Son unto his home. And, with
this holy purpose, is it made a home of holiness a little while, because it
shares your Father’s Will with You.
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Chapter XXIX - 29 - The Awakening
T 29 A. Introduction
March 28, 1968
T 29 A 1. There is no time, no place, no state where God is absent. There is
NOTHING to be feared. There is no way in which a gap could be conceived of in
the Wholeness that is His. The compromise the least and littlest gap would
represent in His eternal Love is quite impossible. For it would mean His Love
could harbor just a hint of hate; His gentleness turn sometimes to attack; and
His eternal patience sometimes fail. All this do you BELIEVE, when you perceive
a gap between your brother and yourself. How could you trust Him, then? For He
must be deceptive in His Love. Be wary, then; let Him not come too close, and
leave a gap between you and His Love, through which you can escape if there be
need for you to flee.
T 29 A 2. Here is the fear of God most plainly seen. For love is treacherous
to those who fear, since fear and hate can NEVER be apart. No-one who hates but
is afraid of love, and therefore MUST he be afraid of God. Certain it is he
knows not what love MEANS. He fears to love and loves to hate, and so he thinks
that love is fearful; hate is love. This is the consequence the little gap MUST
bring to those who cherish it, and think that it is their salvation and their
hope. The fear of God! -- the greatest obstacle that peace must flow across has
not yet gone. The rest are past, but this one still remains to block your path,
and make the way to light seem dark and fearful, perilous and bleak.
T 29 A 3. You had DECIDED that your brother is your enemy. SOMETIMES a friend,
perhaps, provided that your separate interests made your friendship possible a
little while. But NOT without a gap between you, lest he turn again into an
enemy. Let him come close to you, and you jumped back; as you approached, he
instantly withdrew. A cautious friendship, limited in scope and carefully
restricted in amount, became the treaty you had made with him. You shared a
qualified entente, in which a clause of separation was a point on which you both
agreed to keep intact. And violating this was thought to be a breach of treaty
not to be allowed.
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T 29 B. The Closing of the Gap
T 29 B 1. The gap between you is NOT one of space between two separate bodies.
This but SEEMS to be dividing off your separate minds. It is the SYMBOL of a
promise, made to meet when you prefer, and separate until you both elect to meet
again. And then your bodies seem to get in touch, and signify a meeting-place to
join. But always is it possible to go your separate ways. Conditional upon the
"right" to separate will you agree to meet from time to time, and keep apart in
intervals of separation, which protect you from the "sacrifice" of love. THE
BODY SAVES YOU, for it gets away from total "sacrifice," and gives you time in
which to build again your separate selves, which you believe DIMINISH as you
meet.
T 29 B 2. The body COULD not separate your minds unless you WANTED it to be a
cause of separation and of distance seen between you. Thus do you ENDOW it with
a power that lies NOT within itself. And herein lies its power over you. For now
you think that IT determines when you meet, and limits your ability to make
communion with each other’s mind. And now it TELLS you where to go and how to go
there; what is feasible for you to undertake, and what you CANNOT do. It
dictates what its health can tolerate, and what will tire it and make it sick.
And its "inherent" weaknesses set up the limitations on what YOU would do, and
keep your PURPOSE limited and weak.
T 29 B 3. The body WILL accommodate to this, if you would have it so. It WILL
allow but limited indulgences in "love," with intervals of hatred in between.
And it WILL take command of when to "love," and when to shrink more safely into
fear. It will be sick BECAUSE you do not know what loving means. And so you MUST
misuse each circumstance and everyone you meet, and see in them a purpose NOT
their own. It is not love that asks a sacrifice. But fear DEMANDS the sacrifice
of love, for in love’s presence fear cannot abide. For hate to be maintained
love MUST be feared, and only SOMETIMES present; SOMETIMES gone.
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T 29 B 4. Thus is love seen as treacherous, because IT seems to come and go
uncertainly, and offer no stability to you. You do NOT see how limited and weak
is YOUR allegiance, and how frequently you have demanded that it go away, and
leave you quietly alone in "peace." The body, innocent of ANY goal, is your
excuse for variable goals YOU hold, and force the body to maintain. You do not
fear its weakness, but its lack of strength OR weakness. Would you recognize
that NOTHING stands between you? Would you know there IS no gap behind which you
can hide?
T 29 B 5. There IS a shock that comes to those who learn their Saviour is
their enemy no more. There IS a wariness that is aroused by learning that the
body is not real. And there ARE overtones of seeming fear around the happy
message "God is Love." Yet all that happens when the gap is gone is peace
eternal. Nothing MORE than that, and nothing less. Without the fear of God, what
could induce you to abandon Him? What toys or trinkets in the gap could serve to
hold you back an instant from His Love? Would you ALLOW the body to say "No" to
Heaven’s calling, were you not afraid to find a LOSS of self in finding God? Yet
CAN your Self be lost by being found?
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T 29 C. The Coming of the Guest
April 1, 1968
T 29 C 1. Why would you not perceive it as RELEASE from suffering to learn
that you are free? Why would you not ACCLAIM the truth, instead of looking on it
as an enemy? Why does an EASY path, so clearly marked it is impossible to lose
the way, seem thorny, rough, and far too difficult for you to follow? Is it not
because you see it as the road to hell, instead of looking on it as a simple
way, without a sacrifice or ANY loss, to find yourself in Heaven and in God?
Until you realize you give up NOTHING; until you understand there IS no loss;
you will have some regrets about the way that you have chosen. And you will NOT
see the many gains your choice has offered you.
T 29 C 2. Yet though you do not see them, they are there. Their CAUSE has been
effected, and they MUST be present were their cause has entered in. You have
accepted healing’s Cause, and so it MUST be you are healed. And being healed,
the power to heal must ALSO now be yours. The miracle is not a separate thing
that happens suddenly, as an effect without a cause. Nor is it, in itself, a
cause. But where its Cause is MUST it be. Now IS it caused, though not as yet
perceived. And its effects are THERE, though not yet seen. Look inward now, and
you will not behold a reason for regret, but cause indeed for glad rejoicing and
for hope of peace.
T 29 C 3. It HAS been hopeless to attempt to find the hope of peace upon a
battleground. It HAS been futile to demand escape from sin and pain of what was
made to serve the function of RETAINING sin and pain. For pain and sin are ONE
illusion, as are hate and fear, attack and guilt but one. Where they are
causeless, their effects ARE gone, and love MUST come wherever they are not. Why
are you not rejoicing? You ARE free of pain and sickness, misery and loss, and
ALL effects of hatred and attack. No more is pain your friend and guilt your
god, and you should WELCOME the effects of love.
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T 29 C 4. Your Guest HAS come. You asked Him, and He came. You did not hear
Him enter, for you did not wholly welcome Him. And yet His gifts came with Him.
He has laid them at your feet, and asks you now that you will look on them, and
take them for your own. He NEEDS your help in giving them to all who walk apart,
believing they are separate and alone. They WILL be healed when you accept your
gifts, because your Guest will welcome everyone whose feet have touched the holy
ground whereon you stand, and where His gifts for them are laid.
T 29 C 5. You do not see how much you now can GIVE, because of everything you
have received. Yet He Who entered in but waits for YOU to come where you invited
HIM to be. There is no other place where He can find His host, nor where His
host can meet with Him. And nowhere else His gifts of peace and joy, and all the
happiness His Presence brings, can be obtained. For they are where He is that
brought them with Him, that they might be yours. You cannot see your Guest, but
you CAN see the gifts He brought. And when you LOOK on them, you will believe
His Presence MUST be there. For what you now can do could not BE done without
the love and grace His Presence holds.
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April 5, 1968
T 29 C 6. Such is the promise of the living God; His Son have life and every
living thing be part of him, and nothing else has life. What YOU have "given"
life is NOT alive, and symbolizes but your wish to be alive APART from life,
alive in death, with death perceived as life, and living, death. Confusion
follows on confusion here, for ON confusion has this world been based, and there
is nothing else it rests upon. Its basis does not change, although it SEEMS to
be in constant change. But what is that except the state confusion really MEANS?
Stability to those who are confused is meaningless. And shift and change become
the law on which they predicate their lives.
T 29 C 7. The body does not change. It represents the larger dream that change
is POSSIBLE. To change is to attain a state unlike the one in which you found
yourself before. There IS no change in immortality, and Heaven knows it not. Yet
here on earth, it has a double purpose, for it can be made to teach opposing
things. And they reflect the teacher who is teaching them. The body can APPEAR
to change with time, with sickness or with health, and with events that seem to
alter it. And this but means the mind remains unchanged in its belief of what
the PURPOSE of the body is.
T 29 C 8. Sickness is a demand the body be a thing that it is not. Its
NOTHINGNESS is guarantee that it can NOT be sick. In your demand that it be MORE
than this lies the idea of sickness. For it asks that God be LESS than all He
really is. What, then, becomes of YOU, for it IS you of whom the sacrifice is
asked? For He is told that part of him BELONGS to Him no longer. He must
sacrifice your self, and in His sacrifice are YOU made more, and He is lessened
by the loss of you. And what is GONE from Him becomes your god, PROTECTING you
from being part of Him.
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T 29 C 9. The body that is asked to be a god WILL be attacked, because its
nothingness has not been recognized. And so it seems to be a thing with power IN
ITSELF. As something, it CAN be perceived and thought to feel and act, and hold
you in its grasp as prisoner to itself. And it CAN fail to be what you demanded
that it be. And you WILL hate it for its littleness, unmindful that the failure
does not lie in that it is not MORE than it should be, but ONLY in YOUR failure
to perceive that it is nothing. Yet its nothingness IS your salvation, from
which you would flee.
T 29 C 10. As something is the body asked to be God’s enemy, replacing what He
is with littleness and limit and despair. It is HIS loss you celebrate when you
behold the body as a thing you love, or look upon it as a thing you hate. For if
He be the sum of everything, then what is NOT in Him does not exist, and His
completion IS its nothingness. Your Saviour is NOT dead, nor does he dwell in
what was built as temple unto death. He lives in God, and it is this that makes
him Saviour unto YOU, and ONLY this. His body’s nothingness releases yours from
sickness and from death. For what is yours cannot be more NOR less than what is
his.
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T 29 D. God’s Witnesses
April 8, 1968
T 29 D 1. Condemn your Saviour not because he thinks he is a body. For beyond
his dreams is his reality. But he must learn he is a Saviour first, before he
can remember what he is. And he must save who would BE saved. On saving YOU
depends his happiness. For who is Saviour, but the one who GIVES salvation? Thus
he learns it must be his to give. UNLESS he gives, he will not know he HAS, for
giving is the proof of having. Only those who think that God is lessened by
their strength could fail to understand this must be so. For who COULD give
unless he has, and who could lose by giving what must be INCREASED thereby?
T 29 D 2. Think you the Father LOST Himself when He created you? Was HE made
weak because He shared His Love? Was He made incomplete by YOUR perfection? Or
are you the proof that He IS perfect and complete? Deny Him not His witness in
the dream His Son prefers to his reality. He must be Saviour FROM the dream he
made, that he be free of it. He must see someone ELSE as NOT a body, one with
him, without the wall the world has built to keep apart all living things who
know not that they live. Within the dream of bodies and of death, is yet one
theme of truth; no more, perhaps, than just a tiny spark, a space of light
created in the dark, where God shines still.
T 29 D 3. You cannot wake yourself. But you can LET yourself be wakened. You
can overlook your brother’s dreams. So perfectly can you forgive him his
illusions, he becomes your Saviour from YOUR dreams. And as you see him shining
in the space of light where God abides within the darkness, you will see that
God Himself is where his body is. Before this light the body disappears, as
heavy shadows MUST give way to light. The darkness cannot CHOOSE that it remain.
The coming of the light MEANS it is gone. In glory will you see your brother
then, and understand what REALLY fills the gap so long perceived as keeping you
apart.
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T 29 D 4. There, in its place, God’s Witness has set forth the gentle way of
kindness to God’s Son. Whom you forgive is GIVEN power to forgive you your
illusions. By your gift of freedom is it given unto YOU. Make way for love which
you did not create, but which you CAN extend. On earth this means forgive your
brother, that the darkness may be lifted from YOUR mind. When light has come to
him through your forgiveness, he will not forget his Saviour, leaving him
unsaved. For it was in YOUR face he saw the light that he would keep beside him,
as he walks through darkness to the everlasting Light.
T 29 D 5. How holy are you, that the Son of God can be your Saviour in the
midst of dreams of desolation and disaster. See how eagerly he comes, and steps
aside from heavy shadows that have hidden him, and shines on you in gratitude
and love. He is himself, but not himself alone. And as his Father lost not part
of Him in your creation, so the light in him is brighter still, because you gave
your light to him, to save him from the dark. And now the light in you must be
as bright as shines in him. This is the spark that shines within the dream; that
you can help him waken, and be sure his waking eyes will rest upon you first,
and in his glad salvation YOU are saved.
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T 29 E. Dream Roles
April 12, 1968
T 29 E 1. Do you believe that truth can be but SOME illusions? They are dreams
BECAUSE they are not true. Their EQUAL lack of truth becomes the basis for the
miracle, which MEANS that you have understood that dreams are dreams; and that
escape depends, NOT on the dream, but ONLY on awaking. COULD it be some dreams
are KEPT, and others WAKENED FROM? The choice is NOT between which dreams to
keep, but ONLY if you want to live in dreams or to awaken from them. Thus it is
the miracle does not select SOME dreams to leave untouched by its beneficence.
You cannot dream some dreams and wake from some, for you are either sleeping OR
awake. And dreaming goes with only ONE of these.
T 29 E 2. The dreams you THINK you like would hold you back as much as those
in which the fear is seen. For EVERY dream is but a dream of fear, no matter
what the form it seems to take. The fear is seen within, without, or both. Or it
can be disguised in pleasant form. But never is it ABSENT from the dream, for
fear is the material of dreams, from which they ALL are made. Their form can
change, but they cannot be MADE of something else. The miracle were treacherous
indeed if it allowed you still to be afraid, because you did not RECOGNIZE the
fear. You would not then be WILLING to awake, for which the miracle prepares the
way.
T 29 E 3. In simplest form, it can be said attack is a response to function
unfulfilled AS YOU PERCEIVE THE FUNCTION. It can be in you or someone else, but
where it is perceived, it will be there it is attacked. Depression or assault
must be the theme of every dream, for they are made of fear. The thin disguise
of pleasure and of joy in which they may be wrapped but slightly veils the heavy
lump of fear which is their core. And it is THIS the miracle perceives, and NOT
the wrappings in which it is bound. When you are angry, is it not because
someone has failed to fill the function you allotted him? And does not THIS
become the "reason" your attack is justified?
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T 29 E 4. The dreams you THINK you like are those in which the functions YOU
have given have been filled; the needs which YOU ascribe to you are met. It does
not matter if they be fulfilled, or merely wanted. It is the idea that they
EXIST from which the fears arise. Dreams are not wanted more or less. They are
desired or not. And each one represents some function which you have assigned;
some goal which an event, or body, or a thing SHOULD represent, and SHOULD
achieve for you. If it succeeds, you think you LIKE the dream. If it should
fail, you think the dream is sad. But whether it succeeds or fails is not its
core, but just the flimsy covering.
T 29 E 5. How happy would your dreams become, if you were NOT the one who gave
the "proper" role to every figure that the dream contains. No-one can fail but
your IDEA of him, and there IS no betrayal BUT of this. The core of dreams the
Holy Spirit gives is NEVER one of fear. The coverings may not appear to change,
but what they MEAN has changed BECAUSE they cover something else. Perceptions
are determined by their purpose, in that they seem to BE what they are FOR. A
shadow figure who attacks becomes a brother giving you a chance to help, if this
becomes the FUNCTION of the dream. And dreams of sadness thus are turned to joy.
T 29 E 6. What is your brother FOR? You do not know, because YOUR function is
obscure to you. Do NOT ascribe a role to him which you imagine would bring
happiness to you. And do not try to hurt him, when he fails to take the part
which you assigned to him in what you dream your life was meant to be. He asks
for help in every dream he has, and you have Help to give him if you see the
FUNCTION of the dream as He perceives its function, Who can utilize all dreams
as means to serve the Function given Him. Because He loves the dreamer, NOT the
dream, each dream becomes an offering of love. For at its center is His Love for
you, which lights WHATEVER form it takes with love.
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T 29 F. The Changeless Dwelling -Place
April 25, 1968
T 29 F 1. There is a place in you where this whole world has been forgotten.
Where no memory of sin and of illusion linger still. There is a place in you
which time has left, and echoes of eternity are heard. There is a resting place
so still no sound except a hymn to Heaven rises up to gladden God the Father and
the Son. Where both abide are They remembered both. And where They are is Heaven
and is peace. Think not that you can change Their dwelling place. For your
Identity abides in Them, and where They are, forever must YOU be.
T 29 F 2. The changelessness of Heaven is in you, so deep within that nothing
in this world but passes by, unnoticed and unseen. The still infinity of endless
peace surrounds you gently in its soft embrace, so strong and quiet, tranquil in
the might of its Creator, nothing can intrude upon the sacred Son of God within.
Here is the role the Holy Spirit gives to you who wait upon the Son of God, and
would behold him waken and be glad: He is a part of you, and you of him, BECAUSE
he is his Father’s Son, and not for ANY purpose you may see in him. Nothing is
asked of you but to ACCEPT the Changeless and Eternal that abide in him, for
YOUR Identity is there.
T 29 F 3. The peace in you CAN but be found in him. And every thought of love
you offer him but brings you nearer to your wakening to peace eternal and to
endless joy. This sacred Son of God is like yourself; the mirror of his Father’s
Love for you, the soft reminder of his Father’s Love by which he was created,
and which still abides in him, as It abides in you. Be very still, and hear
God’s Voice in him, and let It tell you what his function is. He was created
that YOU might be whole, for only the complete can be a part of God’s
Completion, Which created you.
T 29 F 4. There is no gift the Father asks of you but that you see in all
creation but the shining glory of His Gift to you. Behold His Son, His perfect
gift, in whom his Father shines forever, and to whom is all creation given as
his own.
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T 29 F 5. BECAUSE he has it is it given you, and where it lies in him behold
YOUR peace. The quiet that surrounds you dwells in him, and FROM this quiet come
the happy dreams in which your hands are joined in innocence. These are not
hands that grasp in dreams of pain. They hold no sword, for they have left their
hold on every vain illusion of the world. And, being empty, they received
instead a brother’s hand in which completeness lay.
T 29 F 6. If you but knew the glorious goal that lies beyond forgiveness, you
would not keep hold on any thought, however light the touch of evil on it may
appear to be. For you would understand how great the cost of holding anything
God did not give in minds that can direct the hand to bless, and lead God’s Son
unto his Father’s house. Would you not WANT to be a friend to him, created by
his Father as His home? If God esteems him worthy of Himself, would YOU attack
him with the hands of hate? Who would lay bloody hands on Heaven itself, and
hope to find its peace? Your brother thinks he holds the hand of death. Believe
him not. But learn, instead, how blessed are you who can release him, just by
offering him yours.
T 29 F 7. A dream is given you in which he is your Saviour, NOT your enemy in
hate. A dream is given you in which you have forgiven him for all his dreams of
death; a dream of hope you SHARE with him, instead of dreaming evil separate
dreams of hate. Why does it seem so hard to share this dream? Because, unless
the Holy Spirit gives the dream its function, it was made for hate, and will
continue in death’s services. Each form it takes in some way calls for death.
And those who serve the lord of death have come to worship in a separated world,
each with his tiny spear and rusted sword, to keep his ancient promises to die.
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T 29 F 8. Such is the core of fear in every dream that has been kept apart
from use by Him Who sees a different function for a dream. When dreams are
SHARED, they lose the function of attack and separation, even though it was for
this that every dream was made. Yet nothing in the world of dreams remains
without the hope of change and betterment, for here is NOT where changelessness
is found. Let us be glad indeed that this is so, and seek not the eternal in
this world. Forgiving dreams are means to step aside from dreaming of a world
OUTSIDE yourself. And leading finally beyond ALL dreams, unto the peace of
everlasting life.
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T 29 G. Forgiveness and Peace
May 6, 1968
T 29 G 1. How willing are you to forgive your brother? How much do you desire
peace, instead of endless strife and misery and pain? These questions are the
same, in different form. Forgiveness IS your peace, for herein lies the end of
separation, and the dream of danger and destruction, sin and death; of madness
and of murder, grief and loss. This is the "sacrifice" salvation asks, and
gladly offers peace INSTEAD of this. Swear not to die, thou holy Son of God! You
make a bargain that you cannot keep. The Son of Life cannot BE killed. He is
immortal as his Father. What he is cannot be changed. He is the only thing in
all the universe that MUST be One.
T 29 G 2. What SEEMS eternal all will have an end. The stars will disappear,
and night and day will be no more. All things that come and go, the tides, the
seasons, and the lives of man; all things that change with time and bloom and
fade, will not return. Where time has set an end is not where the Eternal is.
God’s Son can never change by what man made of him. He will be as he was, and as
he is, for time appointed not his destiny, nor sets the hour of his birth and
death. Forgiveness will not change him. But time waits upon forgiveness, that
the things of time may disappear because they have no use.
T 29 G 3. Nothing survives its purpose. If it be conceived to die, then die it
must, unless it does not take this purpose as its own. Change is the only thing
that can be made a blessing here, where purpose is NOT fixed, however changeless
it APPEARS to be. Think not that YOU can set a goal unlike God’s Purpose FOR
you, and establish it as changeless and eternal. You CAN give yourself a purpose
that you do not have. But you can NOT remove the Power to change your mind, and
see ANOTHER purpose there. Change is the gift God He gave to all that YOU would
make eternal, to ensure that ONLY Heaven would not pass away.
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T 29 G 4. You were NOT born to die. You CANNOT change, because your Function
HAS been fixed by God. All other goals are set in time, and change that time
might be preserved, EXCEPTING ONE. Forgiveness does not aim at KEEPING time, but
at its ending, when it has no use. Its purpose ended, it is gone. And where it
once held seeming sway is now restored the Function God established for His Son
in full awareness. Time can set no end to Its fulfillment, nor Its
changelessness. There is no death, because the living share the Function their
Creator gave to them. Life’s function CANNOT be to die. It must be life’s
EXTENSION, that it be as One forever and forever, WITHOUT end.
T 29 G 5. This world will bind your feet and tie your hands and kill your body,
ONLY if you think that it was made to crucify God’s Son. For even though it WAS
a dream of death, you need not let it stand for this to you. Let THIS be
changed, and nothing in the world but MUST be changed as well. For nothing here
but is defined as what you see it FOR. How lovely is the world whose purpose is
forgiveness of God’s Son! How free from fear, how filled with blessing and with
happiness! And what a joyous thing it is to dwell a little while in such a happy
place! Nor CAN it be forgot, in such a world, it IS a little while ‘til
timelessness comes quietly to take the place of time.
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T 29 H. The Lingering Illusion
May 8, 1968
T 29 H 1. Seek not outside yourself. For it will fail, and you will weep each
time an idol falls. Heaven cannot be found where it is not, and there can be no
peace EXCEPTING there. Each idol that you worship when God calls will never
answer in His place. There IS no other answer you can substitute, and find the
happiness His Answer brings. Seek not outside yourself. For all your pain comes
simply from a futile search for what you want, insisting WHERE it must be found.
What if it is not there? Do you prefer that you be right or happy? Be you glad
that you are told where happiness abides, and seek no longer elsewhere. You will
fail.
T 29 H 2. But it is given you to know the truth, and NOT to seek for it
outside yourself. No-one who comes here but must still have hope, some lingering
illusion, or some dream that there is something OUTSIDE of himself that will
bring happiness and peace to him. If everything is IN him, this cannot be so.
And therefore, BY his coming, he denies the truth about himself, and seeks for
something MORE than everything, as if a part of it were separated off, and found
where all the REST of it is NOT. This is the purpose he bestows upon the body;
that it seek for what he lacks, and give him what would make himself complete.
T 29 H 3. And thus he wanders aimlessly about, in search of something that he
cannot find, believing him to be what he is not. The lingering illusion will
impel him to seek out a thousand idols, and to seek beyond them for a thousand
more. And each will fail him, all excepting one; for he will die, and does not
understand the idol that he seeks IS but his death. Its FORM appears to be
outside himself. Yet does he seek to kill God’s Son within, and PROVE that he is
victor over him. This is the purpose EVERY idol has, for this the role that is
assigned to it, and this the role that cannot BE fulfilled.
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T 29 H 4. Whenever you attempt to reach a goal in which the body’s betterment
is cast as major beneficiary, you try to bring about your death. For you believe
that you can suffer lack, and lack IS death. To sacrifice is to GIVE UP, and
thus to be without, and to have suffered loss. And, BY this giving up is life
renounced. Seek not outside yourself. The search implies you are not whole
within, and fear to look upon your devastation, and prefer to seek outside
yourself for what you are. Idols must fall BECAUSE they have no life, and what
is lifeless IS a sign of death. You came to die, and what would you expect, but
to PERCEIVE the signs of death you seek?
T 29 H 5. No sadness and no suffering proclaims a message OTHER than an idol
found that represents a parody of life which, in its lifelessness, is really
death, conceived as real and given living form. Yet each must fail and crumble
and decay, because a form of death cannot BE life, and what is sacrificed cannot
BE whole.
T 29 H 6. All idols of this world were made to keep the truth within from
being known to you, and to maintain allegiance to the dream that you must find
what is OUTSIDE yourself to be complete and happy. It is vain to worship idols
in the hope of peace. God dwells within, and your completion lies in Him. No
idol takes His place. Look not to idols. Do not seek outside yourself.
T 29 H 7. Let us forget the purpose of the world the past has given it. For
otherwise, the future WILL be like the past, and but a series of depressing
dreams, in which all idols fail you, one by one, and you see death and
disappointment everywhere. To change all this, and open up a road of hope and of
release in what appeared to be an endless circle of despair, you need but to
decide you do not KNOW the purpose of the world. You GIVE it goals it does not
have, and thus do YOU decide what it is for. You try to see in it a place of
idols, found outside yourself, with power to make complete what is within by
splitting what you are BETWEEN the two.
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T 29 H 8. You CHOOSE your dreams, for they are what you wish, perceived AS IF
it had been given you. And idols do what you would have them do, and HAVE the
power you ascribe to them. And you pursue them vainly in the dream, because you
want their power as your own. Yet where ARE dreams, but in a mind asleep? And
CAN a dream succeed in making real the pictures it projects outside itself? Save
time, my brothers, Learn what time is FOR. And speed the end of idols in a world
made sad and sick by seeing idols there. Your holy minds are altars unto God,
and where He is NO idols can abide.
T 29 H 9. The fear of God is but the fear of loss of idols. It is NOT the fear
of loss of your reality. But YOU have made of your reality an idol, which you
must protect AGAINST the light of truth. And all the world becomes the means by
which this idol can be saved. Salvation thus appears to THREATEN life, and offer
death. It is not so. Salvation seeks to prove there IS no death, and ONLY life
exists. The sacrifice of death is NOTHING lost. An idol CANNOT take the place of
God. Let Him remind you of His Love for you, and do not seek to drown His Voice
in chants of deep despair to idols of yourself. Seek not outside your Father for
your hope. For hope of happiness is NOT despair.
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T 29 I. Christ and Anti-Christ
May 13, 1968
T 29 I 1. What is an idol? Do you think you know? For idols are unrecognized
as such, and never seen for what they really are. That is the only power which
they have. Their purpose is obscure, and they are feared, and worshipped, both,
BECAUSE you do not know what they are for, and why they have been made. An idol
is an image of your brother, which you would value MORE than what he IS. Idols
are made that HE may be replaced, no matter what their form. And it is this
which NEVER is perceived and recognized. Be it a body or a thing, a place, a
situation or a circumstance, an object owned or wanted, or a right demanded or
achieved, it is the same.
T 29 I 2. Let not their form deceive you. Idols are but substitutes for your
reality. In some way you believe they will complete your little self, for safety
in a world perceived as dangerous, with forces massed against your confidence
and peace of mind. They have the power to supply your lacks, and add the value
which you do not have. No-one believes in idols who has not enslaved himself to
littleness and loss. And thus must seek beyond his little self for strength to
raise his head, and stand apart from all the misery the world reflects. This is
the penalty for looking not within for certainty, And for a quiet calm which
liberates you FROM the world, and lets you stand apart in quiet and in peace
unlimited.
T 29 I 3. An idol is a false impression, or a false belief; some form of
antiChrist which constitutes a gap BETWEEN the Christ and what you see. An idol
is a wish, made tangible and given form, and thus perceived as real, and seen
OUTSIDE the mind. Yet they remain ideas, and CANNOT leave the mind that is their
source. Nor is their form apart from the idea it represents. All forms of
antiChrist oppose the Christ. And fall before His Face like a dark veil which
SEEMS to shut you off from Him, alone in darkness. Yet the light is there. A
cloud does not put out the sun. No more a veil can banish what it seems to
separate, nor darken by one whit the Light Itself.
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T 29 I 4. This world of idols IS a veil across the Face of Christ, BECAUSE its
purpose is to separate your brother from yourself. A dark and fearful purpose,
yet a thought without the power to change one blade of grass from something
living to a sign of death. Its form is nowhere, for its source abides within
your mind, where God abideth not. Where IS this place, where WHAT is everywhere
has been excluded, and been kept apart? What hand could be held up to block
God’s way; whose voice could make demand He enter not? The
"more-than-everything" is NOT a thing to make you tremble and to quail in fear.
Christ’s enemy is nowhere. He can take NO form in which he EVER will be real.
T 29 I 5. What is an idol? Nothing! It must be believed BEFORE it seems to
come to life, and GIVEN power that it may be feared. Its life and power are its
believer’s gift, and this is what the miracle restores to what HAS life and
power worthy of the gift of Heaven and eternal peace. The miracle does not
restore the truth, the light the veil between has NOT put out. It merely LIFTS
the veil, and LETS the truth shine unencumbered, being what It is. It does not
NEED belief to be Itself, for It HAS BEEN created, so It IS. An idol is
ESTABLISHED by belief, and when it is withdrawn, the idol "dies."
T 29 I 6. This is the antiChrist; the strange idea there is a power PAST
omnipotence, a place BEYOND the infinite, a time transcending the eternal. Here
the world of idols has been set by the idea this power and place and time are
given form, and shape the world where the impossible has happened. Here the
deathless come to die; the all-encompassing to suffer loss; the timeless to be
made the slaves of time. Here does the changeless change; the peace of God,
forever given to all living things, give way to chaos. And the Son of God, as
perfect, sinless, and as loving as his Father, come to hate a little while; to
suffer pain, and finally to die.
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T 29 I 7. WHERE is an idol? Nowhere! Can there be a gap in what is infinite, a
place where time can INTERRUPT eternity? A place of darkness set where all is
light, a dismal alcove separated off from what is endless, HAS no place to be.
An idol is beyond where God has set all things forever, and has left no room for
anything EXCEPT His Will to be. Nothing and nowhere MUST an idol be, while God
is everything and everywhere. What purpose has an idol, then? What is it FOR?
This is the only question which has many answers, each depending on the one of
whom the question has been asked.
T 29 I 8. The world BELIEVES in idols. No-one comes unless he worshipped them,
and still attempts to seek for one that yet might offer him a gift reality does
NOT contain. Each worshipper of idols harbors hope his SPECIAL deities will give
him MORE than other men possess. It MUST be "more." It does not really matter
more of what; more beauty, more intelligence, more wealth; or even more
affliction and more pain. But MORE of SOMETHING is an idol FOR. And when one
fails another takes its place, with hope of finding more of something ELSE. Be
not deceived by forms the "something" takes. An idol is a means for getting
MORE. And it is THIS that is against God’s Will.
T 29 I 9. God has not many sons, but only One. Who can have more, and who be
given less? In Heaven would the Son of God but laugh, if idols could intrude
upon his peace. It is for HIM the Holy Spirit speaks, and tells you idols HAVE
no purpose here. For MORE than Heaven can you never have. If Heaven is within
why would you seek for idols which would make of Heaven less, to give you MORE
than God bestowed upon your brother AND on you, as One with Him? God GAVE you
all there is. And to be sure you could not lose it, did He ALSO give the same to
every living thing as well. And thus IS every living thing a part of you as of
Himself. No idol can establish you as MORE than God. But YOU will never be
content with being LESS.
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T 29 J. The Forgiving Dream
May 20, 1968
T 29 J 1. The slave of idols is a WILLING slave. For willing he MUST be, to
let himself bow down in worship to what has no life, and seek for power in the
powerless. What happened to the holy Son of God, that this could BE his wish; to
let himself fall lower than the stones upon the ground, and look to idols that
they raise him up? Hear, then, your story in the dream you made, and ask
yourself if it be not the truth that you believe that it is NOT a dream. A dream
of judgment came into the mind that God created perfect as Himself. And in that
dream was Heaven changed to hell, and God made enemy unto His Son.
T 29 J 2. How can God’s Son AWAKEN from the dream? It is a dream of judgment.
So must he judge NOT, and he WILL waken. For the dream will seem to last while
he is PART of it. Judge not, for he who judges WILL have need of idols, which
will hold the judgment off from resting on himself. Nor CAN he know the Self he
has condemned. Judge not, because you make yourself a PART of evil dreams, where
idols are your "true" identity, and your salvation from the judgment laid, in
terror and in guilt, upon yourself. All figures in the dream are idols, made to
save you FROM the dream. Yet they are PART of what they have been made to save
you FROM.
T 29 J 3. Thus does an idol KEEP the dream alive and terrible, for who would
wish for one UNLESS he were in terror and despair? And this the idol REPRESENTS,
and so its worship IS the worship of despair and terror, and the dream from
which they come. Judgment is an INjustice to God’s Son, and it IS justice that
who judges HIM will not escape the penalty he laid upon HIMSELF within the dream
he made. God knows of justice; NOT of penalty. But in the dream of judgment, you
attack and are condemned. And WISH to be the slave of idols, who are interposed
BETWEEN your judgment and the penalty it brings.
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T 29 J 4. There CAN be no salvation in the dream, as YOU are dreaming it. For
idols MUST be part of it, to save you from what you believe you have
accomplished, and have done to make you sinful, and put out the Light within
you. Little children, It is there. You do but dream, and idols are the toys you
dream you play with. Who has need of toys but children? They pretend they rule
the world, and give their toys the power to move about, and talk and think and
feel, and speak for them. Yet everything their toys appear to do is in the minds
of those who play with them. But they are eager to forget that they made up the
dream in which their toys are real, and recognize their wishes are their own.
T 29 J 5. Nightmares are childish dreams. The toys have turned against the
child who thought he made them real. Yet CAN a dream attack? Or CAN a toy grow
large and dangerous and fierce and wild? This does the child believe BECAUSE he
fears his thoughts, and gives them to his toys instead. And their reality
becomes his own, because they seem to SAVE him from his thoughts. Yet do they
KEEP his thoughts alive and real, but seen OUTSIDE himself, where they can turn
against him for his treachery to them. He thinks he NEEDS them that he may
escape his thoughts, because he thinks the THOUGHTS are real. And so he makes of
ANYTHING a toy, to make his world remain outside himself, and play that HE is
but a part of it.
T 29 J 6. There is a time when childhood should be passed and gone forever.
Seek not to retain the toys of children. Put them all away, for you have need of
them no more. The dream of judgment is a children’s game, in which the child
becomes the father, powerful, but with the little wisdom of a child. What hurts
him is destroyed; what helps him, blessed. Except he judges this as does a
child, who does not KNOW what hurts and what will heal. And bad things seem to
happen, and he is afraid of all the chaos in a world he thinks is governed by
the laws he made. Yet is the real world unaffected by the world he thinks is
real. Nor have its laws been changed because he did not understand.
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T 29 J 7. The real world still is but a dream. Except the figures have been
changed. They are not seen as idols which betray. It is a dream in which no-one
is used to substitute for something else, or interposed between the thoughts the
mind conceives and what it sees. No-one is used for something he is not, for
childish things have all been put away. And what was once a dream of judgment
now has changed into a dream where all is joy, because that is the PURPOSE that
it has. Only forgiving dreams can enter here, for time is almost over. And the
forms which enter in the dreams are now perceived as brothers, not in judgment,
but in love.
T 29 J 8. Forgiving dreams have little need to last. They are not made to
separate the mind from what it thinks. They do not seek to prove the dream is
being dreamed by someone ELSE. And in these dreams a melody is heard which
everyone remembers, though he has not heard it since before all time began.
Forgiveness, once complete, brings timelessness so close the song of Heaven can
be heard, not with the ears, but with the holiness that never left the altar
which abides forever deep within the Son of God. And when he hears this song
again, he knows he NEVER heard it not. And where IS time, when dreams of
judgment have been put away?
T 29 J 9. Whenever you feel fear in any form, – and you ARE fearful if you do
not feel a deep content, a certainty of help, a calm assurance Heaven goes with
you, – be sure you made an idol, and believe it will betray you. For, beneath
your hope that it will save you, lie the guilt and pain of self-betrayal and
uncertainty, so deep and bitter that the dream cannot conceal completely all
your sense of doom. Your self-betrayal MUST result in fear, and fear IS
judgment, leading surely to the frantic search for idols and for death.
Forgiving dreams remind you that you live in safety, and have NOT attacked
yourself.
The Beautiful Re
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T 29 J 10.
So do your childish terrors melt away, and dreams become a sign that you have
made a new beginning, NOT another try to worship idols, and to KEEP attack.
Forgiving dreams are kind to everyone who figures in the dream. And so they
bring the dreamer full release from dreams of fear. He does not fear his
judgment, for he has judged no-one, nor has sought to be released THROUGH
judgment from what judgment MUST impose. And all the while he is remembering
what he forgot when judgment seemed to be the way to SAVE him from its penalty.
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Chapter XXX - 30 - The New Beginning
T 30 A. Introduction
May 22, 1968
T 30 A 1. The "new beginning" now becomes the focus of the curriculum. The
goal is clear, but now you need specific methods for attaining it. The speed by
which it can be reached depends on only this; your willingness to practice every
step. Each one will help a little, every time it is attempted. And, together,
they will lead you both from dreams of judgment to forgiving dreams, and out of
pain and fear. They are not new to you, but they are more ideas than rules of
thought to you as yet. So now we need to practice them awhile, until they are
the rules by which you live. We seek to make them habits now, so you will have
them ready, and for ANY needs.
T 30 B. Rules for Decision
T 30 B 1. Decisions are continuous. You do not always know when you are making
them. But, with a little practice in the ones you recognize, a set begins to
form which sees you through the rest. It is not wise to let yourself become
preoccupied with every step you take. The proper set, adopted consciously each
time you wake, will put you well ahead. And if you find resistance strong and
dedication weak, you are not ready. DO NOT FIGHT YOURSELF. But think about the
kind of day you want, and tell yourself there is a way in which this very day
can happen just like that. Then try again to HAVE the day you want.
T 30 B 2. 1. The outlook starts with this:
"Today I will make NO decision by myself."
This means that you are choosing NOT to be the judge of what to do. But it must
ALSO mean you will not judge the situations where you will be called upon to
make response. For if you judge them, you HAVE set the rules for how you should
react to them. And then ANOTHER answer cannot BUT produce confusion and
uncertainty AND FEAR. This is your major problem now. You still make up your
minds, and THEN decide to ask what you should do. And what you hear may not
resolve the problem AS YOU SAW IT FIRST. This leads to
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fear, because it contradicts what you perceive, and so you feel attacked, [101]
AND THEREFORE ANGRY. There are rules by which this will not happen. But it does
occur, at first, to everyone who listens well.
T 30 B 3. 2. Throughout the day, at any time you think of it, and have a quiet
moment for reflection, tell yourself again the kind of day you want; the
feelings you would have, the things you WANT to happen, and the things you WOULD
experience. And say,
"If I make no decisions by [102] myself,
This is the day that will be GIVEN me [103] ."
These two procedures, practiced well, will serve to let you be directed WITHOUT
fear, for opposition will not FIRST arise, and THEN become a problem in itself.
But there will still be times when you have judged already. Now the answer will
provoke attack, unless you quickly straighten out your mind to WANT an answer
that will work. Be certain this has happened, if you feel yourself to be
unwilling to sit by, and ask to have the answer GIVEN you. This means you HAVE
decided by yourself, AND CANNOT SEE THE QUESTION. Now you need a quick
restorative BEFORE you ask.
T 30 B 4. 3. Remember once again the day you want, and recognize that
something has occurred which is not part of it. Then realize that you have asked
a question by yourself, and MUST have set an answer in your terms. Then say,
"I have no question. I forgot what to decide."
This cancels out the terms which you have set, and lets the ANSWER show you what
the question MUST have really been. Try to observe this rule without delay
DESPITE your opposition. For you have ALREADY gotten angry, and your fear of
being answered in a different way from what YOUR version of the question asks
will gain momentum until you believe the day you want is one in which you get
YOUR answer to your question. And you will not get it, for it would destroy
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the day by robbing you of what you REALLY want. This can be very hard to
realize, when once you have decided by yourself the rules which PROMISE you a
happy day. But these decisions still can be undone, by simple methods which you
CAN accept.
T 30 B 5. 4. If you are so unwilling to receive you cannot even let your
QUESTION go, you can begin to change your mind with this:
"At least I can decide I do not LIKE what I feel now."
This much is obvious, and paves the way for the next easy step, which follows
like this.
T 30 B 6. 5. Having decided that you do not like the way you feel, what could
be easier than to continue with –
"And so I HOPE I have been wrong."
This works AGAINST the sense of opposition, and reminds you that help is not
being thrust upon you, but is something that you want and that you need BECAUSE
you do not like the way you feel. This tiny opening will be enough to let you go
ahead with just a few more steps you need to LET yourself be helped.
T 30 B 7. 6. Now you have reached the turning point, because it has occurred
to you that YOU will gain, if what you have decided is NOT so. Until this point
is reached, you will believe your happiness DEPENDS on being right. But this
much reason have you now attained; YOU would be better off if you were WRONG.
This tiny grain of wisdom will suffice to take you further. You are NOT coerced,
but merely hope to have a thing you WANT. And you can say in perfect honesty,
"I WANT another way to look at this."
Now you have changed your mind about the day, and have REMEMBERED what you
really want. Its purpose has no longer been obscured by the insane belief you
want it for the goal of being right when you are wrong. This is the readiness
for asking [104] , brought to your awareness, for you cannot be in conflict when
you
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ask for what you want, and see that it is this for which you ask.
T 30 B 8. 7. This final step is but acknowledgment of lack of opposition to be
helped. It is a statement of an open mind, not certain yet, but willing to be
shown:
"Perhaps there IS another way to look at this.
What can I LOSE by asking?"
Thus are you made ready for a question that makes sense, and so the answer will
make sense as well. Nor will you fight against it, for you see that it is YOU
who will be helped by it.
T 30 B 9. It must be clear that it is easier to have a happy day if you
prevent unhappiness from entering at all. But this takes practice in the rules
which will protect you from the ravages of fear. When this has been achieved,
the sorry dream of judgment has forever been undone. But, meanwhile, you have
need for practicing the rules for its undoing. Let us, then, consider once again
the very first of the decisions which are offered here.
T 30 B 10. We said you can begin a happy day with the determination not to make
decisions by yourself. This seems to be a free decision in itself. And yet, you
CANNOT make decisions by yourself. The only question really is with WHAT you
choose to make them. That is really all.
T 30 B 11. The first rule, then, is not coercion, but a simple statement of a
simple fact. You will not make decisions by yourself whatever you decide. For
they are made with idols or with God. And you ask help of [105] Christ or
antiChrist, and which you choose will join with you, and tell you what to do.
Your day is not at random. It is set by what you choose to live it with, and how
the friend whose counsel you have sought perceives your happiness. You always
ask advice before you can decide on anything. Let THIS be understood, and you
can see there cannot be coercion here, nor grounds for opposition that you may
be free. There IS no freedom from what must occur. And if you think there is,
you must be wrong.
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T 30 B 12. The second rule as well is but a fact. For you and your advisor must
agree on what you want before it can occur. It is but this AGREEMENT which
permits all things to happen. Nothing can be caused without some form of union,
be it with a dream of judgment or the Voice for God. Decisions cause results
BECAUSE they are not made in isolation. They are made by you and your advisor,
for yourself, and for the world as well. The day you want you offer to the
world, for it wilL be what you have asked for, and will reinforce the rule [106]
of your advisor through the world. Whose kingdom is the world for you today?
What kind of day will you decide to have?
T 30 B 13. It needs but two who would have happiness this day to promise it to
all the world. It needs but two to understand that they cannot decide alone, to
guarantee the joy they asked for will be wholly shared. For they have understood
the basic law which makes decision powerful, and gives it all effects that it
will ever have. It needs but two. These two are joined before there CAN be a
decision. Let this be the one reminder that you keep in mind, and you will have
the day you want, and give it to the world by having it yourselves. Your
judgment has been lifted from the world by your decision for a happy day. And as
you have received so must you give.
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T 30 C. Freedom of Will
May 23, 1968
T 30 C 1. Do you not understand that to oppose the Holy Spirit is to fight
yourself? He tells you but YOUR will; He speaks for YOU. In His Divinity is but
your own. And all He knows is but your knowledge, saved for you, that you may do
your will through Him. God ASKS you do your will. He joins with YOU. He did not
set His kingdom up alone. And Heaven itself but represents your will, where
everything is created is for you. No spark of life but was created with your
glad consent, as you would have it be. And not one Thought that God has ever had
but waited for your blessing to be born. God is no enemy to you. He asks no more
than that He hear you call Him Friend.
T 30 C 2. How wonderful it is to do your will! For that IS freedom. There is
nothing else that ever should be called by freedom’s name. Unless you do your
will, you are not free. And would God leave His Son without what he has chosen
for himself? God but ensured that you would never lose your will, when He gave
you His perfect Answer. Hear It now, that you may be reminded of His Love, and
learn your will. God would not have His Son made prisoner to what he does not
want. He JOINS with you in willing you be free. And to oppose Him is to make a
choice against YOURSELF, and choose that YOU be bound.
T 30 C 3. Look once again upon your enemy, the one you chose to hate instead
of love. For thus was hatred born into the world, and thus the rule of fear
established here. Now hear God speak to you through Him Who is His Voice, and
yours as well, reminding you that it is not your will to hate, and be a prisoner
to fear, a slave to death, a little creature with a little life. Your will is
boundless; it is not your will that it be bound. What lies in you has joined
with God Himself in all creation’s birth. Remember Him Who has created you, and
through your will created everything.
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T 30 C 4. Not one created thing but gives you thanks, for it is by your will
that it was born. No light of Heaven shines except for you, for it was set in
Heaven by your will. What cause have you for anger in a world which merely waits
your blessing to be free? If you be prisoner, then God Himself could not be
free. For what is done to him whom God so loves is done to God Himself. Think
not He wills to bind you, Who has made you co-creator of the universe along with
Him. He would but keep your will forever and forever limitless.
T 30 C 5. The world awaits the freedom you will give, when you have recognized
that YOU are free. But you will not forgive the world until you have forgiven
Him Who gave your will to you. For it is BY your will the world is given
freedom. Nor can you be free apart from Him Whose holy Will you share. God turns
to you to ask the world be saved, for [107] by your own salvation is it healed.
And no-one walks upon the earth but must depend on your decision, that he learn
death has no power over him because he shares your freedom, as he shares your
will. It IS your will to heal him, and because you have decided WITH him, he is
healed. And now is God forgiven, for you chose to look upon your brother as a
friend.
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T 30 D. Beyond All Idols
May 24, 1968
T 30 D 1. Idols are quite specific. But your will is universal, being
limitless. And so it has no form, nor is content for its expression in the terms
of form. Idols are limits; they are the belief that there are forms which will
bring happiness, and that, BY limiting, is all attained. It is as if you said,
"I have no need of everything. This little thing I want, and it will be as
everything to me." And this must fail to satisfy, because it IS your will that
everything be yours. Decide for idols, and you ask for loss. Decide for truth,
and everything IS yours.
T 30 D 2. It is not form you seek. What form can be a substitute for God the
Father’s Love? What form can take the place of all the love in the divinity of
God the Son? What idol can make two of what is one? And CAN the limitless be
limited? You do not WANT an idol. It is not your will to have one. It will not
bestow on you the gift you seek. When you decide upon the form of what you want,
you lose the understanding of its purpose. So you see your will within the idol,
thus reducing it to a specific form. But this could never BE your will, because
what shares in all creation cannot be content with small ideas and little
things.
T 30 D 3. Behind the search for every idol lies the yearning for completion.
Wholeness has no form because it is unlimited. To seek a special person or a
thing to add to you to make yourself complete, can only mean that you believe
some form is missing. And, by finding this, you will achieve completion in a
form you like. This is the purpose of an idol; that you will not look beyond it,
to the source of your belief that you ARE incomplete. ONLY if you had sinned
could this be so. For sin is the idea you are alone, and separated off from what
is whole. And thus it would be necessary for the search for wholeness to be made
BEYOND the boundaries of limits on yourself.
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T 30 D 4. It never is the idol that you want. But what you think it offers
you, you want indeed, and have the RIGHT to ask for. Nor could it be possible it
be denied. Your will to be complete is but God’s will, and this is given you by
being His. God knows not form. He cannot answer you in terms which have no
meaning. And your will could not be satisfied with empty forms, made but to fill
a gap which is not there. It is not this you WANT. Creation gives no separate
person and no separate thing the power to complete the Son of God. What idol can
be called upon to give the Son of God what he already has?
T 30 D 5. Completion is the FUNCTION of God’s Son. He has no need to seek for
it at all. Beyond all idols stands his holy will to be but what he is. For more
than whole is meaningless. If there were change in him; if he could be reduced
to any form and limited to what is not in him, he would not be as God created
him. What idol can he need to be himself? For can he give a part of him away?
What is not whole cannot make whole. But what is really asked for cannot be
denied. Your will IS granted. Not in any form that would content you not, but in
the whole, completely lovely Thought God holds of you.
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May 27, 1968
T 30 D 6. Nothing that God knows not exists. And what He knows exists forever,
changelessly. For thoughts endure as long as does the mind that thought of them.
And in the Mind of God there is no ending, nor a time in which His Thoughts were
absent, or could suffer change. Thoughts are not born and cannot die. They share
the attributes of their creator, nor have they a separate life, apart from him.
The thoughts you think are in your mind, as you are in the Mind Which thought of
you. And so there are no separate parts in what exists within God’s Mind. It is
forever One, eternally united and at peace.
T 30 D 7. Thoughts seem to come and go. But all this means is that you are
sometimes aware of them, and sometimes not. An unremembered thought is born
again too YOU when it returns to your awareness. Yet it did not die when you
forgot it. It was always there, but you were unaware of it. The Thought God
holds of you is perfectly unchanged by your forgetting. It will always be
exactly as it was before the time when you forgot, and will be just the same
when you remember. And it is the same within the interval when you forgot. The
Thoughts of God are far beyond all change, and shine forever. They await not
birth. They wait for welcome and remembering.
T 30 D 8. The Thought God holds of you is like a star, unchangeable in an
eternal sky. So high in Heaven it is set that those outside of Heaven know not
it is there. But still and white and lovely will it shine through all eternity.
There was no time it was not there; no instant when its light grew dimmer or
less perfect ever was. Who knows the Father knows this light, for He is the
eternal sky which holds it safe, forever lifted up and anchored sure. Its
perfect purity does not depend on whether it is seen on earth or not. The sky
embraces it, and softly holds it in its perfect place, which is as far from
earth as earth from Heaven. It is not the distance nor the time which keeps this
star invisible to earth. But those who seek for idols cannot know this star is
there.
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T 30 D 9. Beyond all idols is the Thought God holds of you. Completely
unaffected by the turmoil and the terror of the world, the dreams of birth and
death that here are dreamed, the myriad of forms that fear can take, quite
undisturbed, the Thought God holds of you remains exactly as It always was.
Surrounded by a stillness so complete no sound of battle comes remotely near, It
rests in certainty and perfect peace. Here is your one reality kept safe,
completely unaware of all the world that worships idols, and that knows not God.
In perfect sureness of Its changelessness and of Its rest in Its eternal home,
the Thought God holds of you has never left the Mind of its Creator, Whom it
knows as Its Creator knows that It is there.
T 30 D 10. Where could the Thought God holds of you exist but where you are? Is
your reality a thing apart from you, and in a world which your reality knows
nothing of? Outside you there is no eternal sky, no changeless star, and no
reality. The Mind of Heaven’s Son in Heaven is, for there the Mind of Father and
Son joined in creation which can have no end. You have not two realities, but
one. Nor can you be AWARE of more than one. An idol OR the Thought God holds of
you is your reality. Forget not, then, that idols must keep hidden what you are,
not from the Mind of God, but from your own. The star shines still; the sky has
never changed. But you, the holy Son of God Himself, are unaware of your
reality.
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T 30 D E. The Truth Behind Illusions
May 31, 1968
T 30 E 1. You WILL attack what does not satisfy, and thus you will not see you
made it up. You ALWAYS fight illusions. For the truth behind them is so lovely
and so still in loving gentleness, were you aware of it, you would forget
defensiveness entirely, and rush to its embrace. The truth could never be
attacked. And this you knew when you made idols. They were made that this might
be forgotten. You attack but false ideas, and never truthful ones. All idols are
the false ideas you made to fill the gap you think arose between yourself and
what is true. And you attack them for the things you think they represent. What
lies beyond them cannot BE attacked.
T 30 E 2. The wearying, dissatisfying gods you made are blown-up children’s
toys. A child is frightened when a wooden head springs up as a closed box is
opened suddenly. Or when a soft and silent wooly bear begins to squeak as he
takes hold of it. The rules he made for boxes and for bears have failed him, and
have broken his control of what surrounds him. And he is afraid because he
thought the rules protected him. Now must he learn the boxes and the bears did
not deceive him, broke no rules, nor mean his world is made chaotic and unsafe.
HE was mistaken. He misunderstood what made him safe, and thought that it had
left.
T 30 E 3. The gap that is not there is filled with toys in countless forms.
And each one seems to break the rules you set for it. It never WAS the thing you
thought. It must appear to break your rules for safety, since the rules are
wrong. But YOU are not endangered. You can laugh at popping heads and squeaking
toys, as does the child who learns they are no threat to him. But while he likes
to play with them, he still perceives them as obeying rules he made for his
enjoyment. So there still are rules which they can seem to break, and frighten
him. Yet IS he at the mercy of his toys? And CAN they represent a threat to him?
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T 30 E 4. Reality observes the laws of God, and not the rules you set. It is
His laws which guarantee your safety. All illusions that you believe about
yourself obey NO laws. They seem to dance a little while, according to the rules
you set for them. But then they fall, and cannot rise again. They are but toys,
my children. Do not grieve for them. Their dancing never brought you joy, but
neither were they things to frighten you, nor make you safe if they obeyed your
rules. They must be neither cherished nor attacked, but merely looked upon as
children’s toys, without a single meaning of their own. See one in them, and you
will see them all. See none in them, and they will touch you not.
T 30 E 5. Appearances deceive BECAUSE they are appearances, and not reality.
Dwell not on them in any form. They but obscure reality. And they bring fear
BECAUSE they hide the truth. Do not attack what you have made to LET you be
deceived. For thus you prove that you HAVE been deceived. Attack HAS power to
make illusions real. Yet what it makes is nothing. Who could be made fearful by
a power that can have no real effects at all? What could it be but an illusion,
making things appear like to itself? Look calmly at its toys, and understand
that they are idols which but dance to vain desires. Give them not your worship,
for they are not there. But this is equally forgotten in attack.
T 30 E 6. God’s Son needs no defense against his dreams. His idols do not
threaten him at all. His one mistake is that he thinks them real. What can the
power of illusions DO? Appearances can but deceive the mind that WANTS to be
deceived. And you can make a simple choice that will forever place you far
beyond perception. You need not concern yourself with how this will be done, for
this you cannot understand. But you WILL understand that mighty changes have
been quickly brought about, when you decide one very simple thing; you do not
WANT whatever you believe an idol gives. For thus the Son of God declares that
he is free of idols. And thus IS he free.
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T 30 E 7. Salvation is a paradox indeed! What could it be except a happy
dream? For you are asked but to forgive all things that no-one ever did; to
overlook what is not there; and not to look upon the unreal as reality. You are
but asked to let your will be done, and seek no longer for the things you do not
want. And you are asked to let yourself be free of all the dreams of what you
never were, and seek no more to substitute the strength of idle wishes for the
Will of God. Here does the dream of separation start to fade and disappear. For
here the gap that is not there begins to be perceived without the toys of terror
that you made.
T 30 E 8. No more than this is asked. Be glad indeed salvation asks so little,
not so much. It asks for NOTHING in reality. And even in illusions it but asks
forgiveness be the substitute for fear. Such is the only rule for happy dreams.
The gap is emptied of the toys of fear, and then its unreality is plain. Dreams
are for NOTHING. And the Son of God can have no need of them. They offer him no
single thing that he could ever want. He is delivered from illusions by his
will, and but restored to what he is. What could God’s plan for his salvation
be, except a means to give him to Himself?
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T 30 F. The Only Purpose
June 3, 1968
T 30 F 1. The real world is the state of mind in which the only purpose of the
world is seen to be forgiveness. Fear is not its goal, and the ESCAPE from guilt
becomes its aim. The value of forgiveness is perceived, and takes the place of
idols, which are sought no longer, for their "gifts" are not held dear. No rules
are idly set, and no demands are made of anyone or anything to twist and fit
into the dream of fear. Instead, there is a wish to understand all things
created as they really are. And it is recognized that all things must be first
forgiven, and THEN understood. Here, it is thought that understanding is
ACQUIRED by attack. There it is clear that by attack is understanding LOST.
T 30 F 2. The folly of pursuing guilt as goal is fully recognized. And idols
are not wanted there, for guilt is recognized as the sole cause of pain in any
form. No-one is tempted by its vain appeal, for suffering and death have been
perceived as things not wanted, and not striven for. The possibility of freedom
has been grasped and welcomed, and the means by which it can be gained can now
be understood. The world becomes a place of hope, because its only purpose is to
be a place where hope of happiness can be fulfilled. And no-one stands outside
this hope, because the world has been united in belief the purpose of the world
is one which all must share, if hope be more than just a dream.
T 30 F 3. Not yet is Heaven quite remembered, for the purpose of forgiveness
still remains. Yet everyone is certain he will go beyond forgiveness, and he but
remains until it is made perfect in himself. He has no wish for anything but
this. And fear has dropped away, because he is united in his purpose with
himself. There is a hope of happiness in him so sure and constant he can barely
stay, and wait a little longer with his feet still touching earth. Yet is he
glad to wait till every hand is joined, and every heart made ready to arise and
go with him. For thus is HE made ready for the step in which is all forgiveness
left behind.
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T 30 F 4. The final step is God’s, because it is but God Who could create a
perfect Son, and share His Fatherhood with him. No-one outside of Heaven knows
how this can be. For understanding this is Heaven itself. Even the real world
has a purpose still beneath creation and eternity. But fear is gone, because its
purpose is forgiveness, not idolatry. And so is Heaven’s Son prepared to be
Himself, and to remember that the Son of God knows everything his Father
understands, and understands it perfectly with Him. The real world still falls
short of this, for this is God’s Own purpose; only His, and yet completely
shared and perfectly fulfilled.
T 30 F 5. The real world is a state in which the mind has learned how easily
do idols go when they are still perceived, but wanted not. How willingly the
mind can let them go when it has understood that idols are nothing and nowhere,
and are purposeless. For only then can guilt and sin be seen without a purpose,
and as meaningless. Thus is the real world’s purpose gently brought into
awareness, to replace the goal of sin and guilt. And all that stood between your
image of yourself and what you are, forgiveness washes joyfully away. Yet God
need not create His Son again, that what is his be given back to him. The gap
between your brother and yourself was never there. And what the Son of God knew
in creation he must know again.
T 30 F 6. When brothers join in purpose in the world of fear, they stand
already at the edge of the real world. Perhaps they still look back, and think
they see an idol that they want. Yet has their path been surely set away from
idols toward reality, for when they joined their hands, it was Christ’s hand
they took. And they will look on Him Whose hand they hold. The face of Christ is
looked upon before the Father is remembered. For He must be unremembered till
His Son has reached beyond forgiveness to the love of God. Yet is the love of
Christ accepted first. And then will come the knowledge They are One. How light
and easy is the step across the narrow boundaries of the world of fear, when you
have recognized Whose hand you hold!
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T 30 F 7. Within your hand is everything you need to walk with perfect
confidence away from fear forever. And to go straight on, and quickly reach the
gate of Heaven itself. For He Whose hand you hold was waiting but for you to
join Him. Now that you have come, would HE delay in showing you the way that He
must walk with you? His blessing lies on you as surely as His Father’s love
rests upon Him. His gratitude to you is past your understanding, for you have
enabled Him to rise from chains, and go with you together to His Father’s house.
An ancient hate is passing from the world, and with it goes all hatred and all
fear. Look back no longer, for what lies ahead is all you ever wanted in your
hearts.
T 30 F 8. Give up the world! But not to sacrifice. You never WANTED it. What
happiness have you sought here that did not bring you pain? What moment of
content has not been bought at fearful price in coins of suffering? Joy HAS no
cost. It is your sacred right, And what you pay for is not happiness. Be speeded
on your way by honesty, and let not your experiences here deceive in retrospect.
They were not free from bitter cost and joyless consequence. Do not look back
except in honesty. And when an idol tempts you, think of this; there never was a
time an idol brought you anything except the "gift" of guilt. Not one was bought
except at cost of pain. Nor was it ever paid by you alone.
T 30 F 9. Be merciful unto your brother, then. And do not choose an idol
thoughtlessly, remembering that he will pay the cost as well as you. For he will
be delayed when you look back, and you will not perceive Whose hand you hold.
Look forward, then, and walk in confidence, with happy hearts that beat in hope
and do not pound in fear. The Will of God forever lies in those whose hands are
joined. Until they joined, they thought He was their enemy. But when they joined
and shared a purpose, they were free to learn their will is one. And thus the
Will of God must reach to their awareness. Nor can they forget for long that It
is but their own.
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T 30 G. The Justification for Forgiveness
June 7, 1968
T 30 G 1. Anger is NEVER justified. Attack has NO foundation. It is here
escape from fear begins, and will be made complete. Here is the real world given
in exchange for dreams of terror. For it is on this forgiveness rests, and is
but natural. You are not asked to offer pardon where attack is due, and would be
justified. For this would mean that you forgive a sin by overlooking what is
really there. This is not pardon. For it would assume that, by responding in a
way which is not justified, your pardon will become the answer to attack which
has been made. And thus is pardon inappropriate, by being granted where is it
not due.
T 30 G 2. Pardon is ALWAYS justified. It has a sure foundation. You do not
forgive the unforgivable, nor overlook a real attack that calls for punishment.
Salvation does not lie in being asked to make unnatural responses, which are
inappropriate to what is real. Instead, it merely asks that you respond
appropriately to what is not real, by not perceiving what has not occurred. If
pardon were unjustified, you would be asked to sacrifice your rights when you
return forgiveness for attack. But you are merely asked to see forgiveness as
the natural reaction to distress which rests on error, and thus calls for help.
Forgiveness is the ONLY sane response. It KEEPS your rights from being lost to
you.
T 30 G 3. This understanding is the only change that lets the real world rise
to take the place of dreams of terror. Fear cannot arise unless attack is
justified. And if it had a real foundation, pardon would have none. The real
world is achieved when you perceive the basis of forgiveness is quite real and
fully justified. While you regard it as a gift unwarranted, it must uphold the
guilt you would "forgive." Unjustified forgiveness IS attack. And this is all
the world can ever give. It pardons "sinners" sometimes, but remains aware that
they have sinned. And so they do not merit the forgiveness that it gives.
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T 30 G 4. This is the false forgiveness which the world employs to KEEP the
sense of sin alive. And recognizing God is just, it seems impossible His pardon
could be real. Thus is the fear of God the sure result of seeing pardon as
unmerited. No-one who sees himself as guilty can avoid the fear of God. But he
is saved from this dilemma if he can forgive. The mind must think of its Creator
as it looks upon itself. If you can see your brother merits pardon, you have
learned forgiveness is your right, as much as his. Nor will you think that God
intends for you a fearful judgment which your brother does not merit. For it is
the truth that you can merit neither more nor less than he.
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June 10, 1968
T 30 G 5. Forgiveness recognized as merited will heal. It gives the miracle
its strength to overlook illusions. This is how you learn that you must be
forgiven too. There can be no appearance that can NOT be overlooked. For, if
there were, it would be necessary first there be some sin which stands beyond
forgiveness. There would be an error that is more than a mistake; a special form
of error, which remains unchangeable, eternal, and beyond correction or escape.
There would be one mistake which had the power to undo creation, and to make a
world which could replace it, and destroy the Will of God. Only if this were
possible could there be some appearances which could withstand the miracle, and
not be healed by it.
T 30 G 6. There is no surer proof idolatry is what you wish than a belief
there are some forms of sickness and of joylessness forgiveness cannot cure.
This means that you prefer to keep some idols, and are not prepared, as yet, to
let all idols go. And thus you think that some appearances are real, and not
appearances at all. Be not deceived about the meaning of a fixed belief that
some appearances are harder to look past than others are. It ALWAYS means you
think forgiveness must be limited. And you have set a goal of partial pardon and
a limited escape from guilt for YOU. What can this be, except a false
forgiveness of yourself, and everyone who seems apart from you?
T 30 G 7. It must be true the miracle can heal ALL forms of sickness, or it
cannot heal. Its purpose cannot be to judge which forms are real, and which
appearances are true. If one appearance must remain apart from healing, one
illusion must be part of truth. And you could not escape all guilt, but only
some of it. You must forgive God’s Son ENTIRELY. Or you will keep an image of
yourself that is not whole, and will remain afraid to look within, and find
escape from every idol there. Salvation rests on faith there CANNOT be some
forms of guilt which you can not forgive. And so there cannot be appearances
which have replaced the truth about God’s Son.
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T 30 G 8. Look on your brother with the willingness to see him as he is. And
do not keep a part of him outside your willingness that he be healed. To heal is
to make whole. And what is whole can have no missing parts that have been kept
outside. Forgiveness rests on recognizing this, and being glad there cannot be
some forms of sickness which the miracle must lack the power to heal. God’s Son
is perfect, or he cannot be God’s Son. Nor will you know him, if you think he
does not merit the escape from guilt in ALL its forms and ALL its consequence.
There is no way to think of him but this, if you would know the truth about
yourself:
"I thank you, Father, for your perfect Son,
And in his glory will I see my own."
T 30 G 9. Here is the joyful statement that there are no forms of evil which
can overcome the Will of God; the glad acknowledgment that guilt has not
succeeded, by your wish, to make illusions real. And what is this, except a
simple statement of the truth? Look on your brother with this hope in you, and
you will understand he could not make an error that could change the truth in
him. It is not difficult to overlook mistakes that have been given no effects.
But what you see as having power to make an idol of the Son of God, you will NOT
pardon. For he has become to you a graven image, and a sign of death. Is THIS
your Saviour? Is his Father wrong about His Son? Or have YOU been deceived in
him who has been given you to heal, for YOUR salvation and deliverance?
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T 30
H. The New Interpretation
June 13, 1968
T 30 H 1. Would God have left the meaning of the world to your interpretation?
If He had, it HAS no meaning. For it cannot be that meaning changes constantly,
and yet is true. The Holy Spirit looks upon the world as with one purpose,
changelessly established. And no situation can affect its aim, but must be in
accord with it. For only if its aim could change with every situation could each
one be open to interpretation which is different every time you think of it. You
add an element into the script you write for every minute in the day, and all
that happens now means something else. You take away another element, and every
meaning shifts accordingly.
T 30 H 2. What do your scripts reflect except your plans for what the day
SHOULD be? And thus you judge disaster and success, advance, retreat, and gain
and loss. These judgments all are made according to the roles the script
assigns. The fact they have no meaning in themselves is demonstrated by the ease
with which these labels change with other judgments, made on different aspects
of experience. And then, in looking back, you think you see another meaning in
what went before. What have you really done, except to show there WAS no meaning
there? And you assigned a meaning in the light of goals that change, with every
meaning shifting as they change.
T 30 H 3. Only a constant purpose can endow events with stable meaning. But it
must accord ONE meaning to them all. If they are given different meanings, it
must mean that they reflect but different purposes, and this is all the meaning
that they have. Can this BE meaning? Can confusion be what meaning means?
Perception cannot be in constant flux, and make allowance for stability of
meaning anywhere. Fear is a judgment never justified. Its presence has no
meaning but to show you wrote a fearful script, and are afraid accordingly. But
not because the thing you fear has fearful meaning in itself.
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T 30 H 4. A common purpose is the only means whereby perception can be
stabilized, and one interpretation given to the world and all experiences here.
In this shared purpose is one judgment shared by everyone and everything you
see. You do not have to judge, for you have learned one meaning has been given
everything, and you are glad to see it everywhere. It cannot change BECAUSE you
would perceive it everywhere, unchanged by circumstance. And so you OFFER it to
all events, and let them offer you stability. Escape from judgment simply lies
in this; - All things have but one purpose, which you share with all the world.
And nothing in the world can be opposed to it, for it belongs to everything, as
it belongs to you.
T 30 H 5. In single purpose is the end of all ideas of sacrifice, which must
assume a different purpose for the one who gains and him who loses. There could
be no thought of sacrifice apart from this idea. And it is this idea of
different goals which makes perception shift and meaning change. In one united
goal does this become impossible, for your agreement makes interpretation
stabilize and last. How can communication really be established, while the
symbols which are used mean different things? The Holy Spirit’s goal gives one
interpretation, meaningful to you and to your brother. Thus can you communicate
with him, and he with you. In symbols which you both can understand, the
sacrifice of meaning is undone.
T 30 H 6. All sacrifice entails the loss of your ability to see relationships
among events. And, looked at separately, they HAVE no meaning. For there is no
light by which they can be seen and understood. They have no purpose. And what
they are for cannot be seen. In any thought of loss, there IS no meaning. No-one
has agreed with you on what it means. It is a part of a distorted script, which
cannot be interpreted with meaning. It must be forever unintelligible. This is
not communication. Your dark dreams are but the senseless, isolated scripts you
write in sleep. Look not to separate dreams for meaning. Only dreams of pardon
can be shared. They mean the same to both of you.
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T 30 H 7. Do not interpret out of solitude, for what you see means nothing. It
will shift in what it stands for, and you will believe the world is an uncertain
place, in which you walk in danger and uncertainty. It is but your
INTERPRETATIONS which are lacking in stability. And they are not in line with
what you really are. This is a state so seemingly unsafe that fear MUST rise. Do
not continue thus, my brothers. We have ONE Interpreter. And through His use of
symbols are we joined, so that they mean the same to all of us. Our common
language lets us speak to all our brothers, and to understand with them
forgiveness has been given to us all, and thus we can communicate again.
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T 30 I. Changeless Reality
June 17, 1968
T 30 I 1. Appearances deceive, but can be changed. Reality is changeless. It
does not deceive at all. And if you fail to see beyond appearances, you ARE
deceived. For everything you see will change, and yet you thought it real
before, and now you think it real again. Reality is thus reduced to form, and
capable of change. Reality is changeless. It is this that makes it real, and
keeps it separate from all appearances. It must transcend all form to be itself.
It CANNOT change. The miracle is means to demonstrate that all appearances can
change because they are appearances, and cannot have the changelessness reality
entails. The miracle attests salvation from appearances by SHOWING they can
change.
T 30 I 2. Your brother has a changelessness in him beyond appearance and
deception both. It is obscured by changing views of him which you PERCEIVE as
his reality. The happy dream about him takes the form of the appearance of his
perfect health; his perfect freedom from all forms of lack; and safety from
disaster of all kinds. The miracle is proof he is not bound by loss or suffering
in any form, because it can so easily be CHANGED. This demonstrates that it was
never real, and could not stem from his reality. For that is changeless, and has
no effects which anything in Heaven or on earth could ever alter. But
appearances are shown to be unreal BECAUSE they change.
T 30 I 3. What is temptation but a wish to make illusions real? It does not
seem to be the wish that no reality be so. But it is an assertion that some
forms of idols have a powerful appeal which makes them harder to resist than
those you would not WANT to have reality. Temptation, then, is nothing more than
this; - a prayer the miracle touch not some dreams, but keep their unreality
obscure, and give to them reality instead. And Heaven gives no answer to the
prayer, nor can the miracle be given you to heal appearances you do not like.
You have established LIMITS. What you ask IS given you, but not of God Who knows
no limits. You have limited YOURSELF.
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T 30 I 4. Reality is changeless. Miracles but show what you have interposed
between reality and your awareness is unreal, and does not interfere at all. The
cost of the belief there must be some appearances beyond the hope of change is
that the miracle cannot come forth from you consistently. For you have ASKED it
be withheld from power to heal all dreams. There is no miracle you cannot have
when you DESIRE healing. But there is no miracle that can be given you UNLESS
you want it. Choose what you would heal, and He Who gives all miracles has not
been given freedom to bestow His gifts upon God’s Son. When he is tempted, he
denies reality. And he becomes the willing slave of what he chose instead.
T 30 I 5. BECAUSE reality is changeless is a miracle already there to heal all
things that change, and offer it to you to see in happy form, devoid of fear. It
will be given you to look upon your brother thus. But not while you would have
it otherwise in some respects. For this but means you would not have him healed
and whole. The Christ in him is perfect. Is it this that you would look upon?
Then let there be no dreams about him which you would prefer to seeing this. And
you will see the Christ in him because you LET Him come to you. And when He has
appeared to you, you will be certain you are like Him, for He is the changeless
in your brother AND in you.
T 30 I 6. This will you look upon, when you decide there is not one appearance
you would hold in place of what your brother really is. Let no temptation to
prefer a dream allow uncertainty to enter here. Be not made guilty and afraid
when you are tempted by a dream of what he is. But do not give it power to
replace the changeless in him in your sight of him. There is no false appearance
but will fade, if you request a miracle instead. There is no pain from which he
is not free, if you would have him be but what he is. Why should you fear to see
the Christ in him? You but behold yourself in what you see. As he is healed are
you made free of guilt, and his appearance IS your own to you.
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Chapter XXXI - 31 - The Simplicity Of Salvation
T 31 A. Introduction
June 24, 1968
T 31 A 1. How simple is salvation! All it says is what was never true is not
true now, and never will be. The impossible has not occurred, and can have no
effects. And that is all. Can this be hard to learn by anyone who WANTS it to be
true? ONLY unwillingness to learn it could make such an easy lesson difficult.
How hard is it to see that what is false can not be true, and what is true can
not be false? You can no longer say that you perceive no differences in false
and true. You have been told exactly how to tell one from the other, and just
what to do if you become confused. Why, then, do you persist in learning not
such simple things?
T 31 A 2. There IS a reason. But confuse it not with difficulty in the simple
things salvation asks you learn. It teaches but the very obvious. It merely goes
from one apparent lesson to the next, in easy steps which lead you gently from
one to another, with no strain at all. This cannot be confusing, yet you ARE
confused. For somehow you believe that what is totally confused is easier to
learn and understand. What you have taught yourselves is such a giant learning
feat it is indeed incredible. But you accomplished it because you wanted to, and
did not pause in diligence to judge it hard to learn, or too complex to grasp.
T 31 A 3. No-one who understands what you have learned, how carefully you have
learned it, and the pains to which you went to practice and repeat the lessons
endlessly, in every form you could conceive of them, could ever doubt the power
of your learning skill. There is no greater power in the world. The world was
made by it, and even now depends on nothing else. The lessons you have taught
yourselves have been so overlearned and fixed they rise like heavy curtains, to
obscure the simple and the obvious. Say not you cannot learn them. For your
power to learn is strong enough to teach you that your will is not your own;
your thoughts do not belong to you; and even you are someone else.
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T 31 A 4. Who could maintain that lessons such as these are easy? Yet you have
learned more than this. You have continued, taking every step, however
difficult, without complaint, until a world was built that suited you. And every
lesson that makes up the world arises from the first accomplishment of learning;
an enormity so great the Holy Spirit’s Voice seems small and still before its
magnitude. The world began with one strange lesson, powerful enough to render
God forgotten, and His Son an alien to himself, in exile from the home where God
Himself established him. You who have taught yourselves the Son of God is
guilty, say not that you cannot learn the simple things salvation teaches you.
T 31 A 5. Learning is an ability you made, and gave yourselves. It was not
made to do the Will of God, but to uphold a wish that It could be opposed, and
that a will apart from It was yet more real than It. And this has learning
sought to demonstrate, and you have learned what it was made to teach. Now does
your ancient overlearning stand implacable before the Voice of Truth, and teach
you that Its lessons are not true; too hard to learn, too difficult to see, and
too opposed to what is really true. Yet you WILL learn them, for their learning
is the only purpose for your learning skill the Holy Spirit sees in all the
world. His simple lessons in forgiveness have a power mightier than yours,
because they call from God and from your Self to you.
T 31 A 6. Is this a LITTLE Voice, so small and still It cannot rise above the
senseless noise of sounds which have no meaning? God willed not His Son forget
Him. And the power of His Will is in the Voice That speaks for Him. Which lesson
will you learn? Which outcome is inevitable, sure as God, and far beyond all
doubts and question? Can it be your little learning, strange in outcome, and
incredible in difficulty, will withstand the simple lessons being taught to you
in every moment of each day, since time began and learning had been made?
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T 31 A 7. The lessons to be learned are only two. Each has its outcome in a
different world. And each world follows surely from its source. The certain
outcome of the lesson that God’s Son is guilty is the world you see. It IS a
world of terror and despair. Nor is there hope of happiness in it. There is no
plan for safety you can make that ever will succeed. There is no joy that you
can seek for here, and hope to find. But this is not the only outcome which your
learning can produce. However much you may have overlearned your chosen task,
the lessons which reflects the Love of God is stronger still. And you WILL learn
God’s Son is innocent, and see another world.
T 31 A 8. The outcome of the lesson that God’s Son is guiltless is a world in
which there is no fear, and everything is lit with hope, and sparkles with a
gentle friendliness. Nothing but calls to you in soft appeal to be your friend,
and let it join with you. And never does a call remain unheard, misunderstood,
or left unanswered in the language in which the call itself was made. And you
will understand it was this call that everyone and everything within the world
has ALWAYS made. But you had not perceived it as it was. And now you see you
were mistaken. You had been deceived by forms the call was hidden in. And so you
did not hear it, and had lost a friend who always wanted to be part of you.
T 31 A 9. The soft, eternal calling of each part of God’s creation to the
whole is heard throughout the world this second lesson brings. There is no
living thing which does not share the universal will that it be whole, and that
you do not leave its call unheard. Without your answer is it left to die, as it
is saved from death when you have heard its calling as the ancient call to life,
and understood that it is but your own. The Christ in you remembers God with all
the certainty with which He knows His Love. But only if His Son is innocent can
He be Love. For God were fear indeed, if he whom He created innocent could be a
slave to guilt. God’s perfect Son remembers his creation. But in guilt he has
forgotten what he really is.
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T 31 A 10. The fear of God results as surely from the lesson that His Son is
guilty as God’s Love must be remembered when he remembers learns his innocence.
For hate must father fear, and look upon its father as itself. How wrong are you
who fail to hear the call that echoes past each seeming call to death, that
sings behind each murderous attack, and pleads that love restore the dying
world! You do not understand Who calls to you beyond each form of hate, each
call to war. But you will recognize Him as you give Him answer in the language
that He calls. He will appear when you have answered Him, and you will know in
Him that God is Love.
T 31 A 11. What is temptation but a wish to make the wrong decision on what you
would learn, and have an outcome which you do not want? It is the recognition
that it is a state of mind unwanted that becomes the means whereby the choice is
reassessed; another outcome seen to be preferred. You are deceived if you
believe you want disaster and disunity and pain. Hear not the call for this
within yourself. But listen, rather, to the deeper call beyond it, that appeals
for peace and joy. And all the world will GIVE you joy and peace. For as you
hear you answer, and behold! - your answer is the proof of what you learned. Its
outcome is the world you look upon.
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July 1, 1968
T 31 A 12. Let us be still an instant, and forget all things we ever learned,
all thoughts we had, and every preconception that we hold of what things mean,
and what their purpose is. Let us remember not our own ideas of what the world
is for. We do not know. Let every image held of everyone be loosened from our
minds and swept away. Be innocent of judgment, unaware of any thoughts of evil
or of good that ever crossed your mind of anyone. Now do we know him not. But
you ARE free to learn of him, and learn of him anew. Now is he born again to
you, and you are born again to him, without the past that sentenced him to die,
and you with him. Now is he free to live, as you are free, because an ancient
learning passed away, and left a place for truth to be reborn.
T 31 B. The Illusion of an Enemy
T 31 B 1. An ancient lesson is not overcome [108] by the opposing of the new
and old. It is not vanquished that the truth be known, nor fought against to
lose to truth’s appeal. There is no battle which must be prepared, no time to be
expended, and no plans that need be laid for bringing in the new. There IS an
ancient battle being waged AGAINST the truth, but truth does not respond. Who
could be hurt in such a war, unless he hurts himself? He has no enemy in truth.
And can he be assailed by dreams? Let us review again what seems to stand
between you and the truth of what you are. For there are steps in its
relinquishment. The first is a decision which YOU make. But afterwards, the
truth is GIVEN you.
T 31 B 2. You would ESTABLISH truth. And by your wish, you set two choices to
be made each time you think you must decide on anything. Neither is true. Nor
are they different. Yet must we see them both, before you can look past them, to
the one alternative that IS a different choice. But not in dreams you made, that
this might be obscured to you.
T 31 B 3. What YOU would choose between is not a choice, and gives but the
illusion it is free, for it will have one outcome either way. Thus is it really
not a choice at all. The leader and the follower emerge as separate roles, each
seeming to possess advantages you would not want to lose. So in their fusion
there appears to be the hope of satisfaction and of peace.
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T 31 B 4. You see yourself divided into both these roles, forever split
between the two. And every friend or enemy becomes a means to help you save
yourself from this. Perhaps you call it love. Perhaps you think that it is
murder justified at last. You hate the one you gave the leader’s role when you
would have it, and you hate as well his not assuming it, at times you want to
let the follower in you arise, and give away the role of leadership. And this is
what you made your brother FOR, and learned to think that this his purpose IS.
Unless he serves it, he has not fulfilled the function that was given him by
you. And thus he merits death, because he has no purpose and no usefulness to
you.
T 31 B 5. And what of him? What does he want of you? What could he want, but
what you want of him? Herein is life as easily as death, for what you choose you
choose as well for him. Two calls you make to him, as he to you. Between these
two IS choice, because from them there IS a different outcome. If he be the
leader or the follower to you, it matters not, for you have chosen death. But if
he calls for death or calls for life, for hate or for forgiveness and for help,
is not the same in outcome. Hear the one, and you are separate from him, and are
lost. But hear the other, and you join with him, and in your answer is salvation
found. The voice you hear in him is but your own. What does he ask you for? And
listen well. For he is asking what will come to you, because you see an image of
yourself, and hear your voice requesting what you want. Before you answer, pause
to think of this:
The answer that I give my brother is
What I am asking for. And what I learn
Of him is what I learn about myself.
Then let us wait an instant and be still, forgetting everything we thought we
heard; remembering how much we do not know. This brother neither leads nor
follows us, but walks beside us on the selfsame road. He is like us, as near or
far away from what we want as we will let him be.
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T 31 B 6. We make no gains he does not make with us, and we fall back if he
does not advance. Take not his hand in anger but in love, for in his progress do
you count your own. And we go separately along the way unless you keep him
safely by your side. Because he is your equal in God’s Love will YOU be saved
from all appearances, and answer to the Christ Who calls to you. Be still and
listen. Think not ancient thoughts. Forget the dismal lessons that you learned
about this Son of God who calls to you. Christ calls to all with equal
tenderness, seeing no leaders and no followers, and hearing but one Answer to
them all. Because He hears one Voice, he cannot hear a different answer from the
one He gave when God appointed Him His only Son.
T 31 B 7. Be very still an instant. Come without all thought of what you ever
learned before, and put aside all images you made. The old will fall away before
the new, without your opposition or intent. There will be no attack upon the
things you thought were precious, and in need of care. There will be no assault
upon your wish to hear a call that never has been made. Nothing will hurt you in
this holy place to which you come to listen silently, and learn the truth of
what you really want. No more than this will you be asked to learn. But as you
hear it, you will understand you need but come away without the thoughts you did
not want, and that were never true.
T 31 B 8. Forgive your brother all appearances, which are but ancient lessons
that you taught yourself about the sinfulness in YOU. Hear but his call for
mercy and release from all the fearful images he holds of what he is, and of
what you must be. He is afraid to walk with you, and thinks perhaps a bit
behind, a bit ahead, would be a safer place for him to be. Can YOU make progress
if you think the same, advancing only when he would step back, and falling back
when he would go ahead? For so do you forget the journey’s goal which is but to
decide to walk WITH him, so neither leads nor follows. Thus it is a way you go
together, NOT alone. And in this choice is learning’s outcome changed, for
Christ has been reborn to both of you.
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T 31 B 9. An instant spent without your old ideas of who your great Companion
is and what he SHOULD be asking for, will be enough to let this happen. And you
will perceive his purpose is the same as yours. He asks for what YOU want, and
needs the same as you. It takes, perhaps, a different form in him, but it is not
the form you answer to. He asks and you receive, for you have come with but one
purpose; that you both may learn you love each other with a brother’s love. And
as a brother, must his Father be the same as yours, as he is like yourself.
Together is your joint inheritance remembered and accepted by you both. Alone it
is denied to both of you.
T 31 B 10. Is it not clear that while you still insist on leading or on
following, you think you walk alone, with no-one by your side? This is the road
to nowhere, for the light cannot be given while you walk alone, and so you
cannot see which way you go. And so there is confusion, and a sense of endless
doubting, as you stagger back and forward in the darkness and alone. Yet are
these but appearances of what the journey is, and how it must be made. For next
to you is One Who holds the light before you, so that every step is made in
certainty and sureness of the road. A blindfold can indeed obscure your sight,
but cannot make the way itself grow dark. And He Who travels with you HAS the
light.
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T 31 C. The Self-Accused
T 31 C July 5, 1968
1. Only the self-accused condemn. As you prepare to make a choice that will
result in different outcomes, there is first one thing that must be overlearned.
It must become a habit of response so typical of everything you do, that it
becomes your first response to all temptation, and to every situation that
occurs. Learn this, and learn it well, for it is here delay of happiness is
shortened by a span of time you cannot realize. You never hate your brother for
his "sins", but ONLY for your own. Whatever form his sins appear to take it but
obscures the fact that you believe it to be yours, and therefore meriting a just
attack.
T 31 C 2. Why should his sins BE sins, if you did not believe they could not
be forgiven in you? Why are they real in him, if you did not believe that they
are your reality? And why do you attack them everywhere except you hate
yourself? Are YOU a sin? You answer "yes" whenever you attack, for by attack do
you assert that you are guilty, and must give as you deserve. And what can you
deserve but what you ARE? If you did not believe that you deserved attack, it
never would occur to you to GIVE attack to anyone at all. Why should you? What
would be the gain to you? What could the outcome be that you would WANT? And how
COULD murder bring you benefit?
T 31 C 3. Sins are in bodies. They are not perceived in minds. They are not
seen as purposes, but actions. Bodies act, and minds do not. And therefore must
the body be at fault for what it does. It is not seen to be a passive thing,
obeying your commands, and doing nothing of itself at all. If you are sin you
ARE a body, for the mind acts not. And purpose must be in the body, not the
mind. The body must act on its own, and motivate itself. If you are sin, you
lock the mind within the body, and you give its purpose to its prison-house,
which acts instead of it. A jailer does not follow orders, but ENFORCES orders
on the prisoner.
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T 31 C 4. Yet is the BODY prisoner, and NOT the mind. The body thinks no
thoughts. It has no power to learn, to pardon, or enslave. It gives no orders
that the mind need serve, nor sets conditions that it must obey. It holds in
prison but the willing mind that would abide in it. It sickens at the bidding of
the mind that would become its prisoner. And it grows old and dies, because that
mind is sick within itself. Learning is all that causes change. And so the body,
where no learning can occur, could never change unless the mind preferred the
body change in its appearances, to suit the purpose given by the mind. For it
CAN learn, and there is all change made.
T 31 C 5. The mind that thinks it is a sin has but one purpose; that the body
be the source of sin, and keep it in the prison house it chose, and guards, and
holds itself at bay, a sleeping prisoner to the snarling dogs of hate and evil,
sickness and attack; of pain and age, of grief and suffering. Here are the
thoughts of sacrifice preserved, for here guilt rules, and orders that the world
be like itself; a place where nothing can find mercy, or survive the ravages of
fear except in murder and in death. For here are you made sin, and sin cannot
abide the joyous nor accept the free, for they are enemies which sin must kill.
In death is sin preserved, and those who think that they are sin must die for
what they are.
T 31 C 6. Let us be glad that you WILL see what you believe, and that it has
been given you to CHANGE what you believe. The body will but follow. It can
never lead you where you would not be. IT does not guard your sleep, nor
interfere with your awakening. Release your body from imprisonment, and you will
see no-one as prisoner to what you have escaped. You will not want to hold in
guilt your chosen enemies, nor keep in chains to the illusion of a changing love
the ones you think are friends. The innocent release in gratitude for THEIR
release. And what they see upholds their freedom from imprisonment and death.
Open your mind to change, and there will be no ancient penalty exacted from your
brother OR yourself. For God has said there IS no sacrifice that can be asked;
there IS no sacrifice that can be made.
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T 31 D. The Real Alternative
T 31 D July 16, 1968
1. There is a tendency to think the world can offer consolation and escape
from problems which its purpose is to KEEP. Why should this be? Because it is a
place where choice among illusions seems to be the ONLY choice. And you are in
control of outcomes of your choosing. Thus you think, within the narrow band
from birth to death, a little time is given you to use for you alone; a time
when everyone conflicts with you, but you can choose which road will lead you
out of conflict, and away from difficulties which concern you not. But they ARE
your concern. How, then, can you escape from them by leaving them behind? What
must go with you, you will take with you whatever road you choose to walk along.
T 31 D 2. Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. All its
roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There IS no choice in
its alternatives. Seek not escape from problems here. The world was made that
problems could not BE escaped. Be not deceived by all the different names its
roads are given. They have but one end. And each is but the means to gain that
end, for it is here that all its roads will lead, however differently they seem
to start; however differently they seem to go. Their end is certain, for there
is no choice among them. All of them will lead to death. On some you travel
gaily for a while, before the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt
at once. The choice is not WHAT will the ending be, but WHEN it comes.
T 31 D 3. There is no choice where every end is sure. Perhaps you would prefer
to try them all, before you really learn they are but one. The roads this world
can offer seem to be quite large in number, but the time must come when everyone
begins to see how like they are to one another. Men have died on seeing this,
because they saw no way except the pathways offered by the world. And, learning
they led nowhere, lost their hope. And yet this was the time they could have
learned their greatest lesson. All must reach this point, and go beyond it. It
is true indeed there is no choice at all within the world. But this is not the
lesson in itself. The lesson has a purpose, and in THIS you come to understand
what it is FOR.
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T 31 D 4. Why would you seek to try another road, another person or another
place, when you have learned the way the lesson starts, but do not yet perceive
what it is for? Its purpose is the ANSWER to the search that all must undertake
who still believe there is another answer to be found. Learn now, without
despair, there is no hope of answers in the world. But do not judge the lesson
which is but BEGUN with this. Seek not another signpost in the world which seems
to point to still another road. No longer look for hope where there is none.
Make fast your learning NOW, and understand you but waste time unless you go
beyond what you have learned to what is yet to learn. For from this lowest point
will learning lead to heights of happiness, in which you see the purpose of the
lesson shining clear, and perfectly within your learning grasp.
T 31 D 5. Who would be willing to be turned away from all the roadways of the
world, unless he understood their real futility? Is it not needful that he
should begin with this, to seek another way instead? For while he sees a choice
where there is none, what power of decision can he use? The great release of
power must begin with learning where it really has a use. And what decision has
power, if it be applied in situations without choice? The learning that the
world can offer but one choice, no matter what its form may be, is the beginning
of acceptance that there is a REAL alternative instead. To fight against this
step is to defeat your purpose here. You did not come to learn to find a road
the world does not contain.
T 31 D 6. The search for different pathways in the world is but the search for
different forms of truth. And this would KEEP the truth from being reached.
Think not that happiness is ever found by following a road AWAY from it. (This
makes no sense, and CANNOT be the way. To you who seem to find this course to be
too difficult to learn, let me repeat that, to achieve a goal, you must proceed
in its direction, not away from it.) And every road that goes the other way will
not advance the purpose to be found. If THIS be difficult to understand, then IS
this course impossible to learn. But only then. For otherwise, it is a simple
teaching in the obvious.
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T 31 D 7. There IS a choice which you have power to make, when you have seen
the real alternatives. Until that point is reached you HAVE no choice, and you
can but decide how you would choose the better to deceive yourself again. This
course attempts to teach no more than that the power of decision cannot lie in
choosing different forms of what is still the SAME illusion and the SAME
mistake. All choices in the world depend on this; - You choose between your
brother and yourself, and you will gain as much as he will lose, and what you
lose is what is given him. How utterly opposed to truth is this, when what the
lesson’s purpose is to teach that what your brother loses YOU have lost, and
what he gains is what is given YOU.
T 31 D 8. He has not left His Thoughts! But you forgot His Presence, and
remember not His Love. No pathway in the world can lead to Him, nor any worldly
goal is one with His. What road in all the world will lead within, when every
road was made to separate the journey from the purpose it MUST have, unless it
be but futile wandering? All roads that lead away from what you are will lead
you to confusion and despair. Yet has He never left His Thoughts to die, without
their Source forever in themselves. He has not left His Thoughts. He could no
more depart from them than they could keep Him out. In unity with Him do they
abide, and in their Oneness both are kept complete.
T 31 D 9. There IS no road that leads away from Him. A journey from yourself
does not exist. How foolish and insane it is to think that there could be a road
with such an aim. Where could it go? And how could you be made to travel on it,
walking there without your own reality at one with you? Forgive yourself your
madness, and forget all senseless journeys and all goal-less aims. They have no
meaning. You can not escape from what you are. For God IS merciful, and did not
let His Son abandon Him. For what He is be thankful, for in that is your escape
from madness and from death. Nowhere but where He is can YOU be found. There IS
no path that does not lead to Him.
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T 31 E. Self-Concept versus Self
July 18, 1968
T 31 E 1. The learning of the world is built upon a concept of the self
adjusted to the world’s reality. It fits it well. For this an image is that
suits a world of shadows and illusions. Here it walks at home, where what it
sees is one with it. The building of a concept of the self is what the learning
of the world is FOR. This is its purpose; that you come without a self, and make
one as you go along. And by the time you reach "maturity," you have perfected it
to meet the world on equal terms, at one with its demands. A concept of the self
is made by YOU. It bears no likeness to yourself at all. It is an idol, made to
take the place of your reality as Son of God.
T 31 E 2. The concept of the self the world would teach is not the thing that
it appears to be. For it is made to serve two purposes, but one of which the
mind can recognize. The first presents the face of innocence, the aspect acted
ON. It is this face that smiles and charms and even seems to love. It searches
for companions, and it looks at times with pity on the suffering, and sometimes
offers solace. It believes that it is good, within an evil world. This aspect
can grow angry, for the world is wicked, and unable to provide the love and
shelter innocence deserves. And so this face is often wet with tears, at the
injustices the world accords to those who would be generous and good.
T 31 E 3. This aspect never makes the first attack. But every day a hundred
little things make small assaults upon its innocence, provoking it to
irritation, and at last to open insult and abuse. The face of innocence the
concept of the self so proudly wears can tolerate attack in self-defense, for is
it not a well-known fact the world deals harshly with defenseless innocence?
No-one who makes a picture of himself omits this face, for he has need of it.
The other side, he does not want to see. Yet it is here the learning of the
world has set its sights. For it is here the world’s reality is set, to see to
it the idol lasts.
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T 31 E 4. Beneath the face of innocence there is a lesson that the concept of
the self was made to teach. It is a lesson in a terrible displacement, and a
fear so devastating that the face which smiles above it must forever look away,
lest it perceive the treachery it hides. The lesson teaches this; "I am the
thing you made of me, and as you look on me you stand condemned, because of what
I am." On this conception of the self the world smiles with approval, for it
guarantees the pathways of the world are safely kept, and those who walk on them
will not escape.
T 31 E 5. Here is the central lesson that ensures your brother is condemned
eternally. For what you are has now become his sin. For this is no forgiveness
possible. No longer does it matter what he does, for your accusing finger points
to him, unwavering and deadly in its aim. It points to you as well, but this is
kept still deeper in the mists below the face of innocence. And in these
shrouded vaults are all his sins and yours preserved, and kept in darkness,
where they cannot be perceived as errors, which the light would surely show. You
can be neither blamed for what you are, nor can you change the things it makes
you do. And you are each the symbol of your sins to one another, silently, and
yet with ceaseless urgency, condemning still your brother for the hated thing
you are.
T 31 E 6. Concepts are learned. They are not natural. Apart from learning they
do not exist. They are not given, and they must be made. Not one of them is
true, and many come from feverish imaginations, hot with hatred and distortions
born of fear. What is a concept but a thought to which its maker gives a meaning
of his own? Concepts maintain the world. But they can not be used to demonstrate
the world is real. For all of them are made within the world, born in its
shadow, growing in its ways, and finally "maturing" in its thought. They are
ideas of idols painted with the brushes of the world, which cannot make a single
picture representing truth.
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T 31 E 7. A concept of the self is meaningless, for no-one here can see what
it is for, and therefore cannot picture what it IS. Yet is all learning which
the world directs begun and ended with the single aim of teaching you this
concept of yourself, that you will choose to follow this world’s laws, and never
seek to go beyond its roads, nor realize the way you see yourself. Now must the
Holy Spirit find a way to help you see this concept of the self must be undone,
if any peace of mind is to be given you. Nor can it be unlearned except by
lessons aimed to teach that you are something else. For otherwise, you would be
asked to make exchange of what you now believe for total loss of self, and
greater terror would arise in you.
T 31 E 8. Thus are the Holy Spirit’s lesson plans arranged in easy steps,
that, though there be some lack of ease at times, and some distress, there is no
shattering of what was learned, but just a re-translation of what seems to be
the evidence on its behalf. Let us consider, then, what proof there is that you
are what your brother made of you. For even though you do not yet perceive that
this is what you think, you surely learned by now that you BEHAVE as if it were.
Does he react for you? And did he know exactly what would happen? Could he see
your future, and ordain before it came what you should do in every circumstance?
He must have made the world as well as you, to have such prescience in the
things to come.
T 31 E 9. That you are what your brother made of you seems most unlikely. Even
if he did, who gave the face of innocence to you? Is this YOUR contribution? Who
is, then, the "you" who made it? And who is deceived by all your goodness, and
attacks it so? Let us forget the concept’s foolishness, and merely think of
this; there are two parts to what you think yourself to be. If one was generated
by your brother, who was there to make the other? And from whom must something
be kept hidden? If the world be evil, there is still no need to hide what YOU
are made of. Who is there to see? And what but is attacked could NEED defense?
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T 31 E 10. Perhaps the reason why this concept must be kept in darkness is
that, in the light, the one who would not think it true is YOU. And what would
happen to the world you know, if all its underpinnings were removed? Your
concept of the world DEPENDS upon this concept of the self. And both would go,
if either one were ever raised to doubt. The Holy Spirit does not seek to throw
you into panic. So He merely asks if just a LITTLE question might be raised.
There are alternatives about the thing that you must be. You might, for
instance, be the thing you chose to have your BROTHER be.
T 31 E 11. This shifts the concept of the self from what is wholly passive, and
at least makes way for active choice, and some acknowledgment that interaction
must have entered in. There is some understanding that you chose for both of
you, and what he represents has meaning that was given it by you. It also shows
some glimmering of sight into perception’s law that what you see reflects the
state of the PERCEIVER’S mind. Yet who was it that did the choosing first? If
you are what you chose your brother be, alternatives were there to choose
between, and someone must have first decided on the one to choose, and let the
others go.
T 31 E 12. Although this step has gains, it does not yet approach a basic
question. Something must have gone BEFORE these concepts of the self. And
something must have done the learning which gave rise to them. Nor can this be
explained by either view. The main advantage of the shifting to the second from
the first is that you somehow entered in the choice by YOUR decision. But this
gain is paid in almost equal loss, for now YOU stand accused of guilt for what
your brother is. And you must share his guilt, because you chose it for him, n
the image of your own. While only he was treacherous before, now must you be
condemned along with him.
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T 31 E 13. The concept of the self has always been the great preoccupation of
the world. And everyone believes that he must find the answer to the riddle of
himself. Salvation can be seen as nothing more than the ESCAPE from concepts. It
does not concern itself with content of the mind, but with the simple statement
that it THINKS. And what can think has choice, and CAN be shown that different
thoughts have different consequence. And it can learn that everything it thinks
reflects the deep confusion that it feels about how it was made, and what it is.
And vaguely does the concept of the self appear to answer what it does not know.
T 31 E 14. Seek not your Self in symbols. There can be no concept that can
stand for what you are. What matters it which concept you accept, while you
perceive a self which interacts with evil, and reacts to wicked things? Your
concept of yourself will still remain quite meaningless. And you will not
perceive that you can interact but with yourself. To see a guilty world is but
the sign your learning has been guided by the world, and you behold it as you
see yourself. The concept of the self embraces all you look upon, and nothing is
outside of this perception. If you can be hurt by anything, you see a picture of
your secret wishes. Nothing more than this. And in your suffering of any kind,
you see your own concealed desire to kill.
T 31 E 15. You will make many concepts of the self as learning goes along. Each
one will show the changes in your own relationships, as your perception of
yourself is changed. There will be some confusion every time there is a shift,
but be you thankful that the learning of the world is loosening its grasp upon
your mind. And be you sure and happy in the confidence that it will go at last,
and leave your mind at peace. The role of the accuser will appear in many places
and in many forms, and each will seem to be accusing you. But have no fear it
will not be undone. The world can teach no images of you unless you WANT to
learn them. There will come a time when images have all gone by, and you will
see you know not what you are.
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T 31 E 16. It is to this unsealed and open mind that truth returns, unhindered
and unbound. Where concepts of the self have been laid by is truth revealed
exactly as it is. When every concept has been raised to doubt and question, and
been recognized as made on no assumptions which would stand the light, then is
the truth left free to enter in its sanctuary clean and free of guilt. There is
no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this:
"I do not know the thing I am, and therefore do not know what I am doing, where
I am, or how to look upon the world and on myself."
Yet in this learning is salvation born. And what you are will TELL you of
Itself.
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T 31 F. Recognizing the Spirit
August 23, 1968
T 31 F 1. You see the flesh or recognize the Spirit. There is no compromise
between the two. If one is real the other must be false, for what is real denies
its opposite. There is no choice in vision but this one. What you decide in this
determines all you see, and think is real, and hold as true. On this one choice
does all your world depend, for here have you established what you are, as flesh
or Spirit in your own belief. If you choose flesh, you never will escape the
body as your own reality, for you have chosen that you want it so. But choose
the Spirit, and all Heaven bends to touch your eyes, and bless your holy sight,
that you may see the world of flesh no more except to heal and comfort and to
bless.
T 31 F 2. Salvation is undoing. If you choose to see the body, you behold a
world of separation, unrelated things, and happenings that make no sense at all.
This one appears and disappears in death. That one is doomed to suffering and
loss. And no-one is exactly as he was an instant previous. Nor will he be the
same as he is now an instant hence. Who could have trust where so much change is
seen, for who is worthy if he be but dust? Salvation is undoing of all this. And
constancy arises in the sight of those whose eyes salvation has released from
looking at the cost of keeping guilt, because they chose to let it go instead.
T 31 F 3. Salvation does not ask that you behold the Spirit and perceive the
body not. It merely asks that this should be your CHOICE. For you can see the
body without help, but do not understand how to behold a world apart from it. It
is your world salvation will undo, and let you see another world your eyes could
never find. Be not concerned how this could ever be. You do not understand how
what you see arose to meet your sight. For if you did, it would be gone. The
veil of ignorance is drawn across the evil and the good, and must be passed that
both may disappear, so that perception finds no hiding place.
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T 31 F 4. How is this done? It is not done at all. What could there be within
the universe which God created that must still be done? Only in arrogance could
you conceive that YOU must make the way to Heaven plain. The means are given you
by which to see the world that will replace the one you made. Your will be done!
In Heaven as on earth this is forever true. It matters not where you believe you
are, or what you think the truth about yourself must really be. It makes no
difference what you look upon, nor what you choose to feel or think or wish. For
God Himself hath said, "Thy will be done." And it IS done to you accordingly.
T 31 F 5. You who believe that you can choose to see the Son of God as you
would have him be, forget not that no concept of yourself will stand against the
truth of what you are. Undoing truth would be impossible. But concepts are not
difficult to change. One vision, clearly seen, that does not fit the picture as
it was perceived before, will change the world for eyes that learn to see,
because the concept of the SELF has changed. Are YOU invulnerable? Then the
world is harmless in your sight. Do YOU forgive? Then is the world forgiving,
for you have forgiven it its trespasses. And so it looks on you with eyes that
see as yours.
T 31 F 6. Are YOU a body? So is all the world perceived as treacherous, and
out to kill. Are you a Spirit, deathless, and without the promise of corruption
and the stain of sin upon you? So the world is seen as stable, fully worthy of
your trust; a happy place to rest in for a while, where nothing need be feared
but only loved. Who is unwelcome to the kind in heart? And what could hurt the
truly innocent? Your will be done, you holy Child of God. It does not matter if
you think you are in earth or Heaven. What your Father wills for you can never
change. The truth in you remains as radiant as a star, as pure as light, as
innocent as Love Itself. And you ARE worthy that your Will be done.
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T 31 G. The Savior’s Vision
August 26, 1968
T 31 G 1. Learning is change. Salvation does not seek to use a means as yet
too alien to your thinking to be helpful, nor to make the kinds of change you
could not recognize. Concepts are needed while perception lasts. And changing
concepts is salvation’s task. For it must deal in contrasts, not in truth, which
has no opposite and cannot change. In this world’s concepts are the guilty
"bad;" the "good" are innocent. And no-one here but holds a concept of himself
in which he counts the "good" to pardon him the "bad." Nor does he trust the
"good" in anyone, believing that the "bad" must lurk behind.
T 31 G 2. This concept emphasizes treachery, and trust becomes impossible. Nor
could it change while you perceive the "bad" in you. You could not recognize
your "evil" thoughts as long as you see value in attack. You will perceive them
sometimes, but will not see them as meaningless. And so they come in fearful
form, with content still concealed, to shake your sorry concept of yourself, and
blacken it with still another "crime." You cannot give yourself your innocence,
for you are too confused about yourself. But should ONE brother dawn upon your
sight as wholly worthy of forgiveness, then your concept of yourself IS wholly
changed.
T 31 G 3. YOUR "evil" thoughts have been forgiven with his, because you let
them all affect you not. No longer did you choose that you should be the sign of
"evil" and of guilt in him. And as you gave your trust to what is "good" in him,
you gave it to the "good" in you. In terms of concepts, it is thus you see him
more than just a body, for the "good" is never what the body seems to be. The
actions of the body are perceived as coming from the "baser" part of you, and
thus of him as well. By focusing upon the "good" in him, the body grows
decreasingly persistent in your sight, and will at length be seen as little more
than just a shadow circling round the "good".
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T 31 G 4. And this will be your concept of YOURSELF, when you have reached the
world beyond the sight your eyes alone can offer you to see. For you will not
interpret what you see without the Aid that God has given you. And in His sight
there IS another world. You live in that world just as much as this, for both
are concepts of yourself, which can be interchanged, but never jointly held. The
contrast is far greater than you think, for you will love this concept of
yourself, because it was not made for you alone. Born as a gift for someone not
perceived to be yourself, it has been given YOU. For your forgiveness, offered
unto him, has been accepted now for BOTH of you.
T 31 G 5. Have faith in him who walks with you, so that your fearful concept
of yourself may change. And look upon the "good" in him, that you may not be
fearful of your "evil" thoughts, because they do not cloud your view of him. And
all this shift requires is that you be WILLING that this happy change occur. No
more than this is asked. On its behalf, remember what the concept of yourself
which now you hold has brought you in its wake, and welcome the glad contrast
offered you. Hold out your hand, that you may have the gift of kind forgiveness,
which you offer one whose need for it is just the same as yours. And let the
cruel concept of yourself be changed to one which brings the peace of God.
T 31 G 6. The concept of yourself which now you hold would guarantee your
function here remain forever unaccomplished and undone. And thus it dooms you to
a bitter sense of deep depression and futility. Yet it need not be fixed, unless
you choose to hold it past the hope of change, and keep it static and concealed
within your mind. Give it instead to Him Who understands the changes that it
needs to let it serve the function given you to bring you peace, that you may
offer peace to have it yours. Alternatives are in your mind to use, and you CAN
see yourself another way. Would you not rather look upon yourself as NEEDED for
salvation of the world, instead of as salvation’s enemy?
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Sept. 30, 1968
T 31 G 7. The concept of the self stands like a shield, a silent barricade
before the truth, and hides it from your sight. All things you see are images
because you look on them as through a barrier which dims your sight and warps
your vision, so that you behold nothing with clarity. The light is kept from
everything you see. At most, you glimpse a shadow of what lies beyond. At least
you merely look on darkness, and perceive the terrified imaginings that come
from guilty thoughts and concepts born of fear. And what you see is hell, for
fear IS hell. All that is given you is for release; the sight, the vision and
the inner Guide all lead you out of hell with those you love beside you, and the
universe with them.
T 31 G 8. Behold your role within the universe! To every part of true creation
has the Lord of Love and Life entrusted ALL salvation from the misery of hell.
And to each one has He allowed the grace to be a Saviour to the holy ones
especially entrusted to his care. And this he learns when first he looks upon
ONE brother as he looks upon himself, and sees the mirror of himself in him.
Thus is the concept of himself laid by, for nothing stands between his sight and
what he looks upon, to judge what he beholds. And in this single vision does he
see the Face of Christ, and understands he looks on everyone as he beholds this
One. For there is light where darkness was before, and now the veil is lifted
from his sight.
T 31 G 9. The veil across the Face of Christ, the fear of God and of
salvation, and the love of guilt and death, - they all are different names for
just one error; that there is a space between you and your brother, kept apart
by an illusion of yourself which holds him off from you, and you away from him.
The sword of judgment is the weapon which you give to the illusion of yourself,
that it may fight to keep the space that holds your brother off unoccupied by
love. Yet while you hold this sword, you must perceive the body as yourself, for
you are bound to separation from the sight of him who holds the mirror to
another view of what he is, and thus what YOU must be.
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T 31 G 10. What is temptation but the WISH to stay in hell and misery? And what
could this give rise to but an image of yourself that CAN be miserable, and
remain in hell and torment? Who has learned to see his brother NOT as this has
saved himself, and thus is he a Saviour to the rest. To everyone has God
entrusted all, because a partial saviour would be one who is but partly saved.
The holy ones whom God has given each of you to save are everyone you meet or
look upon, not knowing who they are; all those you saw an instant and forgot,
and those you knew a long while since, and those you will yet meet, the
unremembered and the not yet born. For God has given you His Son to save from
every concept that he ever held.
T 31 G 11. Yet while you wish to stay in hell, how could you be the Saviour of
the Son of God? How would you know his holiness, while you see him apart from
yours? For holiness is seen through holy eyes that look upon the innocence
within, and thus expect to see it everywhere. And so they call it forth in
everyone they look upon, that he may be what they expect of him. This is the
Saviour’s vision; that he see his innocence in all he looks upon, and sees his
own salvation everywhere. He holds no concept of himself between his calm and
open eyes and what he sees. He BRINGS the light to what he looks upon, that he
may see it as it really is.
T 31 G 12. Whatever form temptation seems to take, it always but reflects a
wish to be a self which you are not. And from that wish a concept rises,
teaching that you ARE the thing you wish to be. It will remain your concept of
yourself until the wish that fathered it no longer is held dear. And while you
cherish it, you will behold your brother in the likeness of the self whose image
has the wish begot of YOU. For vision CAN but represent a wish, because it has
no power to create. Yet it can look with love or look with hate, depending only
on the simple choice of whether you would join with what you see, or keep
yourself apart and separate.
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T 31 G 13. The Saviour’s vision is as innocent of what your brother is as it is
free of any judgment made upon yourself. It sees no past in anyone at all. And
thus it serves a wholly open mind, unclouded by old concepts, and prepared to
look on only what the present holds. It cannot judge because it does not know.
And RECOGNIZING this, it merely asks, "What is the meaning of what I behold?"
Then is the answer given, and the door held open for the Face of Christ to shine
upon the one who asks in innocence to see beyond the veil of old ideas and
ancient concepts held so long and dear AGAINST the vision of the Christ in you.
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T 31 G 14. Be vigilant against temptation, then, remembering that it is but a
wish, insane and meaningless, to make yourself a thing which you are not. And
think as well upon the thing that you would be instead. It is a thing of
madness, pain and death; a thing of treachery and black despair, of failing
dreams and no remaining hope except to die, and end the dream of fear. THIS is
temptation; nothing more than this. Can this be difficult to choose AGAINST?
Consider what temptation is, and see the real alternatives you choose between.
There ARE but two. Be not deceived by what appears as many choices. There is
hell or Heaven, and of these you choose but ONE.
T 31 G 15. Let not the world’s light, given unto you, be hidden from the world.
It NEEDS the light, for it is dark indeed, and men despair because the Saviour’s
vision is withheld, and what they see is death. Their Saviour stands, unknowing
and unknown, beholding them with eyes unopened. And they cannot see until he
looks on them with seeing eyes, and offers them forgiveness with his own. Can
you to whom God says, "Release My Son!" be tempted not to listen, when you learn
that it is YOU for whom He asks release? And what but this is what this course
would teach? And what but this is there for you to learn?
T 31 H. Choose Once Again
T 31 H 1. Temptation has one lesson it would teach, in all its forms, wherever
it occurs. It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must
die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel. It
sets the limits on what he can do; its power is the only strength he has; his
grasp cannot exceed its tiny reach. Would you BE this, if Christ appeared to you
in all His glory, asking you but this, "Choose once again if you would take your
place among the Saviours of the world, or would remain in hell, and hold your
brothers there." For He HAS come, and He IS asking this.
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October 10, 1968
T 31 H 2. How do you make the choice? How easily is this explained! You always
choose between your weakness and the strength of Christ in you. And what you
choose is what you think is real. Simply by never using weakness to direct your
actions, you have given it no power. And the Light of Christ in you is given
charge of everything you do. For you have brought your weakness unto Him, and He
has given you His strength instead. Trials are but lessons which you failed to
learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can
make a better one, and thus escape all pain which what you chose before has
brought to you.
T 31 H 3. In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity you face,
Christ calls to you, and gently says, "My brother, choose again." He would not
leave one source of pain unhealed, nor any image left to veil the truth. He
would remove all misery from you whom God created altars unto joy. He would not
leave you comfortless, alone in dreams of hell, but would release your minds
from everything that hides His Face from you. His holiness is yours because He
is the ONLY power that is real in you. His strength is yours because He is the
Self that God created as His ONLY Son. The images you make can not prevail
against what God Himself would have you be.
T 31 H 4. Be never fearful of temptation, then, but see it as it is; another
chance to choose again, and let Christ’s strength prevail in every circumstance
and every place you raised an image of yourself before. For what appears to hide
the Face of Christ is powerless before His Majesty, and disappears before His
holy sight. The Saviours of the world, who see like Him, are merely those who
chose His strength instead of their own weakness, seen apart from Him. They will
redeem the world, for they are joined in all the power of the Will of God. And
what they will is ONLY what He wills.
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T 31 H 5. Learn, then, the happy habit of response to all temptation to
perceive yourself as weak and miserable with these words:
"I am as God created me. His Son
can suffer nothing. And I AM His Son."
Thus is Christ’s strength invited to prevail, replacing all your weakness with
the strength that comes from God, and that can never fail. And thus are miracles
as natural as fear and agony appeared to be before the choice for holiness was
made. For in that choice are false distinctions gone, illusory alternatives laid
by, and nothing left to interfere with truth.
T 31 H 6. You ARE as God created you, and so is every living thing you look
upon, regardless of the images you see. What you behold as sickness and as pain,
as weakness and as suffering and loss, is but temptation to perceive yourself
defenseless and in hell. Yield not to this, and you will see all pain in every
form wherever it occurs but disappear as mists before the sun. A miracle has
come to heal God’s Son, and close the door upon his dreams of weakness, opening
the way to his salvation and release. Choose once again what you would have him
be, remembering that every choice you make establishes your own identity as you
will see it, and believe it IS.
T 31 H 7. Deny me not the little gift I ask, when in exchange I lay before
your feet the peace of God, and power to bring this peace to everyone who
wanders in the world, uncertain, lonely, and in constant fear. For it is given
you to join with him, and through the Christ in you unveil his eyes, and let him
look upon the Christ in him. My brothers in salvation, do not fail to hear my
voice and listen to my words. I ask for nothing but your OWN release. There is
no place for hell within a world whose loveliness can yet be so intense and so
inclusive it is but a step from there to Heaven. To your tired eyes I bring a
vision of a different world, so new and clean and fresh you will forget the pain
and sorrow that you saw before.
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T 31 H 8. But this a vision is which you must share with everyone you see. For
otherwise you will behold it not. To give this gift is how to make it yours. And
God ordained, in loving kindness, that it BE for you. Let us be glad that we can
walk the world, and find so many chances to perceive another situation where His
gift can once again be recognized as ours. And thus will all the vestiges of
hell, the secret sins and hidden hates be gone, and all the loveliness which
they concealed appear like lawns of Heaven to our sight, to lift us high above
the thorny roads we traveled on before the Christ appeared.
T 31 H 9. Hear me, my brothers, hear and join with me. God has ordained I
cannot call in vain. And in His certainty I rest content. For you WILL hear, and
you WILL choose again. And in this choice is everyone made free. I thank You,
Father, for these holy ones who are my brothers as they are Your Sons. My faith
in them is Yours. I am as sure that they will come to me as You are sure of what
they are, and will forever be. They will accept the gift I offer them because
You gave it me on their behalf. And as I would but do Your holy Will, so will
they choose. And I give thanks for them.
T 31 H 10. Salvation’s song will echo through the world with every choice they
make. For we are one in purpose, and the end of hell is near. In joyous welcome
is my hand outstretched to every brother who would join with me in reaching past
temptation and who looks with fixed determination toward the light that shines
beyond in perfect constancy. Give me my own, for they belong to You. And can You
fail in what is but Your Will? I give You thanks for what my brothers are, and
as each one elects to join with me, the song of thanks from earth to Heaven
grows from tiny, scattered threads of melody to one inclusive chorus from a
world redeemed from hell, and giving thanks to You.
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T 11. And now we say "Amen." For Christ has come to dwell in the abode You set
for Him before time was, in calm Eternity. The journey closes, ending at the
place where it began. No trace of it remains. Not one illusion is accorded
faith, and not one spot of darkness still remains to hide the Face of Christ
from anyone. Thy Will is done, complete and perfectly, and all creation
recognizes You and knows You as the only Source it has. Clear in Your Likeness
does the Light shine forth from everything that lives and moves in You. For we
have reached where all of us are One, and we are home where You would have us
be.
Appendix I
Lepanto
by G.K.Chesterton
White founts falling in the Courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard;
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips;
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross.
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went singing southward when all the world was young.
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war,
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
Love-light of Spain--hurrah!
Death-light of Africa!
Don John of Austria
Is riding to the sea.
Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri's knees,
His turban that is woven of the sunsets and the seas.
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,
And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees;
And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the Genii,
Multiplex of wing and eye,
Whose strong obedience broke the sky
When Solomon was king.
They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,
From the temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be,
On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,
Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;
They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,--
They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.
And he saith, "Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,
And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,
And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,
For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.
We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,
Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done.
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
The voice that shook our palaces--four hundred years ago:
It is he that saith not 'Kismet'; it is he that knows not Fate;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey at the gate!
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth."
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
Sudden and still--hurrah!
Bolt from Iberia!
Don John of Austria
Is gone by Alcalar.
St. Michaels on his Mountain in the sea-roads of the north
(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)
Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift
And the sea-folk labour and the red sails lift.
He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;
The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;
The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes,
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,--
But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse
Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,
Trumpet that sayeth ha!
Domino gloria!
Don John of Austria
Is shouting to the ships.
King Philip's in his closet with the Fleece about his neck
(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)
The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,
He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,
And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey
Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,
And death is in the phial and the end of noble work,
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Don John's hunting, and his hounds have bayed--
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid.
Gun upon gun, ha! ha!
Gun upon gun, hurrah!
Don John of Austria
Has loosed the cannonade.
The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,
(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)
The hidden room in man's house where God sits all the year,
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;
They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,
They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark;
And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,
And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,
Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines
Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung
The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on
Before the high Kings' horses in the granite of Babylon.
And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell
Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,
And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign--
(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)
Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate's sloop,
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
Vivat Hispania!
Domino Gloria!
Don John of Austria
Has set his people free!
Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,
Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain,
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)
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Chapter I - 1 - Introduction To Miracles. 1
A. Introduction . 1
B. Principles of Miracles. 1
The Relationship of Miracles and Revelation. 14
C. Distortions of Miracle Impulses. 55
Chapter II - 2 - The Illusion Of Separation. 62
A. Introduction . 62
B. The Reinterpretation of Defenses. 72
C. Healing as Release from Fear 89
D. Fear as Lack of Love. 97
E. The Correction for Lack of Love. 99
F. The Meaning of the Last Judgment 117
Chapter III - 3 - Retraining The Mind. 120
A. Introduction . 120
B. Special Principles for Miracle Workers. 130
C. Atonement without Sacrifice. 132
D. Miracles as Accurate Perception. 144
E. Perception versus Knowledge. 147
F. Conflict and the Ego. 152
G. The Loss of Certainty. 159
H. Judgment and the Authority Problem.. 174
I. Creating versus the Self-Image. 180
Chapter IV - 4 - The Root Of All Evil 185
A. Introduction . 185
B. Right Teaching and Right Learning. 188
C. The Ego and False Autonomy. 197
D. Love without Conflict 208
E. The Escape from Fear 213
F. The Ego-Body Illusion. 219
G. The Constant State. 224
H. Creation and Communication. 229
I. True Rehabilitation. 231
Chapter V - 5 – Healing And Wholeness. 233
A. Introduction . 233
B. Healing as Joining. 234
C. The Mind of the Atonement 235
D. The Voice for God. 237
E. The Guide to Salvation. 241
F. Therapy and Teaching. 247
G. The Two Decisions. 254
H. Time and Eternity. 258
I. The Eternal Fixation. 264
Chapter VI- 6 - Attack And Fear. 271
A. Introduction . 271
B. The Message of the Crucifixion. 272
C. The Uses of Projection. 277
D. The Relinquishment of Attack. 282
E. The Only Answer 284
F. "To Have, Give All to All". 288
G. "To Have Peace, Teach Peace to Learn It". 293
H. "Be Vigilant Only for God and His Kingdom". 298
Chapter VII - 7 – The Consistency Of The Kingdom.. 303
A. Introduction . 303
B. Bargaining versus Healing. 304
C. The Laws of Mind. 306
D. The Unified Curriculum.. 310
E. The Recognition of Truth. 312
F. Healing and the Changelessness of Mind. 318
G. From Vigilance to Peace. 324
H. The Total Commitment 330
I. The Defense of Conflict 335
J. The Extension of the Kingdom.. 337
K. The Confusion of Strength and Weakness. 341
L. The State of Grace. 343
Chapter VIII- 8 – The Journey Back. 346
A. Introduction . 346
B. The Direction of the Curriculum.. 346
C. The Rationale for Choice. 348
D. The Holy Encounter 351
E. The Light of the World. 354
F. The Power of Joint Decision. 359
G. Communication and the Ego-Body Equation. 363
H. The Body as Means or End. 369
I. Healing as Corrected Perception. 373
J. The Acceptance of Reality. 377
K. The Answer to Prayer 382
Chapter IX - 9 - The Correction Of Error. 386
A. Introduction . 386
B. Sanity and Perception. 386
C. Atonement as a Lesson in Sharing. 388
D. The Unhealed Healer 392
E. The Awareness of the Holy Spirit 396
F. Salvation and God’s Will 398
G. Grandeur versus Grandiosity. 401
H. The Inclusiveness of Creation. 405
I. The Decision to Forget 407
J. Magic versus Miracles. 412
K. The Denial of God. 415
Chapter X - 10 - God And The Ego. 419
A. Introduction . 419
B. Projection versus Extension. 419
C. The Willingness for Healing. 424
D. From Darkness to Light 427
E. The Inheritance of God’s Son. 430
F. The "Dynamics" of the Ego. 433
G. Experience and Perception. 439
H. The Problem and the Answer 443
Chapter XI - 11 - God's Plan For Salvation. 449
A. Introduction . 449
B. The Judgment of the Holy Spirit 449
C. The Mechanism of Miracles. 452
D. The Investment in Reality. 459
E. Seeking and Finding. 463
F. The Sane Curriculum.. 465
G. The Vision of Christ 469
H. The Guide for Miracles. 471
I. Reality and Redemption. 477
J. Guiltlessness and Invulnerability. 480
Chapter XII- 12 - The Problem Of Guilt 485
A. Introduction . 485
B. Crucifixion by Guilt 485
C. The Fear of Redemption. 488
D. Healing and Time. 492
E. The Two Emotions. 496
F. Finding the Present 500
G. Attainment of the Real World. 505
Chapter XIII - 13 - From Perception To Knowledge. 510
A. Introduction . 510
B. The Role of Healing. 510
C. The Shadow of Guilt 513
D. Release and Restoration. 516
E. The Guarantee of Heaven. 521
F. The Testimony of Miracles. 525
G. The Happy Learner 527
H. The Decision for Guiltlessness. 530
I. The Way of Salvation. 536
Chapter XIV - 14 - Bringing Illusions To Truth. 539
A. Introduction . 539
B. Guilt and Guiltlessness. 539
C. Out of the Darkness. 544
D. Perception without Deceit 547
E. The Recognition of Holiness. 552
F. The Shift to Miracles. 554
G. The Test of Truth. 558
Chapter XV - 15 - The Purpose Of Time. 563
A. Introduction . 563
B. The Uses of Time. 563
C. Time and Eternity. 567
D. Littleness versus Magnitude. 570
E. Practicing the Holy Instant 573
F. The Holy Instant and Special Relationships. 577
G. The Holy Instant and the Laws of God. 581
H. The Holy Instant and Communication. 584
I. The Holy Instant and Real Relationships. 588
J. The Time of Christ 593
K. The End of Sacrifice. 597
Chapter XIV - 16 - The Forgiveness Of Illusions. 601
A. Introduction . 601
B. True Empathy. 602
C. The Magnitude of Holiness. 604
D. The Reward of Teaching. 608
E. Illusion and Reality of Love. 611
F. Specialness and Guilt 615
G. The Bridge to the Real World. 622
H. The End of Illusions. 626
Chapter XVII - 17 - Forgiveness And Healing. 630
A. Introduction . 630
B. Fantasy and Distorted Perception. 630
C. The Forgiven World. 632
D. Shadows of the Past 635
E. Perception and the Two Worlds. 640
F. The Healed Relationship. 646
G. Practical Forgiveness. 651
H. The Need for Faith. 653
I. The Conditions of Forgiveness. 657
Chapter XVIII - 18 - The Dream And The Reality. 659
A. Introduction . 659
B. Substitution as a Defense. 660
C. The Basis of the Dream.. 664
D. Light in the Dream.. 668
E. The Little Willingness. 671
F. The Happy Dream.. 673
G. Dreams and the Body. 676
H. "I Need Do Nothing". 682
I. The Purpose of the Body. 685
J. The Delusional Thought System.. 689
K. The Passing of the Dream.. 692
Chapter XIX - 19 - Beyond The Body. 694
A. Introduction . 694
B. Healing and the Mind. 694
C. Sin versus Error 699
D. The Unreality of Sin. 702
I. The Desire to Get Rid of It 708
F. The Attraction of Guilt 711
I. The Belief the Body is Valuable for What it Offers. 714
H. Pleasure and Pain. 717
I. The Attraction of Death. 721
J. The Incorruptible Body. 721
K. Obstacles to Peace - IV. The Fear of God. 726
L. The Lifting of the Veil 728
Chapter XX - 20 - The Promise Of The Resurrection. 733
A. Introduction . 733
B. Holy Week. 733
C. Thorns and Lilies. 735
D. Sin as an Adjustment 740
E. Entering the Ark. 745
F. Heralds of Eternity. 748
G. The Temple of the Holy Spirit 750
H. The Consistency of Means and End. 755
I. The Vision of Sinlessness. 757
Chapter XXI - 21 - The Inner Picture. 763
A. Introduction . 763
B. The Imagined World. 763
C. The Responsibility for Sight 767
D. Faith, Belief and Vision. 772
E. The Fear to Look Within. 777
F. Reason and Perception. 780
G. Reason and Correction. 784
H. Perception and Wishes. 788
I. The Inner Shift 793
Chapter XXII - 22 - Salvation And The Holy Relationship. 795
A. Introduction . 795
B. The Message of the Holy Relationship. 797
C. Your Brother’s Sinlessness. 801
D. Reason and the Holy Relationship. 805
E. The Branching of the Road. 808
F. Weakness and Defensiveness. 811
Chapter 23 - The War Against Yourself 819
A. Introduction . 819
B. The Irreconcilable Beliefs. 821
C. The Laws of Chaos. 825
D. Salvation Without Compromise. 833
E. The Fear of Life. 835
Chapter XXIV - 24 - Specialness And Separation. 838
A. Introduction . 838
B. Specialness as a Substitute for Love. 838
D. The Forgiveness of Specialness. 847
E. Specialness and Salvation. 850
F. The Resolution of the Dream.. 852
G. Salvation from Fear 855
H. The Meeting-Place. 860
Chapter XXV - 25 - The Remedy. 864
A. Introduction . 864
1. B. The Appointed Task. 865
C. The Savior from the Dark. 868
D. The Fundamental Law of Perception. 873
E. The Joining of Minds. 877
F. The State of Sinlessness. 880
G. The Special Function. 883
H. Commuting the Sentence. 886
I. The Principle of Salvation. 891
J. The Justice of Heaven. 897
Chapter XXVI - 26 - The Transition. 901
. 901
A. Introduction . 901
B. The "Sacrifice" of Oneness. 901
C. The Forms of Error 903
D. The Borderland. 907
E. Where Sin Has Left 910
F. The Little Hindrance. 912
G. The Appointed Friend. 917
H. Review of Principles. 918
I. The Immediacy of Salvation. 925
J. For They Have Come. 928
K. The Remaining Task. 931
Chapter XXVII - 27 - The Body And The Dream.. 934
A. Introduction . 934
B. The Picture of the Crucifixion. 934
C. The Fear of Healing. 938
D. The Symbol of the Impossible. 944
E. The Quiet Answer 947
F. The Healing Example. 950
G. The Purpose of Pain. 954
H. The Illusion of Suffering. 957
I. The "Hero" of the Dream.. 962
Chapter 28 - XXVIII - The Undoing Of Fear. 967
A. Introduction . 967
B. The Present Memory. 967
C. Reversing Effect and Cause. 972
D. The Agreement to Join. 975
E. The Greater Joining. 979
F. The Alternate to Dreams of Fear 982
G. The Secret Vows. 985
7. H. The Beautiful Relationship. 987
Chapter XXIX - 29 - The Awakening. 990
A. Introduction . 990
B. The Closing of the Gap. 991
C. The Coming of the Guest 993
D. God’s Witnesses. 997
E. Dream Roles. 999
F. The Changeless Dwelling -Place. 1001
G. Forgiveness and Peace. 1004
H. The Lingering Illusion. 1006
I. Christ and Anti-Christ 1009
J. The Forgiving Dream.. 1012
Chapter XXX - 30 - The New Beginning. 1016
A. Introduction . 1016
B. Rules for Decision m.. 1016
C. Freedom of Will 1021
D. Beyond All Idols. 1023
E. The Truth Behind Illusions. 1027
F. The Only Purpose. 1030
G. The Justification for Forgiveness. 1033
H. The New Interpretation. 1037
I. Changeless Reality. 1040
Chapter XXXI - 31 - The Simplicity Of Salvation. 1042
A. Introduction . 1042
B. The Illusion of an Enemy. 1046
C. The Self-Accused. 1050
D. The Real Alternative. 1052
E. Self-Concept versus Self 1055
F. Recognizing the Spirit 1061
G. The Savior’s Vision. 1063
H. Choose Once Again. 1068
Lepanto. 1073
by G.K.Chesterton. 1073
editing notes
Thru changed to through (15 changes show)
Def. changed to definition (2 changes show)
[1] Typescript has "the" crossed out
[2] This paragraph is heavily marked up and re-written, as the strikeout
suggests.
[3] Typescript originally had "Every", crossed out and "Each" typed in above it
[4] Biblical quote: Lev 19:18, Mark 12:31Mat 19:19. 22:39, Luke 10:27, Romans
13:9 all refer to loving neighbours as thyself
[5] Proverbs 15:3 The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch upon
the evil and the good.
[6] The "21" here is handwritten in … as in several instances there is confusion
as to numbering and order of principles
[7] The words "first about" here are handwritten in above "assumption" and
aren’t fully legible, so there might be something else written there
[8] Mark 8:38 "For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this
adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of man also shall be ashamed of him,
when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." Also Luke 9:2 6
(similar) and Matthew 10:33 (related)
[9] Deu 33:27 The eternal God is thy dwelling place, And underneath are the
everlasting arms: And he thrust out the enemy from before thee, And said,
Destroy.
[10] Matthew 25:40 (ASV) And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I
say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these
least, ye did it unto me.
[11] This line is actually the first line in Schucman’s original notebooks, and
the fifth sentence on the first page of this revision. It originally appears
slightly different, with the last word "MINE" being "ME" instead.
[12] Mark 13:31 "Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass
away." Also Matthew 24:25 and Luke 21:33
[13] Orinially "&" ampersand
[14] Originally "affirms" which presents grammatical problem with agreement in
number
[15] Originally "miracles" which presents grammatical problem with agreement in
number, it must be "the miracle honors" or "the miracles honor"
[16] Gal 6:7 "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth,
that shall he also reap."
[17] Isa 14:12 How349 art thou fallen5307 from heaven,4480, 8064 O Lucifer,1966
son1121 of the morning!7837 how art thou cut down1438 to the ground,776 which
didst weaken2522, 5921 the nations!1471
[18] The Strong’s definition, and the translation used in the Revised Version
and Good News Version is "morning star."
[19] Almost certainly a reference to Cayce (Edgar) whose name is pronounced
KAY-SEE.
[20] John 8:32 and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
[21] Matthew 6:13 And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
[22] Mark 10:21 "And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said unto him, One
thing thou lackest: go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and
thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, [take up the cross, and*] follow
me." *This phrase "take up they cross" appears only in the 1611 "King James"
version and not in modern translations which simply have it as "and follow me."
[23] I Cor 2:6 Howbeit1161 we speak2980 wisdom4678 among1722 them that are
perfect:5046 yet1161 not3756 the wisdom4678 of this5127 world,165 nor3761 of
the3588 princes758 of this5127 world,165 that come to naught:2673
[24] Gen 1:27 And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created
he him; male and female created he them.
[25] Page 7, paragraph I:B 22h
[26] Originally typed "thru"
[27] Not originally hyphenated
[28] Typescript omits "an", handwriting fills it in
[29] Manuscript has h and f overtyped, so it could be "hate" or "fate" but the
"f" is the clearer. HLC has "fate."
[30] Typescript omits "by", handwriting fills it in
[31] Originally typed "bec."
[32] Matthew 10:33 But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny
before my Father which is in heaven. Also Mark 8:38 and Luke 9:2
[33] Matthew 10:32 Every one therefore who shall confess me before men, him
will I also confess before my Father which is in heaven.
[34] Typescript omits "been", which is handwritten in.
[35] The words "on a note of compromise" are crossed out.
[36] This bracket nto in typescript
[37] John 14:6 "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the
life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by me."
[38] It is unclear from the text whether a paragraph break is really intended.
The previous line stops before the end but there is no intentation on the next
line. The HLC puts a paragraph break here and we feel it is appropriate.
[39] The word "NEUROTIC" is penciled in by hand, apparently NOT Helen’s hand.
It is in all caps. Many penciled corrections are erratic as to capitalization.
It’snot clear this was intended to be capitalized.
[40] Luke 1:38 "And Mary said, Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me
according to thy word. And the angel departed from her."
[41] Clearly Helen is referring to the same quote
[42] Manuscript says "aconcerning" here.
[43] This would refer to the next page, or absolute page #85)
[44] The words "in human experience" are added in the HLC
[45] The word "be" is not present in the original manuscript, but is persent in
the HLC
[46] Starting at the fourth sentence, (*) the rest of this paragraph is crossed
out. The material shows up again on page 116 prefaced with the words "Dictated
without notes by HS". 2 E:57
[47] The shorthand form "thru" appears in the manuscript
[48] Manuscript has "does not" but it appears that the "intervals" do not exist,
not the "concept of intervals." HLC also changes this to "do"
[49] Manuscript has lower case underlined
[50] Miracle Principle 41 I C 0 41
[51] Philippians 2:1:8
Phi 2:1If there is therefore any comfort in Christ, if any consolation of love,
if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassions,
Phi 2:2 fulfill ye my joy, that ye be of the same mind, having the same love,
being of one accord, of one mind;
Phi 2:3 doing nothing through faction or through vainglory, but in lowliness of
mind each counting other better than himself;
Phi 2:4 not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the
things of others.
Phi 2:5 Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Phi 2:6 who, being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an
equality with God,
Phi 2:7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the
likeness of men;
Phi 2:8 and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming
obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.
While there are other candidates; Romans 15:5, Romans 12:16; the passage in
Philippians, which concludes with a reference to the crucifixion reflects the
Course which immediatelyproceeds to discuss the crucifixion.
[52] Luke 22:9; 1 Corinthians 11:23-25
[53] It is not entirely certain what the word "Records," capitalized, refers to
but it may be the "Akashic Record."
[54] Luk 6:36 Be ye merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
[55] John 1:29 On the morrow he seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold,
the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!
[56] Joh 1:29 On the morrow he seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold,
the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!
[57] 1John 3:2-3 Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made
manifest what we shall be. We know that, if he shall be manifested, we shall be
like him; for we shall see him even as he is. And every one that hath this hope
set on him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.
[58] While the Bible arguably so instructs, it doesn’t do it in those words that
we can find.
[59] This sentence originally was typed "Therefore, the Creator of the miracle
is a miracle NOT of his own creation." The words ‘the Creator" are crossed out
and the word "wrker" is printed in by hand in block capitals.
[60] John 8:32 and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
[61] The manuscript is totally illegible, we are just guessing that it is
perhaps meant to be "FROM"
[62] The word "absolutes" is crossed out, and the word "attitudes" typed above
it.
[63] The word "be" was inserted to correct the grammar.
[64] Matthew 7:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
[65] Originally typed "he", it is crossout out and the word "MAN" is penciled in
in block caps
[66] The word "BECAUSE" is handwritten in block capitals
[67] Originally typed "they", it is crossed out and "MANY" is handwritten in
bock caps, and that is crossed out and the word "MEN" is handwritten in block
caps.
[68] Matthew 6:33 But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all
these things shall be added unto you.
[69] Originally typed "It", the word is crossed out nad "THIS" is written above
in block caps.
[70] The word "the" is not in the manuscript. It is added to make the sentence
grammatical.
[71] Psalms 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the
nations, I will be exalted in the earth.
[72] Cervante’s novel "Don Quixote" and its "unhero" Don Juan tilting at
windmills is referred to here. See:
http://www.wizardacademy.com/TheGospelofDonQuixote.asp for an excellent
discussion and biography
[73] From "Lepando" by G.K. Chesterton (see appendix for the full poem)
[74] Christian Hymn; words and music by George Bennard, 1913;
http://solosong.net/cross.html
On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross
The emblem of suffering and shame
How I love that old cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain
[75] Matthew 7:7; Luke 11:9 Matthew 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek,
and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: Luk 11:9 And I say
unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it
shall be opened unto you
[76] Later versions have "it" rather than "he".
[77] Originally typed "they WERE" crossed out and handwritten replacement is
"he was"
[78] Joh 8:12 Again therefore Jesus spake unto them, saying, I am the light of
the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have
the light of life.
[79] Matthew 28:20 teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded
you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
[80] John 8:12 Again therefore Jesus spake unto them, saying, I am the light of
the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have
the light of life. Also John 9:5. 12:46
[81] John 16:33 These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye may have
peace. In the world ye have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome
the world.
[82] John 8:12 Again therefore Jesus spake unto them, saying, I am the light of
the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have
the light of life. Also John 11:25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection,
and the life: he that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live:
[83] Originally typed "know", it should be "knows" as it is in the HLC.
[84] Originally "and" … HLC has it "the" which appears correct.
[85] Mark 10:9 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put
asunder. Also: Matthew 19:6 So that they are no more twain, but one flesh. What
therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
[86] John 1:14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his
glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth.
[87] Originally typed NOT, HLC holds it as "no" and we agree this is likely a
typo.
[88] HLC drops "trial" in favour of "judgment" – we definitely have to check the
Notes here.
[89] The words "at all" are crossed out in the manuscript.
[90] Originally "CONCLUSION" corssed out with "confusion" written in.
[91] Originally typed "TO" this is crossed out and "YOU" is written in.
[92] UR VI E 0 284
[93] The word "the" is not in the original but is in the HLC.
[94] Matthew 5:48 Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is
perfect.
[95] "reality" probably should be substituted for "realness" but all later
editors leave "realness" in place
[96] Several words are crossed out here and are illegible.
[97] Matthew 7:16 By their fruits ye shall know them. Do men gather grapes of
thorns, or figs of thistles?
Matthew 7:17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but the corrupt
tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
Matthew 7:18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt
tree bring forth good fruit.
Matthew 7:19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and
cast into the fire.
Matthew 7:20 Therefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
[98] FIP Errata suggests the insertion of "Yet different experiences lead to
different beliefs, and with them different perceptions. 5 For perceptions are
learned beliefs, and experience does teach."
[99] FIP changes this to "could" … we need to check Notes
[100] Ed Note: this MAY or MAY NOT indicate missing material. It could be
sinply a pagination error by the typist misreading the "previous page" which is
732, as 739 and then adding one for the "on-the-fly manual pagination and thus
typing 740. I know this is possible because when working with this issue, I
actually mistook page 732 for page 739 and thought I’d found a missing page for
a moment. The "2" on the typewriter in use is unusual, and somewhat "top-heavy"
making it easier to mistake a 2 for a 9 than would normally be the case. –
Doug Thompson 9 March 06
[101] Manuscript has a period here, which leaves the next phrase as a sentence
fragment. We corrected it to a comma.
[102] Manuscript has "(for)" in brackets above "by" an crossed out.
[103] Manuscript has no period here, only the quotation marks.
[104] A comma is typed and so is a forward slash overtyped. We just kept the
comma.
[105] The word "the" or "their" is typed in here and crossed out.
[106] Originally "rules" the "s" is crossed out by handwriting
[107] A typed word is crossed out, it is illegible
[108] Originally typed "over," handwriting removes the comma and adds "come"